"The Street Project" Is a Great Warmup for a Street Fight

Watch The Street Project trailer.

Created over four years, a one-hour film hitting screens and cable channels in North America this week makes a human rights case for safer streets while showing the historic roots of safe streets advocacy in the U.S. and the power of tactical urbanism.  

The Street Project, the latest documentary from Emmy Award winning filmmaker Jennifer Boyd is available for viewing on Amazon Prime and Apple TV. Advocacy groups are organizing around it nationwide. 

Problems and Solutions

In recent years, pedestrian and cyclist deaths have spiked. From the film’s press release: 

The National Safety Council reports that 1,260 bicyclists were killed in 2020, an increase of 16% from 2019 and an increase of 44% over the past 10 years. According to estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just released in May, cycling fatalities rose another 5% in 2021.

In an effort to explain why this is happening, the film begins with a brief survey of American urban history. Renowned walkability expert Jeff Speck quickly explains America’s historic shift to a suburban design model as a response to industrial stress. A succinct explanation follows of how zoning forces people to drive constantly by putting more distance between citizens and their desired destinations. The film also touches on the growing size of SUVs and faster driving speeds as significant factors in rising fatalities. 

Looking to History for Answers

But a big part of the problem, the film suggests, is ideological. The number one reason why streets have become dangerous is America stopped seeing them as shared public spaces. Drawing heavily on historic footage and insights from historian Peter Norton, the film recounts America’s decision to dedicate streets primarily to drivers, despite the pushback from dozens of grassroots activists who wanted to preserve them as public spaces. 

Historically, Norton explains, streets were shared spaces. Before cars and even for a while after they arrived, most people understood that the streets in cities and neighborhoods belonged to various users and that everyone had to figure out how to get along. Space was negotiated. No one had complete monopoly over the streets

This changed over the course of the 20th century, and the film suggests that the key to designing safe streets lies in recovering this historical understanding of streets as shared spaces and public goods. For the rest of the film, Boyd introduces us to various characters who embody what this recovery might look like. Taken together, these stories make clear the difficult work of advocacy, the obstacles one should expect, and the virtues necessary to make change happen.  

Footage from the film shows activists fighting for safer streets in the 1950s.

Stacey’s Story: Be Ready To Fight Over the Long Haul

In Phoenix, Arizona, viewers will meet Stacey Champion, a local Phoenician who has been fighting for 10 years to improve a deadly intersection near her home. Christina’s story shows not only the patience required to advocate for change, but the slowness with which cities are prone to respond. For many city leaders, improving safety simply isn’t a political priority and folks advocating for safer streets must be prepared to face an astonishing lack of political will.  

Stacey’s story also presents a powerful look at the kind of road design that’s so lethal. For several minutes, the viewer watches as Stacey, the film crew, and locals attempt to cross a busy intersection. Cars repeatedly run red lights. A city bus refuses to stop at a crosswalk and drivers yell at Stacey to get out of the street. The camera man almost gets run over by a driver who apparently doesn’t stop for humans in the street. These snapshots drive home the astonishing nonchalance with which some drivers hit the road and the need for better street design. 

Dulcie Canton riding her bike in Brooklyn.

Dulcie’s Story: Be Ready To Engage Systems, Legislation and Politicians

In Brooklyn, Boyd introduces us to Dulcie Canton, a native New Yorker and former advocate with Transportation Alternatives. Canton survived a hit-and-run when a driver accelerated behind her on a Brooklyn street one night. The impact threw her 3 to 4 feet in the air. Neighbors tried to stop the driver, but they sped away, leaving Canton nearly blacked out on the side of the road and neighbors wondering if she had died. After a year of recovery, Canton got back on her bike and became involved with Transportation Alternatives, eventually becoming the Brooklyn organizer. 

Canton’s story provides a perfect backdrop against which to introduce viewers to the historic precedent of safe streets advocacy. When cars were first introduced in the 1900s, Americans fought them, led mostly by mothers who were afraid for their children’s lives. Back then, citizens were pushing city leaders to take action and that bottom-up pattern remains the main way change happens today. Canton makes clear that effective advocacy is unavoidably linked with politics and the election cycle. Advocates would do well to keep this in mind. Effective advocacy will require building relationships, educating citizens, and engaging politicians, some of whom may be hostile. 

