jim10040

It's now possible to ride all the way from Hillcrest&Alpha to Willow & Hill without getting on a street! Anybody want to do a group ride, to explore things East Dallas? Sundays, Mondays & Tuesdays are good for me. The new trail is really nice, pavement's really smooth now.

StephenH

Pretty nifty. I'll have to check it out sometime, likely to be a couple of weeks.

A year or so back, i rode on the part that was open, and there was broken glass about every 1/4 mile, don't know if that's normal or not.

monogodo

I rode it from Deep Ellum to WRL a few weeks ago and didn't see any broken glass.

apacherider

There is usually quite a bit south of Woodrow Wilson HS. Sometimes alot!

txvintage

Is there a link to a map of the trail? I'm North of the trail and don't get down that way too often.

jim10040

Here's a link - https://friendsofsantafetrail.org/directions.php
The way it sort of dead-ends at Willow & Hill is a little disappointing, but it's only a few blocks to Fair Park and to Deep Ellum.
I haven't seen any glass there yet, it's very pristine even in the spray painted areas.
Google Map that isn't very clear, but it's there

StephenH

There's a section where it parallels a road just a few yards off, and that's where the glass was. I suspect people just drove along and lobbed their bottles over on the trail from the road. The fact that some of y'all have seen glass and some haven't, is a good sign, as it means sombody must be cleaning it up periodically, too.

On the dead-end part- head on down to Main Street, and that's a decent bike route on into downtown. I have also followed one of the on-road bike routes down there too, which follows Swiss Avenue for much of the route. And once again, I go over to Main Street and down it.

monogodo

Swiss Ave rocks for riding bikes. Very little traffic and wide streets.

I usually ride Elm into Downtown from the end of Santa Fe Trail. More lanes for cars to go around me than on Main.

StephenH

So I made it down to the Santa Fe Trail.
Here's where it takes off from the White Rock Trail. That's the old railroad bridge, although you can't tell from the top side.

Bridge over Garland Road, looking back at it:

Trail:

Here in the flatlands, it's uncommon for two railroad tracks to cross like this:

Trail pictures:


In this picture, you can see the old railroad cut off to the left. Putting the trail there would have made it invisible from the road, which would not be good for security purposes.

Here's where it joins on the part of the trail that was there last time I went out:

And it's extended down the other way from that part as well. This is looking back the way I came from:

As is this:

(continued)

StephenH

The end of the trail. While you can get to the road, it is obvious that they intend to extend it some more at some point.

There are numerous stop signs on the lower part of the trail.
I didn't see the broken glass problem like last time.
I did see quite a few grafitti markings, most of which had also been painted over.


See this thread for the older pictures along the route:
https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?444318-East-Dallas-Veloway