For those of you unable to attend, M. W. Steele Group presented the following 1st draft of the Tower District streetscape master plan to the community meeting Tuesday night for feed back. Click on the images to zoom in.
I’ve decided just to post the plans here and not issue an opinion. Feel free to discuss here and I’ll try to answer any questions you have. On a side note, there is an essay I wrote about the Tower District and public space in 2005 that was a finalist for the Berkeley Prize. The full version isn’t online but check out the abstract.
For opinions and discussions focused mainly on the proposed traffic circles see:
The Anthro Guys
Gustav’s Groupie
Fresno Beehive
Related posts:
Tower District Streetscape Plan
Q & A with Diego Velasco
Tower District Streetscape charrette video
Critique: Tower District Streetscape Design Charrette
I like the plan except for opening up Van Ness and Wishon/Fulton to 2 way traffic.
“2-way traffic”? Am I understanding that right? They must mean one-way, yeah?
The Fulton alleyway stuff is great. Overall, I like it.
Thanks for the link love. I’m still not entirely convinced that denying something like traffic circles because they lie slightly outside of the historical context of the neighborhood is a strong argument.
Shoot, it was a desert/flood plain for a lot longer than it was a neighborhood. If we’re going to aim for historical context, shouldn’t we rip it all out and plant some grass and tumbleweeds?
Those circles do not fit. They need to be twice as big. There is too much volume on Olive for those to be safe and effective. I wonder what their Traffic Index is.
I like the plan other than those circles.
I’m not intrinsically opposed to the traffic circles, but I don’t quite understand the added benefit in this context (I don’t think I’m alone in that). I’d like to see a detailed pro vs. con list.
I honestly think the only thing that would make the traffic circles ineffective would be the light at Broadway.
Otherwise, my thought with the traffic circles would be to reduce traffic speeds and maybe even volume so that people who just wanted to commute down Olive or Wishon might be less likely to do so. Let the traffic in that wants to go somewhere in Tower or park but disincentivize the the “flyover” traffic.
I think they’d also lead people to park a little further from the main drag and walk a bit more. Less cars, more pedestrians. I call it a hybrid of Fulton and what Olive is now.
Fulton Mall that is.
Two way traffic reduces overall traffic speed, and also confusion. I don’t see these traffic circles as working. The Specific Plan called for elimination of the one way streets, but it’s yet to be implemented.
So the reopening of Wishon/Fulton and Van Ness to two-way traffic is being visited. Unless on-street parking is eliminated on Van Ness between Divisadero and McKinley, it is life-threatening to consider two-way traffic there.
A little history: both sets of streets were two-way until the early 1960s. While Wishon/Fulton was wide enough to safely pass two-way traffic, Van Ness was not (it is extremely narrow south of the canal, near Bremer Avenue, and the on-street parking in Van Ness Village created its own problems due to the high pavement crown). I was living on Weldon Avenue at the time and can recall hearing about the increasing number of headon collisions and deaths/serious injuries on that stretch of Van Ness.
The city council seriously considered eliminating on-street parking to reduce the number of crashes, but the apartment house and business owners violently protested against the idea. Eventually, the city decided to convert Van Ness to one-way travel.
When Fulton Mall was built, the downtown traffic patterns were changed, leading to the conversion of Fulton/Wishon to one-way traffic southbound. The Maroa/Wishon couplet was built at Shields leading down to the underpass in the late 1960s, and Wishon was punched through a row of buildings at Olive (the curve south of the Tower Theatre). Prior to that, people going south, turned left on Olive from Wishon and then took an immediate right onto Fulton by the Million Elephant.
At the same time, Palm. McKinley, Shields, Clinton, Fruit and West Avenues were all widened from two to four lanes, wiping out peoples’ front yards and a number of businesses at the main corners.
Likes:
Pop-outs: Love this idea. Often it is difficult to see traffic — especially at Wishon & Fern. This should improve visibility, slow traffic, and enhance the pedestrian experience.
Sidewalk Widening – Street Narrowing: Great! Love the idea of enhancing the walking experience.
New Trees: Fantastic. What kind? It would be great to get drought resistant trees that don’t drop goop on the sidewalk or parked cars.
