Safety upgrades made on one of Fresno’s most dangerous roads. ‘Dramatic improvements’

In an effort to make Friant Road safer, the City of Fresno has taken a few measures in recent months.

And a couple more improvements are expected as the City tries to reduce — if not possibly halt — the number of collisions on the highly used north Fresno road where a few high-profiled vehicle fatalities have occurred.

“I’ve talked to professionals with public works and there doesn’t need to be a redesign,” said Fresno Councilmember Garry Bredefeld, whose district includes Friant Road. “Nevertheless, we still have made dramatic improvements along Friant that I think has made it safer.”

Perhaps the most noticeable safety measure implemented are the “no right on red” signs.

These signs prohibit drivers from making right turns during red lights along Friant at the intersections of Shepherd Avenue, Fort Washington Road, Champlain Drive, Lakeview Drive and Copper Avenue.

The no-right-on-red sign at the intersection of Friant and Shepherd, in particular, was considered a much-needed addition for safety.

Dan Wells, who helped create the YouTube Channel called “Friant Roulette” to showcase the number of crashes occurring by his home at the intersection of Friant and Shepherd, believes drivers’ ability to previously make a right turn on red apparently created confusion among other drivers who were traveling straight but had a red light to prevent them from continue going northbound.

“They get mesmerized by the flow of traffic that’s making right turns,” Wells told The Bee earlier this year. “But then they don’t realize they’re about to run through a red light and hit another car.”

There also are plans to implement no-right-on-red signs at the Friant-Audubon intersection.

The City did install high visibility crosswalks at the Friant-Audubon intersection, as well as to other Friant intersections going north up to Copper.

Pedestrian traffic is fairly high at the intersection of Friant and Audubon, where several restaurants and businesses and Woodwark Park are located.

While the crosswalks are more for the benefit of pedestrians than bicyclists, it’s worth noting that a cyclist was killed after getting hit by a truck at Friant and Audubon.

People also regularly walk across Friant near the intersection of Fort Washington for access to the northern part of Woodward Park.

That intersection is where a 10-year-old boy was fatally struck in June 2021.

“We certainly looked at these improvements quite extensively because of the high-profile accidents,” said Bredefeld, who oversees District 6, which is the majority of northeast Fresno. “No light or designing is going to prevent someone from driving recklessly.

“But we still wanted to make sure every road can be as safe as possible.”

Construction is still in the works to extend the right-turn lane on southbound Friant at Audubon.

In addition, the City is in the design stages to create a trailhead parking lot on the west side of Friant, north of Fort Washington.

Another safety measure the City of Fresno has taken is installing reflective backplates on signals along Friant from Copper down to Fresno Street.

According to Caltrans, these reflective strips that are placed around the perimeter of traffic signals increase traffic signal visibility during morning and nighttime hours, as well as during times of power outage.

“People’s concerns are justified,” Bredefeld said of Friant Road. “People also need to make sure they are driving safely, and paying attention and not on their phones.”