Stop and Move

The market approach to the Union Pacific problem

2012-02-21T02:37:00.000-08:00

Union Pacific is the largest railroad in the US, and they are also strongly against passenger rail. Concerning Amtrak, UP has been a pain in the ass when it comes to requests to allow for more service. For example, when Amtrak sought to increase service on the Sunset Limited (New Orleans to LA) from 3 times a week to daily, UP demanded $750 million in ransom money. This ludicrous amount was simply their way of telling Amtrak to bugger off. The reason behind the astronomical amount is less to do with logical business planning and probably more of political/ideological grandstanding.

However, Amtrak's Sunset Limited is small peanuts compared to California where the state plans to build a high-speed rail line (HSR) that will run next to UP rail lines for the majority of the route. The problem is, because UP is against passenger rail, instead of helping the HSR program by working together to use excess land (land which was originally given to UP by the government), they have taken the opposite approach and banned the HSR authority from using any of their right-of-way (ROW). This has raised the cost of HSR by a huge amount, because instead of using vacant land, the authority will be forced to purchase land that is occupied by businesses and farmers. The land cost isn't the only added expense. Bridges have been built over the UP rail lines leaving completely clear the entire piece of land they own, even the unused area. Because HSR will have to be built outside of the UP land, every single bridge will have to be rebuilt, or the line will be forced onto very tall viaducts. Neither choice is a good one, and both are remarkably expensive.

California (and Amtrak) has chosen to shrug their shoulders and deal with UP's refusal to work with them by accepting the huge costs that will result from duplicating the route.

A few days ago, I mentioned how a possible way to save money would be to reroute the HSR away from the UP line, at least through Fresno.

Capitulation to UP's ridiculous demands is not the right strategy. What California should do is simple apply the free-market approach to the UP problem.

Imagine for a second that California and the HSR authority (one and the same really) were to be run like a business, a business headed by a corporate man like Mitt Romney and his friends at Bain Capital.

When a corporation sees a huge potential investment opportunity, like HSR, they do everything they can do build such a project quickly and for the lowest cost possible. If there is an obstacle, like Union Pacific, in the way, a corporation would not simply shrug its shoulders and deal with the massively higher cost. They would seek to eliminate the problem. A quick way to eliminate a blockade is to buy the problem out.

Here are the players:
The State of California being run like a business. California Inc.
California Inc. has a market cap of $1.9 trillion

Union Pacific, a publicly traded company.
Union pacific has a market cap of $53.28 billion

$1,900,000,000,000
....$53,280,000,000

It's not even a competition.

What would California Inc do with a UP problem?

Buy them out. A hostile takeover if necessary. All that's needed is 51% ownership so that UP suddenly becomes very, very passenger friendly. Including the transaction premium, $30b will allow California Inc. to control UP. That's peanuts for a conglomerate like California Inc.

California Inc. currently has a passenger rail subsidiary (Amtrak California) and expanding into the freight sector makes perfect sense, even if only for the value of the land held by UP.

$30bn is less than 1/3 of the projected cost of HSR. Such an investment would be remarkably prudent, because it would lower the cost of the highly profitable HSR project significantly. And the best part is that UP would continue to run as they do currently, their profitable business would not be reduced or eliminated, only their corporate policies would change. Using UP's ROW for new passenger tracks would not hurt their current business at all.

The take-over would be a good idea for multiple financial reasons.

1) California Inc. would be able to take advantage of the profits UP would continue to earn, and direct them to whatever part of the business which needs the investment. For example, the initial HSR project costs, including the UP buyout, could be funded by future UP profits. Money could also be directed elsewhere, like California's R&D department aka, the UC system.

2) The cost of HSR will decrease significantly, justifying some of the purchase price, because viaducts and such won't be needed. This will make a profitable project an even lower risk.

3) UP could be sold after a 30 year period, covering the initial expense, and possibly resulting in a very nice profit for California Inc. The future is bright for freight rail, and California Inc could certainly use a profitable subsidiary like UP under their brand portfolio.

And not just California would benefit, but (national) Amtrak and such would as well, because California Inc. would fire all the overpaid passener-rail-hating-executives and put in place a much friendlier executive board. Indeed, Amtrak would benefit so much that they could help put up some of the collateral needed to fund the leveraged purchase.

As a California Inc shareholder, I want the state to take the most prudent approach to the HSR project. We live in a capitalist society, so let's run this project like a business and take the rational, market-based approach to the UP problem. I request that the California Inc board begin a leveraged-buyout of UP immediately.

Corporate feedback experiment about bike racks

2012-02-18T00:25:00.000-08:00

The other day, I was running some errands on my bike. On the way home, I realized my fridge was quite lacking in food, and as I had just passed a Taco Bell, I decided to turn back and have a snack, a drink, and a use of their facilities.

I biked into their parking lot, and then all the way around their store, but not a single bike rack was in sight. This doesn't make sense. Like all Taco Bell's, the store isn't that old (really, is there such thing as an old Taco Bell? They all look brand new). The store is in a residential area, not isolated off a highway offramp somewhere. So I think it's reasonable to expect that there is a good amount of people living close enough that biking is an option.

I don't fully understand operating a business, especially a national business that supposedly knows what it's doing, and not make it easy for customers to spend money inside. The business wants money, yes? I have money to spend. Why don't they want my money?

These companies put a whole lot of effort into gathering market data and such to maximize sales. They choose their locations because the data says to pick those locations. Their cookie-cutter stores are planned, supposedly, to make entering the store as easy as possible. Customers are fickle, and a business should want the path between the wallet and the register to be as smooth and easy as possible. Any obstacle, be it a long line, a modestly sized puddle, or a door too difficult to open may result in the customer saying "screw it" and going elsewhere.

In my case, the lack of a bike rack is such an obstacle. If I have no where I can safely lock my bike, then I can't spend money with you.

This barrier is easily solved. We're not talking about thousands of dollars in renovation, paving, permits etc. We're talking about $500 in materials and labor costs, total, to install a couple of bike racks in empty space.

I know this. They should know this. So instead of just making an angry blog post about it, I've decided to make it an experiment.

Instead of just rolling my eyes at their lack of accommodation, I will contact companies like Taco Bell about my poor experience and see if there's any reaction.

If you've ever been to a Taco Bell,, you may remember that every receipt comes with a notice that giving them feedback will enter you into a pool to win some prize. What a nice idea. For Taco Bell, I sent feedback via tellthebell.com as prompted on the receipt, and also their main website. That was on Thursday, we'll see if they ever reply to me, and if they ever get around to installing bike parking.

But it's not just Taco Bell I shall be contacting. Last year, I spoke to a customer service rep inside a Lowe's store about their lack of bike parking. She flat out lied to me (said the city didn't allow bike racks). I didn't press further, but now I will email them as well.

Do I expect anything? Not really. But that's why it's an experiment. To see what steps, if any, these corporations are willing to take to make spending money in their store easier. Again, as far as requests go, it's not exactly a major one. And as yesterday's post shows, these same corporations are more than willing to drop $800,000 on vehicle parking spots that will never be used.

So far, I have contacted:
Taco Bell
Lowe's
Subway

I will continue to add to the list as I make note of which corporations make shopping with them a hassle.

Oh, in case you were wondering, I did stay at Taco Bell, as I was already there (and really had to pee). But if my request goes unheeded, I see no reason to go back.

"So if you can just bring your bike inside, why whine?" Because there's no assurance that I will be allowed to do this every time. And I can't really see myself walking my bike around a Lowe's.

And also, that's not actually my bike. Mine had a flat, so this was a temporary measure. In case you were wondering, it actually wasn't uncomfortable to ride this bike intended for a younger and shorter audience.

Parking in the rear can be a failed policy

2012-02-17T01:48:00.000-08:00

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.

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.

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!

Compare it to this other supermarket-center

The employee parking area even gets its own entrance from the street, but that doesn't mean anyone will use it.

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.

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

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.

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.

So big.

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.

FAX service change proposals taken off website

2012-02-15T22:22:00.000-08:00

So those posts I made about FAX (Fresno Area Express) proposing big changes to some of the main routes? I guess that was a waste of time as all maps and mentions of changes have mysteriously been taken off the website.

Why did FAX spend money on Fresno Bee newspaper ads if the proposed changes would be stricken so quickly? No idea. I'd ask the Bee, but they generally don't write about the city's public transit, which is odd, because they advertise how discounted copies are available on board the buses.

I'll keep my eye out for future newspaper ads, as that seems to be FAX's method of choice for communicating with the public.

A further look at FAX route changes

2012-02-14T02:32:00.000-08:00

Last week I talked about how FAX is proposing route changes. Still no info on a timeline, public comment etc, but here are some maps showing the rest of the existing routes and the proposed changes. While mapping out these changes, it really hit me how incompetent the FAX routes are at serving destinations and balancing the routes.

The FAX route system seems to have been designed in the 1950's, and yet here we are, with proposals that do nothing to address some of the major failings.

In the last post, I highlighted the changes coming to routes 26 and 39, which would switch off on areas covered. I noted that these changes would probably help balance operations, but not necessarily help out riders. The changes would not include an increase or decrease in area served, time of service of frequency.

This post will discuss proposed changes coming to lines 28, 30, 32, and 58. Here are the lines and their current ridership numbers:
28 - 1st (yellow)
30 - 3rd (pink)
32 - 6th (purple)
58 - dead last (not mapped)

Here are the areas these routes serve (not including 58 which is a special route)

Like with 26 and 39, routes 28 and 30 will see a switch-off between routes.

In my opinion, the changes to 30 make sense, but to 28, not so much. You see, Fresno is planning a BRT (bus rapid transit)* system that was supposed to launch in 2012 but has been delayed to 2014.

*It will be BRT in branding only, as the proposal is not in any shape or form real bus rapid transit.

It seems like the changes to 28 and 30 are a direct result of the proposed BRT system. The proposed BRT line will serve Blackstone, go downtown, and then head out on Kings Canyon.

The changes will mean route 30 will now almost fully cover the proposed BRT route. This is a good thing for a couple of reasons.

1) One route will cover both of the busiest bus corridors, allowing for good transfers, and better operations, and will better justify improved headways and longer hours.
2) Will allow for more prudent deployment of the new 60-foot articulated buses scheduled to arrive later this year. (PS: dear Fresno Bee, some reporting on that would be nice. Why must I read bid notices to find news about FAX...?)
3) Will result in a seamless transition to BRT (BRT = look, the buses are now a new color!)

A big downside is that the added length may mean service problems like bunching. A problem (like an accident) on Blackstone may delay service on Kings Canyon, and many riders have no interest in riding the length of the route.

Here is what route 30 is proposed to do.

The only difference between the new 30 and the future BRT is that the planned BRT will extend an additional mile to Fowler Ave, at the proposed "Fancher Creek Transit Village". (mmhmm)

What this means is that 28 will take over the section of route that 30 abandons. This isn't necessarily a great thing. 28 is a busy route because it serves Shaw with Fresno State, hits Fashion Fair Mall, heads down to Manchester Mall, serves Fresno City and then hits downtown. The area that 30 is vacating is not really relevant to any busy route. It's an underdeveloped area that deserves transit, but not the kind of service that that rest of the route requires.

I'm talking about the area west of downtown, in red.

The reason is, the demand for rides is simply not the same. Look at the Shaw section. University, dense apartments, the major mall...

Versus a streetcar suburb that never quite developed, and a small general aviation airport.

The area should be served, but with it's own route, not some haphazard branch of one of the cities busiest and most frequent bus lines.

Or looking at it on ground level...

The same bus gets to serve both of these bustling roads.

That's just not right.

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That leaves the changes to routes 32 and 59, which are really quite minor.

The only change to route 32 is in the River Park area, where the loop it does reverses in direction.

From this

To this

The good part is that three left turns become three right turns. Due to right turn on red being allowed, this should speed things up. For customers, it may make things worse if it means they have to cross the street to transfer, but I don't know enough about transfer patterns at River Park to say if the change is good or bad.

You know what the best solution would be? Eliminate the 2 mile loop and build a small transfer center/loop for all buses, like at Manchester.

Meanwhile, the route sees no changes at its southern end, again, another area where having one bus serve two very different service areas makes no sense.

The northern loop area has every chain possible, hospitals, apartments etc.

The southern loop? What appears to be another failed streetcar suburb.

This is where change is needed.

Why are we serving this area (see the bus stop sign?)

With the same level of service this area gets?

Finally, route 58, a route that doesn't really matter. A decade or so ago, Children's Hospital packed up and moved across the river into Madera county, a completely isolated and inaccessible area....unless you own a car and want to drive on a highway. As part of some mitigation deal (worst air in the country, remember) Children's has to pay for FAX to provide a bus to their hospital during visiting hours (employees must drive I guess).

The only change here is that the bus will now make an unnecessary loop around River Park, instead of proceeding directly to the transfer point.

I doubt any of the 5 riders will care about that change.

If FAX releases more info about a timeline, public outreach etc, I will be sure to write a post about it.

Confused about HSR routing through Fresno

2012-02-13T01:17:00.000-08:00

I'm a big supporter of the planned High Speed Rail (HSR) line in California, but one thing I was thinking of recently was the curious lack of options given for the routing through Fresno. The only real question was station location, but beyond that, it seemed to be set in stone that the line would run alongside 99....and require hundreds of millions in costs associated with running the length of an urbanized area.

At first, it makes sense. When it comes to transportation corridors, 99 is pretty much the biggest one here. On top of that, it runs next to a very wide Union Pacific line. The problem is, UP is not friendly to passenger rail, and won't allow any of their space, even the portion the is empty, to be used by anyone else.

That means the routing along 99 will involve the demolition of a whole bunch of businesses (although mostly blighted, industrial types), and the reconstruction of many, many bridges over the freeway and rail lines. Further, the plan somehow involves moving all of 99 for an entire section ( a couple of miles or so), and there's also the issue of the impact to the zoo and Roeding Park (and moving Golden State too).

But I think there's a very obvious alternative, one which apparently wasn't really discussed.

During the project planning phases, many alternative routings were chosen for each section, but for the Fresno-Madera segment, the only alternatives were north of Herndon.

I agree that the HSR line should hit downtown. But what's interesting about Fresno is that downtown is not the center, but more like a corner. That means, there's a whole lot of "nothing" just a mile or two away.

Here you can see the developed areas, the rural areas, the proposed HSR routing (in blue) and the station (in black). That green area to the north of downtown, by the planned routing, is Roeding Park and the Chaffee Zoo.

But you can also see that 99 isnt the only transportation corridor in the area. There's also the recent highway 180.

So what would happen if HSR was routed into downtown, and then right back out...? The line could then run alongside 180, and then turn north along a rural road, possibly saving hundreds of millions in land costs, evictions, demolitions and freeway reconstruction. The route would join the planned one in Madera County, north of Herndon

I'm just curious about why such a routing was not seriously considered. I think it sort of makes sense, even if the curves would add 30 seconds or whatever the the trip.

There's also one other option, one which moves the station out of the downtown core, but takes advantage of an existing transportation center which is still close to downtown Fresno - Chandler Airport.

Chandler looks like it's in a rural area....

But it's less than 1.5 miles from the proposed site of HSR, in the heart of downtown

And all that stuff, like car rental, parking, security, etc? Lots of room at this small airport.

When it comes to affects on the urban area, this other location would have remarkably few.

Again, just curious as to why the routing has always been on the 99, and nothing else. Seems odd that they wouldn't try and lower the cost by routing into the countryside. Chandlet wouldn't be my number 1 pick for a location, but it would have amde sense to study it.

A frontage road with a frontage road...?

2012-02-10T00:57:00.000-08:00

I was using Google Maps the other day to find the location of an office, as I had a medical appointment to get to. The office was located off Herndon, a street Fresno has developed into a limited access highway. There are no driveways or mid-block turns on Herndon, the only way on and off are at intersections .5 miles apart. So to get to the medical office, I was looking to see the best intersection to turn off.

That's when I noticed something quite odd, and very wasteful. A triple road.

Sections of Herndon were developed with a "frontage road" which is where all the driveway entrances are, and where street parking is allowed. This isn't surprising, as Fresno has many frontage roads. I've always thought them to be a waste of space and money, but oh well. Mind you, as far as I can tell, frontage roads are a thing of the past and are no longer being developed.

A common frontage road off Herndon

What caught my eye is a locations where there is Herndon, a frontage road (no name)...and then another road! Three parallel roads! And three medians!

I know land is cheap here, but come on!

And then behind those 5 homes? An alley. That's a whole lot of road space. Those homes must be really important if their driveways need a private frontage road, and an alley buffer in the back.

Here's a useless comparison, but one way to think about how space can be allocated.

The distance between the edge of Herndon and that alley, where they've just managed to squeeze in a few homes, is 423 ft

Which is much more than what the empire state building and the two streets that serve it take up.

Fresno building a new trail, but doing it badly

2012-02-09T02:32:00.000-08:00

Fresno has finally begun to take advantage of its extensive canal system by starting to build a section of a multi-use trail, one of hundreds of planned miles. But what if the trail is being built to satisfy lines on a plan, and the design choices make it clear that accessibility or ease of use was never really considered? Below, I take a tour of a recently completed section of trail and document many of the design flaws, including terrible access for those in wheelchairs.

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The Fresno area, thanks to the agricultural roots, is crossed by many canals which bring much needed water to farmers. As the city grew, and buildings replaced farms, the canals remained but the city turned their back on them. The canals weren't seen as a place to enjoy, but as a place to be kept off limits. This is odd because the area is lacking in water features. There are no natural lakes in the region, only artificial ones, like the bird habitat at Woodward Park or the dam-reservoirs up in the mountains. The San Joaquin river marks Fresno's northern boundary, but access to it is limited and difficult. Indeed, because of the way development was organized, it has become isolated, leading to drug use and prostitution along its banks. This only scares off people wanting to enjoy a water feature.

I mention all this because people generally love water features in their urban environment. Around the world, rivers are places where people gather, walk, and enjoy life. What's more romantic than walking along the banks of the Seine in Paris, watching geese wade into the Charles in Boston or taking a cruise on lake Geneva in Switzerland? But like most things, Fresno appears to have taken their design cue from Los Angeles, which did their best to destroy and make inaccessible their major river.

Embracing the river has made Boston a much more pleasant place to live

Paving the river has only helped LA look more blighted and unpleasant

Fortunately, most of the canals still exist, with ample right of way preserved. Most have been buried as they cross major streets, but outside the grid, the canals curve and run unimpeded, open to the air. In many places, the canals do what the .5 mile grid doesn't, and provide shortcuts for pedestrians and bikes. Except like I said, Fresno hasn't embraced this, and instead has tried to limit access to the canals.

That is changing. The bike-master-plan takes advantage of the space made available by canals and plots a large system of future trails. Some of these trails are rather useless, for transportation purposes, but will make excellent recreational spots. Others, like the canal running next to McKinley, offer the perfect opportunity to create bike-highways, as they are straight, have very few crossing points, and have ample space for a path and trees.

Every proposed trail in the bike master plan uses an existing right-of-way, either a rail line or a canal

One thing a master-plan doesn't convey, when showing us a proud network of future trails, is whether or not the trails are being built so they're actually useful. Sadly, Fresno has recently broken ground on a new canal-trail, and the design choices show me that no real thought was placed on actually making it accessible.

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This specific trail is under construction in east Fresno, on the border with Clovis. Fresno and Clovis are divided by the Gould Canal, with Fresno to the south. Here you can see the location of what I will be talking about, and the relation to Clovis.

The trail is being constructed because a very large parcel is being developed into housing. I assume as part of the agreement, the developer has to build the trail along their portion of the property. The property is very easy to spot in this map.

In dark blue, the canal which divides Fresno from Clovis. In light blue, the sections of the trail which run in Fresno County. In green, the only existing trails in the area (not in Fresno, in Clovis). There are other, minor canals, but they've been buried, and cannot be used for trails.

It's easy to see that the canal can make an excellent trail, as it connects to the popular Fresno-Clovis rail trail in the west, and runs between the grid, so can act as a shortcut.

Especially noticeable is that Fresno has a grid in which major streets are spaced ever .5 miles. But here, Dakota terminates at multiple points, meaning the only east-west routes are a mile apart - huge for pedestrians and bikes. The canal/trail provides the necessary east-west access, without forcing cyclists and pedestrians into a maze of housing subdivisions.

The portion under construction is less than .5 miles long, but that's enough to see that if this method of connectivity is what Fresno has in store for their trail network, it will be much less useful than it should be.

In red, the portion that has been constructed. Temperance is the north/south road on the right. Fresno plans show a 10-12 foot path running alongside this future "expressway".

On to the ground then.

We start at the intersection of Temperance and the Gould Canal.

Here is the canal. On the left, Fresno. On the right, Clovis. It's ugly now, but you can imagine with trees, benches and such, it can be a pleasant walk. The trail is visible on your left.

Looking north into Clovis, there's no sidewalk, even though we can see three people walking. That's inexcusable because the parcel on the left is owned by the government, it's a retaining pond.

You can see the sidewalk ends on the north where the homes do. The government has not deemed it necessary to build a sidewalk along their portion of land. The road has just recently been widened, from 2 lanes to 4/6 (4 painted, 6 fit). But that's a whole other issue anyway. I can write a whole post about the retaining ponds and their disregard for the world around them.

Looking across Temperance, to where the trail is one day planned to continue, you can see that there's no suitable crossing spot. No crosswalk, no ramps. Further, on the right (Fresno's side) you can see the lovely giant wall of Derell's Mini-Storage. When they built their center a few years ago they weren't required to build the trail. Instead, they've put up a fence, so only the Clovis side of the trail is accessible. Thanks Derrels, for your lovely contribution to the community.

(Speaking of Derrels, there's an item on the Fresno city council this week about them trying to get the fees they must pay to the city lowered)

Now we look south, and here's where the troubles really begin. The trail has been designed and built to not even attempt to connect with Clovis. I guess in this world, pedestrians plan their travels around city boundaries? So no way to (legally and safely) cross Temperance to continue along the canal, or to walk north into Clovis.
Note the wall on the right, it's going to be massive pretty soon.

Looking south

Looking north

Not a crossing point

Homes will be built behind this wall, which has another 6 or so feet to go. Pay special note to the residential street in the background

Those pedestrians we saw walking in the dirt have caught up. Looks like a couple of high school students. Poor kids. You can see the brand new trail ends right ahead, but these kids are used to walking on dirt.

On the other side of the street, the sidewalk is kept behind a fence. Someone is jogging, enjoying the beauty of Derrel's. The point here is to show that even with terrible pedestrian connections, people still walk.

The new trail ends at the property boundary, but I'm mildly surprised. Unlike the north end, where there is no connection given to the sidewalk over the canal, here a ramp has been provided. Not as a place to cross the street, but so someone can enter the roadway to continue their journey. This is probably the one and only place where accessibility was taken into account, and a major issue later in this post. You can see the kids walking in the dirt, alongside the 50mph road. Have fun guys.

The median, and then a fence, shows this is not, nor ever will be a crosswalk, just a temporary measure.

One day these homes will lose their yards and trees to the steady march of road widening. That day may be 20 years away, or just 20 months. No way to know.

Anyway, back to the curb cut. Remember before when I asked you to note the residential street in the back? If accessibility were, you know, considered, then there would be a sidewalk connecting said residential street to Temperance.

Instead a home will be built here, ending any such connection, forever.

So any pedestrian wishing to quickly access Temperance will have to take a rather round-about method of getting to the sidewalk behind their home.

Ok, let's return to where we started, at the canal. We enter the future residential neighborhood. You can see Temperance and the mini-storage

Hold up, how does one on a bicycle, or in a wheelchair get to said trail...?

It's 2012, and we're building trails without ramp access now? On a bike, it's a hassle. With a stroller, it's a pain. On a wheelchair, this is impossible to maneuver. ADA was passed in 1990....what happened? I guess if you are disabled, and you live on the wrong side of the street, no trail for you.

No ramps at all. That's why I was surprised they installed one on Temperance.

As we turn to continue down the trail, you can count 5 pedestrians in this next shot. As I said, folks like their water features when it comes to taking a walk. Imagine how many people will use this trail once there are actually homes here.

We reach another intersection, and not only is there no curb ramp, there's no sidewalk connection either.

One of the selling points of this future subdivision will be trail access. Except, you know, without the trail access. How does this make any sense?

Imagine if someone proposed a residential neighborhood with a dense street network, and then a moat between the neighborhood and the shiny new highway. Obviously, something like that would never happen. But for wheelchair users, that's what is being built here.

Continuing.

Looking back

Here we are again, next intersection, no pedestrian connection.

Up ahead, we reach an intersection that finally has a curb cut, but it's not bike friendly. I'd wager a park is going in here, but to get to the curb cut, you need to hit two 90 degree turns and a 5 foot sidewalk. Not the end of the world, but for brand new construction, does it make any sense?

There she be, the curb cut ramp.

From this side, access is just as stupid.

Next intersection...no ramp again.

Fail.

I then decided to hit up the google maps measure tool to see the distance between the first curb cut, and Temperance.

