Tag: parking

Fresno City College Axes Free Bus Passes, Celebrates $18m Parking Garage

Last week, at the bottom of a newsletter, FAX dropped the bombshell that students at Fresno City College would no longer enjoy free rides on local bus routes.

In 2017, when the program was initiated, officials boasted that it would ease parking concerns, help students save money, and decrease emissions.

Apparently, those concerns no longer matter. According to State Center Community College District Vice Chancellor Christine Miktarian:

“Parking revenue is supposed to be paying for the maintenance of our parking lots, and so since we’ve been using bus passes, we have been not doing the maintenance we should have been for the last couple years,” says Click to read more!

A novelty for Clovis: new hotel to be built over parking

Fresno and Clovis are the land of surface parking, where commercial garages, both above and below ground, are rare. Indeed, the only non-surface parking structure I can think of in Clovis is the garage at the Clovis Community Hospital (not counting surface lots with solar panels above them).

So I raised my eyebrow at a proposal for a new hotel on Clovis Avenue, not far from Old Town. The empty lot where a new La Quinta Inn is proposed is quite narrow, so to fit the required parking, they’re planning on building the hotel over it.

This type of building is common elsewhere, especially LA, but as far as I can tell, it the first such example in Clovis.

It will be nice to see the hotel built up 4 stories, right up to the avenue, and not set back with an acre of surface parking.

Further, as this is more expensive to build, it shows that Clovis might just be nearing that point where commercial developers can no longer to afford to waste so much space on surface parking. When land is plentiful, the developers don’t care how much they use.

But maybe Old Town is finally growing up?

The hotel is planned for an empty lot, just south of where our dog goes to get his baths.

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As an aside, the above image shows an interesting Sim City approach to planning. Industrial is on the right, separated from a strip of commercial with a railroad (now trail) and an avenue. The commercial in turn, shields the residential on the west side. I don’t know about you, but that’s exactly how I’d start off all my new cities.

With parking below, the hotel comes quite close to Clovis Avenue.  The building will be 65 feet high, which should create a nice street wall. Oddly, the area has an obscenely low height limit of 35 feet. However, the height limit has been waived for multiple hotels in the past. 

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It will fill this view:

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There will be a wee bit of surface parking at the back, by the dumpsters. What’s interesting is that to meet the parking requirement (92 stalls for 79 rooms, seriously?) the hotel people have come to an agreement with the neighboring lot to the south to share spaces if needed.

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While usually a new cookie-cutter hotel isn’t exciting, this one at least hints at a shift in the economic value of parking within central Clovis.

Broadway streetscape project almost done, results are disappointing

It’s been almost three years since the project was announced, and now the Broadway streetscape project in downtown Fresno is almost done. The plan involved giving Broadway a small road diet, removing a center turn lane and one general lane to add angled parking on each side. The project included absolutely no bicycle accommodations (contrary to the master plan) but did add some amenities for pedestrians in the form of sidewalk extensions at intersections.

Sadly, the project has done many things wrong. The lack of attention to detail shows that Fresno does not have a planner that understands bicycle or pedestrian planning – or even basic ADA. Sort of shocking for a city of half a million. Let’s take a look.

Note: Pics are 2-3 weeks old, sorry for the delay in uploading them!

We start at Broadway and San Joaquin, where the reason behind the angled parking is made clear. GV Urban has broken ground on their latest downtown residential project, and they’re hungry for free parking.

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Their section of sidewalk is the only part that hasn’t been worked on, presumably due to the ongoing construction.

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Here across from the Rainbow Ballroom we see the new angled parking, and removal of two traffic lanes. Sadly, Fresno refused to use back-in angled parking, which is much safer.

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Looking south

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This intersection wasn’t exactly the best place to start. Sadly, there’s no curb extension here. I’m not sure why, but it was like the in the original plan, although a curb cut was removed. As it is now, no corner of this intersection will get a curb extension until GV Urban finishes their corner.

Moving along then, we find what a nicer bit of streetscaping looks like.
New sidewalks, landscaping, and a curb extensions. Also, notice the
drainage grates? This is a little odd, because even though they redid
the entire street, it looks like a retrofit job. I guess it was cheaper.

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However, now we start noticing problems. I mentioned last time how narrow the ramps were. Bare minimum for ADA – why?

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Compare to the width of the crosswalk. Why?

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 The added landscaping is nice, although I wish they had added more trees.

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So narrow. 

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This other intersection shows that vegetation is lacking. Looks like a future garbage collection area.

