Author and disability mobility advocate, Anna Zivarts, headed to Tucson
Introducing Anna Zivarts! Anna is a low-vision mom, a nondriver, and author of When Driving Is Not an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency. She's a fierce advocate, passionate about bringing the voices of nondrivers to the planning and policy-making tables and has become a major leader in the national transportation advocacy space, launching the #WeekWithoutDriving challenge.
This month Anna will be make a special visit to Tucson, where she lived and was involved in our Complete Streets campaign as a volunteer advocate and videographer back in 2018. Join us for a special evening event as Anna shares stories, learning, and insights from her experience moving around cities as a nondriver.
Click below to RSVP or scroll down to our Events section for additional details. Copies of her book will be available for purchase during the event. We hope to see you!
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Farewell to Evren
If you've interacted with Living Streets Alliance over the past 11.5 years you've most likely had the pleasant experience of getting to know Evren Sönmez, our Director of Strategic Policy & Practice. She's been a core team member bringing joy, determination, and impact since almost the very beginning of LSA.
As you can imagine, it's with heavy heart that we share that Evren will soon be moving on, stepping into a new position with Tucson Housing and Community Development. Please join us in thanking Evren for the tremendous contributions she's made to further multi-modal transportation and vibrant streets in Tucson over the years. Click below for some of her reflections on her time spent with LSA and what the future holds.
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Welcome Prab and Ginette!
This fall we're delighted to welcome two new members to the LSA team. Meet Prabjit (Prab) Virdee, our new Open Streets Manager, and Ginette Gonzalez, our new Development & Communications Coordinator. Learn more about how they arrived at LSA and their aspirations for the future of Tucson's transportation landscape.
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Ice Cream Social
Free ice cream + Free bike repair
Thursday, September 5, 5 - 7 PM
El Parque de San Cosme
530 W Simpson St
Movie in the Park
Free food + Free bike repair
Saturday, September 7, 5:30 - 9 PM
David G. Herrera and Ramon Quiroz Park
600 W St Marys Rd
Movie screening ("Elemental") starts at 7:00 PM - Bring a picnic & a blanket or a chair and enjoy the evening!
The El Paso & Southwestern Greenway is a bicycle and pedestrian multi-use path which will eventually extend six miles, providing access to 26 parks, 10 schools, and two libraries. Some portions of the Greenway have already been constructed and the City of Tucson is currently working on the initial design of the section between Cushing St to St Marys Rd.
We'll be supporting the City with two family-friendly community engagement events in early September. If you walk, bike, roll, or live in the project area, join us to learn more about the proposed improvements and share your thoughts with the City of Tucson project team!
More info about the project is available at this link.
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Mobile Bike Repair
The following Mobile Bike Repair clinics are scheduled in partnership with area schools. If your family attends one of these schools, make sure to contact the front office to reserve your slot! We'll provide basic bicycle maintenance and youth bicycle helmets for FREE.
Thursday, September 12, 1:30 - 5:30 PM
Apollo Middle School
265 W Nebraska St (85706)
Wednesday, September 25, 4:30 - 6:30 PM
Los Amigos Elementary School
2200 E Drexel Rd (85706)
Saturday, October 5, 8:30 - 10:30 AM
Carmelin Park
433 W. 39th St (85713)
Monday, October 7, 4:00 - 6:00 PM
Pascua Yaqui Wellness Center
5305 Calle Torim (85757)
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Social Hour + Book Signing with Anna Zivarts
Friday, September 13, 7 - 8 PM
Historic Fourth Avenue Coalition Space
311 E 7th Street
Space is limited, RSVP required.
Register at bit.ly/AnnaZivarts
Join us in welcoming Anna back to Tucson!
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LSA Volunteer Night
Thursday, September 26, 5 - 7:30 PM
Living Streets Alliance office
439 N 6th Avenue, Suite 201
It's go time! We have Safe Routes to School baggies to stuff, merch to prep, and Cyclovia packing/sorting to do. Come help out! Pizza and good company will be provided. RSVP so we know how much to order!
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Save the Date:
Breakfast Ride with Campfire Cycling in support of LSA
Thursday, October 3, 7 - 8:30 AM
Himmel Park to Menlo Park
Bring utensils and an appetite for pancakes! More details here.
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Save the date:
"The Street Project" screening
Saturday, October 12, 6 PM
Main Gate Square Plaza (behind Caffe Luce)
943 E University Blvd
The Street Project is the story about humanity’s relationship to the streets and the global citizen-led fight to make communities safer.
