Prolific Streets Documentarian since the Late 1990s. All good things: biking, walking, transit, trains, open streets, green infra & watched "Xanadu" 14 times.
Don't have time to watch our 11 minute epic on Paris' School Streets?
Check out the express
@Streetfilms
version here and get the most important deets in just under 2!
@OpenPlans
@NYC_SafeStreets
@NYCMayor
Check out the original if you prefer HERE:
So let me get this straight: NYC is cracking down on $2.75 fare evasion (done by mostly young people & poor) but NOT do anything about NYPD officers & city workers who are purposefully altering their licenses plates so they can skip $10+ tolls & red light/speed camera tix?
Been watching Season 4 of “Westworld” which features a nearly car-free future NYC abounding with pedestrianized streets. (2 main characters even walked from lower Manhattan to Jersey over a landbridge)
This tracking shot over Broadway has just green & plazas! Good job HBO!
Just in case you were wondering what my neighborhood looks like on 34th Ave. A place some residents call a “Third World Country”, “armageddon” and a “fortress-style Berlin Wall” among hundreds of other insults.
Have teams. Crackdowns everyday at some random access point in NYC. Pull over every tenth car. Inspect.
1st offense: $500/fine.
2nd: $1K & car towed away.
No kid gloves. If you're deliberately doing this you are a criminal. NYPD, FDNY, cityworker, elected ➡️no exceptions. NONE!
Congestion pricing's success depends on toll collection — and experts warn that phony or defaced licensed plates could cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars.
Congestion Pricing: there are so many gloomdoomers out there crying once enacted no one (read: drivers) will come to NYC anymore. No Broadway plays, no Knicks basketball games, no cultural institution visits, no going to fancy diners, no concerts...
Give me a break.
@michaeljknowles
@Ocasio2018
I grew up in a rich town where everyone had super large homes. We had two small bedrooms for 5. Going clothes shopping meant being first at 9am at thrift store up the block. My dad had cancer. I had a paper route from 13-18 to help support family. Avg income/wealth is irrelevant.
All train hubs should be like Rotterdam Central.
Humans, transit, bikes, safety & experience should be prioritized over the automobile.
Contrast this with the experience around train stations in your city. How does yours hold up?
Want to pass 300+ cars in ~3 minutes by
#bikenyc
?
One certainly can do so almost anywhere in NYC at rush hour. But any day 6am-9pm bike the Queens Blvd approach to QBB. If this doesn't show how broken NYC is, I don't know what will.
I especially feel bad for the bus riders.
When you have a city friendly to people & bikes it allows a diverse group of riders to use the streets to shop, move & recreate.
⬇️⬇️⬇️Amsterdam ⬇️⬇️⬇️
Shooting tip: when you are overseas documenting the world's busiest bike path in Utrecht, try to find a spot above the fray to show folks just how amazing bike infra looks. At this intersection I spied a restaurant on 4th floor, asked for a window seat and started shooting!
Shooting tip: when you are overseas documenting the world's busiest bike path in Utrecht, try to find a spot above the fray to show folks just how amazing bike infra looks. At this intersection I spied a restaurant on 4th floor, asked for a window seat and started shooting!
I just don’t want to hear anymore cranking & complaining about allocating street spaces for bike lanes, street dining, bus lanes, bike share, loading zones, etc when we allow 100s of car dealerships to block sidewalks/crosswalks, 2x park, use ped space all day long!!
The amount of “bully honking” going on by drivers waiting behind another driver who is patiently waiting for pedestrians to cross in front of them in a crosswalk is reaching epic proportions.
The Seville Bike Story is nothing short of amazing! After installing 80kms of bike lanes in just 18 months, the city has gone from 0 to nearly 10% bike mode share, 35% of cyclists are women & allmost no one wears a helmet. Watch full
@Streetfilms
here:
2nd Ave was
#bikenyc
crazy. 6pm. I must have ridden in a pack of 20 in a block. Pulled over and decided to film the next bunch or riders.
We need wider bike lanes. We need Congestion Pricing. We need more transit. We don’t need more cars.
This is crazy. A good friend of mine and her 9 year old son had a green light to cross Mc Guinness Blvd around yesterday afternoon. Cars stop. But a truck comes racing towards them. She pulls her son back to the curb as the driver smashes thru bike racks crushing a
#bikenyc
! 1/3
Our wonderful look at Barcelona Superblocks has now crossed 38K plays in two days on all platforms. If you haven't seen it yet sample the first two minutes and if you want to continue to be blown away watch the full
@Streetfilms
at:
@vivianosaurus
I just explained this tweet to my dinosaur-loving seven year old. Then I said it came from someone named
@vivianosaurus
and he said, "You better follow her!"
