Continuing with our  NYC bike month coverage, last week I had the chance to shoot at Recycle-A-Bicycle in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Recycle-A-Bicycle takes donated bicycles, repairs them and reintroduces them to the community through earn-a-bike programs in schools and sales from their non-profit retail locations. Although their work mainly focuses on environmental education and job training programs for New York City youth, they also host repair classes for people of all ages. Every Tuesday evening after the shop closes, Susan Lindell teaches bike mechanics 101 to women. Check out this video on Ladies Repair Night.

If it’s Bike Month, then Transportation Alternatives must be hosting their annual commuter pit stops with help from NYC DOT and the five Boro President’s offices. Yesterday, it was a Queens afternoon snack and we thought we’d take the pulse of cyclists departing the QBB as they got some rehydration and filled their packs with literature (and mega safety schwag!) If you missed out, check the Bike Month calendar for future goodie giveaways and swing back here as we cover events all month long.

If you haven’t heard yet, it is bike month in New York. This year over 200 rides, tours, and events are planned. To help kick things off, City Commissioners & Transportation Alternatives held a bike ride down 9th Avenue’s protected bike lane and a press conference in the pedestrian plaza on 14th Street. Watch some highlights including: Paul Steely White and City Commissioners Janette Sadik-Khan, Adrian Benepe and Jane Beddell.

Nearly five years ago, legendary bike mechanic Hal Ruzal and I walked the streets surrounding Bicycle Habitat and graded the bike locking ability of New Yorkers - producing many humorous and enlightening anecdotes. The resulting video aired frequently on bikeTV and at many festivals, and because of it - Hal is still frequently asked by complete strangers to judge their bike locking.

I always endeavored doing another, but as with most sequels you need a new wrinkle. This time we thought we’d give Hal some company and invited former Recycle a Bicycle mechanic Kerri Martin (and founder of The Bike Church in Asbury Park, NJ) to weigh in with her expertise.

Again, bikes on the streets of SoHo provide lots of fodder for laughs and lessons to learn.We didn’t plan to but we walked the same loop and even used the same one-hour time frame. The results? The grades were a little better than five years ago. Sure, still some bad locking out there, but many more people are now sporting multiple locks and better strategies! Good news, maybe we made a difference after all…

Have you ever wished you could explore the borough of Queens on a bike with a large group of people? Maybe you have heard of or ridden in the Tour de Brooklyn or the Tour de Bronx and thought it would make sense for Queens to have a ride of its own? Hold your breath, no longer. The first annual Tour de Queens is planned for June 8, 2008!

Last week, the Transportation Alternatives’ Queens Committee hosted a fundraising Roller Race at the Creek & Cave bar. Watch this short video and find out what exactly a roller race is. If you would like get more info on the Tour de Queens and the Queens Volunteer Committee, contact: Mike Heffron.

Had enough livable streets lessons from Bogotá? Good. Neither have we.

In the final chapter of our September NYCSR visit to Colombia, where the indefatigable Gil Peñalosa was our tour guide, you’ll find lots of tasty video morsels including: riding the comfortable ciclorutas and cycle paths, a visit to a thriving pedestrian-only street where they said it couldn’t be done, a “bollard farm,” mucho footage of the city’s parks and public spaces and comments from the city’s residents. And we couldn’t resist - just a wee bit more dance mania at the Recreovia.

If this is your first foray into Bogotá, might we suggest these related Streetfilms which will bring you up to speed on Ciclovia and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT):

Ciclovia (9:41)

Bus Rapid Transit: Bogotá (7:29)

Mark Gorton Interviews Enrique Peñalosa (12:07)

Inspired by a previous Streetfilm from Portland, Oregon, filmmaker Nicholas Whitaker decided to answer the challenge and bring you, Bike Move Too!

When his girlfriend Jes Schultz was priced out of her Fort Greene Brooklyn apartment, they decided to call a few friends with bikes and move her out, futon and all, to a new apartment in Crown Heights. This film illustrates how with a little ingenuity, determination, and friends, it can be done without creating a huge impact on your environment.

It also may be the first New York City bike move movie. (An hour scouring the web, calling friends, and searching YouTube tags turned up nothing in NYC.)

Mary Beth Kelly’s story is as inspirational as they come.

In June 2006, she and her husband Dr. Carl Henry Nacht were bicycling home from dinner on the Hudson River Greenway in Chelsea when an NYPD tow truck turned sharply into the bike lane at 38th Street and 12th Avenue. Despite signs telling drivers to yield to pedestrians and cyclists, the tow truck did not slow down as it headed toward a riverfront tow pound. The truck struck Carl, injuring him severely. He died four days later.

Bicycling was an integral part of Carl and Mary Beth’s lives. Their first date was done on bikes and they often took their bikes on vacation. A physician at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, Carl regularly used his bike to commute to the work and to make in-home visits to sick patients.

Rather than forsaking cycling after Carl’s death, Mary Beth and her children Zoe and Asher got right back on their bicycles. Perhaps most important, Mary Beth has emerged as an outspoken and eloquent advocate for New York City cyclists. She now serves on the advisory council for Transportation Alternatives, where she is working to create and pass comprehensive complete streets legislation in honor of her husband.

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.

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel with comrades Karla Quintero (Transportation Alternatives) and Aaron Naparstek (Streetsblog) to Bogotá, Colombia to document some of the amazing advances going on in the livable streets movement there. On Sunday we spent the entire day - from 5 AM ’til nearly 5 PM - riding bicycles around the city courtesy of the Ciclovia, a weekly event in which over 70 miles of city streets are closed to traffic where residents come out to walk, bike, run, skate, recreate, picnic, and talk with family, neighbors & strangers…it is simply one of the most moving experiences I have had in my entire life. Continue reading this entry »

Van & Casey Neistat are film making brothers from NYC who specialize in short subject videos. They are also cyclists, and as such, bikes have played an integral part in three of their more famous shorts: “Yogurt vs. Gasoline“, “Holland Tunnel“ and “Bike Thief,” the last of which features the duo blatantly stealing bikes on the street with tools like a hammer and crowbar - yet passerby and police do nothing to stop them.

StreetFilms got to speak with them for a few moments at their offices about their works and views on transportation in NYC. They have made hundreds films, most are available on their site www.neistat.com

If you have a nomination for Cyclist of the Month, please nominate him, her, (or them!) by e-mailing us.

Last weekend on their way to celebrate the new physically separated bike lane on 9th ave,  the Time’s Up! Bicycle Clown Brigade set out to playfully educate car drivers who were illegally parked in bike lanes. Those who refused to move out of the bike lanes, received mock tickets for violating NYC traffic rule Section 4-08(e), which explicitly prohibits stopping, standing, or parking within a bike lane, and carries a fine of up to $115.

Driving in bike lanes is actually a serious issue. Check this out.

StreetFilms wishes you a Happy Halloween one of the only ways we know how!

We went back to check in how things were progressing on the NYC DOT’s plans for the 9th Avenue physically separated bike lane. The pleasant surprises continue as lane improvements, ample signage, and cyclist-only bike signals have now appeared making the innovative project even safer. And although driver behavior continues to improve, there are a few problems to highlight.

If you enjoyed this, check out others in the series: Clarence: The Traffic Calming Sasquatch & Clarence: The Traffic Calming Maniac