Month: August 2012

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Late Reminder: Chile Festival today

On By jamesinclair

Forgot to post this last night. Don’t forget today is the Chile festival on the Fulton Mall. That’s chile as in the pepper, not the Texas slop.

Details:

Today
11:00am until 8:00pm

The Fresno Chile Festival returns August 25, 2012, celebrating our own Fresno chiles! This festival is a complete celebration of what’s HOT in Fresno. There will be HOT food, HOT music and HOT times. Come be a part of the Second Annual Fresno Chile Festival!

11am – Espacio with Samba Central
5pm – 40 Watt Hype
7pm – Patrick Contreras (and guests)

Plus a pool competition and a ping pong competition, Dance Groups, a chile eating contest, and salsa competition and more! Click to read more!

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Boston case shows declining car volume on major street

On By jamesinclair

When it comes to planning street infrastructure, there is a rule of thumb traffic engineers use when designing roads. That rule is that vehicle volumes will always go up, usually at 0.5% a year. That’s what results in roads almost always being overbuilt, as a street designed today is built to comfortably hold projected traffic 50 years from now. As the projects always show increasing vehicle volumes, we get extra lanes and such.

But what if that prediction and the rule of thumb is wrong?

Can a city gain residents and grow economically if traffic values stay constant….or even decline? As one study in Boston shows, the answer is absolutely yes. Click to read more!

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New businesses and bad air

On By jamesinclair

Sunday’s Bee had a couple of interesting articles which on paper had no relationship to each other, but in reality do have a strong connection.

The first was a column: McEwen: Diesel truckers should pay for bad air

The second was an article about new businesses on West Shaw: National businesses flock to Fresno’s West Shaw Avenue

In the opinion column, McEwen brings up the continuing problem of the valley’s bad air, and how it will be especially pronounced this week with “air alerts” being called.

The column hits on a few ideas I called upon a year ago such as tolling trucks and closing drive-thrus. Click to read more!

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Allegiant Air happy with demand for Fresno-Honolulu flights

On By jamesinclair

A few months ago, Allegiant made the surprise announcement that they would be connecting Fresno with Honolulu. The airline, which actually started their business with a flight from Fresno, only had flights to Las Vegas from this market. No other airline offered service from Hawaii to Fresno.

I was skeptical of how well the flights would do, but they seem to have been quite the success.

The expansion announcement comes just a week after Allegiant reported a $25.2 million profit for the second quarter, a result that marked the company’s 38th consecutive profitable quarter.

“It has greatly exceeded our forecasts,” Levy is quoted by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser as saying of Allegiant’s performance so far on its routes to Hawaii. “We started flights to Honolulu from both Las Vegas and Fresno in the last days of June, so July is our only full month of operations. Despite a smaller-than-ideal sales window of only nine weeks, Las Vegas posted a 97.4% load factor (an industry measure of seats filled), and Fresno had a load factor of 96.8% during the month of July.” Click to read more!

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Fresno moving forward on Droge building redevelopment

On By jamesinclair

If you’re from Fresno, you know what the Droge building is.

Is that name not ringing any bells?

Here, let me give you a hint:

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Photobucket

Ah yes, THAT building.

Earlier this year, the city decided that even though it’s an old building (1922), it’s not worth preserving, as it’s not in the best of conditions.

Now, the city is moving forward with the process of redevelopment, into what they say will be a new 4 story residential development. The development would not preserve any aspect of the building.

The project has expanded to include the building next door, which has been empty for many years, but is in good condition. It is the one story to the left of the Droge. Click to read more!

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An analysis of Fresno/Clovis rail-trail: South of Shaw

On By jamesinclair

I’ve talked about the Fresno-Clovis Rail Trail (also known as the Sugar Pine Trail or the Old Town Trail) a few times on this blog. This week I decided to go out and document things which the trail does right and the many opportunities it has to improve.

The trail is pretty much the only useful bit of separated bicycle/pedestrian infrastructure in town, and connects some pretty important places. The biggest downside to the trail is the fact that it has almost no branches connecting into it, so users must take to the streets to reach their final destinations.

Both Fresno and Clovis are proud of the trail, at least officially, as they bring it up often as something good about the towns. Problem is, funding doesn’t exactly follow. Click to read more!

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Athletic store aims for sedentary market – Picture tour of new Dick’s

On By jamesinclair

It’s almost time for Clovis’s newest big box to open up, and that is the sports retailer Dick’s. I decided to take a walk in the area where the giant box has been dropped down, which is just a mile from the historic old town. Fresno and Clovis are packed to the brims with big boxes, and I was looking to see if one built in 2012 is any different from one build in 1980. I was also looking to see if a store which caters to “athletic and outdoor enthusiasts” would design an experience that….well, that actually caters to being athletic and being outdoors. Any marketing professional will tell you that the brand shouldn’t end at the front doors, is that the case here? Click to read more!

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Amtrak California ridership continues to grow in 2012

On By jamesinclair

This is my sixth time posting a summary of Amtrak California ridership and the story continues to be the same – more riders. Those increases come with a poor economy, no improvements in service and (slight) increases in fares. The fastest grower continues to be the San Joaquin service, which runs from Bakersfield to Oakland or Sacramento, which just so happens to be the starting point for California’s future high speed rail service.

Amtrak has just released the May 2012 numbers, so lets take a look inside.

In 2008, hitting 80,000 riders on the San Joaquin was a big deal. In 2011, the train broke past 100,000 riders for the first time. This year the San Joaquin didn’t even go under 80,000, and has already seen two months of 100,000+ ridership. That’s with the summer ridership not being reported yet. Click to read more!