New? Watch these Streetfilms
Thanks for visiting. Although all of our films aim to entertain and enlighten and you can't go wrong watching any of 'em. For people that might be seeing our site for the first time, below we've selected a few we feel are important that convey our mission and showcase some of our biggest successes.
Ciclovia - Just days after publishing this film in Dec. 2007, it quickly swept across the world - as this may have been the first serious documentation on large street closures of its type for the public good. It proved instantly popular as many from advocates and organizations in major cities were seeking to do the same. Cities now holding Ciclovia-style events in 2008: Portland, Baltimore, San Francisco, and New York City, and all have used Streetfilms as a major educational tool or final convincer for the government to go thru with plans. If you Google "ciclovia" Streetfilms has 8 of the top 10 entries. (CE)
Parking Day NYC 2007 - Streetfilms has produced many videos showcasing citizens taking back their streets to make them more people-focused. After documenting the Parking Day phenomenon (created by Rebar) in San Francsico in 2006, the following year Clarence produced another film on NYC's liberation of dozens of parking spots converted to public use. As with many videos, we were able to post the NYC video the very next day. Many organizations have used the Parking Day videos as tools to promote awareness around this fantastic yearly event. (CE)
Physically Separated Bike Lanes - This was our first breakthrough video which was pushed by our Executive Director Mark Gorton. When we did this, we tapped into a percolating national movement where organizations across the U.S. were contemplating pushing their local governments to install Copenhage-style bike facilities. In NYC, less than nine months after debuting our video, 9th Avenue had a physically separated bike path. In addition, we have many anecdotes from various bike groups who have told us they are using this for advocacy. (CE)
Bike vs. Car vs Transit - Transportation Alternatives has been conducting this annual challenge for years but never before had it been documented like this. We had four filmmakers out on the course following each mode. Put together by Elizabeth Press, it is a work of art and surely will be a very popular video every time Bike Month comes up in major cities arond the world. (EP)
Paint a Parking Lot, Put up a Paradise - When Janette Sadik-Khan became the new Commissioner of the NYC Dept. of Transportation, she immediately started reallocating spaces for the public. This project is the first of a planned thirty or so reclamations of open space. In addition, the video shows how drastically our coverage of the NYC DOT has been altered with the new focus on people-first strategies. (NW)
Raised Crosswalk Animation - We discovered our filmmaker Elizabeth Press had a secret talent: making animations with clay of traffic calming devices! She's done many, and there are more to come. (EP)
Melbourne: A Pedestrian Paradise - Streetfilms continues to travel to cities in the U.S. and the world to doucment best practices. This video is typical of that, the city of Melbourne has transformed its streets in the last 10-15 years to a great walking environment. It shows if it can be done there, it can be done anywhere. (CE)
Illustrating Parking Reform with Dr. Shoup - Over the past few years, our Executive Director Mark Gorton has been instrumental in bringing to NYC world leaders like Enrique Penalosa, Jan Gehl, and parking guru Dr. Donald Shoup to get a much needed debate in NYC started. Dr. Shoup is probably the most influential expert worldwide in parking policy and has written a book about it. In this video, Mark interviews Dr. Shoup in front of a model street filled with toy cars to better show how pricing policy effects traffic. This is representative of how innovative Streetfilms can be. (EP)
Removal of the Embarcadero Freeway
Clarence the Traffic Calming Sasquatch - Okay we lied. One more to show how we do try to use humor to sometimes get our points across. (CE)
