I-Team: Tracking a renewed interest in the CV Link

People around the Coachella Valley are now able to enjoy the CV Link alternative transportation pathway following its opening in November of 2025.  The 40-mile roadway connects many valley cities with a few notable exceptions, cities that rejected building it including Rancho Mirage and Indian Wells.

But as I-team investigator Jeff Stahl reports in his latest I-Team investigation airing Thursday June 25, there's now a renewed interest in bringing the CV Link to at least one of those holdout cities.

Mayor Toper Taylor said, "I think what's changed is we have a younger population, a more active population, but with that said, some of the key issues still remain."

We're asking questions and getting answers as city leaders in Indian Wells say their may be a path forward in bringing the path to their city where residents voted against the project in a 2016 ballot measure H. 

Times have changed, and the active transportation path's benefits have not been lost on those who see it as a potentially easier way for visitors and residents to access the tennis garden and other local destinations.

City leaders now say paths along Highway 111, Fred Waring Drive, or even Hovley Lane East to Washington Street could be potential routes. Some of those same routes though, proposed by the Coachella Valley Association of Governments, were rejected by the city's residents in 2016. 

And challenges remain. Past city councils agreed there were no viable routes, and it would destroy views if allowed through the city's golf resort. We asked Councilmember Greg Sanders who said, "We've put the ball into CVAG's court. Show us some alternatives, and there may not be an acceptable alternative."

We've been going through the original documents-- the same ones a former Rancho Mirage City Council member, the late Dana Hobart also examined as he battled CVAG questioning the path's funding and proposed routing through his city. Rancho Mirage voters also said no to the link at that time. Is the city now interested in building the CV Link?

There's much more to this storyand Jeff Stahl is asking city leaders in Indian Wells and Rancho Mirage about the CV Link and it's potential in their communities. The I-team is also asking CVAG about its interest in expanding the approximately 40 miles of pathway into those communities as it is already working on plans to extend the CV Link past Coachella and into Desert Hot Springs.

See our complete I-team report, Tracking the Route, Thursday at 6:00pm on KESQ News Channel 3.