Urban Cycling and the Fetish of Mobility

by: Kevin Kellogg

Tweet Today’s post is by architect/urban planner/thought leader Kevin Kellogg: Phoenix is a great town for mobility. Great swaths of asphalt beckon motorists and the great distances between destinations keep us on the road for a good portion of our lives. In another sense, mobility appears to welcome the hard working and the ingenious, as the relatively shallow roots of society indicate room for ascension and to improve our lot in life. Looking closer beyond the promise of this young city, it begs the question: is anyone really going anywhere? Or, does it matter? For all the focus on transportation…

January 26, 2011

How Phoenix became a City of Freeways and not Rail Transit

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Believe it or not Phoenix was one of the last major cities in the country to complete its freeway system. By the 1960s Phoenix still didn’t have many freeways other than the 1-17. Starting to learn lessons from other parts of the country, especially LA, many in Phoenix weren’t sure that adding freeways would be a good answer to our people-moving dilemma. “…by the later 1960s, people in many cities were beginning to see that near total reliance on the automobile for transportation imposed significant unanticipated costs. Many people now regretted the decisions to bulldoze older neighborhoods that resulted…