March 2012 - Page 2 of 2

Patio takeover of trail delayed, for now

On March 8, 2012February 19, 2018 By jamesinclair

The Bee has the some good news about last nights planning meeting concerning the proposed expansion of a restaurant onto the right-of-way of the Sugar Pine Trail.

Fresno’s planning commission on Wednesday rejected a proposal to allow a northeast Fresno restaurant to put a patio into part of the Sugar Pine Trail — but said the restaurant owner could return with a new proposal.

In rejecting the proposal by Yosemite Ranch owner David Fansler, commissioners asked the City Council to clarify when and how the city should allow shared use of public spaces.

Fresno Bee

As I wasn’t at the meeting, it’s hard to get the full tone of the message, but the news is mostly positive. At least for now, there will be no takeover of the trail. Click to read more!

Categories : UncategorizedTags : air pollution cmaq fail fresno widening1 Comment

Misuse of air quality funds

On March 6, 2012February 19, 2018 By jamesinclair

As you’ve heard me mention on this blog many times, the San Joaquin Valley, home to Fresno, has the worst air quality in the nation. So it makes sense that funding would arrive from multiple sources to attempt to clean things up. Because transportation emissions are such a large portion of the air quality problem, it makes sense to target transportation infrastructure. (The other large source of pollution is agriculture, and that’s a touchy subject).

One such source of funding to help clear the air is called CMAQ

The CMAQ program was conceived to support surface transportation projects and other related efforts that contribute air quality improvements and provide congestion relief. Click to read more!

Categories : UncategorizedTags : Fresno Bee land-grab rail trail sugar pine trail yosemite ranchLeave a comment

Yosemite Ranch’s unbelievable flyer

On March 6, 2012February 19, 2018 By jamesinclair

The last portion of this post has been updated.

As part of their attempt to privatize public space in an unprecedented land-grab, Yosemite Ranch is going all out to bus supporters to the planning meeting, a meeting almost nobody would have known about had it not been for Bill McEwen’s column in the Bee.

They’ve posted a flier on their facebook page which is quite unbelievable.

Let’s ignore for a second the mistakes in spelling and grammar and such (an elipses made of commas, really?) and focus on the message.

-They’ve been “fighting the fight” for two years, but who were they fighting? The process was done in secret and not made public until recently. Must have been quite the fight. Click to read more!

Categories : UncategorizedTags : bill McEwen fail fresno Fresno Bee pedestrians planning council rail trail sugar pine trail yosemite ranch1 Comment

Rail-trail land grab

On March 5, 2012February 19, 2018 By jamesinclair

In his Sunday column in the Fresno Bee, Bill McEwen informs us of a plan by a restaurant owner to grab some of the right-of-way used by the Fresno-Clovis rail trail and convert it to private restaurant space.

While the land-grab wouldn’t decrease the size of the currently paved path, it would take a large portion of the publicly held land, and so block any future improvements, including something in the far-future, like a rail-transit line. It would also remove mature vegetation which makes the path comfortable to use.

Most importantly, it would take public land, held by the city and useable by all, and privatize it. Walls would be built and only paying customers would have access during business hours. If the business were to fail, then nobody would have access to the walled off section. Click to read more!

Categories : UncategorizedTags : llamas maxis simcity3 Comments

SimCity 5 finally announced

On March 1, 2012February 19, 2018 By jamesinclair

I won’t lie, this has been a day I’ve been anticipating for a very long time – a new addition to the SimCity series has been announced. It shall be released in 2013, and many hours of productivity will be lost. That’s 10 years after the last release (!). Full details apparently are being revealed on March 6th, right now there are only a few early screenshots.

I’m posting this because I have a feeling that some of the more active readers of this blog have dabbled in the game series in the past. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but this series is one of the reason I’m so interested in city development, even though it can be far from accurate (no such thing as mixed used development for example). It sure is fun though, and it has a clever way of making 9pm become 2am in a matter of minutes. Click to read more!