Kids Halloween Ride and Neely Railroad Overpass

On Saturday October 31st from 1-3 PM the Tempe Bicycle Action Group will be hosting a kids Halloween ride through the Clark/Mitchell Park neighborhoods. COVID bubble groups will be provided a map of the host houses participating and encouraged to ride at their own pace to each location on the route. Our planned route is about 2 miles long approximately centered on 13th Street and McKemy. The houses will be providing treats of candy or stickers or ?

In an effort to maintain social distancing measures we are providing a form for groups to select a start time. We’re requesting that each group not arrive at the start house before their selected time. You can signup using this form https://forms.gle/fwq4wpA3ycPfD7CeA

TL;DR overpass opening in February barring unforeseen delays.

The Neely Railroad Overpass is finally under construction. We first heard about this project 5 or 6 years ago and while it’s taken a long time to get to the construction phase we can’t wait to use it. The current conditions along the Western Canal/Powerline Trail are a trespassing clamber over an unimproved railroad grade. The official path detours south on Neely to Elliot Road and back north on Gilbert. No one I know actually uses the official detour and simply gets off their bike and lifts it over the tracks (2).

This project is partially funded though the Federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program. These funds are managed/distributed locally by the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) Active Transportation Committee. This committee is composed of staff from all regional cities and each year they solicit project proposals from the cities and then evaluate and rank them. The highest ranking projects each get a portion of that periods available funds.

With that little bit of background (I’m sure I’m glossing over some details) you may understand how things can take time to get off the ground. For more information about this particular project which is being jointly managed by the Town of Gilbert and the Arizona Department of Transportation visit the project web site.

Almost forgot to give you a map of where this is…