By Mark Carlisle | YourValley
With the city of Phoenix’s efforts to make certain areas more walkable largely centered on light rail lines, those walkability efforts could extend more into the city’s west side with light rail’s planned line into the West Valley.
Mailén Pankiewicz, a principal planner in the Phoenix Street Transportation Department, presented to a city committee last week, displaying that Phoenix, like many U.S. cities, has been designed with cars, not pedestrians, primarily in mind.
“I hate to say this, but our zoning ordinance continues to be quite outdated for the uses of walkability and maybe less reliance on a vehicle,” Pankiewicz told the Environmental Quality and Sustainability Commission.
Pankiewicz said it would be a big change to revamp the design of the city’s roads, but in recent years Phoenix has focused pedestrian-friendly changes around light rail routes.
In 2015, Phoenix created the Walkable Urban Code that could be applied to transit-oriented development districts surrounding light rail lines. Those districts also applied to lines not yet built — the South Central line stretching into south Phoenix planned to be completed by 2024, and Interstate 10 West extension, which is in the design phase, planned for a 2030 completion.
