The two Republicans seeking re-election to the Arizona Corporation Commission are running on a platform of promises made, promises kept. Policymakers are likely just days away from announcing new rules for managing the Colorado River's shrinking supply, and advocates want to ensure there will still be water saved for the river itself. A panel discusses whether Phoenix can ever be walkable. Plus the latest health, political, Fronteras Desk and tribal natural resources news.
Transcript
TIARA VIAN: This is KJZZ. Your news and information station in Phoenix and across Arizona. I'm Tiara Vian and here are this week's Stories You Don't Want to Miss.
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It's the podcast designed to catch you up on some highlights from around the region. Thanks for listening. Here are a few of the stories for the week of July 13, 2023.
TIARA VIAN: Republicans running for governor have a delicate balance to strike. They want to convince voters they're not too extreme, but as they battle in the GOP primary, they're also trying to assure conservatives that they're aligned with President Trump. Camryn Sanchez reports.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: GOP Congressmen Andy Biggs and David Schweikert are competing in the primary along with businessmen Scott Neely and Ken Missalle. Biggs is endorsed by Trump and backed by Turning Point's political arm. But he's gone out of his way recently to assure voters that he can work across the aisle and earn the support of independent and moderate voters.
ANDY BIGGS: I have my principles and my values and I adhere to those. But I also know that across the aisle, there are some ideas that are really good, and if we find a point of agreement, then we work together to get that stuff done. And that's — that's the bottom line.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Schweikert says if Biggs wins the primary election, he won't be able to beat Hobbs, like Trump endorsee Kari Lake failed to do in 2022. Schweikert says he knows he can win because he's won competitive congressional races for seven cycles in a row. Schweikert represents Arizona's 1st Congressional District, which is one of the most competitive in the country.
DAVID SCHWEIKERT: We've demonstrated a conservative can win in swing districts. I think I'm now the Democrats' most expensive loss for the last three cycles. I'm the only urban-suburban Republican who won in 2018. They wiped us out all across the country except for us.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Both Schweikert and Biggs served multiple terms in the Arizona Legislature before going to Congress. Neely ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022 and for mayor of Mesa in 2024. He runs Action Concrete Pumping in Mesa. Missalle is a first-time candidate and runs a construction company called Missalle Construction Group out of Scottsdale. Missalle bashed Schweikert because he was found guilty of 11 campaign finance and ethics violations in Congress, including using official staff to work on his campaign. Biggs has an interesting past, too. In 2020, Biggs voted against certifying multiple state election results, including Arizona's, and said, "We don't know who won that presidential election." Biggs denied being involved in organizing the January 6th Capitol riots, disputing claims by a former White House aide and a former representative who said he was part of a Jan. 6 planning meeting. If elected, Biggs says he plans to implement a lot of the GOP legislation Hobbs has vetoed over the last four years.
ANDY BIGGS: She basically vetoed any kind of water management bill. She vetoed dozens of those. She vetoed bills dealing with, uh, election integrity. So, I think I think in the neighborhood of 70 of those. She's She's, uh, neglected the Department of Public Safety in Arizona. Uh, I wonder if she's ever even visited some of the facilities that are around the state and seen, uh, how poor those facilities are.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Biggs also pledged to sign an election reform bill Hobbs vetoed to get faster election results in Arizona by altering the deadline for early ballot drop-offs. Republicans in the state legislature call it the Florida-style elections bill and say that Arizonans will have more trust in elections if the results are finalized sooner. Schweikert didn't commit to supporting the Florida-style elections legislation. Biggs claims that he will eliminate the state's income tax without raising any other taxes or having to cut services. As for how he'll pay for it, Biggs says he'll mitigate waste, fraud and abuse in programs like Medicaid and the money the state will save will backfill the loss of the income tax. Schweikert calls himself a fiscal hawk and is known as "the charts guy" in Congress. He often gives lengthy presentations about fiscal issues and the need to eliminate federal debt. He says Biggs' idea doesn't make sense and the state would definitely have to raise property taxes to pay for killing the income tax. Schweikert acknowledges numbers aren't the most sexy thing for a politician to focus on, but says his expertise is on the issues that matter.
