Posts from — March 2007

The Smiling Arrestee by dogseat on Flickr.

As AllWaysNY highlighted back in February, the first Critical Mass ride to take place after the new NYPD public assembly rules went into effect took place last night. The large media presence and pending lawsuits seemed to have chilled the NYPD’s sometimes overwhelming response–only 3 were arrested and 47 tickets were issued. City Council Member Rosie Mendez showed her support by participating throughout in the ride in a pedicab. BikeBlog had this report:

So about 100 riders left the rally at Union Square which had another 100 or so supporters who came to listen to the speakers and not ride.

Right at the start the cops began to single people out and write summons to people who did not have a bell or a light or some other law on the books that is enforced about as frequent as someone driving on a cell phone.

The press swarmed in since it was right at the North end of Union Square and Park Ave. South and all the press was there to video tape the ride and put it on the 11:00 news.

The cops backed off a bit and made one arrest, just to save face and make the cyclists look confrontational.

The ride headed up Park Ave South and was getting swarmed by scooter cops and a few 15 pass vans. Still the mode was to stop people for not having warning devises and lights and soon helmets now that the city council also approved a helmet law for employees of a company using workers on bikes.

This split up the ride and two groups formed…of about 50…or was it 49, the legal limit of cyclists to be riding together. The number 50 has been proved by Aramaic scholars to be the 2nd series of numbers besides the triple 6 to symbolize the apocalypse…thus casting all of NYC into eternal darkness for at least a week. Keep reading here.