For what it's worth, Phoenix is investing in light rail:

http://www.valleymetro.org/schedules_and_maps/system_map/

I live in San Francisco currently, which is pretty well served by public transportation relatively, but I grew up in the burbs in west Houston, where car ownership is pretty much mandatory.

It was literally 3 miles to the nearest convenience store. It wasn't the countryside, just a really large grid of homes and streets.

It's really a suck way to live.

Too true: I tried to just walk around when I was in Tempe, but had to resort to shuttles for simple things.

Fuck Phoenix.

If you don't want to drive, maybe you shouldn't live in a place called "Goodyear."

This is why Atrios transit posts and Yglesias' Crusade against free parking, always annoy me. Does they have any idea what it's like out west in terms of mass transit?

Is Atrios honestly surprised that Phoenix has crappy public trans? And like Anon said, a city named Goodyear was meant for driving.

Or for taking Blimps.

However, in several outskirt areas of Vegas, what makes the hourly bus schedules worse, major intersection connections can be off by five minutes. So, dropping off one bus to pick up one in a different direction can mean a fifty five minute wait in similar very hot sun. Your only hope is that the connecting bus will be running late.

I had to take a research trip to Phoenix in the mid-1990s. Phoenix is designed for driving private autos. The city is basically a vast unrelieved grid, with wide (four lane) streets every half mile. If you lived midblock on one of these speedways, and had a friend directly across the road, you might have to walk a minimum of a half mile just to get safely across the street. At the time I was there it was 115 degrees, and believe me, there were few pedestrians. It is a city designed for cars that allows people to reside within its boundaries. It is hell.

The link of Phillie takes me to Boston.

And here in Scottsdale, (just east of the Phoenix town line), the politicians all campaign on the promise to keep public transportation away from the city. All support is for more and wider roads, but heaven forbid, keep the light rail away!

That being said, Scottsdale has a tremendous system of bike lanes and bike paths all up and down the city. For example, I can go from my house down to Tempe Town Lake, 17 miles south of here, and do it all by multi-use (walking and biking) path; there are only 4 places in the 17 miles where the path crosses roads at traffic lights; all other crossings are underpasses or bridges built specifically for the path.

Still, I want my light rail!

MNPundit:
Their point is that the west developed the way it did for a reason. If parking is subsidized people will be less willing to subsidize other things. If the true cost of parking is figured then the cost of mass transit seems more reasonable. Are parking lots taxed at the same rate as retail space?

So if gasoline ever goes over $5.00 a gallon and stays there, cities like Phoenix will wither and die.

It doesn't sound as if Phoenix is built in a way that would give it any hope of ever adapting to $6, $7, $8 a gallon gasoline.

There's a sunbelt city that has at least one actual bus? That's public transportation HEAVEN compared to what we have to deal with around here.

I'd KILL for a two-mile walk to ANYWHERE. Yes, I live out in the country but I'm no further from the nearest grocery or gas station (four miles) than the residents of most Central Kentucky suburban developments.

You wonder why there's no national demand for public transportation? It's because the vast majority of people in flyover country have no idea what public transportation is. If you don't have a car, you're housebound. Period.

In a 30-mile radius of my home, encompassing my workplace and the places I shop and find entertainment, there is no evidence that anything that could pass as "public transportation" ever existed.

Public transportation, green or otherwise, is never going to acquire a political constituency until and unless it expands out of the out-of-touch cities into the suburban and rural world.

Until then, it's a myth.

While I will agree with the general tone of the post, I would like to point out that there are some parts of Phoenix which are exceptions. I live in what I suppose would be N. Central Phx (12th St. and Northern, for those who know the city) and I :
Bike to work (5 miles each way, 90% of it on dedicated bike lanes.)
Bike to the local coffee shop and bookshop. (4miles and 3.5miles, respectively)
Walk to the grocery store, pizzeria, and various other stores. (

I think a good general rule is that the outer 'burbs (like Goodyear) and newer developments are pretty wretched for non-car people, but the older and more central parts aren't bad.

Disclaimer; I'm not any kind of great athlete - I'm in my mid-40's and only in average shape. The sun makes it bad in the summer, but I just drink a lot of water.

