Streetsblog San Francisco

I finally got around to seeing the Oscar-nominated “Silver Linings Playbook,” and it’s a charming film. It certainly deserves to be right up there with the top pictures of 2012. And as the film unspooled, I got a pleasant surprise: Neither of the main characters owns (or drives) a car.

Except for the opening scenes where Pat (Bradley Cooper) is driven home to a Philadelphia suburb after eight months in a mental health facility, Pat and Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) spend nearly the entire movie getting to know each other while on foot. Whether it’s on a date, walking home from a friend’s dinner party, going out for a run, walking to eat cereal at the local diner, or just arguing in the street, this film shows them moving as pedestrians and it’s very refreshing. You really sense that the characters need to be in this alfresco mode, and that talking while walking is therapeutic and healthy.

Of course, one could argue their carlessness plays up their mental health problems and that they are not fully integrated with “normal” society. So do the filmmakers want us to think that since both of them are going through emotionally tough times, they’re not stable enough to drive? Possibly.

But it also just might be that their constitutionals and interactions give these characters more depth and let us get closer to them. Unburdened by the automobile, they have time to sort things out, to communicate, and to let their minds breathe.

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SF editor’s note: Keep an eye out for San Francisco bicycle advocates and planners in this video.

The Green Lane Project is a partnership of six U.S. cities working to implement next-generation protected bike lanes on city streets.

This past fall, the Green Lane Project brought a couple dozen transportation planners from those cities together in New York City for hands-on workshops and face-to-face peer exchanges to see the work the NYC Department of Transportation has done with their innovative bike lane designs. We were able to tag along on some of the events and share some highlights of that trip.

The National Association of City Transportation Officials‘ 2012 Designing Cities Conference drew hundreds of city transportation officials from around the U.S. to New York City last fall to share ideas and learn about the latest innovations from places around the country.

As you’ll see, the conference featured some nice twists on the usual fare and included many great speakers, including U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and the Brookings Institution’s Bruce Katz. Among the headliners was NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who nicely encapsulated how some elected leaders are starting to approach transportation in their cities differently than their predecessors:

“Streets are there to transport people. They’re not there necessarily for cars they’re there to transport people – and there are lots of different ways of transporting people, and in fact one of the original ways was walking. So we’ve come full circle here – surprise, surprise.”

Also, if you haven’t already seen it, do not miss Streetfilms’ video of the NACTO commissioner’s panel, hosted by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. It is 52 minutes of fascinating dialogue between the transportation commissioners from five of America’s greatest cities.

Some 40,000 people flooded downtown Berkeley on a brilliantly sunny day in October, as the city became the latest in the San Francisco Bay Area to host a “Sunday Streets” event.  Organizers closed 17 blocks of Berkeley’s Shattuck Avenue to cars––and opened them to pretty much everything else. Cyclists pedaled, hula hoops turned, children frolicked, climbers scaled a mobile rock wall, and musicians inspired scores to break out in dance.  Families took leisurely strolls through streets transformed, while restaurants in North Berkeley’s “gourmet ghetto” turned a brisk business.  Residents surveyed a demonstration “parklet” that could soon see Berkeley parking spaces transformed into temporary green spaces, and the East Bay Bicycle Coalition showcased plans for a major upgrade to the city’s bicycle network at Hearst Avenue.

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 they introduced their downtown separated bike lanes. And since, cycling has become the fastest growing mode of transportation in Vancouver.

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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 bicycle conferences. The question driving the summit was: What do we need to do on a national level to get more gender equality in the bicycling world? Specific break-out topics in this year’s conference included family biking, equity, marketing, and participating in the political process.

The energy and connections built in this first national women’s bicycling summit will lead to more organized discussions on these topics in conferences to come. The goal: By 2025, 50 percent of U.S. cyclists will be women.

Nearly 1,000 transportation professionals, advocates and place-makers gathered in beautiful Long Beach, California for the Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference last week. Streetfilms caught up with attendees to find out what some of the hot topics were. Of course, we couldn’t talk to everyone, so let us know what we missed in the comments section.

Good news for mathematicians who love watching throngs of cyclists stream by: Portland, Oregon just became the first U.S. city to install a bicycle counter!

You’ll find the digital “bicycling barometer” on the AM inbound side of the Hawthorne Bridge. It was made possible by the non-profit group Cycle Oregon, which purchased the machine with a $20,000 grant. Lots of extra details are over at Bike Portland, including an in-depth look at how the system works.

Seattle is reportedly just about to install one as well. Which city or location in the U.S. should be next? Where would you put one?

For nine months now, Philadelphia’s awesome new public space “The Porch” has been flying under the nation’s livable streets radar.

Installed by 30th Street Station as part of a larger PennDOT undertaking, the project reclaimed asphalt from cars and devoted it to people. The Porch provides a great place to meet up, and it shows what American cities can achieve at major transit hubs when they strive to create great public spaces.

The planners of The Porch looked to New York City’s Times Square for inspiration, and there might be something for NYC to learn in return as the city considers transforming parts of Vanderbilt Avenue outside Grand Central Terminal into pedestrian spaces.