1270 feet.
Or .24 miles.
That's funny. When Fresno designs their mega-streets, crosswalks are generally placed every .5 miles apart. Sometimes, if you're lucky, a crosswalk is located at .25. I guess someone read up on those "standards" and decided that it would make sense here as well...? Quite frankly, I can see no other logic behind the spacing of the wheelchair accessible ramp. Unless there's some court case precedent that says that "equal access to the disabled" is satisfied with ramps being placed .25 miles apart?

When you're building brand new infrastructure from scratch, why not do it right? How much work are the basic ramps...?

Intersections with no ramp access (purple) and with (green)

Continuing on then, the path ends because someone decided not to sell their home to this developer. There's room along the canal, but what will happen here is a 50 or so year wait for the trail to be completed.

A connection to the road, temporary in nature, to tide over those 10-50 years? Nope.

Anyway, we reach Armstrong (by detouring through a maze of streets) and arrive at what one day will be a trail crossing. I count five pedestrians in this photo by the way. While those homes on the left are pretty damn new, the developer was not required to build any path here.

On, and if you went alongside the canal, around that private home where the path ends?

As I said, Fresno is not a fan of using their natural assets.

Not that Clovis is that much better

I like trails. I like new trails. But I hate seeing shoddy construction like this being approved. Actually, not just approved. Someone had to draw it up. Someone had to sign off on it. Someone else had have reviewed it. And they all thought it was perfect.

I will revisit this construction in a month or so once it's done.

Hope you enjoyed my tour about how to badly build a trail, close off your natural recreational assets and ignore common-sense access, all in one day.

:)

Jazzhop growing in popularity

2012-02-07T18:59:00.000-08:00

In November, I attended the inaugural Jazzhop event, which was an extension of the existing ArtHop concept. The concept involves opening up studios and galleries downtown to the public, for free. Jazzhop added to the art by introducing local jazz musicians to the scene. These events are held once a month on a Thursday evening.

When I attended in November, I was impressed by the music and scope of the options, but very disappointed in the amount of people. Fortunately, that seems to have changed, and the event held last week was much more popular, even though more venues were added. Part of the credit goes to the Fresno Bee, which produced a large spread in the Sunday issue prior to this month's event.

Because so many venues are included, and hours are limited, we decided to hit up locations which we did not visit in November. Even then, there are still multiple locations we have yet to stop by.

We began at Fresno's only Pão de Queijo store and bakery, P*de*Q near Fresno High. This is not a jazz location, but it was an art one, and the tiny space was filled up with 10 or so people eating their cheese breads and enjoying the art.

From there, we went to the water tower, which was listed as a jazz venue, but we found no music. There was plenty to look at, and a good amount of people.

Instead of going to the Tower district as we did last time, we went to the Van Ness and Ventura section of downtown. Only a single jazz act was listed here, but there were 4-5 art venues in total we got to see just by walking around. These were packed and required waiting just to get close to the paintings and sculptures. Parking actually involved turning down a side street, instead of arriving directly in front of our destination. For something after 6pm, in downtown, thats "remarkable".

Side note: Dear Fresno, all your streetlights are off. Please fix them.

Pictures do not show full crowds, I find it awkward to take pictures of crowds when they're bumping into you, so I only took some when the venue was less-full.

After those five venues, we hit the Full Circle Brewery for a beer and some Jazz. The place is pretty damn massive. Clientele? Surprisingly old. Like 60+ old. Wonder why.

This was the only venue that was empty, mostly because of location (it's all alone).

From there, it was time for food. We stopped by the recently reopened Iron Bird Cafe, but apparently they don't prepare food after 3pm. So we walked to Tokyo Garden right before the kitchen closed.

They had a special Jazzhop menu. Soup + salad + tempura appetizer(veggies and shrimp) + rice + chicken + steak + ice cream = $12. Wonderful value. The venue also had some rocking jazz, which was great to listen to while we ate.

The activities continued until 1am at Audie's, but we were too tired, so we went home. We'll be back, in 2-3 months for some new jazz and art, and to hit up some other venues. I look forward to see more and more people discovering the fun, free, evening that can be had downtown.

1) P*de*Q
2) Water Tower
3) various galleries
4) Full Circle Brewery
5) Iron Bird Cafe
6) Tokyo Garden

The implementation is the problem, not the technology

2012-02-06T01:20:00.000-08:00

This is a post I eventually plan on writing about transit, especially BRT. But today, the subject will be about self-checkout lanes at supermarkets, because I saw an article pop up about them the other day. Said article appears to pop up every few months.

How is transit related to the supermarket? It's related because if you botch the implementation of a technology or service, people assume the shortfalls are because of the technology, instead of being because of bad management.

Despite an almost universal dislike for standing in long or slow checkout lines, an overwhelming majority of shoppers opt for cashier-assisted lanes instead of self-service, according to the 2011 "Food Retailing Industry Speaks" report published this autumn by the Food Marketing Institute, an Arlington, Va.-based trade group.

Self-service checkouts — introduced nationwide about a decade ago — have fallen in popularity. About 16 percent of supermarket customers used the self-service lanes in 2010, down from almost 20 percent in 2006, according to the report.

...
Perhaps as a result, some supermarket chains such as Albertsons of Boise and Big Y Foods Inc., with 61 stores in Massachusetts and Connecticut, are removing self-service checkouts.

Read more: Self-service checkouts fall from favor - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Self-checkout lanes began appearing over a decade ago. As the article points out, most people prefer not to use them. I'd wager that if you polled people who do use them, you'll find that they generally dislike the checkout format and the many problems that arise from it, but they use it anyway to save time, or avoid people.

The problem isn't that scanning items is too difficult or time-consuming, as this article hints at. The problem is that the implementation of the technology generally sucks.

That's especially noticeable when you realize that there have been almost no improvement in self-checkout in the past 10 years. The same slow, noisy and error-prone machines of the past are what are still being installed today.

"Error. Please place item in bagging area. PLEASE PLACE ITEM IN BAGGING AREA. ERROR ERROR. Please wait for assistance"

Anyone who has used the typical self-checkout machines has experienced the above.

But that's not an inherent problem with using self-checkout machines. That's a problem with implementation. Especially when almost every self-checkout uses this model.

This model simply doesn't make sense. The american supermarket shopper tends to shop once every week or two, not every day. That means, there's a giant cart full of groceries. This model will be inherently slow, because there's absolutely no room to spread out the merchandise and so be able to sort the bagging easier.

And the whole "error, error" crap? That's because the supermarket doesn't trust you, and wants each item weighed to make sure what you scan is what you take (ie, not letting you scan a pack of gum and take a gallon of milk).

But it doesn't have to be that way.

It took the English supermarket giant Tesco to introduce a easy, common-sense implementation of self-checkout to america.

All they did was take the standard checkout lane, where one quickly scans an item and it rolls away to the bagging area, and turn around the scanning console so it's self-checkout.

It works well. You're never asked to place an item gingerly in a small area for the sensors to check the weight. The chain realizes that speed is key, and nothing is faster than scanning and letting items roll away (the conveyer belt moves automatically). There's a level of trust there that other chains aren't willing to extend to their customers.

There's plenty of space, and you can focus on scanning and not bagging. Issues like produce where other chains ask you to enter codes, weigh your item and so forth? Not here. Each piece of produce has a tiny tag which you scan. No extra work needed.

As for the bagging portion, if you come with a partner, they can stand at the end (like anywhere else) and do the bagging. If you come alone, roaming staff members will get your bagging started for you, and are ready to help if you ever get stuck. Generally, the only time the machine freezes up and makes you wait for assistance is if you purchase alcohol and your ID needs to be checked.

Fresh and Easy takes the self-checkout concept further by ONLY providing self-checkout. The great part is, there are never any lines. And unlike other stores which "close" their self-checkout areas after 9pm, F&E has every lane open at all times that they are.

Self-checkout can be a great convenience, for purchases small or large, because they can radically reduce the instance of having to wait in line. I can't be the only one who wanted to purchase a single item, saw only one register open with a line 6 deep, and simply left without the item. Having the option of self-checkout would eliminate that concern. And as long the implementation is done right, you can get the upside of convenience and choice with very little downside.

The point is, don't immediately associate the drawbacks of something with the technology. It may simply be that the implementation is poor.

Instead of saying "I hate self-checkout" you may really mean "I hate the self-checkout machines my local store decided to install."

FAX making changes to major bus routes

2012-02-02T23:18:00.000-08:00

FAX = Fresno Area Express, Fresno's bus system which also (just barely) serves Clovis and Fowler, and county islands.

A small ad in the paper the other day (yes, an ad, not a news story) mentioned that changes were coming to Fresno's bus routes. The small ad only said that routes 26, 28, 30, 32, 39, and 58 would undergo changes, and one could read about said changes online. This got my interest because that included the busiest bus routes in the system.

What could it be? Were they finally going to expand service, after over a decade of contraction? Would they begin serving areas that had grown greatly over the past 20 years, but were ignored by a route map that looks like it was designed in the 60s? Would they close gaps? Would they completely shift routes to serve origin-destination pairs that riders want?

Well, no.

Big changes are coming, but the changes mean switching around which bus route gets to serve which street. The service area appears to remain exactly the same.

IE: if Route 1 serves Main and Broadway, and Route 2 serves Peach and Cherry, the change would mean Route 1 would serve Main and Cherry, and Route 2 would get Peach and Broadway.

In other words, these changes appear solely to achieve operational goals, and not passenger goals.

Thats not a bad thing, because improving operations does benefit the passenger if it makes service more reliable.

But are major changes to long-established lines worth the effort? Especially important is that fact that the ad directed people online, and many of FAX riders may not have internet access, may not be proficient with computers, or may not speak English.

What's also curious is that the changes are listed as "proposed" but absolutely no info is given as to the process to get these changes passed. Will there be public hearings? Rider feedback? .....anything?

Here is the wealth of information provided on the website

FAX proposes route adjustments for 2012. To see a map of the proposed enhancements, click on the specific route number below:

FAX

I've talked about the badly designed FAX website before, but this takes the lack of information and public accountability to a new level.

Anyway, on to the changes.

The Fresno bus system is still designed with downtown as a hub, which makes sense historically, but not today. Because of the way the city grew, downtown is in a corner, with all growth being to the north and east. It is not centrally located, except if you are on a freeway, but FAX buses do not use the freeways*.

*The Children's Hospital Express does, but that's a special hospital funded service.

While downtown is a hub, buses don't actually terminate there. Most lines go out of their way to hit the downtown transit center (aka, a plaza) before heading out in another direction.

This is an odd situation, because while downtown is still a jobs destination (40,000 jobs), it doesn't match ridership needs.

Someone going from the north to the west has no interest in a downtown detour, but has to deal with it anyway. And "nobody" is going from north fresno to southwest Fresno, but a bus serves that route. In reality, theres probably a 99% turnover downtown, and it's essentially one number serving two distinct routes.

Line 26 is an excellent example of the absurdity, especially because it serves the airport....and well, everything else. It is currently the 4th busiest bus route in the system. Service begins at around 6am, and there is service every 30 minutes until 6:30pm, at which point it becomes hourly until 9:30pm. Yes, it's pretty sad.

Here you can see downtown Fresno in the bottom left, the area inside the three freeways.

The line serves the wealthy and popular River Park shopping center (aka, every chain ever), shifts to move down Palm, making sure to pass by the Wal-Mart supercenter, then continues on Palm, a street lined with medical officers, expensive restaurants and car dealerships (even the regions only Whole Foods!), goes south of Shaw where it hits the tower district, serves downtown and the transit center, and turns east along Butler, a very low income area with many abandoned businesses.

But thats not all! It hits Fresno Pacific University, turns up to Kings Canyon to hit another Wal-Mart Supercenter (and a Winco) before heading up Peach avenue pretty much to serve the airport.

In other words, if you were coming to Fresno, and only had an hour, and wanted to hit all the "sites" than this is the bus for you! From BMW dealerships, to extreme poverty, a christian university, the "trendy" areas downtown and not one, but two wal-marts, you get to explore most of what Fresno offers and get deposited at the airport on your way out.

But aside from social commentary, does it offer much to the rider? It probably does a good job at getting people from south Fresno to jobs at the airport and downtown. It does a decent job of serving the busy Palm Avenue corridor. It manages to link the Tower with downtown. The question is, should one bus route be doing this all?

Probably not.

And FAX is planning to change that....but maybe even not for the better.

Here is the proposed route change. In the north, the change is minor. Currently, River Park has a mini-transit center, which many northern routes try to hit. The problem is, this "center" is spread out, and not fully convenient to bus movement. So it looks like 26 will no longer serve the stop inside River Park, but stay on Blackstone. While this will require longer walks for some, the time savings should more than make up for it. Forcing a bus to make multiple left turns in a busy shopping area is not very effective.

The big change is in the south. No more bus service to the airport. Instead, the bus line will loop around the IRS/Wal-Mart/Winco area. This area serves lots of people, yes, but it leaves airport employees (and the few airport passengers) out in the cold.

The shorter route may allow for improved headways, but passengers going to the airport will now be forced to make a transfer, possibly adding an hour to their trip.

Meanwhile, route 39, the other route serving the airport, takes over the Peach portion of 26, meaning one line will handle airport duty from both directions. In reality, it means an added transfer for those in South Fresno. Oddly enough, the jog to the Manchester Transit Center gets eliminated, making said transfers more difficult. So now only one bus will serve the airport, but it will be probably the only bus line in the system to not hit a major transfer point.

One thing the diagram does not make clear is how the airport is served. Currently, the two bus routes enter the airport, and pickup/drop off directly across from arrivals. I can't tell if the curbside service will be limited to north/west trips only, leaving a long walk for west/south passengers.

Fortunately, route 39 comes at the same frequency of 26, providing service from 5:30am to 6:20pm every 30 minutes, and then hourly until 9:20pm on weekdays. Lets pretend weekends don't exist, because FAX sure does.

I will talk about the other bus routes this weekend, as this post has taken longer than I thought it would to prepare. I will include comparisons to the existing routes and so forth.

You can see the proposed maps here (PDFs):

26 -See above
28 --Major changes to the systems busiest bus route
30 --If changes go through, will become by far the systems busiest route.
32 --Minor change
39 --See above
58 --I think this map is actually wrong...

Clovis gets LED street lights

2012-01-31T01:30:00.000-08:00

Clovis and Fresno look a lot alike, so it's hard to tell sometimes when you cross from one city to the other. The street signs are a good giveaway, as Fresno uses green and Clovis uses brown. But now, at night, there's one other difference: Clovis is installing LED street lights at almost every intersection. According to the city, they are in the process of installing over 400 LED street lights. I've seen them at most intersections, although a section of Clovis Avenue, by Old Town, has all been redone.

Willow Avenue, the border between Fresno and Clovis is interesting. There are four lights at each intersection, and now two are LEDs, and two are sodium.

LED has a few advantages over the existing high pressure sodium lights. The most obvious one is color. The sodium lights are your standard yellowy-orange lamps that make it very difficult to see colors at night. LED's, on the other hand, are very white.

At this intersection, you can see the lights mounted on the traffic polls have been switched. All the other lights are of the older kind

From my observation, the LED lights appear to be brighter than what they replaced. This is a very good thing, as the street lights here can be placed quite far apart. At intersections, the brighter light helps make pedestrians more visible. The better color clarity also makes it easier to distinguish what's in the crosswalk.

The regular street lights are very yellow

There are a few other advantages to, besides color, and in this case, light output (light output will vary based on what model the city buys).

-Energy efficient. It's not a huge savings, because the old sodium lights are pretty efficient themselves, but every bit helps.
-Longer lifespan. LED is much more expensive than the existing installations, but is supposed to have a longer life. The savings in labor should be enough to justify the switch, along with the energy savings
-Better light distribution. The LED lights are more focused, unlike the sodium ones which have three distinct bright spots, and then darker areas. The older lights have glare and create shadows, as seen in this comparison.

LED lights provide a more uniform coverage

I'm excited to see the new lights around Clovis. Hopefully the savings mean that they can continue the transition throughout the year.

The intersection has been done, and is very well lit, but there are thousands and thousands of street lights in the city. If you like the sodium lights, don't worry, you'll be seeing them for a very long time

One other thing I'd like to see the city experiment with are lights with solar panels, but that's really something that PG&E has to push through. Maybe next year.

Thoughts from the Clovis Shaw planning meeting

2012-01-30T02:15:00.000-08:00

The subject of my last post was about the city of Clovis holding three planning meetings concerning Shae Ave.

I attended the second meeting, held in the afternoon. The meeting was not well publicized, as there was no notice (that I could see) in the paper. On the website, the information was listed, but the way the site is set up makes it hard to find.

Apparently, the expectation was that only business owners would attend, because the first question asked was which business each member of the audience owns. I assume they sent out flyers to each business on the corridor.

Now when I say audience, I mean a grand total of six members of the public, less than the 7 members of the city that were on-hand. The lack of outreach and the lack of response is somewhat typical of planning here, both in Clovis and in Fresno. The local population is not very engaged with how the city is being planned, which is partially why there are so many ways in which the planning is poor. According to the city staff, the morning meeting had more people, but that's not saying much. I think that the lack of engagement by the community is taken by the city as a sign that everyone approves of how things have been done. As I'll get to later, according to one of the planners, that's sort of how the council sees it.

Interestingly, the planners all seemed excited to have someone attend that was not directly related to the project (as a business owner). I was told multiple times that they want to see more participation from citizens.

The meeting was simple in structure. First, there were some powerpoint presentations about the project scope, earlier feedback heard by the city, and some proposals (pictures of projects done in other cities). We got stats on vacancy rates (hovering around 30%), and how low vacancy leads to a downward spiral of investment. While I usually take pictures of this type of thing, it felt odd with so few people, so I did not.

The city only has a grant of $250,000, so as the meeting went on, it became clear to me that the main goal is actually to convince property owners to form a Business Improvement District. This self-taxing unit would provide funds for things like better streetlights and landscaping, which hopefully would draw more customers. That being said, the grant must be used for a capital project, and not something like marketing. Also, the grant was given due to the proximity of low-income housing.

I agree that more streetlights and such would be great, but the problem with the Shaw corridor isn't in the minor details, it's in the grand design. It's the fact that walking and biking is too difficult. It's the fact that even driving is a hassle, because to get from one shopping area to the next, you MUST return to Shaw, and the constant curb-cuts and such make driving unpleasant.

That's the kind of thing that can't really be fixed with new street lights....or with $250,000.

The meeting was somewhat disappointing in a realistic way. That is, there were few grandiose ideas, because the planners recognize that there are no funds for said ideas. Also, they are limited by the fact that Shaw "must" remain a 6-lane arterial. Slowing down or limiting traffic is simply out of the question. One of the planners mentioned that he would like to see changes made to improve biking and walking, but that it was unrealistic to expect people to walk more than a mile. However, during multiple instances it was mentioned that when observing the stretch of road, they noted more pedestrians and cyclists than they expected.

As I mentioned before, the planners were happy to see someone outside their small circle. I got the impression that the majority would love to jump on ideas like mixed use development, being more pedestrian-friendly and such, but they simply don't have the resources or political capitol to do so, so all they can do is keep doing what's always been done.

Basically, they said that unless citizens start breaking down the doors of the council members, the ones who actually control how the money flows, and start demanding more progressive planning, there won't be any. That's sort of depressing, but it's true.

The tail end of the meeting was pretty much feedback from those in attendance. The most vocal (I guess besides me) was an older woman who owns a consignment store. She states that she was unhappy with the visibility of her store, and the general upkeep of the area. For example, she thinks the city needs to crack down on the property owners that aren't maintaining their centers well. In her case, she is next to an abandoned Vons, and the owners of that vacant property (who she said was still Vons) do not keep it looking good. She also said that the city should help bring in customers by holding more events and such. The planners responded that when events and festivals are held, they are usually funded by local business owners, not the city.

My participation was to address many of the issues from my last post. Mainly, that visibility and access are poor. I brought up how I'd like to visit stores in the area by bike, but that's not comfortable, so I'm more likely to shop elsewhere or not at all.

One last thing: it was mentioned that the revitalization of Shaw is something they'd expect to take 10-30 years, not something that will happen overnight. That's perfectly realistic, but certainly depressing. Until then, if anyone is looking for vacant storefronts to film a movie....

Clovis sprawls north, wonders how to revitalize south

2012-01-27T03:10:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned yesterday, Clovis is holding community meetings on ways to revitalize the Shaw corridor. Today, I will discuss the problems facing Shaw. Before attending the meeting, I was baffled about how they're being held just weeks after development began on a massive new commercial center just two miles north. I wondered if those in charge were failing to draw the connection between approving new development elsewhere and the abandonment of existing retail corridors.

Tomorrow, I will write about the meeting itself, and what the Clovis planners said.

This post will discuss three reasons why Shaw is failing
1) The car-first approach actually hurts stores
2) Lack of pedestrian and bike access
3) Approval of new development elsewhere

--------

Shaw avenue is a major east-west corridor that ties Fresno and Clovis together, and is primarily commercial*. If you are a chain, and you opened before 2002, you would probably open on Shaw (such as the first Target in Clovis). In Clovis, it's home to the city's only traditional mall (Sierra Vista). In Fresno, Shaw is where you'll find the regions only truly successful traditional mall, Fashion Fair.

Shaw is also where Fresno State is, and it's the southern border of Old Town Clovis.

The make up of Shaw is strictly autocentric. Every commercial property features acres of parking in front, to the sides and sometimes behind it too. Sidewalks exist at almost every point* but are narrow, at maybe 5 feet wide. In some places, the sidewalks are actually dangerous. Crosswalks are rare, and are limited to signalized intersections which are usually .5 miles apart...and some intersections ban pedestrian crossings on some sides. While most of Shaw has room for bike lanes (as the street was probably designed to accommodate parking) none has ever been painted. The speed limit varies from 40-50pmh.

*There are maybe a dozen private homes that abut Shaw, remnants of when it was a rural road. There are no sidewalks in front of those homes, and the dwellings are run down and of low value.

I think most will agree that Shaw is ugly. It is suppose to be the prime commercial street, but like Blackstone, bad design has made it an eyesore.

This is compounded by the fact that large portions of the commercial real-estate on Shaw is empty, and will probably never be occupied. According to the meeting I went to, 30% vacancy is typical.

Here is an example of one of those commercial developments. You can tell by the amount of cars in the parking lot that this center is dead. Take into account that some of those cars are employees, leaving....one customer?

Red shows empty space, yellow is a gas station, green is leased space. The tenants are all low-income stores, like a Little Ceasars, a Tobacco shop and a nail salon.

The largest space was a supermarket, the second largest was a Wallgreens. A Boston Market also closed. When a fast-food chain closes, in this town, you know something is wrong. The largest leased space is a Chase bank.

1) Car focus kills business.

Because so much of Shaw is fronted by parking, the businesses on Shaw find themselves in an odd position.

Every day an estimated 60,000 car trips are made down the crowded Shaw Avenue corridor. But with so many shuttered businesses and vacant buildings not many people have reason to stop.

ABC News

These businesses locate on Shaw because of all the traffic...yes customers!

They build giant parking lots so all those customers can park...yay sales! Isn't is so pretty?

....but hold up. Isn't visibility a prime factor when it comes to getting sales? 60,000 cars a day passing by sounds like visibility, by the irony is, those businesses aren't visible.

They're hiding behind parking!

If you're driving on Shaw ave, you're paying primary attention to what's in front of you. Are you seeing all those tiny signs of those businesses all the way out in the back? There might be thirty businesses in this one shot, can you name them?

In green, what the driver focuses on, how many businesses does the driver become aware of? Remember, the speed limit is 45mph.

Most cars don't have passengers. But those that do have eyes that can focus on sightseeing.

But even then, when the stores are so far away from the road....well, how many businesses can you see here?

I don't think it's shocking that so many businesses have failed. What's shocking is that so much money was poured into building this way. There appears to be a huge disconnect between "location, location, location! We must maximize visibility!" and building retail centers that aren't actually visible.

2) Terrible pedestrian options

Unlike those driving, pedestrians and cyclists move at a slower, calmer speed, which allow them ample time to observe their surroundings. If these surroundings are commercial, then the pedestrian has time to read the signs, and if the shops aren't too far away, look inside.

But Shaw ave wasn't built for the pedestrian, at all. Worse, is that on the Fresno/Clovis border lies Fresno State. Like most universities, Fresno State has a large population of people willing to spend money, but perhaps lacking in cars.

Getting Fresno State students and staff to eat or shop east of freeway 168 has been very difficult. Clovis Development and Economic development director Tina Sumner said, "That is really a roadblock."

ABC

Correct. Fresno State is kept separate from Clovis by freeway 168. To accommodate the car traffic, every design choice in the book was taken to speed up vehicles. Huge intersections, as many lanes as possible an so forth.

But most damaging, in my opinion, are the on and off ramps which encourage cars to see Shaw as a portion of the freeway.

You can see Fresno State, dense student housing south of Shaw, and the freeway blocking off access to Clovis

It's not just the freeway. An abandoned car sales lot, the home depot parking, an empty Fresno State lot, and more make this short distance seem like an eternity. The remarkably wide road doesn't help.

In my opinion, it's the Caltrans on-ramp design that really kills any pedestrian and bike activity.