@flubber -- SF mass transit is a joke in some neighborhoods. Try living in the Outer Sunset. I could take the N-Judah down to the Inner Sunset to do carfree shopping if I wanted, but within walking distance there was exactly one bodega that sold little more than some old canned goods, booze, and snack foods.

Having lived all my life in Arizona, I much prefer the use of car or a pick=up truck. However, I do support public transportation, especially, the notional for a hi-speed super-train from Los Angeles to Phoenix, and where from Phoenix, you can go to El Paso, Albu-turkey, Denver, and even Salt Lake. And with Reid from Nevada, I would even encourage the 'spur' to Lost Wages, and thusly, partake of "faster horses, younger women, and older whiskey".

Jaango

Is it me, or does the link to Atrios' neigborhood of Philadelphia go to Boston, Massachusetts?

And the Goodyear link goes to downtown Phoenix.

Typical high temperatures in the summer exceed 100F for almost a hundred days in a row in Phoenix. Often they exceed 110F for tens of days in a row several times in a summer season. Even for the very healthiest people, walking even a quarter mile during summer days is dangerous in Phoenix, which is why mass transit is not a very good solution for this vast suburb city.

Lucky people drive to 'park and rides' and take express shuttles that are much nicer than city buses and make fewer stops. These people are deemed lucky because they receive much better service and accommodations, including covered parking, and also because many of them receive a subsidy from their state, county or municipal employers to ride the shuttles. Poor people, those without cars, have to ride in dirty buses that make many stops that make the trip very long, and they still have to walk many blocks after their trip ends. Phoenix is not the best place to live for the carless.

Tucson is the same way. You MUST have a car to get around most of Tucson. if you live near a mall, there are no grocery stores. If you live near a grocery story (and can survive walking in 100+ heat for 6 months) there are no clothing stores.

If you live downtown, you can walk to a nice play, but there are no theaters or grocery stores, or clothing stores.

But for the most part, 90% of the housing in Tucson is not within 1/2 mile of any basic commercial activity (except possibly a convenience store).

If people who "planned" the growth in this city were the developers who made tons of money, the died, leaving current residents with uber crowded streets, crumbling houses, and an economy once promoted (seriously) as a low-wage city.

Meanwhile in the far deserts the Ritz-Carlton et al are building fabulous resorts.

CORRECTION

Second to last paragraph of my energy was muddled.

The people who "planned" the growth in Tucson were the developers who made tons of money, they then died, leaving current residents with uber crowded streets, crumbling houses, and an economy once promoted (seriously) as a low-wage city. "Sad but true."

It's a lot easier if you just get a plane.

I live in a Phila neighborhood, previously from NYC & I think public transit sucks here. But it sucks in a "i hate waiting for 15 minutes for the bus" kind of way. In Phila, living NEAR a train makes your house MORE expensive. You can get downtown in 20 minutes or 17-20 minutes from some lovely inner-ring suburbs.

"there are very few places in Phoenix in which it isn't incredibly hard to get by without a car."

Suggesting, perhaps, that it was designed for people who have a car, not for those who don't. Who knew?

Kurt, I used to live about four blocks north of Speedway in the University area of Tucson. Buses were an option going N/S, but E/W was a long wait. However, there were grocery stores not so far away. As you got further east I think it got harder to find supermarkets (does ElCon have a Safeway or Bayless or Lucky's or whatever?).

15 years ago I went back for a two-day tourist visit and was astonished at the growth out towards Gates Pass on the western side of town.

Phoenix is not the best place to live for the carless.

Maybe the desert isn't the best place to build massively sprawling cities. Kind of like how a huge natural river delta isn't the best place to try and build fixed infrastructure with homes below sea-level.

Everybody knows that "in Arizona the only to get around is by small private plane."

Duh!

I've always envied people living in SF. Here in the South Bay/Peninsula, its one giant suburban hellhole, and I swear people look at you funny if you have to rely on the bus. No city is perfect, but I'll take MUNI and BART anyday over SamTrans or the VTA.

