On Central Avenue, between Bethany Home Road and the Arizona Canal, the runoff from every storm has no underground pipe to drain into. The City of Phoenix designed one years ago and never built it, because people were worried about what it would do to the historic streetscape. The rain ends up in the roadside swales, then in the low spots of the Murphy Bridle Path. On October 7, 2026, the Phoenix City Council authorized the city to apply for a state preservation grant toward a study that would reopen the question of how to fix that.
The history and the erosion have the same cause. The preservation rules that keep this stretch of Central looking the way it does also kept out the drainage that would have protected the path.
What the City Found on the Ground
The council agenda packet for October 7 describes the path in plain terms. It is about six feet wide, made of dirt with a scattering of decomposed granite, and it runs along the east side of the streetscape. The city calls it "extremely popular" with bikers, walkers, joggers and the occasional horseback rider. Residential driveways cross it, and some of them are paved. Crews spread fresh decomposed granite from time to time, but the city's own write-up says the path "continues to be threatened by erosion."
The draft engineering scope attached to the agenda goes into more detail. A recent site visit found ponded water and eroded areas along the east edge of Central Avenue, on both sides of the trail, and inside the public right-of-way. It also found that many swales, ditches, driveway culverts and catch-basin outfalls on the cross streets had not been well maintained. Most were partly filled with sediment and had no grade that would carry water away.
New decomposed granite won't hold up on ground where the water has nowhere to go. That is a big part of why the regular maintenance hasn't fixed the problem.
The Storm Drain That Stayed on Paper
According to the scope document, the road itself is crowned asphalt with no curb, no gutter, no catch basins and no storm drain. Water sheets off both sides of the crown into roadside swales, and driveways without culverts often block those swales. That leads to "ponding and erosion of the roadside swale and adjacent Bridle Trail." The city states plainly that no underground drainage exists along Central from Bethany Home Road to the canal.
A fix was designed. Under City Project No. ST-846071, a trunkline of 36- to 48-inch pipe would have run down the middle of Central Avenue from Griswold Road south to Bethany Home Road. There it would have connected to an existing trunkline already sized for the extra flow from the north.
The storm drain trunkline, laterals, and catch basins proposed along Central Avenue's roadside swale were never built due to public concern over impacts to the historic Central Avenue streetscape.
Concern for the historic streetscape is what stopped the drain. And the poor drainage is what keeps damaging the path, which is one of the historic features people wanted to protect.
What the Historic District Protects
The North Central Avenue Streetscape Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2005. It covers about 2.5 miles of Central between Bethany Home Road and the Arizona Canal. The city's historic property register puts the local historic preservation overlay at July 2004, with a period of significance from 1895 to 1951. The district counts four rows of trees as contributing sites. Its contributing structures are an irrigation ditch, the remnants of a wasteway ditch, a narrow arterial street and the bridle path.
That list explains why the drainage problem has been so hard to solve. The narrow, curbless street counts as historic fabric in its own right. So curbs, gutters and catch basins, the usual way a city moves stormwater, would change one of the features the district exists to protect.
The path's history goes back to the canal. The City of Phoenix names William J. Murphy as the builder of the Arizona Canal and the man the Bridle Path is named for. Phoenix New Times dates Murphy's founding of Orangewood to 1895 and says the path was designed for the neighborhood's horseback riders. The North Central Phoenix Homeowners Association credits Murphy with planting trees and extending irrigation, and it describes the olive trees on Central as more than 100 years old. The path as it exists today is newer. A 2021 azcentral history piece reports that the Arizona Horse Lovers Club formally dedicated a five-mile trail in 1948, and the city's 2026 grant materials say the path was established in the 1940s.
What the October 7 Vote Covered
Item 74 on the agenda gave the city retroactive authorization to apply for a $20,000 Certified Local Government pass-through grant from the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office. The money would help pay a consultant to study the path's condition and recommend ways to keep it stable "for continued active use." The official results record that the item was adopted. In the meeting recording, the motion passes with eight yes votes.
The grant would cover only a small share of the cost. The study is estimated at $195,000 in total. The application proposes that three city departments put in the rest from their fiscal 2026-2027 budgets, a match the agenda ties to the grant being awarded. The agenda does not say whether the state has made an award.
| Proposed funding source | Amount |
|---|---|
| SHPO Certified Local Government grant | $20,000 |
| Street Transportation Department | $70,000 |
| Parks and Recreation Department | $65,000 |
| Planning & Development, Historic Preservation Office | $40,000 |
| Total | $195,000 |
Not everyone at the meeting backed the spending. One public commenter called it "$75,000 per mile for a report about a dirt path." Councilmember Kevin Robinson, whose District 6 includes the path, said on the recording that it "faces real maintenance challenges." He argued that the assessment could protect the path's historic character while making it safer and easier to use.
If the study goes forward, its deliverable is a project assessment and plans drawn to 15 percent design.
The Options Range From Spot Repairs to Pavement
The scope keeps the options open on purpose. According to the city, the alternatives "can range from maintaining the existing dirt path surfacing while proposing path local spot repairs and minor drainage and maintenance improvements to proposing a fully rebuilt paved path corridor with significantly improved surface and underground drainage infrastructure." That second option includes an underground storm drain along Central Avenue.
So the storm drain that was set aside over streetscape concerns is now one of the possibilities again. The consultant also has to stay within limits the earlier designers may not have faced. The work must "preserve the Bridle Trail and cause as little impact as possible" under the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation. And one of the stated goals is to reduce the city's long-term maintenance needs along the path.
The assessment covers details that people living along the path will recognize:
- Trail surfacing and side slopes
- Driveway crossings, culverts and headwalls
- Swales and ditches
- Mailbox locations and access
- Retaining walls, screen walls and other minor structures
Neighborhood groups have already gotten involved. The Murphy Trail Estates Neighborhood Association, which counts the path between Bethany Home Road and Maryland Avenue as its western border, voted on May 13, 2026 to support the grant application. The North Central Phoenix Homeowners Association, founded in 1977, was working to restore and renovate the path and add stop bars at the side streets that cross it, according to North Central News in February 2025.
When the Public Weighs In
The study includes two public outreach meetings. Here are the remaining milestones in the schedule the city proposed in its application:
- October to December 2026: develop design criteria and alternatives
- January to February 2027: public meetings
- February to March 2027: prepare the draft assessment and 15 percent plans
- April 1, 2027: submit the draft to the city
- June 15, 2027: submit the final assessment and 15 percent plans
That schedule is already behind. It assumed a grant award on August 1, 2026 and a kickoff meeting on August 15, and both dates passed before the council approved the application on October 7. The state took applications as late as June 30, 2026. The scope also assumes the assessment will take about 10 months once it starts, so the later milestones will likely need revising too. The city hasn't yet announced dates or locations for the public meetings. Those meetings are where residents can weigh in on the question that blocked the storm drain in the first place: how much change the historic streetscape should take to keep the path usable.
At ROCO Luxury Homes, we follow changes like this closely for clients who own homes near the Murphy Bridle Path or are thinking about buying there. If you'd like to talk through what the study could mean for a property along the corridor, Book a Private Consultation with our partners.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
