Translate

Monday, August 26, 2013

Students with perfect attendance could receive reward - Action News 5 - Memphis, Tennessee

Car-Free Memphis Blogger,
David Fullerton

First and foremost, children in Shelby County need bike lanes with a fully supportive and well-guarded and highly safe infrastructure on each and every street and especially within ten minutes of every school zone! To illustrate, children need bike parking on the inside of our school buildings instead of on the outside in the open air. And to make that even better, our children need safe and secure restrooms everywhere and plenty of places to get bike parts and tools and to make bike repairs. And of course, car-free friendly planning designs, policies, and processes can help Shelby County citizens resolve all of these related issues and problems more successfully. In fact, after reading some of my noteworthy blog posts and checking out the most popular web links about car-free living, you will have a well-informed point of view concerning the matter; better able to speak your mind publicly and/or better able to write about car-free living across all your social networks. People will become impressed with you and your newfound competence. And, if you ever get lost and confused about what you are tying to say to people, do not worry yourself over it at all – just tell them that you know me and where they can find my blog CAR-FREE MEMPHIS. And remember, you are not alone because well over 6,000 like-minded people are reading my blogs and spreading the word with you. And if people need for us, too, we can always go together and tell them in person just how important a car-free friendly community is for our children and our environment.  



Students with perfect attendance could receive reward - Action News 5 - Memphis, Tennessee

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Prowling Around Town For Car-Free Citizens



MATA Board of Commissioners Meeting August 7th 2013, Joe Isgriss, The Bridge, Amtrak, Trolly Line, Downtown Memphis, Memphis Bus Riders Union, Memphis Center for Independent Living, Biking in Memphis, Car Free Cities, Car-Free, Carfree Community Design, Vance Avenue Collaborative, Walking in Memphis, Walk Bike Tennessee, World Car-Free Network, Zip Code 38126, 

Monday, August 5, 2013

Council members compose plan to avoid MATA cuts

Council members compose plan to avoid MATA cuts

The 2013 Economic Outlook for Memphis

The 2013 Economic Outlook for Memphis: EDGE

Saturday, August 3, 2013

Memphis Public Housing: A Rotting Tree In The Foote Homes

There are a number of dangerous trees rotting and falling apart on the property of Foote Homes Public Housing. And recently, one of these trees nearly fell over on two apartment units located at 632 and 634 Mississippi Boulevard. One resident has been catching this entire tree rotting action on video camera and also taking pictures whenever limbs have fallen from the tree in front of their own apartment at 632, apartment 109. This time, the resident was sitting near their window drinking morning coffee and watching several squirrels play in this tree. That is when the resident heard a loud crack and saw all those squirrels jump for their lives. Then right before the resident’s eyes, the tree began to split in half. Only a few strips of wood and bark were holding this tree together. The resident called the housing office’s emergency service number to have them send out someone to the apartment; because this time, the whole tree was going to fall onto the apartments any second. Then out the door this resident ran to warn all of the other residents of the danger. No one would budge to move out of their doors because this threat of the falling tree had happed to many times before for them to believe it. Public housing officials began showing up. And at first, public housing officials said that they might come back in a two days to take care of this whole problem. But finally, after all these years, housing officials realized that this tree was going to keep splitting and falling apart. They, too, were going to have to ask the residents to leave their apartments to go somewhere safer while housing officials blocked off the area. Then, public housing officials called Bean and Prince Contractor's, Inc. to rescue the apartments and the residents from an uncertain fate. It took Bean and Prince hardly any time to get out to the scene and start to work on this tree. The crew who were working on this massive tree took only three days to bring the entire tree down under emergency conditions. The crew was under immeasurable danger and pressure to perform the task without anyone getting hurt. The crew was truly brave, impressive, and professional to say the least, especially while having to work extremely fast and extremely careful. Within the first few hours most of the danger to the buildings was over with, as the weight of the tree was cut away one limb at the time. By late that afternoon, only the split trunk of this tree remained in the ground. In fact, residents were already allowed to return to his or her apartment. That is when the resident who witnessed this whole ordeal from the beginning realized the significance of this massive old shade tree and began to shoot some more video footage to preserve at least one last memory before the trunk was shredded into nothingness. Moreover, this same fate may happen to every neighborhood that is located in zip code 38126, including the Foote Homes; and all of which is touted as the poorest zip code in the Mid-South Region. That old rotting tree, perhaps hundreds of years old, is the source of many memories that represent the good, the bad, and the ugly; mostly the ugly. To illustrate, there has been nothing but stress, strife, and struggle in the zip code 28126, far more failures than successes: the failure of Memphis City Schools; lack of transportation due to cut backs at Memphis Area Transit Authority; the ongoing low wage jobs with few of no benefits; the part time jobs; the temporary jobs; the long-term unemployment; the food desserts; and all of the criminal activity caused by people who are only seeking to do the wrong thing simply because they seem to know nothing else to do. Yes - the end of this old tree represents sadness and sorrow, but it also represents a positive social change; perhaps a complete redesign of this whole entire community and the city becoming more car-free friendly, whereby the whole community can meet all of their essential needs within ten minutes of almost anyone's location. Now a city like this will relieve stress, strife, and struggle and it will bring every community together like never before. 



   
Foote Homes Public Housing


Photos Taken Summer of 2013























Photo's Taken Summer 2009