In reply to Rob Fahrni.

I believe the City does have some office space on the mall, but I'm not sure.

For many retail businesses, the street really is a big deal. Right or wrong, the perception of vehicle access is powerful in Fresno culture. I don't have firsthand information from any businesses (other than Peeve's, for example), so feel free to take it with a grain of salt.

Fulton is unique among among downtown streets because it's the only one with long stretches of uninterrupted ground floor business space. It was built as a Main Street, and (ironically) because of its status as a pedestrian mall, it's been mostly immune to the wanton demolition and crappy building practices of the past 50 or 60 years. Nearly everywhere else you look downtown there are big gaps along the sidewalks, with either parking lots, driveways, long solid walls, or other generally up inviting features.

None of the serious proponents of traffic that I've talked to consider it "the solution" to downtown's problems, because there is no "the" solution. But it's a piece of a larger puzzle. For whatever it's worth, you mentioned Bitwise, and I know that they (or Jake, at least) are a big supporter of traffic.