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| Thunderbird motif--the spread wingtips reduce turbulence for more efficient soaring, btw |
Way back in November, 2010 were the first hints that an underpass for cyclists and pedestrians would be put in where 7th Avenue crosses the Arizona Canal. The site is in a prime spot for cyclists, including me, so as time passed and the project slowly progressed, I ended up with a few blog posts about it.
The mysterious monolith that was the subject of an earlier post is totally gone now, and must have been some sort of surface texture practice fixture. It looks like the practice paid off, because they put up some interesting and relevant surface treatments on the walls of the underpass.
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| I think I would prefer a straighter railing line. Maybe I'm the only one though. |
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| Saguaro cement |
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| Monsoon lighting? Or river system, echoing "Map Room" piece just a little east of here? |
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| Coyote running along the canal |
There's some other interesting details that I will just leave for you to go and ride down here and check out for yourself. Great work, canal tunnel underpass boffins! Thank you for this improvement to the ACDC path. Cyclists and pedestrians appreciate improvements like this, which present a small handful of details to gaze upon at the scale of a lone human moving at a walking pace.
And here I thought you were running away to Hawaii...
ReplyDeleteGlad to have you back in the desert.
My family is so opposed to moving that it would be more likely that I could move the islands of Hawaii to Arizona.
DeleteCoyotes and cactus!
ReplyDeleteAye, it's a beautiful underpass. I like the gentle arcing of the wrought iron fence above. Do any other Valley underpasses' fences form arcs? I think they're all rectangular.
ReplyDeleteI can't think of any other underpass arches, although there are some extremely curvacious pedestrian/bicycle overpasses over the freeways, and some visually striking ped/bike bridges made of bold rusty curvy steel along the Crosscut Path.
DeleteNice
ReplyDeleteBeautiful eye candy on that path.
ReplyDeleteMy fervent hope is that the visual enhancements spread up and down this somewhat stark path. I think of people walking and cycling as having different visual needs than a car and driver speeding down the freeway staring at blank noise walls. What we see flows directly to what we feel, there's no getting around it.
DeleteI tried the new underpass for the first time this afternoon. It's not situated along my daily commute, but was a nice 5-mile ride from home when I needed to burn some calories after eating three desserts at a family Easter gathering. I like the curved fence, which suggests the nearby mountains, and the images of desert life. Thanks for your posts, which made me aware of this new underpass.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting, David Bickford. I hope that the lessons learned by the engineers, contractors, and others during this project can be captured and applied to other underpass projects along the canal. 32nd Street perhaps?
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