Look at this poor guy on a bike. Suddenly, the three lane + shoulder road opens up into a massive space, pretty much 6 lanes. If you're going straight on a bike, you "should" take the lane and be 3 lanes from the right (the lane with the circle). Yeah right, that's a death wish. What's also odd is how wide the road becomes. The space on the right leads to a single lane...so why is it a good 20 feet wide?

Tiny sidewalk, no bike guidance or lane...but apparently, enough money for all this extra asphalt. Tailgate parking..?

And for pedestrians, how many vehicles do you think stop at this crosswalk? There's no enforcement of course. Fresno State's basketball arena is visible in the back.

The offramp isn't as bad, but still, notice how its so wide, to allow people to make turns as quickly as possible? The freeway was built less than 15 years ago. When it comes to pedestrian, the older freeways from the 50's are so much easier to deal with.

New:

Old:

And yes, the old design (seen on highway 41) carries more vehicles today.

One can shake their fist at Caltrans for their bad designs. But Clovis is just as bad. Look at this entrance to the Home depot.

Even the Home Depot gets an on-ramp! Of course, the Home Depot offers no pedestrian access.

Care to take your date on a stroll here?

The point is, no, Fresno State students will not walk to your shops if this is the way you great them. They're not suicidal.

3) Aiming development elsewhere

So you've got yourself a stretch of road with high vacancy rates, terrible bike and pedestrian access, but a whole lot of promise (everyone knows Shaw, many people use it daily).

Want to kill a dying commercial strip? A good way to start, is by building a highway, and then directing all new commerce north.

Here you see the Clovis city limits, the Shaw project area in green....and Herndon in yellow. In pink is "Old Town Clovis"

So what new commerce is being built on Herndon, 2 miles north?

1) Opened 3-4 years ago
Best Buy
Target
Petsmart
TJMaxx
10+ smaller stores

2) Proposed Winco and associated Stores

3) Walmart SuperCenter, Dick's Sporting Goods, and Marshall's currently under construction.
Note the shopping center directly south of this lot, is an abandoned grocery store (old Vons or Albertsons maybe?)

4) Vons, SaveMart and Fresh and Easy (yes, all three supermarkets, one intersection)

5) Old Town (no chains, all small stores)

6) Shaw

7) Sierra Vista Mall (including a Target, Kohls and Sears)

8) An existing regular Wal-Mart

The freeway, was not there 10 years ago

Again, Shaw to Herndon is only 2 miles. You're looking at an area that is basically 2.25 x 3.25 miles. Just on Herndon, a road with zero residents, you will find 6 full service grocery stores, and one abandoned grocer. Seems like overkill, no?

What's especially interesting is that the Wal-Mart SuperCenter was actually proposed in 2003, and the city approved it.

A group of residents then sued the city, saying the Environmental Impact Report was not proper. They claimed that while the EIR covered things like traffic, water use etc, it did NOT take into account the huge amount of blight that a Wal-Mart would bring to the area by causing many store closures. The residents were especially concerned about the proximity of the Wal-Mart to old town Clovis, an area which the city had spent a lot of time and effort revitalizing (with much success). The city/walmart fought this lawsuit, and the city won in 2011, clearing the way for construction to begin, as it did last month.

I think the residents were right. I don't think the shops in Old Town have much to fear, as they're the exact opposite of Wal-Mart (small mom and pop antique stores and such).

But Shaw Ave?

It's already dying, and I do think the Wal-Mart will help kill it off.

The irony is that the city spent so much time and effort fighting the lawsuit so that Wal-Mart could be built on Herndon, and then turns around and asks for ways to revitalize Shaw.

Bonus. Something I don't get...the distribution of grocery stores. They're all together, so close to each other...but far from the homes. :/

Not including dollar stores, 7-11s etc...

In yellow, stores with grocery sections, including Savemart (2), Vons (1), Target (2), Grocery Outlet (1), Fresh and Easy (2), Foodmaxx (1), Foodco (1), Smart and Final (1)
In red, abandoned grocery stores Savemart (1), Vons (2)
In blue, future wal-mart supercenter and winco

Clovis holding Shaw Avenue planning meetings

2012-01-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

I am writing a full post about the problems facing Shaw Avenue, but I am posting the details of the meeting now as a heads up. Look for the full post later tonight.

----------------
The City of Clovis has identified a two-and-a-half-mile stretch of Shaw Avenue as a focus area for long term planning and reinvestment.

The City of Clovis is preparing a focused land use planning, regulatory, and financing effort to re-imagine and revitalize the corridor from SR-168 to Clovis Avenue.

The City of Clovis invites you to attend any of the three workshops being held on January 25-26, 2012, to help reimage, revitalize, and recreate Shaw Avenue.

Workshop One: 25th of January 7:30am-9:00am
Workshop Two: 25th of January 6:30pm-7:30pm
Workshop Three: 26th of January 7:30am-9:00am

City Website

A transit trip to LA - Amtrak, Metro, Universal

2012-01-24T15:23:00.000-08:00

Some thought from my weekend trip to LA to see a concert at the Gibson Amphitheater at Universal.

Including thoughts on Amtrak's San Joaquin, the LA subway and the infrastructure around Universal City.

Note: My D key is not always working, I've done my best to find errors, but I may have missed one or two.
---

I've ridden the San Joaquin many times before, but I was surprised to see something I hadn't seen - a train car that wasn't the standard California Car I'm used to. It was made fairly obvious by the fact that there was only one boarding door, and it was baggage only.

Of course, once inside the train, I went to take a look. I was extremely excited to see that this (clearly older) car had something the newer ones lack....

RECLINING SEATS!

I've taken a 4:30am departure before, and the lack of reclining seats was killer. It also appeared that there was more leg-room, but I had no way to measure.

That picture is misleading because it makes the train look empty. In fact, the train was quite full, but because you couldn't enter the car from the platform, I guess most riders didn't realize they could walk to it. A big loss to them. On both trips, the other cars were maybe 75% full.

I ventured downstairs to see how the bottom level was different. In the regular cars, the bottom level has one or two handicap bathrooms, seating for the elderly and disabled, and baggage areas.

Sometimes, the bottom has bike racks (as seen on a regular California Car)

In this case, the bottom was lacking in seats...

As I saw in my return trip, this area was filled with bags.

There were also multiple bathrooms. A unisex handicap accessible room (not that a wheelchair could make it down the stairs), 3-4 regular restrooms, and a "ladies lounge" with couch, large mirror and table area.

One of the men's room offered a changing area.

The configuration was not necessary for the San Joaquin, but it was still nice. I got the same train on the return trip, so I also enjoyed the reclining seats.

On both trips, I enjoyed the complimentary copy of the Fresno Bee available in the cafe car. Maybe it's just me, but I feel that this is quite the dignified way to travel. Sadly, the bagel with cream cheese saw a price hike, and now costs $2.

In Bakersfield, you transfer across the platform to a bus. One of the downsides of this arrangement is that any time gained is lost.

Going south, my train was 20 minutes early (!). Going north, my bus was 15 minutes early. But you lose that time in Bakersfield because the next departure can't leave until the scheduled time.

2-3 buses go to LA, there are 4 other buses going to other places. Most passengers continue their trip on a bus.

Bakersfield has three platform, but only one is ever used.

------------

In LA, I took the metro red line to get to, and then depart Universal City.

It's an interesting Subway line. The stations themselves look very nice an are quite grand. At least the lobby, the platforms are oddly narrow, and the trains are dumpy. They're short, not well kept, and quite frankly, ugly.

Vermont and Wilshire station

----------

So far so good. Amtrak was comfortable, ahead of scheule, and generally pleasant. The red line was quick (I got lucky and waited less than 1 minute combined in both directions), felt safe an comfortable.

So how does the good old private sector do when it comes to transportation?

Badly. very badly. Apparently, Universal would prefer you arrive by car. And at something like $20 to park your car, I can see why. Many people do arrive on foot, and we got to the shuttle stop to see it leave, as it was full.

The metro stop is only .4 miles away from CityWalk, but because of a giant hill, a shuttle bus is provided.

You can't tell here, but the hill is quite steep.

Online, the walk looked simple. Exit on the north side of the Subway station, and either see if a shuttle bus is waiting, or walk.

But LA doesnt want you to walk.

The metro stop has two exits, but there is no sign indicating the best one to leave.

And there are two major pedestrian-killing design choices:

1) No crosswalk on the south side, so anyone exiting here must cross the road THREE times to get to the shuttle stop
2) Closed sidewalk on north side, even though crosswalk and universal are on north.

Again, no crosswalk on south side, no sidewalk on northside...wtf?

It's like they've designed a maze whose explicit purpose is to say "didn't you wish you had driven? Only $20 to park!"

A route from the metro to the shuttle stop.

Blocked sidewalk on north side

Seriously, WTH is this?

Anyway, so the shuttle bus is a big diesel truck pulling 4-5 cars behind. Your typical theme park transportation. No doors, open winds, and maybe 6-8 seats across.

Sorry, only took a picture of the front car (the handicap accessible one)

The stop itself is decent enough, although the sidewalk is quite narrow

But the hours and frequency sucks. 15 minutes? It's a .4 mile trip, they can do it much faster. Of note is that the red line operates every 10 minutes, so there are more passengers arriving than there is space on the shuttle.

And no shuttles after 7pm on weekdays and 9pm on weekends? Huh? Universal City is a popular night destination, full of restaurants, a club or two, and obviously the concert venue. The red line has a last departure at 12:54am, but Universal can't be bothered to transport people past 9pm?

That means the return trip is a walk. At least it was downhill.

The good thing is that the metro was well signed, I had no trouble making sure I was going the right way.

But while the cars get as much room as they could possibly need...

Pedestrians get the bare minimum, maybe 5 feet....and a very wide landscaping area, so space isn't a constraint, priorities are.

No crosswalks or curb ramps.

Good luck navigating a wheelchair or stroller on these babies

A badly aimed sprinkler makes sure to insult you on the way out

The station is straight ahead, but no crossing allowed

I'm sure it's so much safer to make pedestrians cross this wide street not once but twice. And while I'm a fairly quick walker, the countdown reached zero just as I arrived at the other sidewalk. Someone like my grandmother would be halfway across when cars got green.

You'd think those as hungry for money as Universal would try and make their customer experience a little better by providing a safe, easy and pleasant walk to their facilities. But instead, it's almost like they want to keep customers out. I don't quite get the business logic behind it. I guess the customer is only right when they drive.

Bonus: Gibson Amphitheater

Gas prices will probably break records again this summer

2012-01-20T23:41:00.000-08:00

It appears to me that this summer we will see the highest gas prices of all time...again. Predicting exact price is always impossible, because of so many variables, but while oil and gas can be quite unpredictable, they also follow very clear seasonal patterns. What that means is that from now until memorial day, expect gas prices to increase....as they always do. What makes this year special is that our starting point is the highest it's ever been.

The ingredients that will lead us to new records this summer:

-Economy is improving by all metrics, and looks to continue that way. More demand = higher prices.
-Ethanol subsidy is gone, leading a 4.5 cent increase per gallon of gas (should be in effect now)
-We are currently at the highest January prices ever, and...
-Last year had very few events which caused spikes in prices (hurricanes, strikes etc). That means that any spike this year caused by a one-off event will send prices way higher than last year, and even without any spikes, prices should still follow last years trajectory. While last year did see the events in Libya rattle investors, it caused a general rise and not a spike (as would happen if a refinery blew up, or a hurricane hit Texas). As the arab spring is still in effect (see Syria), prices will not drop.

So lets take a look at what the patterns show...(all prices will be California numbers, subtract 30 cents for US average)

Our starting point is today, January 20. We're 37 cents higher than the same day last year.

Which itself was higher than 2010...

2010 actually saw stable prices throughout, thanks mostly to the bad economy. The pink line is a surprising, but mostly not relevant line showing a linear increase. Just thought it was interesting.

This next graph is very misleading, because January 2009 was after the huge collapse in prices. The pink line shows what the lovely linear line would have given us, if it werent for the 2008 boom/bust

Including 2008 shows us when gas prices last hit a record.

What's interesting is the January starting point....which was lower than where we are right now. Oh-oh.

That giant bump in 2008 was caused by blind speculation. Expect that speculation to return as the US economic indices continue to look better. Unless Europe explodes, investors will go back to oil.

Including 2006 and 2007 is useful because it shows us that typical summer bump, which we got again last year after not seeing it in 2009-2010. I fully expect we will see that pattern emerge again this summer as it did in 2006, 2007 and 2011. That bump has been around $1 in the past. I think it will be less this time, but enough to break records.

Just for fun....
Blog prediction! Predictions exclude major world events (earthquake in Texas, Iran explosion, Nigeria coup etc). Prices in California averages, according to Gasbuddy.com. Dates chosen at random.

$3.70 on January 20th (today)
$4.00 by March 4th.
$4.25 by March 25th
$4.50 by April 25th.
$4.66 (record) by May 15.
(prices to drop after May 15)

Feel free to leave your own predictions in the comments. Winner gets their name in big bold letters.

Clovis: A pedestrian-oriented development without any sidewalks...?

2012-01-19T03:13:00.000-08:00

In 1993, the Clovis General Plan called for the concept of "Urban Centers" to be included in future sprawl/growth.

In 2003, after years of work, the "Loma Vista Specific Plan" was released, setting (what appeared to be) strict guidelines on the development set to happen as the city took over agricultural land to its east at the southern edge of the city. The city was ready to grow and it appeared that they wanted to correct at least some of the mistakes of previous sprawl expansion.

Rough Boundary of Loma Vista Plan area. Residential development is clearly underway in the west. The majority is still prime agriculture, for now.

The 2003 plan showing the Loma Vista area in relation to the rest of the city

The guidelines included fixed components, like parks and trails and such, and guiding principals, such as:

Quality of life: Foster family values and maintain a small-town feel of Clovis by promoting a lifestyle that is socially and culturally enriching, aesthetically pleasing and environmentally responsible.
Community design: ...a series of diverse residential neighborhoods planned around compact pedestrian-oriented mixed-use cores.
Local Transportation: Organize land-use in a manner that promotes pedestrian-oriented circulation patterns and reduces the number and length of vehicular trips

2003 plan

That was the lofty goal set in 2003, after years of discourse. Yesterday, the city council unanimously approved a housing subdivision in the Loma Vista areas that essentially throws away those guiding principals. The planning council had already approved it.

They approved a new development with:
-No sidewalks
-No trail/paseo, which had been shown in maps for years
-A wall where another developer had previously left open a path for residents to walk from one development to the next
-No studies of any kind taking into account pedestrian flows to the nearby schools and churches. How do you promote pedestrian circulation with no data on how pedestrians walk...?

I really don't see how a residential community without any sidewalks, and without an extension of the trail system promised in maps for years can be allowed. But in these parts, if a developer is proposing it, it's almost always allowed.

When developers started building their subdivisions in the new area, they did indeed adhere to the plan. The trails went in, well designed trails. Sidewalks had good connections and such.

An outdated (because they keep allowing waivers) city map showing current and future trails. In red, the Loma Vista area. In yellow, the subdivision. A trail is clearly shown as coming in the future. Now, it will never be built.

As the recession hit, the developers started pushing for "waivers" to their original proposals. Sidewalks, promised at 10 feet in initial approval, were being decreased to 5 feet in the updated requests. The trails (called paseoes) went from being paths with almost no street crossings, to paths in the median in roads, and then proposed as glorified sidewalks. Now, this developer is proposing no trail at all. Of course, corners are being cut everywhere, including constant requests to allow electrical infrastructure be placed above ground.

And the sad part is, the planning and then city councils keep saying "yes".

The city council approved the plan, even though the developer and the head planner both admitted that what is in this document and the final project will be slightly different, because of a few last-minute changes. Rushing the approval didn't seem to raise any eyebrows.

Here is the project that was discussed on Tuesday night:

Consider various actions associated with an 18.3 acre property located at the southeast corner of Ashlan and Locan Avenues. Ciao Properties, LLC, owner; McCaffrey Homes, applicant. (Staff: B. Araki)
Planning documents

Location, you can see the existing trails to the east

Here is what they want to build. No trails, no sidewalks, no problem.

Interesting note. In the map above, the green highlight is the connection to the existing trail. And by connection, I mean it won't be a wall, like what they'll do to the path in the red area. This connection is being touted as a feature, because thanks to a loophole, they're not even required to do that*. The developer of the existing subdivision assumed that the owner of the neighboring tract would adhere to the plan and provide multiple pedestrian linkages.

That developer was clearly naive.

*The loophole is that the tract was originally approved as apartments, without a trail. The developer then switched to low density detaches housing, keeping the waivers of the past and asking for new ones.

Three people, including myself, spoke against the plan in its current state. The other two residents who spoke against the plan are immediate neighbors of the project. One man spoke about multiple issues he was against, and made some good points. For example, he talked about how the city plans require developers to place the transformers underground. He stated that recently, many projects have requested a waiver, even though the increased density of these projects make it more feasible for the developers to cover the additional cost of placing them underground (cost is spread out over more homes). He also spoke about how a couple of months ago, the city approved a development by the same company with 33 foot wide streets on a trial basis. Now, the developer is back asking for the same, but as nothing has been built, no trial has happened.

He also spoke on the same issue that concerned me, the lack of paseos and pedestrian connectivity.

The city council chose to ignore the opposition, and only asked the developers a single question, which went along the lines of:

"The transformers, above ground, will be hiding behind shrubs yes?"
"Yes"

And then they unanimously approved the project.

Being a pedestrian on Blackstone, in pictures

2012-01-14T18:03:00.000-08:00

Blackstone Ave is by far Fresno's busiest north/south route. It begins downtown near the biggest regional hospital (as Abbey) and then heads north, passing by Fresno City College. It then passes by the first suburban mall in the city (Manchester), continues north near the second suburban mall (Fashion) and then onward to the newest shopping mecca, River Park.

Along the way, there are a series of "zones" where auto-centric businesses cluster together, from an area of mostly motels, to an area of mostly car dealerships. Fast food outlets litter the sides, include the 10th Mcdonalds ever built.

Blackstone is also home to the busiest bus line in the city, thanks to all the shopping/job destinations. While there is no housing directly on Blackstone, there are many dense apartment buildings behind the commercial strip.

Dense housing + heavy commerce + busiest bus route....sounds like a great place for pedestrian activity!

Let's take a look as I walk .5 of a mile.

My walk:

The commercial strip is visible thanks to the massive parking lots. The housing is obviously the greener areas. Apparently, trees are not business friendly?

We begin the walk south. Sidewalk is narrow and next to the road. Blackstone is more than wide enough for bike lanes, but none are painted. Instead, theres the occasional space for street parking (almost never used) and right turn lanes

When I say auto-centric, I don't just mean the road design. At least on this stretch, almost every business is car related.

The signs are ugly. Also, up ahead, whats going on with the sidewalk?

The sidewalk ends. A half-hearted attempt at creating sidewalk space with a curb has failed. The one person looking to park on the street didn't realize that the right lane is wide enough for parking, so they mistook the "sidewalk" for a place to pull out.

Not that this is much of an issue to pedestrians. Right in front of the car, the attempt at a sidewalk dissolves completely.

This is 2012, on Blackstone. The entire road was repaved last year with Obama-money. And yet they managed to ignore this.

This picture says it all. 45mph speed limit, no sidewalk, auto sales....and amusingly, a trash container waiting for curb-side pickup. That metal box is a mail-box.

It's like they haven't gotten the hint yet that Blackstone isn't some sleepy country road.

Right up ahead, not only is this a major ADA violation, but it's also dangerous.

Who wants to break an ankle and then get a nice liability settlement?

This picture serves two purposes. The first, is to show the quality of the concrete. Again, the entire road was ripped up and repaved last year. The asphalt part anyway.
The second is to show that while street parking it allowed in parts, there are so many driveways that street parking is not allowed (red curb) in most areas.
So why not paint a bike lane?

Looking back, doesnt that beautifully landscaped median just bring out the color of the signs? Why is it that the trees are placed where no one can reach them, but the sidewalk doesn't have a single piece of greenery? I guess cars need the shade more...?

Looking forward. Remember how I said Blackstone is the busiest north-south street in Fresno? It looks empty because the cars arrive in "fleets" from the traffic light, and I prefer taking pictures when there's nothing in the way.
Also, note the Herb Bauer? Nothing says "shop here!" like a big blank wall, right?

Anyway, as we continue our walk, the sidewalk appears to end again, and become a road/sidewalk/lot hybrid

I dont know why this is allowed.

Theres a side street here, which under California law means there are unmarked crosswalks across Blackstone. Fresno doesn't care about wheelchair users, so only the able bodied can risk their lives to cross here. Incidentally, notice how new the ramp looks? That's because it also got federal money for ADA improvements. Now wheelchair users can glide down the ramp in comfort.....as long as they're not going anywhere, because as the pictures above show, the sidewalk is unusable. The stop bar, recently painted, ignores the small crosswalk here as well, as cars stopping at the line would be blocking the invisible crosswalk.

You can cross Blackstone here legally. Feels safe?

Note the last few pictures where I say "looking back and looking forward"....can you spy a crosswalk?

Of course not, the crosswalks are half a mile apart (in green). Of course, if you're a vehicle, left turn lanes are provided at multiple points (in red). We wouldn't want a driver to have to go out of their way to cross the street right? It would just be unreasonable!

Let's keep going. Another place where the sidewalk disappears.

Here comes one of those car fleets I was mentioning, as the light let them through.

Something nice to look at!

The one "urban" building. Parking in back, windows at street level instead of a wall, and an actual door facing the sidewalk.

The neighboring store is sort of similar, but that's it.

I mentioned the lack of bike lanes. Is there a suitable alternate route? Not really. The only other streets that are parallel are .5 miles away in each direction. There's an alley behind the buildings...

But there are (probably illegal) interruptions to it

Wasn't that a pleasant walk?

Blackstone is home to the planned BRT line. If they add shelters....well, they can't shelters won't fit. BRT indeed.

Fresh and Easy Closing South Fresno Location

2012-01-12T00:30:00.000-08:00

When Fresh And Easy came to Fresno 2 or so years ago, I became highly interested in their small-format stores and their location scoping. What especially caught my eye is the way they distributed their stores, which included both a downtown location and a (sort of) South Fresno location.

A non-fast-food chain opening south of Shaw? What magic is this?

Well, it turns out that the party didn't last so long, as the chain will be "temporarily" closing their Cedar and Shields location (temporary meaning from 2 years to forever). The report comes from the Fresh and Easy Buzz Blog which has a list of the 12 stores the chain is closing. That's a shame. Ceder and Shields is a busy intersection in an area lacking cheap grocery options.

While Supermercados Vallarta is a quarter of a mile away, and is highly successful (and always crowded), they jack up their prices on stuff like milk to cover the cost of their imports. Fresh And Easy, while not a discount store, offers competetive prices and frequent store coupons.

Fortunately, the downtown location is to remain open, and continues to be one of the only stores in the chain to open at 7am, vs 8am for the majority.

Map:
The Fresno locations. The closing one is crossed out. Three locations have been "coming soon" since 2010, but probably won't open this year, even though two are done and ready to go. F&E has not announced any new Fresno-area store locations since they entered the market in 2010.

The yellow line is the Shaw divide.

In a Fresno Bee article, an expert makes the following claim

Although many retailers expand during economic downturns due to good deals on property, the grocery industry is a tough field to succeed in, Testa said.

"That segment is just so hyper-competitive to begin with," he said. "The margins are always small. They're competing against everything from Walmart to the grocery store chains to the convenience stores."

I disagree. That doesn't accurately explain this particular closing. There is a Vallarta, Save Mart and Target within 1.5 miles, but that is less competition than their Herndon and Fowler location....which manages to be located across the street from both a SaveMart and a Vons.

Personally, I think the location in the intersection is poor. It doesn't jump out at you, among the barrage of signs and ads.

Of course, Id say this is true of many of their locations. Can you see the Fresh and Easy at Shaw and Willow?

Part of the problem with this lack of visibility is a Fresno planning issue. Signs everywhere + giant parking lots + obsession with being on the corner = things get lost.

$250,000 to add a right turn lane?

2012-01-10T00:41:00.000-08:00

There are lots of ways to spend a quarter of a million dollars, and with the municipal budget continuing to find itself in a poor state, one would expect that expenditures are scrutinized and prioritized.

Since this is Fresno, we know there's nothing higher on the priority list than finding yet another way to widen a street. An upgrade, as it's usually called, although the only thing being upgraded are vehicle speeds. And even that is questionable.

On December 15th, the city council took up the routine issue of approving a contract for a local company to expand an intersection to provide the ever-so-important right turn lane.

The S. Clovis and E. Kings Canyon Road Traffic Signal Modification Project will install a westbound right turn pocket at the intersection of Clovis Avenue and Kings Canyon Road. Installation of the turn pocket is expected to improve the efficiency at this intersection.

Council Documents

Current Intersection

With added right turn lane

Yes, one would expect a dedicated turn lane to improve the efficiency of those looking to turn right in their private vehicle....

But what of everyone else?

In my calculations, this "improvement" negatively impacts many people.

Pedestrians lose out in two big ways. Well, three, if you include the fact that $250,000 could have probably built a whole lot of sidewalk in places without any...

