Fresno Highway 99 overhaul project approved. Not everyone is happy about exit closures
A $400 million project to rebuild several miles of Highway 99 with new concrete north of downtown received a green light from the Fresno City Council on Thursday, paving the way for other changes that drivers will face over the next several years.
The extensive project, for which construction will begin in late 2024, calls for rehabilitating the pavement for the freeway’s six lanes between Clinton Avenue and El Dorado Street, south of the Highway 180 interchange, as well as providing space for additional lanes to handle more traffic.
But that’s not all. Four bridges — including three surface streets and one railroad – that span above the highway are due to be replaced, three others will be widened, and one will be removed.
Perhaps most notable will be the eventual and permanent closure in February 2026 of the freeway on- and off-ramps at both McKinley Avenue and Belmont Avenue, reducing the number of areas where motorists must merge onto and off of the highway within a span of about two miles from four to two. That will leave ramps at Clinton Avenue, rebuilt in recent years to accommodate a future high-speed rail route through Fresno, and Olive Avenue, which will be redesigned with roundabouts on both the east and west sides of the highway to connect to the ramps.
Caltrans described the ramp closures as a means of decreasing traffic congestion along that stretch of the freeway.
Not everyone is pleased with the prospect of closing the Belmont Avenue ramps, however.
Michael Rabara, executive vice president of the Chapel of the Light funeral home on Belmont Avenue west of Highway 99, told council members Thursday that he did not believe the Belmont ramp closures had been properly vetted by Caltrans.
Rabara said his company, as well as other nearby funeral homes and a collection of cemeteries in the area, all rely on Belmont Avenue as the main freeway off-ramp for funeral processions.
“If we close Belmont, where are they going to go?” he asked. “They have to go down Hughes (Avenue), which is not a very wide street for processions to go through. It’s not lit at night.”
“We cater to a very affluent community as well from north Fresno, and they come all the way to west Fresno still to use our funeral homes,” Rabara added. “Would you entrust your 85-year-old mother or grandmother coming down ‘Prostitute Alley’ to get to our funeral home? Absolutely not. It’s not safe.”
Rabara’s comment was an apparent reference to Parkway Drive between Belmont and Olive avenues, which houses a cluster of low-cost motels long known for drugs and prostitution — many of which are now being converted by the city of Fresno and other agencies to shelters for homeless people.
Council members were unmoved by Rabara’s remark, later approving a freeway agreement with Caltrans on a 6-0 vote with Councilmember Mike Karbassi absent for the vote.
Funeral processions won’t be the only traffic affected. In a staff report to the council, City Engineer Andrew Benelli said trucks that currently use the Belmont Avenue ramps to reach the freeway will have to use a different route. “Caltrans is recommending that H Street between Divisadero and Fresno streets be designated as a truck route, as the preferred alternative to minimize impacts to adjacent neighborhoods,” Benelli wrote.
Benelli added that Fresno Street is already a designated truck route between G Street and Highway 99, so the state is recommending extending the truck route on Fresno Street east to H Street, on the east side of the Union Pacific Railroad freight rail tracks.
