These efforts seem well-intentioned but doomed to fail because it requires government action to make the rest of the area work , i.e. be more walkable / bikeable.
It's great you can bike from your pricey apartment to your friend's, but try getting passed by a bunch of distracted drivers going 50mph faster than you on the arterial stroad when getting to the nearest reasonably-sized grocery store that is 10 miles away because bike infrastructure is often "man up and pretend you're a car" in the US.
Not to mention anything involving grade-separated, rail-based public transit...
What we really need are YIMBY policy changes to improve these, e.g. separate bike infrastructure (note: it has almost zero maintenance costs because bikes produce almost no pavement damage), relaxing of development policies to allowing MFU or town-house (row house?) condos to be built, or at the very least getting rid of ridiculous SFU requirements like enormous setbacks or low max-area usage (e.g. a burb house built on an enormous lot!).
One notable advancement I did like from this proposal: having a "time-share-esque" guest unit. I do enjoy having space for family members to stay with me when they visit, but it feels so wasteful to have that space all the time (requiring maintenance, insurance, more mortgage) compared to having this guest unit thing common to all units in the development.
Having lived down the street from this site, I'm also skeptical. Tempe has some bike infrastructure, but the high temperatures four months of the year and the spread-out nature of the larger Phoenix metro makes a car a priority for most people, and cities (including Tempe and neighboring Mesa) design around that. There's a bike path to the west of this site that runs north-south but terminates after only a couple miles, at one of the many highways that define the larger metro area. And to the east is ASU's main campus...but it's two miles east, which is a long way to walk in May and September, at least.
There is a low-end grocery store a mile away (on a divided stroad) and nicer grocery stores within two or three miles. The main virtue is that it's along the Metro light rail line, so if you're really committed to using that, you're not in bad shape.
> [the climate/city layout] makes a car a priority for most people, and cities (including Tempe and neighboring Mesa) design around that
This gets the cause and effect totally backwards. Phoenix and the surrounding cities are all designed for cars at the expense of bikability, transit and walkability, and people need cars because of that. There are lots of walkable cities in places with more uncomfortable climates than Phoenix (ever been to Bangkok?). Walking in Phoenix would be a lot more tolerable if the city wasn’t so spread out and had better public transit.
People now want cars because of the nature of the city. Something can be both a cause and an effect at different points in time. The general pattern is called a feedback loop.
I went to ASU (in the 90s) and my family is still in the area, and I typically (and perhaps stupidly) visit in June... and when I go back to the old "neighborhood" I always see a ton of people riding their bikes around in the June heat.
You can definitely bike if that's your thing, I mean it's 35C right now, but there are a lot of times when it's 40-45C. Or occasionally 50C.
This could theoretically be good for someone who works from home primarily, but you really do need access to a car to get around Phoenix in general. Some day you're going to want to visit, say, the Renaissance Faire and biking from Tempe to Apache Junction is unlikely to be an attractive option for most people. And I pity any Uber drivers that get contracted to help get someone through the traffic jam for that.
There are a decent amount of bike lanes and whatnot, but the city was optimized for cars, which is why all the self-driving tests are there and you can see a Waymo every other day or so, including that new smaller car.
The light rail is great if you want to go to downtown Phoenix or the ball park and maybe for ASU, but a bit less attractive for many other destinations. Meikong Plaza and H-Mart on Dobson aren't very far from the light rail, but walking ~1 mile in 45C weather with groceries only works for the younger and healthier folks. Asiana or Fujiya are probably non-starters for someone using the light rail, being 2-3 miles away. Don't get me wrong, you can take your bike onto the light rail (or bus) and get there, but it's a significant effort and if it's one of those few days that hits 50C, most people's willpower will give out.
I'm surprised they don't compromise a bit and have a handful of community cars that are shared by some agreement. Then again, I suppose that Uber/Waymo can take over there. It honestly looks pretty cool, but we tend to use the cars a lot and outdoor stuff is only attractive between October and May or so.
> I have not biked in 50C weather but I have to say this: Going fast on a bike has a cooling effect.
Only if air temperature is less than your body temperature, which is not the case when it is 50C outside. Going fast in 50C would feel like blowing a hairdryer in your face.
The air in Phoenix is dry enough that you get cooling from your sweat evaporating and the only humid days come after rainstorms which themselves cool things down.
