Now that the Cubs are moving to Wrigleyville, I thought that I'd still like to bicycle to Spring Training as much as possible. So, I checked that stretch that I hadn't ridden yet, from Country Club Drive to Rio Salado Parkway (formerly 8th Street). The Google Earth route photo tells the essential story.
It's probably germane to say at this point that the route above connects to the route in the Mesa Canals 3 post a couple of years ago. Anyhow, since I've started this series, Mesa has steadily improved right-of-ways on the canals. Several of the routes that were rough when I wrote about them have now got paved sidewalks, pedestrian bridges, and in some cases pedestrian crosswalk signals. Such is the Mesa Canals 3 section these days. It's a civilized ride through the city. However, when one gets to Mesa Drive east of Country Club Drive, there are no crosswalks, and one finds an ironic situation--one side of the canal is macadam-paved (and gated), marked on Google Earth as "A Street." The other side is gravel. Take that side (though it doesn't matter). After crossing Country Club, you will see that one side (the golf course side) is securely fenced, though the other side is not. The south side of the canal dead ends at an SRP pumping station at the edge of the golf course. It's a tantalizing view, with a pedestrian bridge visible just on the other side of the secure fence. That part is not marked on the picture, since after finding the dead end, I did some poking around to find a way around the country club to the north.
I finally found my way to Alma School Road north of the country club, riding on pavement and sidewalks the whole time. I don't recommend it. One either rides on the sidewalk, or crosses Country Club Drive twice, if one rides on the street. So, anyway, I ride south on Alma School to the entrance of the canal. This is where the map starts. The south side of the canal is clear to Rio Salado, and gravel. On the north side, there is a pavement, but this pavement dead-ends at yet another SRP pumping station, though there is a track to a parking lot on Bass Pro Shop (!) Drive.
So . . . I crossed Alma School, and headed east on what I thought was the north side of the canal. There are a complicated set of canals and spillways in this area, and I ended up having to cross (illegally?) an SRP dam to keep on the north side. This right-of-way backs onto a number of low-walled back yards, some with Rottweilers in them. I had the alarming view of a Rottweiler head appearing and disappearing above a 4-foot wall (barking wildly the whole time, of course). But it didn't matter, as the canal dead-ended at the country club fence. Back past the Rottweiler, and avoided the dam crossing by taking an alternate path back to Alma School. After that (since the south side of the canal was basically fenced off) I gestalted my way paralleling the canal via roads as best I could, looking for a way back onto the canal path. Didn't find one, but I did find the new Mesa Grande ruins museum entrance (open at 10 a.m. Mon-Sat.).
My take-aways are these: my dreams are dead (or at least moribund)--my dream of finding a direct canal-road route to the light rail, and my dream of cycling to Wrigleyville as I've cycled to Hohokam. But I do see that the city is working diligently to improve more and more of the canal right-of-ways. Let's be honest, S . . I mean, Leisure World has been cursed in this blog, for their high-handed blocking of canal rights-of-way. I'll hold off on the Mesa Country Club, however, since they've certainly been on the site for a long time, and when they began, I'm sure that no one could have guessed that future suburbanites would attempt to use the canals as bicycle routes. It would, though, be nice if they opened up a bank right-of-way.
