Clarence Eckerson Jr.
Clarence Eckerson Jr. is the Director of Video Production for NYCSR's StreetFilms and producer of bikeTV. He loves the color purple, chocolate chip cookies, and enjoys walking, biking, and taking transit. He has never owned a driver's license.
Recent Posts
Zurich: Where People Are Welcome and Cars Are Not
| | No Comments
When it comes to smart transportation options and city planning, Zurich can credibly claim to be the global champ. This Swiss city has enacted a number of policies and practices that have produced streets where people come first. Getting around and simply experiencing the city is a pleasure. How did they do it? In a 1996 city […]
Mayor Bill Peduto Wants to “Leapfrog” Your City on Bicycling and Livability
| | No Comments
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto is putting the rest of the United States on notice. His city is on the rise, and he fully intends to keep it that way. For the first time in over half a century, Pittsburgh is expecting an increase in residents as the number of people moving back to the city grows. Complete streets […]
”Bikelash!” The Streetfilm
| | No Comments
Six months ago, Dr. Doug Gordon and Dr. Aaron Naparstek charmed audiences at the 2014 National Bike Summit with a great routine called “Moving Beyond the Bikelash,” sharing what they’ve learned from the pushback to New York City’s bike network expansion. So last week, while at the Pro-Walk Pro-Bike Pro-Place conference, I thought it would be interesting to ask advocates from […]
Need to Add a Bike Lane to a Bridge? Experiment Like Pittsburgh Did
| | No Comments
The Pro Walk Pro Bike Pro Place 2014 conference took place this week in Pittsburgh. Even though the Andy Warhol Bridge already has a nice shared bike-ped path on it, for one week the city decided to put bike lanes on its roadway. It’s the simplest design you can imagine, just two rows of small traffic barriers and a little […]
Journey Around Copenhagen’s Latest Bicycle Innovations
| | No Comments
Copenhagen just keeps finding fun ways to make it easier and more convenient to bike. On a tour with Mikael Collville-Andersen, CEO of Copenhagenize Design Co, I was able to tour some new innovations that have been implemented since I was last in Copenhagen four years ago. First: If you’ve seen my Streetfilm from the VeloCity Conference 2010 […]
Buenos Aires: Building a People-Friendly City
| | No Comments
Buenos Aires is fast becoming one of the most admired cities in the world when it comes to reinventing streets and transportation. Just over a year ago, the city launched MetroBus BRT (constructed in less than seven months) on 9 de Julio Avenue, which may be the world’s widest street. The transformation of four general […]
William H. Whyte in His Own Words: “The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces”
| | No Comments
When I first got started making NYC bike advocacy and car-free streets videos back in the late-1990s on cable TV, I didn’t know who William “Holly” Whyte was or just how much influence his work and research had on New York City. A few years later I met Fred and Ethan Kent at Project for Public Spaces. I got a copy of […]
Parking: Searching for the Good Life in the City
| | No Comments
Streetfilms is proud to partner with ITDP to bring you this fun animation that’s sort of a cross between those catchy Schoolhouse Rock shorts and the credit sequence for a 1960s-style Saul Bass film. For too long cities tried to make parking a core feature of the urban fabric, only to discover that yielding to parking demand […]
Parking Craters: Scourge of American Downtowns
| | No Comments
Streetsblog’s Angie Schmitt popularized the term “parking crater,” defined simply as “a depression in the middle of an urban area formed by the absence of buildings.” Various types of “meteors” left behind parking craters in the 20th century — sprawl subsidies, highway building, the erosion of manufacturing. Whatever the cause, parking craters destroy sections of downtowns and make the environment inhospitable and […]
“The Better Block” Celebrates Four Years of Re-imagining Streets
| | No Comments
Streetfilms has wanted to profile Jason Roberts and the amazing work of The Better Block for a long time. So it felt like destiny when, a few weeks ago, we were able to sync up and chronicle the fourth anniversary of The Better Block in Oak Cliff, Texas. This temporary pedestrian plaza is right next to […]
Lakewood, Ohio: The Suburb Where Everyone Can Walk to School
| | No Comments
The inner Cleveland suburb of Lakewood (population 51,000) calls itself a “walking school district.” Lakewood has never had school buses in its history, and kids grow up walking and biking to school. Mornings and afternoons are a beehive of activity on streets near schools, as kids and parents walk to and from classrooms. You can feel […]
National Bike Summit 2014: United Spokes
| | No Comments
Usually I limit conference wrap-up videos to right around four minutes in length. But there were so many great (and funny!) moments at this year’s National Bike Summit, it was important to pack in all of the coverage we could grab. So sit back and enjoy many of the faces and fun that made this […]