Choreographer and filmmaker Gabri Christa commutes to work on her trusty Dutch bike from her home in Staten Island to her office in Rockefeller Center, and to rehearsals and performances all over the city. On her morning commute, she catches the free Staten Island Ferry, meets up with friends, and then hops on the Hudson River Greenway to 48th Street. When Gabri’s daughter was young, she used a child’s seat to ride with her around Staten Island. Gabri loves that riding her bike keeps her moving, free, and discovering NYC in new ways.

Streetfilms would like to thank our dedicated viewers for sponsoring this chapter in our My NYC Biking Story.

Brooklyn’s Kimberly White is just finishing her freshman year of college, and she took some time away from studying for exams and writing papers to star in the second installment of Streetfilms’ “My NYC Biking Story” series. Kimberly loves riding her red folding bike in Prospect Park, and she’s also got the skills to fix it. She helped start an internship program at Recycle-A-Bicycle and has used that experience to encourage others to get in the saddle. The keynote speaker at the first annual Youth Bike Summit, Kimberly is now pursuing a career in environmental justice.

What’s the most effective way to make city streets safer? As Chicago Alderman Mary Ann Smith told Streetfilms, “Signs don’t do the job, even having police officers on the corner does not do the job.” To prevent traffic injuries and deaths, you need to change how the street functions and make it feel slower for drivers. You need traffic calming.

Traffic calming takes many forms and can describe any measure taken to reduce traffic speeds, improve safety, and make using the street a better overall experience. The most effective traffic calming measures are those that influence drivers to “behave in a civilized manner,” as Smith put it.

Changes like curb extensions, neck-downs, and bike lanes are all traffic calmers that save lives by sending the signal for drivers to slow down. In this Streetfilm we highlight some exemplary traffic calming projects from cities across the country.

Streetfilms would like to thank The Fund for the Environment & Urban Life for making this series possible.

In the third episode of our Moving Beyond the Automobile series, Streetfilms takes a look at a more efficient way to use cars. Unlike owning a car, which involves a large upfront purchase and low costs per trip, car-sharing allows people to evaluate the full cost of each car trip. When car-share members choose whether to drive, take transit, walk, or bike, the incentives guide them toward the most appropriate mode for that specific trip. Driving half a mile to pick up some milk starts to make a lot less sense.

Zipcar, a leading car-share company, reports that members save $600 a month compared to the costs of owning an automobile. They also walk and bike 10 to 15 percent more than they did before joining Zipcar.

So while car-sharing isn’t exactly “beyond the automobile,” it is a great way to help cut traffic, reduce the space taken up by private cars, and make city streets more efficient.

This series is made possible by funding from the Fund for The Environment & Urban Life.

The first ever Youth Bike Summit brought bicycle advocates of all ages together last weekend in New York City. Organizations from Tucson to Boston participated in the three day summit, attending workshops, presentations, and finding inspiration in their peers. Event organizer and Executive Director of Recycle-A-Bicycle, Pasqualina Azzarello, said that she hopes this summit will be the first of many.

Pasqualina and organizer Helen Ho send the following report from the proceedings:

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More than 200 participants from 14 states and two countries came to New York this past weekend to swap ideas, learn bicycle advocacy best practices and build nationwide momentum in the country’s first-ever Youth Bike Summit, sponsored by Recycle-A-Bicycle.  The youth spent three days learning everything from map-making techniques to political organizing strategies, participating in roller races and developing an action plan to advance biking in NYC and places beyond.

To kick things off, DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan acknowledged the event’s female leaders by evoking Susan B. Anthony’s 1896 quote, “I think the bicycle has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”  She then introduced Kimberly White, an 18 year old intern at Recycle-A-Bicycle as the Summit’s keynote speaker.

Kimberly related her personal transformation from a 16-year-old couch potato watching 36 hours of television a week, whose 4-year-old sister had superior bike handling skills, to a comfortable cyclist who had built her very own bicycle. This led to an opportunity to attend the 2010 National Bike Summit, where Kimberly and other NYC delegates asked legislators to make biking and walking safer for kids.  She now seeks to empower other youth by urging legislators to keep streets safe for all young people in New York City.

In one workshop, Dr. Edward Fishkin, the director of medical services at Woodhull Hospital, spoke about his creation of a Kids Ride Club 15 years ago. From spring through fall, Dr. Fishkin leads weekly rides ford kids ages 7-19 with fun destinations and healthy lunches.  Their motto is “Have fun and ride safe.” Fishkin calculated that in the 2010 season the Kids Ride Club burned a collective total of 1.5 million calories on the rides. After a Health Department official shared somber information about rapidly increasing nationwide obesity and Type II Diabetes rates i.

On day three of the conference, all of the participants formulated a plan from the collected knowledge of the weekend: education and advocacy campaigns, infrastructure designs and diversity-boosting strategies.  They vowed to band together to research the issues, publicize their findings, and create change.  Clearly, this is a young group with a lot of energy.  Legislators and decision-makers, watch out!