Life on a Dutch Woonerf (Living Street): I was lucky to be invited by
@tochveel
to visit her playstreet in Utrecht where neighbors excitedly told
@Streetfilms
what daily life is like living on a low-traffic, low-speed street where children & families can play!
@Cycling_Embassy
Here’s 50+ vehicles parked illegally. Destroying green space (look how bald & dusty) and driving on
@NYCParks
property to park there (you’ll see one do so).
#bikenyc
@CMJulieWon
&
@NYPD108Pct
can we do ANYTHING about this? “No Parking” signs abound but all ignore. Tix & tow?
A MUST CLICK BELOW! This is the all-time winner for best
#sneckdown
tweet with graphics. Whomever did this is the greatest human being on the planet Earth!!
Avotu, Asara un Lienes ielas krustojums šobrīd ir bīstams gājējiem un grūti saprotams autovadītājiem, bet varētu būt Grīziņkalna apkaimes centrālais laukums. Sniegs ļoti uzskatāmi parāda, ka krustojums tiek izmantots neefektīvi, pārāk daudz telpas ir atdota transpotram.
Barcelona's Superblocks getting another round of coverage in safer streets world thanks to estimates they'd save 100s of lives & improve air quality if a network of them is deployed.
The best way to familiarize yourself? Watch our
@Streetfilms
in full:
#Rotterdam
has a FREAKING HEAT SENSOR FOR BIKES that keeps the traffic light green longer when there are large numbers of them moving thru an intersection. Check out this short excerpt from our longer
@Streetfilms
here:
@Ocasio2018
I grew up in a rich town where everyone had super large homes. We had two small bedrooms for 5. Going clothes shopping meant being first at 9am at thrift store up the block. My dad had cancer. I had a paper route from 13-18 to help support family. Avg income/wealth is irrelevant.
Survey of NYC Voters were asked: Which do you prefer more?
72% Livable streets that prioritize people’s needs and their safety
22% Streets that prioritize car traffic and parking
6% Didn't know/No opinion
Source: Data for Progress
This always makes me so sad in planning a trip NYC to DC.
Amtrak vs flying (Note: I can WALK to any LGA gate in 30 minutes from home, 5-8 minutes cab)
But it is not even the travel time, just the price!
I still can’t believe how upset a few are about the Bike Boulevard in Sunnyside. I mean it’s sooooo quiet. So safe for peds &
#bikenyc
. I think there will be tons of neighborhoods this Spring clamoring for this type of setup!
@NYC_DOT
@ydanis
@TransAlt
@bikenewyork
@juliej_won
Drivers ruin things. Illegal parking. Knocks over planter to park in curb extension. Leaves planter in crosswalk. (And car behind it is already illegally parked.)
Smooth
#bikenyc
sailing to Manhattan from Queens.
(And I do mean “sailing” as the winds at times were periodically substantial - but at least the 50mph predictions did not transpire.)
When the facade of your housing hides the ugly truth of too much parking!!
It almost looks like they built the housing around an existing ugly parking garage!
This used to have two-way traffic and parking on both sides.
Now it’s gorgeous instead. And peaceful. And quiet.
Shore Boulevard open street along Astoria Park. Queens.
Haha! Couldn’t have planned this random shot better if I paid them!!
@UPS
truck using one of
@NYC_DOT
neighborhood loading zones in Jax Heights. Just installed like 10 of them. Need many more but it’s a start! These two employees said the “love them, need more”!
@StreetsblogNYC
Fringe cranks who dislike everything about open streets claim traffic-calming, concrete blocks & planters are "hideous". They're like the "Berlin Wall", "abominations" & people will not even sit on them and they're only "inches from death".
Some of what I saw on an 8 block walk.
Here's The Netherland's busiest cycle route: Utrecht’s Vredenburg with over 33,000 cyclists per day!
I'm putting together 6
@Streetfilms
from my trip. I took about 2,000 shots. But I wanted to get a montage of this mesmerizing street up early, since I had so much footage!
My take: If we are gonna call them
#SummerStreets
in NYC, we should make them EVERY Saturday EVERY week ALL the weeks school is not in session. And in EVERY borough!
Check out the wonderful footage of people enjoying car-free streets. Each year it gets bigger & bigger.
My dream is now active! Flying home to LGA today on Air Canada and look what’s been activated since I left!
@CitiBikeNYC
home to Jackson Heights! Whoa! $0 with membership vs $20+ short cab ride!!
Here's a great segment talking about how Congestion Pricing in Stockholm became very popular with the public once they started seeing vehicle reduction and mass transit improvements. Same will happen here in NYC. The already good support from NYC residents will become stronger.
Ghent. This area re-opened 9 months ago as a canal after being filled in for parking lots a long time ago. Simply amazing! What life this street now has! You’ll see it on
@Streetfilms
in coming weeks!
