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 Apr
13, 2004 The Fresno City Council heard
a presentation from Loretta Lynch similar to the presentation
the night before at the town hall meeting described
below. Ms. Lynch offered the services of her staff
to work with Fresno to establish "Quiet Zones"
wherever possible.
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Apr
12, 2004 Loretta Lynch, one of the five
appointed Public Utilities Commission came to Fresno
at the invitation of Councilman Brian Calhoun and the
City of Fresno to hold a town hall type meeting for
the purpose of discussing rail safety issues. FARRC
Board Members attended and were actively involved in
the discussion that mostly centered around the establishment
of "Quiet Zones." Ms. Lynch outlined
the regulations for the group. FARRC President
pointed out to the 50+ in attendance along with Councilmembers
Brian Calhoun, Tom Boyajian, and Cynthia Sterling that
"Quiet Zones" would serve well to quiet the
whistle blowing but would do nothing to solve the many
other problems and that rail consolidation was really
the answer.
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on any image for a larger view
Apr
1, 2004 The Center for Advanced
Research and Technology (CART) held it's 2004 Open House
and FARRC was invited to have an informational booth
to inform attendees and CART students of the air quality
benefits of rail consolidation. Both FARRC and
CART are receipiants of grants from Valley - Clean
Air Now. Throughout the three sessions, morning,
afternoon and evening, FARRC Board Members manned
the both and passed out information on the rail consolidation
project.
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on any image for a larger view
Mar
30, 2004 The Fresno City Council heard the issue of giving Forest
City Enterprises exclusive negotiating rights for an
85 acre development in downtown Fresno south of Grizzlie
Stadium including commercial and residential property.
Both Tom Bailey and Dennis Manning spoke during
the public portion to remind city officials and Forest
City Ent. of the potential need for in intermodal depot
along the UP tracks.
Mar
23, 2004 Mayor Alan Autry commented at the dedication
of the remodeling of Fresno's Amtrak Depot that the funds
wouldn't go to waste once rail consolidation happens
because the historical building could serve many other
interests. Former Senator Jim Costa who procured the
$5 Million for the project acted as MC for the dedication.
FARR VP, Dennis Manning represented FARRC at the
dedication.
The High-Speed Rail Authority held
it's first public meeting for comments on their recently
released EIR/EIS draft document. At a preceding
business meeting, FARRC President Tom Bailey gave public
comment on the Board's decision to delay the final day
for submitting comment to Aug 31, 2004.
Mar
22, 2004 Matt Hackney and one of his fellow students from
the Center for Advanced Research and Technology highschool
project in Clovis met Tom Bailey and Dennis Manning
at the FARRC offices in the old Southern Pacific railroad
depot for the purposes of conducting an interview about
rail consolidation as part of their project for CART's
open house scheduled for April 1,2004.
MMar
15, 2004 The Fresno COG Rail Committee held it's quarterly
meeting with High-Speed Rail as the main topic of discussion.
Tom Bailey, FARRC President who also Chairs the
committee, opened the meeting by introducing Carrie
Pourvahidi, Deputy Director of the HSR Authority who
made a presentation on the recently released EIR/EIS
draft. After her presentation, the committee discussed
the wide varying issues that HSR will bring to Fresno
County. A letter from the Building Industry
Association objecting to the route of the proposed bypass
loop was read into the record. Representatives from
fowler, Hanford, and Kingsburg talked of the horrific
problems that selection of the UP corridor as the HSR
route would bring to their cities. The rail committee
decided to postpone any recommendations and replies
to the authority until after presentations were made
to the Fresno City Council and the Fresno County Board
of Supervisors.
MMar
12, 2004 The San Joaquin Valley Rail Committee held it's
annual meeting in Fresno and as usual for these meetings,
FARRC President Tom Bailey attended where he presented
a brief report on a meeting held earlier in the week
to discuss improvements to the parking facilities at
the Fresno Amtrak Station. Bailey co-chairs a
special committee along with SJVRC public member, Larry
Miller.
Feb
19, 2004 Over 1000 people were in attendance at Fresno's
Convention Center for the 2004 Valley Business Conference and many
of them had an opportunity to stop by FARRC's booth and learn about
the air quality benefits that will come about once rail consolidation
becomes a reality. FARRC Board Members Bailey and Manning
also attended the luncheon to hear Keynote Speaker Howard Putnam
offer advice to Fresno for obtaining better air service.
Feb
18, 2004 The 2004 Valley Business Conference, an annual
venture put on by the Chamber of commerce, Craig School of Business
and the Fresno Bee held it's VIP reception at the University Picadilly
Inn and FARRC officers Bailey and Manning were invited to attend
as part of FARRC's Silver Sponsorship of the event. Bailey
had an opportunity to catch up with an old friend Howard Putnam
who was the keynote speaker for the main event on Thursday. Putnam
was responsible for putting Southwest Airlines.