To follow the progress of the youth bike advocacy movement, go to www.recycleabicycle.org, and for more information on how to get involved contact Pasqualina Azzarello, Executive Director of Recycle-A-Bicycle, at director[at]recycleabicycle[dot]org.

New York City has some of the slowest bus service in the country. The 9th annual Pokey and Shleppie Awards, given by NYPIRG’s Straphanger Campaign and Transportation Alternatives, shine a spotlight on this unfortunate fact by recognizing the slowest and most unreliable buses in the Big Apple. Tune in above to see which routes earn the not-so-prestigious award.

We won’t spoil the surprise by telling you the winner, but even despite speeds slower than walking, the slowest route in New York City carries 3.7 million passengers annually. The runner-up, the M14, carries 12 million riders a year. Higher speeds would not only help all those New Yorkers get to work or spend more time with their families, they’d also surely increase ridership.

That’s why the Straphangers are organizing support for Select Bus Service along Brooklyn’s Nostrand Avenue. The current limited bus service there, the B44, ranked as the fourth-slowest bus in the borough — not quite a Pokey Award winner, but a real contender. With innovations like off-board fare payment, dedicated bus lanes, and transit signal priority, the B44′s 13.3 million annual passengers could soon face a far faster ride. In the Bronx, Select Bus Service on Fordham Road improved bus speeds by 20 percent and ridership by 30 percent. In the first month of operation, Select Bus Service on First and Second Avenue cut trip times by 14 to 19 percent.

Up until this summer, speeding was the norm on Brooklyn’s Prospect Park West. With three wide lanes inviting motorists to hit the accelerator, it was a street monopolized by car traffic. That changed in a big way in June, when NYC DOT converted one vehicle lane to a two-way bikeway separated from traffic by the parking lane. Physically separated bike lanes are making New York safer for cyclists and pedestrians wherever they’re installed, and this one is no exception.

The new lane feels safe and comfortable to ride on, no matter how much experience you may have as a cyclist, and it’s attracting riders of all ages. For everyone walking to and from Prospect Park, the street re-design means slower cars — compliance with the speed limit is up by a factor of five, according to a study by Park Slope Neighbors — and safer crossings at intersections.

The transformation has been dramatic, and like any major change to the street, this one has attracted some vocal critics — most notably Borough President Marty Markowitz.  While some opponents contend that the lane has been installed without public input, the truth is that community groups have been calling for traffic calming and safer biking on this street for years. Watch and see how the new Prospect Park West has made good on those demands.

Last month, a group of New York City high school students traveled with transit advocates to Washington, D.C. With funding for student MetroCards at risk, they wanted to tell lawmakers about the vital importance of maintaining transit service and keeping it affordable. Watch this Streetfilm to see how they made the case for legislation to increase federal funding for transit.

You've been asking for more ways to get your Streetfilms fix, and now you've got 'em.

In addition to now posting all of our new films directly to YouTube, we've started podcasting on iTunes and Miro, making it easy to enjoy the latest and greatest from Streetfilms just about anywhere. Currently, our top 25 films are available for download and we're working on getting the entire Streetfilms collection up pronto.

In other exciting news, Streetfilms is Twittering away, keeping you up to date on where we are and what we're working on. Follow us and you'll get instant notification about our latest films and ways you can contribute.

And via Twitter, you'll also get instant access to our newest creation: "Streetfilms Shorties." These are little fun bits of video -- sometimes just one shot, never longer than a minute -- we may have captured while out and about that doesn't yield a full traditional Streetfilm, but are intriguing. These shorts will only appear on our YouTube account and we'll immediately Tweet them. Wanna see our first stab? Check it out above.

Finally, we'll have some very exciting news in mid-October concerning the Streetfilms site as a whole. So stay tuned.

People all around New York City have been sighting the Zozo. So it's no surprise that a special guest showed up to help NYC DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan invite New Yorkers to enjoy Summer Streets 2009 (on August 8, 15, and 22).

Have you seen the Zozo?

Ever heard an anti-idling rap? Or Seen the "Funky Pollution Dance?" Tune in to this video to see what Livable Streets Education students are up to at MS 51 in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Thinking of riding your bike to Celebrate Brooklyn this summer but worried about finding a safe and reliable place to lock up? Look no further than the Celebrate Brooklyn Bike Zone, where friendly volunteers from Transportation Alternatives will take great care of your ride (for free!) while you enjoy the sights and sounds of the unbeatable summer lineup. Tonight: MGMT.

The Bike Zone is conveniently located just inside the 11th Street and Prospect Park West entrance, within steps of the bandshell. Check out this handy map [PDF] to scout your best route.

This spring, Livable Streets Education worked with teacher Tim Devaney at De La Salle Academy in Manhattan to bring real world issues into the classroom and the classroom into the real world. This after school program allowed students to explore, observe and interact with the streets and public spaces around their school, and provided firsthand lessons in science, sustainability, civics and language arts. Watch as they learn -- and teach -- on the subjects of street safety, street beautification and air quality.

Get in touch to bring Livable Streets Education to your school, public event or other venue suitable for livable streets learning.