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…

With announcements from city agencies coming fast and furious, Streetfilms will attempt to document what we can during this on-going renaissance for pedestrians, cyclists and denizens of NYC. This is not only important for our city, but to show the rest of the world the incredible leaps being attempted here. Heck, there’s no better tool to inspire change then a well-edited, before & after video short.

So with Gansevoort Plaza nearly complete, we thought we’d post a montage of how Meat Market Plaza was birthed into existence back in the fall. The plaza is nestled between 14th & 15th Streets on 9th Avenue and - until I broke out the tapes - I forgot what all those ugly lanes of traffic used to look like!

While out filming livable streets improvements around Gansevoort and Ninth Avenue today, we roamed into a quagmire of paparazzi in a feeding frenzy. Soon it was apparent why: Mayor Bloomberg and Tyra Banks showed up briefly to beautify our physically separated bike lane on Ninth Avenue by planting a tree!

As Streetfilms viewers know we are the beacon of breaking Ninth Avenue News - chronicling the continuing metamorphosis of NYC DOT’s innovative initiative for cyclists. Flashback here to Halloween when some guy in a purple cape was running around saying he wanted a tree. Well, he got it!

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.

First we pummeled the Bike Box. Then we pulled a bit of Chicane-ry. Next up, get ready to shuffle your feet to the thought of Barnes Dancing!

There’s only one place we know of in Manhattan (please tell us of others!) where you can go out and do it: the Barnes Dance intersection of 17th Street & Broadway.  There you’ll find red lights in all directions for about 17-18 seconds or so, allowing pedestrians to have an exclusive phase in which to cross safely. You can even groove it diagonally if you wish. So get out and dance; no cover charge.

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)

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.

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.

StreetFilms presents the full version of TOPP Executive Director Mark Gorton and neighbor Lisa Sladkus walk around the Upper West Side as they pointing out certain traffic calming features and road geometry changes that could be done to make the streets safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Previously we have posted very short primers here, but today we offer the full tour, complete with many diagrams and photos, which we hope will inspire denizens of Gotham and beyond to use these ideas in their neighborhoods. So go take a walk around your block and start the transformation!

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.

Tuesday night it was standing room only as hundreds turned out for the NYC Streets Renaissance’s event with Jan Gehl at the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side.

Here we present a very brief recap featuring many voices in the community and sound bites of what some Upper West Siders would like to see happen on their streets.

Here you’ll find StreetFilms’ video manipulation of the excellent work of the NYC Streets Renaissance Creative Director, Carly Clark, who has produced photosims of a few streets on Manhattan’s Upper West Side - showing the potential for them to become more people-oriented.

Photosims are a valuable tool for empowering communities to see the potential of their neighborhoods to be more than just conduits for car traffic. The dramatic before & afters re-imagining Amsterdam as a complete street, a traffic-calmed 81st Street, and a car-free Broadway are the types of bold ideas that will be discussed at Tuesday’s November 6th event to promote safe livable streets.

Related: Public Space Transformations (2:00)

For those who live on or near Amsterdam Avenue, they know that with its designed- for-speed geometry the street feels more like a highway then a place for human beings to thrive. Here, TOPP Executive Director Mark Gorton discusses Amsterdam and the impact on residents. But hope lurks - a photo simulation near the end provides a glimpse of what a safer, complete street could look like.

Continuing our series on the Upper West Side…

In this segment, Mark Gorton and Lisa Sladkus talk about space allocation and how much of our city is dedicated to moving people in private automobiles. In addition, Mark shows how free, on-street vehicle storage is favored - even when pedestrians are crammed on to sidewalks. These are things we live with daily, things that are often invisible to our comfort, things that even if we take notice we often think cannot be changed. But we can re-design our streets to make them more people-oriented and enhance the vibrancy of our city.

Related:
Ped Density (:30)
Psychic Space (1:37)

In the first of many shorts we will present over consecutive days, The Open Planning Project’s Executive Director Mark Gorton tours the streets of the Upper West Side with neighbor Lisa Sladkus pointing out problems in advance of the important November 6th livable streets event. Today’s topic is: Double Parking.

Parking policy is one of the biggest challenges that faces New York City and the rest of the U.S. In this related StreetFilm, Donald Shoup explains how responsible pricing can solve the woes of double parking and pollution, while raising revenues that can be re-invested in communities.