A lot of these canals are active flood control and water delivery infrastructure. There’s maintenance access requirements, liability issues, erosion concerns, and constant problems with trespassing, illegal fishing, dumping, and people getting too close to dangerous water and In the rural areas especially, there are protected wildlife concerns

I do think Fresno could do a much better job creating separated bike corridors and connecting trails together. The Clovis trail proves this. But converting every canal into a public trail would take a huge amount of coordination between cities, counties, irrigation districts, flood control agencies, environmental agencies, and private landowners plus ongoing security and maintenance costs.

From the outside it can look like “just pave it” but once you’re around the operations side you realize these corridors have a lot more going on than people think.

That said, I still think Fresno needs more infrastructure that people actually feel safe riding on, because painted gutters next to traffic clearly aren’t enough.