Feb
12, 2004 Tom Bailey attended the monthly Operation Clean
Air meeting of the Transportation Committee where he introduced
student Cody Armstrong to the group. Cody attends the Center
for Advanced Technology (CART) High School project in Clovis and
he is working on a new type of catalytic converter to further reduce
emissions from diesel trucks and school buses. The committee
that is loaded with representation from the area's trucking community
enjoyed hearing of Cody's project.
Feb
11, 2004 The Fresno COG held its first meeting to get
input into the planned $3m PTIS or Public Transportation Infrastructure
Study. Dennis Manning of FARRC interjected the notion that futuristic
transportation should be part of the Study. It has important implications
for the ultimate access to the downtown area from the RC/HSR multi-modal
station. More meetings to hammer out the content of the PTIS are
planned. The PTIS is the #1 project on the Fresno "One Voice"
delegation that will be lobbying for federal funding in Washington
later this month.
Feb
6, 2004 Tom Bailey and Dennis Manning were the guests
of former FARRC board Member Saundra King at the Greater Area Fresno
Chamber of Commerce's 110th Annual Installation Banquet that was
held at Ms. King's Bankers Ballroom located in the Fresno Pacific
Tower. The event was attended by over 250 people from Fresno's
business community. Kathy Bray was installed as the Chamber's
Board Chair for the year 2004 and newly hired Chamber CEO Steve
Newvine was introduced to the community for the first time.
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on any image for a larger view
Jan
28, 2004 The California High-Speed Rail Authority came
to Fresno in the form of it's monthly Board Meeting to announce
it's long awaited EIR/EIS document and FARRC was well represented
at the press conference and then the actual meeting. HSR's
plans to use the UP corridor for trains stopping in Fresno and it's
close tie in with rail consolidation has been well documented here
on this website.
Jan
20, 2004 Emails and/or letters were sent to all major
candidates from Fresno County that are part of the March 2, 2004
primary election requesting a written reply on the candidate's respective
position on rail consolidation in Fresno. The results will
be emailed to our FARRC email list and mailed to our supporter list
late in February.
Jan
19, 2004 Dr. Phil Hinton, CEO of Community Medical Center
huddled with FARRC's Tom Bailey and Dennis Manning to talk about
the importance of bringing about rail consolidation to the Valley's
major regional medical facility. Dr. Hinton described the
many serious problems that the BNSF creates as the 40+ trains wind
their way around the south and east sides of the complex such as
noise and safety issues. Dr. Hinton promised to look for someone
from his staff to become a full time FARRC Board Member.
Jan
14, 2004 At the Logistics Industry Cluster of the Regional
Jobs Initiative program, (RJI) FARRC VP Dennis Manning met briefly
with a representative of the UP RR. We have been invited to set
up a meeting. UP has an interest in expanding its rail yard in advance
of anticipated traffic growth. The Logistics people are interested
in working with UP to improve the overall movement of freight in
and out of the Valley with an eye on job creation. UP has been difficult
to work with. This should be an opportunity for us to better understand
the needs of UP, and how rail consolidation will relate to those
needs.
Jan
13, 2004 FARRC officers Tom Bailey and Dennis Manning
attended a meeting at Fresno County COG to help formulate the setting
up of a committee to direct the content of the much anticipated
Major Investment Study (now renamed the Public Transit Infrastructure
Study). This study relates to what the eventual multi-modal station/RC
complex might look like.
Jan
9, 2004 The bimonthly meeting of the San Joaquin Valley
Rail Committee for this month was in Merced and was held in the
Merced County Supervisor Chambers. D.J. Mitchell who is VP
of Passenger Ops for the BNSF announced that they have reached an
agreement with the UP on a “capacity exchange.” This
agreement will allow the BNSF to run some of their freights over
the UP tracks through the Valley and in exchange, the UP will be
able to use BNSF tracks somewhere in Missouri where a “congestion”
problem exists in reverse
This information is extremely important
to FARRC's efforts because We learned in November from Mr. Mitchell
that the daily average of BNSF freights through Fresno has risen
from 30 to almost 50 trains per day during the last 6 months while
the freight traffic on the UP has remained at 20 per day. In
my opinion, taking some of those trains off of the BNSF and putting
them on the UP will lead to more overall vehicle stoppage within
Fresno. While there are more street level crossings on the
BNSF tracks in Fresno, the tracks themselves are in excellent condition
allowing train speeds of up to 70mph. The UP tracks however,
are in a much poorer condition allowing a maximum speed of only
40 mph. I believe this will lead to considerable congestion
at the UP crossings on Herndon, Shaw, McKinley, and Ventura. There
is also additional congestion created at the McKinley and Shaw crossings
anyway because of UP trains entering and exiting the UP yard and
the additional BNSF trains on the UP will further exacerbate the
problem. It will be a situation that we will want to monitor closely.
Click
on READ button for FARRC News from 2003
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