Our car-dependent columnist casts a suspicious eye toward the Valley’s self-declared “car-free” community.
If you’re both a rom-com fan and a policy nerd – and trust me, this combo is more common than you think – there’s this scene from the 1992 movie Singles you’ve got to see.
Singles is set in Seattle in the early 1990s, but it might as well be Phoenix today. In this particular scene I love, single guy Campbell Scott is trying to woo single girl Kyra Sedgwick with his professional passion – the concept of a supertrain that will relieve their car-packed city.
“Question. Do you think about traffic ever?” he asks her. “Because I do constantly. Traffic is caused by the single car driver. 900,000 single people get in their cars every morning. They drive to work, and they wonder why there’s gridlock, right? But this is what I’ve been working on. If you had a train, right, a supertrain, you give the people a good reason to get outta their cars. You give them great coffee, great music, they will park and ride. I know they will.”
Scott looks at his crush expectantly. Sedgwick smiles and shrugs.
“I still love my car, though,” she says. Then changes the topic to the Sonics.
I think of that scene every time someone mentions Culdesac, a new housing development in Tempe billed as “the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S.!”
(That’s Culdesac’s exclamation point, not mine.)
The marketing of what amounts to an OK apartment complex in a not-great neighborhood has been nothing short of pure genius. And to be fair, the place is kind of awesome. As long as I can park my car there.
But that’s the catch. Yes, it might be the thing that will save the planet, build community and serve as a model for the rest of the world – but in our town, in this time, it doesn’t land right for me.
When this car-free-living concept started getting national attention a few years ago, I had to chuckle. On paper, it looked pretty good. Residents agree to live without parking in exchange for deals on e-bikes and rideshares, close proximity to the light rail and a cool vibe.
Walking around the now-finished (phase one, at least) Culdesac one evening this fall – looking at the groovy murals, browsing in the convenience store and eating at the gorgeous restaurant – I kept thinking of Campbell Scott in Singles.
Give them good coffee and music, and they’ll come. Or, in this case, a vintage market and Modern Mexican cuisine.
Someone really did their homework. The restaurant, Cocina Chiwas, comes courtesy of James Beard Award-nominated chef Nadia Holguin and her equally talented husband, Armando Hernandez. The plant-filled space really is stunning – and so are the prices on the menu. An oyster appetizer is $28. The short ribs main course will run you $32. It’s worth it. But it’s a special-occasion spot, not a daily destination.
And yet, there’s not much else in the neighborhood. That’s where it gets extra sticky.
Yes, Culdesac is located right along the light rail, east of Arizona State University. But, to be honest, it’s a little too east, smack dab in the middle of the no man’s land between Tempe and Mesa. Longtime Valley residents will recall Apache Boulevard as pretty rough, and while it’s no longer a hotbed for prostitution, it’s hardly a strip I care to walk alone at night. I’m not so sure about daytime, either.
Yeah, that bike is great – but try finding a safe path in these parts. And what happens in July? Will you be riding your bike to work? Want to hit a vintage market on a 115-degree day? Wait for the light rail?
But maybe I’m the wrong person to ask.
Here’s my confession: As long as I live in Metro Phoenix, you will never, ever rip the car keys from my fingers. I’ve lived in big, East Coast cities without a car. I’ve taken all forms of public transportation. But when I moved home, the first thing I did was buy a car – and I never looked back.
I am not a monster. I understand that there’s a car crisis in this city – on a lot of
levels.
We’re absolutely speeding up climate change. How about that heat island? A 2020 study by ASU researchers, “Valley of the Sun-Drenched Parking Spot,” demonstrated that parking accounts for 29 percent of the heat generated by vehicles and roadways.
Additional research estimated that in 2017, there were 12.2 million parking spots in Metro Phoenix, with 4 million residents and 2.86 million registered personal vehicles.
Despite that seemingly favorable ratio, parking is becoming a big headache in the Valley’s newly popular urban centers. Just try to find a parking spot Downtown on a night where there’s a Suns game at the Footprint Center, a sold-out concert at Chase Field and shows at just about every nearby venue.
It’s a problem. But I’m not so sure Culdesac is the solution.
I am all in favor of cleaner gas and electric vehicles. Ride shares, light rail, the new ASU trolley? Fantastic. I love the covered parking spots that double as solar power collectors.
You might, in the final analysis, convince me to leave my car home a few days a week, to carpool to work and Uber downtown on a busy night.
But I’m not trading in my car for a gourmet QT that sells more flavors of dried chickpeas than I can count.
And I don’t want to feel like a prisoner in my own home.
At the end of Singles, Campbell Scott’s bosses reject his idea and Kyra Sedgwick breaks up with him. I don’t wish the same for Culdesac.
I do love my car, though.
