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Entries tagged: Video

If a picture says a thousand words, then a video must say a million. That why the folks at Active Transportation Alliance have produced a three-minute highlight reel of Open Streets on State Street, which opened up the heart of downtown to thousands of walkers and cyclists.

We can talk and talk about how open streets initiatives are a lot of fun and a great way to introduce people to biking and walking, but this video does a better job showing the excitement that took place during the initiative. Check it out!

It’s been a big week with Bike to Work events and news of legislative victories in a number of states, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busily uploading the latest research and exemplary materials from Alliance member organizations to the Resource Library. Here’s the latest…

• Transportation Alternatives in New York City put together a best practices guide for its innovative Play Streets initiative — which we wrote about on the People Powered Blog back in November.

• Lisa Quinn at Feet First got us psyched about her participation in our upcoming Mutual Aid Call on “Cultivating an Active, Involved Membership” by sharing these great videos about the group’s popular Walk and Talk events.

• We received in the mail (Hint: We love getting mail!) a sleek, eye-catching tip sheet from the East Bay Bicycle Coalition on “5 Easy Ways to Inspire your Employees to Bike To Work,” which the organization used in its mailing to potential business supporters and participants for its Bike to Work Day on May 12.

• Speaking of Bike to Work Day, the Santa Barbara Bicycle Coalition created an artsy postcard promoting its CycleMAYnia events, with a listing of events and link to a one-stop website for all the festivities.

• And another tool for Bike to Work Day: The League of American Bicyclists debuted a quick, convenient online tool that provides bicycle commuting statistics by city, based on data from the 2009 American Community Survey.

• Bike Pittsburgh also launched a fun, new tool — unveiling its Car Free Calculator, which allows cyclists to enter their miles traveled and keep track of their calories burned, dollars saved and carbon dioxide reduced. (p.s. Brought to you, in part, by funding from the Advocacy Advance grant program!)

• Brighid O’Keane, our Advocacy Advance Program Manager, put together a helpful overview that covers funding sources for bike/ped organizations, including grants, government funding, grassroots fundraising, and other resources.

• A (relatively) new study out of Oregon dispels some myths about active transportation in the suburbs.

• And another report finds that traffic crashes are more strongly correlated to the built environment itself rather than random driver error.

Blog contributed by Kate Hopkins

In San Francisco, 58 percent more people are biking today than just four years ago. The boom is largely thanks to new bike paths and events geared toward cycling.

One of the boldest efforts to boost biking in the Bay Area is the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s Connecting the City campaign, which envisions an extensive and practical network of safe and inviting bike routes across the metropolitan region. The goal by 2020 is 100 miles of bikeways that encourage residents to pedal to shop, work, and play, while preserving the city’s historic integrity and relieving traffic congestion and strained transit systems.

To advance that ambitious goal and build the movement for a connected city, SFBC launched a new website this month, which lays out the routes, tells how to volunteer or donate to the campaign, and highlights recent news and events. The site is accessible, user-friendly and offers visual renderings of the proposed lanes. The Coalition also created a short video — Stephanie’s Story — to give a snapshot of everyday use and grassroots demand for family-friendly bike infrastructure. Stephanie shares her family’s transportation needs, the ease and convenience of bike travel, and the innocent joy of a kid on a bike. She says that safer bike paths will allow her children to be more independent and her husband safer in his commute.

To make sure policymakers are aware of the grassroots demand, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition sent a letter to new Mayor Edwin Lee just a few days after he took office, welcoming him and asking for his support in Connecting the City. The letter has specific suggestions for new areas to develop, upkeep and repair of existing bikeways, and a concrete timeline for putting it all into practice.

Check out the routes that Connecting the City is working on here and keep up with the entire project here.

Photo from Connecting the City: Artist rendering of Market Street

According to the Toronto Coalition for Active Transportation (TCAT), “In May 2009, TCAT organized its second Bike Summit, a one-day bicycle policy conference. This popular event sold out in advance despite a bigger venue than for Bike Summit 2008. One of the goals beyond the event itself was to share more widely the knowledge and lessons learned with bicycle advocates, professionals, and elected officials unable to join us in Toronto.

To this end, we are pleased to release an easy-to-read and beautifully designed Summary Report of Bike Summit 2009. Thanks to Fred Sztabinski for putting the final touches on this report and getting it out the door. Printed copies are available for pick-up or mailing. If you’d like some copies to distribute, please email TCAT. An on-line PDF version of the report is also available to download here.
We are also happy to announce that:

• all of the videos from the Bike Summit have been uploaded to TCAT’s website by TCAT volunteer extraordinaire Mateen Mahboubi, AND  
• TCAT Steering Committee member Dylan Passmore compiled highlights from the day into a 18-minute edited video also now available on our website.

We hope you enjoy these new resources and find them useful.”

Alliance staff note: TCAT has done an amazing job of compiling the results from their 2009 Bike Summit at these links. Their website now hosts videos of presentations at the Summit for those who couldn’t make it or would like a recap. The Summary Report is also a beautiful document that highlights the success that has come from their Bike Summit and summaries of the topics and presentations covered. We highly recommend you check it out!