Tempe's stunning new transportation hub - It's the way to go
Posted June 5, 2009 in Green Enterprise, Living Sustainably, Moving Beyond Oil, Solving Global Warming
When conjuring municipal exemplars of smart growth, Tempe, Arizona, is not the first place that usually comes to mind. But the city of Tempe and ValleyMetro, the transit authority that provides the region's spiffy new light rail system, have just created an amazing facility that in one place embodies the best of smart growth, green building, and sustainable transportation. The Tempe Transportation Center and the Metro light rail line opened to considerable fanfare in December.
Among the site's attributes, perhaps the "greenest" is its essential function as an intermodal transportation hub, connecting the downtown (and Arizona State University) light rail station with eleven bus lines, walkable downtown and university destinations (I can well imagine the congestion relief provided by the Center's proximity to Sun Devil Stadium), cycling routes, and a wonderful bike station that provides secure indoor storage, showers for bike commuters, and a bike repair shop. But it gets better: also on the site are a relaxing public plaza with shade (essential in Arizona), and a mixed-use building that is probably the state's greenest, on track to receive LEED-platinum certification (though certification has not been awarded yet).
The building's ground floor houses retail, a transit store, a security office, and the bike station. The second floor contains the city's transportation office, for-lease office space, and a community meeting room, and the third floor contains the transit system's operations center. There is a carshare station nearby as well, and even popular hiking trails that lead up to Hayden Butte, which overlooks Tempe; the architects took care to preserve sightlines from street level up to the Butte. The facility's architecture is strking.
The green building design features are many and are listed here. They include a graywater recycling system, recycled construction materials, a vegetated roof, energy efficiency measures and native landscaping, among others. The city estimates that the building will reduce energy use by 52 percent compared to conventional building and that attention to recycling and materials conservation reduced construction waste by 85 percent compared to conventional practice. One nice aspect that caught my attention is that, because the building is close to the Butte, hikers will be able to look down and view the vegetated roof (see photo); the views are pleasant in both directions.
For more information, this is a good place to start.
Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment. For more posts, see his blog's home page.
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Comments
Luke — Jun 5 2009 10:04 PM
At the end of the day, Phoenix and Las Vegas have to be the most unsustainable communities in the United States, so while this is a step in the right direction, how valid is it as a long term solution to national issues?
David — Jun 6 2009 12:40 AM
Luke's comment reflects an unfortunate stereotype about Phoenix.
First, it's a mistake to lump Phoenix and Las Vegas into the same category, especially with regard to water supply. Phoenix derives its water supply from myriad sources, with the most controversial source, the Colorado River, playing only a secondary role. Las Vegas, on the other hand, is heavily dependent on the Colorado, making its water supply more vulnerable.
Second, it's a mistake to think that desert cities are intrinsically less sustainable than coastal cities prone to hurricanes, prairie cities prone to tornadoes, riverbank cities prone to floods, fault-line cities prone to earthquakes, etc. All cities have challenges intrinsic to their locations. How we deal with those challenges in a sustainable manner is a testament to our ingenuity.
Finally, I'm not sure why this achievement for Tempe should not be a national example. The details might play out differently in other cities, maybe with less emphasis on shade and desert vegetation in other regions. Nevertheless, the idea of combining an intermodal transit hub with green design seems like a good model for planners everywhere to follow.
Kaid @ NRDC — Jun 7 2009 10:00 PM
Thanks for reading and commenting. I think David has it right, at least in his last paragraph. This is a great model for other communities to follow and, if they do, it will indeed make a significant contribution to solving nationally important issues.