1) Those crossing Kings Canyon find themselves with an even wider road to cross, and so an even less pleasant experience. Pedestrians crossing Kings Canyon must already walk past 7 lanes, and now it will be 8 (one of the lanes is an unstriped bus bay). That's 96 feet, just to make it across a road.

2) And now they'll have to deal with a lovely right turn lane, in which turning right on red as quickly as possible is almost the law. Those crossing north will have to be on their toes if there is a large vehicle in the right-through lane, because anyone wishing to turn right in the new lane will speed past the crosswalk line to get a good view.

Situations like this are extremely common. Some jackass in an SUV or pickup decides that he should stop halfway across the crosswalk. The vehicle in the next lane, looking to turn right, has no way to see if any cars are coming, nevermind the crosswalk. So he has to drive all the way into the crosswalk to look left, blocking, or even hitting crosswalk users.

Red lines shows the view of the driver is blocked unless they enter the crosswalk. Note that the same situation is present in both crosswalks!

Under the current design, a car in the right lane going straight does not allow those turning right to do so on red. The city calls this inefficient. For a pedestrian, it means they don't have to worry about someone speeding into the crosswalk, craning their head to see if it's safe to go without stopping.

So longer crossing distances AND added danger? What a way to spend $250,000!

Cyclists? Conditions worsen for them as well. There's no bike lanes here, even though the road is wide enough. The widening does not appear to include space for a bike lane, so cyclists actually lose out on space. Many cyclists here use the sidewalk as well, and right turning vehicles are even more dangerous to cyclists using the crosswalk. In California, cycling in crosswalks is explicitly legal, so if a cyclist was moving east in the crosswalk in the above capture, he could be in front of the white vehicle and be invisible to the black vehicle which would be moving into the crosswalk.

How many bike lanes would $250,000 have painted?

And how about vehicles, whose efficiency we apparently value the most?

They're not necessarily all winners either. Constant right turns-on-red aren't very safe, especially for those making a u-turn. I've witnessed many instances in which a driver is so busy looking left for a space to turn that they don't realize there's a car right in front of them turning.

Here's an example. Driving looking to turn right is so intent on looking left to see if he can turn, he misses the giant pickup u-turning right in front of him. If you don't see this happen a few times a week, you're not paying attention.

But safety obviously isn't a consideration here, so how about the mission to speed drivers as quickly as possible? Well, a wider intersection actually means more delays. For Clovis Ave traffic, the yellow light timing needs to be extended to take into account the additional 12 feet. That's wasted time. More significantly, it makes the pedestrian timing last longer. The newest MUTCD states that a pedestrian walks at 3.5 feet per second^. An extra 3.5 seconds will have to be added to the cycle for pedestrians to cross the added lane. That may seem insignificant, but it makes a lengthy traffic cycle take even longer, at well over 30 seconds needed to get a pedestrian across. As the intersection gets wider, cars actually spend more time stopped.

And the "best" part?

The intersection, where speeding traffic is a priority, is right by the proposed Fancher Creek development.

For those outside of Fresno, this project is supposedly meant to be a transit-oriented (TOD), walkable, urban paradise, and terminus of the future BRT line. A place where all the new-urbanism buzzwords can come together.

In red

That's what the press releases say anyway. Reality says otherwise. Nothing says "TOD" like "widen the roads!". That, and the fact that the only ground broken on this "urban village" has been a cookie-cutter suburban CVS.

New coffee shop choices in Fresno

2012-01-08T17:49:00.000-08:00

When it comes to unique coffee shops, Fresno is sorely lacking. There's a Starbucks on every corner, but if you want something else, then it's hard to find a good place. Not only are there few to begin with, but many are open for limited hours, such as 6am-2pm.

So what's one to do when they want somewhere to go for an evening?

Fortunately, there are three new options.

Fresno Brewing Company

While it sounds like a beer place, right now, it's strictly a coffee and hot chocolate joint.

Opening on December 1st, this new coffee shop brings life to the Fulton Mall. While their target are the many employees in the area, at least for now they offer evening service.

"The cafe serves coffee, specialty drinks and pastries. They plan to brew their own beer next year.

One of their signature drinks is called the Aztec Warrior, a mocha made with Mexican chocolate and three shots of espresso. It was inspired by customers from the nearby health department looking for an extra kick, Ephiram Bosse said."

As of January 7, 2012

Mon - Wed: 6:30 am - 8:00 pm
Thu - Fri: 6:30 am - 10:00 pm
Sat: 8:00 am - 10:00 pm

Website: Official Facebook Page

News Article about opening: Fresno Bee

Location:
1243 Fulton Mall.
North end of Fulton Mall, near the CVS. Parking is available behind the mall, at a city owned lot. Free all day weekends and after 6pm weekdays.

Iron Bird Cafe

Reopens for business the week of the 15th. Currently training employees and testing the menu.

A familiar name reopens under new ownership after closing last summer. The new ownership is well know, as they operate the success Teazer in the Tower District. While the location and most of the decoration remains the same, the menu is expanding to include more specialty coffees, like turkish and cold brew.

While they won't be open as late as the location originally was (until midnight), it will open in the evening. Before closing, the iron Bird limited hours to 2pm.

Mon - Sat: 8:00 am - 10:00 pm
Sun: 9:00 am - 3:00 pm, 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Hopefully the additional press (large newspaper spread) and the increasing population in the area (Fulton Village and Van Ness Cottages have opened) helps this iteration of the once-popular coffee shop do much better than before.

News: Bee Article

Website: Official Facebook Page

Location: 1915 Fulton St. in the Mural District. Street parking is always free.

Tower Sports Club

This one is more of a bar than a coffeeshop, but they will still be serving coffee

"Comfy armchairs, table lamps and gold-framed pictures give it that "sit back and stay a while" feel. Customers can listen to Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett tunes while sipping an espresso or Irish coffee."

News: Bee Article
Website: No website, or hours online

Location: 1294 Wishon in the Tower. Free street parking, free surface lot.

High Speed Rail, funding, and short term thinking

2012-01-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

You may have seen on the news yesterday something about California's High Speed Rail (HSR) program. A committee, mandated by the voters to review the program periodically, issued a report essentially stating that the program should be put "on hold" until the funding picture becomes clearer.

The California High Speed Rail blog has the initial news and analysis here, and today the official rebuttal from the HSR organizers, here. The rebuttal goes through the points, line by line, and throws facts in the mix. For example, while the peer review group states that the lack of full funding commitment is a major issue, the HSR people counter with the fact that no transportation program EVER is fully funded before starting.

What really bothers me about the peer review recommendation is that they seem to have no real grasp of the project timeline, and the funding timeline. And for a group of experts, that's a problem.

Lets take a look at the real timeline:

The current HSR planning actually began in the 1980s. The line is scheduled to be done in the 2030's.

That's 50 years from start to finish....

And yet this peer review group is ready to throw things out because the current House of Representatives is hostile to rail and has blocked new federal funding...?

That makes no sense at all.

Construction is scheduled to begin this year, but nobody is expecting a train to start rolling until 2020 at best. That's because it's a huge, complicated project that is being done in segments and in phases. For example, while Bakersfield-Fresno is almost done with the engineering phase, San Jose-San Francisco is a few years away from being ready to go. Even if we had $50bn sitting around today, they couldn't be laying track because the environmental and engineering reports aren't ready, and there's no magic button to speed of the mandatory process.

There will be no new federal money in 2012. We know that.

And that's ok.

It's sort of not needed in 2012. 2012 will see only the very start of construction, and there's plenty on hand for that. There's more than enough for 2013 as well. And you know what happens in 2013? A new house is elected, and with the way the politics in this country have been swinging over the past 5 years, one can imagine, indeed, one can expect, the house to swing left after the next cycle. And a left leaning house is more willing to support rail.

So what would be the point of slowing things down and putting things on hold? Again, it's a 50 year project we're talking about, if you stopped everything every time one variable was less than perfect....

I guess some would like that, because it would never get done, and there are plenty of people rooting for failure. Putting the project on hold isn't a reasonable, prudent act to ensure the taxpayer's money gets spent wisely. It's a political ploy to kill a project that some don't like.

Mexico City ped/bike infrastructure, airport and random pictures

2012-01-03T01:38:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of pictures from Mexico City.
Older entries:
Mexico City Periférico construction in pictures
Mexico City Metrobús in pictures

Here I look at sidewalk and pedestrian infrastructure, some bikes, light rail, the airport and even some ancient roadways.

In downtown Mexico City, I spotted a brand new separated bike lane, with a green bike box and all. Note the two folks using the Ecobici bikeshare bikes. Also note the public tourism bus.

On foot, we explore the neighborhood of Tlalpan. Small local parks are pleasant.

Sidewalks have many, many trees, but the trees do a good job of making the concrete very uneven.

Pay phones are still well used

Pharmacies open directly onto the street, and almost all merchandise is kept behind the counter (small items like chips and such are reachable by patrons)

The sidewalk is well maintained, but small compared to the road area

The one and only micro vehicle I saw. While spaces are small, and parking is tight, vehicles seem to follow the american instead of the European model in terms of average size. less SUVs of course, and almost no unnecessary pickups. Note the older microbus in the background.

Another park, while the paving looks nice, it's not very accessible

CLICK TO SEE MORE!

In the late 80's, the light rail line (there's just one) was extended via a street-running section (with an exclusive lane). That project, for reasons unknown (corruption probably) failed, and lasted only 2 years. While the tracks have been unused for over 20 years, they're still visible. This old stop was converted into an art piece (yes, on purpose). The graffiti is extra.

A local market takes over the street

Random stuff now...

Fog at the airport delayed all flights. Before and after

While the airport has a new, large terminal, I almost didn't take pictures of it because I was so unimpressed. I guess seeing photos of new terminals in Beijing and Dubai have jaded me, because this terminal seemed 15 years old instead of 15 months.

A new underground metro line is under construction

A mix of USA and Mexico. Unfortunately, small sidewalks and large garage entrances are common.

The builders of Teotihuacán did not take wheelchair or bicycle access into account when planning their city. There is a distinct lack of ramps and curb cuts.

Public transit was also not highly valued by the ancient civilization, and the local transit system is neglected.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. I should be resuming regular posting this week.

More transit-suppression TSA teams, coming soon!

2012-01-02T01:04:00.000-08:00

Nothing says "please ride public transit!" like missing a train or bus because someone has decided that it's of the utmost importance that your backpack be swabbed every morning on your way to work.

What better way to get people to switch from the privacy of their automobile to shared transportation than adding fear, annoyance and delays into the morning routine.

And in 2012, those unnecessary security-theater checkpoints get to roam further into your life, thanks to a funding bill Obama just signed.

In the FY 2012 consolidated spending act (Public Law 112-074) signed by President Barack Obama last Friday, TSA received about $7.85 billion, up $153 million from 2011.

...

In addition to the AIT devices, TSA received funds for 140 new behavior detection officers, 12 additional multi-modal Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams, 20 additional explosives detection canine teams, and 53 air cargo security staffers.

HSToday

It's that last part that is relevant to your daily commute....and even those occasional Greyhound and Amtrak trips. Just when you thought your travel choices were free of invasive procedures and warrantless searches, the TSA manages to secure a massive funding increase in these frugal times.

The recent LA times article TSA Screenings Aren't Just For Airports Anymore goes into detail on these VIPR teams.

Rick Vetter was rushing to board the Amtrak train in Charlotte, N.C., on a recent Sunday afternoon when a canine officer suddenly blocked the way.

Three federal air marshals in bulletproof vests and two officers trained to spot suspicious behavior watched closely as Seiko, a German shepherd, nosed Vetter's trousers for chemical traces of a bomb.

...

The TSA's 25 "viper" teams — for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response — have run more than 9,300 unannounced checkpoints and other search operations in the last year. Department of Homeland Security officials have asked Congress for funding to add 12 more teams next year.

...

Last month in Orlando, Fla., a team set up metal detectors at a Greyhound bus station and tested passengers' bags for explosive residue.

In the Carolinas this year, TSA teams have checked people at the gangplanks of cruise ships, the entrance to NASCAR races, and at ferry terminals taking tourists to the Outer Banks.

At the Charlotte train station on Dec. 11, Seiko, the bomb-sniffing dog, snuffled down a line of about 100 passengers waiting to board an eastbound train. Many were heading home after watching the Charlotte Panthers NFL team lose to the Atlanta Falcons after holding a 16-point lead.

So far, these teams have not yet stopped a single individual driving a private vehicle, even though private vehicles enter "sensitive" areas all the time, like tunnels and bridges.

But dare you use public transportation, even the private kind, like Greyhound, and you are subject to search and delays. Readers from Boston, New York, DC and LA may have encountered checkpoints as they entered their favorite subway station, ruining their carefully timed commute.

We all know these searches provide absolutely no added security to our lives. One looking to blow up a train has no reason to enter a train station or even board the vehicle, simply place their explosive on one of the hundreds of thousands of open tracks around the country. A terrorist looking to make a point won't target a Greyhound bus with at most, 48 passengers, but instead would find more success at a Friday screening of the newest Twilight film. And anyone looking to create mass damage would simply rent a truck (or caravan), fill it with the explosives of their choice, and detonate their vehicle while in a harbor tunnel.

So why target transit? Is it really so crazy an idea to ponder if some simply want to inconvenience riders so much that they'd prefer to travel in a private car on public roads? Makes about as much sense as spending almost $8 billion on the TSA for "safety" while ignoring the 30,000 killed on highways every year.

Review: Cozy Thai (foods) and The Lamp Post (bar)

2011-12-29T02:03:00.000-08:00

Tried two new places downtown tonight, here are my short reviews:

Cozy Thai

Opened this summer in what used to be a ribs place. Large restaurant space, with lots of booths. We went because of a Groupon and had no expectations. Our last attempt to eat there failed when we arrived at 8:15pm to find out they close every day at 8pm. Sort of early, so take note of that (Wednesdays they remain open later, but I wouldn't expect their kitchen to serve you past 8).

Arrived tonight to find a full parking lot, quite surprising. Entering the restaurant, we were greeted by a live band playing sing-along country music. Not what we expected, but apparently Wednesday is open mic night, and at least for today, all the performers were of the country variety, cowboy hats and all.

In typical Thai fashion, the food came in enormous portions at modest prices. I, like always, ordered the Pad Thai, because I've yet to find Pad Thai in Fresno as good as I had in Boston. And like always, I was not impressed, so the search goes on. Not that it was bad, it just wasn't as good as what Boston showed me, and it lacked in bean sprouts and green onions.

Best part: Cologne machine in men's bathroom

Biggest disappointment? The cologne machine in the bathroom took my quarter, but did not dispense my requested cologne. I, for one, expect my thai-restaurant-cologne-spraying-machine to be kept well stocked.

Would I come back? Yes, but I wouldn't go out of my way, but again, that's how I feel about most Thai places in this town. The restaurant itself is odd for a Thai place (originally being a steakhouse and all), but if you find yourself in the area, I'd give it a shot.

The Lamp Post

What's odd about this little block is that it has three eat/drink establishments, a real rarity downtown. Besides Cozy Thai, there is what appears to be an old diner, now serving Chinese food. Between them both is a small bar called The Lamp Post.

As mentioned by the Fresno Bee, the bar opened (re-opened) just a couple of weeks ago, and it looks nice inside. Sort of odd for the area, with art on the walls (for sale), posters of music legends, and a vinyl collection in one corner. By the door, there is a space for a small band (with appropriate ceiling lighting), and a projector with a screen capable of adequately showing sports, concert videos and more.

The drink selection is beer and wine only. I'm not a wine drinker, so I can't tell you how great their selection is. As for beer, there are only 6 taps. 3 with local (Madera) beers, two with a couple of varieties of Shock Top and one with Stella. Many more bottled selections of course. I would have expected a beer and wine place to offer more taps, but I know little of the logistics involved with that.

Tonight was sort of lonely in there, but I can see the place being a hit on a night with a live band, as people sip wine and observe the art. Without the action, the room felt sparse and cold (literally, the door was open).

It's a hip, artsy bar, in an odd place, just like the neighbors. I'd assume the owners would have preferred setting up somewhere more appropriate, like at the Iron Bird lofts, but this was the only suitable space available. I do hope people find it, as it is walking distance from those lofts, and the decoration should be enjoyed.

Would I come back? I wouldn't head downtown just to hit this bar, but if I'm nearby trying some more food, I would. Maybe next time, we'll try the Chinese.

Where:
West end of Divisadero, a couple of small blocks from Fulton 55 and the Iron Bird Lofts.

Bonus: the Chinese diner

Mexico City Periférico construction in pictures

2011-12-28T00:07:00.000-08:00

Besides expanding their transit system, via the Metrobus system and a brand new subway line which is currently in the final stages of construction, Mexico City has embarked on some highway expansion, but on a vertical scale.

Known as the second floor of the Periférico (ring road), this new structure towers above the existing 6 lane freeway. Access points are limited, giving the new highway an express characteristic. Supposedly, once it's all done, the upper level may be tolled.

Here are pictures from last week of the extension of the 2nd level.

We started in the far south of the city, heading north. You can see how progress is completed in stages.

An old pedestrian crossing is being demolished. Up ahead, a new one is being built which is handicap accessible

Here we approach the existing 2 story structure

Now we're on top

Speed camera. Unlike american highways, the new structure has curves which do not allow very fast speeds.

And an off-ramp closer to downtown

Mexico City Metrobús in pictures

2011-12-27T02:12:00.000-08:00

I will have a full blog post about Mexico City's impressive Bus Rapid Transit system called Metrobús.

Until then, here is a load of pictures I took last week, from a car (I sadly did not have the opportunity to ride the system for myself).

The pictures are mostly from line 1, which I saw almost from end to end.

System Map:

Where line 1 is in relation to the Metro system (line 2 and 3 are not shown by Google)

Enjoy.

Exclusive lanes, cars kept out by barriers that still allow emergency vehicles access

At a station

MANY MORE PICS, CLICK THE LINK TO SEE THE REST OF THE POST

Further out, station access is by bridge over the road. Downtown, pedestrians use standard crosswalks.

The right of way is almost exclusively for use by the bus. Almost all left turns are prohibited, with the exception of the largest of avenues.

Through the center of the city

Metrobus mingles with traffic at this roundabout, but almost nowhere else.

Near the north terminus, the BRT line parallels a metro line for a bit.

Northern terminus, the BRT line loops over the tracks for the return trip. According to Wikipedia:
Metro Indios Verdes is the busiest station on the Mexico City metro, with 46.7 million passenger boardings in 2008.

Review of Fresno/Clovis Christmas light displays

2011-12-26T00:32:00.000-08:00

I've previously talked about how a few streets in the Fresno area have a long running tradition in which the entire street, or neighborhood, tries to outdo each other by lighting up every home with an explosion of holiday lighting and decorations.

On Christmas Day, I did a last minute visit to the three areas described in this Fresno Bee article at 8:30pm.

Cindy Lane / Wawona Estates

Not to be confused with Candy Lane, which apparently is not worth visiting anymore.

This is the most modern development, so property sizes are small, even with large homes. This means that homes are closer together, so the lighting displays appear more continuous. Further, homes are closer to the street. I'd estimate that over 80% of homes had decorated and lit up, and most went all out, with thousands of lights, figures, signs and more. It helps that the homes are in a very affluent area.

Unfortunately, because it is a modern subdivision, the series of cul-de-sacs are neither driver or pedestrian friendly (no sidewalks). It is a more recent event, so it is the less popular (well known), meaning traffic isn't bad. However, if it does become too popular, it will be a hassle to navigate. That being said, it is well worth a visit.

Huntington Boulevard / Candlelight Christmas

Major fail. Either something has gone terribly wrong to the mile long stretch of old homes, or they've decided that 9:15pm on Christmas Day is not worthy of having lights on. We saw maybe 5 houses with decorations, all pretty simple. The 2010 Bee article notes that almost 120 houses decorate, which is not what we experienced this year at all. There were a few other cars (and no pedestrians, but one cyclists) cruising the street, and a single cop car parked at one end. Sort of depressing.

Van Ness / Christmas Tree Lane

We arrived at 9:405pm, knowing that they begin turning off lights at 10pm. At the beginning of the stretch, near Shields, there was little traffic, although it was heavy (and very slow) by the Shaw exit, which we reached at 10:20pm (most lights were still on). Christmas Tree Lane has always been about the giant trees, and not the homes, as most are actually hidden behind thick vegetation, and set well back. While the tree decoration was quite nice, I do seem to remember more and better decorating from my childhood 10-15 years ago. It is still the most popular destination, with lots of police work (Van Ness has limited access points and becomes one way during the scheduled lighting times). You need patience when visiting Christmas Street lane, and I still think it would be best served as a bike/ped stroll on most days, as the traffic can make the visit unpleasant, as it is difficult to "bail out" when you want to, or to set your own pace.

This week: Pictures from Mexico, mostly infrastructure. Metrobus, Periferico and more

20 year old arrested for hit-and-run killing of pedestrian

2011-12-22T21:34:00.000-08:00

I recently posted a news story about how a pedestrian in a wheelchair was killed in Fresno after being hit by not one, but two cars who fled the seen. Fortunately, because it was a busy time, there were sufficient witnesses.

I lamented that stories like that rarely get a follow up...there are dozens of pedestrian deaths every year and Fresno, and most get less news coverage than a house fire (with no injuries or deaths). I've yet to see an article along the lines of "12 hit and run murderers still at large."

This time, Fresno PD and the Bee have followed up with this short article letting us readers know what has progressed in the case.

Fresno Police have arrested 20-year-old Jonathan Jason Howard in connection with a hit-and-run accident that killed a man in a wheelchair Saturday.The victim was hit by two cars on Blackstone Avenue north of Sierra Avenue. Fresno Police detective Jason Musser was able to locate and identify the drivers of both vehicles based on witness reports. Police believed Howard was the driver of the first vehicle. He was arrested in Oakhurst on Wednesday and was booked into Fresno County Jail on suspicion of felony hit and run. The investigation is still ongoing and the driver of the second vehicle may also be charged, Fresno Police said.

Fresno Bee

That's the entire article. Not exactly in depth reporting, but better than nothing. if we ever get an update on the trial and final sentencing, I'll make a note of it.

Side note: A comment left predicted that the person driving would be an illegal with no license or registration. Based on the name, and only the name, that doesn't appear to be the case. I'd put money on alcohol being involved.

I will be returning from Mexico tomorrow. Because of the holidays, I think next week will be picture based uploads, showing transportation infrastructure I've noticed over the past year.

Wouldn't it be nice if media followed up on hit and runs?

2011-12-18T21:47:00.000-08:00

It's sad to say it, but I feel like a read a story very similar to the following every couple of weeks.

A man in a wheelchair was killed after he was struck by two vehicles while crossing Blackstone Avenue in his wheelchair Saturday evening, Fresno police Lt. Anthony Martinez said.

The man was crossing the street when he was struck by one vehicle that witnesses described as a compact car, Martinez said.

He was thrown from his wheelchair and was hit a second time by another vehicle that witnesses described as a tan-colored SUV, possibly a Chevy Tahoe.

Both drivers left the scene, Martinez said.

Fresno Bee

How can two people hit a man in a wheelchair and then flee? It's disgusting. But I doubt we will ever read about the police investigation, and if anyone is ever caught, tried and sentenced.

There's just never any follow up with crimes like this. Possibly because it's too common? It seems like at least one pedestrian is killed every week in Fresno, and yet no one seems to care.

Mexico trip

2011-12-16T01:47:00.000-08:00

I will be in Mexico for the next week. Posting will probably be light.

If I had the time, I would write about this article that just hit the Bee website.

Fresno closing flea market in 'unsafe' former Gottschalks building

One of the few buildings on the Fulton Mall with active commerce being forced to close. Amazing.

Road diets: safety vs moving cars faster

2011-12-14T02:34:00.000-08:00

I've talked about road diets a few times in this blog, most recently when I attended a meeting held by a councilman in Fresno concerning a proposed diet in his district. He wanted to give residents the opportunity to express their concerns about taking a 4 lane road (+undefined parking space) into a 3 lane road, 1 each way, and 1 for turning, and a couple of bike lanes.

Today I got to see a real world example of the enormous safety benefits a road diet provides....or really, the consequences of keeping the dangerous road design of the past.

This is Villa avenue in Clovis. On the right, a popular recreational park which includes a large regionally-important skatepark. On the left, a medium-high density residential area, filled with apartments. As you can see, there are no bike lanes, and there are no crosswalks, even though a majority of the teenagers which patronize the skatepark arrive on foot or on bike.

The speed limit is 40mph.

I'm not going to talk about that right now.

I'm going to focus on the one and only concern brought up during the road diet meeting in Fresno:

Traffic. Car traffic.

You see, Villa in Clovis is very similar to Gettysburg. They're both of similar, if not equal width. They're both signed at 40mph or 45mph, depending on the specific block, and they both are residential and recreational access routes.

During the Fresno meeting, the number one concern was possible congestion that would emerge if the road diet took place.

Indeed, even the traffic engineer sent by Fresno to promote the diet made it abundantly clear that he would never (NEVER!) consider a road diet on a high traffic road, because moving traffic was of the utmost importance.

But what about safety?

