I've been riding a bike in NYC for more than 25 years. When I started, there wasn't much in the way of good bike infrastructure, but in that time I've watched the bike network expand and slowly get safer. With recent bike lane additions and enhancements on Jay Street, Chrystie Street, and First Avenue, NYC DOT has […]
It has been over ten contested years since Seattle advocates and bike riders have wanted a safe and efficient bike route on Westlake Avenue, a much-needed integral link in the bike network. I've visited myself in 1999, 2006, 2008 and 2011, each time having to either ride the dangerous speedway on Westlake or navigate thru the […]
The 1968 "Playstreets" video above just blows my mind - and probably will yours if you love open streets and ciclovias. I had no idea PAL (the Police Athletic League) was closing down streets/blocks in New York City for kids for so long. In fact since 1914, over one hundred years ago! I found it while looking thru the […]
On the day before Mother's Day in Queens, 111 moms (and plenty of other supporters) angry that their Community Board (Queens, CB 4) has failed to even vote on a NYC DOT proposal that would add protected bike lanes, wide crosswalks and a road diet by completely re-designing 111th Street showed up for an act […]
Original title: "The Cars are Due on Jay Street" (Okay, they're already here.) That title is just a fun take on one of my favorite "Twilight Zone" episodes. But the absurdity of cars constantly parking in the Jay Street bike lane is not fun. And it is dangerous. Today while riding 26 miles collecting footage, […]
In Tokyo, bicycling accounts for 14 percent of all trips. Yet Tokyo does not have the cycling infrastructure of Amsterdam or even Hamburg. As much as wider bike lanes would help, Tokyo residents will bike regardless. If there's no bike lane, they'll just hop on the sidewalk or wherever they feel safe. Joe Baur produced […]
If you want to buy a car in Japan, first you have to prove that you have somewhere to park it. That's one of the policies Streetfilms encountered while interviewing experts for an upcoming three-part series on parking best practices. Here's a sneak peek courtesy of Streetfilms correspondent Joe Baur, who grabbed this interview about the costs of car […]
We now have a "historic climate accord" from Paris via the COP21 summit with 195 countries on board. There are many noble goals including stopping climate change warming at no more than 2 degrees Celsius (that's 3.6 F) at which point most scientists have agreed is the point at which the planet will become drastically, catastrophically altered. It's […]
We've recently posted a few parking "best practices" direct to Vimeos for use by Streetsblog that you likely haven't seen if you don't check both sites frequently. (Which Streetfilms wholeheartedly endorses.) First up: We're big fans of the work of Gabe Klein, the former DOT Commissioner for both District of Columbia & Chicago. While I was filming for a project looking at […]
When it comes to smart transportation options and city planning, Zurich can credibly claim to be the global champ. This Swiss city has enacted a number of policies and practices that have produced streets where people come first. Getting around and simply experiencing the city is a pleasure. How did they do it? In a 1996 city […]
Recently I had a quick exchange with a visiting cyclist who was pleasantly amazed at the "extra" space afforded bikes in most NYC protected bike lanes. He was referring to the painted zone between parked cars and the actual "green" bike lane - amazingly it's not the first conversation I've had like that. And you know […]
Streetfilms is proud to partner with ITDP to bring you this fun animation that's sort of a cross between those catchy Schoolhouse Rock shorts and the credit sequence for a 1960s-style Saul Bass film. For too long cities tried to make parking a core feature of the urban fabric, only to discover that yielding to parking demand […]
Streetsblog's Angie Schmitt popularized the term "parking crater," and she explains it simply: A parking crater is "a depression in the middle of an urban area formed by the absence of buildings." Different types of "meteors" left behind parking craters in the 20th Century -- sprawl subsidies, the erosion of manufacturing, highway building. Whatever the cause, parking craters absolutely destroy sections of downtowns and make […]
During his decade long effort to understand and improve the streets of New York City, entrepreneur and livable streets advocate Mark Gorton has gathered together a compelling set of examples of how transportation policy impacts the quality of our daily lives.
In the tenth and final video in Streetfilms' Moving Beyond the Automobile series, we are talking about parking reform. From doing away with mandatory parking minimums, to charging the right price for curbside parking, to converting on-street parking spots into parklets and bike corrals, cities are latching onto exciting new ideas to make more room for people in our cities and repurpose the valuable public space that lines our streets.
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