Clarence Eckerson Jr. with Gil Penalosa, Executive Director of 8-80 Cities at Guadalajara's RecreActiva. (Photo Gil Penalosa) Despite being saddled with a bad back & hip issues, I was thrilled to be able to visit Guadalajara, Mexico last week. Thanks to the kindness of my hosts, Guadalajara 2020, I was able to see much of [...]
I've started to see a slew of countdown timers popping up all over Queens & Manhattan of late, but this one I saw while in Guadalajara last week surely ups the fun quotient of crossing the street, not to mention evoking a chuckle or two. It's not as if I haven't seen countdown signals with [...]
On September 19th, Loeb Fellow and Streetsblog founder Aaron Naparstek put together a "Streetfilms Movie Night" at Harvard that enticed 130 folks to come meet Streetfilms' Director Clarence Eckerson Jr. The hour long program featured a myriad of favorites from over the years including "Revisiting Donald Appleyard's Livable Streets" to "Cycling Copenhagen thru North American Eyes" to "Clarence the Traffic Calming Sasquatch".
In the increasingly heated competition to see who deserves the title of America's most bike-friendly city, Minneapolis has plenty going for it. Last year Bicycling magazine anointed the city tops in the nation, knocking Portland off its long-held perch. The Twin Cities are undergoing a steady transformation into a more bike-oriented region thanks to nearly [...]
In 2007, in order to route cyclists away from a challenging 7-lane crossing on busy Hiawatha Avenue, Minneapolis built the Martin Olav Sabo Bridge. The first cable-stayed bridge of any kind in the state, it’s breathtaking, even to the people who have been riding it for years. It provides a safe, continuous crossing and offers up [...]
Nearly three years ago Streetfilms took a day trip to Washington, D.C. to see their Smart Bike DC in action. We found the trial bike share system a fun ride with great potential, but with only 120 bikes there wasn't a great sense of widespread use. Flashforward to 2011 and with over 1100 bicycles and 110 [...]
Nice Ride MN is a hit. The Twin Cities bike share recently celebrated its one year anniversary in June. And in July they started an expansion by adding more stations and bicycles to the network. We talked with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak who told us about how they got Nice Ride MN off the ground: [...]
The NYC Bridge Centennial Commission, co-founded by "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, organized a re-enactment today near the Williamsburg Bridge, calling attention to the hundredth anniversary of the last toll collected on the East River bridges. Mayor William J. Gaynor's century-old decision to eliminate bridge tolls translates to a cumulative loss of $31 billion in potential revenue [...]
Produced in 2006 as part of the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign, Contested Streets explores the history and culture of New York City streets from pre-automobile times to present. This examination allows for an understanding of how the city --- though the most well served by mass transit in the United States --- has [...]
Using a bicycle in Queens just got more safe and efficient for riders that use the Queens Plaza area to access the Queensboro Bridge bike and pedestrian path. Yesterday afternoon, Streetfilms got tips from fans saying the physically protected bike & pedestrian median was finally open. By the time we got there, scores of folks [...]
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