Does Car Dependency Make Phoenix-Living Less Satisfying?

PHOENIX -- When Rababe Saadaoui lived in Madrid, Spain for one year, she never had a car, never took an

Uber or Lyft and she certainly never felt the need to. Instead, she walked. And for the few times

she didn’t walk, she took convenient and cheap public transportation. There were many ways to

get around Madrid, it made life easy for her.

Then Saadaoui moved to Phoenix, Arizona. She was surprised by how heavily residents relied

on their cars to get around, which in large part is due to the layout and design of the city.

“Phoenix is one of the most car-dependent places in the US,” Saadaoui said, a Ph.D. student

studying urban planning at Arizona State University.

A car-dependent city, like Phoenix or Houston, is designed mainly for driving with wide, fast

roads, spread-out buildings and few safe or convenient places to walk, and people rely on

owning a car to get around, according to Saadaoui’s research paper, “Does Car Dependence

Make People Unsatisfied With Life? Evidence From a U.S. National Survey.”

Having and driving a car does lead to higher life satisfaction, but only to a point, Saadaoui said.

Once there are limited transportation options or heavy reliance on a car to get around, life

satisfaction is affected in a negative way, her research showed.

Less social interaction is one way life satisfaction is impacted, Saadaoui said.

“Usually you’re driving from one place to your home. You go to your driveway, it’s a single-family

home, you go to your garage. Many people have a door that takes them directly to their home,”

Saadaoui said. “So they don’t have that neighborhood social interaction that’s very important to

mental health and life satisfaction.”

Driving as a main method for transportation means there’s less chance for what Saadaoui calls

“passive social interaction” that can happen when walking or taking public transportation.

A simple “hi,” “bye” or a casual conversation between neighbors when out doesn’t usually

happen when driving a car.

“You’re not building that community. You’re not interacting with people outside of your very close

circle,” Saadaouri said.

Mobility and community building can be even harder without a personal vehicle in a

car-dependent city.

Take life-long Phoenix resident, Annie Roman, who hasn’t had a car in three months and said

she feels trapped.

“There’s a lack of feeling independent, missing that freedom. I can’t just get up and go whenever

I want,” Roman said.

The heat, long wait times for public transportation and lack of safety she feels when walking are

all reasons Roman says she struggles without a car in Phoenix.

“It’s hot as hell, nobody knows how to drive in Phoenix,” Roman said. “Everyone’s driving 20, 30

over the speed limit.”

Roman recounted the time she was walking down her street in “broad daylight” when a car

pulled over next to her and rolled his window down.

“I don’t acknowledge him but he reverses his car to follow me in the opposite direction,” Roman

said.

It was only after giving him the “evilest death stare” she could muster did he then drive off.

Roman mainly relies on Waymo, although it gets expensive.

“If I want to see my friend that lives in Tempe, it takes an hour to get there because it can’t go on

the freeway,” said Roman, who lives in central Phoenix.

Waymo rides started offering limited freeway access to the public this November, but before

that, the routes avoided them for safety concerns.

Phoenix’s car dependency is not only from urban sprawl, but also the lack of walkability,

according to David King, associate professor at ASU with a doctorate in urban planning.

It’s not the distance between places that makes it unwalkable but rather the streets themselves,

King said.

“You have to cross a very inhospitable street, where you have to go through too many parking

lots,” he said. “The sidewalk is just a thin sliver of concrete next to an arterial where people are

driving 60 or 70 miles an hour.”

Arterials are the main roads of the city, running through the city for moderate to long-distance

traffic. Each road has two to three lanes each way and is meant for a large volume of traffic,

according to the City of Phoenix website.

Arterials are “effectively freeways running through the city. They’re designed for people to go

really, really fast in and out of downtown,” King said.

King also sees the vehicles as an intrinsic part of the city’s infrastructure and another reason

Phoenix is less walkable.

“Vehicles are getting bigger, like SUVs are much larger than they used to be, which not only

takes away from our visual clues that we have but they’re noisier, they’re more dangerous for

people who might get hit, they’re harder to look around,” King said.

Both Phoenix and Tucson made the top four in a list of highest pedestrian death rates per

100,00 residents from 2019–2023 in a report from Value Penguin, a research and analysis firm,

using data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the U.S. Census

Bureau.

Being a pedestrian is “just a deeply unpleasant experience,” King said, who compared the

discomfort a pedestrian may feel walking in central Phoenix to the walkability of Old Town

Scottsdale.

Scottsdale prioritizes a walkable downtown, encouraging “strolling, lingering and promenading”

in its busiest areas, according to its Old Town Character Area Plan, which calls for improved

walkways downtown and adding more shade, shelter and seating for pedestrians.

Street parking on the main roads also “acts as a buffer between vehicular traffic and the

sidewalk” and slows traffic down as drivers search for parking and pull in and out, King said.

“It becomes a safer place for everybody,” King said. “You’re not on the sidewalk where

somebody’s zipping by at 60 mph.”

The same goes for Mill Ave. in Tempe, which King said used to be a regular arterial with high

speeds and inhospitable sidewalks. Now, the city rebuilt the avenue with trees, vegetation and

improved, wider sidewalks.

The valley will probably never be completely free of private vehicles, King said, but there’s

"opportunities for redevelopment in places in central Phoenix.”

The city should bring buildings closer to the sidewalks for more shade, create more space

between the sidewalk and the roads, slow traffic down and narrow the space devoted to lanes

and parking, King said.

“There’s reasons for optimism,” King said.

For example, Culdesac Tempe is an apartment complex located two miles from downtown

Tempe that opened in 2023.

Instead of car accommodations, residents receive a complimentary Valley Metro pass and

onsite access to e-bikes and scooters, according to the Culdesac website.

Saadaoui, seven years out of living in Madrid, has adapted to the infrastructure of Phoenix,

although she believes small incremental changes can lead to a less car-dependent city.

“It’s not something that happens overnight,” Saadaoui said. “People have been using a car for

years, so it’s really hard to change that behavior, it’s going to require a lot of time.”

Saadaoui remembers the walkable Madrid with streets of shade, vegetation and small shops. 15

minutes of walking would pass by easily and enjoyably.

“We can make changes if we want to,” Saadaoui said. “Start small, incremental. At least show

these kinds of actions can be successful, even in a car dependent area.”