Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Phoenix

Drivers kill someone walking on Phoenix streets about every three days. But the city has been slow to respond. Photo: Chris English/Wikimedia

Phoenix Dithers on Traffic Safety While People Die

By Angie Schmitt | May 24, 2018 | 3 Comments

In a city where streets are dreadful for pedestrians, the victims of dangerous walking conditions are mostly poor people, and public officials aren't responsive to the risks they face.

Can Phoenix Be Shamed Into Protecting Pedestrians?

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 16, 2018 | 8 Comments

For years, the city's streets department delayed action on safer street design as hundreds of people lost their lives. Now advocates hope to force the agency's hand.

The new 50th Street Station on Washington Street in Phoenix was built specifically to meet the needs of people with disabilities. Rendering: Valley Metro

In Phoenix, a Light Rail Station Designed For, and By, People With Disabilities

By Angie Schmitt | Jan 5, 2018 | 3 Comments

In Phoenix, people with disabilities have an incredible resource called Ability360. Hundreds of people with a wide range of disabilities go to the Ability360 center on Washington Street each day for recreational activities like wheelchair lacrosse or adaptive climbing. They can get physical therapy, or connect with job training programs. But frustratingly, Ability360 always been just […]

Insane Comic Books Warn Phoenix Children That Biking Will Kill Them

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 21, 2016 | 54 Comments

Hey kids, the Phoenix Department of Street Transportation has a fun message for you: Riding your bike is likely to result in a gory horror scene. If you don’t wear your helmet, of course. That’s the gist of an over-the-top “bike safety” comic book that has alarmed parents of third and fourth graders in Phoenix. The comic shows […]

Using L.A. Traffic Counts to Justify Sprawl in the Arizona-Nevada Desert

By Phineas Baxandall and Jeff Inglis | Sep 24, 2014 | 22 Comments

A recent report by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group, “Highway Boondoggles: Wasted Money and America’s Transportation Future,” examines 11 of the most wasteful, least justifiable road projects underway in America right now. Here’s the latest installment in our series profiling the various bad decisions that funnel so much money to infrastructure that does no good. Arizona and Nevada have proposed a […]

Phoenix Light Rail Beats Projections, and the Mayor Wants More

By Angie Schmitt | Aug 14, 2014 | 6 Comments

Can Phoenix become a transit city? It’s looking like more and more of a possibility lately. Phoenix’s Metro light rail system is less than six years old but has already surpassed ridership projections for 2020. The system is carrying 48,000 passengers a day, or 22,000 more than initially projected, according to the Arizona Republic. Extensions of the system, […]

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