Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Franklin's new OfficeMax will open May 4th

It's the grown-up's toy store.

See a street become sane and safe right before your eyes

This is just a great look at how streets CAN be once we start changing bad habits. Be sure to click the interactive graphic here (photo above is a screenshot).

It’s easy to forget that our streets are alterable. They weren’t set down by God on the eighth day; they were designed by human beings. Unfortunately, throughout the 20th century, most of the human beings designing our streets were traffic engineers. For the most part, they viewed the city from behind a windshield and saw the street as a problem to be solved for automobiles. The result is the American city that most of us know today: sprawling, traffic-choked, hostile to pedestrians and cyclists, dependent on a vast, never-ending flow of cheap oil, and deeply unsustainable.

(Via GOOD Magazine)

PARKS AND RECREATION: Looks like must-see TV. And seems pretty reality-based, frankly.

Council upholds 51st Street veto; stimulus application concentrates on different section

Is this any way to build roads? Designed for SPEED - with a path emerging from a public park directly onto to a blind curve?

You can't fault the NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) reflex that is present in the average person. It's just human nature. The starkness of that reflex can still be disconcerting; it was manifested at this past Tuesday's special Common Council meeting immediately following discussion of the controversial 51st street widening north of Rawson. The room virtually emptied once it became clear that the issue had been put to rest.

Next on the agenda: How to address 51st street in front of Franklin High School. The room emptied before that topic got underway.

It's not your backyard. Just your children.

Still, it was heartening to hear a common thread in citizen's comments (and then echoed by council members): Franklin needs to reassess its priorities and start making this city accessible to people rather than simply vehicles. Unfortunately, the stimulus application is limited to work on collector-level streets, and the collector-level streets here are already past redemption: wide and speed-inducing, there is no room for adding a proper, segregated bike and pedestrian lane without acquiring land, which also disallows a stimulus application. 

The feared and despised four-lane possibility on 51st north of Rawson was also disallowed, making the mayor's veto of that project moot. Nonetheless, there was a vote on sustaining the veto - - which two aldermen chose inexplicably to vote against.

Sometimes logic is left at the door of common council meetings.

Chosen instead for inclusion in the stimulus application is the stretch of 51st street in front of Franklin High School, site of many, many crashes and a tragic pedestrian fatality a few years back.

Sidewalks? Maybe.

More later, including further discussion of atrocities like the residential street pictured above .....

Council upholds 51st Street veto - FranklinNOW.

The march to part-time, zero benefits begins for employees of the vanquished

See what's coming?

That whole sick-leave idea is gonna look pretty good in the near future....

Wal-Mart renovating three stores for bigger grocery departments - JSOnline.

The ‘Walking School Bus’ program

Someone cut a ribbon, a stilt walker rallied the crowd and tiny feet powered up the first walking school bus in Kansas.

The program at Pawnee Elementary School in Overland Park, part of a national effort to encourage exercise and curb obesity, involves groups of students walking to and from school each day escorted by adult volunteer “bus drivers.”

Volunteer Jill Kelley was there Monday afternoon with her 9-year-old son, Max.

What’s not to like? she asked.

“It’s doing something good for his body,” she said, “and helping maintain the environment.”

Unfortunately, we can't do this in Franklin - - no sidewalks.

More kids walk to and from school, thanks to ‘Walking School Bus’ program - Kansas City Star.