Admitedly, “Berlin Wall” is a loaded term. But it is appropriate for what high-speed rail might do to Fresno. That is because the Chinatown and Westside neighborhoods would lose direct access to downtown.
The CHSRA proposes to close Kern, Inyo, and Mono Streets at the rail right-of-way. Tulare and Fresno Streets do get grade separations, but by putting those streets in long subways under the tracks (both freight and HSR tracks) it creates a hostile environment for bikes and peds.
Here we see on the map how HSR creates a 6 block barrier:
Remember, the whole point of HSR was to revitalize urban neighorhoods. This is not the way to go about doing it. And Lord knows, these wrong-side-of-the-tracks streets can use the help:
Systemic Failure 
Bypassing downtown Fresno 2 miles to the southwest would be much cheaper and easier than building the station downtown. That being said, the part of town that would be isolated is mostly an industrial wasteland that shouldn’t be much affected either by the noise or by worse pedestrian access. I don’t think preserving the homeless encampment should be much of a priority.
Inyo is already closed at the tracks, so I’m not sure how CHSRA proposes to close it. Yes, it says “street closure” on the plans, but your own map shows it’s already closed.
Kern is being closed, but Mariposa is being connected, as a pedestrian-only route through a well-lit station concourse. It’s not fair to note that putting Tulare in a subway – Fresno already is – is detrimental to pedestrians, but simultaneously ignore the attractive pedestrian crossing through the station.
So that leaves Mono. Once it’s closed, your “Berlin Wall” is a 0.35 mi distance between the Tulare and Ventura crossings. (If further closures south of the station are proposed, there should be a ped bridge or subway, I agree.)
You may also have noticed in your map a three-block street closure two friggin’ blocks away from the HSR station, caused by the 99. I’m not going to say that freeways through the middle of cities have no effect – they were terrible – but it is disingenuous to pretend that the HSR station is the only thing preventing the area from being a walker’s paradise of tightly-connected, fine urban fabric blocks.
You can’t have it both ways.
Either HSR with stations in the hearts of Fresno and Bakersfield and the like is going to lead directly to Transit Oriented Development nirvana, or the city hearts are so blighted by freeways and rail lines and homeless shelters that concreting over a bit more and blasting 220mph(!!!!!!) trains through non-stop is more of the same.
So either you go for maximally human-oriented stations — with human-scale accessibility and human-friendly structures and all rail traffic at sub-125mph; or … you’re operating a Flight Level Zero surrogate airline through Flyover Country, letting out a giant concrete and sound “fuck you!” as you pass.
Why would somebody volunteer for the latter? (It’s easy to understand why somebody would “choose” it as part of an “alternatives” “analysis”: it’s the perfect combination of maximizing cost and highway-style “engineering” — the only things that those involved know how to do.)
So, what’s the motivation for this sprt monstrosity going to be? TOD fairyland? Or Just Another Freeway but Even Louder so It Doesn’t Matter Anyway? Get your story straight and stick to it!
Let me repeat: *Mariposa is being connected, as a pedestrian-only route through a well-lit station concourse.*
“Admitedly, ‘Berlin Wall’ is a loaded term. But it is appropriate for what high-speed rail might do to Fresno.”
This is so disrespectful and hurtful to so many people. The Berlin Wall separated millions of families for 27 years. They would not be able to see each other. The estimates are, that in those years, between 100 and 200 human beings were killed at the Berlin Wall, because they tried to escape from communistic Eastern Germany to democratic Western Germany.
So, this is not what high-speed rail what do to Fresno.
Then in 1989, it took millions of brave eastern-german people, having to fear harsh consequences from the eastern-german secret police, to go onto the streets, to protest, peacefully, to bring down the Berlin Wall, and the communistic government, in a peaceful revolution without bloodshed.
It’s so immensely out of place, so extremely uncalled for, to consciously make this false statement that high-speed rail might bring a “Berlin Wall” to Fresno.
It’s so extremely insulting to the hundreds that died in their escape to freedom, and the millions who suffered because of it, and possibly helped to bring it down, to make these absurd comparisons only for a cheap argument against rail or public transportation or transit-oriented development or whatever.
“That is because the Chinatown and Westside neighborhoods would lose direct access to downtown.”
Possibly having to walk, cycle or drive an extra 500 feet is NOT an appropriate comparison for not being able to travel out of your country for 27 years (a country the size slightly smaller than Tennessee, that is), because that’s what the Berlin Wall did, besides so many other things.
One can debate about urban planning. And though it seems like high-speed rail will bring a lot of benefits to California, one of course can also debate about the sense of high-speed rail in California.
Now one could list all the reasons why high-speed rail does make a lot of sense in California. Though they are probably known to most of the readers here, as well as to the anonymous “Drunk Engineer”. It’s just obvious that it doesn’t make sense to try to seriously debate with human beings, who willingly try to prevent serious debate with these remarks so out-of-place, hurtful and disrespectful.
Spare me the crocodile tears.
And for the record: my family escaped across the iron curtain.
Just as said before, the anonymous person here willingly stated that “Berlin Wall” is an appropriate term for what high-speed rail might do to Fresno. Instead of maybe saying something along the lines of “I do recognize the suffering of the people who died at the Berlin Wall in their quest for freedom, and I do recognize the enormous effort of the eastern-German people bringing it down, and I do recognize that – quite the opposite – nobody’s gonna die by a closure of two local roads in Fresno”, the anonymous author even tramples on the feelings of the people affected by it even more, by saying “spare me crocodile tears”. So in that logic of the anonymous writer, lamenting the closure of Kern and Mono street in Fresno, so that pedestrians possibly have an extra 0.1 mile of way, is by no way “crocodile tears”, instead when being deeply sad that the suffering of millions of people affected by the Berlin Wall is belittled, and turned into a cheap anti-rail argument, that is “crocodile tears”. It seems like most people who tried to escape into freedom across the Berlin Wall, or were separated from their family for decades because of it, then would not in their dreams even remotely think about using this comparison.
Inyo is already closed, Kern terminated a block away. Mono is by Ventura. Its not an enormous issue, as folks moving that way have to deal with the 99 as well. The station will do plenty to revive chinatown.
Yeah, you have the wrong end of the stick on this one, again.
Stick to criticizing the Bakersfield Station (what the hell are they thinking there?) and the Tulare/Visalia one (really, take a look at those crazy proposals).
[…] months ago, I outlined the many bike/ped access problems in the Fresno HSR Station Plans. It appears Fresno city planners have the same […]