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?

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.

Or are people just suggesting two way traffic in tower? Sounds like a hell of a mess; a lot more than traffic circles.

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?

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.