Elizabeth Press
Recent Posts
Community-Based Bike Advocacy in Chinatown and the Lower East Side
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Local Spokes is a coalition of nine organizations that joined up to engage low-income residents, people of color, immigrants, and young people in the Lower East Side and Chinatown to envision the future of bicycling in their communities. To understand the transportation needs of the neighborhoods, Local Spokes conducted an extensive survey in 2010 and […]
How Complete Streets Came to East Harlem
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This is the story about how East Harlem residents and street safety advocates — with leadership from Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito — banded together to win complete streets on First and Second Avenues. After the city backtracked on a plan to build protected bike lanes and pedestrian refuges up to 125th Street on the East Side […]
Perfect Match: Metro Vancouver Melds Bikes and Transit
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Last month Streetfilms took a look at how Vancouver is making big strides toward becoming a safe bicycling city. As we learned while in town for the Velo-City 2012 conference, the city government is not alone — it has a great partner in the regional transportation agency, TransLink, which provides transit service for 22 regional municipalities, plus funding […]
Vancouver’s Velo Vision: Safe Biking for All Ages
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In June, the city of Vancouver hosted the Velo-City Global 2012 Conference, where international cycling planners, professionals and advocates convened. Streetfilms partnered with the city to produce this video about Vancouver’s investment in bicycling. Easy and convenient transportation is key to their status as one of the world’s most livable and sustainable cities. In 2010 […]
The Inaugural National Women’s Bicycling Summit
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The first National Women’s Bicycling Summit took place last week in Long Beach, California. It was tacked on to the Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference and drew some of the same participants, a bunch of new faces and whole lot of positive energy. This summit provided women cycling advocates the opportunity to talk about topics that aren’t often programmed into […]
My NYC Biking Story: Kevin Bolger, a.k.a. Squid
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Our “My NYC Biking Story” series is back in action this week with a profile of Kevin Bolger, a.k.a. Squid. For 20 years Squid has worked as a commercial cyclist. He has done cargo delivery and food delivery, and at one point he co-owned a messenger company. From his position as a fixture of the […]
Medellín: Colombia’s Sustainable Transport Capital
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For many who have heard of Medellín, Colombia, the name brings to mind the drug-related violence of the 1980s and 1990s, when it was often described as the most dangerous city in the world. Over the last decade, Medellín has worked hard to change its image. The local government is investing in education and social […]
From Minnesota to Mississippi, Telling Congress to Save Bike-Ped Programs
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For more than 20 years, federal funding for bike and pedestrian safety has enabled American cities and towns to invest in transportation projects that state DOTs would otherwise have overlooked. Thanks to these programs, communities have helped main streets thrive, provided kids with safer routes to school, and made biking an attractive transportation option. The […]
Translating the World’s Best Bikeway Designs
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The Netherlands is widely recognized for having the highest cycling rates in the world. What’s not so well known is that the Dutch don’t bike so much because cycling is in their DNA. They do it because after the country started down the path toward car dependence, they made a conscious decision to change course. […]
The “Cities for Cycling” Roadshow Rocks Chicago
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“Cities for Cycling” is a project of the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) to document, promote and implement the world’s best bicycle transportation practices in American cities. As part of the Cities for Cycling program, bikeway design experts take their show on the road, using the streets of different U.S. cities as their classroom […]
Making Streets Safer With On-Street Bike Parking
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The corner of Smith Street and Sackett Street in Brooklyn had a problem. Drivers approaching the intersection from Sackett couldn’t get a clear view of Smith because of the parked cars blocking their line of sight. Crashes kept happening and local residents started pushing for safety improvements. After experimenting with a few options, NYC DOT […]
Kinzie Street: The First of Many Protected Bike Lanes for Chicago
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In his campaign for mayor, Rahm Emanuel pledged to make Chicago a more bike-friendly city. And in office, he set his sights high, aiming to construct 100 miles of protected bike lanes in his first term. His team wasted no time. Chicago DOT installed the city’s first protected bike lane on Kinzie Street before Emanuel’s […]