This is why Atrios transit posts and Yglesias' Crusade against free parking, always annoy me. Does they have any idea what it's like out west in terms of mass transit? Posted by: MNPundit

Why, because they help underline how poorly planned and utterly automobile dependent most of the cities are in the West save for SF, Portland and Seattle (to an extent)?

Arizona will never have mass transit because too few of the state's citizens are willing to tax themselves for it.

I live in a part of Brooklyn that's magical.

There's a supermarket and 24-hour CVS 50 feet from my house. I'm across the street from a temple and a library. There's a bakery on the corner. A public school is about 100 feet from my house. There's a bus stop on the corner going north-south, and another around the corner that does east-west. There's a subway line 1 block away and a different subway line two blocks away. There's a YMCA with a pool that's even closer than the CVS. Uh, an art gallery around the corner, not to mention a restaurant/wine bar, chinese restaurant, Indian, Mexican, pizza, clothing places, even a yoga studio. Doctors' offices, too. Oh, and a laundromat within a block. And a kitchen/bathroom design showroom.

Last night, we went out of our way to walk to a restaurant where they have awesome fried chicken. It was half a mile. We passed 4 hardware stores, a furniture place, a dozen restaurants, a gym, a dozen discount outlets...

I certainly don't think everyone should have to live this way if they don't want to. But I think it's really, really sad you have to pay upwards of $800 a square foot if you want to.

You're seriously telling me there's no critical mass of 400,000 people in the state of Arizona or Nevada or New Mexico or Colorado who'd like to live this way?

Goodyear started as, indeed, a company town, centered around a large Goodyear plant.

But that plant closed down in the late 50's or early 60's (my uncle lost his job in the closure). The name has been retained, but there's been no connection with the tire company since then.

I've lived in Tucson for a time, and what bus transit there is runs north-south, very little east-west, and the heat makes walking in summer, late spring, or early fall dangerous. Lots of bike-trails, though.

My parents live in the Catalina Foothills, and there's a nice new mall (La Encantada) nearby, but it's hard to walk to because you have to cross a couple very busy streets to get there safely. Before that was built, it was at least 3 miles to any shopping (food, clothes, pharmacy, etc.) of any kind.

I attended a professional conference in Phoenix in 1991 (plus or minus one). My classmate and I were in an overflow motel two miles from the main convention center, and one night we walked. Big wide street.

We saw no one. I don't mean there were no other pedestrians: I mean we didn't even have a car pass us.

Buddy: "This is like the science fiction movie where the aliens have kidnapped everyone on Earth except us."

I went to a suburb of Phoenix on business. THere was a bit of a discrepancy in the address so I told my driver if all else failed he could let me off and i could find it on foot. In the politest way possible he told me that was insane. Currently I live in Seattle where while things are technically walking distance (keep in mind my definition of walking distance is other's definition of masochism) things are a little too spread out for comfort. Makes me miss my days in Providence Rhode Island where I could get about anywhere in a half an hour.

Seattle always stuck me as a city that is also dominated by cars. The most prolific mode of public trans is the ferry, which is obviously car dependent. The light rail is brand new and not very expensive, and the commuter rail is but a pale shadow of my beloved Caltrain (which East Coasters always find time to rip on as well).

Portland is actually a better city than Seattle, I think, for not being car dependent. Light rail covers Portland to a much greater degree than anything in Seattle.

Is anybody actually suprised that this is what you get when you give out residential construction permits right, left, and center?

It's called sprawl, people, and it's what happens when your elected officials are in the pocket of construction companies.

I finally bought my first car last year, and the only because we got kids. Before that, I lived quite happily without a car, I still commute every day via public transport.

From my flat, it's a 7 mins walk to the nearest subway, 2 mins to a bus stop, and three tram lines are stopping about 3 mins from my door.

Oh, and I can bike to downtown in about 15 mins.

Where do I live?

Vienna, Austria.

