South Palm Canyon Got Narrower Just as the Canyons Went Back to Seven Days a Week

The paint on South Palm Canyon Drive is still going down. Between East Palm Canyon Drive and Acanto Drive, the four lanes are gone. The city's design replaces them with one travel lane each way, a continuous two-way left-turn lane in the middle, and Class II bike lanes. According to the city's October 7 update, the bike lanes will be in place once final striping is finished.

That stretch is the south end's spine. It runs past Moorten Botanical Garden, past the Bogert Trail turn, and on toward the Indian Canyons Toll Gate. Everything at the far end of it reopened for the full season on October 1, the same few weeks the road was getting its final shape. The south end's busiest months now start on a slower street, and the road and its destinations happen to be moving at the same speed.

Four lanes became three, about a month behind the first plan

The city's original project notice set a tidy schedule. The new one-lane-each-way pattern was due to begin Friday, September 4 at 4 p.m., and crews were to stripe the road and its bike lanes September 8 through 11. The overall construction window ran from August 10 into October 2026, with Eagle Paving Company as the contractor. Funding came from Measure J and A funds, city capital funds, and an SB 821 grant through RCTC.

By early October the schedule had slipped. On October 7, the city's Office of Neighborhoods posted an update announcing a "NEW Traffic Pattern October 12-16, 2026." Final striping was underway, crews were still adjusting manholes and other utilities to the new surface, and drivers were asked to stay in their lane and not pass other cars along South Palm Canyon. The City of Palm Springs capital projects page still lists completion as expected by October 2026. The project hotline is (442) 221-0015.

The city's stated goals are multimodal mobility and roadway safety. The new layout also slows everyone down on the drive south, right as the canyons pick up their busiest hours.

The city's project stops at Acanto. The last stretch, from Acanto to the Indian Canyons visitor booth, is a different road with a different caretaker. A Federal Highway Administration report says the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians restriped South Palm Canyon "from Acanto Dr. south to the Indian Canyons Visitor Booth (approximately 1/2 mile)" in October 2015, after that section was resurfaced. As you drive south, the new striping ends and the tribe's half mile begins.

What turned back on at the end of the road

October 1 is the south end's real season opener. Three of its anchors switched schedules that day.

At Indian Canyons, the change brings back more than hours. Free ranger-led interpretive hikes return from October through June, included with paid admission. Each one covers about a mile and takes about an hour and a half. The 10 a.m. hike leaves from the Trading Post and goes through Palm Canyon, and the 1 p.m. hike covers the full Andreas loop from the Andreas parking area. Both run Friday through Sunday. Monday through Thursday, rangers give 30-minute talks instead, at 10 a.m. at the Trading Post and 1 p.m. at Andreas parking. From July through September there are no hikes.

Admission at the Indian Canyons gate is $12 for adults, $7 for seniors 62 and older and for students with ID, and $6 for children 6 to 12. Entry is free with a U.S. military ID. Tahquitz Canyon lists $15 for adults and $7 for children 6 to 12. Each site lists a $125 annual pass. If you live five minutes from the gate, that changes how you use the place. At $12 a visit, the Indian Canyons pass costs less than 11 day tickets. At $15, the Tahquitz pass costs less than nine.

You can buy Indian Canyons day tickets at the Toll Gate. Tickets and annual passes are also sold at the Agua Caliente Visitor's Counter inside the Palm Springs Visitor Center, 2901 N. Palm Canyon, phone 760-323-6018.

Moorten has been a privately owned arboretum in Palm Springs since 1938. It shows more than 3,000 plant varieties along a nature trail and includes what the Moortens call the world's first Cactarium. Their Mediterranean-style home, Cactus Castle, sits in the Palm Grove Oasis, and a nursery is on site.

A fall morning, in the order the road runs

With the road and the destinations both in fall mode, a south-end morning now runs in a natural order. Here's how the route lays out from north to south.

1. Coffee before the turn. Koffi's Palm Springs South shop at 1700 South Camino Real opens daily at 6:30 a.m. and closes at 5:30 p.m. For a sit-down breakfast, Elmer's at 1030 E. Palm Canyon Dr. serves from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.
2. The garden, if it's not a Wednesday. Moorten doesn't open until 10 a.m., so it works best on the way back. It also works as the gentler option on days when a canyon trail is too much.
3. The Bogert Trail turn. Visit Palm Springs' hiking guide sends drivers south on South Palm Canyon Drive and left onto Bogert Trail for the Wildhorse trailhead.
4. The gate. Keep going past Acanto and over the tribe's half mile to the Indian Canyons Toll Gate at 38520 S. Palm Canyon Dr. Make the 4 p.m. last-entry cutoff and you have an hour on the trails before the 5 p.m. close.

Two Indian Canyons rules decide what you bring. Bicycles and motorized vehicles aren't allowed on the trails, so the new bike lanes can get you toward the canyons but your bike can't go on the trails. No animals are allowed either, so the dog stays home. The site also says water is required on trail. Rideshare drivers have to display company stickers in the windshield for drop-off and pickup.

The north end of the route is filling in

The same stretch of road has a neighborhood at its northern end, and the bike lane has history there. In September 2025, the Palm Springs Tribune reported that Robert Cole, owner of the Tool Shed, had joined the Tribune in pushing for diagonal parking and shade trees on East Sunny Dunes Road. Gear, Townie Bagels, Q Trading, Offramp Leathers and Little Shop of Treasures signed on. The Tribune wrote that city staff first worried angled parking could get in the way of a planned bike lane. The local bike coalition backed the business proposal anyway, pointing to nearby CV Link as a safe option for cyclists. That piece describes the plan as a proposal sent to the city. It doesn't describe an adopted project.

A coffee bar from Provincetown is heading for the same street. The Palm Springs Tribune reported in March that Joe Coffee, run by lifelong friends Mark Shaw and Glenn Siegmund, would open at 577 East Sunny Dunes Road. The space is behind Jaco Moretti Arts, in a building designed by Palm Springs architect Howard Lapham. The owners told the Tribune that Sunny Dunes "is ready for revitalization that we want to be part of." The same report said Joe Coffee hoped to open in late December 2026.

Over on East Palm Canyon, the Coachella Valley Independent reported in September that Gertie's Salon and Bar took over the Alice B. space at Living Out, 1122 E. Palm Canyon Drive, during Alice B.'s summer break and will stay permanently. Gertie's still serves the biscuits and sells them frozen to take home. The Desert Sun reported that Alice B., which Los Angeles chefs Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken opened in 2023, has closed permanently. The same Independent column says the micro-bakery Con Amor, Nina y Leon is opening a storefront at 1775 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Suite 150, in the former Over the Rainbow space. Until then, its weekly pastry boxes, with items like fig olive cake and raspberry chocolate tarts, are sold through its website.

At Backbeat Homes, we follow these south-end streets one block and one season at a time, from the Sunny Dunes storefronts down to the last half mile before the gate. If you're weighing a move to this end of Palm Springs, or thinking about what your own place near South Palm Canyon fits into now, reach out. Work With Us.