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Posts tagged "Vision Zero"

StreetFilms Thursday, January 17, 2019
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Laura Goodfellow: Transit-Oriented Runner

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One way we can help save the planet and cut down on motor vehicle use is to think creatively about common car trips that seem to be "automatic" or thought of as a necessity. Seattle's Laura Goodfellow is certainly doing that.

So how do you keep the miles from getting monotonous when training for a marathon? Public transit! Laura has run 12 marathons, and the training never gets boring because she incorporates public transit--boats, buses, and trains--into her running to add variety and explore new places.

Throughout her travels by foot and transit, Laura, who has never owned a car, has witnessed firsthand how so many of our streets are dangerous for vulnerable users, and she hopes to recruit more runners to advocate for safer streets for pedestrians.

StreetFilms Monday, November 12, 2018
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Sunnyside Family Fun Bike Ride

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Following the installation of protected bike lanes in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Queens, neighbors decided to hold a family bike ride to celebrate. Over 60 folks and many children came out to ride a three mile circuit on a very cold, blustery November Sunday.

As you can see from the footage it was a huge success and brought out many riders who hadn't ridden a bike before!

StreetFilms Monday, August 6, 2018
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Barcelona’s Superblocks: Change the Grid, Change Your Neighborhood

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Two years ago, Barcelona announced it would transform chunks of its street grid to prioritize people over cars. The method: superblocks.

When American planners think of superblocks, they probably think of big parcels that disrupt the pedestrian network and discourage walking. Barcelona's superblocks are different. They only limit motor vehicle movement, which makes walking and biking easier and opens up streets for people to gather.

On Barcelona's superblocks, local access for motor vehicles is still permitted, but through traffic is not. The streets are designed to make drivers feel like they are visitors, with narrow rights-of-way for cars. Almost all car traffic is local residents or people with personal business on the block.

Without dangerous car traffic overrunning the streets, generating noise and pollution, superblocks are full of life. Children can play and explore. Seniors and people with limited mobility can relax and socialize. People -- including young kids -- can feel safe and confident riding bikes.

I visited Barcelona in June, when some of the initial, temporary superblock treatments were being made permanent in a nine-square-block section of the street grid with a lot of public housing in the Poblenou neighborhood. The drone of cars was gone, and you could hear sounds you normally can't in the center of a city. Street life ebbed and flowed through the course of the day and the week.

Barcelona has not installed many superblocks yet. In fact, until recently Poblenou was the only one. A second superblock officially opened in Sant Antoni just days before my arrival, a project tied to the redesign of a public market.

More superblocks are on the way, according to Barcelona officials, with roughly a dozen others in the pipeline. It will be exciting to see this experiment continue to transform Barcelona and show the rest of the world what cities can do when they tame car traffic and put people first.

StreetFilms Monday, July 16, 2018
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Clusterf*ck on Varick Street: The Case for Congestion Pricing

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“If you’re looking for the place that shows the failure of New York City to have any sort of traffic management policy, this is the spot.”

That’s Doug Gordon, a.k.a. Brooklyn Spoke, who recently joined Streetfilms’ Clarence Eckerson Jr. in Lower Manhattan to document the lunacy at the intersection of Varick, Carmine, and Clarkson streets, where drivers converge to inch and honk their way toward the Holland Tunnel.

There’s a toll on the inbound Holland Tunnel, but driving outbound is free. The main distortion stems from the free rides across all the East River bridges, along the length of Manhattan, and the east-bound Verrazano Bridge.

Put it all together, and New York’s network of free roads and one-way tolls turns this neighborhood into a perpetual funnel for drivers who pay nothing to travel through the congested heart of the region. There are neighborhoods like it everywhere streets feed into free crossings into or out of the Manhattan core.

Says Doug: “This is what happens when you don’t charge people anything to drive through Manhattan.”

By putting a price on driving in the most crowded parts of the region, congestion pricing would thin out these car trips and divert a lot of this traffic to highways, where it belongs.