DAVID SCHWEIKERT: Turns out complex problems require complex solutions. And if someone's giving you a super simple solution, I promise you, it's absolutely wrong.
CAMRYN SANCHEZ: Neely says he wants to eliminate property taxes for seniors and lower taxes on businesses. Missalle said he'll eliminate property taxes entirely. The primary election will be held on July 21. Early voting is in progress. Camryn Sanchez, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: For more information on this and other competitive races, go to voterguide.kjzz.org.
In health news: After several months of declining measles cases in Arizona, the state reported a slight increase in transmission in June. Katherine Davis-Young has more.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: The state's largest measles outbreak in Mohave County has now gone more than two months with no new infections, but the extremely contagious virus is still appearing in other parts of the state. Pinal and Maricopa counties confirmed new cases this week and Yavapai County has now confirmed its first measles case of 2026. Will Humble with the Arizona Public Health Association says the once eliminated disease is likely to continue spreading in the state.
WILL HUMBLE: It's going to happen off and on for a long, long time because vaccination rates are just not sufficient anymore to stop and prevent the spread of measles.
KATHERINE DAVIS-YOUNG: Ninety-six percent of Arizona's cases over the past year have been among unvaccinated people. Katherine Davis-Young, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don't Want to Miss podcast. Thanks for listening.
ANNOUNCER: Rio Salado College, in partnership with ASU and Penn State University, is offering a free 12-week semiconductor manufacturing training. The next session begins Aug. 24. More information at riosalado.edu/veterantraining.
TIARA VIAN: In tribal natural resources: National monuments are significant lands and waters set aside for protection by the federal government. These sites are cherished by many, from hunters and anglers to tourists and tribal members, but they're also political battlegrounds, especially in neighboring Utah. On Monday, President Trump made a pair of proclamations to dramatically downsize two national monuments there. As Gabriel Pietrorazio reports, the president set a new record for the largest wholesale rollback of protections for public lands in U.S. history.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Back in October, I flew over Bears Ears National Monument with the non-profit EcoFlight. Our cramped, six-seater propeller plane had a bumpy takeoff from Blanding, a small town in southern Utah that butts up against this sprawling landscape.
TIM PETERSON: So, all of this expanse that we can see, pretty much everything that's in the darkness, and even some in the light, is all a part of Bears Ears National Monument.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Tim Peterson with the non-profit Grand Canyon Trust was our guide. We soared the windy skies for maybe half an hour, chit-chatting through static headsets about whether President Trump would shrink the footprint of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, reversing a Biden-era restoration of those monuments.
TIM PETERSON: There have been several fire drills so far, uh, this year where it's rumored they're going to do it and then they didn't do it. So, at this point, the, uh, president can't even find the time to nominate a permanent director for the Bureau of Land Management. So, I'm sort of hoping that they'll just kind of forget about it.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: We can now report Trump didn't forget.
DONALD TRUMP: Let's sign. This is very nice. Very happy about this. And better than the first sign.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Citing the very Antiquities Act that former President Joe Biden used, Trump once more slashed the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 90%.
DONALD TRUMP: Almost 3 million acres going to be well taken care of now.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Also at the White House was Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox.
SPENCER COX: As I explained to President Biden, that's two Delawares. Uh, and it's been abused and so, uh, it it was done by executive action. President Trump is right-sizing it to bring it in compliance with what the law says.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Utah Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee was there, too.
MIKE LEE: President Biden, President Clinton and President Obama overlooked that standard. President Trump is fixing it today.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Now those once federally protected swaths are basically wide open to BLM Director Steve Pearce. Arizona Democratic U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego fears they'll be sold or auctioned off to the highest bidder.
