Posts Tagged ‘biking’

October 11, 2010

Biking Infrastructure as Sign of Modernity and Progress

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet “Bruges is a biking city” declared the woman at the information counter at the train station when we arrived from Brussels. I found out first hand that she wasn’t kidding. Biking is an integral part of the infrastructure in Bruges, which is a tiny city in Belgium that has gotten a few big things right. And one of those things is their bicycle culture. Right from the get go, when we walked out of the train station, I saw a sea of bicycles parked outside: The woman at the information counter would later tell me that locals bike to…

October 04, 2010

Learning from European Cities: An Introduction

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet It’s good to be back in the Valley of the Sun! I had a fantastic time in Europe and learned a great deal about how dense urban centers work. I’d like to share what I learned over the coming weeks on Mondays in my Learning from European Cities Series. It’s true that Phoenix will never be and shouldn’t be a reproduction of a European city. We have very unique characteristics here, as well as a completely different climate and landscape, land availability, and cultural differences among other factors. However, there are a few universal things that work well in…

September 28, 2010

An Inexpensive, Eco-Friendly Solution to Connect Areas not Served by the Light Rail

by: Tony Arranaga

Tweet Continuing this week of guest posts by top-notch Phoenix writers and thinkers, today’s post is by the Light Rail Blogger, Tony Arranaga. Since 1995, Tony has worked in television newsrooms around the country. Tony started his career on the assignment desk at the West Coast Bureau for ABC News in Los Angeles. He then spent several years covering politics in both Tampa and Washington, D.C. before landing in Phoenix where he helped ABC 15/KNXV-TV grow a morning show audience. Tony’s new passion is mass transit and alternative transportation. He is the publisher of Light Rail Blogger – which talks…

August 23, 2010

City Traffic Engineers Agree Phoenix is Not a Bike-Friendly Community

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet I had the pleasure of speaking with Kerry Wilcoxon, the Traffic Engineer in charge of Safety in Neighborhood Traffic and Joe Perez, the Bicycle Coordinator at the City of Phoenix a week and a half ago at Giant Coffee. I asked them why we don’t have the necessary bike infrastructure in place to make biking a viable mode of transportation in Phoenix and what the City is doing about it. In today’s post Kerry and Joe talk about how Phoenix was originally planned around the car and why although this is a very hard thing to change, there is…

August 17, 2010

Biking Leads to Leaner People and Leaner Cities

by: Willard Williams

Tweet Today’s post is by Willard Williams Jr. (aka Beau), who used to work with me at an architecture firm in Phoenix and who is now a designer for a residential architect in San Francisco. Beau has more than six years of hands on experience with complex design tools, such as Building Information Modeling (BIM), expertise he has applied to a number of projects. Beau is working towards completing his architectural licensing and one day owning his own firm. Beau rides on two wheels whenever he can. (Look for more on biking in Phoenix on an upcoming Blooming Rock interview…