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And this is how the curb extensions make the crossing distances for pedestrians much shorter.

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For reference, this is how wide the street looked before

 

Aside from the narrow ramps, we encounter a serious problem.
Major ADA fail here. So you know those yellow rumble strips
(truncated domes)? Their purpose is to inform the blind that they are
exiting the pedestrian area and will be crossing somewhere with
vehicles. A single strip is needed at the edge. Just one.

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As
seen above, they’ve developed a rumble highway. This doesn’t make
things any easier for the blind, but it DOES make life very difficult
for those in wheelchairs, who must now cross FIVE strips, rather than
one.

Not to mention, it’s a huge waste of money, and again indicates that the Fresno planners have no idea what they’re doing. 

Seriously, wtf?

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Anyway, the new parking is being used by the residents of these apartments. Parking is free and unrestricted. For now, it does provide a benefit as it makes it obvious that people live here.

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As we arrive towards the northern end of the project, things get bad.

At Broadway and Yosemite, they haven’t painted any crosswalks at all. Huh, wasn’t this a pedestrian upgrade?

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Not only does this intersection have zero crosswalks, the new curb extensions explicitly restrict crossing from wheelchair users. This is a problem.

Under California law, an intersection exists where two streets cross. Like here. Also under California law, at every intersection, there are crosswalks where pedestrians have the right of way, marked or not.

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Fresno chose not the mark the crosswalks, but they also went out of their way and put landscaping in the way. What that means, is that people can legally cross – but the disabled cannot. It’s an ADA violation.

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I will email the city, and I guarantee they will get right on it – by putting up signed stating that the crosswalk is closed.

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 It’s 2014, is this kind of work acceptable?

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Walking back south again, we find more ADA issues

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And note that none of the crosswalks have been painted in the continental style. Why? This is the point of view of a driver, look at the crosswalks in the distance, they’re essentially invisible. Van Ness has continental crosswalks, why not Broadway?

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This is nice, glad they kept the existing tree and gave it more room

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Some sections further south have timed parking

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And another fail. No, not the badly striped crosswalks…the arrow.

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What the hell is that? I can’t even find it in the traffic manual. The closest sign is the W16-7P, but that’s a different shape. Is Fresno seriously installing non-compliant signage in a brand new project?

The standard sign for a pedestrian crossing is this, which is what should have been installed.

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More rumble strips at the end of the GV parcel…

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Showing the width of the ramp and the lack of bicycle accommodations

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So in summary:
-Narrow crosswalk ramps
-Incorrectly installed domes
-Zero lighting improvements
-Zero biking infrastructure
-Missing crosswalks
-No continental crosswalk marking
-Poor signage
-ADA violations
-Pull-in parking

+Nice landscaping
+Curb extensions are valuable
Overall, a disappointment. Three years late and they couldn’t even get it right. Maybe in 2060 they’ll take another swing at it.

Bonus GV urban:
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When parking minimums attack

Moving around Clovis or Fresno, it’s easy to see that almost every business has a parking lot that is too big for even the busiest of days. The reason is due to parking minimums. The city requires that businesses provide a certain amount of spots, which is odd, because cities tend not to demand that businesses provide things to customers. There’s no law, for example, that a movie theater must provide popcorn with every ticket, or that a supermarket must fill every grocery cart with chocolate. =&0=&

LA’s newest light rail line ignores the pedestrian

This past week, I was in Los Angeles and rode the Expo Light Rail Line for the first time, from end to end. I’ve written about the line before, and taken pictures of its construction, but had never been on board since it opened last April. The line runs from downtown LA to Culver City, with an under-construction extension to Santa Monica scheduled to open in 2016.

One thing I’d observed during the construction phase was the seeming lack of attention to how riders actually get to the line. A transit line cannot only focus on the immediate tracks and stations – people need to arrive safely and comfortably. And because we’re talking about rail transit within a city, many passengers will arrive on foot or by bike. Ignoring them doesn’t just depress ridership, but it can be dangerous too.

Sadly, the final version of the Expo line did not correct the mistakes apparent during construction.

One of the biggest failings of the line is that fact that even at-grade stations were built with only one entrance and exit.

The 23rd street station is particularly bad.

Here I’ve marked the station in aqua blue (the line color). Note that while it’s located between two streets, the only way out is north. If you’re heading south, you need to walk two minutes north so you can cross the street and turn-around. Again, because the station is at grade, the costs to build a second exit were minimal.

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Even worse, a southern exit exists – but is emergency only. No legal way out.

