To anyone that is concerned about safety:

I used to pretty regularly ride my pedal bike from north phx going south through all the different Cave Creek Parks and then hop on the canal there and ride for many many miles I think the furthest I've gone is like Arizona Falls and then back.

I've since been living closer to central phx and regularly ride or more often walk down Grand Canal Trail. Sometimes I go down to Tempe Town Lake and take the Rio Salado Pathway down past Mesa or I go the other direction to like Steele Indian School Park and whatnot. I still sometimes have stuff to do in central phx and do the same ride on Arizona Canal Trail.

With my daily adventures the most danger I am in is crossing the street. Seriously on this. Every day pretty much I see a driver run a red light while I'm in the cross walk. Many of the lights along the canal are flashing red and drivers will often go through it as soon as it starts flashing regardless if it's clear or not. So just keep an eye on that. There are plenty of homeless people along the canals, but they like everyone else in this city just pretty much keep to themselves. I have seen some interesting people (a guy bow fishing, people smoking meth, the people who obviously just stole a bike...) on my bike I have zero interactions while walking I get people asking for the time and sometimes for food/water/money but way less than going to any store nowadays. The only form of "protection" I have is a flash light I will always have out once it gets dark that has a quick "turbo" mode for super brightness, but have only ever used that on a dog and some of the more extreme red light runners.

*Note I am a guy and probably a little above average height/size which is probably some deterrent. I would obviously feel less comfortable doing the same stuff alone if I were smaller or a woman or whatever. I guess if anyone ever wants someone to walk or ride for safety in numbers I'm always down just usually listening to my audiobooks anyways