‘Over 100 miles’ to be repaved, Fresno mayor says. Is your street on the list?

Street repairs began Wednesday on a deteriorated, half-mile stretch of Santa Fe Avenue that feeds into residential roads near Fresno’s Old Fig Garden neighborhood.

The street is an example of one of the biggest complaints residents have about Fresno. The city needs $1.2 billion-worth of road repairs and last year took out a $100 million bond to try and put a dent in the growing deferred maintenance bill.

The city now has 37 street repair projects — including Santa Fe Avenue — scheduled to begin this year as part of Mayor Jerry Dyer’s “Pave More Now” campaign. It’s a $140 million effort that Dyer says is being paid with the bond, but also state dollars, grants and revenue generated by Fresno County’s half-cent transportation sales tax.

The city has $65.9 million budgeted this year to fix roads and sidewalks, and the mayor’s proposed budget for the following fiscal year includes $74.8 million for those repairs.

The current list of projects, which covers areas around the city, is expected to grow. The list includes 70 lane miles of repaving, though Dyer said the city can repave “over 100 miles.”

“As you just stand right here on Santa Fe, you can see how degraded our roads have become within the City of Fresno,” Dyer said Wednesday. “It is a project that is long overdue.”

Here’s where the road repairs begin

Dyer said the city previously did not have the money to pay for “slurry” seals, which extend the life of pavement by filling small cracks and protecting against water penetration. As a result, roads have decayed in all parts of the city — “north and south,” Dyer said.

At a Wednesday news conference, the city only provided the list of street repair projects, but not the cost or timeline for each. The projects on the list include:

• Shields Avenue from Brawley Avenue to Parkway Drive
• Ashlan Avenue from Highway 168 to Winery Avenue
• The neighborhood bound by McKinley Avenue, Palm Avenue, Olive Avenue and Fruit Avenue
• The neighborhood bound by McKenzie Avenue, Winery Avenue, Tulare Street and Chestnut Avenue
• Fresno Street from Ashlan Avenue to Gettysburg Avenue
• Cedar Avenue from Kings Canyon Road to California Avenue
• Cedar Avenue from Bullard Avenue to Herndon Avenue
• Dakota Avenue from Cedar Avenue to Maple Avenue
• Nees Avenue from Ingram Avenue to Blackstone Avenue
• Nees Avenue from Cedar Avenue to Maple Avenue
• Ingram Avenue from Herndon Avenue to Nees Avenue
• Shaw Avenue from Valentine Avenue to West Avenue
• Figarden Drive from Santa Fe Avenue to Valentine Avenue
• Sixth Street from Tulare Street to Ventura Street
• Church Avenue from Cedar Avenue to Peach Avenue
• The neighborhood bound by Santa Ana Avenue, First Street, Gettysburg Avenue and Augusta Avenue
• Perrin Avenue from Champlain Drive to Granville Avenue
• Winery Avenue from Kings Canyon Road to Butler Avenue
• Santa Fe Avenue from West Avenue to Carruth Avenue
• The neighborhood bound by Santa Ana Avenue, Millbrook Avenue, Gettysburg Avenue and Fourth Street
• Fowler Avenue from Belmont Avenue to Laurel Avenue
• The neighborhood bound by Dudley Avenue, Wilson Avenue, Belmont Avenue and Palm Avenue
• Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from Jensen Avenue to North Avenue (listed for two projects)
• Clark Street from McKinley Avenue to Floradora Avenue
• Sunnyside Avenue from Shields Avenue to Clinton Avenue
• California Avenue from East Avenue to Fourth Street
• Nielsen Avenue from Brawley Avenue to Marks Avenue
• Polk Avenue from Shaw Avenue to the Bridge Deck
• Shields Avenue from Weber Avenue to West Avenue
• The Winery Circle neighborhood
• The neighborhood bounded by Fourth Street, Fairmont Avenue and Gearhart Avenue
• Peach Avenue from Highway 180 to Lamona Avenue
• First Street from Tulare Street to Olive Avenue
• Blackstone Avenue from Highway 180 to Pine AvenueC
• Cedar Avenue from Herndon Avenue to Alluvial Avenue

Erik Galicia

The Fresno Bee

Erik is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism, where he helped launch an effort to better meet the news needs of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Before that, he served as editor-in-chief of his community college student newspaper, Riverside City College Viewpoints, where he covered the impacts of the Salton Sea’s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert. Erik’s work is supported through the California Local News Fellowship program.