Modesto expanding its free, public WiFi. What locations are part of the plan?
Modesto plans to expand its free public WiFi to a dozen city facilities, including the King Kennedy Memorial Center and Maddux Youth Center in west Modesto as well as the McHenry Museum.
The city has provided limited WiFi for about six years, primarily in downtown. WiFi is available in the basement chambers and first and second floors of Tenth Street Place, the city-county government center, Tenth Street Plaza, and along 10th Street from J to I streets.
The city expects to start rolling out the new locations in August, and the rollout will take a couple of months. Besides King Kennedy, Maddux and the museum, the sites are:
▪ The clubhouses at Creekside and Dryden golf courses
▪ The McHenry Mansion
▪ The Neighborhood Center at Marshall Park
▪ Downtown’s Modesto Transportation Center, which serves as a hub for bus service and will one day be a stop for the Altamont Corridor Express, the commuter train to and from the Bay Area.
▪ The police and fire departments’ headquarters
▪ Mary Grogan Park, the city’s youth soccer complex
▪ Enslen Park’s Boy Scout Clubhouse, which is used for community events
The city also will expand WiFi to all six floors at Tenth Street Place, and it may replace or upgrade the WiFi at its senior center.
IT Manager Kevin Harless said in an interview earlier this month that the city sees this as a great benefit for the community. He said then that Modesto was in the process of picking a company for the expansion. He said the expansion could cost less than $100,000. The City Council would have to approve spending above that.
He said earlier this year about 60 people a day were using the city’s free, public Wi-Fi. But he said that grew to 225 per day in the first week of May as the weather improved and more people were downtown.
