I support Critical Mass' central mission; really, I do. Getting people out of cars and into less congestive and more environmentally viable modes of transport is an extremely important and noble goal, and nothing slams that point home to the lone downtown motorist like being stuck in traffic behind hundreds of rabble-rousing bicyclist demonstators every final Friday of the month. But I've got serious beef with their tendency to: (a) block buses, and (b) not let pedestrians cross the street and, worse yet, taunt them if they try. To point A, riding a bus home isn't as squeaky clean as riding a bike home, but it's a helluva lot better than driving. And delaying a bus for five or ten minutes is not only frustrating, it could negatively impact the record of the driver, whose livelihood depends in part on whether or not he or she arrives at stops on time.

Not stopping for pedestrians, meanwhile, is inexcusable. The woman I saw get taunted at the corner of First & Pine last Friday is a woman I recognize from my own two-mile walk to and from Lower Queen Anne. She commutes by foot, and shouldn't be delayed or taunted by a bunch of Massholes whose message she's already living.