In his words, road diets would only ever be attempted in places with little traffic, where the safety benefits could be enjoyed without risk of anyone having to slow down.

The engineer and the councilman spoke a lot about the real-world safety benefits of a road diet. Even though the meeting was sort of about bike-lanes (it was bike money funding the diet) 90% of the conversation was about the benefits to motorists. This wasn't exactly a bad angle...it appeared to me that many of those in attendance came to the meeting ignorant about road diets and left convinced that they do include real-world safety benefits.

But here's what troubles me....ff there are more cars (and those pesky people inside) using a road, shouldn't it be even more important to push an important safety redesign...?

That is, according to the engineer, there is some cutoff, something like 20,000 cars per day, in which a road diet is "appropriate". But if a road has 27,000 cars per day, isn't that a much higher safety priority? Shouldn't we spend money protecting as many people as possible?

It just does not make sense that safety is only available for low traffic roads. Especially because the more traffic, the more dangerous roads like Villa become.

So what prompted this post?

This was taken at around 6pm tonight, in the area shown above:

What happened? I'm not 100% sure, but what I believe happened is that traffic was moving at ~40mph, and a driver in the left lane came to a full stop to make a legal left turn into a small side street. Because the area is full of apartments, I'd assume this is a someone common maneuver.

But this is dangerous.

It was night, so the side street is not very visible, both to the person attempting the turn, and drivers behind him who have no expectation that a turn will be made.

Brake lights obviously indicate a decrease in speed, but unfortunately, they do not indicate how quickly the driver is stopping. Someone could tap on the brakes to begin slowing down for the traffic light 1/4 of a mile away....or slamming on the brakes to make the left turn they were looking for but hadn't seen because side-streets are sometimes difficult to spot, especially if there is heavy oncoming traffic with blinding lights. The driver behind this person doesn't know which is happening.

And here's the kicker:

Because Villa is a high traffic street, higher then may be that threshold for a road diet, it becomes much harder to make a left turn, because there are less gaps in traffic. Also, vehicles are more likely to be bunched up.

AKA: the perfect recipe for a rear-end collision like this one.

So the busier the road, and the less likely the possibility of a road diet....the more likely a dangerous collision.

That doesn't make sense.

If there had been a road diet here, the driver turning left would have maneuvered out of the way of traffic into a turning lane, where he could safely wait as long as possible to make the left turn. He could have done so in advance of the street, giving him time to find where exactly the turn must be made. Other drivers would not have needed to worry about someone suddenly coming to a full stop on a 40mph road.

And as a bonus, there would be bike lanes, in an area that seriously needs them, and also safer places for pedestrians to cross. But clearly, that's not a priority, even in a very dense residential area.

In case you were wondering, this is what the block looks like.
Green: Letterman park.
On the right, you can see the dense development of apartments.
Blue: The only two marked crosswalks, exactly 1/2 a mile apart.
Red: Various roads and apartment access points where pedestrians would seek to cross to the park. While crossing is legal, it is not safe. There is no signal, crosswalk, refugee etc, and street lighting is poor.

The accident happened just north of 9th St. Fortunately, the driver of the pictured vehicle received only superficial injuries (airbag and seat belt pains + neck), and the occupants of the vehicle that was rear-ended appeared to be fine.

And as of 2:30am the next morning. 9 hours later, I can find no documentation of this collision online in the media. Just another car accident, not worthy of even a news blurb. Maybe one day, at a community meeting, it will appear as a statistic, but except for those who slowly drove by, it's almost like it never happened.

But it will happen again. Are the speeding needs of motorists always more important than making their commute safer? Personally, I wouldn't mind adding 15, 30, 45...even more seconds to my drive if it meant I wouldn't find myself in a collision like this. With the exception of traffic engineers, how many people would not be comfortable with such a tradeoff? It just seems like common sense.

Time Magazine video short: The New Poor of Fresno

2011-12-13T02:43:00.000-08:00

In this blog, I frequently discuss effort to revitalize downtown and south Fresno. While I focus on the new residential buildings and such, it's important to look at the people who currently call the area home, even as they live without a home.

Time Magazine recently released this short (~5min) documentary about homelessness and poverty in downtown Fresno.

http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,1288182424001_2099978,00.html

Interested in exploring the shantytowns shown in the video? Thanks to Google, you can. Google maps offers four (well, five) snapshots in time of the area.

Streetview: The area has both imagery from 2009 and 2011. Well, actually, there's some late 2007 pictures in there too, but few of those. Most of the streetview images are from June 2011.

This post shows you how you can tell when the images were taken.

The overhead view (satellite) is from April 25,2011. If you switch over to the 45 degree aerial imagery, that was taken Spring 2010.

So in summary, you can see snapshots of the shantytowns in:

Late 2007 - Limited Streetviews
Feb 2009 - Some Streetview
Spring 2010 - 45 degree aerial
April 2011 - Satellite
June 2011 - Most Streetview

Heres an example of how you can see the differences.

Based on the trees, this looks like 2009

This aerial image is from a year later, Spring 2010.

2011, similar, but a few more people

Explore on your own:
http://g.co/maps/pn7pg

Heres another collection, under the bridge:
http://g.co/maps/kp2ju

Travel through time and watch an entire village appear
2009

2011

Explore: http://g.co/maps/e7573

Over the past month, Fresno has found enough money its empty coffers to bulldoze most of these shelters and destroy whatever was inside. I guess when it comes to Christmas, and the choice between funding a parade or evicting people from their shelters, the choice is clear, especially when national media pokes their head in. While the shelters and tents are all gone for now, they'll be back by next summer. They always are.

Fresno's downtown parade draws 30,000

2011-12-12T00:59:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, the city of Fresno announced that they would cancel the annual Christmas parade because of financial problems. The parade has been held downtown for 82 years, and has always been successful, but this year the city said they couldn't afford it.

Fortunately, the downtown PBID (Property Business Improvement District) stepped forward to save the parade, redirecting it to the Fulton Mall (a pedestrian street). Along with the parade, there was a tree lighting ceremony at city hall, extreme sports presentations hosted by the downtown casino, and many activities for children and families (face painting and such).

According to the Fresno Bee, the events were a success

The 82nd annual Fresno Christmas Parade drew an estimated 30,000 people to the Fulton Mall and Kern Street on Saturday morning to watch floats, school bands, horses, motorcycles, entertainers and, of course, Santa Claus.

On the pedestrian mall, spectators stood more than six deep in places or perched on benches and cheered as the parade marched by. Two children in Santa hats watched the parade from atop a play structure.

Bee

I find it highly disappointing that the city would cancel the parade, and roll the dice on hoping someone would pick up the tab and organize it. While the PBID stepped forward, it is entirely possible that they wouldn't have.

Fresno's mayor lists downtown revitalization as one of her key platforms, and yet one can follow the money to see that a lot of the time, this claim rings hollow.

As I discussed in October, events on Fulton Mall always draw people, and that's an excellent way to begin revitalizing downtown.

30,000 people coming to watch the parade means 30,000 people are exposed to the stores on the mall. Even if not everyone walks into the stores to shop, the exposure is always a positive. On top of that, the family atmosphere is an easy way to help dispel the myth that downtown is unsafe and hard to get to, and this makes it more likely that people will return, either for shopping or for other events.

The PBID was formed to help Fulton Mall businesses draw customers, by enacting a new tax on themselves to fund events and such. While hosting the parade does fall into this category, I think it would have made more sense for the city to continue holding the parade, and for the PBID funds go to creating new events at other points of the year. Hosting a major event every month would keep downtown and the Fulton Mall in people's minds.

Why should the city spend tax money on something like a parade? Because sometimes, like with a private business, you have to spend money to make money. Hosting a parade means bringing people together, which in turn means local stores benefit. This of course, leads to sales tax revenue. But like I said, positive exposure to the Fulton Mall means the potential for return customers, and so a continuing increase in sales taxes. The benefits aren't just for the mall, but visitors see stores and restaurants in nearby streets, learn where to park (or arrive by bus) and think positively of the area.

Revitalization of course, means even more revenue. If enough is done to bring people downtown, and more stores open, wasted space because productive space. Along with sales taxes, property taxes and so forth increase. And unlike with sprawl, minimal money needs to be placed into infrastructure - it's already there. Roads, sewers, and even public parking already exist, and should be put to use.

Revitalization is an excellent use of public funds because it can pay for itself, more so than approving another far-flung development that will not bring in enough tax revenue to cover long-term costs.

And on the non-financial side, with an unemployment rate still north of 15%, the city should be doing what it can to liven spirits, and that includes free entertainment. A depressed city cannot become successful because those with resources prefer to flee rather than invest. A city with pride in its residents and its environment allows for innovation and entrepreneurship to flourish. Would you want to open your business somewhere in which people constantly say "sucks" or is "lame"? Of course not. Businesses open where there is buzz and excitement - positive thoughts - not somewhere people associate with negative thoughts.

Public investment in image and branding, via events that bring together the community will lead to economic development. Downtown revitalization must begin at city hall, but as long as the money keeps flowing north, that won't happen. The major needs to put money where her mouth is and find funds to support things like the Christmas parade. As I'll be writing about later this week, there's a whole bunch of money going to things we absolutely don't need.

Why is it so hard to install bikes racks properly?

2011-12-09T02:23:00.000-08:00

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)

And place them too close to a wall

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.

Transportation, Muppets, and the war on anything

2011-12-07T02:44:00.000-08:00

When it comes to development projects and crafting changes in planning and transportation policy, opposition will always emerge. A common form of opposition is "NIMBYism" which stands for "Not In My Backyard". The term refers to folks who generally oppose any form of development in their surrounding area. Not all form of opposition is irrational. If someone was to propose a new freeway, airport or nuclear plant 50 yards from your backdoor, there is cause for concern, and opposition is expected. These proposals do come with real externalities that will negatively affect the area around it, and there is good reason to either relocate the proposal, alter it, or mitigate the negative aspects. At its core, the opposition is selfish, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

Is it selfish to fight the construction of a new hospital because there will be sirens at all hours...even if dozens of lives will be saved? Yes, it is selfish, but it's also entirely rational.

However, the term "NIMBY" today generally refers to folks who oppose development more so because they fear change than because they fear that their property or environment will be hurt.

So a NIMBY might be someone who opposed a 4 story building 2 blocks away because it will cause shadows, traffic, crime, noise and so forth. A rational person can look at each concern and determine if said fear is likely to materialize or not. A NIMBY, however, presented with facts, is likely to continue to argue because those fears aren't the problem, change is. Once again, the cause is selfish, but in this case, it is not rational.

And sometimes, this lack of rationality manages to morph into an entirely different creature. Sometimes, people become opposed to a proposal not because they fear change or externalities, but simply because of the person making the proposal....and who these people feel that person represents.

If you've been following politics at all in the past couple of years, you have probably noticed that the modern Republican party generally opposes public transit, investment in biking, and movement towards sustainable planning and transportation. This opposition now finds itself at all levels of governance, from city councils to candidates for the executive position.

Many reasons are given for the opposition. The most common these days seems to be some argument along the lines of "we're broke, so we can't spend a dime on that". Much can be said about validity and hypocrisy of that comment, but that's now what I am going to discuss. The reason I won't is because like with NIMBYism, the reason is a masquerade, a distraction. One can pull out a million dollars, say "look, it's being funded by the money tree" and the person will simply find something new to hate about it.

You see the REAL reason they hate the proposal is because what is being proposed is a trojan horse designed to ruin life as they know it; another grenade in the war against them. An attack that must be defeated.

Or so it seems.

This week, a video emerged from a segment on Fox Business News in which some well-paid anchor decided to dedicate a portion of his show on the subject of the new Muppet Movie. Because it is a "business" channel, you'd think the subject would be about costs, revenue, advertising, funding...you know, something about BUSINESS.

But no. The segment was about how the Muppet Movie is an attempt by liberal, leftist Hollywood, to indoctrinate children into hating business men, job creators and success.

If you find that last sentence remarkably absurd, then you clearly haven't seen the piece. I only wish I was joking, or exaggerating.

You can watch the bit here:
Mediamatters.org

(Thanks to the Fresno Beehive for pointing it out)

One could spend time pointing out the absurdities of this discussion. One could list the rich history of cinema and literature in which the plot has been repeated and repeated again, across decades. (Gang of kids/muppets/nuns works together against all odds to save their school/orphanage/theater from being destroyed by a rich housing/oil/parking/government developer)

But that's a waste of time. Like with NIMBYism, there is no logic to combar, as the argument is not a rational one.

The point here is about the mindset that led to adults, getting paid large sums of money, to find a conspiracy in the most innocent of subjects, and then in all sincerity, take such conspiracy theory to the air. And then be able to sleep at night. And of course, how that related to the subject of this blog.

What has happened is that in the mind of some of these people, a war is being raged. A vast conspiracy has been formed and THOSE PEOPLE are working together to infiltrate children's movies, our highways, our government...and really, anything. The battle is happening now, and one must be prepared to fight it from all directions.

Something has happened that has caused a core group of people to sincerely believe they are under attack, and that everything is part of a war. And I do mean everything.

If you're reading this blog, you've probably had the misfortune of accidentally reading the comments section of a major news website. You've probably looked at the first three or four comments and quickly regretted the scrolling. And in those three or four comments, you may have noticed that at least one of them, regardless of the subject matter, will bring up politics and blame the news on the invisible war. Sometimes the subject is political, but most of the time, it's not.

Romney deleted all his governorship documents?
-The article was a plant by the liberal media to smear his campaign.

Dozens of penguins killed as glacier collapses?
-The green mafia using propaganda yet again to shove their agenda down our throat

17 year old local athlete qualifies for the Olympics?
-UN plot to form one world government

I could go on. I won't, because you know what I'm talking about. You've all seen the crazy comments. And for reasons I can't quite understand, this invisible war has managed to capture the attention of people who really should know better. Random-internet-comment-dude is one thing, but more and more, this type of conversation has entered the mainstream. The "thought" process is now visible on what is supposed to be a news channel, what are supposed to be political debates, and what are supposed to be serious conversations about our built environment.

So why bring up transportation? Because unfortunately, like all things, it's been pulled into this magical and invisible war. Because at one point THE OTHER SIDE lent their support for a bike lane, a war on cars had been declared, and no road was safe from the conspiracy to ban cars and force everyone to bike.

The discussion is not about the pros and cons of specific ways to allocate street space. It's about what THEY want, and if THEY want it, it MUST be opposed.

Again, there's no logic behind it. It's a team thing.

It's us versus them. THEY are out to get us. THEY are trying to destroy America.

They, of course, don't really exist. It's a crazy team mentality but no teams were ever picked. No one signed a 7 year contract to play for one team or the other, and no one is bound to defend their team to death.

Studies have shown that it is human nature to form groups and to work to support the group you identify with, even if it's at the expense of very similar people. These groups don't need to have any deep relationships. In one study, groups of strangers were split up, and told they belonged to one group or another. They were then asked to allocate resources and such between groups. The strangers would always place their group over the other one, even though they didn't know anyone. By being told they were part of a group, the people did what they could to defend that group.

And today in America, it seems as if everyone and everything is being assigned into one of two political teams, regardless of the lack of rationality behind it. That includes things that everyone should agree on, like clean air and freedom to chose a transportation option. But it doesn't matter. If the other "team" claimed that idea first, then you must be against it, if only because at best, everything they do is wrong and at worst, it's an attack on your people.

Next time you see someone jumping through hoops to try and explain why a bike lane must be defeated at all costs, think of the Muppets, and the lengths some will go to fight in a war that doesn't really exist.

(PS: That Fox Business News piece on Muppets? They actually went back and doubled-down on the absurdity. The second segment: here )

Come sprawl with Clovis

2011-12-05T01:10:00.000-08:00

Last week, there was lots of chat about "the end of sprawl" after the New York Times ran two pieces harkening the decline of suburban expansion. One, "The Death of the Fringe Suburb" was relayed around the blogosphere with many putting in their own examples of how suburban expansion was coming to a close.

Clovis, like many other cities built on sprawl, would like to have a word with them.

The Clovis City Council has introduced another reduction in development fees to attract developers who have been sitting on the fringes.

The council approved a two-year fee reduction, that began Thursday, that would provide developers with an average savings of $4,500 per lot for residential development and about $35,000 an acre for commercial, industrial and office projects.

"Our hope...is that this will give a jump start to development in the community and it will incentivize those who are thinking about doing something to go ahead and do it," said Tina Sumner, the city's director of community and economic development.

The fee reduction will be available for two years. It is the latest in a series of development fee reductions introduced by the city of Clovis in the last year.

In Dec. 2010, the council approved a two-year waiver of the city's sewer and water facilities fee that would amount to a savings of about $53,000 per acre. In spring 2011, the city created a sales tax rebate program for retailers who opened a business in vacant buildings.

Fresno Bee

Like most California cities, Clovis has had a tough couple of years when it comes to the budget. Less property taxes, less sales taxes, but more expenses. All those suburban roads, streetlights, sewers, parks and so forth, must be maintained, even if many of the homes fronting them had been foreclosed on and sat empty.

The logic here appears to be:
More development = more fees!
But that solution seems like a giant step backwards.

Cities love those initial fees developers must pay, which help the budget, but don't really cover any long-term expenses.

That's where property taxes come in, but when the housing market is over-developed, each additional new home simply hurts the value of existing homes. As supply increases, prices fall. And as prices fall, so does tax revenue.

So less long-term revenue, and now, less short-term revenue, because those initial fees are being slashed. The math doesn't seem to add up.

But hey, what could go wrong?

And until the people in charge figure it out, sprawl is more than welcome. The end isn't near at all, it's business as usual.

Not even the great recession could save these farms at the edge of Clovis. 2007 vs 2011.

Comparing bike share system popularity on Facebook

2011-12-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

Since blowing up in Paris in 2007, bicycle share systems have made their way to every continent, with more coming online each month.

These systems vary greatly in number of bikes, stations, subsrcibers and geographic area covered. But how do they compare in terms of Facebook popularity? Facebook is one of many ways these companies have of reaching their riders, and sending out critical information, like locations of new stations, removal of existing ones, changes in policy and so forth. Are the riders taking their interest in the system online?

All numbers from December 3rd, 2011. It is not all-inclusive by any stretch, although I tried to get all the big-name ones.

Likes - City - System name and link

15,679 Paris Velib
11,862 Montreal Bixi
11,129 Mexico City Ecobici

6,603 Toronto Bixi
4,379 Lyon Vélo'V
4,220 Minneapolis Nice Ride
3,894 Washington, DC Capital Bikeshare
3,739 Denver Bcycle
3,652 Barcelona Bicing
3,422 Boston Hubway

1,737 Miami Beach Deco Bike
781 Melbourne Bike Share
722 Milano BikeMi
442 Madison Bcycle

Of course Paris, with their enormous 4 year old system is the most popular. And that's generally followed by other large systems.

You'll note the list is quite eurocentric. The reason for that is twofold. One, I don't understand Chinese, so while they have some very large systems, it's hard for me to get detailed info on them. Two, Facebook is still primarily a western, and indeed English language world. There are many systems that prefer to reach their customers on whatever social network is locally popular. Facebook is not the most popular social networking website in Asia.

Further, there are many bike share systems I can't find an active facebook page for, London being the most significant. I can't believe London wouldn't have an official page, and am wondering why my searches bring up nothing. Many medium sized systems, like Oslo's Bysykkel are also missing. In fact, there's a bunch of ClearChannel system that don't appear to have official pages.

On another note, for such an enormous website, Facebook does have a terrible, TERRIBLE search system. And those community pages? Ugh. Had to use google mostly.

Christmas Tree Lane walk night is tomorrow

2011-12-02T20:15:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder that Fresno's Christmas Tree Lane opens for business tomorrow night, and it's one of two walk nights. A bike night is being planned, but no details have been released.

On Christmas Tree Lane, lights are on from 6pm until 10pm on weekdays, until 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

Saturday, December 3 and Tuesday, December 13 are the walk nights, when cars are banned from entering Van Ness.

On car nights, traffic operates northbound, starting at Shields and ending at Shaw.

Official Website

The safety magic of cable cars

2011-12-02T02:13:00.000-08:00

Jarrett Walker of Human Transit today posted about an aspect of the San Francisco cable car system that troubled him.

The gist of his post was about the way in which the cable cars do not have stations, but they stop in the middle of the road, and passengers cross an active lane of traffic to board. What's even more interesting is that because of the hills, many of the "stops" are smack in the middle of an intersection.

Jarrett was concerned that during said stop, traffic on the road the cable car is using is given a green light, even though passengers are alighting in the middle of the lane. While state law makes it clear that passing a cable car when stopped is illegal, he is concerned about the mixed message the giant green signal gives.

In the picture he used, a passenger is clearly hanging out in the middle of an intersection, while cars have green. A small sign, on the top right by the street name, reminds motorists of their duty to stop and remain stopped until the cable car is moving again.

Source

Walker thinks it's failed technology.

I think it's wonderful.

The fact that we are entering 2012, and the cable car system hasn't been dumbed down by complaints and lawsuits and such is truly magical.

Passengers, many times drunk, are still allowed to step on the side of the vehicle, grab a pole, and lean out, with traffic whizzing inches away.

Motorists, in cars, SUVs, trucks and such are still allowed to barrel down road inches away from dozens of unprotected bodies in an open car.

Carnage? No, not really, even though SF is a difficult place to drive in, and there are many tourists.

Passengers must hop on and off in the middle of intersections, many with poor sight lines.

CHAOS....and yet almost no collisions. We were at this stop sign for quite some time.

Motorists may approach a 4-way stop and have to remain stopped because in many cases, cable cars are exempt from stopping and can barrel on through, even if they arrive later.

Stop signs are for chumps

It's truly magical to see this system work so well today, in a society that sues whoever and whenever, and government agencies so terrified of liability issues that they spend all they can bubble wrapping everything.

In some cities, buses now talk to people on sidewalks, reminding them to not step onto the road. In other cities, to cross a light rail line, passengers must open a gate, under flashing lights and whistling bells. In other cities, rail lines see multiple stop signs and even 3mph speed limits, just in case.

But in San Francisco, home of the nanny state, cable cars still roam, free of visible but unnecessary safety "features" and precautions.

And it is magical.

Road diets becoming political in Fresno

2011-12-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

Starting a decade ago, the cities of Fresno and Clovis have transformed some streets with a "road diet" as they were repaved. These streets were taken down from a 2x2 configuration (+ parking) to a 1x1x1 configuration, with the center lane being used for left turns in both directions. Parking was maintained, and bike lanes were added with the leftover space.

These changes were usually crafted by the roads department (or public works) and simply striped in when the new asphalt was laid down and it was time to paint lines.

But something happened this past year. For reasons I don't quite understand, road diets became a political thing, with citizens claiming that "city hall mandates" were being sent down to ruin life as we know it.

Last night, the council-member of district 4 held a meeting to elicit feedback from locals over the proposed reconfiguration of Gettysburg. This road has undergone a diet in many parts, but still has missing pieces. This diet wouldn't be the result of paving, but thanks to a grant by the feds to improve air quality...in this case, because of the installation of bike lanes. The grant is to be matched by Measure C funds, a local portion of the sales tax that is dedicated to transportation needs.

The meeting was held, because some people (up to 20) contacted him after another road in the district road got treated last year, and were unhappy they weren't consulted.

The theme of the meeting was generally "we're terrified of change, government is evil, and homeowners know better than engineers." The average age was well north of 65, and apparently civility was lost somewhere during the Korean war. Anyone who thinks that "kids these days" lack manners should attend a city forum and see where the rudeness comes from. Lots of shouting, booing, and interrupting of speakers.

The councilman, Larry Westerlund, seemed to be in support of the project. He said he talked to the engineers, and after explaining to him the enormous safety benefits of a diet, he was a convert. he tried to explain these safety benefits, but the audience seemed to be more concerned about "common sense" than years and years of crash data.

The person from the city was a disappointment. He went out of his way to make it clear he wasn't a cyclist, and he would never use a bike lane. The emphasis from him was also the safety benefit of a turning lane, and the bike lanes were a necessary evil. But even then, he brought up the term "suicide lane" for the turning area for no reason at all. Why throw in a scary term for a safety improvement? I didn't catch the name of the engineer, but I think the city would be best off finding someone else to represent their department at these meetings.

After much discussion, it seems like a majority of the crowd was convinced that yes, road diets can increase safety. But that didn't stop many from complaining that congestion would be caused, even though all the numbers show the road is underused, and will continue to be underused well into the 2030's. Apparently for these seniors, having to wait at a light is more damaging than being rear-ended when trying to turn left.

And the bike lanes? Those speaking in favor of the lanes were shouted down by calls of "get a car!" and "pay taxes!". One senior, after being informed that roads are paid for by property taxes made the statement that "I probably pay more of those than you". Right.

I found it quite sad that many of these seniors, who won't be able to drive in the next 4-8 years because of their age and deteriorating senses are fighting tooth and nail against improvement that will give them a safer neighborhood.

I guess change is really that scary.

Not visible: The acres of white hair in the crowded room behind me

(Tried to post this last night but high winds killed my internet)

Rail fares are worth it for the safety benefits alone

2011-11-29T02:57:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, I attended a college football game at the LA Coliseum with family to watch USC beat UCLA by an enormous margin. With a kickoff at 7:15pm, the game didn't end until around 10:30pm. That means we did not hit the highway to leave LA until 11:30pm, for the 4 hour drive back to Fresno.

