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…Survey asks: Is Fresno's mass transit in its current form going nowhere and fast?
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In two unrelated Council of Fresno County Governments’ COG OUTLOOK articles, “Monorail for Fresno?” and “We asked, you answered,” there is information in each article that, frankly, awes and causes me to want to look deeper into the thinking behind some of the statements or statistics brought out in the two articles in question.
Here is how the former opened:
“The Fresno Area Sky Train (FAST) Committee’s mission to develop and construct a comprehensive bus and fixed guide-way transportation system for the Fresno/Clovis metropolitan area, has led them to research the feasibility of monorail in Fresno,” wrote John Villeneuve, in the November 2003 COG OUTLOOK issue.
The “research” referenced by Villeneuve was elaborated on further in the “Sky Train” item when the author noted: “FAST has commissioned a group of Professors and Research Assistants from the California Polytechnic State University, who have completed a paper called ‘A Preliminary Analysis of the Feasibility of Application of a Fixed Guide Way Monorail Technology as a means for Economic Redevelopment of Fresno’.”
Further, Villeneuve wrote: “Previously, similar projects have been rejected because they do not fit the density criteria determined to insure success. The FAST Committee believes other criteria such as the cost of urban sprawl and maximum utilization of existing infrastructure offer equally compelling reasons for project success, and must be researched prior to rejecting a project like this outright.”
The initial report, according to the author, completed in July 2001, “includes a survey of Fresno residents and overall analysis of Fresno’s demographics, population trends, housing, current transportation characteristics and monorail system cost.”
First of all, that “similar projects have been rejected because they do not fit the density criteria determined to insure success,” in my book is open to interpretation – my own.
I would like to know, “rejected” by whom? And, secondly, development via smart growth practices can create the kinds of urban densities needed to, I believe, “insure success.”
For example, from “The New Transit Town,” edited by Hank Dittmar and Gloria Ohland, Dittmar along with Shelley Poticha in Chapter 2 noted, “In 1996, planners Todd Messenger and Reid Ewing stressed the need for densities in excess of eight units per acre to support bus service on 25-minute headways and more than eleven units per acre to support 15-minute bus service frequencies.”
At the same time, Chapter 2’s authors also revealed, “If transit is inserted into a healthy pedestrian environment, then pedestrians can easily become transit riders. This assumes these environments also have some density and interconnected streets.”
Furthermore, “In 1990, there were 6.3 people per urbanized acre in Fresno County,” according to information in “Model Farmland Conservation Program for Fresno County, Report to the Council of Fresno County Governments by American Farmland Trust, December 2008.” On the other hand, “By 2004, this had risen to only 6.9 people per acre.” But by the same token, it was also established in this report that “Between 1990 and 2004, an acre of land was developed for every 9.4 new residents of Fresno County. This figure includes all land uses within the urban ‘foot-print,’ commercial, industrial and civic, as well as residential development…”
Meanwhile, according to Dittmar and Poticha, the minimum density needed for transit service is seven dwelling units per acre.
In case there is any question whether the kind of density that it takes for successful transit to take root can be created, in the same chapter, Dittmar and Poticha in a highlighted subsection of its own called: “A Note About Transit Technologies,” under “Attracting Development” topic, the authors argued:
“The evidence is quite clear that rail transit, all other things being equal, attracts more intense development and increases return on investment. Developers and employers can count on a rail line to be there, ... “
Therefore, it is probably safe to say that given the information above, monorail and other forms of mass public transit for Fresno, shouldn’t be written off just yet.
And on that note and in reference to “We asked, you answered,” by Tony Boren, via the “Regional Transportation Plan Survey,” a survey whose answers were based on the responses of 2,261 respondents, for two questions posed and the ones presented below, this was the breakdown:
“How likely are you to support an additional 1/2 cent sales tax for improved roads and public transit in Fresno County?
Extremely Likely
30%
Very Likely
22%
Likely
30%
Not Likely
11%
Would not Support
7%”
and
“With the Valley’s air pollution problems (it is estimated that 35% of air pollutants come from mobile sources) to what extent would changes to public transit effect how much you drive?
Not at all, I would never take the bus.
41%
I would take the bus to work if it came more often.
40%
I would take the bus to work if it had fewer stops.
16%
I take the bus to work and its fine
3%”
It is perhaps tough to draw conclusions based on the responses alone to these two survey questions, but why the transit mode in the second question was limited to transit bus and failed to include rail-based public transit, prompts me to want to ask one survey question of my own…
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