RUBEN GALLEGO: It's been sought after by uranium mines, or just in general, people trying to buy beautiful land to make into private estates. And most likely they're going to rush to try to sell this as fast as possible as they know that the American public is against getting rid of our public lands.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Meanwhile, tribal leaders like Navajo Davina Smith-Etsitty-Jaquez are tired of this partisan tug of war.
DAVINA SMITH-ETSITTY-JAQUEZ: Because Bears Ears is at my back door. This is not a political talking point for me. This is home.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: She co-chairs the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition.
DAVINA SMITH-ETSITTY-JAQUEZ: Today I am speaking from a broken heart. I am angry, I am hurt, and I am tired of standing here having to explain again why Bears Ears matters to me. We have been here before, but this cuts even deeper.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Because unlike last time, this proclamation not only reduces Bears Ears from nearly 1.4 million acres to about 121,000, but it also terminates the Obama-era oversight commission. The order even goes so far to say the feds have no obligation to engage, consult or coordinate. Similarly, Grand Staircase-Escalante has shrunk from about 1.9 million acres to roughly 182,000.
AUTUMN GILLARD: While administrations may change, our responsibility to these lands does not. We care for the land because the land has always cared for us.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Autumn Gillard is Southern Paiute and coordinator for the Grand Staircase Inter-Tribal Coalition. The tribal groups claim the Trump administration never consulted them beforehand.
AUTUMN GILLARD: We keep hearing this narrative that local stakeholders were not heard. But what about our tribal voices? Are their voices not equal to those of other citizens that live in the state?
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Despite Trump abolishing the commission and redrawing the boundary, Smith-Etsitty-Jaquez stresses:
DAVINA SMITH-ETSITTY-JAQUEZ: Our connection to Bears Ears did not begin with a presidential proclamation and it will not end with one.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: For KJZZ News, I'm Gabriel Pietrorazio reporting from Bears Ears.
TIARA VIAN: In business news: The two Republicans seeking re-election to the Arizona Corporation Commission are running on a platform of "promises made, promises kept," saying they fought to implement conservative policies at the agency that regulates most of the state's utilities. But they're facing a challenge from the right by critics, bolstered by President Trump, who claim they haven't done enough to keep coal power plants running in Arizona. Wayne Schutsky reports.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Since the beginning of his second term, President Trump has tried to boost the nation's coal industry.
DONALD TRUMP: To that end, I'm also instructing Secretary Wright to save the Cholla coal plant in Arizona. Big plant which has been slated for —
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: President Trump made those comments last year after Arizona Public Service shut down the Cholla Power Plant in Navajo County because it could no longer meet emission standards put in place under former President Barack Obama. Trump's comments have resonated with hardcore Republican voters, even though coal only makes up a relatively small chunk of Arizona's energy portfolio, which is now dominated by natural gas and nuclear. After a debate hosted by the Sun City Grand Republican Club in May, the club's First Vice President, Jan Shank, said many of her fellow members are worried about the fate of Cholla, a coal plant located roughly 200 miles away.
JAN SHANK: Most people have come up to me about the Cholla mine, the project. That — that's drove -- driven everybody crazy because they don't understand why it was closed and then why we can't bring it back, and the other side said, "We can't spend all this money."
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: The president's position has become a central part of Republican state Lawmaker Ralph Heap's campaign as he seeks to oust Commissioners Kevin Thompson or Nick Myers, the two GOP incumbents running for re-election. Here's Heap at an event launching his campaign last year.
RALPH HEAP: Coal gives us the baseload power that we need. That's one of the most efficient sources of that baseload power, and so I think it is a major deal to close down a coal plant.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: In reality, Arizona has never been less reliant on coal. Coal made up less than 10% of the state's overall power generation in 2024, down from nearly 40% a decade prior. But that hasn't stopped Heap from trying to blame Thompson and Myers for coal's decline here. Since entering the race with backing from far-right groups like the Arizona Free Enterprise Club and Turning Point Action, he's accused them of buying into the quote, "Green New Deal," shorthand for pro-renewable energy policies mostly backed by Democrats. Here's Heap at the debate in Sun City.
