Elizabeth Press

Friday is National Bike to Work Day, and if you're looking for a little motivation to get on your bicycle, meet Lucette Gilbert. Lucette says she is in her "very late 70s" and biking since she was 7 years old. So, by my calculations, she has been riding a bike for some 70 years! She became a bike commuter in New York City during the 1980 transit strike and currently rides everywhere, including her daily trip to work from the Upper East Side to Union Square. Lucette's take on the state of bicycling in NYC: "People are not used to bicycles, but it's so heartwarming to see how many people are biking now."

To kick off Bike Month, Streetfilms is launching a new series today. "My NYC Biking Stories" will bring you short vignettes about people who ride in New York City. The subject of our first profile is Sarinya Srisakul, the city’s first female Asian-American firefighter. Sarinya is one of 31 women among FDNY's 11,000 uniformed officers and firefighters (comprising the largest fire department in the nation). She loves commuting on her bike from Elmhurst, Queens to work at Engine 5 in the East Village. Spend 90 seconds with her in our first bike month profile.

In the tenth and final video in Streetfilms' "Moving Beyond the Automobile" series, we are talking about parking reform. From doing away with mandatory parking minimums, to charging the right price for curbside parking, to converting on-street parking spots into parklets and bike corrals, cities are latching on to exciting new ideas to make more room for people and repurpose the valuable public space that lines our streets.

You might be shocked at how much traffic consists of drivers who have already arrived at their destination but find themselves cruising the streets, searching for an open parking spot. In some city neighborhoods, cruising makes up as much as 40 percent of all traffic. All this unnecessary traffic slows down buses, endangers cyclists and pedestrians, delays other motorists, and produces harmful emissions. The key to eliminating it is to get the price of parking right.

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 city made major strides to cut carbon emissions and reclaim space for people, launching new bus rapid transit and public bike sharing systems.

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.

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 Bike" in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall for the unnamed pedestrians and cyclists killed in 2010.?

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 shift people out of cars and taxis and onto buses.

In the second chapter of Streetfilms' Moving Beyond the Automobile series, we're taking a look at bicycling.

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 York City, we thought we would provide you with a little winter riding inspiration from our friends in the mid-west.