Critical Mass Transit

CriticalMassTransit.com

Critical Mass Transit is a tool for shifting mode share away from car traffic now. No additional infrastructure required.

Simply put, Critical Mass Transit is the idea of the group bicycle ride as transportation. All that is needed is a handful of people who want to go to the same place at the same time. So much the better if those people also make their ride open to the public.

This could be 3-4 people once a week gathering at a convenient location for a joint commute to work. It could be a small group riding to home games. It could be a ride to a one-time event like the State Fair.

There is safety, power, and community in numbers. We enjoy this principle on social rides with our local bike shops and advocacy orgs. But a group social ride is a point A to point A ride with a loop in the middle.

Critical Mass Transit is point A to point B. It is a way to bike to a destination more safely and on more direct routes because of the higher visibility of a group riding together.

There is a growing movement to get kids to school using the group ride. We call this the bike bus. Same concept.

We live with a culture overrun by cars. We cannot fathom moving around town in anything but a car so we address every transportation problem with more car infrastructure.

We sacrifice our best land to highways. We dedicate our mornings and evenings to sitting in traffic. We send big auto and oil a thousand dollars a month (according to AAA).

And every ten years or so we make the problem worse by adding lanes to our biggest highways.

Meanwhile our road maintenance budgets do not keep up and our streets are deteriorating faster than we repair them. Our land values decrease according to our proximity to traffic and our property taxes keep going up.

And we kill 40,000 American workers and taxpayers every year, the worst record among developed nations.

The answer of course is mass transit. The answer is compact neighborhoods that put people closer to destinations like grocery stores and jobs. The answer is bike lanes and culture shift.

The answer is massive change at every level that includes unimaginable cash dumps and the destruction of our most entrenched industries.

And so even the most socially conscious among us is relegated to getting behind the wheel for the weekly supply run to the big box stores while we wait for our country, our states, and our cities to do something about it.

But the data suggests that change may be waiting just under surface. Most people are interested in riding but are held back by fear and lack of infrastructure (Source). It’s a tough thing to go against the grain when that puts you in a lane by yourself with 2,500 pound SUVs controlled by distracted teens.

Commuter ride with Mpls City Council President Elliott Payne 9/16/24

If this is true then thousands of potential riders are waiting in the wings. Every group of riders that we can get out on the streets demonstrates to more and more people that riding is possible, practical, and acceptable. And of course each additional rider on the road makes everyone safer on the road.

We don’t have to wait for the movement of nations. We don’t need additional infrastructure. We can be the catalysts for change in our neighborhood. We can make improvements where we see the need.

An organized network of riders and rides (a critical mass) may be all that is needed to unleash the pent up demand for something better than rush hours and parking lots.

Every ride indicates a place where the city should consider adding bicycle infrastructure. Every ride is a vote for using the car as the alternative. Every ride lets businesses see that customers aren’t cars and maybe parking lots could better serve us as housing or businesses.

Every ride you lead and every ride you join helps establish the network, makes bikes more practical as transportation, and makes everyone on the road safer.

CriticalMassTransit.com was created as a place where we can create rides, establish routes, make maps, and start to build that network. If you bike commute, you’re already leading a ride of one. You’re already showing the community around you how it’s done. Publish your schedule and route so that others can join you.

If not now, when? If not here, where? If not us, who?

Join us. CriticalMassTransit.com