Jim Burke: Don’t Wait for Comprehensive Plans. Embrace Incremental, Tactical Solutions

While Canton works on the legislative side, often enduring 4–8 years of lobbying to see change, Jim Burke in Queens demonstrates the power of tactical urbanism. Taking advantage of a COVID-era “Open Streets” program, he organized locals to transform 34th Avenue into an open street (closed to cars, open to children). With just $20,000 raised from neighbors and the support of the DOT, the street transformed into a safe place for sitting, strolling, and playing in blow-up pools. 

Despite the sober context against which the city even remotely considered such a plan, the success of 34th Avenue remains an example of bottom-up solutions and the power of people-based design. It also demonstrates a powerful attitude toward streets that present-day advocates would do well to grasp. In the words of Jim Burke: “[We have to take the streets] back and give [them] to people who actually live here and not to people who are driving through here to go somewhere else.” 

A Few Critiques

All in all, Street Project is a succinct and inspiring introduction to the fight for safer streets and the power of good design. But as a former news reporter, I couldn’t help but notice a few aspects of this conversation that merited more in-depth, rigorous reporting. Here are five that stood out to me. 

First, while it was helpful to hear Jeff Speck share some helpful stats around socioeconomic transit inequities, the film could have benefited from more direct conversations with individuals in these demographics. Hearing in their own words how better transit would improve their lives would more effectively illustrate the value of better transit. This would have been a powerful reminder for advocates to invest time in hearing from the people they’re trying to help and to not rely too heavily on experts or academic studies. Sometimes the best insights can come from spending time with the single moms who are late to their medical appointments because buses are unreliable.  

Second, the film could have answered an important but under-discussed question: We know walkable and bike-friendly places are in great demand, so why are people still driving? Here, the filmmakers could have illustrated the power of commitment bias, the sunk-cost fallacy and the intoxicating power of car culture, not to mention the paradoxical reality that, until streets are safer, many consumers will be trapped in a state of cognitive dissonance, wanting to walk but repeatedly choosing driving because it feels safer. 

Third, while the film accurately suggests that Canton’s work involves legislative lobbying, it could have benefited from more rigorous reporting on the systemic obstacles such advocates face when advocating for safer streets, such as cities’ reliance on federal funding, the power of the automobile lobby, fear over losing economic development and the powerful influence of civil engineers.  

Fourth, as someone personally interested in America’s transition to car dominance, I felt that the film moved too quickly over a very complex history and inadequately highlighted the role that the federal government played in subsidizing certain patterns of design and modes of transit. This is important because it shapes what we believe is possible in the U.S. and the kinds of solutions we advocate for. While it’s helpful to see what’s happening in Copenhagen and Amsterdam, without understanding the strong influence of federal incentives and the way transit is financed in this country, advocates may find themselves frustrated at best and at worst, pushing for ill-fitting solutions. 

Not to say it isn’t helpful to see what’s being done in the Netherlands. During her stop in Copenhagen, Boyd introduces us to Mikael Coville-Anderson, a famous YouTuber and urban analyst, who echoes Boyd’s emphasis on the need for grassroots efforts. Yes, he concedes that the Netherlands are constantly touted as the archetype of mixed-modal transit, but it wasn’t for “fluffy” reasons. Bikes are simply more affordable and more effective at moving more people. Copenhagen’s bike lanes can move 6,000 people per hour in a bike lane compared to 1,300 per hour when people are driving in cars on the road.  

Lastly, let’s talk about money. The Strong Townsian in me was disappointed that the film didn’t look more closely at the financial constraints driving many cities’ unwillingness to make safe-streets investments. This is a uniquely American challenge and a huge reason why many cities may never embrace multi-modal transit. Here in Waco, Texas, as I’ve been getting more involved in the conversations around transit, it seems that everywhere I turn, money is a massive factor in the city’s ability to take action; safe streets advocates would do well to study the relationship between transit innovation and public finance. 

A Warm-Up Lap for a Long Fight

Despite these critiques, I still find Street Project an inspiring entry point to the conversation about our streets and what it will take to reclaim them as safe public spaces. But seeing that literal lives are on the line, I can’t help but crave more rigorous reporting. Such reporting would have done better justice to the serious nature of the situation. As I’m sure Stacey and Dulcie know, the streets out there aren’t friendly and you had better brace for a Street Fight, not just a Street Project.

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