Digging deep into the root causes of traffic violence, the filmmakers engage a diverse array of experts including street historian Peter Norton, city planner Jeff Speck, and urban design expert Mikael Colville-Andersen. These expert interviews are interwoven with the stories of real people working to make their communities safer.
Join us for a free outdoor screening as part of Film Fest Tucson. We'll have our Bike Valet set up, so ride on over!
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Show up for 6th Avenue Protected Bike Lane!
Do you bike bike on 6th Avenue north of Downtown? If you do, you may have found yourself feeling unsafe or at least uncomfortable with drivers whizzing by at speeds higher than the posted speed limit of 30 mph, and certainly much higher than how fast we think people should be traveling on this residential street. If you've felt this way, you're not alone. Our office is in the area, so many of us fairly regularly experience the less-than-ideal biking conditions on this stretch of 6th Ave.
In 2018, Tucson voters approved a ballot measure to change that: Meet the 6th Avenue Protected Bike Lane project. This project was intended to provide a bike lane that is separated by a curb from the adjacent travel lane thereby creating an "all ages and abilities" facility. And that was the plan up until the last 2018 Parks + Connections Bond Oversight Commission meeting where staff shared the City's intent to move forward with the protected bike lane project.
However, due to neighborhood concerns and opposition from some area residents, the project is coming before the Commission for further discussion where it will possibly get downgraded to a buffered bike lane. A buffered bike lane provides a painted strip between the bike lane and the adjacent travel lane as opposed to an actual physical separation.
And we all know that paint is not protection!
In fact, NACTO, which sets state-of-the-practice guidance for bikeway design recommends protected bike lanes for street that have the traffic speeds and volumes of 6th Avenue (>30 mph; 5-6K average daily traffic) to meet the "all ages and abilities" benchmark.
Projects like this come with trade-offs such as reduced on-street parking vs. safer and more comfortable biking infrastructure. And those trade-offs are a testament to who we are prioritizing. Remember how we together advocated for a Complete Streets policy back in 2019? Isn't it about time we start building streets for moms who are transporting their little ones on two wheels, children who are getting themselves to school or older adults who may be feeling more risk-averse?
So, if you care about the 6th Avenue Protected Bike Lane Project, we urge you to attend the upcoming Commission meeting and speak during the Call to the Audience. Share three minutes of your time, your opinions, and personal anecdotes if you have any!
When: Tuesday, September 10th at 5:30 p.m.
Where: In-person/virtual hybrid meeting, see agenda for details
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Take the #NationalWeekWithoutDriving Pledge
It's time! The second annual National Week Without Driving kicks off at the end of this month.
Last year was the inaugural National Week Without Driving! The Week Without Driving challenge was created by Disability Rights Washington so that policy makers, elected leaders and transportation professionals can begin to understand the barriers nondrivers experience in accessing their communities.
The challenge isn't about not using a car, rather it's to see what it's like to not be the one able to drive, to better understand what it’s like to try to navigate the community without the privilege of driving. Sign up now and make sure to share updated throughout the week of September 30 - October 6 on social media to amplify your experience.
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Check out PARK(ing) Day
Park(ing) day is a global, public, participatory project where people across the world temporarily repurpose curbside parking spaces and convert them into public parks and social spaces to advocate for safer, greener, and more equitable streets for people. It's a way to show just how much space parking takes up and to reimagine better, other uses for that same space. Make sure to stop by and check it out:
Friday, September 20th, All Day
On Congress Street, north of Mercardo San Agustin
(between Avenida Del Convento and Paseo de los Zanjeros)
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Stone Avenue upgrades are underway in downtown Tucson
Construction has begun in downtown Tucson that will connect major destinations like the Main Library, Jacome Plaza, the Pima County Courthouse and Public Service Building, the Fox Theatre, St Augustine Cathedral to nearby residential areas, several office complexes, shops, and restaurants.
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As cars and trucks get bigger and taller, lawmakers look to protect pedestrians
Americans' cars and trucks are getting bigger and taller over time. More vehicles on the roads in the US are now SUVs and pickup trucks, which seems unlikely to change any time soon. People on foot outside of these vehicles have a very slim chance of surviving a collision with them, and lawmakers are finally starting to do something about it.
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Our Overbuilt Road Network Costs Americans Trillions in Lost Housing Opportunities
America has poured enough asphalt to build its sprawling auto-centric road network to cover the entire nation of the Netherlands, according to a new study — and in the process sacrificed trillions of dollars worth of land that could have been put to better uses like housing.
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