They aren’t longer because despite the streets being a commons, CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP IS REQUIRED to pay for permits and police. There is no need to get corporate sponsorship to clog the street entrances to the Bay Bridge during each rush hour commute session. So, rhetorically, I’ll ask, why should we need permits and sponsorship money to make use of the PUBLIC space?

Automobile drivers, by and large, still believe they own the road. Sorry, it’s still a very common response to any driver I interact with on the road while cycling that cyclists don’t belong on the road. CVC and complaints about sidewalk riding be damned, “get out of the road” rings in my ears on a daily basis while pedaling in the city. If it stopped at that it would be merely insulting and unpleasant. Unfortunately that sentiment is frequently accompanied by the automobile or truck intentionally threatening me with deadly harm. Compare the authorities’ response of someone rev’ing their engine and swerving at me with their car to someone pulling out a loaded gun and firing it in my direction. No guessing necessary to know that taking a photo and phoning in the former gets you nothing, while recording the latter will spark headlines in the media for a solid week.

Give me a break about CM harming the alt transportaion movement. CM provides a consistent monthly outlet for cyclists to assert their right to ride safely on the road. One evening, one day per month it’s easier and safer to ride a bike in San Francisco. Cry me a river if you are occasionally forced to wait a minute or two for CM instead of just some douche alone in an SUV that’s decided to block the intersection trying to squeeze through a red light.

Do you really honestly think that we’d have any bike lanes at all in the city without CM? What motivated city officials to negotiate with cycling advocacy groups and finally begin providing even laughably meager infrastructure accommodations like sharrows to cyclists? The main failure of today’s CM movement is that it hasn’t expanded beyond once per month.

CM is defined and pursued by individuals. The naming rights for Critical Mass are not up for sale. There is no Executive Producer bought and paid for by PG&E. It’s grassroots and still thriving years after its inception. We’ll see how long Sunday Streets lasts when its corporate patrons tire of the green washing fad. My hope is that by then the general populace will have embraced walking and cycling and enjoying the public commons to the extent that Sunday Streets finally has its own critical mass.

(Critical Masses have indeed taken place in ‘burbs, San Mateo included.)

“In contrast- sadly- CM has diverted public good will towards cyclists in particular, making our job of moving alt transportation advocacy forward much more difficult.”

This is far from being a fact. It could also be argued that CM contributed to the rise of the number of bikers, and to a certain (I would argue important) mindset that more and more bikers have. We don’t ask for handouts of “public goodwill”. That is a nice thing, but what we are asking what is rightfully ours: the ability to use our streets for our choice of transportation mode.

Indeed the big difference between SS and CM to me is that SS is about excluding traffic from the streets, while CM is about making the point that “we are traffic, we are here to stay, deal with us”.

Of course, activism and politics is much more complicated than that. But from a personal standpoint and while I haven’t ridden CM for a great while, the experience of attending and of taking over the streets with a large number of fellow cyclists was important, intoxicating and eye-opening. I experienced it as a revolutionary atmosphere, sort of a “bike power” march, as opposed to the festive SS. And I saw *plenty* of people in cars and on the sidewalks, who cheered for us and supported what we were doing.

As someone who has done both CM and Sun Sts (I have a fairly central role in the latter), I think there are vast differences. David Baker said it best when he pointed out that the success of Sun Sts was that the folks attending were not the types you would ever see at CM. Sun Sts has mainstreamed car-free space. In contrast- sadly- CM has diverted public good will towards cyclists in particular, making our job of moving alt transportation advocacy forward much more difficult.

Also, Sun Sts, while strongly supported by our mayor (this is something he has gotten right and deserves credit for his leadership) and city depts (esp. the SF MTA), Sunday Streets is a project of Livable City, a small non-profit that shares a back office in the SFBC. There are just two of us on staff, neither Tom Radulovich (BART Director, LC Ex. Director) or I work for the government. Cheryl B. is Pres. of LC Board, by the way, and a big part of organizing.

In closing, we look forward to continuing Sun Sts- finances are a big challenge- which is one main reason why there are not more events, longer, more miles, etc. Thank you for all the support.

Susan King
Sunday Streets 2009

And I agree with Greg, in that when resistance is ritualized, it loses its immediacy. Like the Woody Allen line from Annie Hall:

“A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark. “

The system we are trying to change is a dynamic organism that has an immune system designed to identify and neutralize attacks from agents of change by evolution in the same way that HIV adapts to neutralize attacks from the human immune system.

Invariably, continually diminishing returns get dwarfed by the advances of our opponents as they adapt and we do not. Yet there are those who remain wed to the old ways, due to either sentimental or financial ties, and continue to ride into the ground that hobby horse which no longer serves.

