Posts Tagged ‘city of phoenix’

July 09, 2013

Bike Share in Phoenix: This is going to be big!

by: James Gardner

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer James Gardner. Check out James’s new blog about health and the built environment called Healthy Cities International. The City of Phoenix recently announced its next (baby) step toward a sustainable future city: a bike share program, and has awarded a contract to a vendor, Cyclehop, LLC, for the bikes to be shared. Cyclehop’s website states that the bikes will be state-of-the-art, with an integrated GPS system, allowing each bike to be tracked, and the bicycles can be custom built for each bike share program. According to Colin Tetreault from the Mayor’s office, as early…

May 10, 2013

Dear City of Phoenix, this is Why You Should Invest in Bicycle Infrastructure

by: Robert Diehl

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Robert Diehl. Bob was born and raised in New York City. In college he published a literary magazine and produced performance art in the slowly re-filling area that came to be known as SoHo. His first 16 careerist years were spent in global finance and travel related services until he moved to Dallas with JCPenney. Warding off terminal boredom, a ‘when in Rome’ epiphany led to owning and breeding horses which brought him to the Valley of the Sun in 1990. He moved to a small horse ranch nestled in a desert landscape along…

October 04, 2012

Camelback East Village Planning Commission Almost Botches Recommendation for the Landmark Designation of the David Wright House

by: Will Novak

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Will Novak: On Tuesday night (Oct 2nd) the case to recommend a landmark status historic overlay on the beautiful David and Gladys Wright home in Arcadia went before the Camelback East Village Planning Committee. If you weren’t there, be sorry you missed it; for a moment I thought it would turn into WrestleMania XXIX. Before going into detail about what happened at the meeting, a bit of an overview of City processes is needed. As you probably know, the City is divided up into 15 “Villages” each with its own Village Planning Committee….

August 23, 2012

Why the Grand Avenue Rail Project is a Solution Multiplier

by: Kirby Hoyt

Tweet Today’s post is by contributing writer Kirby Hoyt: Historically, cities have been designed around their prevailing modes of transportation. When Phoenix was first conceived, there were two modes of transportation: the train (for long distance and shipping) and the horse-and-buggy (for local and hauling needs). The streets in Phoenix were designed in a grid that emanated from the railroad depot and ancillary buildings, kind of a play on the Law of the Indies. Within six years of the incorporation of Phoenix, the beginnings of an extensive streetcar system was put in place, with the first streetcar operating on six…

May 01, 2012

The Low Down on the City of Phoenix’s Plans for the Bicycle Boulevard and Extending the Central Avenue Road Diet

by: Kerry Wilcoxon

Tweet Today’s post is by City of Phoenix Traffic Engineer Kerry Wilcoxon giving us an update on plans for the Bicycle Boulevard and an extension of the Central Avenue Road Diet. Note that the extension of the Central Avenue Road Diet is still under evaluation, so if you are in favor of it, please contact your council person and express your support! Fillmore Bicycle Boulevard The Bicycle Boulevard is intended to provide an east west connection between Washington and I-10 from the Grand Canal to 15th Avenue. When completed this would allow bicyclists to travel from Tempe to Glendale through…

January 25, 2012

Is the City of Phoenix’s Polyanna Attitude Towards Sustainability Hurting Us?

by: Taz Loomans

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…

November 21, 2011

6 Things Cities Around the Country are Doing to Become Sustainable

by: Taz Loomans

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,…

September 21, 2011

Valley of the Sunflowers – Enlivening an Empty Lot in Phoenix

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet It’s one thing to complain about the empty lots that plague our city, but it’s a very different thing to actually DO something about it. That’s why I’m so impressed by the A.R.T.S. (Adaptive Reuse of Temporary Space) initiative which aims to activate vacant lots. A.R.T.S. is a project that was spearheaded last April by the Roosevelt CDC and its visionary leaders Cindy Dach and Kenny Barrett. The latest installation of A.R.T.S. is the Valley of the Sunflowers, a field of sunflowers on a 2-acre vacant lot in Downtown Phoenix. Not only will this field be startlingly beautiful in…

July 26, 2011

What’s Happening at Planning and Development at the City of Phoenix?

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of sitting down with the Director to Planning and Development at the City of Phoenix, Debra Stark. We talked about all the different things the department is doing to encourage reuse of existing buildings, promote energy efficiency and take away barriers of building for small businesses. Merger of Planning and Historic Preservation with Development Services: The merger of three different but related departments initially occurred because of City budget cuts but according to Debra, it’s proven to be great for collaboration and the streamlining of services. About a year and a…

June 16, 2011

Phoenix Mayor Candidate Wes Gullett on Cutting Costs and Why We Shouldn’t Expand the Light Rail

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet This Monday I interviewed Wes Gullett, who is running for Mayor of the City of Phoenix and is currently a partner at First Strategic, a strategic communications and public affairs company. This interview with Mr. Gullett is the fourth in my series of interviews with the major mayoral candidates. To get an in-depth view of where the different candidates stand on issues like public transit, historic preservation and further growth in Phoenix read the Blooming Rock interviews with Claude Mattox, Greg Stanton and Peggy Neely too. Note: If you’re not registered to vote yet, please do so now by…