Tag: growth

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Fresno’s bus ridership, 7 years of decline (and counting)

On By jamesinclair

What happens when a city won’t stop growing, but the transit system doesn’t grow with it? The system becomes less useful. And the less useful the system is, the less riders will use it. Welcome to Fresno.

We know that bus ridership is down a tad nationwide, but in many cities, it is because riders have taken to trains. Unfortunately, that’s not possible in Fresno, where the bus is your one and only transit option. That means a decline in bus ridership indicates more driving, or worse, less trips being taken (i.e, people not being able to get to jobs).

I last looked at Fresno bus ridership in March of 2012 when ridership appeared to be on a scary downwards trend. Three years later, has it changed? Sadly, the answer is no. Click to read more!

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Will Fresno council kill infill general plan?

On By jamesinclair

Developers aching for more sprawl versus everybody else. Sound familiar?

Sometimes Fresno feels like a broken record, and this time it’s no different. Tomorrow, the City Council may finally vote on the 2035 General Plan Update. The plan supports infill development as an attempt to curtail the ever-expanding city boundary. It won’t BAN sprawl, it will just aim to decrease it. But for some, that’s too much.

Naturally, the developers of tract homes aren’t pleased, and they have the attention of Chief Tea Party Council President Steve Brandau who helped killed the fully funded BRT project, and has also eliminated every road diet proposal that comes his way. In his mind, everybody in Fresno is well-off, everybody drives, and everybody wants to live the suburban dream. After all, that’s what he wants, and so naturally, that’s all that matters. Throw in some free market voodoo, and you have yourself the developers best friend. 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!