Tomorrow, Thursday September 1st, there will be a workshop on major changes proposed for the FAX bus system, which serves Fresno into adjacent communities. Thanks to James Sponsler who left a comment on my last post with this important tip.
This appears to be a major change by FAX standards, which runs a system that has effectively remained stagnant for 40 (yes forty) years.
The core components are:
- Frequency
- Grids
- More weekend and evening service
Effectively, the new plan reduces coverage in order to increase service. Fresno has not spent a dime in actually improving service in decades. In the past 15 years, 4 lines have been eliminated, and one was added – paid for by the Childrens Hospital. The last increase in service (to 15 minutes on core lines) was funded by a federal grant, and those improves were reveresed when the federal money dried up. While higher frequencies are fantastic, it is a shame it comes at the expense of certain neighborhoods.
I’ll look into the details in a later post, but you can check out the presentation from this page.
Note: Fresno was recently awarded $8 million in cap and trade funds to improve transit.
“In combination with the opening of the initial BRT service, which has received significant federal and state funding, these investments are expected to support additional improvements to the BRT corridor, as well as supporting near-BRT improvements to the Shaw and Cedar corridors. Overall ridership improvements are expected to exceed 50% 12 months after implementation, and 90% by the final year of the project.”
It is not clear if this workshop uses any of that funding, or was an independent effort which the funding will complement.
There’s some more exciting news at this meeting. The council is being asked to approve an agreement that will allow the city to receive $4,600,000 in Measure C money to build the new Midtown Bicycle and Pedestrian Trail. The good news is that this will allow construction to start quickly. The bad news is that it eats up all trail funding until 2021.
That’s right, we can spend hundreds of millions on highway expansions but less than $1m a year on trails. Sigh.
Anyway, here is the project. I am unsure if this funding covers all the sections shown.