RALPH HEAP: Our utilities are going down with the Green New Deal. From 2020 to now they've steadily gone down this road.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Arizona has added a record amount of solar capacity in recent years. As research shows, it is becoming one of the most affordable options and quickest to bring online. Heap claims those alleged ties to the Green New Deal are leading to higher energy costs in Arizona, where the state's major utilities are seeking double-digit rate hikes for the second time in the past few years. But Myers and Thompson, who have both served as commission chair over the past four years, say that criticism isn't based in reality, citing their voting record. Thompson points to their efforts to repeal renewable energy requirements for the state's utilities, which they argue saddle customers with unjust costs.
KEVIN THOMPSON: When you don't have something to run on and you don't have successes to run on, then you make stuff up to make your opponent look bad.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Thompson, a former gas industry lobbyist, says keeping Cholla open as a coal plant simply wasn't feasible because it would have cost nearly $2 billion to bring Cholla into compliance with EPA rules.
KEVIN THOMPSON: And we talked to the White House and said, "Unless you have some type of grant funding or some dollars that you can send to Arizona to help offset our cost, I can't -- you know, as a commission, we can't put $1.9 billion on the backs of 1.4 million rate payers for APS."
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Thompson says White House officials agreed with that logic. APS announced this month it will instead turn Cholla into a natural gas plant. Myers and Thompson have long said that they support building a diverse energy portfolio that includes both gas and renewables like solar to make sure the lights and air conditioning stay on. Though their critics on the left call that lip service, saying under Thompson and Myers' leadership, the all-Republican commission continues to undermine efforts to boost renewables while championing projects like Cholla and a new $5 billion pipeline to deliver gas from Texas. Here's Myers.
NICK MYERS: It's hilarious that on one side of the political aisle, we are accused of being anti-solar and anti-renewable, right? On the other side, we're being accused of being pro-solar and pro-renewable.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: In May, Republican James Redding said he liked what he heard from Thompson and Myers when they spoke at a local Republican Party meeting in Mesa a few weeks prior.
JAMES REDDING: They were making an effort to — to ferret out the excesses and do away with them. So, they were very diligent about that and I support them.
WAYNE SCHUTSKY: Early voting has already started in the July 21 primary, which will decide which two Republicans will advance to the general election. Wayne Schutsky, KJZZ News, Phoenix.
TIARA VIAN: In water news: The Colorado River is getting pulled in a lot of directions. Climate change means there's less supply, and cities and farms create lots of demand. Policy makers are likely just days away from announcing new rules for managing its shrinking supply. With 40 million people and big industries depending on its water, environmental advocates say those new rules should leave some for the river itself. Alex Hager reports.
ALEX HAGER: Christian Fauser is waist-deep in the Colorado River, casting a fishing line into the current.
CHRISTIAN FAUSER: All around us are these crazy red rock walls of, uh, of the beginning of the Grand Canyon. It's really, really special place.
ALEX HAGER: But the thing that makes this stretch of river really special is the river itself.
CHRISTIAN FAUSER: We're in crystal clear water with a green bottom, um, so it's like sitting on top of some turquoise jewel.
ALEX HAGER: The Colorado River doesn't usually look like this. It's usually a murky, muddy, chocolate milk brown. But here in northern Arizona, something's different.
CHRISTIAN FAUSER: A lot of that's due to the reservoir we have up here above the dam and all of this being dam-fed.