I lived in Phoenix for a few years in the early 90s. In my opinion, the place is a disaster not only from a public transportation standpoint but also from a water consumption standpoint and a residential and commercial energy consumption standpoint. I saw restaurants and malls using precious water to "mist" the air of outdoor areas so consumers could pretend it wasn't over 100 degrees. Additionally, many homes are built with thin walls and huge windows that increase the need for air conditioning just to make them habitable. And what's astounding to me is that the more Phoenix grows, the worse these issues become: paving over the dersert destroys the ecosystem's ability to cool down at night, so energy consumption and water consumption increase at a more alarming rate than would be expected simply from the addition of new inhabitants. When you talk with people who lived and worked in Phoenix back in the 1940s and 1950s, they speak of a much more sustainable existence: office workers worked at night during the hottest months to keep cool; homes were built with thick adobe walls and small windows; water wasn't used for golf courses or swimming pools or water parks or air "misting" systems. In my opinion, Phoenix is just another city that tries to create a reality that is divorced from its natural environment; at some point, that kind of insanity simply can't and shouldn't be sustained.

I just went to www.walkscore.com, the site that finds the "walkability" of any address in the US, and typed in my address in brooklyn, new york and "goodyear, phoenix". Brooklyn scored 97 out of 100; Goodyear, 8.

I too will join in on the ranks of those choosing to life a car-less lifestyle. I have three grocery stores (two built in the last five years) within a ten minute walk. a Target, five coffeeshops, at least 30 bars/restaurants and two Metro stations covering three lines. I have two bus stops within a five minute walk, depending on what part of downtown I am going to. and when I really need a car, I get a zipcar. I am less than 30 minutes on foot or public transit (or bike, yes) from anywhere I go an anything resembling a regular basis. heck, I can get to the airport in 20 minutes.

but then I pay a lot of money for a small apartment. so there's the tradeoff.

Interesting conversation. I'd like to hear more people give their 2 cents about other cities/places.

your link to a bus map for Atrios' Philadelphia actually points to the same Phoenix map. I live in one of the lovely inner ring Philadelphia suburbs and transit into the city is quite convenient (especially since I live walking distance from a regional rail station served by three lines instead of just one). It's also a very easy drive into the city a bit to snag the northern terminus of the subway system and on to Center City, but some of the neighborhoods around the stations are a bit dicey.

I don't have occasion to commute into the city during the week so I have no rationale for a monthly pass, and having to pay fares for a family jaunt into the city is often not so competitive with driving -- it would be nice if the rail authority would sell a monthly "weekend pass" of some sort -- I'd probably go into the city more frequently than I do.

Very well then MarkH.
I live in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. There is an El station 2 blocks away, a Metra (Chicago's regional/commuter rail service) station 4 blocks away which stops at Ravinia outdoor music theater in the summer, literally at the gate. Smallish theater a block away, a decent selection of restaurants and coffee shops within 1/2 mile. The only time I drive is to get to Lowes or Target, which are only 3 miles away. It's not the greatest 'hood, but I got a 1200sf 2bd/2ba condo for $230K.

I live in a part of Brooklyn that's magical.
There's a supermarket and 24-hour CVS 50 feet from my house. I'm across the street from a temple and a library. There's a bakery on the corner. A public school is about 100 feet from my house. There's a bus stop on the corner going north-south, and another around the corner that does east-west. There's a subway line 1 block away and a different subway line two blocks away. There's a YMCA with a pool that's even closer than the CVS. Uh, an art gallery around the corner, not to mention a restaurant/wine bar, chinese restaurant, Indian, Mexican, pizza, clothing places, even a yoga studio. Doctors' offices, too. Oh, and a laundromat within a block. And a kitchen/bathroom design showroom.

I'll see you and raise. In my part of Brooklyn I've got a movie theatre three blocks in one direction and another one four blocks in the other. Six minutes walk one way is a subway station with six lines, while three minutes walk the other way is another subway station, plus there's a bus stop half a block from my door and another stop two blocks away. Within one single block of my front door in each direction I have: a pharmacy, two coffe shops, a bagel store, a dry cleaner, five restaurants/bars, a bookshop, a 24 hour deli, two clothing stores, a grocery, a bakery, a yoga studio, a flower store, etc. etc., and when I go a few blocks more out I add in several supermarkets, three separate gyms, hardware stores, more bookstores (new and used), a car rental place, even more restaurants, etc. I never have to walk more than a few minutes in either direction to get most everything I need.

