redirecting traffic

at the monte carlo up the hill and none coming from downtown chapala. it's the local cops not the transitos.

still redirecting

how about a report from downtown. que pasa!

Another demonstration at the main intersection of Madero and Hidalgo. This time the malecon business people are protesting some new project.

gracias! i'm sure that'll carry on for a while.

Still blocked up now. REALLY quiet in front of my place on Hidalgo. I'm working so I couldn't go down and look. I wonder if this has to do with my friends' kids saying they are going to tear down the skate park in Chapala? We thought they were full of it, but maybe they are going to redo the area with the businesses??

CanuckBob wrote:There was nothing happening when I whistled through there at 10:00am this morning however there did seem to be a lot of activity.

it's still blocked off to traffic coming from the west at the monte carlo

back to normal

It is my understanding that the protest was against the mayor's desire to revamp the area where all the merchant shacks are along the melacon. I believe he is pushing for a new retail building to be put in the place of all the little shacks that run in a strip along the length of the melacon. The merchants are not wanting change because of a fear of rents going up, which is probably likely to happen.
I feel that the current merchant row is run down and a safety hazard the way it constantly has raw sewage running down the road side behind the row of shops, I hope they address that before a new shopping concept is introduced there.
 I discovered today that many years ago all those merchants were located at the very far end of Ramon Corona in the small concrete shops located in the development  in the area they now rent horses from. This seems to me to be a perfect location for the merchants and would spread out the crowds to use the entire waterfront area not just the area from the Beer Gardens to the row of restaurants at the east end of the melacon like currently goes on. There is now only one or two merchants in that development and even on Sundays there are empty FREE parking spaces left in the parking lot behind this structure - yet people are paying for parking just a few streets over. Bringing the crowds into that end of the town and closer to the second entrance for Cristiana park would only help in the more congested areas and distribute the crowds more evenly, possibly making Cristiana more profitable.
I am all for seeing the row of merchant shacks at the melacon cleaned up but think putting up a new retail building is not the answer when such a good structure exists a couple of blocks away.
 For a city with such money woes I think they would be better off using an existing structure for the merchants rather then building new.
It would be nice to see the Chapala melacon with more green area like Ajijic waterfront has. A wading pool with a spray park in it surrounded by green space would be nice to see if the merchants can find another home. As far as the skateboard park - that appears to be the most well used facility in the area currently.

there is absolutely nothing wrong with what is there now. if you would have been here before these were built 4 admins ago you would not have posted what you did above. our malecon has more GREEN AND PLAY area than ajijic, in any event.