But after establishing his own panel to come up with a congestion pricing plan, Governor Cuomo chose not to put any muscle behind its recommendations this year. Assembly members like Lower Manhattan’s Deborah Glick, who represents this area, continued to sit on the fence as their constituents suffer from crushing gridlock.

Thanks to do-nothing state electeds, New Yorkers who drive and the car-free majority both continue to be subjected to chaotic, dangerous, stressful conditions like the clusterfuck on Varick Street.

StreetFilms Friday, April 20, 2018
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Case for Car-Free Central Park (2018 Re-edit)

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Back in Summer 2004, I made a great film with Transportation Alternatives, one that kinda helped launch my career into Streetfilms. It was called "The Case for a Car-Free Central Park" and featured footage from dozens of leaders, advocates and park users calling for a Central Park. It was 20 minutes long. See it here in its entirety, it is certainly an important archive.

Since today is the historic announcement by Mayor Bill de Blasio of a - finally - fully car-free Central Park, I thought I'd go back to the film and do a 3 minute recut and let one man get a lot of credit who deserves it: Ken Coughlin the chair, energy and momentum of the Transportation Alternatives Car-Free Central Park movement for over a decade who gathered thousands of signatures and helped make this happen! And allow him, using his own words back then along with a few specially placed current day montages, to prove he was always right - that this would happen one day.

He said in our 2004 film that regarding a car-free park, "I still believe it is right around the corner, and I believe in the city and eventually city officials will do what's right."

14 years later Ken they have. Thank you very much.

StreetFilms Friday, March 16, 2018
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Listen to these New Yorkers ideas of what we should do next for safe streets!

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As many of you know, here in New York City there was an overwhelming reaction to the horrible tragedy in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where two young children were killed by a red-light running driver. Numerous events held, including a large NYC March for Safe Streets, put together by Transportation Alternatives, Families for Safe Streets and many other community partners. Hundreds of people joined in an incredible show of emotion and anger, and there were many suggestions on what we need to do next as a city and state.

The clips here show five short revealing conversations I had with pairs of people and their ideas about what needs to come next. All of their relfections were smart, sobering and perfectly appropriate.

If you are Mayor de Blaiso, Governor Cuomo, NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Transportation Chair Ydanis Rodriguez, a council member on the city council or one of the thousands of community leaders out there, you should take a quick listen. I'd say implement all of what these people have to say.

In order to save our children and save all of us, it is a good start point.

Read more...

StreetFilms Tuesday, March 13, 2018
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Stop the Child Murder: Kids Lead the March for Safe Streets

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Last night hundreds of New Yorkers marched in Brooklyn for safer streets. In the lead were kids, mourning the loss of other kids — 13-year-old Kevin Flores, 4-year-old Abigail Blumenstein, and 20-month old Joshua Lew were killed by motorists in the first three months of 2018.

In this Streetfilm by Clarence Eckerson Jr., Families for Safe Streets member Amy Cohen — who lost her son Sammy when a driver struck him in 2013 — likens yesterday’s march to the Dutch movement to stop the killing of children with automobiles the 1970s, which led to dramatic and sustained decreases in traffic deaths.

We can reshape our streets and our laws to protect children’s lives too. As you can see in the video, New Yorkers are ready for bold action to prioritize people over cars.

At Monday’s event, city leaders including Council Speaker Corey Johnson pledged to do what it takes to prevent further loss of life on NYC streets. To make good on that commitment, they’ll have to reform a system where even the most basic safety improvements are subject to the whims of people whose top priority is preserving curbside parking.

StreetFilms Thursday, March 8, 2018
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After Another Tragedy, Park Slope Residents Demand Safe Streets

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Over 100 New Yorkers turned out this morning for an impromptu rally to demand that Mayor de Blasio take action to rein in reckless driving on Ninth Street in Park Slope, where yesterday a motorist ran a red light, killed two small children and injured their mothers.

Organized by Doug Gordon, a.k.a. Brooklyn Spoke, the crowd gathered outside the Park Slope YMCA, where de Blasio works out most mornings. As Doug says, these folks are tired of excuses from DOT, which allots two lanes for parked cars on Ninth Street but says there isn’t room to designate space for bike lanes.

