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Berkeley, California

From Critical Mass

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Contents

[edit] Ride details

  • Day: Second Friday of every month.
  • Time: Meet 6:00pm.
  • Location; The Downtown Berkeley Bart Station

[edit] The Ride

This fun ride begins at the Downtown Berkeley Bart Station, where riders meet at 6pm on the 2nd Friday of each month. A local rider frequently brings a powerful bicycle sound system to the rides.

[edit] Conflict with Motorists

This ride is not without it's colorful incidents. The following is a rough excerpt from the Wikipedia Critical Mass main article [1] and describes a "conflict" incident in which a motorist drove into the Berkeley ride:

On May 11, 2007, an incident occurred in Berkeley, California. According to a Bicycle Civil Liberties Union (BCLU) media release, a "motorist with his wife deliberately ran into the side of the monthly Berkeley Critical Mass bicycle demonstration"[2] and caused approximately $3,000 worth of damage to bicycles.[3] The driver, Harlan Head and his wife Marilyn Head of Berkeley, CA, and two hostile witnesses, one of whom had been traveling in a caravan with the Head's, allegedly told police that the bikers 'threw' their bicycles under the vehicle. In viral internet videos on YouTube and elsewhere, one of these witnesses, an unidentified woman wearing a lavender colored fleece jacket, is depicted shoving Ms. Head in the buttocks area as she climbs back into the van, indicating a possible familial or friendship relationship to the Heads. The other witness was a 17 year old boy named Gabe Schnake-Mahl, who came forth for a televised, videotaped interview with San Francisco television station KGO-7 which aired on May 12, 2007. [4] Just before the incident, some Critical Mass riders observed Schnake-Mahl verbally taunting the riders from the passenger window of a white BMW sedan. Subsequently, Critical Mass participants pounded on the hood and windows of the car, in an attempt to get Head to stop the van, and the windshield of the vehicle was cracked and fractured.[5]

[edit] Mass transportation and transbay travel to the ride meet-up location

Travel routes

[edit] CalTrans Bike Shuttle

Most riders crossing the bay from the West to travel to the Berkeley Critical Mass ride take the cheapest way over to Oakland, the $1.00 CalTrans bike shuttle, a 15 passenger microbus, operated by the California Department of Transportation, which tows a bike carrying trailer which offers service from San Francisco to the MacArthur Bart Station. Riders then ride north on Telegraph Avenue, to Shattuck Avenue, to Downtown Berkeley.

Pick-up points for Bay Bridge Bicycle Shuttle: San Francisco:Transbay Terminal Building Treasure Island:Bay Bridge Bus Stops Oakland: MacArthur BART Station

Schedule: Weekday Evenings: Leave San Francisco 3:50 p.m.;4:40 p.m.;5:30 p.m.;6:15 p.m.

[edit] BART

During "Commute Hours", Weekdays approximately 4:25pm to 6:45 pm, there are restrictions on bikes aboard BART in the commute hours traveling east from San Francisco. These blackout rimes are a source of great frustration for cyclists on either side of the bay. As of this writing the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition is working on reducing or elimnating this blackout period: http://www.sfbike.org/?bart

In keeping with the anarchistic spirit of the rides, some riders break the bike rules and take their bikes aboard the trains anyways where there is less odds of a station agent or BART cop there to 'remind' them of the bike rules.

Folded bikes are allowed on all BART trains, and anywhere in any BART station, at all times. During 'commute hours', folding bikes must be folded before entering the paid area at the Embarcadero, Montgomery, Powell, and Civic Center San Francisco Stations, At all other stations, they may be folded on the platform, but must be folded before boarding a train.

[edit] Ferries

Other riders take the Oakland/Alameda Ferry from the Ferry Building in San Francisco to the Ferry Terminal on Water Street at Jack London Square, for a fare of $6.00 dollars each way, before riding to the ride meet-up location. There are no bicycle blackout restrictions whatsoever on the Oakland/Alameda ferry, and riders may bring bikes aboard all of the fleet's ferries. There are bike racks inside the ferry cabins. Also it's generally thought that, though the CalTrans bike shuttle's 15 passenger microbus and trailer sometimes fills up with cyclists, the ferry boat rarely is so crowded that a cyclist can't make it aboard with his or her bike.

The 5:20p.m. ferry leaves San Francisco's Ferry Building at 4:10PM and arrives at 4:40PM. The 5:20p.m. leaves the SF Ferry Building and arrives at Oakland's Jack London Square Ferry Terminal at 5:50p.m.

[edit] AC Transit

Other riders take the $3.50 AC Transit Transbay Buses from the Transbay Terminal at 1st and Mission Streets in San Francisco, to the East Bay However, these buses can only fit 2 bikes on their racks, so this should not be considered a reliable way to arrive to cross the bay.

[edit] See Also

[edit] External Links

[edit] References

  1. ↑ This part is from the Wikipedia article Image:Wipe.gifCritical Mass licensed under the GFDL. A list of the authors can be found here: [1].
  2. ↑ http://bclu.org/20070511/berkeley-20070511.pdf
  3. ↑ http://bclu.org/20070511/
  4. ↑ Cisneros Noel, Elderly Couple Tangles With Cyclists, KGO-TV, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, May 12, 2007, [2]
  5. ↑ Lee Henry K., Elderly couple caught up in altercation with Critical Mass bicyclists, Image:Wipe.gifSan Francisco Chronicle, May 13, 2007, [3]
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