Sustainable Action! Streetsblog Is Making a Feature Film

Making our communities less car dependent doesn’t just take great infrastructure and policy: it takes lasting cultural change. That’s why we’re excited to announce that we are making our first-ever feature film.

That’s right: after 20 years of breaking news and hard-hitting analysis about autonormativity in America, we are finally bringing our skills as storytellers to the big screen.

But we’re definitely not making a documentary.

No, we’re launching a full-blown narrative franchise to grab you by the throat and make you want to support the cause of the livable streets movement, using the most powerful tool in our arsenal: pure, uncut adrenaline.

The first episode in what we are sure will be a cinematic franchise will be directed by our own Clarence Eckerson, Jr. of Streetfilms.

“I’ve been proud to produce over 1,100 short-form documentaries and travel the world showcasing the power of the livable streets movement. But now, I’m ready to make our audience really feel that power — with a pulse-pounding, white-knuckle journey to the heart of the American transit system and the people who fight for it,” said Eckerson, who received a United Nations Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022. “It’s the honor of my life to be tapped for this important project.”

Pitched as an action-thriller for the sustainable streets set, our first film will follow the high-octane (yet low-emission) descent of mid-career cop Brendan O’Connell (noted subway enthusiast Sebastian Stan attached) into the gritty underbelly of one of America’s toughest street crews: daily bus commuters and the activists who fight for them.

Newly recruited for an elite undercover unit of transit ambassadors, O’Connell has just one job: to take down a ruthless cell of bank robbers who have turned the city’s rapid transit lanes into their own personal network of getaway routes, thanks to their kingpin and local bus driver, Donovan Trenetto (Ed Begley, Jr.; Vin Diesel was unavailable.)

But when O’Connell falls in love with a freeway-fighting, bike messenger badass who also happens to be Trenetto’s daughter (Begley’s real-life daughter, Hayden), will he stick to his mission to stop what have to be literally the slowest and easiest criminals to catch in history? Or will he put it all on the line and join the fight to stop a highway expansion that would increase car traffic and send local headways to the max?

Buckle up for intense, high-anxiety action (waiting for a bus that’s 40 minutes late) death-defying stunts (crossing a five-lane arterial to get to the stop), and blistering speeds of up to 30 miles per hour (at least if no one double-parks.)

In addition to that star-studded cast, Streetsblog editor Gersh Kuntzman will re-energize his storied playwriting career to pen the script.

“We were a little surprised in the pitch meeting to find out this action movie would also be a musical,” said Justin Che, president of Universal Pictures. “Kuntzman’s patter song about politicians who don’t ride the subway was more than 20 minutes long, which frankly seems excessive, and he did not stop signing it even when we repeatedly asked him to stop. Also, the plot of this thing sort of sounds like a rip-off of ‘Point Break’ meets ‘Premium Rush’ meets ‘The Fast the Furious,’ but … bad? And they said they want to make at least nine of these things? We respectfully decline to provide financing at this time.”

Because Hollywood isn’t ready for our vision yet, we’re counting on you to make this happen. Join the crowd-funding campaign here, and throw your suggestions for the working title in the comments, as we’ve been told by legal that calling it “The Slow and the Serene” will probably get us sued.