As you’ll see in the video, the protest got the mayor’s attention. Whether he’ll live up to his Vision Zero rhetoric remains to be seen.

StreetFilms Saturday, April 1, 2017
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Sneckdown Legitimized: Real World Applications from NYC Streets

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I just got sick of it.

Every time I post a new video on the sneckdown phenomenon, I get all sorts of comments, emails and tweets on social media that it will never work. That you can't justify the idea. That I should "stop hating on cars". That no matter how well done, the video showing sneckdowns 10 feet from the curb that have been there for weeks (that drivers are successful navigating) that they couldn't work. That we still need all the asphalt for video and that pedestrians are second class citizens.

Well thank goodness I had a camera with me as I walking around the city a few days ago! Since by chance I stumbled upon a number of installations the NYC Dept. of Transportation has placed at intersections that are exactly what we would like to see after sneckdown documentation.

Enjoy. I think this really visualizes how effective traffic calming can be.

StreetFilms Thursday, March 16, 2017
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#Sneckdowns Before and After: The Final Storm

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After a decade of documenting nature's traffic calming, I decided to go out to the snowy streets of Jackson Heights for one final Streetfilm about the craze we helped start: sneckdowns! There's a new wrinkle in this installment -- before-and-after images to show how dramatically the snow changes the dynamic of the street.

If you're new to sneckdowns, it's a portmanteau of "snow" and "neckdown" (a technical term for a corner sidewalk expansion). A nice snowfall constrains the area where motorists take turns and provides clear visual evidence of where street space can be repurposed for walking instead of driving, creating much safer intersections in the process.

Sneckdown spotting is now a global phenomenon. To get a sense of how it all started, you may want to check out the first two Streetfilms in the series:

And the rest is history -- which I recapped in this post from 2014.

StreetFilms Wednesday, May 11, 2016
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Worst Things About Drivers in New York City!

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A few days ago, amNY cobbled this truly cringeworthy list of "Worst Things About Bicyclists in New York City". The clickbait appears as if it was quickly culled together just moments before publishing deadline. Many of the items are illogical, and as usual (and they know it) serves to amplify the war on cycling.

But take a gander. Some of the things on their list are completely idiotic like: "Those who don't wear helmets", "Citi Bikes and tourists" and "Spandex". Yes, those are actually three of them. There's even one: "They have no fear" featuring a rider riding up an avenue in what looks like about five inches of snow!

I can only give them support for "They ride on the sidewalk", yes we certainly shouldn't. And also "They go too fast in the park", which I would qualify as times when parks are heavily-populated on weekends/holidays/etc in the afternoons. But if cyclists are trying to avoid crowds and ride respectfully, they have a right to get a workout in the park as much as anyone.

I've waited for amNY to do their journalistic due diligence and give us the opposite list regarding drivers. I suspect one isn't coming, so I came up with my own "list".

They Kill People

They Kill People

They Kill People

They Kill People

They Kill People Read more...

StreetFilms Friday, May 6, 2016
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Is this the worst bike lane in NYC?

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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, amongst my missions was documenting a whole bunch of street conditions that NYC DOT is actively working on improving. One of them is Jay Street in Brooklyn which has seen chronic double-car parking (and worse) forever. The amount of disregard for the bike lane is nearly unmatched anywhere else in New York City. Luckily, NYC DOT is working on a plan to install 5 foot, parking protected lanes on each side of the street, a conduit that sees over 2400 cyclists per weekday!!

I intended to sit on all of my "before" footage to use in future pieces, but I just couldn't believe how bad it was so I just posted this. In fact, I only had to spend ten minutes filming before I was confident I had enough. I had budgeted about an hour, but as you can see (especially the first shot) the immediate yield was very high.

On top of it all, NYPD loves to hand out cycling tickets up and down Jay Street. But how many tickets do they write for these drivers? I'm not sure, but something tells me close to none.