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The above map images don’t show it, but the line has already spurred development – a major apartment building was under construction next door.

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The next station is the exact opposite – the only real exit is south. If you live or work between the two, you’ll always have to backtrack, for no real reason.

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Once again, an exit actually exists – but it’s emergency only. Instead of painting a crosswalk, Metro decided it would be no problem to send people on a 5 minute walk, just because. 

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Other stations are in the middle of a major avenue. Passengers are dumped into the middle of an intersection when they leave the train – not even a tiny pedestrian island with a life-saving bollard apparently could fit into the budget. Would you feel comfortable waiting in that crosswalk, which turning vehicles use to cut across?

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When I rode, I did notice some bright orange flex posts had been added – but they provide no actual protection from an out-of-control SUV.

Essentially, the system seems to have been designed for trains, and not the actual riders. That is, the system itself was built to operate trains smoothly, but the actual customers were an after-thought.

The poor headways don’t help that impression. 12 minutes during peak hours and an astonishingly poor frequency of twenty minutes as early as 7pm probably scares away many riders.

I did take a walk around the current last station while I was waiting for a friend. Unlike the previously discussed station, Culver City has an elevated station, and there are indeed two exit points, one at each end of the platform.

View from the top. Progress on phase 2 is obvious
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The area under the station was very nice as well – ample seating, good lighting, and nice landscaping. Signage was plentiful, but not always useful. One very nice sign advises you of the last departure, but there were no train schedules to be found.

However, like the ground-level stations, there were plenty of signs that no actual transit rider was ever consulted.

For one, the station is quite high up, and no escalators were built. Elevators exist, but nobody likes riding transit elevators as they tend to smell.

Pardon the poor quality, but you can tell this is quite the climb. Now imagine your train is about to leave, and the next one isn’t for twenty minutes…

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At first I was impressed by the way-finding and bike facilities.

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But as mentioned previously, all amenities transit riders need end as soon as you walk away. I followed the bike trail signs to this intersection, which offers absolutely no clue as to where the bike path actually is.

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Walking back towards the station, you can see some of those way-finding signs. Where they exist, they’re great…..but aren’t they sort of important at the actual intersection?

Also note the narrow sidewalks and complete lack of trees

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The designers of the Expo Line apparently decided that ample free parking was more important than a sidewalk. You can see the sidewalk narrow to provide for an extra parking space.

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The sidewalk narrows yet again as you near the station. And remember, apparently this sidewalk is part of a bike trail, yet it appears to be the federal minimum of 4 feet wide.

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Up ahead you see a large crowd waiting for a bus, with no comfortable place to wait.

Another disturbing aspect was the timing of the traffic signals. With my friend, we crossed Venice Ave. A button was required to get the walk signal, and the the timer began almost immediately. We are both quick walkers, and the timer reached zero as we finished crossing – in clear violation of federal standards which require the timing be set to accommodate seniors and those with disabilities.That’s not just bad policy, it’s an easy lawsuit the city can find itself on the losing end of.

I enjoyed my ride on Expo, it was quick, and was within a block of both my origin and destination. I just wish the people designing the line, and those approving the designs actually bothered to ride their system for once. Maybe then they’d see the need to look at the larger picture. One can only hope that Phase 2 will be better, but considering light rail has existed in LA for over 20 years, and this is considered acceptable, I don’t have much hope.

Should parking hold up trail development?

This Sunday, the Fresno Bee ran an excellent spread on the plans for the extension of the Eaton Trail in North Fresno. The article was somewhat familiar…about two years ago, I reported on the very same trail having not progressed even though planning had been ongoing for a decade. Even though two years have passed, nothing has happened.

Normally, you’d think the reason for the delays would be money. Not in this case. $30 million is sitting in the bank, waiting to be spent on river improvements, including the trail, bathrooms and canoe launches. If you want to know what the existing trail to the north looks like, I have a few photos here.

So whats the holdup? It’s Fresno, so naturally….parking. In a city that is overrun with parking lots of all shapes and all sizes, the Bee is stating that what is stopping construction on a walking, cycling and equestrian trail is insufficient parking.

Because naturally, one can only arrive at a walking and biking trail that would be connected to an already existing popular trail in a car. Bike to the bike trail? Please. This is Fresno.

“But what of those who want to come from tens of miles away!?”

Fair enough, the river can be a regional attraction. Not a problem. Parking already does exist. The trail would be anchored by Woodward Park, which has many, many parking spaces and very few users. Outside of 4th of July and the two annual concert events, those lots are always empty.

