Highway 99 construction slows commuters between Madera and Fresno. When will it end?
Drivers who commute Highway 99 daily between Madera and Fresno can expect one major, traffic slowing project at Avenue 12 to wrap up soon. But another, much larger project is slated to begin just south of there next year — meaning the miserable traffic congestion seen during peak commute times is unlikely to end for the foreseeable future.
“It’s going to be very time consuming,” said Caltrans spokesperson Larry Johnson.
Highway 99 commuters in Madera County have already dealt with the traffic impacts from construction for several years now. A completed project that began in 2019 expanded Highway 99 to six lanes between Avenues 12 and 17, through the city of Madera.
The current project, a replacement of aging bridges over Cottonwood Creek that has spanned almost two years, has caused the months-long closure of the northbound Avenue 12 off-ramp and miles-long detours for northbound drivers traveling east to Madera Community College and the Madera Ranchos community.
That stretch of Highway 99 has also been the site of several crashes, some of them involving long-haul trucks, in the past year.
Up next will be the addition of one more lane on each side of Highway 99 from Avenues 7 to 12 — a project that will include the replacement of Madera County’s famed Palm and the Pine landmark. The completion of that project will make Highway 99 a six-lane thoroughfare through about half of its Madera County stretch.
Expect that project to impact commutes, as well.
When will the bridge work end?
The $24 million project to replace Highway 99’s three aging bridges over Cottonwood Creek, just south of Avenue 12, is expected for completion this spring.
Johnson said crews were replacing the bridges on the northbound and southbound lanes, and also adding a lane to each side of the highway. They also replaced the northbound off-ramp to Avenue 12, which bridges over the creek, too.
“The bridges themselves were just getting old,” Johnson said, “but there was no threat of them collapsing or anything like that.”
The bridge replace project is nearing its end, and Caltrans expects to reopen the northbound off-ramp to Avenue 12 by Feb. 18.
“It could take longer, depending on issues like the weather or anything like that,” Johnson said.
He said the project could be completely finished sometime in April or May, though that will also depend on the weather.
Highway 99 widening will impact traffic
Johnson said adding a lane to each side of the highway from Avenues 7 to 12 is going to be a “big project.”
“We will have everything planned out, we’ll be sending out commuter alerts, we’ll get everybody in line,” he said. “But it’s going to be a major project, so there should be traffic switches and delays when people are working out there.”
Construction on this project was expected to begin this fall, but it is now slated to begin in the summer of 2026 and end in the summer of 2029, Johnson said.
“It looks like it’s been pushed back because there’s some right-of-way that has not been purchased,” said Madera County Supervisor Robert Poythress, who has long advocated at the state level for Highway 99 improvement funding.
The partnership between Madera County and Caltrans has secured more than $100 million for this project after its state funding came under threat from a 2019 executive order by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Poythress said the Madera County Transportation Commission moved to get that funding restored and also sought other sources of funding.
He said he meets with Caltrans regularly to discuss the project’s status and is attempting to make sure construction begins on the new projected start date.
“The longer it’s delayed, the higher the costs go because of inflation,” Poythress said. “We’re fully funded right now. But in two years, we may not be fully funded.”
Poythress also said drivers should expect impacts to their commute, but he described the upcoming traffic impacts as “short-term pain for long-term gain.”
“Anytime there’s a project this taking place, understand, there’s going to be some issues,” he said. “But it’s actually improving the situation in the long run.... It has to happen in order for us to get that six-lane freeway.”
This story was originally published February 10, 2025 at 4:26 PM.
