Scottsdale City Council repeals ‘sustainability plan’
Jan 11, 2025 As noted by Bike Scottsdale: “The plan doesn’t just benefit our environment—it improves healthier streets for pedestrians and cyclists, cooler neighborhoods with tree canopy and shade, and better air quality for everyone. Repealing it would waste taxpayer dollars and undermine years of effort to build a vibrant, resilient future for all Scottsdale residents and visitors”
Jan 19, 2025 Scottsdale Progress:
New Council trashes ‘sustainability plan’
…After reading a long statement about the flaws in a plan he voted against in December, concluding with “our residents are smart and don’t need us to tell them the right things to do,” Graham made a motion to call the vote – essentially shutting down council debate… It passed, 4-3, again with Borowsky, McAllen and Whitehead against.
Blind guy wants a sidewalk
This is a section of 68th Street between Indian School Rd and Camelback. See the neighborhood group 68thstreetsidewalk.blog for more info.
April 2, 2025 AZ Central:
After years of fighting for it, a Scottsdale sidewalk has prompted an ethics charge. Here’s why
…The city had identified the project already in its 2008 Transportation Master Plan, so the council approved Back’s request, budgeting it as part of Scottsdale’s five-year infrastructure plan… Public outreach started in spring 2024, then design planning began. Construction was supposed to start this year…Public records provided by the city show Scottsdale budget officials claimed Councilman Barry Graham directed them to “pause” and “delay” the project’s funding — a violation of city rules.
April 16, 2025 Scottsdale Progress:
Ethics complaint against Graham continues; (Graham’s) “attorney’s terming an ethics complaint against Councilman Barry Graham as “frivolous” was not enough to convince Judge Kenneth Fields to drop the case…
…“Ms. Norton is a liberal Democrat political activist,” La Sota wrote. “Though Scottsdale Council elections are nonpartisan, it would not be lost on Ms. Norton that Councilman Graham is a conservative Republican.
And they don’t like roundabouts, either
Besides biking and providing sidewalks for people to walk on, apparently roundabouts are also political. Not clear why. Traffic circles, compared to signals, increase traffic flow, and mitigate intersection serious injuries for vehicle occupants by cutting down on conflict points; their impact on pedestrians and bicyclists is less clear.
Turmoil over N. Scottsdale roundabout …Since January, when four new members took office and shifted the council majority to a hard conservative-lean, Graham has been leading a charge to ditch the traffic circle.
This is despite the potential loss of $30million in federal funds (Graham’s hope is the funds can be “swapped” but there’s no guarantee).
I have mixed feelings about the sustainability plan. It seemed mostly aspirational, feel-good stuff. If the previous council who approved it really wanted sustainability, they shouldn’t have approved thousands of more apartments.
The sidewalk project, ironically, was mostly about creating more on-street parking for apartment developments who were allowed to skirt off-street parking requirements. With parking costing $10k/space (at least that was the number a few years ago), that burden-shift really helps the developers’ bottom lines. I’m not necessarily opposed to deleting an under-utilized lane. And with the new parking not yet being fully utilized, it’s probably a bit safer for cyclists (I rode down that segment this morning).
Further, it was a make-work project for which the construction was awarded without benefit of public bid, and paid for–in-part–with the mysterious “federal dollars,” which no one ever seems to realize are actually OUR dollars that went to Washington for a haircut.
Taxpayer money would have been better spent on the segment north of there, 68th Street from Camelback south to Indian School. The surface is atrocious, better suited to a gravel bike or full suspension mounting bike… and has been for YEARS. The bike lane is actually worse than the travel lane.
“[Roundabouts] impact on pedestrians and bicyclists is less clear.”
Scottsdale doesn’t give a flip about pedestrian and bicycle safety. Witness the roundabout at Miller and Osborn which my neighborhood fought, but unbeknownst to us, it was a done-deal ten years before we even knew it was planned. It violates federal guidelines which advise against roundabouts in areas of high pedestrian and bicycle traffic (like just down the street from Scottsdale Stadium), and explicitly recommends AGAINST mixing lanes… There are two westbound lanes, while other directions have only one.
I’ve already seen many close calls there, and had a few myself. Heck they’d barely picked up after the ribbon cutting before the first victim-driver did a Dukes of Hazzard by driving straight through it and landing upside down 50 yards down Miller. Granted, he was intoxicated and probably speeding, but would it have happened if there was a traffic light instead?