Andrew Howard

How Jason Roberts Beat Cancer, Survived Divorce and Lived to Fight for Better Blocks

It was June, a few weeks after his long-shot run for Congress and his marriage both came to an end, and Jason Roberts couldn't shake the nagging weariness that had dogged him through the campaign. He felt constantly as if he'd just racked himself on his bike frame. It was an odd feeling for Roberts ... More >>

Coming (Slowly, As Usual) To An Oak Cliff Intersection Near You: The "People's Plaza"

Photo by Danny HurleyAt the very first Better Block, way back in April 2010. Will it also become the first to go permanent? Again, wait and see.​Way back last April, the energetic, civic-minded hipsters over at Better Block turned the area around King's Highway, W. 7th St. and N. Tyler St. in ... More >>

Above the Trinity River, Playing and Talking and Eating and Sitting on a Bridge Meant for Cars

​First there was a Better Block; then, a Better Boulevard; then, just yesterday, a Better Bridge. Of all the efforts to temporarily transform a piece of the city into something other than what it is, yesterday's brief installation atop the Cedar Crest Bridge, which connects Oak Cliff to South Dall ... More >>

And Now, the Sylvan Thirty Town Hall

Via.​We're still a good month away from the Sylvan Thirty development coming before the City Plan Commission, since, as we noted last month, it was pushed back to the October 6 agenda following Belmont's owner Monte Alexander's letter to the city insisting that "more time is needed to evaluate the ... More >>

A Better Ross Ave. and "Tactical Urbanism"

​At some point the conversation below, concerning the plan to create a so-called quick-win trail that would link Bishop Arts to the Katy Trail across the Trinity, took an odd swerve, with someone insisting that Jason Roberts, Andrew Howard and the rest of the Better Block-ers are trying to "kill t ... More >>

"Welcome to the Future of the City of Dallas." Though Ross Could Use a Few More Trees.

Photos by Leslie MinoraJason Roberts took a moment to celebrate the birth of his brainchild, Ross Avenue as a much-improved Better Boulevard.​Yesterday afternoon, the stretch of Ross from North Hawkins to Pavilion temporarily became a pedestrian oasis of sorts as cars slowed into a narrowed t ... More >>

Scenes From a Better Ross Avenue

​Tomorrow, we'll have much more from the Build a Better Boulevard event presently slowing traffic along a stretch of Ross near and into downtown; maybe I'll even let Leslie run the photo she took of me submerged into the dumpster swimming pool parked in Fellowship Church's lot at Ross and Central ... More >>

City: "Build a Better Boulevard" Challenge For Ross Avenue a Preview of Complete Streets

Via.Click to embiggen this sneak peek at what to expect along a stretch of Ross beginning in a few days​"Complete Streets" is a catchphrase that's been rolling 'round Dallas City Hall since at least October 2009, when the council's Transportation and Environment Committee was first introduced to t ... More >>

What Do a Better Ross Ave., Dallas Bike Plan & Complete Streets Have in Common? This Item.

​The photo you see above was taken and sent our way today by, who else, Jason Roberts, for whom I happened to have many questions. So, good timing. As always.First thing's first: That's Three Sheets's double-decker, which will be rolled out at the end of the month as part of that Better Boulevard ... More >>

A Trailer Park Shopping Area? Coming Soon. Local Craftsman Helps "Make It Happen."

Photos by Leslie MinoraGary Buckner sits on the filing cabinet of the Airstream he refurbished as an office.​Old trailers fill the lot in front of Gary Buckner's West Dallas workshop. Two are almost completely gutted and ready for refurbishing, and one silver Airstream is nearly ready for the move ... More >>

The Eating Plaza: Positive Portents

​The folksy tunes of The Dallas Family Band moved through the air as the large musical group wound its way through a crowded, vibrant City Hall Plaza, usually a barren, human-repelling concrete landscape interrupted by abstract sculpture and, occasionally, scrawny trees. The mass of people was ... More >>

In Front of Dallas City Hall, Grabbing a Bite on The Living Plaza. "And It Only Took 30 Years."

Council member Jerry Allen tosses a Frisbee to Trinity Trust President Gail Thomas on the City Hall Plaza today at noon.​I'd intended to spend, oh, maybe half an hour in front of Dallas City Hall today, where, decades after William H. Whyte first proposed the idea of making that expanse of concret ... More >>

In West Dallas, Where William Whyte's Vision of a Living City Hall Plaza Is Finally Coming to Life

Gary Buckner with one of the 10 or so chairs they're making out of old pallets for next week's Living Plaza in front of Dallas City Hall​My copy of William H. Whyte's 1988 book City: Rediscovering the Center arrived today, and right there, on Page 123, The Organization Man writes of his attempt to ... More >>

Jason Roberts's List of Dallas Ordinances He'd Like to See Tossed in the Trash This Year

​At the end of last month, Patrick Michels was at City Hall for that Complete Streets-Bike Plan-Better Block jam session, where Jason Roberts and Andrew Howard were greeted with "great acclaim" by council members no doubt eager to implement and then claim the pair's restorative ideas as their own. ... More >>

Limitless: One Pill Makes You Smarter in a One-Note Movie.

Council Due to Hop on Complete Streets for a Bike Plan Ride to a Better Block This Afternoon

Danny Hurley​Patrick's liveblogging this afternoon's meeting of the council's Transportation and Environment Committee, whose agenda reads like an Unfair Park greatest-hits: City of Dallas Complete Streets Initiative Update, 2011 Dallas Bike Plan and The Better Block Project. You might wanna peru ... More >>

Live from City Hall: Complete Streets, Bike Plans & Better Blocks. An Unfair Park Best-Of!

Theresa O'Donnell, director of Sustainable Development and Construction​Welcome to City Hall, where nothing seems to have changed too drastically since Mayor Dwaine Caraway took the reins over the weekend. Any doubts you might have had should be assuaged by item number one on this afternoon's agen ... More >>

Billy Joel Rocks a Better Block, or: How an Oak Cliff Experiment Is Turning Into a National Movement (and a Website and a Book!)

Billy Joel recently did a version of Oak Cliff's Better Block Project in his hometown of Oyster Bay​This afternoon I stumbled across this website: The Better Block: A Planning Tool for Urban Retrofit . Which, of course, refers to Jason Roberts's twice-executed Oak Cliff experiment in which the peo ... More >>

Oak Cliff Activists--Between Their Bikes And Gardens And Chickens And Goats--Seek To Redefine Their Community Without Destroying It

Taking Oak Cliff's "Better Block" to Atlanta and the Congress for the New Urbanism

It began as an art installation-slash-political statement at the clusterfudged intersection of Kings Highway, W. 7th Street and N. Tyler Street in Oak Cliff: the Better Block project, which thumbed its nose at Dallas's antiquated City Code. And it was a great deal of fun for all involved -- those wh ... More >>