Happy 2026! Streetfilms Celebrates A Landmark 2025, Here Are Some Things You May Have Missed!
We had a great 2025! Notably, it was the 20th Anniversary of Streetfilms and that led to a number of cool moments. Including a really nice retrospective by John Surico in Hellgate of my career and getting interviewed by “Gridlock” Sam Schwartz at Hunter College following a screening of some of my recent great films that are influencing policy and driving conversation. More stuff coming in 2026!
Streetfilms now boasts nearly 1,150 films over that span. Each of the 20 years fans and experts are consulted to choose “The Streetfilm of the Year”. This year’s winner from London shows the incredible number of bicycles dominating all over London. The fun film did about 200k plays combined on Youtube and other social media sites. It was tough though - there were many other deserving choices too including: Ghent Kicked Out the Cars So You Can Walk, Bike, Live & Thrive in the City (Velo-City 2024) and also London's Church Street Removed the Traffic and Created a Walking, Biking & Transit Paradise! (LTN)
I’m gonna plug a few of my blog posts here as well you can click on. I had a phenomenal visit (as usual) to Montreal and the resulting summary with exclusive videos and photos Montreal Makes People Feel Welcome With Safe Streets, Happy Places & Green Spaces was the most popular page ever on the newly revamped Streetfilms site! This encapsulation of my trip to the NACTO conference in Washington, D.C. also got well circulated. But my personal highlight was seeing the innovative art of daylighting all over the city. It really boasts some of the best in the U.S.A.
Not everything was super-positive. As I inch closer to 60, my body has continued to be affected by the sands of time. I have numerous injuries that nag me due to the years and physical nature of shooting films & travel. (Not to mention hand tremors worsening and more.) But the worser news this year was/is dealing with yet another blood clot in my right leg and the looming replacement of my left shoulder.
But that also led to a shift in perspective and strategy: the 34th Avenue open street in Jackson Heights, Queens (where I live) celebrated its 5th year of fabulosity. So since I have to dial back my energy I decided to make a huge retrospective on it since it is an easy assignment. (Well an easy to get to one.) I have logged near 40 interviews in what may end up a 30 minute film - or longer - or might possibly even go feature length!
The history of the street conversion of 34th, the personal stories of passion for it and how it has changed the community is being explored. And while my left arm is in a sling for 6 weeks I’ll be editing away! Here are just a few of the friendly faces you will get to meet!
On the overall front though the Twitter/X universe on social media has been an on-going challenge, but Streetfilms has excelled on many of the others we are present. Notably on Bluesky where we are in the upper tier of follower numbers. We also frequently rack up bigtime on our Reddit account. And if you want to get away from the aggressive nature of most social media, you can keep in touch via the calmness of LinkedIn where our numbers continue to soar, now with about 3K followers and 1,500 connections. (Plus 400k views in the past year.!) We post often there and it’s a nice safe spot to learn with like-minded transportation & advocacy folks who aren’t hiding behind fake accounts or cranks with anti-better streets agendas.
Continuing to see NYC to progress towards wider bike lanes in Manhattan, an initiative Streetfilms was first pushing heavily during the early part of the Covid-era! This is 10th Ave, Manhattan.
And finally, you know it is funny that when the panorama function was first introduced on iphones and other devices in 2012, people went crazy posting their snaps for a few months. Then it stopped. You almost never see any on social media.
But I still often use it to demonstrate the grandness of space and how we can better use our streets. I am amazed more don’t. Here I present my Top 10 faves from 2025. Maybe this will encourage more in 2026. Enjoy!
From top to bottom: 1) 2025 “Happy NOON Year” celebration on 34th Ave Open Street, Queens, 2) Summer Waterfront Long Island City, NY, 3) Low Traffic Neighborhood, London, 4) D.C. Bus Only Lane with raised boarding platform, 5) Queens 34th Ave Open Street, School Halloween walk, 6) Ghent Graffiti Alleyway, 7) 31st Ave bike lane in Astoria nearly finished, 8) Horrible Cluster-F Parking on NYC’s 3rd Avenue - gotta go back and get current one which has a bike lane on it similar to photo 7!, 9) Fun NYC subway ride with son to Coney Island where we spent 10 stops alone on a subway car, 10) NYC’s Broadway near Union Square.