You’d be able to document it about 3,148,791 times this morning in NYC: this monster car pulls thru a red just as our signal goes green and then parent has to wait thru light signal because it’s kinda scary to have to squeeze thru x-walk.
Part of the culture we’ve created.
Woeful
#bikenyc
trip on 59th Street from 6th Ave to QBB tonight. Started taping at Plaza Hotel.
I passed 200 cars, buses, trucks that were hardly moving.
The city is absolutely broken. This transportation system DOES! NOT! WORK!
Blocked crosswalks. Danger. Chaos. Gridlock.
Today we had to be in Long Island for a kid’s birthday party. We drove. This is basically what it looked like everywhere. Hostile to humans. It made me feel that there is probably little hope for the earth even if large metro areas get their shit together.
Every damn time I look at my friend
@georgehahn
follower numbers it has increased by like 20-30k in a month.
Thus please once again enjoy this fun clip of George showing us how to
#bikenyc
like a gentleman!
CLICK to SEE the full
@Streetfilms
here:
Okay, since
@GeorgeHahn
now has like over 30K+ more Twitter followers than he had when we first posted this it it time to post again:
How to Ride a Bike Like a Gentleman STARRING GEORGE HAHN!
CLICK to see the full video here:
I can’t believe I am writing this but…
For the 1st time ever in history of my
#bikenyc
riding, I took Northern Blvd sorta-protected bike lane to Broadway bike lane to 34th Ave lane to
@34_ave
open street and had NOT ONE CAR blocking ANY of them!
That’s 3+ MILES!!
@NYC_DOT
@woundedbear
@michaeljknowles
@Ocasio2018
In fact, if EVERYONE in your town averaged $1.2 million in wealth, there WOULD BE NO TOWN! There would be no restaurants. No services. No folks willing to take any job unless it paid insane amounts of $$$. It's just completely dopey to think a fact like this proves ANYTHING!
Another
@Streetfilms
on the way for Monday. Check for the tweet late Sunday night/early Monday am.
A hint? Amsterdam is removing 10K parking spaces out of its city center. We’ve seen what could be considered the first pilot & it will get you very jealous!
Okay for those of you new to
@Streetfilms
you may not know the funniest woman out there SNL's Kate McKinnon has been in 3 of our films! Here she is as the fictional Veronica Moss, A.U.T.O. lobbyist. She'll crack you up, I guarantee it!
Horrified by today's news of a 7 yo killed in Fort Greene. Many have have talked about the lack of daylighting being an issue.
Thanks to my nabe cranks complaining they should be able to park in daylighting spots, I had begun production on education why it's so vital days ago.
So Jersey City is 250,000 residents but built 10 miles of protected bike lane infra in just over a year. Covid didn't even stop their plans.
What does that equal in your city? How does that measure up?
See the full
@Streetfilms
HERE:
Our film on biking around Minneapolis is up! Here's a short clip from the ten minute epic, hearing about how in the past 10+ years they've shifted from painted lanes to true barrier-separated or sidewalk-level biking spaces.
Full
@Streetfilms
CLICK HERE:
Can we please "disperse" cars when they crowd the streets?
Seriously, why is there a problem with this or bikes or anything other than cars "overwhelming" the streets?
It's not like these people did this in the middle of rush hour.
This is lame.
Okay I can't get to everywhere, but this crosstown stretch of 20th Street in Manhattan is absolutely wonderful. Why can't every east-west route look like this? (Yeah, I know width...) but still two-way with some protected & bus islands is killer. Better crosstown lanes please!
Not only does an
#openstreet
change how a street works and its safety & beauty but also how it dramatically alters THE NOISE LEVELS OF CARS on a street, well you are in luck today: check out this remarkable 90 seconds!
Curb extensions ("daylighting") vs. none!
Took a
#bikenyc
jaunt to lunch in Forest Hills when I saw these 2 intersections a block apart. Thought might be useful to document for comparison.
Benefits:
-Slows turns
-More ped visibility
-Changes turning radius
-Removes parking
A
@Streetfilms
apology! Been teasing our Ghent films (15+ minutes) which are finished, but now holding their release until Jan 2, 2020. It's an amazing story that needs to have a proper posting.
However, to make it up I chose this 1 minute section as a teaser to get you excited!
If you want really successful, beautiful, used school streets like Paris, it's very important to consider design elements and how they are used in every roll out.
Listen to the experts in this excerpt from our
@Streetfilms
which essentially the only in-depth one on social media.
When I went to Paris to document the newest bike lanes I got to see many, but also couldn't resist a re-visit to look at the Rue de Rivoli which must be Paris' most shot by visitors. Here are the incredible before/afters.
To see the entire
@Streetfilms
:
Who knew??
Until I met
@derekkerton
I never knew what the "Paris Trombone" was!
It's a specially designed bike rack deployed just about everywhere in Paris! Hear more about the benefits...