Critical Mass congests our streets

By Yokota Fritz


The Western Wheelers Bicycle Club April newsletter is a hoot! The editor travels back in time to 1906 to report on cycling issues of the day. In the headline article about a Critical Mass of cars, motorists come "together on the final Friday of each month ... and driving ... around the city to no apparent purpose but to impede the legitimate traffic of cyclists, streetcars, and buggies, not to mention the peril to which they submit the lowly pedestrian. Motorists elbow their way in onto our roads, muscling aside the original users with taunts of 'We're traffic too!'"

"To ride in [a car] you need a special costume of duster, goggles, and hat, or else you will alight at your destination in no condition for polite company."

The April 1906 issue is worth a read [PDF].