Mid-Block Crossing: Yeah! Really needed — especially across Fulton to Dollar Tree parking lot and from Teazers to Revue. I think regardless of the businesses that are in those spots, safe crossing is needed. The other ones are great enhancements too.
Shared Pedestrian/Parking Plaza and Pedestrian Alleyway: LOVE IT! Needed for sure. Great enhancement.
New “Parkette”: Fab! Green space always good. Can we get some public art up in there?
Gateway/Entry Monument/Kiosk: If well designed and authentic to the neighborhood, this could be very cool. I’m hoping there is a public process for this as well.
Concerns:
Traffic Circle: Personally, I really like traffic circles. I think they are a nice departure from traditional intersections. However, I have some concerns about adding traffic circles to the Tower District. I know these are traffic-calming devices, but personally, I’ve never noticed that the traffic needs to be calmed in the Tower. The traffic on Olive creeps along pretty slowly. I’m concerned about how the traffic circles will impact the walkability of the intersections and the safety for bike riders. I suppose my biggest concern is I don’t understand the problem the traffic circles are solving. If they aren’t solving a problem, then why add them? If they are solving a problem, can we examine other solutions?
2-Way Traffic: In reading the historic background from Dan Waterhouse’s post, I understand the reason for the one-way traffic. I personally like the one-way streets. Sure if it’s your first visit, you need to understand the concept of one-way streets, but c’mon, it’s not that hard. The traffic is timed. I just need to worry about one direction when pulling out. And if the one-way traffic helps to cut down on head-on collisions, well, really, why change? Like the traffic circles, I don’t understand the problem this is solving. If there is a problem this is solving, what would be an alternative solution?
Re: Two way traffaic on Van Ness and Fulton/Wishon. Really, I can’t see the fuss regarding the suggested change. I am an advocate of the RETURN to to way traffic on these streets. Two way traffic tends to slow traffic down. As it stands now, traffic whizzes past my house (Van Ness) at speeds of up to 55+ MPH. Tell me how safe that is for pedestrians (and other vehicular traffic for that matter). The fact is that the one way conversion was done for only one reason: to move traffic to and from downtown quickly and efficiently to what was then north Fresno (ie, as far north as Shaw) (Hey, we have 41 and the feeway loop now now!). It was done back in the 60’s in conjunction with the concept of “The Golden Mile”. With the failed “Golden Mile” concept came the rezoning of all the grand residential properties along Van Ness from Divasadero to at least Olive Ave from R-1 to C-5. That alone practically killed the neigborhood (try getiing a home loan on a house zoned C-5). Now add in one way traffic and you get exactly what we had for over 35 years-blighted neighborhoods that no one valued except as rentals, apartment/boarding house conversions and marginal office space. The Tower District Specific Plan (adopted 1991) fixed the zoning fiasco and called for the return of two-way traffic. It’s still an up hill battle all the way.
As far as the safety issues, other than the plus factor of slowing traffic down, I just don’t get the assumption that one way traffic reduces crashes. As it stands now there are two lanes of traffic with cars passing each other all the time. They’re just going the same way as opposed to in opposiste directions. The only place I can possibly forsee that there would be any kind of potential problem with street width and on street parking would be just north of Divsadero (and this is basically a problem with density caused by older home conversion to multi-family, ie the “Golden Mile”).
Michael
I LOVE the Fulton Alley way. However, I am concerned about the traffic circles, particularly the one at Olive and Wishon. Imagine a sold out Tower Theatre event and pedestrians trying to cross at that intersection and how the cars in the traffic circle would get all clogged up and mass confusion would ensue. Traffic circles are nice, pretty and very effective when there is not so much pedestrian activity. If our hope with the streetscape plan is to create a more pedestrian friendly environment, which we hope would help get more people into the local businesses, we should anticipate that foot traffic would continue to expand over the years, making the traffic circle highly ineffective and unsafe.
i love the fulton walkway. gawd i love it and i don’t care if this is the only thing that gets accomplished from the plan. when i saw that tuesday night i was starry eyed for quite some time.
i also like the pop out curbing, but it would definitely place me, as an occasional cyclist in traffic more on olive. i’ll deal with that.
i like the traffic circles, but they’re not a deal breaker for me. if they don’t happen, i’m fine.
one thing not on the plan, but brought up @ my table by the city’s traffic engineer was the idea of taking wishon down to one lane with diagonal parking all along it from around hedges. beautiful idea, even if you just take it to two lanes. totally would slow traffic, and give a lot more parking. that diagonal parking could extend all the way up to/through the curve to fulton.
i think the 2 way traffic is a good idea
No go on the traffic circles, but I do support the idea of restoring Fulton and Van Ness to 2-way traffic.
