Would it make sense to build a light rail system that takes people from Mendota to downtown Fresno? What about from downtown to Fresno Yosemite International Airport?
The Fresno Council of Governments, known as the COG, has authorized two feasibility studies that will find the answers to those questions. The COG’s policy board is made up of all the mayors in Fresno County and a member of the county’s Board of Supervisors.
One study, which is looking at the potential for a regional rail system that connects the county’s smaller towns and rural areas to downtown Fresno, is already underway and could wrap up by the fall. The other, which is looking at the potential for an urban system connecting the Fresno-Clovis metro area, is expected to begin this summer and could last up to two years, said Paul Herman, deputy director of the COG.
The studies hope to answer how much demand there could be for this type of service and how much each could cost to build and operate.
At least in the city of Fresno, “light rail was the number one requested project” in community members’ responses to surveys the COG sent out a few years ago for long-range transportation planning, Herman told The Fresno Bee. The COG launched the feasibility studies with the help of two grants — a $700,000 grant for the urban rail study and a $300,000 grant for the regional rail study.
Fresno has explored the potential for light rail systems multiple times in the last 60 years, though the city hasn’t had a street railcar service since the 1930s. The idea historically has run into resistance from the Board of Supervisors and those who favored financing freeway expansion rather than alternative transit, the nonprofit newsroom Fresnoland wrote last year.
But this time, city leaders are also hoping to see a high-speed rail station in downtown Fresno by 2033. They believe its arrival will boost the economy of downtown Fresno, where they also want a new soccer stadium built in the coming years and a housing boom that triples the area’s population to 10,000 residents. Connecting the high-speed rail station to other modes of regional and local transit could be key to the high-speed rail station area’s development.
“I do believe there is a future in Fresno and Clovis for a light rail system, but it will be determined by population increases, density and demand,” Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said in a statement to The Bee.
One of Sacramento Regional Transit’s new S700 low-floor light rail train awaits riders at the Township 9 station in Sacramento on Wednesday, June 12, 2024. Bailey Stover bstover@sacbee.com Zero-emissions regional rail could connect 10 towns to downtown Fresno
The San Joaquin Valley Railroad tracks already connect small western Fresno County cities — including Firebaugh, Mendota, San Joaquin and Kerman — to the city of Fresno. The same track system approaches Fresno from the east, connecting it to Sanger, Reedley and the Tulare County city of Dinuba.
There are also freight tracks stretching south from Fresno to Fowler, Selma and Kingsburg.
Herman said the regional rail study is focused on evaluating a service that uses this existing freight rail infrastructure to also serve passengers, as they did in the past.
“We do think they’re an underutilized asset in the community,” he said.
The COG has created a website for the regional rail study where county residents can submit comments about it. The site says the study is looking at a zero-emissions system, which produces no air pollution and is faster and quieter than traditional trains.
Each city within the system — a sort of Amtrak-like service focused on Fresno County, the website calls it — could have its own station.
The Historic Folsom light rail station on March 27, 2025. In January 2025, Sacramento Regional Transit said its Folsom trains would run every 15 minutes. Emma Hall ehall@sacbee.com Urban light rail could connect downtown Fresno, airport, Blackstone corridor
A Fresno-Clovis light rail could connect the future high-speed rail station to the area’s major activity centers, according to a COG report from last month. That could mean Fresno State and Fresno City College, as well as major retail corridors.
Herman said an important connection would run between downtown and the growing Fresno airport, which could also make business gains from the arrival of the high-speed rail station
He said the study will examine the city’s layout for residential and commercial areas. It’ll evaluate the bus ridership levels that exist today and how much additional ridership light rail could generate.
A likely route would travel down Blackstone Avenue, the Fresno area’s highest bus ridership corridor, Herman said. The county’s long-range transit plan in 2019 also proposed Shaw Avenue, which travels past Fresno State and into Clovis, as a corridor in need of enhanced transit services.
Though the ridership potential of a Fresno-Clovis urban light rail system is not yet known, Herman said light rail is generally more attractive to riders than buses.
“This could go a number of different ways,” he said. “We don’t know at this point whether it would be feasible. That’s what the study has set out to figure out.”
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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.