12th Street is a collector street that runs north-south through Central Phoenix neighborhoods of all types. Along its 9-mile route, it intersects with several east-west bike corridors already in existence: the new bike boulevard, Oak St., the Grand Canal, Campbell Ave, Maryland Ave, and the Arizona Canal. It passes by the 12th Street light rail stations, Good Samaritan Hospital, North High School, and Madison Traditional Academy.

Despite being an ideal route for a long bicycling corridor, 12th Street's bicycling infrastructure is only partially developed. At this time, bike lanes do not exist on the mile between Indian School and Camelback, traffic is still relatively fast on the sections with bike lanes, and the route is needlessly interrupted near the Phoenix Country Club.

To make 12th Street the bike route it has the potential to be, the City should consider the following:

1) Add bike lanes where they are currently missing on the mile between Indian School and Camelback. Just as there was no point to an extra set of lanes for cars on one mile of Central between Camelback and Bethany Home, there's no point to extra car lanes along a single mile of 12th Street.

2) Implement traffic calming measures on busy segments of 12th Street. The mile between Glendale and Northern seems particularly in need of this since there are no signaled intersections along 12th Street between those two arterials. Tempe's upcoming transformation of Hardy Drive, a road similar in design and traffic level to 12th Street, could be a good model for a traffic calming project.

3) Enable bicycle passage along Manor Drive between Osborn and Thomas. Manor Drive was abandoned by the City, truncated at Thomas, and gated at Osborn several years ago to assuage neighborhood complaints about cut-through traffic. The homeowners should be approached about a redesign of those barriers to allow pedestrians and bicyclists to pass through.

See the link below for a map illustrating this idea.