Streetfilms: video proof of daylighting’s long history making NYC streets more livable

Since 2005 when I started making the videos which would eventually become Streetfilms, I have been on a constant look out for opportunities to enlighten the public to the next cool thing. What’s the newest in street design? What will make our streets safer?

When I first heard the term “daylighting” (essentially eliminating car parking at the corners of intersections so that drivers, pedestrians & bicyclists can see each other better) it made complete sense. I had lived in New York City among the chaos of its streets for 15 years at that point, and I certainly experienced and witnessed on a daily basis near misses by vehicles.

So I integrated daylighting into my work whenever possible, and became an early advocate and chronicler of the practice. Today I have at least 20 Streetfilms from over the years where daylighting is the starring or supporting character. The City just announced it plans to daylight 1,000 intersections annually, so this seems like the right time to look back at the history of daylighting in New York. I won’t include all my videos here, but I selected some favorites to give you a sense of the evolution, incarnations, and styles. Scroll to watch some great before and after footage of Third Avenue, peak-pandemic Open Restaurants, and more!

The above video with Carl Mahaney from Open Plans’ StreetopiaUWS is an excerpt from my newest Streetfilm on the recent transformation of Third Avenue. But below I have a 2008 film that, although a bit dated, is still a perfect explainer of daylighting and showcases my fondness for it. And I am even in it!

Concurrently, I was obsessing during every winter about how after heavy snowfalls you could observe tire tracks in snow demonstrating how vehicles don’t use the full capacity of overbuilt intersections. We coined that visual phenomena of nature’s tracing paper showing where you could extend sidewalks or make daylighting - “sneckdowns” (snow + neckdowns). And there were 100s joining in the fun posting their sneckdown photos from around the globe!

I promised the above would be the final entry in a trio of sneckdown Streetfilms, but later that Spring in 2017, the NYC DOT started doing more with implementing some intersections and so I went out on the streets and made some observations.

Here’s how during the pandemic, outdoor dining in many ways helped improve intersection visibility by naturally having tables and chairs at corners instead of car parking.

Or here is a phenomenal group bike tour of Hoboken & Jersey City during 2022’s Vision Zero Cities Conference where daylighting is plentiful. Note: it has now been six years since the City of Hoboken has had a single traffic death, due in part to their aggressive daylighting program!

And finally just two months ago, NYC DOT completed a retro-fit of the Berry Open Street in Williamsburg to make it permanent and introduce new elements to calm traffic and thwart thru traffic. A good portion of this film shows off the daylighting at the intersections which includes effective things to keep corners car-free using things like: bike parking, slabs of rock, planters, Citibike parking and more.

I hope you enjoyed my journey. It’s been a long one, but the last few months I’ve had a big smile on my face as communities ask for more daylighting on their streets. My city is starting to change and maybe all this work is finally paying off dividends. If we eventually get to universal daylighting there’s no doubt we will save lives.