FRESNO, CA (KMJ) – Dozens of Central Valley elected leaders attended the CA Transportation Committee meeting in Fresno on Friday.
They were calling for the immediate and full funding of major improvement projects along Highway 99 in Madera and Tulare as well as the area known as “Blood Alley” along Highway 46.
The CA Transportation Commission added the Fresno hearing at the Fresno Council of Governments Boardroom on 2035 Tulare Street after multiple requests from Valley leaders to hold a hearing in the region impacted by the funding deletion.
Previous public hearings on this issue were held in Modesto and Santa Ana.
Fresno Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson addressed the Commission, asking for a complete restoration of the highway projects, fully-funded, and on time.
“We are asking the commission and we are asking Cal Trans, ‘Please pay attention to what commitment means,’ we appreciate what’s gone before,’ said Patterson, who continued, ‘but it is an incomplete commitment if significant segments of the widening are deleted in significant areas of Central California.’ It begs the question; ‘Why the deletion?'”
The Cal Trans 2020 Transportation Plan calls for the deletion of the planned $9 million Highway 99 widening in Madera from Avenue 7 to Avenue 12 from four to six lanes and the $8 million expansion of Highway 99 from four to six lanes through the city of Tulare. Also up for elimination is the $15 million improvement work on Highway 46 in San Luis Obispo county.
As stated in the Cal Trans plan, funding for the projects slated for elimination will be “held in reserve for priority rail projects and other priorities” identified by Governor Gavin Newsom as stated in his September 2019 Executive Order.
Responding to Assemblymen Patterson’s request, Vice Chair Paul Van Konyenberg questioned fully-funding a project.
“It’s not as logical as it might seem, because we don’t know what funding… there’s all these funding buckets we don’t even know what the Federal – the Fast Act expires in 2020 – we don’t know what the next act is going to be and what’s going to be involved in that, so we don’t know what all the opportunities are,” said Van Konyenberg.
Van Konyenberg, the Vice Chair of the CA Transportation Commission made a request to see all the other rail funding coming in — including federal funding –in a diagram at the next presentation in December.
Click to hear the report by KMJ’s Liz Kern:
