Mark's Notebook

Crawling through Fresno

The worst part of visiting Fresno is that it seems to take longer to get through town there than to get there.

It is 150 miles from San Jose to Fresno. Mapquest says it will take 2.75 hours, but it can be done in 2.25 hours if you take no breaks.

But once you get there, it takes another 22 minutes to cross from Highway 99 to Cedar Avenue along Herndon Avenue. (When we left town, it took 19 minutes to do the reverse.)

It's only about eight or nine miles across town, and the speed limit is 50 mph most of the way. So why should it take so long? We had to stop at every traffic light along the way. They are not syncronized.

So I'm happy to read this ABC30 article indicating that traffic signal syncronization is in the works. "The Fresno County grand jury named traffic as Fresno's number one problem and accused the city of lacking the commitment to fix it."

But since when does it take a flippin' grand jury to get involved to fix these things?

Fresno seems like a nice place to live in many ways, and I've often considered buying a retirement home there. But traffic has been their number one problem as long as I can remember (since the early 1980's) and they seem to be doing nothing about it.

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Last updated Tuesday 13 May 2008