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Papago Park is the rare municipal park that straddles the boundary between two cities. The majority of Papago's land area is in Phoenix, and that large section of the park includes its best known attractions: The Phoenix Zoo, the Desert Botanical Garden, and the famous "hole in the rock." A smaller section on the park's eastern edge lies within Tempe city limits. That portion is home to the Rolling Hills golf course, the Arizona Historical Society Museum, and the new Crosscut Canal multi-use path, a crucial two miles of new infrastructure for pedestrians and bicyclists.

Unfortunately, there is little connection between the Phoenix and Tempe segments of the park. A visitor walking, running, or bicycling along the Crosscut Canal path passes behind the Phoenix Zoo and the Desert Botanical Garden but is given no indication of how to reach either attraction. The persistent person who makes the attempt can find his or her way to the front entrance of both places, but the routes are needlessly obscure and convoluted.

Phoenix should work with Tempe, as well as the privately owned Phoenix Zoo and Desert Botanical Garden, to improve the connections among attractions on both sides of Papago Park. In the case of the Desert Botanical Garden, only a few hundred feet of new path would be needed to provide a direction connection between the Crosscut Canal and the DBG parking lot. For the Phoenix Zoo, most of the route from the Canal is already covered by existing roads, but wayfinding signs would help with navigation.

While this effort should begin with Phoenix and Tempe, there may also be a role for Scottsdale, which borders Papago Park at its northern edge. A proposal to create an elevated trail over McDowell Road is now being discussed within Scottsdale. If that trail is ever built, it should connect seamlessly to Tempe's Crosscut Canal path and Phoenix's Galvin Bikeway. Let's make the "Discovery Triangle" easier for visitors to discover. See the map link below.