Month: July 2013

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What Fresno can learn from LA: Broadway Street Project

On By jamesinclair

A couple of weeks ago I posted about Los Angeles’s new pedestrian czar, a position Fresno really needs to add. Well, that’s not the only thing Fresno can mimic from LA.

Los Angeles and Fresno both share a street downtown with the same name: Broadway. Both have/had theater activity, and were once bustling centers of activity. Today, Broadway in LA is still full of merchants, but almost all are low rent. Almost every theater is shuttered. Fresno’s Broadway is in worse shape – most buildings have simply been demolished. Of course, there are some bright spots, like the Rainbow Ballroom and the Crest, and even some new projects in the work, such as a large residential development. Click to read more!

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Boston proposal: Make every college students pay for night transit service

On By jamesinclair

Boston is one of the most transit-complete cities in the country, but it has a giant hole: no night service. While only a few cities offer 24/7 train service, most, at minimum, have a network of night buses to pick up the slack. Others, like DC and LA, adjust their hours so weekend service runs as late as 3am on their rail lines. Boston does neither. When the clock strikes 1am, on every day of the week, the trains and buses stop rolling, until they resume shortly before 6am the following day.

There have been many excuses given as to why this is the case. “Maintenance” is a favorite, especially when officials can point to New York and say “we don’t have four tracks.” Fair enough….except that PATH, which does run 24/7, is also limited to two tracks. Chicago as well. Never mind that fact that at 2am on Sunday morning, when the streets are suddenly filled with people being kicked out of bars, not a soul is working on maintenance. Like most organizations, maintenance activities which run at night tend to be on weeknights. Click to read more!

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Don’t miss the Catacomb Party this weekend – Saturday July 20th

On By jamesinclair

This weekend is going to be a big one for downtown Fresno, as a large music festival (with an arts component) is being held – and it’s free. Trust me, you don’t want to miss out.

They’re doing it on the Fulton Mall on Saturday, and the inspiration came from a very successful concert held last year in the same location. Last July, to promote the release of a new CD for the band Fierce Creatures, the organizers put together the “Catacomb Party” on the northern end of the mall. The event featured one stage, a few bands, and some very creative decorations. I reviewed that event in this post (lots of pictures!) Click to read more!

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Clovis adding large trailhead to Dry Creek Trail

On By jamesinclair

The City of Clovis is looking to convert 2.5 acres of vacant land at Shepherd and Sunnyside into a new trailhead. The project would slightly extend Dry Creek Trail to Shepherd, and provide future connections to a new trail north, and the existing Enterprise Trail to the East. I recently provided a picture tour of a gap-closure on a portion of this same trail.

Here is an area trail map, with the trailhead indicated by the red arrow

photo shepherd1_zps67cdf125.jpg

Here is another map showing the same thing. Dark green solid lines indicate the two trails, with the red line indicating where they end. The dotted green line is a future trail, which today is accessible as a dirt canal bank. The dotted beige line is a future trail (long distance future). The yellow shape is the planned trailhead Click to read more!

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What Fresno can learn from LA: Pedestrian Czar

On By jamesinclair

I’ve mentioned before how in a lot of ways, Fresno tries to be the LA of 20 years ago. Unfortunately, that means mimicking failed policies that LA has thrown out the window. One mistake LA made was to ignore the pedestrian, but things have finally started to change.

LA recently hired a “pedestrian coordinator,” a person whose only job is to improve transportation for pedestrians. What’s interesting is that this person was not a traffic engineer, but someone with a much more varied background

Ocañas holds master’s degrees in both business and international
affairs from Columbia University, studied Mandarin in Singapore as a
Fulbright scholar and worked for Austin-based Dell Computers when it was
a scrappy startup. She has a nose for business, and it comes from an
inspired place. “I’m a Quaker — that’s how I was raised — and there’s
always been this element of social responsibility,” she says. “There’s
always been a slant in my professional career toward how to use finance
and economics and direct them toward a public good.” Click to read more!

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The victim never gets to tell his story

On By jamesinclair

Last week saw the death of yet another pedestrian in the Fresno area. As is the case in almost every death of a pedestrian in Fresno, no charges were filed. This particular story takes place on a two lane country road, near Sanger. The victim was a teen on his skateboard.

Last week, Greater Greater Washington posted a story about how the writer, who was on his bike, was in a collision when a motorists illegally turned in front of him. As he was taken away to the hospital, the responding police officer interviewed the driver, decided that the driver’s story was fully accurate, and proceeded to try and get the victim to sign a ticket on his hospital bed. Click to read more!