But my point was more that this is only doable for the younger and healthier types. A lot of the people who go to live in Phoenix are retired midwesterners.
I have friends who only travel by e-bike. The maximum distance they will go is about eight miles, but they average about six miles a day in hot weather. Their batteries are removable so they can go something like 40-50 miles a day if they needed it. My point is that they don't travel very far in their respective communities.
Not sure how long it's been since you've lived in Tempe, but the entire downtown area has been completely revamped and revitalized. The emphasis on bikes, walkable restaurants, and light rail access on Apache itself make this not an overall bad location. Your other points about the rest of PHX metro area outside of Tempe are true though. Neighborhoods for blocks for miles, but Tempe, especially downtown Tempe is trying hard to change that.
I'd taken up biking during the pandemic, and for a while was doing a loop from south Tempe to Tempe Town Lake and back. In a 4 month period, I was almost run over twice biking through downtown Tempe. Both times from right turning drivers where I had to swerve out of the way before they finally noticed me.
Regardless of the infrastructure, which is just passable by US standards in the downtown area, people just are not expecting cyclists.
I was biking along Apache within the last 18 months. Apache itself still isn't [/wasn't] especially bike-friendly. McClintock is worse, and Price is even worse.
I love Tempe, though, might hope to move back, have several siblings and surviving parent in the area. My wife's family is in North Carolina (moved here 8 years ago after 21 years in Silicon Valley) but some day ... might head back.
Not doomed to fail. Just doomed to not deliver what you're asking for, true car-free living.
I moved to the nicest part of my city and drive twice a week, on weekends. When I go into the office, I walk. A neighborhood like this with cars evicted to the periphery would be miles better than this. It's already possible to commute without a car. You just have to plan your life around it. Which you're already in for if you're considering moving to a planned community like this.
Going completely car-free is always going to a tough thing to ask for for a country as spread out as the U.S..
I expect in the next 20 years we'll start getting streets back into urban centers to replace the stroads*.
Not only for the US, I live in a car free zone in Europe. Residents are allowed to drive there, but you wouldn't notice that. It is nice and quiet, but it didn't reduce overall cars owned in the slightest. You cannot even see a change in the statistic when the policy was introduced, it is still a steady and slow growth, traffic has just shifted a little bit outside.
I own a car and while I don't use it to go to work (1km distance), I wouldn't want to miss it. The urban center is also car free aside from buses and taxi. Still, cars are extremely practical, there is just no denying it and I doubt we will go back from individual traffic any time soon.
Also doomed not to be a real community. The only gathering points will be overpriced regional chains like Firecreek Coffee. I don't see people walking to visit their neighbors at their homes very often. It seems destined to be similar to any large condo.
The apartment complex that I lived at in 2009 had a fully furnished 1br apartment available to rent nightly by tenants for their guests. I used it a few times and it was very convenient to have guests stay there onsite instead of at a hotel. Definitely agree it is a great amenity for them to advertise.
Bike infrastructure is great but like any pavement it has lots of long-term cost. You ever seen rust-belt potholes? Drainage issues. Erosion. Tree roots. And you have to tear it up sometimes to do water, sewage, and utility projects.
Trimming back of trees too. Theres a cycle way that is an old railway line near me that gets well maintained by the council. They can do this, because they've laid tarmac wide enough to drive a works vehicle down to maintain it.
Maintenance is essential, otherwise you end up with overgrown hedges; fallen trees and uncomfortable riding surface from tree roots.
It's great you can bike from your pricey apartment to your friend's, but try getting passed by a bunch of distracted drivers going 50mph faster than you on the arterial stroad when getting to the nearest reasonably-sized grocery store that is 10 miles away because bike infrastructure is often "man up and pretend you're a car" in the US.
Not to mention anything involving grade-separated, rail-based public transit...
What we really need are YIMBY policy changes to improve these, e.g. separate bike infrastructure (note: it has almost zero maintenance costs because bikes produce almost no pavement damage), relaxing of development policies to allowing MFU or town-house (row house?) condos to be built, or at the very least getting rid of ridiculous SFU requirements like enormous setbacks or low max-area usage (e.g. a burb house built on an enormous lot!).
One notable advancement I did like from this proposal: having a "time-share-esque" guest unit. I do enjoy having space for family members to stay with me when they visit, but it feels so wasteful to have that space all the time (requiring maintenance, insurance, more mortgage) compared to having this guest unit thing common to all units in the development.