5 Vital Streetfilms for Mayor-Elect Mamdani, his staff & supporters to watch about urbanism (And then use!)

Take a Tour of London’s Low Traffic Neighborhoods!

First off, congratulations to the new NYC mayor-elect and his team & volunteers. Having met Zohran on more than a few occasions it’s easy to feel his passion. He certainly wants a city that is better for pedestrians, bike riders & transit users. As an assembly person in the next district over from mine, he was very outspoken on the need for safer and protected bike lanes and we all know he wants to speed up buses (and make them free!) So while I know he has seen some Streetfilms in the past - and has possibly seen some of these - I just wanted to create a library of best-of inspiration for his future administration to devour in the next months. Here are our best ideas!

Our newest Streetfilm takes a look at London’s Low Traffic Neighborhoods - an idea NYC needs to start implementing in 2026. This video tour transmits the feeling of being inside an LTN and the eclectic treatments London utilizes that control vehicles from rampaging thru what should be safe space for families & residents. The comments on Youtube and LinkedIn are near unanimous.

School Streets in Paris sets the bar for NYC and everywhere else.

Zohran has already said he wants to start deploying school streets on a yearly basis. Good! We need that plan to be as ambitious as possible. They are certainly the right choice for protecting our youngest NYC denizens and besides serving as energy for schools to utilize for recess and events, they also serve as safe places for people to mingle and relax. I went to Paris a few years ago to document them which is - ahem - still the best film out there for learning about them. Watch it to see what they have done. Then NYC: Study. Implement. Repeat.

Daylighting Will Make NYC Intersections Safer. So let’s do it.

You may know that I’ve been making films on '“daylighting” for nearly my entire 20 years at Streetfillms. Yup, dozens! And a few years ago when Open Plans and other orgs started to amplify the signal that daylighting should be on every block, every intersection in NYC with the unique idea of getting community boards & elected officials to endorse the proposal en masse (23 community boards, representing over 3.1 million NYers, have passed daylighting resolutions) The push is working and in 2026 Mayor Mamdani should help usher the safety treatments as one of his first street achievements.

Montreal is all in on Open Streets all summer long, NYC needs more (plus an even more ambitious Summer Streets program!)

During the Pandemic, NYC had a fantastic growing number of open streets. Sadly, that number has diminished, have had funding cut or hours severely truncated. (For example, Brooklyn’s once great Vanderbilt Ave open street has gone from three to one day per week in the summer.)

Luckily all we need is to look to our neighbor to the north to see a large program, generously funded by the city and supported at the borough level in coordination with agencies, restaurants, merchants, volunteers and residents. Watch above and watch the inspiration.

Plus NYC DOT expanded Summer Streets yet again in 2025! And this was the best and longest incarnation yet. It was fun! However, having only three major dates a year still is not nearly enough. We need more Summer Streets for the people of NYC. At a minimum run them every Saturday in July and August (for starters)!

Utrecht deftly balances biking, walking & transit to make it one of the best cities on the planet. We should strive for their connectivity.

If I had the ability to council the Mamdani Administration go to visit one city as a group on a field trip (and maybe take the entire NYC council along) I would cajole them to go to Utrecht in The Netherlands. As many traveled urbanists can tell you the entire country is rather fabu but Utrecht is the quintessential achievement on all levels. The city is mostly quiet for having a population of 576,000. It is a beautiful blend of old and new. Things mesh well. It is easy to get around. And they are constantly improving and smartly adjusting their streets for all modes. For goodness sake they restored a freaking canal that once had  10 car lanes running thru it!

Utrecht wasn’t so visible on the global scale when I visited in 2019. I went because I started hearing so much about how great a city it was. After I debuted my film (the first Streetfilm to go over 2 million plays) I started hearing from others thanking me who visited Utrecht because of my vid. Then I started hearing more incredible emotional stories: people who MOVED there or attending university there after having going there for a long or multiple visits.