ALEX HAGER: Fauser, who's with the Arizona Wildlife Federation, says it's only flowing so clear because of human intervention. We are right downstream of Glen Canyon Dam, a concrete behemoth that creates Lake Powell and holds back the naturally flowing sediment that turns the river brown. The Colorado is not just a river. In a lot of ways, it gets treated like a plumbing system. Humans have dammed, diverted, and divided it to keep the West wet for people. But Sarah Porterfield with the conservation group Trout Unlimited says its water can work for people and nature.
SARAH PORTERFIELD: This is not a zero-sum game.
ALEX HAGER: In fact, she says, it has to do both.
SARAH PORTERFIELD: Investing in watershed health is not an either/or. We need the system to be healthy from an ecological perspective in order for the rest of it to function.
ALEX HAGER: She says if the river system isn't flowing and full of life, it can't deliver big amounts of clean water to the places people need it. Environmentalists agree we should leave enough water for the river itself, but as policy makers draw up new rules for managing it in the future, can we?
JOHN BERGGREN: That's the one positive thing here is, yes, we absolutely can, and there's a lot of good ideas on the table.
ALEX HAGER: John Berggren is with the conservation non-profit Western Resource Advocates. He says the first step is getting out of crisis mode. Right now, big reservoirs are dangerously low and getting propped up with band-aid fixes, but if you're a water manager with a long-term plan, Berggren says:
JOHN BERGGREN: You can be much more proactive and thoughtful and and careful and intentional about how you manage the river and include river health.
ALEX HAGER: Once you do that, he says, you can release water from big reservoirs more tactically. For example, if you time it right, the same water that flows downstream to cities and crops can make life better for native fish.
JOHN BERGGREN: They're going to move the water anyway. Let's do it in a way that actually benefits ecological conditions.
ALEX HAGER: Berggren helped write a proposal suggesting how the federal government could work those ideas into its new rules for managing water. So far, those ideas are not included in the drafts, but he's optimistic they could still be installed in the next few years. But Mike Connor says there's also reason to look beyond that process.
MIKE CONNOR: Environmental protection is not a federal priority at this point in time.
ALEX HAGER: Connor held the top role for Colorado River policy under the Obama administration. He says the federal government will make sure it follows the law, protect endangered species and that kind of thing, but it won't do much more. But smaller governments can.
MIKE CONNOR: The innovative approaches to integrate environmental protection, health of the river, and to protect the interests of water users are being developed, I think, at the state, local and tribal level, quite frankly.
ALEX HAGER: Regardless of their policies for the river, Connor says the feds can make a difference with their dollars. Big spending under the Biden administration helped those states, tribes and local groups protect the environment, but that kind of money is not on the table now. Connor says it's worth paying to keep water in the river. It's not just about fish and plants, it's culture for tribes, a huge economy built on recreation and an escape for people who want to get outside.
People like Christian Fauser. He says he knows the river he's standing in is a place to fish and part of a bigger system.
CHRISTIAN FAUSER: The more you leave water in the river so that it can function and flow and operate properly, the more that that's going to turn around and feedback and, um, and take care of us.
ALEX HAGER: Fauser says it's taking care of him, teaching patience and how to stand still. Alex Hager, KJZZ News, reporting from Page, Arizona.
TIARA VIAN: And this is the Stories You Don't Want to Miss podcast.
In Fronteras news: In a new report to the United Nations, an Arizona migrant advocacy group argues that conditions in immigration detention centers in the U.S. amount to torture. From the Fronteras desk in Hermosillo, Nina Kravinsky has more.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The report from the Kino Border Initiative and Loyola University Chicago School of Law documents instances of alleged mistreatment in immigration detention from recent deportees in Nogales, Sonora. Juan Queara with the Kino Border Initiative says recent deportees told his organization they experienced crowded conditions and verbal and physical abuse in U.S. immigration detention centers.
JUAN QUEARA: They were being denied food, being denied water. They were being denied the access to medical attention when it was direly needed.
