California’s high-speed rail arches are visible in Fresno. But will they ever be useful?
What do high-speed rail and the bike path along Herndon Avenue have in common?
Well-intended projects that ultimately aren’t of much use.
Or at least that’s the cynical point of view, reached on a Tuesday midday drive into and across north Fresno.
High-speed rail architects sure wanted a grand entry into California’s fifth-largest city. With its twin 210-foot-high arches topping a 4,741-foot-long superstructure, the San Joaquin River Viaduct makes an impression on Highway 99 motorists.
Those arches, according to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, represent “the northern gateway into Fresno” — a description that makes them sound like our own mini versions of the Gateway Arch.
To me, though, the whole thing kind of resembles an immense concrete centipede with a hunched back.
The San Joaquin River Viaduct and the Cedar Avenue Viaduct on the southern edge of town are the most visible high-speed rail projects in Fresno County. (The Fresno Trench beneath Highway 180 is less visible but no less important.) When finished, the Cedar Avenue Viaduct will have not one but two pairs of arches. Which may cause a bit of sibling jealousy.
I have been a supporter and defender of high-speed rail — despite the cost overruns and years of delays — for all the good things the project can do for Fresno.
By golly, if the government insists on spending billions of dollars building transportation infrastructure, let them spend it here: the largest city in the U.S. not served by the interstate highway system.
Fresno’s economy could receive no greater boost than being linked by bullet trains to California’s major population centers, particularly the segment to San Jose. But if all we get out of this is faster Amtrak between Merced and Bakersfield, it’s impossible to muster the same level of enthusiasm. Despite my fondness for Basque food.
Living in Fresno, working for Silicon Valley
Times and circumstances certainly change. One of the predicted benefits of high-speed rail was that a person could live in Fresno, where the cost of living is relatively low, and commute to a high-paying job in Silicon Valley.
Well, the pandemic seems to have done that already. During a recent walk through my ever-expanding Clovis neighborhood, I met two owners of new tract houses. Both moved from the Bay Area, kept their current jobs and work from home.
Turns out there’s something even more convenient than commuting at 220 mph. No commute at all.
Decades from now, will people driving their carbon-neutral vehicles on Highway 99 look upon the San Joaquin Viaduct and Cedar Avenue Viaduct and think about the vital function both serve?
Or will they scoff at the billions in taxpayer-funded waste because high-speed rail failed to fulfill its promise?
While pondering these questions, I took the Herndon exit and was soon greeted by two long lines of cars and semi trucks occupying both left-turn lanes that stretched well beyond the painted stripes.
An old-fashioned freight train was puttering along the Union Pacific tracks, in no particular hurry. Word to Tutor Perini, the firm in charge of building some 31 miles of rail structures around Fresno: Construction of those grade separations — an oft-overlooked benefit of high-speed rail — can’t begin soon enough.
When I moved here in the late 1990s, there wasn’t much on Herndon between Highway 99 and Brawley Avenue besides Sierra Sky Park and a bunch of fig trees.
Today practically the entire corridor is filled with shopping centers, corner malls, schools and housing developments. Keeping pace with all that growth is a Class I bike path separated from the main roadway.
Cyclists forgo new bike trail
Although it’s great to see new segments added — the path now stretches from Golden State Boulevard to the traffic signal at Polk and Spruce avenues — cyclists are still on their own while crossing the Burlington Sante Fe overpass.
Because the separated bike path doesn’t run continuously on one side of Herndon, switching from the north side of the road to the south and back to the north in the space of four miles, I saw cyclists not even bothering. They opted to pedal alongside fast-moving traffic instead.
Which kind of defeats the purpose of a separated bike path.
Of course, once you near the center of town, the part that was developed in the 1970s and ‘80s, the bike path vanishes altogether. There isn’t even a safer route than Palm Avenue to connect with Woodward Park and the San Joaquin River Parkway. But perhaps someday.
While waiting for the signal at Blackstone Avenue to turn, I thought back to various proposals floated by the Fresno City Council in 2000 to alleviate anticipated gridlock on the busy east-west thoroughfare.
Unless Fresno widens Herndon or builds flyover lanes at certain intersections, traffic will slow to 10 mph during the morning and evening commute by the year 2020. At least those were the dire predictions.
Needless to say, none of those proposals ever got the green light. And traffic on Herndon, while congested and not at all fun, is far from a carmageddon.
There’s one costly transportation project that didn’t need building. In 2040, will folks draw the same conclusion about high-speed rail and the Herndon bike path?
