Archive for November, 2011

November 30, 2011

Light Rail Tourism in Phoenix

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Ryan Glass. Recently one of my favorite Canadians was in town on vacation, and asked me for a few “local” places to go. Aside from making jokes about how could someone from the Frozen North possibly survive our crushing October heat, I was happy to share my love for the neighborhoods for Phoenix.  When I started giving directions, they told me they were using the Light Rail to get around on their first visit to our city, and I couldn’t help but pick their brain about how the experience went from an out-of-towner’s…

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November 28, 2011

A Car-Free Thanksgiving Weekend in Phoenix

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Thanksgiving is a nice day to get together with friends and family and celebrate everything that we’re thankful for. The three days after are great for shopping, recreating and running errands. But how do you do all that without a car? Paul and I found out. Thanksgiving Day We figured out a way to get to my parents’ house in Chandler, who live on Ray and Alma School, from Indian School and 11th Avenue. How did we do it? We planned our car-free trip with the combination of Valley Metro’s online Trip Planner and the Transit Book which is…

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November 23, 2011

The Guts of the Castaway House

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet I love it when the guts of a building are hanging out for all to see because it gives you an appreciation of all the systems that are in place to meet our HVAC, electrical and plumbing needs and not to mention all the work it takes to build a structure that is sound, water-proof, and air-tight where you want it to be. The Castaway House is at a stage where you can see all its guts hanging out, which presents an awesome opportunity to share what a house’s electrical and plumbing systems look like, as well as what…

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Tweet Two weeks ago I attended the National League of Cities 2011 Congress of Cities & Exposition at the Phoenix Convention Center. This was an event that brought together a variety of city officials from all over the country. It was a good opportunity to learn about the national trends and conversations, what’s important to various cities and the strategies they’re using to implement their vision. Sustainability was on the forefront of all the sessions I attended. It seemed as if cities were competing with one another on how sustainable they were becoming. I watched representatives from cities like Seattle,…

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Tweet Last week, Paul and I made a commitment to go car-free for a week, to test out what it would be like to get around the city without a car. On Monday, I posted Part I of the What I Learned from Living Without a Car for a Week in Phoenix series which reports on our experiences. Today I’m going to talk about the nitty gritty reality of going car-free. Paul normally takes the car to work. Last week he rode his bike to the bus stop and rode the bus to and from work. (He will be writing…

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Tweet Andrew Ross calls Phoenix the least sustainable city in the world. One of the big reasons is our sprawled-out, car-dependent, bike/ped unfriendly city planning that dates back to the post-war boom of the 50s and 60s. Sure it was an age of optimism (and really great Modern design) but it was an era that set our city up so that, even to this day, you MUST have a car to comfortably and reasonably get around. Since the post-war boom, there have been people who simply can’t afford to own a car and they have generally been facing an uphill…

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Tweet It’s car-free week on Blooming Rock! What does this mean? Besides two car-free-oriented blog posts (check out Eddie Jensen’s guest post if you missed it), Paul and I have committed to going from car-lite to car-free for the week. I’ll be reporting my findings, observations and lessons learned next week on Monday. Stay tuned! Recently my friend Nicole Underwood won this awesome New Belgium Fat Tire bike: All she had to do was trade her car in and create a two minute video of her story, both of which she did beautifully. Here’s her winning video entry: And here’s…

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November 07, 2011

Car-free in Phoenix? Impossible! (well, not really)

by: Eddie Jensen

Tweet Today’s post is by my friend and fellow central Phoenix advocate Edward Jensen. Having lived and learned in central Phoenix for the past decade, Edward Jensen is a midtown Phoenix resident and an advocate for alternative transportation. He is on the Downtown Voices Coalition’s Steering Committee where he works to advance bicycling and alternative transportation. A 2011 alumnus of ASU’s Downtown Phoenix campus, he is presently a technology and IT consultant for his new firm, Downtown Technology Company. His blog is edwardjensen.net, he is on Twitter at @edwardjensen and has a Facebook page at facebook.com/edwardjensenphx. Imagine not having a car in Phoenix. It…

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November 02, 2011

Energy Efficiency at the Core of Castaway House

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet It’s always exciting for an architect to see her plans coming to life, to see the lines she drew transformed into actual walls, trusses and floor slabs. And so you can imagine how excited I was to visit the Castaway House this morning and see it taking shape! I’m sure Cavin Costello, the project’s designer, feels much the same way and it’s exciting to be partnering with RC Green Builders in making the Castaway House into a reality. The 1000 square foot addition to the house is erected and all framed in, giving us an idea of what the…

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