Open avenue

By Collegian Staff | April 30, 2008

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Juan Villa / The Collegian

Chestnut Avenue, from Shaw Avenue to Bullard Avenue, is now open to through traffic as of April 25. The roundabout at Barstow Avenue and Chestnut Avenue is now open for north-south and east-west traffic.

Drivers, cyclists and pedestrians are urged to use caution when approaching the new roundabout, according to campus traffic officials.

The Chestnut Avenue construction, which started in July 2006, included widening the road and adding a new parking lot for Fresno State’s Rue and Gwen Gibson Farm Market.

The project was paid for with a $4.6 million grant from the state’s Traffic Congestion Relief Program.

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Comments

8 Responses to “Open avenue”

    JSV:
    April 30th, 2008 7:50 am

    To much politics, they should’ve just finished the street and opened it up. It should have been done last year already.

    Scout:
    April 30th, 2008 9:54 am

    I have always said there was not enough accidents around campus. Good thing they put a roundabout there to solve that problem instead of say, the four way stop that was working just fine there.

    Can’t wait for all the people that will approach going west bound, enter the roundabout, people going east bound will not realize they actually want turn left and pull into the oncoming traffic they thought was going straight.

    George Smith:
    April 30th, 2008 11:23 am

    If its open to through traffic, why are the cones still blocking the turn lane from the freeway?

    Wow, $5 million for a 1 block chunk of road, and a tiny parking lot for the farm market? What a waste of my tax money! And it took 2 years for something that should have taken 6 months or less.

    Also, why in the world did they rip up the brand new paving they put down for savemart center? It was brand new paving and they ripped it all down and redid it. More waste of my tax dollars. Either they should have added to existing BRAND NEW paving, to expand it or planned it from the start so they only had to do it ONCE.

    Chest Rockwell:
    April 30th, 2008 11:56 am

    What a horrible waste of taxpayer money in the form of this grant.

    ROUNDABOUTS? What a horrible idea.

    And where are the sidewalks and bikelanes?

    Almost three years after its start, why is the project not finished?

    This story raises more questions than answers.

    Dougee:
    April 30th, 2008 11:58 am

    Should have been done before the SMC opened back in 2003. SMC and Campus Pointe developer money should be the only source of funding. Why would state money go to assist a retail and entertainment project?

    Local Student:
    April 30th, 2008 12:23 pm

    I’d bet the reason we got a runabout/traffic circle, is because the designers/architechs were told to design something modern/cutting edge, and “modern” = european in today’s achitecture. European = traffic circles. How else is a architect supposed to differentiate it from other intersections if he’s told to?

    So, for the sake of being modern, (and so the designers could charge extra to the state so more of our tax dollars would go to them) we ended up with a traffic circle. It doesn’t really matter if its practical or not.

    Mike Greyson:
    May 1st, 2008 1:42 pm

    A total debacle. This project sucked big time from the get-go. I’m back, BABY!!!

    Mike Greyson:
    May 1st, 2008 1:43 pm

    And the crosswalk through Shaw by the marquee and crossing over Chestnut looks no better than what it looked like in late 2005.