NINA KRAVINSKY: The report argues the conditions inside detention centers amount to violations of international human rights standards. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that any claim of subprime conditions at ICE detention centers is false. Nina Kravinsky, KJZZ News, Hermosillo.
TIARA VIAN: And finally from KJZZ's The Show: A panel discusses whether Phoenix can ever be walkable. Here's co-host Lauren Gilger.
LAUREN GILGER: To talk about that, I was joined by David Crummey, a community advocate and transit expert who once told me he used to be known as "Mr. Downtown Mesa." As well as multidisciplinary artist Jen Urso. She often makes maps, which often explore the interplay between our urban and natural environments here in the valley. And Arden Holloway, they are a transit planner with Valley Metro who has worked on light rail extension planning, and they do not have a car in this car-centric city. We'll be bringing you parts of our live conversation this week on The Show beginning this morning.
OK, so I want to begin this conversation with a little bit of a flashback, because I think for anyone who has lived here for any significant amount of time, if you're thinking about the growth of this city, and the growth of particularly downtown, which is sort of this urban core that we've all been kind of trying to support for a long time, it's happened, right? Like that's the way I think we phrased it in the — the language for this show. Like, downtown Phoenix for a long time was like a ghost town. Does anyone — do you remember, any of you, what happened in downtown Phoenix after 5, 10 or 15, 20 years ago?
JEN URSO: Nothing.
LAUREN GILGER: Nothing. [LAUGHTER] David shaking his head. What did you —
DAVID CRUMMEY: Oh, I used to live live downtown and —
LAUREN GILGER: Were you downtown Phoenix at one point?
DAVID CRUMMEY: Yeah in high school, and so I would walk everywhere downtown, and uh, nothing was open. There were a couple coffee shops that would be straggling on, but I would walk to the library and stuff. Not a nerd.
[LAUGHTER]
DAVID CRUMMEY: Um, you know, when it was at the Phoenix Art Museum, and then when it moved to Burton Barr, and then I loved going across Hance Park and all of that. And I just — I loved it. And I'm like, "Man, Phoenix is made for walking, but no one is walking."
LAUREN GILGER: Let's just remember what that was like, and now think about what it's like today. And if we're looking at, you know, the massive growth that we've seen in this city, especially in downtown, and in various downtowns I think we should say around the valley. Is it walkable? is kind of the question we're going to focus on here. But I want to start with a slightly different question, and I want to start with you, David. Um, I don't think the exact question to start with is, is it walkable? I think we should start first with, what does it mean to have a walkable city?
DAVID CRUMMEY: So, humans have been in cities for 11,000 years-ish. That — that's a little bit longer than I can remember, but — humans get together in cities and do cool things. It's only been since about the 1950s that we've had this suburban experiment where we've completely, radically and very expensively shifted how humans live in cities. And so the last 75 years have been an aberration in human history. And to me, what walkable cities is is really about, what does it mean to go back to being human and being in a place together to have shared goals, whether they're economic or social or what have you. But we gather together in places in libraries and, uh, bars and coffee shops and just in parks because we like being around each other most of the time.
[LAUGHTER]
DAVID CRUMMEY: And -- and what we've done over the last 75 years is really inhuman. Um, and I think that that suburban experiment has failed, but we haven't figured out how to -- what to do about that failure.
LAUREN GILGER: How to get ourselves out of it, you think? OK. All right, we'll leave that to lie for a moment. We'll come back to these ideas. Let me turn to you, Jen. You've mapped various things in the city. I mean, like you've mapped Roosevelt Row, you've mapped cacti, you mapped Eastlake Park, like — my favorite, the Running While Female in Phoenix map. But I want to talk about this one, because I know you — you took a map of Phoenix once, and you said you scraped out kind of the built environment, like the parking garages. What was left?
