Archive for January, 2012

January 30, 2012

Revitalizing America’s Worst Urban Park

by: Will Novak

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Will Novak: Since I’m stuck in Boston until the end of February I’ve been unable to participate in the current visioning processes for Hance Park. From what I’ve seen, the process is moving along rather rapidly, but so far I’ve yet to see a plan that fulfills the parks amazing potential. Below is a slide show I’ve created outlining what I think it will take to make Hance Park one of America’s great urban parks. It’s a big vision; it will take time and lots of money, but its better to dream big…

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Tweet Below is an article written by Phoenix’s sustainability officer about our city’s state of sustainability published in the Arizona Republic on Friday January 20, 2012: Greening of city hits stride – by Carolyn Bristo Phoenix led the way in sustainability decades before “green” was cool. Though the color brown is often associated with our desert region,”green” has saturated our policies for more than 30 years. In the 1960s, Phoenix developed rubberized asphalt made from recycled tires. We adopted water-conservation and energy-efficiency programs more than 30 years ago. Our alternative-fuel program is now one of the largest programs in the…

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January 18, 2012

A Letter to Light Rail Riders

by: Ryan Glass

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Ryan Glass: Dear Valued Rider, We realize our relationship has had its ups and downs this past two years, and since it’s the New Year, it feels like we should join in the spirit and shape some things up so that we can feel better about each other in 2012.  Therefore, we present our list of resolutions: Longer trains arriving more often. Yeah, it really sucks having to wait on the platform for so long just to get crammed into a one-car train. We admit we started this so that we could take…

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Tweet Andrew Ross’s book Bird on Fire: Lessons from the Least Sustainable City in the World is the talk of the town. And tomorrow night, it will be the subject of a panel discussion put together by the Downtown Voices Coalition called the State of Sustainability Forum. As I wrote in my article in the Atlantic Cities called In Defense of Phoenix, Ross’s book has raised a lot of ire in our city, whether it’s focused on the author himself who can conveniently go home to New York without offering any solutions after criticizing the place we hold dear in…

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January 11, 2012

Why the Central Avenue Road Diet is a Big Deal

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet New bike lanes are in on Central between Camelback and Bethany Home as part of the planned road diet for the area! I rode this newly slimmed down stretch of Central on Sunday with a group of bikers in celebration of this move towards making Phoenix a more bike-friendly place. Someone said to me on the ride, there are people in Arizona that don’t like bicyclists, that don’t think they should be on the road. And for too long, these people have had all the say in the transportation planning of our city.   the road diet is a…

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