Neighborhood activists, professional planners, and experienced advocates gathered this week at the New-York Historical Society to share their secrets on how New Yorkers can transform the public realm. The event was hosted by NYC Streets Renaissance and was moderated by Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek. Here are some of their thoughts.

Panelists included:

Christine Berthet (Clinton Hells Kitchen Coalition for Pedestrian Safety)
Joshua David (Friends of the High Line)
Penny Lee (Department of City Planning)
Milton Puryear (Brooklyn Greenway Initiative)
Paul Steely White (Transportation Alternatives)
Robert Witherwax (Grand Army Plaza Coalition)
Chauncy Young (Highbridge Community Life Center)

Want to learn more about Bus Rapid Transit? Watch this video and let Streetsblog editor Aaron Naparstek show you how BRT works in Bogotá, Colombia. Take a gander and you’ll see an efficient, modern and — relatively speaking — inexpensive way of moving 1.3 million people per day.

In Bogotá, where the BRT system goes by the much more sexy name, TransMilenio, you’ll travel almost three times the speed of the typical New York City bus. The average TransMilenio vehicle travels at 17.4 mph. In New York City, buses poke along at 6.2 mph. Some TransMilenio routes average nearly 25 mph!

For quite a few years now, New York City’s Department of Transportation and the MTA have been studying and studying and, sigh… studying the possibility of implementing BRT routes on selected corridors. And if Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan passes, a significant portion of the promised $354 million in federal funds will go towards launching new BRT lines.

Hopefully, New York City’s BRT system will offer many of the excellent features that we saw in Bogotá; features like physically-separated bus lanes, pre-boarding fare payment, wide doors that open at boarding level and a control room nerve center that monitors and manages the entire system. These features give Bogotá a bus system that really works. Take a look.

Today we debut Street Stars, the first of many planned vignettes for 2008 which will focus on the amazing heroes and organizers in our communities who are fighting constructively for livable streets change and transportation improvements to their streets. We hope the series will inspire and provide a road map to how other neighborhoods can rally their own.

Our first choice is a woman we have long admired who has often appeared here and on Streetsblog. Her name is Christine Berthet, and she is the co-founder of Chekpeds, the Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen Pedestrian Safety Coalition. Together with Transportation Alternatives and the Project for Public Spaces, she was also instrumental in organizing the Ninth Avenue Renaissance, a movement to re-imagine neighborhood streets as a healthier place for people. She is an indefatigable advocate working hard for the community, organizing rallies, and is omnipresent at community hearings and testifying at City Hall.

According to surveys conducted in Hell’s Kitchen: 75% of the people said that they were afraid for their safety because of cars… 5% because of crime.

With all the great achievements that are abounding in the livable streets movement, sometimes we need to revisit reality. Recently, I stumbled upon a cache of traffic b-roll I was gathering during the summer of cars infringing on pedestrian rights. I’ll gamble we’ve all seen worse scenes, probably daily, but it just got me a little mad.

So to our leaders who are debating - and frankly many throwing up roadblocks to - congestion pricing: take a look and stop worrying about the fraction of NYC drivers you are protecting. It’s obvious - a serious congestion pricing plan would definitely benefit pedestrians and alleviate some of the everyday, dangerous gridlock we navigate.

Please note: every shot in this montage is while the pedestrian has the right of way. And yeah, as bad as this footage is, New Yorkers know it is only the tip of the everyday iceberg. If we really wanted to, we could shoot one of these per day and post them.  Thus, this gets the “#1″ in the title.

Do you know what a chicane is?

This 24 second stop-animation Streetfilm can show you almost as fast as I can describe it. A chicane is a sequence of tight curves in a roadway used to slow cars. Sidewalk extensions jog from one side of a street to the other to create a circuitous route. Literally, the word chicane comes from the German word schikane, meaning harassment.

The Project for Public Spaces has more on chicanes and various traffic calming techniques.

In the near future, please look for other educational claymations here on Streetfilms. Also: let us know in the comments field below what other traffic calming techniques you would like to see animated.

The NYC DOT has been quietly rolling out dozens of bike boxes all over Gotham. (*Update: Official number is 60!) It’s really quite remarkable. But since the majority of riders seem not to know what they are or how to use them just yet, StreetFilms thought this would be a fun way to educate cyclists to love and cherish the Bike Box.

*Addendum: Apparently so few New Yorkers know about bike boxes that even the New York Times screwed up in an article about Portland, Oregon installing new bike boxes!

“…the boxes, believed to be the first such to be put to use by any city in the country, will make cyclists even safer and more comfortable on the street, biking advocates and transportation officials say.”

They should really check in with StreetFilms more often.

On Sunday, January 6th, over two hundred people gathered to remember New Yorkers who were killed while biking and walking. The Street Memorial Project lead the 3rd Annual Memorial Ride & Pedestrian Memorial Walk to honor those killed. In 2007, 23 bicyclists and over 100 pedestrians died on NYC streets.

In 2007, the Street Memorial Project, a joint effort from Visual Resistance, Transportation Alternatives, and Time’s Up! was established to honor pedestrians killed on NYC streets.  An outgrowth from the Ghost Bike movement, a plaque is usually placed at the site indicating:  date of the fatality, manner of death, and age of the victim.

Please join the 3rd Annual Ride, Walk and Rally to Remember this Sunday to honor those who were killed riding a bike or walking in NYC this past year.