Last month-ish, Little Leaf Tea at Palm & Bullard, moved next door into their bar area so they could make room for Kuppa Joy to move into their old space.
I like how they moved over their sign to the front of their window. Good re-use idea and it looks cool.
They have 1/3 of the bar now their tea area and left the rest of the bar alone.
The bar area of Little Leaf
The tea is still good and you get it just as quick (maybe even a little quicker) than you did before.
As far as the bar, they still have a cozy neighborhood bar vibe – a good spot for an after work drink or a leisurely walk over.
Oh, and they have food too that I somehow have never tried. ✌️🫖🧋
This new bike lane on Van Ness (You know, the Van Ness you never think about because it is not Old, Extended or Downtown) has everyone all messed up.
Admittedly it is some weird looking shit. It requires processing. And processing we are.
Maybe the best thread I saw about it came from a local musician’s on Facebook. We will call him T.
I always feel a little queasy pulling Facebook threads out here into the open part of the Internet so I won’t use any real names of people in these quotes but they are real and sum up the bike lane drama:
The fact that they took so many parking spaces away in front of people’s homes makes no sense at all. Besides passengers aren’t normally looking for bicyclist on their side if the car when they get out so there’s that hazard. I don’t even want to know how much of our money they spent researching this lovely idea.
L
It’s a drunken stagger zone. For City liability insurance. Only intoxicated Fresnans work or travel through this area. It is known.
K
From what I’ve observed, almost no one is using this properly–almost everyone just parks their car against the gutter as they always did, totally blocking the new bike path. I wonder if they sent out a notice or anything.
N
Doesn’t make sense to me. I would rather not ride in a bike lane sharing the road with cars without any concrete divider. I do not trust drivers. I ride my bicycle on the sidewalk as long as there’s no pedestrians around.
D
It’s nuts! I wouldn’t park in those spaces! You might a well put a target on the back of your car! 2am catastrophe
F
Yes, this was a total fail. Half the parking is gone, and now the bike lane is useless because people are using it for parking. Here’s my proposal. Go back to curbside parking, and turn all that new parking weirdness into a big fat bike lane.
L
This is the lane in question:
When you go a little further up the road next to FCC, those college educated kids are having problems too:
Parking in the designated parking area inevitably puts cyclists at risk as most will go around the truck into the street instead of in between the vehicles.
Why isn’t there clear parking instruction signage to keep people from parking in the bike lane? pic.twitter.com/u9lipZpofs
I ride that route fairly regularly. It is an adjustment, but the idea is to separate bikes from moving traffic. And it reduces the chance that you ride into a quickly-opening door.
T
Ha ha! Tell me about it. Complete Streets are something that the org I work for espouses, but I don’t like them when I’m driving, huge hypocrite that I am. It makes sense to stop designing our transportation systems solely around making it easier for cars. Perhaps making the world safer for bikes will encourage more people to ride?
C
I don’t known that my opinion is valid since I only drive on there occasionally and can’t remember the last time I rode a bike through there.
But, I will still say, it feels like we are scared of this new thing. It will be confusing at first but we will get it. Some street has to be the street we learn on, might as well be regular old Van Ness.
I believe protected bike lanes are a build-it-and-they-will-come sorta thing, not a “Look at all these damn bikers, they need more lanes!!” kinda thing.
And one day it could be as pleasant as this (found on mmwpro63’s feed):
When we're looking at improving cycling, so much focus is given to big cities.
Yet often, it's small cities—especially college towns like Eugene—that make the greatest gains in the least time; refining best practices, sharing with others, and acting as incubators for good ideas. pic.twitter.com/jQjPFvbA8M
Long spans of time can go by and I don’t post and I feel shitty and then I get a few in there and feel better about myself.
The thing I just realized and it’s why I sat down to post, I am too fucking old to blog about Fresno in the way I wish I could.
The old days.
Work. Age. Life. They all keep me from running around the Tower or Downtown or some thing at Fresno State, with any kind of regularity.
So, I cannot be what I want, what the hell do I do?
There are only so many Save Mart & Whole Foods posts I can do (grocery stores are my number one social places these days).
This is not some setup to tell you I am quiting The Fresnan like that other time. I just need to tell you that I know things are not the same and they can’t ever be.
But I can still figure out a place for this blog and newsletter. It may be something else, but something.
Anyway, thanks for being here. Fresno and blogging rule!✌️
I just wanted to make a quick post to let you know that it is Friday night, I am a little buzzed and I am having the Berrock Shop’s gravy (straight without anything) out of a coffee cup and it is glorious.
The above screenshot was taken at 2:50 PM on a random Wednesday. That is a lot of red for Wednesday afternoon.
Yeah I know, Portland has more people than Fresno. There are more cars. This is not a complete match of a comparison.
This is about the general day-to-day of what you have to deal with living in Portland vs. living in Fresno and having to drive to things.
So yes, there are more people in Portland. But unlike Fresno, Portland has things to help alleviate traffic:
A solid light-rail system throughout the city.
One of the THE best bike infrastructures in the country.
Friendly to walkers.
Yet, red ALL OVER the map, in the middle of the afternoon of a random week. So that means it’s like that every work day, at least.
And what is Fresno like at the same time on the same Wednesday?…
A little bit of backup at the “McKinley Curve” and a little slowing on 99 Southbound – I assume to slowdown and look at the top of the castle in Storyland.
To be clear, I highly support heavy-duty bike infrastructure, light-rail and making things safe for walking within the city! Fresno needs these things. This isn’t a post against that.
I’m pointing out that Portland is doing everything right to lessen traffic and it STILL sucks shit. 🤣