Let’s take a look. 

Green: Existing trail, ends at locked fence
Dotted green: Proposed trail
Yellow: The main large and always empty parking lots, including two very large lots to support the mountain bike racing courses. Very few events are held there.

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This lot is a prime trail access point to the existing trail, and very convenient to the extension

Not one car.

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Lets view the same lot two years later Photobucket

Elsewhere in the park?

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A little further north, the city built a lot for trail users on Copper and Friant. Ever seen anyone use this lot?

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The other end of the trail would lead off a commercial development, which of course is home to many acres of parking, never used (that building is home to one of the rare underground garages in Fresno)

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Clearly, a NEW car lot on the river basin is of the utmost importance! And that would be in ADDITION to another new lot which would be built outside of Woodward Park where the current trail currently ends.

The middle section would be in a residential neighborhood. Residents there are concerned that the trail would bring traffic to their streets. Right, because nothing says “gridlock traffic” like an access point to a trail.

As the Bee tells us, the residential neighborhood was built with roads equipped to handle an additional 1,500 homes thank thankfully never materialized…..that’s the land now in the hands of the river conservancy.

As you can see, here are the roads that lead to where the trail access would be. How wide are these residential streets? A shocking 5 lanes wide. No homes actually face the streets, so any street parking would have zero affect on residents.  The road is widen enough for diagonal parking on both sides. Not that any would be needed. Again, if the region’s premiere park is always a ghost land, how many people do you think would drive to this specific access point? At most, on the busiest of weekends, I’d wager you’d find five cars at a time.

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So who’s demanding the parking?

In an absurd plot twist, it’s the people who have this as their mission statement:

The San Joaquin River Parkway and Conservation Trust’s mission is to
preserve and restore San Joaquin River lands having ecological, scenic
or historic significance, to educate the public on the need for
stewardship, to research issues affecting the river, and to promote
educational, recreational and agricultural uses consistent with the
protection of the river’s resources.

Nothing quite preserves the ecological, scenic
or historic significance of the river quite like parking lots in the basin! 



What happened is that the city has sided with the rich bluff-residing NIMBY’s and stated that a parking lot shouldn’t be built. The NIMBYs naturally don’t want any parking near them because of the “traffic” that would be generated. Frankly, you could build a 2,000 slot garage and the amount of traffic wouldn’t exceed that of a single family home, which is why I propose they simply re stripe the existing road for diagonal street parking (which would never be used anyway).


Instead of cheering that they can save money AND protect the river….the trust is throwing everything they have at building new parking lots.

The Bee article ends with the following:

For now, a key piece of the San Joaquin River Parkway remains stuck in limbo. “I have trust in the process,” Marks said. “Eventually there will be a trail system we can all go out and enjoy.” Click to read more!

Mexico City to finally get parking meters

One of the most traffic choked cities in the world has always been home to an oddity – street parking is free and with almost no restrictions. No time limits, no permits, no payment required – at least officially. As long as you don’t block a driveway, you can park on a local street. This past weekend, a neighborhood got to vote on the novel idea of introducing parking meters to restore some order to their streets.

As “The High Price of Free Parking” taught us, a policy of free and unlimited parking comes with many serious drawbacks. For one, by making parking free, more driving is encouraged, which is especially troublesome in a city known for its endless gridlock. At any given point, how many tens of thousands of drivers are circling the block, looking for an elusive empty space?

The other downside has come with the way the market has responded – with extortion.

     Every day before dawn, dozens of men appear in the Mexican capital’s hip Condesa neighborhood and block off parking spaces along entire streets using water jugs, cardboard boxes, buckets, crates and even blocks of cement. As visitors start arriving for
the district’s restaurants, organic food stores, boutiques and art
galleries, the men collect 20 to 40 pesos ($1.50-$3), remove the
obstructions and let drivers park.

     Often the only option is to pay
the ad hoc attendants, known as “franeleros” for the rags — “franelas” —
they use to signal cars in and out of parking spaces they have
commandeered. Not paying could mean returning to a broken windshield
wiper, a long key scratch along a door or, in extreme cases, a smashed
window. Another option is to leave car and keys with valet parking attendants, who also block spaces for their clients.

Click to read more!