The plan looks fine for walkers and automobiles. Where are the bike lanes? Aren’t there enough parking lots in Tower to eliminate curbside parking on Olive?
glad to know there’s plenty of money laying around to fix Fresno’s most blighted neighborhoods.
Owning a business in the Tower, I travel through these streets everyday, by car and by foot and I can tell you after witnessing how the traffic and people move in this area, 2 Way Traffic would be Great! With one ways, drivers tend to speed through and this is far more dangerous to pedestrians, bicyclists and parked cars than when people are driving in both directions down the same stretch of street. Drivers actually tend to be more cautious when traffic is coming at them, then when they feel like they are speeding alongside others going the same direction. I don’t understand how it can be said that parked cars and the people getting out of them are in more danger with 2 way traffic when there are still 2 lanes of cars driving past them on a one way and more instances of drivers pacing with each other (which means more cars driving side by side continuing through this one way stretch) then if you have cars going in both directions (which don’t pace with each other). Furthermore, anytime you drive through a street which is narrow and there are cars parked along the street it is the Responsibility of Both the drivers and the people getting out the parked cars to look out for traffic so that doors or worse, people do not get hit. Let’s not forget that continuing with the speedier one way traffic on these streets continues to inhibit access to businesses along the way and I’d think the City would want the businesses to succeed, wouldn’t you?
And if even the residents are agreeing that 2 Way Traffic reduces speed, isn’t this a win-win?
I’ve attended both Streetscape meetings so far (and attended the ones years ago too – when we also decided 2 Way Traffic was needed), and have already been in one on one talks with the M.W. Steele group about future artistic involvement. I hope that we can solve this 2 Way Traffic issue.
Some historical clarification….
Sideswipe collisions involving cars traveling in the same direction are considered by traffic engineers as being less damaging to human beings than head-ons. At the time Van Ness/Maroa was converted to one-way travel, 99.9% of vehicles did not have seat belts! A head-on at 30-35 miles per hour involving vehicles san seat belts was considered lethal most of the time.
If the traffic circles were chosen would it be possible for them to be removable such as when the Pride Parade or other events were occurring where it would be easier to navigate without the circle present? I saw some places online where they have also had removable roundabouts/traffic circles.
first impressions:
Van Ness and Olive – that lovely house already has the bus stop practically on its front porch. how on earth can they widen that sidewalk further and leave that poor home any kind of front? or will the bus stop be relocated to their front room?
two-way streets – no thanks, there are enough idiots on the one-way streets. the streets could certainly be improved! but NOT just by changing the signs.
and yet again, I love how everything STOPS just south of Olive, while the Tower suddenly extends almost to Shields Ave. (”North Tower”? pul-ease. I was living here when almost everyone north of Fern claimed to live in the Fresno High area lest they be tainted with the undesirable Tower District brush.) I guess we are good enough to have our lives disrupted by parking and traffic and trash pickup for Tower events, but not quite good enough for neighborhood improvements. we don’t even rate the fancy Tower-style street signs down here.
how about REAL issues – crime, vandalism, the hundreds of halfway homes plunked among resident families because, well, let’s face it, this isn’t Perrin and Champlain. these people are already used to having those types of people around. how about the fact that even with the police dressing station smack on Broadway, graffiti and auto break-ins abound. we live less than a block away and there is broken car window glass on the street almost daily, and always on the weekends. the dressing station clutters the nearby narrow streets with parked cop cars and cops’ (personal) cars, and you may not realize that the cops don’t make very good neighbors. zero deterrent factor and a lot of aggravation and traffic and poor road manners.
