While our primary focus is on bicycle tourism in rural communities, we also do a few other bike-related video projects with bike advocacy groups because we have a good understanding of the issues at stake. This video is the culmination of several months of interviewing the initial Green Lane Project cities for PeopleforBikes. We traveled to Memphis, Chicago and Austin to interview city officials, engineers and everyday riders to make a short and punchy piece that explains what a protected bike lane is, shows some of its success and provide an emotional hook. The goal was to provide the on the ground advocates a tool to show to their city leaders that can explain what they are asking for in a concise and compelling way.

Walking our talk, we traveled to all the shoot locations largely either by bike or transit. In Chicago we navigated in from the suburbs via commuter rail and bus, in Austin we borrowed an electric cargo bike from Austin B-Cycle, in Portland we used our bike trailer and in Memphis we took the bus from our motel and carpooled with the city Bike/Ped Coordinator. All our gear was condensed into a handful of bags that we had to be able to drag across airports and onto buses, trains and even bikes.

This shoot was easily one of the most challenging involving multiple cities, LOTS of plane hopping, navigating strange new transportation networks, as well as the challenge of threading a narrative from hours of interview footage. At the end of the day, we are pretty happy with video and hope it can serve as a tool for advocates and city officials. That said, the video wouldn’t have the breadth of imagery if it wasn’t for the Clarence at Streetfilms who have been documenting this stuff for years! So grab some popcorn and enjoy and share.