Widening Highway 41 in Fresno area will save lives, some argue. What state officials say
Elected officials and Fresno County advocates stopped short of spiking the football Friday, but said they are confident a deadly six-mile segment of Highway 41 will get the money this year needed to add lanes and save lives.
The widening project for the two-lane stretch of 41 from Elkhorn to Excelsior avenues, south of Caruthers, has been added to the state Department of Transportation’s Draft 2020 Interregional Transportation Improvement Program.
The California Transportation Commission still needs to vote on the the draft version of the document to make it official, and fund the local project.
“This is how highways get built,” Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, said Friday at a news conference along the roadway. “The more partners we have in it, the more likely the state of California will do its part to help us.”
The proposed roughly $67 million widening is a way to save lives, according to supporters, on a stretch of highway that had 35 percent of all fatalities on Highway 41 in Fresno County from 2011 through 2020, according to the Patterson’s office.
Fresno County Supervisor Buddy Mendes said the project was on the books back in 2006, but was clipped during the Great Recession in 2008.
Two lanes to four
People in southern Fresno County have been advocating for the widening headed up by Lorna Roush, who leads the Widen Highway 41 Movement, which is active on Facebook.
“This was stolen from us 20 years ago,” she said Friday. “Everybody is coming back to fix this and make it right.”
The latest and perhaps biggest push came after fatal crashes at the end of 2020, officials said. The families of those who died have been involved in the effort.
Forty-year-old Kenneth Atkins was killed in a head-on crash on his way to Naval Air Station Lemoore in September 2020, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Joel Carillo, 23, was killed in a crash Nov. 10 south of Harlan Avenue near Laton when a wrong-way driver collided with him head-on, CHP said.
Officials said a great amount of teamwork went into getting the widening to the place it is now.
The Fresno County Transportation Authority’s board unanimously approved adding the Highway 41 project to the list for funding from Measure C, the county’s transportation tax.
Caltrans did a re-design of the roadway, decreasing the costs by about $15 million and helping to move the project, according to Mike Leonardo, Fresno County Transportation Authority executive director.
If funding is approved, construction would likely begin in the summer of 2025, according to Patterson’s office.
This story was originally published October 22, 2021 at 3:00 PM.
