MTS Kick Gas Festival will not Include Bicycles
Posted By Sam Ollinger on September 17, 2009
San Diego’s Kick Gas Festival is being held on October 24th as part of the many activities held to draw attention to the mission of 350.org which is,
Our mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis—to create a new sense of urgency and of possibility for our planet.
Specifically, the goal is to reduce CO2 emissions to 350 parts per million.
When we originally heard about the festival we were dismayed that bicycles were not featured as the main part of the festival. When we contacted Kathy Keehan, executive director of the SDCBC, she did admit that the SDCBC had been invited to sponsor the program and promote their mission at the Kick Gas Festival. However, Kathy didn’t think the festival would be a good fit for many reasons. For one, the SDCBC has limited volunteer and staff resources, and for another Kathy didn’t think that it would be worthwhile to spend 8 hours at the Qualcomm parking lot.
We agree. Qualcomm stadium, located in Mission Valley, is hardly the epicenter of sustainable anything.
Qualcomm Stadium. Photo from sdnn.com
The festival does seem like a terrible missed opportunity. The event could have been held in Balboa Park or the Convention Center downtown which would have allowed attendees to transport themselves in ways more in tune with the mission of 350.org. Bicycles could have been the focus at the festival, engaging more San Diegans to take advantage of the beautiful weather and open themselves up to the possibility of transporting themselves without using gasoline.
But, like they say, there is always next year.
I find it odd that MTS is even involved at all, since this seems like a very auto-centric event (albeit alt-fueled autos). Shouldn’t MTS be emphasizing, oh, I don’t know, *public transit*, and driving less instead of just driving different? It just seems like a totally bizarre event.
Deep Mission Valley is one of the worst, absolutely worst, places to ride two or from. Its not a very nice place to walk, either. Everyone will drive there, and the altruistic folks will drive to the trolley station, and then trolley to the stadium.
At first I found this event to be bizarre, too, but only if you glom onto the title “Kick Gas”. This is just a way to grab one’s attention. A more accurate title would be “alternative ways to fuel race cars”. This title is way less sexy.
The main point of this event, IMHO, is to market alternative fuel vehicles. This is not good or bad regarding cycling; it’s just what they want to do with their time. If the even were called, “Kick Ass Gas Guzzlin’ Monster Truck Smash Riot!” we wouldn’t even be talking about it.
I thought about going to promote bicycles, but I don’t think it’s appropriate to this crowd. I am curious on the type of people who would go to this thing. It seems almost like a contradiction in stereotypes. The liberal, earth hugging hippies who use alternative fuel meets the bud swillin’ rednecks.*
* I use the term redneck as a term of endearment as I have a cousin who calls himself redneck. They are nice people, but I wouldn’t want my sister to marry one.
You see, now I think something like “Kick Ass Gas Guzzlin’ Monster Truck Smash Riot” would be just fine for this event, that way all the folks who would show up to see *that* would be just as disappointed as bicyclists are that an event called “Kick Gas” would not really be all that interested in bicycles.
I think you’re right, too, that this is really just a flimsy excuse to play with alt-fuel guzzling race cars. Ooh, let’s call it “green” and see if we can wring a few more bucks out of the whole thing. Boo.