One challange of Market Street is that it is a transportation street, not a socializing street. When there is no Muni service topside, like during “Mikes on Bikes” during Pride, and folks are bicycling slowly, the tracks do not provide much danger.

Sometimes, when you’re down so low, even a curb appears insurmountably high. The disconnect between San Francisco’s stated goals and policies and citywide electeds political willingness is enormous. Until there is punctuated equilibrium and their “hechos” snap into conformance with their “dichos,” many are going to continue to believe that the crumbs they throw us are a banquet and celebrate the insult.

Advocates have figured out how to claw temporary confections from the City but have made little progress on the staples, and as such, we are nutritionally deficient to the point that we are seeing cognitive dysfunction carry the day. Compare this to the East Bay where folks are organizing and suing for equity and justice.

-marc

Market Street should be Car Lite every day and that would help a lot more people then a Car Free Market Street once or twice. As Enrique Penalosa said, a convenient and safe walking and biking network can improve your life more then a doubling of income.

My question is – why isn’t this happening everywhere?

Funding is certainly why we have it on hold here. Our Bike Miami Rides – community rides lead by volunteers (local CM organizers, actually) and police – are meant to promote commuting and vehicular cycling. We’ve only had two so far, but the 80 or so participants are telling us they had no idea that rights they had. It’s a beautiful thing and another shift in bicycle advocacy.

And to be honest: the government activists have done a phenomenal job at bridging barriers of age and class and even race (to some extent) – something CM has not pulled off in SF. I think Sunday Streets owes a lot to CM – but I also think it shows what government, at its best, is capable of.

Also: worth talking with the neighbors about sweeping the area clear of sharps. I noticed one right in the middle of it all on 15th St last Sunday, and I threw it in the bin.

We can do study after study, or we can try it for a day and see if the neighborhood decides it something they might want to advocate for themselves.

As for the name, yes, it could be better, but trust me…it could be much worse. And, nothing is carved in stone.

Greg- there were a coupl’a bike rides from Dolores Park to the Maker Faire in San Mateo in May. http://bikesandthecity.blogspot.com/2009/06/bike-ride-maker-faire-way.html

Bob – what a difference a celebratory atmosphere makes. Even the apathetic are hoodwinked! into a subtle but fun! political action – the best kind!

jwb – yes ‘burbanites have to want it and do it themselves, but it wouldn’t hurt to have company and solidarity from the city folk!

Jason – not radical but oh so familiar. we know that this is good for us. we feel it in our bones and sinew. i’m so proud of this community/local government convergence tho. as far as urban planning goes, to date there has been an abyss between abstraction and reality. Sunday Streets is an opportunity for people to “taste” old/new urbanist principles without the commitment (yet).
we’ve got to feel these things in the skin to really appreciate them, and experential feeling reminds us what is good all over again.

ZA – just as there are gulfs that should be bridged between the abstract and reality, so to are there cultural gulfs between populations in the city. but we have to keep working on commonalities, mutual respect and solidarity. historically marginalized people will often be aloof (even to these types of events), not because they don’t want to participate, but as a matter of protection. why participate in something good, if it may be taken away from you later on as has happened so often before?

All in all, i hope this spreads like a California wildfire!

CM and Sunday Streets – There are plenty of parallels, but it remains to be seen whether Sunday Streets will achieve sustained mass appeal for continuous public provision of the event. Love it or hate it, the CM has achieved sustained participatory appeal.

It also remains to be seen whether any of these events is doing/will do enough to increase participation among the city’s minority communities at greatest risk from ill health and isolation. Remember that this was a stated objective of the first Sunday Streets via “Shape Up SF.”

So far, I think the Sunday Streets events have been very successful in connecting neighborhoods that would otherwise rarely have cross-pollination, but I also saw terribly few resident minorities joining the walks and rides of the Bayview Sunday Streets. That’s a shame, since Bayview has some incredible treasures, and I hope future events engage resident communities more effectively.

Generally speaking, more people with more kids, and fewer aggro-types is a good thing. In that Sunday Streets has been more successful than CM.

It does make me wonder, how hard would this be to pull off at a more micro-level? I would love to see individual neighborhoods get into the act. (24th Street in Noe? Haight? Chestnut and/or Union? Polk?) Somehow we failed to follow the lead of Europe where seemingly every neighborhood has a piazza for strolling and eating ice cream cones… Closing down just a few blocks in the merchant districts could give us our piazzas. Seems like it would be logistically simpler to do on a small scale, and could be easy to replicate all over the City.

Well, I take it back – not completely – because now we have Sunday Streets to back up that message.