Tradeoff, of course, is that I live in an apartment with much less room than I would have in a house, but on the other hand I'm able to outsource my storage somewhat since, with shopping so convenient, I never have to keep large stocks of anything at home.

I've lived in Phoenix for 21 years now, and it's not an existance everyone can deal with. I bicycle to work (22 mile round trip) every day that it's not raining, year-round. I think last year it averaged out to four days a week. And I go for a two-mile walk over the lunch hour (just one mile in the summertime). Acclimation is the key. If you spend time outside every day of the year, your body adapts to it gradually, and it's no big deal, really.

And yet, my coworkers will get into their car, and drive *across the street* to pick up lunch at the Taco Bell drive-thru, because it's too hot outside.

And people look at me like I'm the insane one...

I'm not sure how fair this is.

Going 30 miles outside Philly in almost any direction you pass a large city. Of COURSE there are going to be some reasonable mass transit choices.

My own Washington is separated from Baltimore by about that much. Columbia is nestled nicely in between. Frederick in another direction. Annapolis in another.

Philly has Newark just about 30 miles away.

Look at Phoenix. Goodyear is the last gas for hundreds of miles. In all fairness, this whiny chick lives in BumpHuck, Arizona and she's surprised nobody wants to locate a business where nobody with money lives.

Get real.
You need SOME degree of density to make mass transit work. I'd wager many of those Goodyear buses get 5 people on em most of the day.

I used to live in Westfield, NJ, an old-style commuter rail town. Lived across the street from the NJ Transit station (although you had to change trains at Penn Station Newark to get into Manhattan, either on another NJ Transit line or by PATH); there was a NJ Transit bus to Newark that stopped directly beneath my apartment, and if I wanted to take a bus to Port Authority in NYC, I could walk under the train station tunnel to the north side and catch one there. (There were even private commuter buses in the rush hours that would take you from Westfield to midtown or lower Manhattan, though I rarely used them.) Plus Westfield had a relatively vibrant shopping district just north of the train station -- including a Trader Joe's a few blocks away. The walkscore rating must have been near the top.

I'm now in Prince William County, Va., which is trying to build a good bus system though it's D.C. commuter oriented, and there is no intracounty bus service on Sundays and none in the western part of the county (Manassas, Haymarket, Gainesville) on Saturday. It would make sense to have Metrorail extended down to Potomac Mills in Woodbridge, but I doubt the backward southerners who populate the General Assembly would ever deign to do that.

You wonder why there's no national demand for public transportation? It's because the vast majority of people in flyover country have no idea what public transportation is.

Yes they do, sad to say -- it's what the Negroes take. (Actually, they say a word other than "Negroes," if you catch my drift.) That's certainly true for local, non-commuter buses in most major metro areas (Manhattan being a possible exception), and other than NYC, Washington and a few other places, that's also true for subways, particularly older systems such as Philadelphia's. Mass transit is perceived as a last resort, largely for poor people and minorities.

In the latest Atlantic, in a piece called "How The Crash Will Reshape America" (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/meltdown-geography), Richard Florida argues that we need to be emphasizing renting, not homeowning, because given the American economy of the future, cities will need to build more dense housing in order to attract the people who make them thrive. Trouble is, that runs perpendicular to the "American dream" of homeownership, and any politician who would dare utter such comments -- accurate as they may be -- would probably face a shortened career. It's one of those things you're not supposed to say.

As a person who calls Phoenix "home" and trained in city planning, I believe that Phoenix is the ultimate auto-oriented city in the world. I liked living there and would like to go back (I'm in Auckland now, living in a wonderful urban neighborhood with amenities to spare.) but as an urban place, it's a disaster. They have, however, voted to tax themselves for transit, an effort I was involved in in something like 1999 or 2000. The bus system has been expanded and the light rail is nearly ready to roll. But it is density that determines transit viability and Phoenix just hasn't go it. If they want it, it will have to be more heavily subsidized than usual and you can't make the mistake of judging its success on ridership. Public services don't work that way, just as you don't judge the value of a fire department on the number of fires it puts out.

Someone is surprised that a city designed and built by Republicans doens't work?

Don't worry - in 30 years, with the coming southwestern drought, Arizona will dry up and blow away, taking the idiots with the dust.