I’m sorry, I guess with all Will and Kiel’s marketing puffing, I was expecting more from this plan. I’m seeing the same old insubstantial fluffy surface improvements aimed solely at improving local business, again at the expense of the residents.
there has been a lot of talk about how great a mixed-use neighborhood is. when is it the residents’ turn for improvements to the neighborhood in which we have invested OUR lives, not just livelihoods? WE actually LIVE here, ALL THE TIME.
this plan chokes traffic, making it likely that our residential streets will have an increase in our (already too much) auto traffic. where is the increased parking that will shift much of the event nuisances (parking, garbage, pedestrians vomiting on my front walk or beating on the door at 2 a.m. demanding to use my bathroom) from the residents to Tower business?
how about spending money for some public restrooms? there is certainly a need – there are too many local businesses that can’t accommodate public restrooms. how about turning that eyesore vacant lot at Van Ness and Alhambra into a local park? we can certainly use green space. how about getting the methadone clinic moved to a more industrial and less residential area? or at least somewhere with less traffic, so the junkies aren’t blocking Van Ness every morning when they stagger into the street.
how about rules on cell towers so we don’t have two on the same block, only yards apart in our allegedly city-defined historical neighborhood? (Planned Parenthood parking lot and the eyesore storefronts at Fulton and Belmont, and yes we registered complaints to the city about both. obviously to no avail. can’t blame the property owners, cell tower rent payments usually exceed $1k per month.) how cute if they made them share the same tower and made the tower look like the Tower, maybe with neon.
how about cleaning up the corridors to and from the freeway? I am embarrassed every time I travel up Van Ness or Fulton get off or on the freeway and when I give directions on how to get to my home I tell people to use surface streets so they don’t see the shame that is Fulton and Van Ness. (and on a side note – how can the two-way streets accommodate the freeway ramps built for one-way traffic? these plans are silent as to how the 180 interchange will look with two-way streets.) as I mentioned above, it’s not just a matter of removing the one-way signs.
who is paying for this, anyway? I know We The Taxpayers, but under what guise or pretext?
Considering the initial constraints about what area the money would be used in and how far one-way traffic stretches on both Fulton and Van Ness (Shields to Toulumne), as well as the issues of reworking the 180 interchange, I would think we’d be talking about millions of dollars here rather than hundreds of thousands.
Or are people just suggesting two way traffic in tower? Sounds like a hell of a mess; a lot more than traffic circles.
In an earlier posting, mizsydney mentioned the vacant lot at Van Ness and Alhambra, and its possibilities as green space.
Unless circumstances have changed, the owner (Mike Weil) still has plans to build commercial space there. There’s been a huge stumbling block to that–the lot (which used to be occupied by a house the size of the one currently used by Fresno Wedding Chapel) is zoned for multiple-family housing, not commercial.
A local non-profit investigated the possibility of leasing the lot (since the City has no plans to rezone it) and turning it into a pocket park several years ago. The owner was less than excited about the idea. Last I heard, he is not interested in selling either.
Ok…first of all. I was one of the people who would voice out all this great improvements being done to Fresno, but today I realized something….
I hate to be a party pooper here…but we just saw what happened to the met where 28 million dollars of remodeling were used…15 of those used were given by the city. And now the city is in more debt. Which means that they can’t pay the state. So now the state’s in more debt. And that means the country is in more debt. And that means we’re in debt and the situation is not getting any better.
So my whole point here is, do we really need that right now? I mean, I love clothes and fashion and like to keep my closet updated, but right now my pocket is not in a position for that. So I stick with what I can; well, more like what I NEED and not what I WANT. Getting my drift here. The money that will be used to make Tower District look nice can be used to make people feel nice. It can be used in so many more ways than this.
Do we really want another Fresno MET occurrence happening just yet?
I LOVE Fresno and always said “this would look good if…” And “you should visit the museum.” “This is going on today in town…” Stuff like that.
Once again, do we really NEED to fix up the way Tower District looks right now or do we just WANT to fix it? Because there’s a difference and I just can’t stop but think of the people who really WANT help because they really NEED help. And the city’s money could be going more there considering what we’re going through right now.
That’s right…traffic circles will look nice with hungry people asking for money!!
Which direction will the angled parking face? Many municipalities are converting their angled parking so that vehicles must reverse in. It’s much safer than having to reverse out.