Making Sense of Place Film Series A documentary film and educational outreach project launched by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

Making Sense of Place – Phoenix: The Urban Desert

Traffic Congestion and Development Patterns

Quotes From the Film | Commentary by Sandy Bahr | Lincoln Institute Publications

Quotes From the Film

"I ride about 4.8 miles to work every single day. People yell at me; they're like 'Hey loser!' or 'Get a car!' I got hit by three cars in one day. This lady was there and she comes pulling out in a Blazer. I start pedaling and she comes up and she whacks me and she's goes 'Ohh!' She got all like scared and everything, and then tells me that I should watch where I'm going! It's a tough town if you don't got a car. Can't get around."
--Ed Martinez, a local resident bicycler

"It causes us to become a society that is so dependent upon the car that we don't know our neighbors. We come out of our offices, we get in the car, we drive down the street, we hit the garage door opener, we pull in, and that's the last we see of anybody."
--Jim Hansen, Planning Department, City of Phoenix

"Well, we definitely like to build roads in the Phoenix area and we think that freeways will address traffic congestion. But, there are years and years of experiences that show that if you build more freeways, you get more traffic."
--Sandy Bahr, Sierra Club


Commentary by Sandy Bahr
Conservation Outreach Director, Grand Canyon Chapter, Sierra Club

Measuring Our Worth in Concrete and Asphalt

Arizona contains some of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the nation.
With this rapid - and mostly suburban - growth comes many new challenges and responsibilities for our cities, counties and state: first, we must adequately plan for growth, and second, our growth plans must fully integrate both land use and transportation.
Here's the rub for Arizona: transportation must be defined as more than just roads, more roads and wider roads and freeways.
Arizona's staggering population growth demands comprehensive planning that benefits our communities, not just automobiles. Plans should accommodate mass transit, bicycles, and pedestrians.
In Arizona, we have a long way to go.
Our current system of so-called "regional planning" has meant little more than providing a pass-through for federal highway dollars. This means that Arizona's transportation planning efforts and monies are squandered on concrete and asphalt - we do little to address the real transportation needs of our communities.
In its 2000 report Changing Direction, the Surface Transportation Policy Project ranked Arizona as one of 14 states that were "Behind the Times." The report found that Arizona underspent in five out of seven categories, such as alternative modes of transportation, transportation safety, and road and highway repair. That puts us in the bottom third of the class, with barely more than a D average.
In the Phoenix metropolitan area, known as the Valley of the Sun, people have very few transportation choices.
The reasons are simple: cities in this region have invested primarily in roads and freeways and made only limited, piecemeal investments in mass transit; overall, little has been done to accommodate bicycles and pedestrians.
The results? Valley residents pay almost as much for transportation as we do for housing. Our air quality is some of the worst in the nation.
Phoenix has been named the 8th deadliest city for pedestrians.
Rapid growth, combined with our habitual focus on roads-only transportation planning, has meant lots more road congestion as well. The Texas Transportation Institute's 2000 Urban Mobility Conditions report analyzed traffic data for 75 urban areas within the United States. The report ranked Phoenix's travel time index as the 11th worst - but we ranked 9th worst in terms of increased traffic congestion from 1994 to 2000.
Real regional planning, or rather implementation of regional planning, is almost non-existent in the Valley. The Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) is made up of mayors from Valley cities. Each mayor tends to look out for what is "best" for his or her individual city rather than looking and thinking about the region as a whole. Because of that, MAG doles out the federal freeway dollars to help build the next mile or two of freeway that fuels the Valley's seemingly endless urban sprawl. Regional transit is shaky at best - it is often difficult to just get a bus across one town, let alone from Tempe to Buckeye.
What's all the fuss about regional planning? Here's an illustration: the limited light rail system recently approved by City of Phoenix voters will take nearly 5 more years to come on line and it will only connect with two east Valley cities (which leaves out the other 23 municipalities in the metro area).
For better transportation choices, safer streets, cleaner air, and to limit future traffic congestion, the Phoenix area needs a true regional planning entity -- one with some authority and some gumption to implement its plans. That means either fixing MAG or doing away with it and replacing it with an entity that can accomplish the goals of a true regional planning agency. Doing this will require political will, political leadership, and a willingness by Valley cities to give up some control.
It would also mean saying no just once in a while to those who make their living and measure their worth in concrete.


Lincoln Institute Publications

Alternatives to Sprawl
Author(s): Young, Dwight
Publication Date: December 1995

The New Urbanism
Author(s): Fulton, William
Publication Date: November 1996

An Empirical Investigation of the Effects of Impact Fees on Housing and Land Markets
Author(s): Ihlanfeldt, Keith R. and Timothy M. Shaughnessy
Publication Date: July 2002

Are Mixed Land Uses Marketable?
Author(s): Song, Yan and Gerrit Knaap
Publication Date: July 2002

Automobiles, the Environment, and Metropolitan Spatial Structure
Author(s): Bae, Chang-Hee Christine and Harry W. Richardson
Publication Date: January 1994

Efficient Urbanization
Author(s): Cervero, Robert
Publication Date: December 2000

Environmental Amenities, Urban Sprawl, and the Economic Landscape
Author(s): Wu, JunJie
Publication Date: July 2002

Managing Urban Growth With Urban Growth Boundaries
Author(s): Ding, Chengi, Gerrit Knaap and Lewis Hopkins
Publication Date: January 1997

Smart Governance, Smart Growth
Author(s): Foster, Kathryn A.
Publication Date: September 2000

The Impacts of Urban Form on Travel
Author(s): Crane, Randall
Publication Date: March 1999

Urban Sprawl in a U.S. Metropolitan Area
Author(s): Wassmer, Robert W.
Publication Date: January 2000

Overcoming Obstacles to Smart Development
Author(s): Starkie, Edward H. and Bonnie Gee Yosick
Publication Date: July 1996