Parking in the rear can be a failed policy

When talking about what is wrong with suburban planning, many (including myself) will tell you about how damaging the enormous (and enormously underused) parking lots that front strip malls can be. Many urbanists will tell you that a great way to fix ugly sprawl is to mandate that parking being forced to the rear of new and redeveloped retail. That way, customers get their ample free parking, but it’s not as detrimental to the landscape, because it’s hiding out back. But what if suburban cities decide to half-ass it, and send only some parking to the rear? Apparently, that’s what’s mandated in commercial development here, and it’s a failed policy.

The acres of parking in front of a store were probably developed in the late 1940’s when the new suburban retailers wished to differentiate themselves from the established city ones. Parking in front sent a message to households with brand new cars that their fancy purchases were more than welcome. An endless sea of parking up front says “Shop with us! We have plenty of room for you! Don’t go downtown where you’ll never find a spot!”

Today, over half a century later, advertising the free and ample parking is no longer necessary. Suburban dwellers expect parking at their destination, and quite frankly it’s never a question if it will exist. No one ever says “hey, before we head to Target, let me check their website to see if they have a parking lot”. We all know Target is going to have too much parking. Oddly enough, every new development seems to be designed with the idea that providing these lots will be a surprise, and they must be the first interaction the customer has with the store.

When I talked about one of the reasons Shaw avenue in Clovis has a 20%+ vacancy rate, I pointed out that parking in front is detrimental to business. Because the stores are located so far back, they lose visibility from their driving customers, quite the irony I think. That hasn’t stopped these retailers from building every new store and center with the same format.

One tweak to the format, which I believe is mandated, is that some parking always is provided in the rear. In cities like Fresno and Clovis, retailers are required to provide parking based on a certain magical equation that was designed a few decades ago. The equation takes into account projected customers and employees.

Something that you may not notice when you shop at a suburban store is that every modern box and center has many spaces directly behind the store. Presumably, these spaces are there for employees. Employees can enter through the back, and having employees park behind the store ensures more spaces are available by the entrance for customers.

The problem is, this is a failed policy. There may be a mandate to install parking in the rear, but there’s no mandate that anyone actually use it. So employees continue to park out front, taking all the prime spaces, and a whole lot of spaces remain empty and unused in the back. The way these employee lots are designed make it so that even if a customer wanted to park there, because every other space was taken, they really wouldn’t be able to.

At around $8,000 per surface space, all this parking is a real waste of money. It’s also a waste of land, and bad for the environment, as it stores heat in the summer and prevents rain-water from enter the soil.

There are two easy ways to see how these spaces go to waste. One, is to stop by a retail center shortly before or shortly after it opens or closes. You might be surprised to see that at 10:15pm, after a store like Target has closed and almost every customer has gone home, there are still 30 or so cars taking all the best spots in front. Or try passing by the mall 10 minutes before it opens in the morning. I guarantee there’s nobody anxiously waiting for the doors to open, and yet all the best parking spots are already taken.

Another way to see all this wasteful parking is with one of my favorite tools, google maps. Shall we take a tour of the enormous waste?

Here’s a Home Depot, with over 100 employee parking spots. I don’t think 100 people ever work at a Home Depot at the same time, and yet they’ve gone ahead and built all these employees lovely spots. Only two spots are taken by actual cars here. That’s about $800,000 in construction costs, by the way, just sitting there, never to be used.

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This Toys R Us And Office Depot has a rear parking area for around 80 employees. About three are using it, I’d assume the senior managers.

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This supermarket-anchored center has a smaller lot, so percentage wise, it’s actually quite populated. That’s not saying much. This shall be the most successful rear-parking in this post, so enjoy it!

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Compare it to this other supermarket-center
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The employee parking area even gets its own entrance from the street, but that doesn’t mean anyone will use it.

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Indeed, it seems like the employee-rear-parking requirement keeps increasing. This Target/Best Buy shopping center opened in 2006. Again, private rear entrance, but no takers. Target has a long employee lot on the far left, and Best Buy has the back. Two smaller stores have access to an employee lot on the far right. Doesn’t matter, they’re all empty.

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And here we have a very recent Winco. A MASSIVE employee parking lot, with multiple private entrances. And maybe 5 cars total?

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This Costco example is particularly frustrating because unlike almost every other retail store whose parking never fills more than 50%, their main parking area does manage to “almost” fill up. And Costo DOES have 100 or so employees, each one of them taking up a nice parking spot up front, while their private lot sits almost completely empty. A private lot that even has three convenient access points.

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This Costco example shows that “fail” can come from all directions. In one direction, we have a government fail, where the government is requiring employee parking lots that nobody wants.

