The Murphy Bridle Path: The Complete Guide to Central Avenue's Historic Trail

There is a hard-packed dirt and gravel path running along the east side of one of the busiest north-south avenues in Phoenix, and it has been there, in one form or another, since about 1900. It is the single most used piece of public space in North Central Phoenix, and it is the reason people who move here stop caring how far they are from a gym.

This is the full documented story of it, and the practical version too: how long it is, where it runs, who uses it now, and what it means if your house backs to it.

How it started, around 1900

The path began around 1900 as a feature of the Central Arizona Driving Association. The association arranged for Central Avenue to be deeded as a driving street for horse-drawn buggies, with a separate path on the east side for horses and riders.

That is a distinction worth holding onto: the roadway itself was the buggy route, and the Bridle Path was the parallel accommodation for riders. The corridor's defining piece of public infrastructure was, from the beginning, a deliberate separation of traffic types — which is exactly why it still works as a walking and running route alongside moving cars.

This is the same development story covered in the corridor's Orangewood history. William J. Murphy platted Orangewood in 1895 with Central Avenue as its principal roadway, and planted the olive and ash trees along it. The path threads between those trees.

The 1948 naming and the 1951 extension

The Arizona Horse Lovers Club officially named it Murphy's Maricopa Bridle Path in 1948. Most people now shorten it to the Murphy Bridle Path, or just the Bridle Path.

It was extended in 1951 from the Arizona Canal south, historically reaching Camelback Road. Today it terminates at Bethany Home Road. If you are trying to reconcile different descriptions of where the path ends, that history is usually why.

The dimensions, the surface and the shade

It runs roughly 2.5 miles along the east side of Central Avenue and is still about 10 feet wide, threading between the ash and olive trees. Ten feet is narrow — narrow enough that walkers, runners and the occasional rider negotiate with each other rather than staying in lanes, which is a large part of why the path feels social rather than athletic.

The surface is hard-packed dirt and gravel rather than loose dirt or pavement, which is why it stays comfortable to run on and drains reasonably after a storm. The city maintains it, and that maintenance includes watering the trees along the path — the canopy over it is deliberately kept alive, not simply inherited.

The result is a stretch of public space that does not feel like it belongs to an arterial road at all. It is shaded almost end to end, screened enough by trees and deep setbacks to feel private, and genuinely beautiful in a way that surprises first-time visitors. In the fall the leaves turn and the path becomes the most obvious evidence in the neighborhood that Phoenix does, in fact, have seasons.

Who uses it now

Today the path serves walkers and runners more than riders. Horses still appear, and the path's legal and historical identity is a Bridle Path, but the everyday reality is dogs, strollers, running clubs and people walking to coffee.

It is also a training route. Local high school running and cross-country programs — Sunnyslope, Brophy and Xavier among them — use the path for workouts, so early mornings and late afternoons often include a team moving through in a pack.

In practice that makes it the corridor's town square. It is where neighbors run into each other on purpose without arranging anything, and it is the closest thing a big American city has to a main street that happens to be made of dirt.

Etiquette, if you are new

• Horses have the right of way. Slow down, do not startle them, and pass wide when there is room.
• It is ten feet wide. Groups walking four abreast take up the whole thing.
• It is a ten-foot dirt and gravel path along a major avenue — the same shade that makes it pleasant also makes it dark early. Plan accordingly in winter.
• Summer usage collapses to early morning and after dark. The seasonal rhythm of the whole corridor is laid out in the almanac's seasonal calendar.

The irrigation lateral that is still running

The path is not the only piece of Murphy's original development still operating. An irrigation lateral dating to Murphy's original water development runs along the west side of Central Avenue — opposite the path, which is on the east side — and it is still active and still delivers water to residential lots. A 2002 SRP survey identified it as among the oldest in the city and worth preserving.

That is a remarkable thing to be able to say about infrastructure in a Sun Belt city: water ordered on a modern SRP account can arrive through a lateral that predates statehood. How the delivery system works today — the zanjero, the delivery gate, the 18 runs a year on subdivision accounts — is covered in the flood irrigation guide and in the homeowner's almanac.

What it means for the homes along it

Proximity to the path is one of the qualitative factors buyers here consistently ask for by name, along with lot size, canopy and irrigation. It is not something we can put a number on honestly — assigning a specific premium to path frontage would require a matched-pair study we have not done, and we are not going to invent one.

What we can say is what has actually traded. Across a sample of 22 recent closed North Central sales, the median close was $1,290,000, with the sample running from $1,023,500 to $2,455,555, and a median of $448 per square foot. Every figure here is computed from a sample of 22 North Central sales closed in the past 12 months, drawn from Trevor's ARMLS IDX feed. A 12-month sample is not the whole market — it is a read on what has actually traded, not a valuation of any particular house.

For how those numbers break down by pocket, see the price per square foot guide. For the streets themselves, see the street guide.

The practical trade-offs of living on Central

• You get the path, the canopy and a front-row seat to the corridor's daily life.
• You also get an arterial road. Traffic noise is real and varies enormously by block and setback.
• Deep front setbacks and mature trees mitigate a lot of it, which is why touring at different times of day matters more here than almost anywhere else in the corridor.
• Homes a block or two off Central often capture most of the path benefit with much less road exposure — worth walking before deciding.

Where to walk it from

The path parallels Central Avenue through the heart of the corridor, so any of the five North Central pockets puts you within a short drive or a reasonable walk of it. The corridor map shows how the pockets sit relative to Central, and the quiz is a decent starting point if you are not sure which end of the corridor suits you.

If you want to build a morning around it, the restaurant guide covers what is walkable off the 7th Street and Central corridors, and the events guide covers what happens nearby the rest of the year.

Where to go next

• The corridor's 1895 history — Orangewood, Evans' Addition and the trees.
• Flood irrigation — including Murphy's still-active lateral.
• Homes for sale between the sevens.
• Ask Trevor which blocks near the path actually stay quiet.