Dreaming of Freedom

Last night at 6pm I arrived in Gustav Adolf Torg to see the welcome sight of a bunch a cyclists with ‘bilfri stad’ tied onto their bikes. Accompanied by a handful of policemen in two vans they set off to cycle round the city in a peaceful celebration of cycling. This was my very first actual critical mass and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the whole thing was just so calm and relaxed. There was a real sense of ‘safety in numbers’ which as you can imagine makes cycling seem ultra safe. I spent a very enjoyable hour cycling round with everyone, chatting to people and noticing how generally the drivers were quite respectful of our group.

I was in two minds about the Critical Mass because here in Sweden they actually have real cycle lanes with traffic lights that run over a significant part of the towns. This is something cyclists in England can only dream about. But after much thought it does seem that cyclists are still marginalized. In the face of serious climate change, cycling as a viable alternative to driving really needs to be taken seriously by town planners and significant provision needs to be made for cyclists. A Critical Mass certainly seems a good way for the individual cyclist to come together with other and feel less isolated and more normalized.

K videoed the Critical Mass yesterday and has created a video of the event.

Critical Mass Gothenburg:
Last Friday of the month
Gustav Adolf Torg
6pm

This entry was posted Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Environment, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.