Streetfilms

With New York City recently scoring a bronze medal for urban bike-friendliness from the League of American Bicyclists, we figured it was a good time to post our 8 minute StreetFilm on Davis, California, where I visited this summer. Portland, Oregon is nipping at their heels, but Davis is still the only city in America yet to attain LAB's Platinum award.

For years, Livable Streets advocates have pleaded with New York City's Department of Transportation to just try new things. Do street design experiments using temporary materials. Give new ideas a shot. If an experiment doesn't work, take it down, redesign it, improve it or, heck, just restore it to how it used to be. What do we have to lose? If we don't start figuring out new ways to design and manage New York City's streets, all we're left with is a future of ever-increasing gridlock, pollution and honking.

Sarah Gallagher of the Upper Green Side introduces us to life on the neighborhood streets on the Manhattan side of the Queensboro bridge. Talking with store owners and others in the area, Streetfilms' Nick Whitaker learns that expensive rent isn't the only cost of doing business on the Upper East Side.

"Cyclists are so used to doing with scraps and they've been that way for so long that they are shocked when they get anything that satisfies their needs."