Concepts in the Paradox

When I walked into my polling place at 1845 Ellis St, I thought there would be a line at the door to vote in this year’s primary election. There were issues to vote on, important ones, like eviction notification, the transbay terminal, and a reduction in city violence.

When I voted at 5:50pm tonight, there had only been 125 people before me. In the great city of San Francisco, in Western Addition / Lower Pacific Heights, there were only 125 people interested in city politics? I can only hope there are tons of absentee ballots out there, or the voter rush was between 6pm and 8pm.

Friday was Critical Mass, and I decided that it would be an excellent time to try out my bike on a long bike ride. Upon showing up to the site at 6pm, I found over a thousand cyclists, with a constant stream of of new arrivals from Market St.

I don’t remember the exact route that we went, but at some point I took a look back onto Market St, and there was nothing but a sea of bikes. Maybe 8-9 blocks worth of all sorts of people on all sorts of bikes. Some people brought their kids along, others were riding fully custom bikes, and some were just using their regular commuter bikes.

The head of the pack chose the direction we should go, and people further in the back of the group would yell forward what direction we should go next, or if we needed to slow down to prevent the mass from getting too thin. We went up, down, and around: going through the Haight twice. That’s when trouble started brewing.

Most motorists and pedestrians waved, cheered, and even stopped cyclists to ask what this mass cyclist event was about. Even stuck in a flood of bikes for 15 minutes, people in cars would smile and wave. Cabbies seemed to take it the hardest though. I saw an incident where a female cabbie was upset a cyclist was block her, as some people in the mass would do to prevent cars jumping in at intersections. The cabbie got out, tried to remove the bike blocking her, and the other cyclists would circle around to watch what happened next. In this case, the cabbie sulked and got back into her cab.

Around Haight street was a different story. An irate pedestrian pulled a random cyclist from his bike, causing him to careen into the side of a parked car. This guy looked exactly like Fabio, a tall, built, and long blonde haired man, dressed like he was going out for a night on the town. Per usual, cyclists swarmed around him to see what the fuss was about. With over 300 people surrounding him, this muscle-bound man declared what the cyclists were doing was “stupid”, “no one cares” and we were only there to cause trouble. Sure, some people were, but the vast majority were enjoying their urban disobedience against cars.

The man yanked off his button-up shirt, with buttons flying every which way, just like in the movies. Underneath you could see that he went to the gym every minute of his life, and he wasn’t one you’d want to try to fight. He continued to created a fuss, tried to get people to dismount their bikes and fight, but luckily an SFPD bike cop came by and told Fabio to chill, to which he stalked off, grumping all the way home.

Our ride took us all the way up to Hyde and Lombard, famous for being the most twisted hill in San Francisco:

We also went both directions through the Broadway tunnel, yelling and screaming as we passed through. I have to admit that I was taken in by the whole scene, and found myself also screaming; joining the protest against the cars that dominate the city. We then headed through the Stockton tunnel, which after I decided to retire. The whole ride was three hours for me, and there was still a group of 200 or so headed back toward market.

I think that Critical Mass is an important monthly demonstration in the city, and for anyone from the outside world looking in. People take their cars for granted, and ignore the many social and economic problems they create. Oil prices are high, people are out of shape, and transit is almost non-existent or non-functioning. I hold CM has an example of people doing something, instead of complaining.

I’ll be there next month.

I keep hearing about this third street light rail project, so I thought that I’d take a drive and see what was down that “up and coming” line, as all the realtors put it. Starting from the ball park, I headed south along the rail. I must say, the downtown area is pretty impressive near the ball park. Clean buildings, good transit, plenty of shops and places to eat. Past the bridge is another story though; it is parking lots, empty fields and rotting warehouses for miles.

The light rail stops look modern and clean, something that I was very happy to see compared to the decay that surrounds the street. I’m not entirely sure why there is a light rail track down to Bayview; the whole area consists of closed businesses, cheap and uninspired looking houses, and shady characters passed out on the sidewalk. At one point in my journey I actually came by some shacks that were lined up along the road where obviously people had been living.

My understanding is that on the other side of the 280 near Hunter’s Point there is some nice housing in areas called “Dog Patch”, which I hoped to take a look at it. I was too taken aback by how depressed the area was to go exploring any further. One can only hope that the re-introduction of light rail into the area will be an economic boom to the area. I don’t know how many decades have passed since the rail along third street to Hunter’s Point was removed, but it had to be a crushing blow to an area that also lost it’s now-toxic naval yard.