To see a slideshow of the abandoned bus station, visit of2011. So for now, this monumental concrete cavern remains a road to nowhere. And maybe the last best chance to build out the station fizzled in 2008, when the planned light-rail extension to the west was routed through the Arizona State Capitol area a few miles south, rather than running through the I-10 tunnel. Meanwhile, the flood of new developments in midtown failed to materialize, and Valley Metro started delivering workers directly into downtown Phoenix via a new system of express buses. Unfortunately, despite spending more than $9 million to build the bones of the structure, the city was never able to secure the $20 million-plus in federal funds it would have taken to complete the project. "The thought was to include an express bus station into the plans for the new tunnel that would allow passengers to exit underground and then ride a combination of elevators and escalators up to the park level," Grote says. (One developer was even proposing building a 114-story skyscraper in the area, which would have been the tallest in the world at the time.) an underground bus station that was started in 1990 but never actually completed.Īccording to Valley Metro light-rail director Wolfe Grote, who was involved with the planning of the I-10 tunnel back when he worked for the City of Phoenix's public transportation department, the bus station was designed to serve the needs of the then-red-hot midtown Phoenix area. Did you notice anything odd, like a fenced-off passageway slicing right through the middle of the larger tunnel? That, friends, is Phoenix's infamous Papago Intermodal Transfer Station - a.k.a. Next time you're driving down Interstate 10 in Phoenix - approaching the Deck Park Tunnel - take a quick look at the center median. And the Arizona Canal, located about a half-mile below Granite Reef Dam, affords visitors a perfect view of the Four Peaks mountain formation and a man-made mini waterfall that's nice to look at. The New Crosscut Canal in Papago Park is surrounded by lush plant life and offers a stunning view of the Papago Buttes. While the thought of eating anything caught in a canal makes us go "Ack!," we can't really blame people for wanting to throw out a line or jump in and splash around a little - some of the canals are beautifully seated in lovely areas. And speaking of fish, trolling for trout is a pastime among many canal fans. Summertime swimmers are forever being fished out of the canals and sent home with citations, since the canals aren't a resort feature, but a functional means of moving agua from here to there - with sometimes dangerously fast currents. An unofficial society of canal dwellers can be found most weekend mornings, hunkering around the Tempe Canal or the South Canal over by the old Val Vista Water Treatment Plant. ( Shhh!) And while portions of the old crosscut canal have been turned over to the city of Phoenix to carry away messy storm drainage from the northeast side of town, it hasn't discouraged neighborhood teens from making this canal their after-school hangout.įor some desert dwellers, though, the canal system is an open invitation to play. The Grand Canal, constructed in 1878, is the oldest remaining pioneer canal on the north side of the Salt River, and the site of at least one annual (and quite secret) pioneer re-enactment game, complete with covered wagon. Redeveloped over the past 100 years, each canal - with unglamorous names like Arizona, Crosscut, and Consolidated - has a unique history. The precise locations of the original Hohokam canals remain a mystery, in part because most of them have been destroyed by land development. The system of canals SRP operates today was developed by the Hohokam Indians, American pioneers, and the federal government. But Salt River Project's canal system isn't a series of lushly planted swimming holes it's a man-made network of several connected bodies of water that run in an underground network through much of the southern half of the Phoenix metropolitan area, helping to distribute water from the Salt River system. For many suburbanites, they're as close as the Valley gets to a natural water feature.
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