During that drive, a realization hit me like a wall. A wall of fog. Bad fog. Those who think it gets foggy in San Francisco or London have no idea what it's like to experience the Central Valley's Tule fog, which can decrease visibility to zero.

The visibility in Tule fog is often less than 1/8th of a mile, about 600 feet, but can be less than 10 feet. Visibility can vary rapidly in any area, with sudden decreases to near zero in only a few feet. It is situations like these that often lead to multi-car accidents where one car follows another into a fog bank.

NOAA

It's hard to understand what zero visibility means until you've actually been in it. And what's worse, these aren't brief patches. The thick fog can cover the entire valley, essentially the length of 99.

In our case, it meant driving on a highway, with already reduced visibility due to it being night, that was like a racing video-game from 1984.

This red line is as far as we could see. I know, because we could only see a single white lane-dividing line at a time.

In practice, it meant looking into this.

I tried to take a picture, but it turns out that it was very hard to do so. During a gap in the fog, I was able to take this picture.

That's right, that's a lighter patch of fog, as you can actually see other cars. Two of them anyway. You'll note the car in the left lane is tapping its brakes, as there is a car in front of it which we can't see.

It's easier to take pictures during the day. Here are some I took back in January of this year at around 6am showing how poor the visibility can be even when the sun is out. Again, imagine the pitch darkness of the agricultural valley at 3am.

Under an overpass, see the other car?

Signs are useless, where's the exit?

This is why California places traffic signals on both sides of an intersection. The far-side light is simply not visible. I also learned why California places streetlights at highway exits. Without them, it would have been impossible to know at what point the exit began.

We got home last weekend at 3:30am. The 4 hour drive wasn't terribly long, but it was nerve-wracking, and potentially fatal. We passed these sections of the highway:

In February 2002, two people were killed in an 80-plus car pile-up on State Route 99 between Kingsburg and Selma. The visibility at the time of the accident was zero. On the morning of November 3, 2007, heavy tule fog caused a massive pile-up that included 108 passenger vehicles and 18 big rig trucks on Northbound State Route 99 between Fowler and Fresno. Visibility was about 200 feet at the time of the accident. There were two fatalities and 39 injuries in the crash.

Wikipedia

And that's all south of Fresno. North of Fresno, 99 still has grade crossing, where smaller roads must cross the entire freeway without a traffic signal or overpass. Left turns are allowed as well, in all directions. When visibility is 10 feet, there's nothing you can do but hope for the best when embarking upon the suicide mission known as crossing the street (freeway)....at an angel!

Wouldn't there be nice if there was a safer option....that, as a bonus, could have gotten us home by 1am? Something like....high speed rail, which is not delayed by fog? It would have turned 8 hours of highway time into 3 hours.

A frequent argument by critics of high speed rail (and other rail) projects is that when accounting for a family of four (or more), it's cheaper to drive. That makes sense. Gas, and maintenance, are fixed costs. Adding another passenger or two adds an insignificant amount to your cost of gas for a trip. If those additional passengers are friends that will chip in, your costs actually go down. With rail, as with all transit, each additional passenger pays the full cost of the fare.

Someone doing the most basic of math, may come up with the following:

Fresno-LA = 220 miles
At 22 mpg, 10 gallons.
At $4.00 a gallon, $40.00 each way.

Throw in some maintenance (nobody ever calculates the true amount) and the person will call it an even $50 (each way).

So this math would show that rail can compete with a car in price for such a trip for a single person. Amtrak currently charges $33 for the Fresno to LA trip on most days. But make it a family of 4, and the car cost is still ~$50, while the fares will be well over $100.

So, yes, Mr. Critic. You can pile your family into the minivan and save some money.

But at what cost? Is saving $50 worth an added 2.5 hours of travel time (each way) AND the risk of driving your family into the backside of a truck?

We look at statistics such as "30,000 Americans killed in road accidents every year" and sort of shrug it off because naturally, we're amazing drivers.

But there's nothing an amazing driver can do when visibility ends at the front of the car's hood. Even driving cautiously (we were going 35mph on the 70mph freeway) means little if someone doing 50mph slams into the back of your car. Freeway accidents aren't exactly uncommon, and the 99 is well patronized even at 3am.

It takes just a minute of driving in the worst of the Tule fog to convince any rational person that we need options when it comes to transportation because the status quo may not always be the best thing. So next time someone complains that the price of a ticket may be more than the cost of driving, ask them how much they value the lives of their family.

Bonus picture:

(The point was the score, not the ironic ads)

Expo line to miss 2011 opening

2011-11-26T00:04:00.000-08:00

I've been following construction progress on the Exposition Light Rail line in Los Angeles for a couple of reasons. One, is because it's one of the most exciting transit extension projects happening in this country, hitting a very dense, under-served, and populated area that deserves fast rail access. Two, is because my sister goes to USC, and the line will serve the campus at multiple points, offering students a quick and cheap ride to downtown This will allow students to comfortably live further from campus...never mind the enormous benefits to faculty and staff who will see better commuting options.

Unfortunately, if you get you news only from press releases and other official sources, you won't be aware of the constant delays the line keeps suffering.

The expo rail line (in aqua) will eventually reach Santa Monica. Phase 1, below, is now scheduled to open in 2012.

Back in September, I wrote a post discussing the continuous delays suffered by the line. In that post, I mentioned rumors that the line would miss the "Fall 2011" opening date that had, at that point, been assumed to have been the final delay. The line was originally due to open in Summer 2010.

Well, the line will no longer open in 2011, and may even miss all of January 2012.

Last month, rain fell in LA, and apparently, this caught the contractors by surprise. Station designs had shown woefully inappropriate shelters for riders, but apparently the underground electronics were also unprepared as well. It almost seems like nobody told the contractors and designers that yes, it does rain in LA. Multiple times a year actually. According to reports, a whole bunch of cables and electronic boxes had to be dug up and replaced.

If a competent contractor had been handling construction, this setback could have been handled and still allowed a 2011 opening. But as has been proven time and time again, that is far from the case.

It is now November 25, 2011. Due to federal regulation, Metro, once absolutely all construction is done, must run between 4-6 weeks of what is called "pre-revenue" testing. That is, the trains must be run as they would under normal service. Same daily hours, same time between trains, and same stops, with dwell time for fake riders. This testing was set to begin in August, for a late October opening. And then September, to hit November. And then October, for an early December opening. And then November, to just get it in time for the 2011 banner.

But now it's too late.

With continued contractor delays, Metro has no incentive to rush, because even a late December opening would be highly improbable, never-mind the extra work and pay needed for the holiday scheduling.

As such, it is now a 2012 opening, and probably a late February one at that. What's another month or two amongst friends? You see, it became clear a very long time ago that the Los Angeles authorities don't see transit extensions as integral parts of the commute and the economy. A highway project would be rushed to open ahead of schedule. After all, jobs are on the line, and people need access ASAP.

But rail? It's just a fun train ride. It's not like real people have real money on the line when it comes to getting to work on time.

So what's another month or two of delays? After all, 2010 and 2011 have gone by, and no scathing criticism has been written by the media. Who cares if the first riders aren't allowed on until Valentine's day?

So if you happen to be one of those people who made plans assuming the rail line would open on time, like maybe renting an apartment by the line to commute to work, or opening a business catering to customers, or taking a job in an area you thought you'd be able to reach cheaply...

Well, I hope your plans were highly flexible. Metro obviously assumes they are.

Retail on Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T21:13:00.000-08:00

When I was in Boston last week, I read a Globe article on how various national retailers scheduled their Black Friday opening this year at midnight...and then quickly had to change plans when someone told them doing so in Massachusetts would be illegal.

You see, in Massachusetts, working on Thanksgiving (and I believe Christmas) is generally not allowed (there are exceptions for restaurants and such). So opening at midnight would require workers to clock in on Thanksgiving to set up, and that is illegal. They've all moved their opening times forward to around 1am, store depending.

While many scoffed at these blue laws interfering with the private market place, I applaud this particular regulation. Quite frankly, the US has a horrible work culture when it comes to giving people time off, and a huge portion of this is how retail workers and all their support staff (cleaners etc) are generally invisible to huge portions of the population.

Many say: Let the free market decide. If people think it's unfair to have to clock in at 10pm on Thanksgiving, then the market will take care of that. If the employee doesn't like it, they can quit. (Because obviously the employee doesn't need money and is doing it for fun.)

And we need to consider how the market can be quite ignorant about the world outside their bubble.

Let me put it like this: Have you ever heard or read someone comment on how there's no reason someone should be out at 3am? The person making such comment obviously assumes that 24 hour fast food places are staffed with robots, and that hospitals do not operate past visiting hours. Or when a large city discusses the operating hours of their transit? Some quickly come in and say we shouldn't spend tax money supporting "partiers" riding a 2am train....when it ignores the thousands and thousands of people who work and bars and clubs and such and just want to get home. Another example would be an article I highlighted last month about a Fresno neighborhood suspicious of people on bikes at "odd" hours. These people live comfortable lives where work is done at 5pm, and one never works on a holiday.

If only we could all be so lucky.

So yes, I support regulation like this, even if it is a bit heavy handed. I have found myself on the wrong type of this kind of law, when I was in Switzerland, in a canton that restricts retail hours heavily. From Saturday at 5pm until Monday at noon, the only retail location open, besides restaurants, was the train station market. This ruined some plans, but only because I didn't do advance reaserch on the subject.

Unfortunately, it takes this kind of regulation to clobber people over the head and remind them that those last minutes shopping trips at 5pm on Thanksgiving include ruining someones holiday.

So dear readers, enjoy your Thanksgiving, and please try avoid doing any type of shopping on turkey day. The executives setting the hours probably haven't been in the office since last Friday, but their decision, and your patronage, means hundreds of thousands of people are stuck in retail hell on the one day a year this country is supposed to be coming together to celebrate. And that's just not very nice.

(I am now back in Fresno, so this blog shall hopefully be updated more frequently again)

Boston times

2011-11-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

My week in Boston is coming to a close. It's been a good time, and I've taken a few pictures I'll be sharing next week.

Will be in NYC tomorrow, for the first time since 2009. I went early November 2009 for a concert. Shall be my first time in Queens as well, but will mostly be in Manhattan I'd think.

Dying mall cancels outdoor market due to popularity, parking concerns

2011-11-16T22:10:00.000-08:00

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).

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.

Manchester Mall market closed after 5 weeks

That's right. Too many cars. Too many sales. Too popular.

At a mall.

OH THE HORRORS!

Let's see why it doesn't make sense.

Competition? Uh, it's a mall. Retailers selling identical products set up next to each other on purpose, because quantity attracts people. Were people spending money outside? Yes. But many of those people would never have come to the mall anyway. They can shop outside, then say "oh sears, I need something there" and then "oh lets stop by the food court" and so on.

That's how malls work.

Parking? It's a 1950's suburban mall. It's made of parking.

Incompatible with mall image?

Here, let me list the national retailers that the mall has managed to retain:
Footlocker
Payless Shoes
Z Fashion
Radio Shack
Cricket
Verizon
Sears

That's it. Even the Red Robin finally ran away last year.

Quite frankly, it's more insane than baffling. It's like some people are so scared of change they will actually tell money to leave.

From TasteFresno, a sample of the market. And yes, there are probably more people pictures below than inside the mall at any given point (excluding the Sears store, which does good business).

All images by James Collier

Pedestrian mall at night

2011-11-15T22:45:00.000-08:00

I'm not in Fresno this week. But I am somewhere with a pedestrian mall that not all are happy with. Indeed, sometimes people suggest letting the cars in. Many times, these are folks that don't actually visit the area, and probably wouldn't if that was changed.

Sounds familiar right?

Yet even on a cold and rainy evening, the place was bursting with life. I decided to remain under the shelter of the Macy's sidewalk ceiling while waiting for a friend. Many however did not bother to use the sidewalk, even though it offered more protection from the weather.

Would be nice to see this in Fresno.

Not pictured: The festive holiday noises.

Globe's horrifying series on how drunk drivers get off so easily

2011-11-13T21:40:00.000-08:00

The woman who brazenly bragged to Plymouth police that “my OUI that I have is going to get thrown out, and [my lawyer] will take care of this one, too,’’ during her arrest for drunken driving only a month after she allegedly hit a truck with more than twice the legal amount of alcohol in her bloodstream.

And she was right: Not guilty on the first. Not guilty on the second.

For the past three Sunday's, the Boston Globe has written an incredibly interesting and depressing series of articles on how drunk drivers are treated in Massachusetts. It reveals how the laws mean nothing, when judge's habitually declare drunk drivers innocent, just because, and how having money means you will get off, every single time.

This series will depress you. Or quite frankly, make you extremely angry. It did to me.

Here are some selections from the shocking series of articles. I recommend you check out the entire series. If I had quoted every example used....well, I would have just pasted the entire article.

From the first article:
For drunk drivers, a habit of judicial leniency
October 30, 2011
First Article

This article focuses on judge's that refuse to give guilty verdicts on drunk driving cases. It also looks at improper behavior by judges that have gone back and forth between defending drunk drivers as a lawyer, and then ruling on DUI cases.

The case appeared airtight. The driver, by just about every measure, was drunk. As a police officer watched, he sped down Southampton’s College Highway at 2:30 one morning, twice drifting over the center lines. The 26-year-old railroad worker’s speech was slurred, his eyes were bloodshot, he smelled of booze, the officer said. He couldn’t walk heel-to-toe in a straight line and flunked four of five roadside sobriety tests. Back at the station, when the driver blew into the breathalyzer machine, the result was .13

“I’m going to give you a break,’’ Goggins said during a bench trial in February, and then rendered his verdict: not guilty.

---

The judges’ acquittal rate now exceeds 80 percent across Massachusetts, the Globe’s detailed review of thousands of court documents shows, meaning at least four out of five alleged drunk drivers who place their fate in the hands of a judge are walking out of court free of the burden - and penalties - of a guilty verdict.

Free, like one acquitted driver who barreled the wrong way onto a Route 1 ramp - and slammed into an oncoming car, sending both drivers to the hospital.

----

Judges in Suffolk County, for example, are acquitting drunken driving defendants 88 percent of the time in bench trials. Plymouth County judges are ruling against prosecutors 86 percent of the time.

It's ok, because everybody does it.

Raymond J. Zukowski, police chief of the tiny western town of Montague, agreed. “I think sometimes the judges possibly feel the penalties are too stiff,’’ he said. “It’s a lot of money out of [the defendant’s] pocket for something we all did in our day.’’

And what about judges unwilling to declare people victim because they also drive drunk?

Judge James J. McGovern was charged with OUI in Scituate in 1995 and was acquitted at a bench trial. He was appointed a judge in 1999, left the bench three years later, and returned in 2006. He disclosed his OUI arrest on his judicial questionnaire in 1999 but not when he was reappointed.

McGovern presided over 11 OUI trials in 2009 and 2010 in Bristol County, according to records from the district attorney’s office there. He found all 11 defendants not guilty.

The second article:

A judicial haven for accused drunk drivers
Globe Staff / November 6, 2011
Second article

If there is an epicenter for that judicial leniency, it is Plymouth County.

No county for which data are available holds a greater proportion of bench trials in drunken driving cases. And two judges there have been veritable magnets for savvy defense lawyers, with acquittal rates of more than 90 percent.

----

- Judge Thomas S. Barrett presided over the bench trials of at least 210 OUI defendants in Plymouth County between 2005 and 2010, more trials than any judge in the county during that time, according to the DA’s data. He found 12 guilty and 198 of them not guilty - an acquittal rate of 94 percent.

This second article is also full of shocking case examples that must be read in full.

This weeks article:
Court mismatch makes OUI justice elusive
Globe Spotlight Team / November 13, 2011
Third Article

The lawyers are making huge amounts of money, as so can afford cheap expert witnesses and other tools. The prosecutors cannot. Further, the lawyers pick and choose which judges they want...the ones they know rule "not guilty" almost every time.

An in many cases, the judges are their longtime friends and partners.

He’d had a few beers, he said, and hadn’t eaten since noon. Now it was 1 a.m. When he blew into a breathalyzer, it registered .25, more than three times the legal limit.

Jones got the breath-test result thrown out of court. Then he masterfully recast his client’s feeble performance for police as a by-product of fatigue, not beer. The judge’s verdict: not guilty.

A lawyer, on getting dangerous drunk drivers off scott free, and justifying it:

“I’m sort of like an OUI nerd; I love this stuff,’’ Jones told his audience of fellow attorneys, joking, “I wouldn’t do it for nothing - I wouldn’t even do it for a reduced fee - but I really like doing it.’’

“If he gets a break, you know, who’s hurt?’’ said Jones, an affable 55-year-old. “Most people learn their lesson just by their arrest.’’

----

A number of other local OUI specialists maintain flashy websites. Joseph Waldbaum’s is bursting with exuberant testimonials that play up how much evidence was stacked against clients he successfully defended, like the accused three-time offender who crashed his snow plow into a house: He had a vodka bottle on the dashboard and his 5-year-old in the front seat. He called Waldbaum “a panther in the courtroom.’’

And here's a huge problem...many of the legislatures are or have been lawyers. There's huge amount of money riding on lawyers getting $10,000 to get a client off. And some are habitual drunk drivers themselves.

Massachusetts is one of two states where refusing to take a breath test is not evidence that can be used in court. Other states, like California, will take blood if the driver refuses.

Melanie’s Law was supposed to make refusing the test unpalatable by inflicting severe driver’s license penalties on those who refuse. It didn’t quite work out that way.

Former House speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and House Judiciary Chairman Eugene L. O’Flaherty - both, at the time, among the state’s most powerful defense attorneys - strongly opposed several provisions of the bill that Governor Mitt Romney and Senate leaders sought, arguing they threatened the constitutional rights of defendants.

...

O’Flaherty opposed such sanctions.

“You have a constitutional right to not cooperate with law enforcement,’’ he said Friday. “You have a right against self-incrimination.’’

So the bitterly fought final compromise opened a loophole: A driver who refuses the test gets his license back if he is acquitted. Unless prosecutors can make a special case he is a danger.

In a way, it was a double win for defense lawyers.

Stiffer punishment means more people hire a lawyer to fight the charge. And taking the sting out of refusing the breath test makes it that much easier to win in court.

“It caught people’s attention that there were OUI defense attorneys in the House who were essentially doing everything they could to gut the thing,’’ said Haley, who wrote Romney’s version of the bill. “There is still an incentive for drunk drivers, particularly serial drunk drivers . . . to refuse a breathalyzer. And it’s a huge incentive.’’

Salvatore F. DiMasi, by the way, is now serving 8 years in prison for fraud.

And it seems like fraud is a daily occurrence in Massachusetts. Here is one of the "experts" the attorneys call up. The prosecutors rarely use experts because they lack the funds and time.

New Hampshire toxicologist JoAnn Samson, who has testified scores of times in the state. She is Jones’s go-to breath-test expert, partly because she charges only $1,500.

Samson acknowledged that her physiology master’s thesis was on termites, and that her doctoral work was on a drug used to treat hookworm in dogs. Samson acknowledged that she did not belong to any professional toxicology organization, and that until a few years earlier she spent most of her time working as a lawyer. The three publications on a recent copy of her resume include a letter to the editor.

I'd like to thank the Globe for doing the kind of journalism we deserve to read every week.

Unfortunately, this rather depressing series of articles can make one lose huge amounts of respect for our legal system, our political system and our financial system, in which penalties are only for those without money or without connections.

The articles also touch on how officers who do their best to stop drunk drivers are discouraged because all their work is thrown out, almost every time.

An as for the question that "who gets hurt" when a drunk driver is set free? Well, the article lists multiple cases of drivers with multiple DUI's in their history...drunk driving events that can't be entered into the record because "they deserved a second chance".

And what's worse, these are only cases where the driver gets CAUGHT. How many times are these criminals hitting the streets and not being stopped?

The blatant disrespect for life is infuriating.

San Joaquin (Amtrak) ridership continues to soar - is HSR to blame?

2011-11-10T23:31:00.000-08:00

Amtrak has finally caught up with their monthly status reports, and their August and September numbers are now available.

What really popped out from these reports was the incredibly impressive numbers from the San Joaquin route, which services California's Central Valley and is where the first phase of High Speed Rail (HSR) is set to be constructed. To HSR detractors, this section of the state is known as "nowhere", a land of farms and vast distances, where transit is simply unfeasible.

The latest numbers don't break the record set in July, because that is typically the route's best month, but 2011 did feature the highest August and September on record....and by a large amount.

How does two months of over 18% year on year growth sound?

That's even more impressive when you consider the following:

1)   Not a honeymoon. This route has been offered by Amtrak since 1974.
2)     No increase in service or frequency. The route has offered 6 trains a day (each way) since 2002 and besides the most minor of adjustments, the same schedule.
3)     No major ad campaign. Just business as usual
4)    No economic boon. Quite the opposite, unemployment in the central valley continues to hold steady north of 16%, almost twice the national average.
5)     No price drop. On the contrary, as the trains fill, the higher price buckets are seen more often.
6)     2010 was better than 2009....which was better than 2008. This isn't an anomaly, or a percent increase hiding low numbers (ie, this is not a case where ridership doubled because 2 more people rode).

So what's going on? What on earth has caused an 18% surge in ridership?

Since we can put away all those standard explanations, like more service, better prices, or more jobs, that leaves us to dig for reasons that simply aren't as obvious.

And I'd argue that all the talk of High Speed Rail, which won't even open until 2020, is the reason.

You see, HSR has gotten a LOT of press this year. You'd be hard-pressed to find a week in which there wasn't at least one meaty article in the newspaper concerning rail. Be it news about costs, alignments, political grandstanding and so forth, there's always something to report on, and the people are eager to read about it.

And while not every article does it, I'd say the majority do mention the fact that Amtrak currently offers service in the valley, on an alignment that HSR will seek to use.

In other words, the San Joaquin has gotten a whole lot of indirect advertisements with all these articles talking about rail. And as any marketing person knows, constant impressions of your product leads to increased awareness. And if you offer an attractive product, increased awareness means sales.

In this case, an 18% increase in sales.

I'd also like to note that the other Amtrak line to experience good amounts of growth recently has been the Downeaster, linking Boston to its former colony of Maine. Again, the only real change has been lots of press about an upcoming expansion.

Would anyone else would like to propose a reasonable explanation?

Onto the numbers then.

Percent change over same month in 2010
August
San Joaquin = 18.7%
Capitol Corridor = 10.3%
Pacific Surfliner = 5.3%

September
San Joaquin = 19.2%
Capitol Corridor = 10.7%
Pacific Surfliner = 5.1%

And here is that in awkward chart format.

San Joaquin August 2009, 2010, and 2011

San Joaquin September 2009, 2010, and 2011

The Capitol Corridor has also seen big gains. Note that the percentage increase is small, but the total number of passengers added is very similar.

Capitol Corridor August 2009, 2010, and 2011

Capitol Corridor September 2009, 2010, and 2011

A year (and two months) in review. Clear seasonal variance is visible.

And how these line stack up against the rest of the country.

August

September

A look at GVUrban's next two downtown projects

2011-11-08T23:00:00.000-08:00

Note: I am currently in Boston so my upload schedule may be light in the next week.

Anyone who follows development in downtown Fresno knows one brand: GVUrban. This subsidiary of Granville homes has been one of only two serious developers to go out and build new housing and renovate existing buildings downtown. The other development team are the ones who are proposing to fix Hotel Fresno, and have a couple of other successful renovations.

I've talked about all of GVurban's projects that have or are set to debut this year, including Fulton Village, Van Ness Cottages, and Biz-werx. But these developers are far from done. While their website doesn't mention it, they have two more projects lined up for 2012.

One of these projects, which I talked about in September has gotten media attention because the proposal includes demolishing two old homes.

The other project has only been mentioned in passing. Last month, a downtown farmer's market had to change locations because their site was slated for development, but as far as I can tell, no one has talked about what the development is.

So here are the details on the two 2012 GVUrban projects.

Fulton and San Joaquin
This project recently broke ground and displaced a parking lot, home to a farmer's market. The location is basically GVUrban central.

As you can see in this map, they've concentrated their focus on a small area

Key:
Red = New project
Green= Project they built from scratch (mostly housing plus some store fronts)
Yellow= Renovated building for housing (and some storefronts)
Blue= Biz-werx (commercial renovated building)

Lets take a closer look at the red plot

Home to a farmers market. Unfortunately, if Fulton Village is any indication, those trees will be removed and replaced by stuff that provides no shade.

What they're going to build will be very similar in concept to the recently finished Fulton Village. While it will resemble Fulton Village more than the Iron Bird Lofts, there will be more live/work units, so the street will have more commercial uses. Like Fulton Village, instead of one long building, it will be set up as slightly detached two and three unit structures.

3 stories
2,939 sq. feet of ground floor commercial
29 residential units, made up of:
9 live/work units
6 studio units
12 townhouse units

Continue reading this lengthy post by clicking this button.