JEN URSO: Yeah, so I had no idea that who made that map would be a future client, so it — it ended up being kind of strange. But I took like the general tourist map of downtown Phoenix and I think I scraped out all of the tourist destinations that were marked in the key, and then kind of did a per — sort of performance walk around all the spaces that were left after that. And it was sort of a way — like I've always had issues with authority, so it was like —
[Laughter]
JEN URSO: How can I, you know, sort of, uh, deny what the city's telling me I'm supposed to be looking at, what I'm supposed to — what my destinations are? And then the curious thing about that map, too, was what was left behind was like a lot of parking structures. So mostly the map was a map to parking. It wasn't so much a map to like, where would you want to go? Where would you want to walk around to? What would that experience of walking be like? And it just made me kind of angry, you know? I was like, "No, this isn't what I want my experience of the city to be. This isn't what I want people coming into the city to travel to." So, you know, that could have been a little bit of a push for me to start making maps that were like what I think's interesting about the city that I see on foot, you know?
LAUREN GILGER: Right. Like your cactus map, things like that. Is that what you're talking about?
JEN URSO: Yeah, exactly.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. OK, Arden, I want to turn to you. You do not have a car, and this is, I think, a very car-centric city. That's an easy argument to make. So tell us first, you know, what is it like to try to live in the city with no car?
ARDEN HOLLOWAY: So I actually moved here from Tucson about two years ago, and when I was choosing to move here from Tucson, I had to think through what is it going to be like living car-free in this city, and um, what are the criteria of the place that I want to live, um, that will help me to fulfill that goal? It has been no easy feat to be car-free in Phoenix, but I will say that it has brought me a lot of, um, beautiful experiences, I would say. Um, I live in Midtown, and the reasons that I chose that area are because of the light rail access, because of the frequent service buses that run through the Midtown area, and also just thinking about where there are activity centers and, um, different places to gather with people, just like Changing Hands, third spaces, and also access to grocery stores that I could bike to very easily, and Midtown was the perfect place for that. Once I moved to Phoenix, my transit experience actually improved, because of the light rail being regional and connecting Phoenix, Mesa and Tempe, and also the buses were more frequent. And in terms of walkability, the downtown area around Roosevelt, and also the Central Ave corridor are both very walkable areas with pharmacies, cafes, bars, museums, like a lot of places to access that are walkable, um, with more shade as well. As I have been car-free, I've realized as a pedestrian it's difficult in other areas of Phoenix outside of those places, and one of my first experiences here was walking down Seventh Avenue on the sidewalk coming down from Camelback. Um, there is no shoulder on that road, and that is kind of a harrowing experience, um, being two feet from a vehicle. So I have found that being a pedestrian can sometimes be difficult, um, in different areas of the Valley, but there are areas where walkability is being encouraged through transit-oriented development and mixed-use areas, and kind of encouraging that human-centric experience that David talked about.
LAUREN GILGER: So does not having a car here make you think it's possible? Like does it give you hope? You said you have had some beautiful moments kind of being in the environment and not being in your, you know, box of a car. Tell us about one of those.
ARDEN HOLLOWAY: One of the things that I've noticed is a lot of my friends live in areas very close together and develop like little neighborhood groups and, like, live in the same apartment complexes. I live with three different friends in a complex of studios and, um, we're actually able to hang out by the pool together, go out to bars, go out to cafes, and that has been one beautiful aspect of living on — like I live on Osborn and Central, and it's very close to Park Central, so lots of access to restaurants and places where people hang out and, um, spend their time. It's definitely more difficult in the summer, gets really hot for sure.
LAUREN GILGER: That was Valley Metro transit specialist Arden Holloway, along with David Krumney, a community advocate and transit expert, and artist Jen Urso.
TIARA VIAN: And this has been the Stories You Don't Want to Miss podcast, made possible in part by the Catena Foundation, BASIS Charter Schools, Palo Verde Generating Station, SRP, and the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. Thank you for listening and for your generous support. I'm Tiara Vian. This is KJZZ. Listen more, learn more online and on the KJZZ mobile app.
