I'm way late on responding to this but you speak the truth as far as people getting out of their cars and taking mass transit. Another problem with people from fresno and i'm from fresno is that they don't go to city hall and speak their minds about what problems our city faces.

The Las Vegas Bombardier Monorail cost $660million for the four mile system.

Monorail is good

yeaaa..

nice 3D rendering :)

Seems like the idea is unpopular...

Does everyone know that I thought of the trolley system first?

ever notice the various pages with images of the Fresno Monorail?

near City Hall

stadium

http://www.taxi2000.com

http://zexiongtech.com/monorail.aspx

http://www.skytrain.org

While my knee jerk reaction is normally to accuse light rail critics of being Republicans, I can appreciate that even liberals in my old hometown of Fresburg may be addicted to your automotive lifestyle. You literally can't see the forest for the trees because of the smog you people generate, causing you to question the wisdom of building light rail by claiming, among other things, that there isn't enough density to support it.

Memo to the Neocons and Neocons in liberal clothing: the reason there isn't any density is because your selfish, lazy, oil war-causing lifestyle has warped your city beyond all recognition, draining it of any density and fostering a climate of distrust and frustration with mass transit because you spend 90% of your transit dollars on freeway and road construction and maintenance!

NINETY PERCENT!

That means that the 50% of citizens who can't or won't drive---the poor, the working poor, the elderly, the young, the disabled, racial minorities, single moms and college students---have to make due with just 10% of the available transit dollars left over.

This, my fine fellow Fresnerds, is a racket, perpetrated by Neocon-owned oil and weapons companies who profit from war in oil-rich Arab nations and Neocon landowners in far-flung parts of town who sit on transit boards plotting to get taxpayers to build freeways directly to their land, where ever-newer, low-density housing subdivisions can be built, while older parts of town crumble.

Stop putting the cart before the horse.

You'll get density when you build light rail.

Not the other way around.

If you're liberal, meanwhile, and don't want Arab blood on your hands or smog in your children's lungs, then you better start demanding more equitable spending when it comes to transit projects.

50% of public money spent on public transit and tax incentives for high-density residential and commercial development near public transit hubs is a good start. Getting rid of your car and moving closer to your work or schools---or better yet--- moving to downtown and joining the revitalization efforts there is an even better one.

But you're not going to get anywere criticizing mass transit or listening to those who do.

Good luck, Fresburg!

Mykel
San Francisco

-s

I say we make GM buy us a new trolley. After all it's GM that bought all the rail lines and replaced them with a bus system. Jerks.

Well, let's see...

The City Council cut all dollars for Bubba's moronic idea out of the budget, BUT left in money for the Sports Town (which would occupy the same space on Kern Street--can't Bubba make his mind what he wants to do).

The City will condemn the old Gottschalks building, to get rid of the Mercado--which City Hall has hated since Day One.

A little bird tells me all entitlement requests for development along the River Walk have been frozen. If you're a small businessman who wants to open a business and need a permit or other entitlement--FORGET it.

The just unveiled City's plan did talk about T.O.D.( Transit Oriented Development) along the trolley line. This is the density needed for public transit to work. Will it work with only one line traveling up an down Fulton and on to Tower District . Probably not. It would need to canvas the entire city and /or suburbs/ valley to make the ridership high enough to justify the cost.
The city has made it legal to build mixed use developments and they are in the beginning stages of allowing adaptive reuse of old buildings. All of these things will help increase the density and 24 hours life needed to make a light rail work. Increasing the minimum density of developments would be very helpful but has met resistance from builders who are leery of losing money on a new type of development style other then the upper end single family house. The city is moving in the right direction as far as planning but incentives will probably be needed to get developers and investors to take the financial plunge.
I think the trolleys and light rails are old technology and there are newer and more advanced transit that can be built cheaper. This cost savings and the boon to the air quality maybe enough to persuade the private, public and local government to take a closer look.

Although San Jose and Sacramento's light rail systems are really cool and give their cities that hip/urban feel, they aren't as successful as we would like to think.

Both have ridership issues and have been financially disadvantageous for their cities. Light rail systems such as those or the San Diego Trolley are awesome but incredibly expensive and do not prove to be worthwhile unless the city has the population density to support it. Unless it is faster and cheaper to ride the light rail (despite how cool it would be to commute on a train!) people will still opt for their cars, naturally. So as fun as the idea for bringing back the trolley to connect downtown and Tower is.....we are not even close to having the density to support it.

And what about the 'build it and they will come' philosophy in this situation? Unfortunately, there are so many factors that enter the equation in enticing development to concentrate in a certain area that in all reality it is unlikely that by building a trolley/light rail train from downtown to Tower that developers will start to develop small, high density nodes of activity and condos and shops at certain points along the line. Other infrastructure is needed (such as economic incentives, political will, design guidelines, density minimums, etc.) that we don't currently have in place in Fresno.

I hate to rain on the light rail in Fresno party, but so much more goes into building those systems....such as policy mandating a more dense city....encouraging density nodes (and in the right places). Policy with teeth and not wishful thinking.

Boy, critiquing other users comments sure makes me feel better about myself.

Note to Self:

Before going to do something 'innovative' check for the following:

-Money

-testicles

---Okay, good to go.

(...why does this sound incorrect, somehow???)

I actually like the trolly idea. First it would allow people to park for free in the tower, then ride the rails to downtown. It seems to have worked in San Jose and Sacramento where they have built similar light rail systems. Also, the kind of people who would consider making downtown a "destination", are the same people that already make the tower a destination. So why not connect the two? If Fresno only had the money and the balls to do something innovative.

the people that ran the city back in the late 30's should have never gotten rid of the old Railcar system Fresno had back then.

you could take the Wishon line north to Forkner and out the Fresno Beach next to the San Joaquin River, it was a 30 minute ride from downtown.