Here is the site plan, grey = asphalt, pink = pedestrian access, white=buildings

And this is what we'll see from Fulton St, again, a lot like Fulton Village

No rendering exists yet, but expect it to look just like this

If you're interested in the source of the schematics, you can browse the document they come from here (PDF).

San Joaquin and L aka "L Street Project"

This project, which has been in the news due to the required demolition of two old homes, will closely resemble the Van Ness Cottages, which are set to open next month.

2 story town-homes
28 units
No commercial

Location:

Existing:

The project will resembles this

San Joaquin St at the bottom, L St along the side

Looking at the front elevations, it's a little bit disappointing that Granville is starting to repeat designs downtown, in the same way developers love to repeat the same suburban home model over and over again.

Pretty much a carbon copy of the Van Ness Cottages.

Anyone interested in seeing the source of these diagrams can find them at this document. Warning: Large PDF.

And that's all I have for now. I will continue to visit these projects as they are built. I look forward to even more construction downtown, but I do hope that beyond these two, GVUrban develops completely new designs. It would be a tragedy to see interesting new apartments morph into cookie cutter buildings.

New Google Street View images for Fresno and Clovis

2011-11-07T01:32:00.000-08:00

The Street View feature from Google Maps is a fantastic tool which I use many times a week. It lets you explore places you haven't been before, scout out locations before heading out to visit them (ie, exact location of a restaurant) and it lets you see changes that have been made to an area.

Since launching in May 2007 in select cities, Google has expanded their pictures to most of the US, most of Europe, an other countries around the world.

Here you can see that most of the US, Mexico and Canada have Street View images available, in blue. The blue circles are user submitted pictures in areas not yet covered by the cameras.

Besides visiting new areas, Google does return to streets already captured to get new images of the area. Unfortunately, Google does not announce when they will visit a city, or when new images will be posted.

But as a frequent user of Street View, I noticed that within the past two weeks, most of Fresno and Clovis have received new images, which appear to have been taken in late June and early July.

This is the third time Google has visited Fresno, and with some searching, you can find some roads that sill feature the oldest imagery.

Here I will present some of the new pictures, and how you can tell if your street has the new images or if it's still the older ones.

Oldest Imagery
The first time Google visited Fresno was in late 2007 or early 2008. These images made their internet debut on Tuesday, June 10, 2008. At that point, all the kinks hadn't been worked out, and the images weren't of very high quality. Most have been replaced, but you can still find side streets that haven't been revisted that still use the oldest type of image.

The picture is washed out, and not very clear.

This is what the oldest type of image looks like, here, in Clovis

And here is what a new picture of the area looks like. Note the difference in quality.

However, this second image isn't part of the new batch. Instead, it's from Google's second visit to Fresno, in late February 2009.

2009 Imagery

The 2009 images and the 2011 images are both of similar high quality. The real difference is that the new imagery is obviously better when it comes to locating businesses, bike lanes, new construction etc because it was taken this summer.

So how to tell if the images are from 2009 and 2001?

The easiest way is to make note of the season. The 2009 images were taken in mid-winter (February) while the 2011 images are from late June.

The clearest giveaway are the trees, although the sky is a good indicator as well (no clouds in the summer!)

Here is a comparison between 2009 images and 2011 images. I chose this location because a sidewalk was built, so you can note the change.

Also pay attention to the weather and the trees, which indicate the seasons.

2009

2009

2011

So how was I ever to know when the pictures were taken? Theaters!

Google's second visit is made obvious by the venture into River Park.

2009

The 2011 visit can be dated with these marques downtown

While Google probably didn't revisit every street this summer, they probably did all the main ones.

If your street still features 2008 or 2009 pictures, check again in a few weeks. In Boston, the transition took over a month. While all the pictures are taken over the course of a few days, it takes a lot of time and energy to convert all of that into data we can see.

One thing that is unfortunate, is that at this point there's no way to see older images. As you'll note in my examples above, to get the same pictures in different 'times" I had to move to a slightly different portion of an intersection. That is, if Street A has 2011 images, and Street B has 2009 images, only at the intersection can you "travel though time" and compare them both. There is no other way at this point in time to compare a location using 2008, 2009 and 2011 pictures.

That is, unless Google has made a mistake. I highlight an example of time traveling on the same street below.

Here are some changes you can note that the 2011 imagery highlights.

Fulton Village, a complex I have talked about previously, nears the end of construction in July 2011.

Another downtown project, the Van Ness Townhomes

A couple of months ago, I wrote about how the city of Fresno is destroying 54 homes to widen a road (Peach).

Due to a mistake in the uploading process, Google allows us to see the before and after. Can you believe this is the same street?

2009

2011

2009

2011

I think I'll be giving this stretch of Peach another complete post in the near future.

So there you go, fresh new imagery is available. Can you find yourself, or anything interesting of note? Unfortunately, my home still has imagery from 2008!

Quick review of Jazzhop and other downtown happening

2011-11-05T02:22:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, the first ever Jazzhop was held downtown this weekend.

I decided to attend, and so, here are my thoughts of the evening, along with pictures of recent developments downtown.

We started out by visiting GV Urban's Biz-Werx, which was part of ArtHop but not Jazzhop. This building officially reopened this week after an extensive remodel, taking an abandoned eyesore into a good looking, and potentially lively street corner. The plan is to rent out the first floor into many offices, art studios or similar type of spaces, and the basement to be rented out as storage space. You can tell the building is old, because nobody in Fresno builds basements anymore.

Project website

Main corridor, very sharp looking

Space is available

Outside, the sidewalk was made greener(and pink!), and lots of light

My favorite part about the GV projects downtown is all the light they give to the sidewalk. Downtown is way too dark, which makes it seem less safe and uninviting. Bright white lights make the area feel more alive and walking feel safer.

Also nearby, Fulton Village finally opened last month. I've posted pictures of these apartments under construction before, and now here it is finished and lit up at night. Again, the amount of light really helps the street.

But of course the title of this post is about Jazzhop, so how was that?

I had never attended Arthop, so I hadn't been to any of these galleries before. Most of them are tiny studios with different forms of art. All of it interesting to see, although none took too long to explore.

Jazzhop added music performers to the galleries, so you could look at the art and enjoy music, or come for the music, and enjoy the art in the background.

It's certainly a good concept, but it's far from perfect.

Like my thoughts on Fuse Fest, I thought there was a shocking lack of people. Supposedly, ArtHop has been going on for quite some time, and this was Jazzhops big premiere....and yet, there was no such thing as a crowd. It's hard to tally up the total amount of people, because there were so many venues, but I'd be shocked if more than 350 people made their way to see the art and listen to music. In a metro area of over a million people, that's pretty bad.

So why doesn't Fresno show up? I have no clue. The art was enjoyable, and the music even more so.

And it's all free.

Anyway, another problem with the event is that the venues aren't really close to each other, so "hopping" from one to another on foot isn't that practical. And some of them are hard to find. This is made worse by the limited time, as the event pretty much takes place from 6-8pm.

So after visiting some galleries downtown, we headed to the Tower district for dinner (at Mr. Sushi) and then went to Audie's Olympic, for some more free jazz music.

In terms of music, this was the best venue, as, you know, it's actually a music venues. We stayed for a couple of hours of free Jazz jamming.

I hope that the event ends up growing, because it makes for an enjoyable evening, and for the price of free, what's not to like? It's not like there's much else to do in on Thursday night. Perhaps that's the problem? People are just too used to staying home...?

A look at upcoming events and meetings in Fresno

2011-11-03T18:17:00.000-07:00

Quick look at interesting walk/bike/transit related stuff going on in Fresno this weekend.

Tonight:
Arthop meets Jazzhop for the very first time. Enjoy art, music and food at local businesses downtown and in the Tower District. Walk between venues to get the best experience.

See the very large version of this map in this PDf file:
MAP

Not mentioned in the ads or map is the grand opening of "Biz-werx" featuring art and food, not no music. Thats at Fulton and Calaveras

Tuesday November 8th

Put on your advocacy shoes because there are two important meetings that will shape the future of Fresno.

This is the final chance this year to let your voice be heard about the future of Fulton Mall. Discuss the plan and tell the officials what you like and dislike about the plan.

Tuesday
Nov 8th
5:30pm - 7:30pm
FULTON CORRIDOR SPECIFIC PLAN WORKSHOP #10
Location: City Council Chambers, 2600 Fresno St., Fresno, CA 93721 .
Downtown Plans Website

This other meeting is very important if you value safety and how roads are designed in Fresno.

Tuesday, Nov. 8 at 5:30 p.m. at Edison High School, Councilman Oliver Baines is holding a hearing on road diets and a bike lane project in south Fresno. The engineers have told him that Fresno St between California St and C St is designed to carry 20,000 cars a day, but only 6,000 are using it. They say that a road diet will add bike lanes, make the road safer by adding a turning lane, and will not increase congestion.

Unfortunately, Mr. Baines dosn't quite understand how reducing the size of a road can make it work better for everyone.

The city even has a page set up explaining why road diets work so well.

A guide to Road Diets

Residents from all over Fresno are encouraged to attend and tell Mr. Baines why he should support bike lanes, especially in a "duh" location like this where the street has been improperly designed.

Long time readers of this blog will know I discussed the lanes back in September, back then, the lanes were all but assured, before Mr. Baines decided that he knows more about Fresno St. than the engineers at city hall.

I'm sure the councilman means well, but one would have hoped he could have picked a project that actually inconveniences people, like say, the widening of Peach avenue. Considering many roads downtown got road diet treatments last summer, and all of them have worked fantastically for everyone, I don't see where this doubt comes from. He can walk from his city hall office to see a real world implementation of a road diet.

Mexico City bike-share (Ecobici) expands, more for 2012

2011-11-02T01:46:00.000-07:00

When you think of cycling, Mexico City probably does not come to mind. However, they are trying to change that and began by launching a bike-share system in February 2010. Now they are getting ready for a large expansion in 2012, and they're ending this year with a small one. As part of the introduction and expansion of a bike-share system, the city's first bike lanes were installed last year. Also, a "Sunday streets" type event was introduced, where large avenues are closed to cars on Sundays and opened to bikes and pedestrians only.

The bike share system is operated by Clear Channel, so it unfortunately is a closed system (no one day memberships, only monthly and annuals). However, that hasn't stopped it from being successful. The membership base was capped at 30,000 as to not overwhelm the bikes, and there is currently a 6 week waiting period.

Fortunately, the system is expanding.

Launch:
85 stations
1,114 bikes
30,000 members

October 2011 expansion:
90 stations total. 5 new stations, 7 stations moved.

March-May 2012
270 stations total
4,000 bikes
65,000 projected members

Here is a map showing where the system currently extends. The area in black square is the October 2011 expansion. 5 stations were added, and 7 were moved to serve a new neighborhood.

The 2012 expansion should help make cycling in Mexico City more normal and safer. I will report on it when the final map is released.

Source: Ecobici se triplicará en 2012

Thoughts from High Speed Rail discussion at Fresno State

2011-10-31T23:49:00.000-07:00

Edit: Apparently, the $100bn claims may have been based on some logic indeed, according to tomorrows newspapers. I will leave this post as-is, and turn on the oven to warm up the crow. For that specific section anyway. There are many other claims that still need be addressed.
----

A few days ago I posted my full set of notes from a high Speed Rail (HSR) discussion held at Fresno State. I did drop in a couple of comments, but I tried to stick to mostly straight notes.

Here are my thoughts on the speakers, the points they made, and other points about the discussion.

I will begin by talking about the "pro-HSR side". One of the questions raised during the forum brought out the point that the people speaking in support of HSR tended to base their speeches on general statements, while the anti-HSR speakers had more numbers. This is correct. The pro-HSR people talked a lot about all the wonderful things that HSR will bring to California and the central valley, but didn't really quote numbers, and when they did, they were general, such as "thousands".

But that approach may not have been the best one. You see, the audience was made up generally of two groups:

1) Fresno State students taking a class in HSR, and thus, generally well informed about the project
and
2) People concerned about the project who are either directly impacted by it (property owners on HSR route) or people who have read many negatives about the project and feel strongly against it.

That is, very few people at this meeting were there to learn about HSR. Most already had formed an opinion. The general public has no interest in attending a forum about HSR, either because they don't care, or because they simply know nothing about it.

So someone speaking for HSR should have targeted their discussion to debunk some misinformation and such, instead of using the "intro to HSR speech" that many had already heard. The "intro" speech is best saved for an environment where the general public at large is found, and not a highly specific subset that is attending purely to discuss HSR.

That being said, the anti-HSR people did use many numbers....but they didn't back them up. And the pro-HSR people did not try and debunk them.

For example, David Valadao quoted a whole series of numbers on the potential cost of the project, but kept focusing on his estimate of $100bn. There was nothing to back this up, but he said it with certainty, and people believe it.

It would be interesting to see the reaction of a speaker try and claim that project will cost $15bn. The number is just as made up, of course, but would take the same amount of time to "calculate".

Another set of numbers the anti-HSR people brought out was how many jobs will be destroyed. That's right, jobs destroyed.

One number repeated was that 6,000-15,000 jobs would be displaced in Fresno alone, and the speakers argued that these jobs would NEVER return.

Once again, nothing was there to back it up, but while the HSR people claimed that "thousands" of jobs would be created, the anti-HSR people seemed to have a more solid number, because they made something up and agreed to stick to it.

Yet another scary anti-HSR number thrown around was the idea that each CSU student would have to "pay" $2,000 a year to account for HSR expenses. That number was repeated twice, and targeted at the students, but it's rubbish.

It would be like the pro-HSR people claiming that $42 billion is just over a dollar a taxpayer, per year....spread over a bunch of years. You can take a cost and divide it up in anyway that looks good or bad.

$42,000,000,000
37,000,000 Californians
= $1,135 per taxpayer
Over the 100 year lifespan of project
= $1.13

That's super affordable!

Also, as I mentioned, there were some false comments made by the anti-HSR people, and the pro-HSR people didn't bother to correct them. Indeed, the only time a correction was made was when the moderator or a member of the public directly attacked a point made by a speaker.

That's poor form. If one is speaking for a subject, one should be knowledgeable enough to know what myths will be brought up, and be able to correct those myths with the appropriate facts.

Here are a few myths/lies that were brought up and what should have been said.

Claim, then response.

-Project will cost $100bn
--Business plan comes out tomorrow and will show real cost. Should be nowhere near $100bn

-6,500-15,000 jobs will be lost in Fresno alone, people will move to Florida
--BS, businesses will relocate but not move. People dont just leave to Florida, they have family, professional, social ties to valley

-We're already paying interest on the HSR bonds
--I don't believe the bonds have even been released yet

-HSR went from $32bn to $42bn
--False, the price never changed, just the accounting method, from year of expenditure to year of opening

-HSR isnt using transportation corridors
--False, BNSF is a transportation corridor, and any veering from that has been by express request by representatives

-Driving will always be cheaper.
--It depends. 2020 is almost a decade away. How much did gas cost a decade ago? Say prices double again, and gas goes for $7 a gallon. Google shows the distance from Fresno to Disney as 250 miles. Say a car gets 27mpg (a 2016 model). That's $65 in gas each way. Now add wear-and-tear and such, and you're looking at $80...each way. For a family of five, yes driving may be cheaper. May. HSR MAY offer family packs. Disney charges something like $20 for parking. You're adding a premium of 3 hours of time, each way.

-College students can't afford it.
--Since it'll be indisputably cheaper than driving for an individual, college students will save money.

-Commuters cannot afford $2,000 a month in HSR costs. The home ownership savings from living in Fresno and working in the bay area should easilly cover that.

Those are just some examples of how one of the pro-HSR speakers could have challeneged the claims made by David Valadao. They didnt.

One thing I was especially interested in seeing is how Elizabeth Alexis would present herself. Online, and even in the beginning of her speech, she stated she supports HSR but is simply against the way the agency has behaved itself.

Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that this was not true, she was just using standard anti-HSR talking points that had very little to do with the agency. For example, her claim that each CSU student would have to pay $2,000 a year to support HSR, was both ridiculous and also completely unrelated to the agency. What HSR costs is what HSR costs. The agency isnt in charge of the price of concrete or steel.

Likewise, she tried using other fear tactics against the audience, such as claiming that the central valley was a guinea pig, and that jobs would be destroyed during construction, and after as people left the area. Again, this has nothing to do with how the agency conducts itself, it's just fear. Her claim that the CV would have to deal with pollution because it was chosen first for construction was quickly rebuffed by the moderator who asked if pollution wouldn't be an issue if the CV saw construction last.

While she did make points about the agency and some of the problems it has, she certainly wasn't shy about bashing the project as a whole, and for someone who claims that she supports the project, that's a problem. It's either one or the other, you can't come in and do them both.

Likewise, Valadao spoke against the project as if he was concerned about this specific infrastructure spending, but during the Q&A, he made it clear he was all about the tea-party line which believes that all government spending was bad.

I'm sure if you addressed every single concern, he'd still come back and say "let the private sector build it".

Basically, what I'm saying is that critics aren't a bad thing because many times they bring up points that have been overlooked by group-think. But if you're a critic, and you say you're only against a certain part of the project (ie, routing) but then rant about everything under the sun because you're REALLY against something else (ie, government investment), then that's a problem.

Why not some honesty?

On a final note, the public questions veered off into crazy-land more often than not. I couldn't stop thinking about an episode of Parks and Recreation in which the public forum was 100% crazy people saying crazy things. It rang quite true.

Makes me sympathize with any government organization that wants to cut down on public meetings. That is, a bureaucrat can only take so many crazy rants before checking out.

If only there was some way of screening questions beforehand.

Notes from High Speed Rail discussion at Fresno State

2011-10-28T22:23:00.000-07:00

NOTE: This post was edited at 11:45pm Friday to add the section on questions from the audience.

Last night, Fresno State invited four speakers to present their thoughts on the High Speed Rail (HSR) project and answer questions from the audience. The forum was created for students taking a class on HSR, but this presentation was open to the general public.

The format was as follows: Four speakers on the stage were each given 10 minutes to talk about the project. After the speeches were done, questions were asked by the moderator, Bill McEwen from the Fresno Bee, and then the general audience.

Generally, the speeches followed prepared notes. The speakers did not address each others thoughts until the Q&A section, but even then, discussion was focused to/from the audience member and not between the speakers.

The speakers were, in order of speaking:
-Former Assembly Member (29th) Mike Villines, a Fresno Stat alumni. He spoke in favor of HSR.
-Hanford Assembly Member (30th) David Valadao, who spoke against the project.
-Daniel Krause, who works with Rescue Muni, among other organizations, spoke for the project.
-Elizabeth Alexis who works with "Californians Advocating Responsible Rail Design" and spoke against the project.

Today I will present the notes I took during the debate. These notes are as accurate as I was able to do, and if I misheard someone or made any other mistake, I apologize and will immediately fix it if brought to my attention.

Tomorrow I will be in LA for the USC-Stanford game, so on Sunday I will try and write up thought on what was discussed. There are many things that need to be clarified, although I'm sure Robert Cruickshank will beat me to that this weekend.

----

I arrived at 6:50 for the 7pm start time, although the speakers didn't begin until 7:10pm. In standard fashion for this type of event, the front-center rows were empty and the back was quite full. Rest assured, this photo does not show the extent of the crowd in the large room.

Fresno State students generally sat in the back. The members of the public appeared to be mostly composed of white people in their senior years.

Mike Villines spoke first. he said he brought a video, but the organizers were unable to get it to run. His points were as follows:

-This is one of the first times a major investment/jobs program is starting in the Central Valley (CV) first. Neither the feds or the California Legislature ever focuses on the CV first, so we should embrace it.

- This project is in contrast to the traditional oil transportation, like highways and car and planes. Not only is it cleaner and safer, but in the end, it will be cheaper.

- All "against" arguments are always the same. "Now is not the time", "let's do this later", etc.
--Lincoln built the trans-continental railroad during the civil war, when budgets were tough
--Ike built the interstate system, starting in the middle of nowhere, in farm country
--The same naysaying comments were against starting the UC system
--Same comments against vital water system
---Where would we be without these grand projects?

-Ridership numbers have been independently reviewed and verified

-Fares will be competitive

-Outreach has NOT been perfect, but there have been "hundreds" of meetings, so anyone who says there hasn't been outreach is lying.

-There will be disruption, but it will be mitigated

-There is a huge cost to do nothing. Without HSR, roads must be widened, airports must be expanded.

-HSR will minimize urban sprawl. Sprawl is the #1 taker of Ag land.

He ended by telling a story of how Kennedy set the goal for moon landing, and it happened ten years later. He said that the people in the control room at the time had an average age of 28, meaning they were 18 when the goal was set, the same age as many of the students in the room.

David Valadao spoke next. He brought a slideshow which they were able to play. The slideshow was titled "Time to pump brakes on HSR"

I took pictures of the slides, and will add details to clarify what he was saying while the slide was being presented.

Slide 1:

-3% is in reference to the idea that the project only has $3bn in funds and will cost $100bn by his estimate

-He says that the maintenance facility will bring 1,500 jobs to Fresno...but 1,500 businesses will be moved.
--By his estimate, 6,000 to 15,000 jobs will be lost because not a single business that gets displaced will elect to reopen in California.
-Every single business that gets mitigation money will close up and move to Florida. California is too hostile with taxes and regulations and such and nobody wants to live here.

Ed note: For someone whose job is to represent Californians, he sure seems to hate the state.

Slide 2

-Argues that mitigation money will be equal to market value, which is less than replacement cost. Uses example of car. Says HSR would give him $2,000 for his car but it'll cost much more to buy a new one.

-HSR already affecting budgets today because we're already paying interest on the bonds.

Slide 3

-Claims that price of HSR went from $33bn in one day to $42bn the next day. Tells story about how he asked the HSR people why this happens and was told "the old number was assuming the entire project was built in one day, the new number is the real one"
*Old people laugh*

-Claims $100bn is an easy number to estimate

-"My ranch isn't a transportation corridor"

-Argues that it will always be cheaper to drive. Uses story about 5 kids (or family of five?) getting in a van to Disney, much more efficient than paying for each individual ticket.

-Too expensive for college kids

-Too expensive for commuters. Commuters cannot afford $2,000+ a month in HSR transportation costs. Cheaper to move, buy a bigger house.

Slide 4

-Makes emotional appeal that farms aren't just about land, it's about the experience and family history
--Personal value

-States that HSR is NOT a new and exciting idea. Has been talked about for 40 years, old technology.
--Goes off on tangent about how kids these days want things to be mobile, ipads etc.
----HSR is the opposite of mobile, it's fixed (not portable).
--Says airplanes are the future because they're mobile, can get you from anywhere to anywhere and are exciting.

-Claims he has recently talked with Southwest Airlines and they are totally committed to taking people from Fresno to Mojave, no need for HSR to do that.

Ed Note: This whole train of thought was quite....odd. And a flat out lie (see moderator question).

Closing slide

-Claims that expansions of things like the 180 are ok because that "needs to be there".

Daniel Krause spoke next. No slides were presented for the last two speakers.

-HSR is cleaner, safer form of transportation

-Saves farmland, reduces sprawl, has health benefits.

-HSR will be a catalyst for shift in land use patterns.
--Orients local planning towards HSR stations
---renewed focus on city centers will save farms

-HSR is already funding planning processes in cities via grants
--"Catalyst for farmland preservation"
---HSR on it's own won't preserve land, but the focus into the city that the project brings will

-5,000 acres will be lost to HSR construction + indirect losses near the construction.
--EIR is being constantly changed to respond to these concerns

-Current losses dwarf this
--Claims that 1.2 MILLION acres of farmland will be lost by 2050 if urbanization continues as is.

-Won't eliminate sprawl but key component to turn ship around

-Will expand use of and investment in transit
--Most trips under 2 miles, focus on transit will get people to walk to store to buy bread and milk, save air quality
*Old people in audience laugh loudly*
"I...I don't understand why that comment got laughter?"
*Old people laugh again*

-Improvements in air quality and public safety
--35,000 killed a year in cars in America.
---In 47 year history, not a single fatality in Japanese HSR
----Safest form of transportation ever invented

-Driving most dangerous form of transportation.
--Someone needs to calculate lives that will be saved by HSR and put monetary number to it

Finally, it was time for Elizabeth Alexis to speak. Elizabeth began by claiming that she is pro-HSR but against the way the project is being conducted. However, based on everything else she said, this comment did not appear to be true at all. More on that when I do my complete analysis.

-Rail will increase population, actually create more sprawl

-People do NOT want to live near HSR
--HSR stations will be full of taxis and buses and nobody will want to live near the station
---HSR stations are somewhere between a train station and an airport in terms of impact/desirability,

-Job numbers claimed by HSR authority are simply temporary construction jobs, and "fake" extensions of that, for example a job is counted if a construction worker shops locally.
--Construction = huge amount of pollution created

-Business losses will be permanent

-No benefits to CV if project not completed
--Says CV will have to deal with years of disruption and pollution and may be left with something that is never used

-"Central Valley is the guinea pig"

-97% of money is missing
--Bond does not create more revenue (no new taxes) meaning it is taken from general fund

-HSR is directly competing with CSU/UC system for funds because it all comes out of general pot.
--For every $10bn allocated to HSR, the costs to each CSU student will be $2,000 per year

-Environment is too hard to create revenues, there will be no tax increases to pay for HSR.