We sure could use a fleet of Peatonitos in action, like here a few months ago attempting to clear the lane of cars. Watch here:vimeo.com/158135821

StreetFilms Saturday, March 19, 2016
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Sneckdown: The Streetfilms Comic Strip!

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This year in NYC we had one giant #Blizzard2016 but little other snow to speak of.  The region as a whole has missed out on the train of traditional nor'easters that dump feet of snow on the D.C.-Baltimore-Philly-NYC-Boston megalopolis.  This year #sneckdown hunting was certainly down.

But we still wanted to get this fantastic comic strip on sneckdowns that my brother Gary put together out in front of the masses (and we'll probably be using it every season anyway!) It's a real unique way to have a little humor and educate the public on traffic calming and Vision Zero. In fact, we are hoping to raise a little bit of funding so we can do this on different transportation terms maybe monthly. So hopefully more to come. Enjoy and click the image below to embiggen.

sneckdown

StreetFilms Tuesday, March 8, 2016
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Peatónito in NYC: Protecting Pedestrians in the Crosswalk

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Peatónito ("little pedestrian") might be the most beloved figure in the world of street safety. How can you not love a superhero who protects pedestrians from cars?! Since donning the cape and luchador mask three years ago, he's become a media sensation in Mexico. This week he's in New York City for Transportation Alternatives' Vision Zero for Cities 2016 conference, and Streetfilms was lucky enough to squeeze in this exclusive whirlwind walking tour of Brooklyn and Queens streets showing him in action.

Jorge Canez, the man behind the mask, has been a pedestrian advocate in Mexico City for quite a while. He's been involved with many tactical urbanism-type of interventions, like painting crosswalks with his own spray can. As Peatónito, he's attained a new level of fame for gently scolding drivers, escorting pedestrians though dicey intersections, and pushing cars (or occasionally walking over the tops of cars) to make motorists more aware of their transgressions.

Come along for a fun short as Peatónito hits the intimidating streets near Brooklyn's Barclays Center, the constantly blocked bike lanes on Jay Street by MetroTech, and crosswalks in Jackson Heights, Queens, helping children walk to school.

StreetFilms Wednesday, January 27, 2016
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The Transformation of Queens Boulevard, Block By Block

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For many years, New York City's Queens Boulevard was known as the "Boulevard of Death." The street cuts through the heart of the Queens, expanding at some points to a chaotic 12 to 16 lanes of traffic -- which makes it extremely dangerous for human beings. From 2003 to 2013, 38 pedestrians and cyclists were killed and 450 suffered severe injuries.

Last year, the New York City DOT announced a $100 million dollar commitment from the de Blasio administration to humanize Queens Boulevard and make it safer, a flagship project in the city's Vision Zero initiative. Instead of waiting until the planned permanent reconstruction in 2018 to make any changes, DOT wanted to build in safety improvements immediately. After holding public workshops with communities along the corridor, 1.3 miles of Queens Boulevard have been redesigned, and the changes are already making a huge difference.

If you're an urban planner, transportation engineer, or advocate wondering just what can be done with what seems to be an irredeemably messed up street, then this is the Streetfilm for you. We got an exclusive tour of the changes with NYC DOT Deputy Commissioner Ryan Russo, going block-by-block over the creative solutions the DOT team implemented. Queens Boulevard is as complicated a roadway as there is: Nearly every block is different. To add a functional bike lane and pedestrian mall seemed highly unlikely. Yet here it is.

I'll admit, I'm especially excited about this project since I've lived near Queens Boulevard for years. I was skeptical when the announcement was made that I would see any truly life-altering change, and even if the city pulled it off, it would take years and years. But the installation has been swift and extremely well thought out. The service road is noticeably slower, narrower, and easier to navigate for people walking or biking. So much so that I was motivated to document the transformation with this Streetfilm, which I hope will be a learning tool that people can put to use in their communities. If you can put a good protected bike lane on Queens Boulevard, then just about any street in America should be in play.

In 2015, no one was killed on Queens Boulevard.

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