But the wonderful private sector fails as well. Costco is massively popular, and their parking lots are highly competitive. But Costco fails because it doesn’t require their scores of employees to use the ample parking in the rear. Instead, the employees take all the best spots when they show up in the morning.

They’re hurting their customers by making their parking harder to access. It’s somewhat ironic that this store format is so auto-dominated, presumably to serve their customers, but they force the customers to use less convenient parking because management can’t be bothered to instruct employees to park in the rear.

Finally, here’s the the oddest example. This rear-parking area is massive, and never used. I just don’t know what they were thinking when it came to this one.

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So big.
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The moral of the story is, parking must stick together. Isolating parking, even for a specialized group like employees won’t work because it’s less convenient.

If parking is to go in the rear, it must be ALL the parking. The only exception would be handicap parking, because there’s a stick (fines) to make sure the best parking is used by those that have proven that they need it.

PS: Gas prices hit $4.00 average in California today, ahead of my prediction by two entire weeks.

Why is it so hard to install bikes racks properly?

Anyone who has ever pulled up to a store or office on a bike, and has looked for a rack to lock up to, has encountered a rack installed incorrectly. In Fresno, it’s remarkably common. In fact, I think I see more racks installed incorrectly than correctly, and I just don’t get it.

It doesn’t make sense.

Not everyone rides bikes. But almost everyone has, at one point in their life, ridden a bike. And those who have never tried one, even as a child, know what a bike is, knows what it looks like, and understands the general geometry.

Bikes aren’t that complicated.

So how is it that so many developers and contractors continue to install racks incorrectly? How does it happen that during the process of drilling into the concrete, nobody says “hey guys, I think if we put it this way, it will be useless”?

Everyone knows the general size of a bike right? You wouldn’t design a parking space 5 feet wide, because even someone who doesn’t drive could dig deep into their mind and think “hm, I think cars need more space than this”.

I would understand if we were talking about Segway parking. Very few people have ridden one. Many have never see one, and some have no idea what it is. So yes, I would understand contractors looking at a “Segway Parking Rack” design and not knowing what to do because they’d have no understanding about the basic build of a Segway, and what is required to keep one locked up.

But a bike?

Come on!

Here’s a quick way to take bike racks designed to hold 4 bikes, and make them only hold two….awkwardly.

Place them facing the wrong way (90 degrees off)
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And place them too close to a wall
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It sort of makes me feel that if the guy who drew up the plans wasn’t able to space the rack properly…then how can we trust the structural integrity of the entire building? And if the contractors are so dense as to install the rack so they face the wrong way, what if they’ve done the same with the gas main or a structural beam?

It shouldn’t be this hard.

Dying mall cancels outdoor market due to popularity, parking concerns

This new development is quite frankly, baffling.

Say you owned a mall built in the 1950’s, that had seen better days. Much better days. Say almost all your national brand retailers had left years ago, and the entire second floor was now being leased to government agencies and other office uses. Say your biggest anchor, one of only two, went bankrupt and liquidated in 2009, and nobody has expressed serious interest in the location yet. And your other anchor, is Sears, a brand that has fallen on tough times.

In fact, your mall is in so much trouble, someone even took it upon themselves to visit it only to write about how it is a dying mall. And that was even written before Gottschalks died. (Lots of pictures of the mall in that link).

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http://www.labelscar.com/california/manchester-center

I’m sure as the owner, the idea of turning things around, and getting people to come by would be appealing right?

Then say a group of organizers approached you, and asked to set up a market in one of your vastly underused parking lots, just one day a week. The deal would be beneficial. They’d have space at a well know landmark, and you’d get exposure and even BUZZ(!) something that has been lacking in your mall for decades. And for both parties, the costs would be minimal. It’s like a fancy new mall expansion, but built with aluminum poles and canvas canopies.

Win, win, win.

So the new market starts.

And it’s a success. People keep coming. Your parking lot is filling up for the first time since you opened over 50 years ago. Your mall is being referred to as a place to go to, and not to lock your doors as you drive by. Trendy blogs are telling their readers to check it out.

Indeed it’s so successful, you kick them out after five weeks.

Wait, what?

The owner of Fresno’s newest farmers market, Manchester Marketplace, announced today he is shutting down due to a disagreement with Manchester Mall representatives.

Paul Gilchrist, who opened the market five weeks ago in the mall’s parking, said in an email that the popularity of his market didn’t sit well with Manchester Mall.

“I have been told there were too many cars in the parking lot, there were too many vendors and the outside vendors are getting more business than the inside vendors,” Gilchrist said in an email. Click to read more!