-HSR will be "pot committed" (Ed: I believe that's the term she used)
--Explanation: Once you start throwing money at project, it's too hard to stop because nobody wants a half finished project
---Further explanation that fear of being pot committed results in heavy restrictions on bond releases to ensure this doesn't happen.
-----California history has shown that every major project like this has ended badly.

Ed note: I didn't quite understand if she was saying the project will keep sucking up money or won't be due to restrictions placed on bonds, but she said it in the order I noted above. That line of thought continued:

-Legislature will be forced to vote yes on funding plans as a result of above

-She said opponents are constantly criticized and called names, detracting from conversation.
--HSR is being run like a political campaign, not a public infrastructure project

-Too many consultants. Each segment has own set of consultants, each set of consultants hires own set of consultants, each set of new consultants hire their own consultants for multiple levels of consultants.

-Consultants mean project is not listening to feedback

-Goes back to point that CV will deal with all the problems and not get results.

And that's it for the straight speaking section.

Next up the moderator asked some questions based on what had been stated.

Question 1 was directed at Villines and asked why there is an artificial 2012 deadline that the agency must rush to reach before the funds are withdrawn.

Answer: The money is to get people to work, and we want that to happen now. The project is absolutely not being rushed as it's been in motion for many years

Question 2 was directed at Elizabeth. The question was about how Elizabteh had claimed that the CV was a guinea pig and there would be much construction pollution. Wouldn't the same pollution be created if the CV segment is built last?

Elizabeth answered that she does not understand why the project MUST start in the middle. She claims that she has asked the HSR people and nobody has explained the advantages of starting in the CV and working out to the coasts.

She then went on to say that the project should only begin if there is enough money locked up to get an initial operating segment done. She quickly clarified that she meant a "real" initial segment, like San Jose to Bakersfield or LA to Fresno.

Question 3 was to Daniel Krause. He asked if Daniel could clarify why if HSR must go through transportation corridors, why they aren't doing that near Hanford.

First he began by referring to the last question and clarifying that yes, the initial segment in the CV must have independent utility, and if all else fails, Amtrak will use it to cut off 45 minutes from the existing trip.

He then explained that existing corridors includes utility corridors and the agency is allowed to move off a corridor when necessary or when requested to.

Question 4 was to David Valadao and went along the lines of "isn't it true that there is no doubt that the first segment will get built?'

He started his response by saying that he disagreed.
*old people cheer*
He stated that lots of people are concerned, and that it will be tough to kill the project but it's not a sure thing.
*more cheers*

Then went on to say that in his personal experience, he has ridden Amtrak and it was empty. He also stated that the existing line is empty and that it is remarkably foolish to build a brand new train line, 2 miles parallel to the existing train, and that running them both made no sense. He closed by replying to the last comment of the initial segment being available to amtrak if nothing else is build and said "that would be a disaster".

Question 5 was also directed at David Valadao, and I was quite surprised by the tone the moderator took.

I did not get down the exact wording of the question, but I will paraphrase it as best as I can remember.

"You stated that Southwest was more than willing to come serve Fresno and fly people to the Mojave. Fresno has tried every trick in the book to get Southwest to come here, including $3 million in direct annual subsidies, and they refuse to serve this market. Why are they willing to serve Fresno if you ask them to?'

Ed Note: Bill, as a longtime writer to the Fresno Bee, knows better than most what Fresno has tried to get service from Southwest and other budget airlines.

The answer was that "Southwest doesn't want subsidies" they want to fly a profitable route, and if there is profit to be made in Fresno, they will gladly take it, like any business would. He said his comment about Mojave was a joke, but he could see service between Fresno and San Jose, but that Southwest would only do that if they could fill a plane. They wouldn't serve Fresno if only three people wanted to board.

Bill followed up by asking how much encouragement Southwest gave about serving Fresno.

Valadao conceded that the answer was none.

Then followed up by saying he was interested in knowing how much it would cost to widen the highways and improve the airports.

At this point, the floor was opened to the public. People could line up and ask questions to either a specific speaker or anyone who was willing to answer.

The first question was
-Does the legislature need to further approve this project or is it ready to begin?
David Valadao responded that no, it just needs continued funding.
Elizabeth Alexis said the project will keep coming to the state for more funds, and that will have to be approved.
Mike Villines disagreed with Elizabeth, saying that the money exists, and the people voted for it, and it's ready to be built.
Elizabeth replied by saying that nothing can be built until they have enough money to build a real operating initial segment.

Next question was a speaker from Tulare County that was directed at Valadao. It was less of a question, an more of a statement. I will paraphrase the legnthy statement he made:
"Valadao, you were only just elected recently. We've been talking about this for much longer. Hanford asked for rail to go through the farm and not the city. Visalia asked for rail to come closer to them. The county approved this. The HSR people listened to what the elected officials wanted and that's why the route goes the way it does. To say they aren't listening is wrong, that's why the route is what it is. And obviously rail can't following existing transportation corridors exactly. Rail can't go down A street and make a sharp right on 1st street*, that's impossible. So yes, rail has to curve and cut through land.. It's hypocritical to say there was no public process."
*Ed note: The speaker used different street names, I presume real ones, but I didn't note them.

*large applause from the back of room, where FSU students sat*

Valadao answered that no, that wasn't true. The county didn't ask for this

The person asking the question interrupted to ask "You're saying the county did NOT ask for this? Because I was at the meeting when they did"

Valadao said he would like to see the record of the meeting.

Elizabeth jumped in to say that while Visalia did want a station, the county did not. She said Kings county didn't want HSR through their cities or through their farmland, but decided to side with the cities because it was better to agree with their request then to not do anything at all.

The person asking the question finished by saying he knew the documents exist.

The next person (from Fresno) said he is a fan of Amtrak northbound, but not southbound, because he refuses to ride a bus. He asked why don't they start building between Bakersfield and LA?

Daniel Krause said that they need a straight section of track to start with.

The person asking the question interrupted to say that the desert is straight, and Daniel Krause said no, there are mountains.

David Valadao added that he agreed, and they should totally start between Bakersfield and LA.

Next question: "Does nobody remember what happened with Diablo Canyon? This thing will cost us $100bn and that doesn't even include the electricity? Where does the electricity come from?" the question continued for quite a bit of lengthy time before the moderator interrupted him and told him to ask a question. He ended with "why are we buying trains from the communist china? We need to do this in America, go america!"
*crowd cheers*

Mike Villines began by saying that all the construction will be local and American. The person asking the questions interrupted with "but the trains, where do the trains come from! They're communist trains!"
Mike Villines continued by talking about how California is the busiest air corridor in the country, and we can't add flights, we need trains.

The next question was "Why not follow I-5?'

Daniel Krause responded that the train needs to serve the people. The person asking the question said the CV doesn't matter and nobody from the CV will ride the train anyway, it should follow the I-5. Daniel Krause just repeated that the train's job is to go where the people are.

The next question was directed at Mike Villines. The person talked about how the pro-HSR people never say real numbers, and the anti-HSR people always come prepared with lots of numbers. He said that if the HSR people want to talk to him about buying his land, they need to come with real numbers. He also asked how the initial segment will run without electricity.

Mike Villines stated that we all get numbers on Tuesday.

The person asking the question continued: We get no information, they don't give us maps or numbers, they don't tell us anything. He says he found out the line will run through his land because a neighbor told him, and he called the HSR people and they denied it, but eventually he got hold of a map that confirmed his land was going to be taken. And even then, he had to take a picture of the map because he wasn't allowed a copy.

Elizabeth agreed and said the process was broken and that the HSR people don't tell anyone anything. She went on to talk about how the process should be like France, and they need to hold 3,000 conversations before drawing a single map.

The next person to ask a question was a man from the Fresno Hispanic Chamber of commerce and the regular Chamber of Commerce. He said he agreed we need to talk numbers - unemployment numbers. He stated that our ancestors left us Hoover Damn, Eerie Canal, etc, what will this generation leave the next ones?
*I believe there was some audience booing*

Valadao began his answer by saying that the best way to create jobs is to have a smaller government. he said that HSR won't create jobs, it will destroy 6,000-15,000 jobs in Fresno alone. he said that HSR will kill private jobs to try to build government jobs, and that always fails.

The man who asked the question continued "We need the money for jobs, we have the money, are you saying we should throw it away?"
*audience shouts yes, boo, throw it out etc*

Elizabeth stated that while the job situation was serious, HSR is not the only solution. She repeated the idea that just 2,000 jobs will actually be created from the project (her "real" numbers)

She then went on to say that because HSR is funded from the general fund, teachers will lose their jobs, as schools will compete with rail for funding. She stated that the current businesses along the line are located there because they like being by freight rail, and once they're gone, they'll disappear forever because the location advantage is gone.

She then made the comment that FURTHER job losses would come when firms in places like SF, that have satellite branches in Fresno, close their valley branches because HSR would be SO convenient that these businesses would have no need to have offices in the valley- their employees would simply come for the day as needed.

The moderator, Bill, then asked "What firms are these based in SF with branches in the valley...?"

Elizabeth replied "like insurance companies and such". She said they'll all consolidate in SF.

And at this point it was 8:45pm and I had agreed to meet someone at 9pm, so I had to step out.

Hope you enjoyed the notes!

High Speed Rail discussion tonight at Fresno State - open to public

2011-10-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

Fresno State will be hosting a town-hall style debate tonight on High Speed Rail.

Thursday night at Fresno State, Elizabeth Alexis of CARRD and Daniel Krause, Executive Director of Californians For High Speed Rail will join former Republican Assemblymember Mike Villines for a debate on HSR moderated by Fresno Bee columnist Bill McEwen. The debate is at 7PM in Fresno State’s Satellite Student Union.

California High Speed Rail Blog

The debate is open to the public.

Hear a buzzing sound when connecting laptop to TV? This is how to fix it

2011-10-27T01:44:00.000-07:00

This has been getting a lot of hits, so clearly, it's a common problem! If this advice helps you, or does not help you, I'd appreciate it if you could leave a comment so I can see if the instructions need to be clearer (ie, more pictures and whatnot).

This is 100% unrelated to anything else on this blog, but I am submitting it on the off chance that my recent experience can help someone else out there. Like a public service announcement! I did a few Google searches to help me solve this problem and the web was full of bad advice, although eventually I did find the right solution, which I present below.

The setup:
Connected laptop to TV via RGB cable and simple audio cable. Video came in fine. Audio was mostly fine, except for one problem....

The problem: When laptop was plugged into electricity, the TV speakers made a very annoying buzzing noise. When running off battery, no such noise. Laptop is old, and battery lasts less than an hour, requiring it to be plugged in. What an odd problem to have!

The good news is that there is an easy solution.

Technical name for problem: Electrical interference caused by loop in grounding wires. Basically, when the laptop was plugged in, and the TV/speakers were plugged in, they managed to interfere with each other in some magic electrical way.

Solution: 50 cent three prong to two prong adapter.

Purchased this little thing at the hardware store. 2 for 99 cents.

Three prongs go in one side, two prongs come out the other.

Simply plugged laptop into adapter and then adapter into wall.

Buzzing noise has been vanished forever. Hooray!

So if you have this problem, try this very simple solution!

Further advice if the problem persists:
Note that the adapter has a little metal loop which tries to make contact with a screw in the outlet and act as a grounding device. This will obviously cause the problem to return. Either bend that piece of metal back or remove if it makes contact and the problem returns.

If the problem still exists, try using a second adapter on the TV or speaker system as well to avoid grounding those and encountering interference.

Why do people think that parking in downtown Fresno is hard?

2011-10-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a forum downtown about development in south Fresno. The mayor of Fresno, Ashley Swearengin, spoke.

Unfortunately, we had to sit and wait because the mayor was late. Honestly, it's not a big deal, we only had to wait around 10 minutes, and other speakers were given the opportunity to "cut in line" and say their part first.

My concern was the excuse given by the speaker.

"Apparently she is circling the block trying to find a parking spot, I'm sure you all understand."

Actually, no. The vast majority of those in attendance were lower income hispanic or asian immigrants concerned about their neighborhood. I'd bet a large percentage took the bus to get to this event.

I drove. But it blew my mind that the speaker could stand in front of 400+ people and suggest that finding parking was hard. You see, the event was held in the convention center complex. Like most convention centers, an enormous parking garage was built for the demand. And like every other garage downtown, it is free after 6pm and all day on weekends. This even was held at 7pm.

You'd think the speaker of an event focused on downtown development would sort of know this.

The garage is pretty much attached to the room where the event was held.

In red, Valdez Hall. Does parking appear to be scarce? Remember, every spot you see in this picture is free after 6pm.

The massive garage is almost literally attached to the hall.

And it has 1,565 parking spots.

Parking was not scarce. I decided to explore the 2nd floor. The ground floor had some cars. The second floor...?

I'd assume the 3rd floor, 4th floor, and roof were just as....crowded.

I really don't understand why the myth of "parking is hard downtown" continues to exist. It's so far removed from reality, it almost seems like a joke sometimes.

And it's frustrating that members of the government continue to distribute this myth. Have people really been so conditioned by 12 acres of surface parking in front of their destination that locating it anywhere else is just too damn confusing?

Fulton Mall should have holiday specials to attract crowds

2011-10-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

The PBID Partners of Downtown Fresno recently hired a new president, Kate Borders from Milwaukee. One of their first orders of business with the new head was voting to destroy the mall, and turn it into just another street. A week later, the mayor's office released her preference on what to do with the mall, and her preference was to return it to cars while leaving some token reminders of what once was.

Fortunately, things move slow in politics, and when funds are tight, even slower. As such, even if the mayor gets her way, the Fulton Mall will be around at least until 2014.

For many in Fresno, the reasons to go downtown are few. 40,000 people work in the downtown core, but have little incentive to stay after work. The PBID doesn't have the money or power to transform downtown in one swoop, but can continue bringing people downtown with the same kind of events that have been working for the last few years. That is, even though they voted in favor of destroying the mall, they, nor the city, actually has the money to go through with it.

So let's focus on using what we have. We all know that is a chicken and egg problem with downtown being a proper destination. Few retailers want to set up downtown because they lack (affluent) customers. Few affluent customers want to go downtown because the stores and restaurants they want aren't there.

It is very hard to find a trigger that will allow a pioneering store or restaurant to thrive long enough for others to join them. Indeed, various restaurants have set up shop and failed, and few retailers wish to go first.

I don't live downtown, and I don't work downtown anymore. As such, in the past year, I've gone downtown for the following reasons:

-Cinco de Mayo events
-Mexican independence day events (fiestas patrias)
-Grizzlies game
-Fresno Fuego game
-Amtrak station
-Concerts

I doubt I'm alone. Most people have no problem going downtown for entertainment events, the problem is there aren't enough of them.

Indeed, the PBID are the people who help plan and host many of these events on the Fulton Mall. Their website lists 10 events, held throughout the year, and some like the Cinco de Mayo festival are wildly successful.

I think that Kate Borders should expand on these events to continue to draw people downtown.

Let's start with the upcoming holiday season. The holidays are when most retailers make their money, so it's the most important time to bring people downtown.

What will bring people downtown? Well, we can start by looking at what people actually do for fun in December. In Fresno, that means driving around neighborhoods and looking at Christmas decorations.

Fresno and Clovis have three major Christmas light attractions. Christmas Tree Lane in Fig Garden, Huntington Boulevard near downtown, and Wawona Estates in northwest Fresno.

You can read about them in this Bee article.

One thing these three attractions have in common is that they rely on driving. Because of a lack of sidewalks, and because the neighborhoods are strictly residential, thousands of cars descend on these local streets. The amount of cars then limits walking activities because people don't feel safe walking in the same road.

As a result, the entire month of December sees giant traffic jams from 6pm to 10pm every evening. It's not optimal for anyone. The residents have trouble getting to their garages, and those who come to enjoy the lights get a sub-par experience. Seeing the lights from behind glass isn't as great, and the passengers on the left side of the vehicle get obstructed views.

Further, one cannot set their own pace. Once you're in "line" you're stuck. These meandering cul-de-sacs have limited exits, so drivers cannot come and go as they please. Speeds are restricted by the slowest vehicle, and occasionally you get the unfortunate experience of getting stuck in front of some idiot in a giant pickup truck who won't turn off his headlights.

To address these concerns, Christmas Tree lane offers two walking nights, where cars are banned, and is proposing a bike night this year.

But we can do better. Indeed, Fulton Mall can do better. And quite frankly, it doesn't take much originality to come up with a successful way to draw thousands.

Combine the two traditional events that draw hundreds of thousands of people around the country:
1) Christmas Tree lighting
2) Decorations

Imagine Fulton Mall lit up to rival to setups in these existing roads. But instead of observing the lights from your car, you can walk the length of the mall at your own pace.

No, Im not talking about something boring like this (which should be set up in surrounding streets)

Boise

But a full on display, like what private homes do when they go crazy

A home in Boston

Source

You set up something like that, and people will come to gawk at it.

Having this settup on the mall also makes things easy for families.

Have kids with tiny bladders? On Christmas Tree lane...you're screwed. Traffic flows one way and there's no escape. At Fulton Mall, you could stop for the bathroom whenever you want.

And how about food and drink? The mall works best when full of vendors, and nothing says "Christmas" like warm comfort food on a cold foggy day.

Hot Chocolate. Roasted Nuts. Caramel Popcorn. Heated Wine. Pretzels. And yes, tacos.

Imagine Fulton Mall lined with vendors selling all the holiday favorite foods. That's something none of these residential roads can set up.

How about a group of carolers entertaining visitors while they eat and drink?

Of course, the anchor would be a giant Christmas tree. Los Angeles as an outdoor pedestrian mall called The Grove which is immensely popular. Their tree lighting ceremony is even broadcast on TV nationwide.

The Grove outdoor mall

Source

One of the sad parts about the mall could be used as a benefit. The mall has many vacant storefronts. This is a perfect opportunity to allow artists to set up holiday presentations that must be isolated from the rain. Imagine a giant recreation of Bethlehem in what was an old bank. People can view the display from the windows, or even step inside.

Other retail spots could be leased to craft vendors and such. Homemade Christmas decorations, flower arrangements, wood carvings, affordable but thoughtful gifts. Again, impossible in the residential streets and unlikely at a corporate regional mall like Fashion Fair.

So what would help set the mall apart in terms of decoration? The block structure could be used to create multiple independent exhibitions. That is, multiple themes.

The area by the security bank could be decorated in the classic style. Think white lights, holly, candles and so on. Hand carved decorations and art.

Another block could be more modern. Think of the flashing light displays set to music, with animated animals and such.

Yet another block could be devoted to different faiths or different styles of decoration.

The best part is, there's room for even more.

This fall, Casino One hosted a beach party downtown.

ABC 30

Sand was brought in, a giant slide was set up, as were portable pools.

You can do the same for Christmas. Giant slide is now a sledding slide. Instead of pools, you can have the kind of temporary ice skating rinks set up at malls around the country. Instead of sand, a snow machine or two could create actual flurries on the mall.

Again, something unique to differentiate Holiday on the Mall from the existing events. There's no way residential street can get together and set up something like that.

So how about it PBID? You could draw thousands of people to the mall over two or three weekends. And because the exhibition would be based on lights, the mall would be full when it usually is dead, after dark. I'm sure the existing retailers would love it.

Amtrak needs to work on their press relations

2011-10-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I posted about how Amtrak California has been breaking ridership records. That post has gotten a awful lot of views, and it's been linked to when other people want to point to a source of how many people are riding trains.

That got me thinking about why the real media hasn't reported on the gains made in these individual lines. If a real newspaper had written a similar article to what I did, most people would have preferred to link to that. Take for example the widely read California High Speed Rail blog which linked to my page to make a point about increasing ridership. Sure, my charts are amazing, but while my numbers are real (sourced straight from the Amtrak financial documents of course) I wouldn't blame Robert or anyone else from preferring to cite a major newspaper rather than a lowly blog. That makes it obvious that no other form of media had reported the news.

A quick check to the Amtrak websites confirmed what I suspected, that Amtrak doesn't usually bother to send out press releases highlighting performance of individual lines.

You may have seen your local paper report that nationally, Amtrak hit new highs. The Fresno Bee ran a small blurb that basically said this:

Amtrak announced last week that it had 30.2 million passengers in 2011 — more riders than in any of its previous 40 years of operation.

That's certainly important to get out there, but it doesn't really connect with the reader. A fiscal year isn't a very relateable period of time, and national stats are obviously not indicative of local performance.

But knowing how many people are riding the train that hits your city every month? That's more of an article.

In this case, Amtrak actually did send out a press release (PDF) related to the San Joaquin in late September....three weeks before the July financial report was released to the public.

Operating between Oakland, Sacramento, and Bakersfield with bus service to Los Angeles and other points, the San Joaquin carried more than a million passengers in the state’s fiscal year that ended in June 2011, a 6.7 percent increase over the previous year. It also had the highest ridership of any month in its 37-year history -- 103,933 riders in July 2011.

That's a start, but for whatever reason, local media didn't bite. I think once again the problem was highlighting annual ridership figures, which are too abstract. Another problem was that any reporter wanting to look at month-on-month changes would have to dive into financial reports, the press release didn't provide more background data that may be of use.

The graphic isn't bad however, but again, limited to annual numbers.

What Amtrak should do is be more aggressive about promoting the ridership gains. Almost every single line in the country has experienced gains in ridership this year, and Amtrak should release highly targeted information to the media in locations where the trains run. Only the San Joaquin got a press release, even though the Pacific Surfliner also hit new highs, as have other lines around the country. It doesn't make sense that in the past month, the only two releases related to ridership were the national number and the San Joaquin number.

In fact, Amtrak should aim to get as local as possible. Don't just highlight how many people are riding the San Joaquin every year, send the Fresno Bee a release on how many people, per day, are alighting at the Fresno Station. Do this for Hanford, for Bakersfield, for Modesto...all the way down the line. Obviously, Amtrak would be selective with which numbers they highlight, but when it comes to something Like July 2011, when pretty much everything is up, there's certainly a lot to choose from.

It would certainly be better press than the "Amtrak hits truck" news that we gete every month or so.

Reminder: "Symposium Fresno: A Future of Oppertunities" to be held later today

2011-10-19T23:49:00.000-07:00

I'd almost forgotten about this! Lot's of interesting speakers.

Who: Fresno Future Project
When: October 20, 2011 at 5pm
What: A discussion about urban, economical and cultural developments in Fresno.
Speakers include Fresno State professors, government representatives and more.
Where: Fresno Art Museum

Admission is free, but RSVP is required.

The complete flyer with the full list of speakers, contact info and a description of the conversation topics can be found at:

http://fresnofuture.org/images/presentation/FresnoFuture-Flyer.pdf

Amtrak California breaks ridership records. Yes, again.

2011-10-19T23:05:00.000-07:00

If this post feels familiar it's because Amtrak has been having a very good year, and the California routes have especially been enjoying a surge in riders. The Pacific Surfliner is now the second most popular train line in the nation, beating out the Acela for the #2 spot.

I wonder if all the High Speed Rail press has been working as an advertising campaign for passenger rail in the state?

Just two weeks ago, Amtrak belatedly released their June report, showing the San Joaquin breaking 100,000 for the first time. That was an increase from April, in which the California trains also experienced new records.

Well, records are meant to be broken, and the July number show some more impressive gains.

San Joaquin
The San Joaquin, serving Bakersfield to Oakland and Bakersfield to Sacramento, with 6 trains a day (each way) had 103,933 riders, up from 100,947 in June. This is an all time high for the line.

Of course this means more riders than in July 2010, which at the time was a new high, with 98,377. July 2009 saw 88,505.

What's especially exciting about these numbers is that the planned High Speed Rail line will begin construction in the central valley next year. The line will follow the current Amtrak route from Bakersfield to north of Fresno, before diverging. Many editorials criticized the initial construction segment, calling it "nowhere". Apparently, "nowhere" is a popular place to ride the train, more so than so called "somewheres" along the East Coast (see final chart).

The summer is traditionally the best time of the year for the San Joaquin. Here are the past 13 months.

Year over year improvement, the last three July's have each seen new highs

Pacific Surfliner
The real star of the Amtrak California system. The main focus of this route is to serve San Diego and Los Angeles, but some trains do continue north to Santa Barbara and onto San Luis Obispo.

This July, the train saw an amazing 279,908 riders blowing past the previous all time high of 263,417 set in July of 2010. Last month, the line had 239,984 passengers, so that's an amazing 40,000 new riders from one month to the next. It must be noted that the June->July transition has always shown a large change. July of 2009 saw 256,410 riders.

Like the San Joaquin, each July has exceeded the previous July.

The last 13 months.

Capitol Corridor

This line offers service between Sacramento and San Jose, via Oakland. It is a busy commuter route, and popular with people doing business in Sacramento.

Unlike the other line, the peak is traditionally not in July. As such, it's the only line not breaking a record. 141,767 rode this July, down from 145,495 last month. However, that is the slightest increase over July 2010, which saw 141,479. Both are well above 2009, with 134,746.

The peak is a bit earlier in the year.

Still up year over year, but barely.

And here's how they all look together over the past year.

Finally, here is how the lines compare with the national network.