Elizabeth Press
Recent Posts
Guangzhou, China: Winning the Future With Bus Rapid Transit
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Guangzhou is one of the fastest growing cities in the world. The economic hub of China’s southern coast, it has undergone three decades of rapid modernization, and until recently the city’s streets were on a trajectory to get completely overrun by traffic congestion and pollution. But Guangzhou has started to change course. Last year the […]
Moving Beyond the Automobile: Highway Removal
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In this week’s episode of “Moving Beyond the Automobile,” Streetfilms takes you on a guided tour of past, present and future highway removal projects with John Norquist of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Some of the most well-known highway removals in America — like New York City’s West Side Highway and San Francisco’s Embarcadero […]
The Sixth Annual Memorial Ride and Walk
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On Sunday, the NYC Street Memorial Project held the 6th Annual Memorial Ride and Walk. According to the New York City Department of Transportation, 151 pedestrians and 18 bicyclists were killed on the streets of New York City in 2010. Participants called for stronger measures to reduce traffic fatalities. The ride culminated by installing a “Ghost […]
Moving Beyond the Automobile: Bus Rapid Transit
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Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) provides faster and more efficient service than an ordinary bus system. While a proper BRT route operates like a surface subway, the cost is much lower. In the latest installment of “Moving Beyond the Automobile,” Streetfilms explains the key features of bus rapid transit around the world and how BRT helps […]
Moving Beyond the Automobile: Bicycling
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In the second chapter of Streetfilms’ Moving Beyond the Automobile series, we’re taking a look at bicycling. The benefits of cycling are simple: It helps reduce congestion, meet sustainability goals, and improve public health. With Portland leading the way, many American cities have seen the share of people biking to work rise substantially in recent […]
A Winter Biking Primer From Chicago
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Brrrr! Don’t let the weather knock you out of your bike commuting routine. On a recent trip to Chicago, Streetfilms had the opportunity to go on a ride and get several helpful tips for making winter biking not only do-able, but enjoyable. So today, as temperatures sit near freezing and the wind howls in New […]
Chicago’s Bus Tracker: Taking the Guesswork Out of Waiting for the Bus
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One of the encouraging trends for American transit riders, in an otherwise bleak landscape of service cuts and fare hikes, is the growing number of agencies experimenting with ways to bring better information to their customers. Last summer Streetfilms explored how open transit data is helping to make riding the bus or the train more convenient in […]
Revisiting Donald Appleyard’s “Livable Streets”
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You may have wondered, while watching a Streetfilm or reading a post on Streetsblog, where we got the term “livable streets.” The answer can be found in the work of Donald Appleyard, a scholar who studied the neighborhood environment and the ways planning and design can make life better for city residents. In 1981, Appleyard […]
Select Bus Service Debuts on Manhattan’s East Side
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This weekend, Select Bus Service debuted on First and Second Avenues in Manhattan, bringing a package of improvements to speed trips on one of New York’s most-used bus routes. Buses on the M15 route were traveling at a snail-like clip of less than 6 mph before the introduction of SBS. Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette […]
Traffic Calming: Postcards from London
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Judging by recent comments from some local pols, you’d think the addition of pedestrian spaces and bikeways in New York City has somehow thrown our streets out of whack. But what would our streets look like if we really did balance everyone’s needs and made them safe and functional for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists? In […]
No Need for Speed: Twenty MPH Is Plenty for Us
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Earlier this month, the New York City Department of Transportation announced plans to experiment with 20 mph zones — replacing the city’s default 30 mph speed limit in one pilot neighborhood. Whoever gets the first 20 mph treatment will see benefits that residents of British cities and towns have become increasingly familiar with in recent […]
London’s Do-It-Yourself Approach to Safer Streets
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In the UK, the non-profit Sustrans is pioneering a community-based method to reclaim streets from high-speed traffic and make neighborhoods safer and more sociable places. Called "DIY Streets," the program brings neighbors together to help them redesign their streets in a way that puts people, safety, and streetlife first. So far, individual streets have benefited […]