Life in the streets. Documenting the culture of intersections.
Street narratives, public service announcements, ideologies, and other stories from the asphalt.
Do you feel strongly about an intersection? Please share your street story!
Snap some photos or a quick video with your digital camera. Record an audio file, write a haiku, paint a picture.
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5 Years of Using a Bike as Transport
I realized tonight that my 5 year anniversary is coming up fairly soon. The anniversary of my starting to ride a bike again after abandoning it once I got a drivers license… and also had that regrettable infatuation with rollerblades, but let’s not talk about that :0)
However, being the geek that I am, I wanted to figure out *exactly* when I bought the bike, so that I could plan a celebration. I though I’d look back through old emails and track down when I first started writing to everyone about bike fun… and it worked! I found the exact email I wrote to a friend, saying “I bought a bike today! This town is so small and everything here (was living in Taos, New Mexico at the time) is so close together, I think I could ride my bike to rent movies and get groceries and commute to work. And gas is 2.40 a gallon, holy crap!”. Hard to believe that was once a revolutionary thought in my world. I suppose it didn’t hurt that I had co-workers who commuted by bike and even went so far as to encourage me to ride by giving me an old headlight and a used pair of gloves for that new bike. (Thanks Dave Maciolek!)
However, in that same email I also said “I looked on craigslist, but all of those used bike are so expensive. I could buy a new one at Wal-Mart for less money… it seems like a better deal to get a new bike for less than a used one!” Haha, oh my, I have learned so much since then… I was so wrapped up in car culture back then, not through any great attachment to it, but simply through force of habit. I’m happy to say that I’m now car free. And in the last few months I’ve spent $1,000 on parts for my Big Dummy, and the end is not yet in sight before I can actually start building it up. I’m glad I finally came around to the benefits of a quality, useful bike. Especially in relation to the cost of owning a car :0) I guess there’s hope for everyone.
- Joel Stitzlein
Video
BridgePedal, an annual tradition in Portland, closes many highways and other roads to allow bicyclists to enjoy these resources otherwise restricted to only automobiles. Imagine if all road users had such access to these very expensive assets, that provide public space, amazing views, and great routing for cyclists and pedestrians.
Video
When New York City opened up new pedestrian zones in the heart of Midtown this summer, naysayers predicted a traffic nightmare. Nearly two months later, we’re still waiting for the much-feared Carmaggedon.
In this video, Streetfilms funder Mark Gorton takes us on a tour of Broadway’s car-free squares and boulevard-style blocks, where conditions have improved dramatically for pedestrians, cyclists, and, yes, delivery truck drivers. As Mark says, the counterintuitive truth is that taking away space for cars can improve traffic while making the city safer and more enjoyable for everyone on foot. There are sound theories that help explain why this happens — concepts like traffic shrinkage and Braess’s paradox which are getting more and more attention thanks to projects like this one. While traffic statistics are still being collected by NYCDOT, there’s already a convincing argument that Midtown streets are functioning better than before: To understand it, just take a walk down Broadway.
Intersection 911 is a project of BOZZmedia
