Month: January 2012

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Clovis gets LED street lights

On By jamesinclair

Clovis and Fresno look a lot alike, so it’s hard to tell sometimes when you cross from one city to the other. The street signs are a good giveaway, as Fresno uses green and Clovis uses brown. But now, at night, there’s one other difference: Clovis is installing LED street lights at almost every intersection. According to the city, they are in the process of installing over 400 LED street lights. I’ve seen them at most intersections, although a section of Clovis Avenue, by Old Town, has all been redone.

Willow Avenue, the border between Fresno and Clovis is interesting. There are four lights at each intersection, and now two are LEDs, and two are sodium. Click to read more!

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Thoughts from the Clovis Shaw planning meeting

On By jamesinclair

The subject of my last post was about the city of Clovis holding three planning meetings concerning Shae Ave.

I attended the second meeting, held in the afternoon. The meeting was not well publicized, as there was no notice (that I could see) in the paper. On the website, the information was listed, but the way the site is set up makes it hard to find.

Apparently, the expectation was that only business owners would attend, because the first question asked was which business each member of the audience owns. I assume they sent out flyers to each business on the corridor.

Now when I say audience, I mean a grand total of six members of the public, less than the 7 members of the city that were on-hand. The lack of outreach and the lack of response is somewhat typical of planning here, both in Clovis and in Fresno. The local population is not very engaged with how the city is being planned, which is partially why there are so many ways in which the planning is poor. According to the city staff, the morning meeting had more people, but that’s not saying much. I think that the lack of engagement by the community is taken by the city as a sign that everyone approves of how things have been done. As I’ll get to later, according to one of the planners, that’s sort of how the council sees it. Click to read more!

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Clovis sprawls north, wonders how to revitalize south

On By jamesinclair

As I mentioned yesterday, Clovis is holding community meetings on ways to revitalize the Shaw corridor. Today, I will discuss the problems facing Shaw. Before attending the meeting, I was baffled about how they’re being held just weeks after development began on a massive new commercial center just two miles north. I wondered if those in charge were failing to draw the connection between approving new development elsewhere and the abandonment of existing retail corridors.

Tomorrow, I will write about the meeting itself, and what the Clovis planners said.

This post will discuss three reasons why Shaw is failing
1) The car-first approach actually hurts stores
2) Lack of pedestrian and bike access
3) Approval of new development elsewhere Click to read more!

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Clovis holding Shaw Avenue planning meetings

On By jamesinclair

I am writing a full post about the problems facing Shaw Avenue, but I am posting the details of the meeting now as a heads up. Look for the full post later tonight.

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The City of Clovis has identified a two-and-a-half-mile stretch of Shaw Avenue as a focus area for long term planning and reinvestment.

The City of Clovis is preparing a focused land use planning, regulatory, and financing effort to re-imagine and revitalize the corridor from SR-168 to Clovis Avenue.

The City of Clovis invites you to attend any of the three workshops being held on January 25-26, 2012, to help reimage, revitalize, and recreate Shaw Avenue. Click to read more!

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A transit trip to LA – Amtrak, Metro, Universal

On By jamesinclair

Some thought from my weekend trip to LA to see a concert at the Gibson Amphitheater at Universal.

Including thoughts on Amtrak’s San Joaquin, the LA subway and the infrastructure around Universal City.

Note: My D key is not always working, I’ve done my best to find errors, but I may have missed one or two.
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I’ve ridden the San Joaquin many times before, but I was surprised to see something I hadn’t seen – a train car that wasn’t the standard California Car I’m used to. It was made fairly obvious by the fact that there was only one boarding door, and it was baggage only. Click to read more!

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Gas prices will probably break records again this summer

On By jamesinclair

It appears to me that this summer we will see the highest gas prices of all time…again. Predicting exact price is always impossible, because of so many variables, but while oil and gas can be quite unpredictable, they also follow very clear seasonal patterns. What that means is that from now until memorial day, expect gas prices to increase….as they always do. What makes this year special is that our starting point is the highest it’s ever been.

The ingredients that will lead us to new records this summer:

-Economy is improving by all metrics, and looks to continue that way. More demand = higher prices.
-Ethanol subsidy is gone, leading a 4.5 cent increase per gallon of gas (should be in effect now)
-We are currently at the highest January prices ever, and…
-Last year had very few events which caused spikes in prices (hurricanes, strikes etc). That means that any spike this year caused by a one-off event will send prices way higher than last year, and even without any spikes, prices should still follow last years trajectory. While last year did see the events in Libya rattle investors, it caused a general rise and not a spike (as would happen if a refinery blew up, or a hurricane hit Texas). As the arab spring is still in effect (see Syria), prices will not drop. Click to read more!

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Clovis: A pedestrian-oriented development without any sidewalks…?

On By jamesinclair

In 1993, the Clovis General Plan called for the concept of “Urban Centers” to be included in future sprawl/growth.

In 2003, after years of work, the “Loma Vista Specific Plan” was released, setting (what appeared to be) strict guidelines on the development set to happen as the city took over agricultural land to its east at the southern edge of the city. The city was ready to grow and it appeared that they wanted to correct at least some of the mistakes of previous sprawl expansion.

Rough Boundary of Loma Vista Plan area. Residential development is clearly underway in the west. The majority is still prime agriculture, for now.
Photobucket Click to read more!

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Being a pedestrian on Blackstone, in pictures

On By jamesinclair

Blackstone Ave is by far Fresno’s busiest north/south route. It begins downtown near the biggest regional hospital (as Abbey) and then heads north, passing by Fresno City College. It then passes by the first suburban mall in the city (Manchester), continues north near the second suburban mall (Fashion) and then onward to the newest shopping mecca, River Park.

Along the way, there are a series of “zones” where auto-centric businesses cluster together, from an area of mostly motels, to an area of mostly car dealerships. Fast food outlets litter the sides, include the 10th Mcdonalds ever built. Click to read more!

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Fresh and Easy Closing South Fresno Location

On By jamesinclair

When Fresh And Easy came to Fresno 2 or so years ago, I became highly interested in their small-format stores and their location scoping. What especially caught my eye is the way they distributed their stores, which included both a downtown location and a (sort of) South Fresno location.

A non-fast-food chain opening south of Shaw? What magic is this?

Well, it turns out that the party didn’t last so long, as the chain will be “temporarily” closing their Cedar and Shields location (temporary meaning from 2 years to forever). The report comes from the Fresh and Easy Buzz Blog which has a list of the 12 stores the chain is closing. That’s a shame. Ceder and Shields is a busy intersection in an area lacking cheap grocery options. Click to read more!

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$250,000 to add a right turn lane?

On By jamesinclair

There are lots of ways to spend a quarter of a million dollars, and with the municipal budget continuing to find itself in a poor state, one would expect that expenditures are scrutinized and prioritized.

Since this is Fresno, we know there’s nothing higher on the priority list than finding yet another way to widen a street. An upgrade, as it’s usually called, although the only thing being upgraded are vehicle speeds. And even that is questionable.

On December 15th, the city council took up the routine issue of approving a contract for a local company to expand an intersection to provide the ever-so-important right turn lane. Click to read more!