A major California High-Speed Rail project will begin next week in north Fresno with the closure of Highway 99’s northbound Herndon Avenue off-ramp.
The closure will begin at 9 a.m. on Thursday, April 23, and is expected to last until 9 p.m. on Friday, April 24. Closures of Herndon Avenue and Golden State Boulevard will also begin and could last until Monday, May 4.
California High-Speed Rail Authority spokesperson Augie Blancas said Wednesday that the closures mark the beginning of work that will turn Herndon Avenue into an underpass for the existing Union Pacific Railroad tracks and the future bullet train tracks.
He said the overall work on the underpass could last until winter of 2027, but the initial closures will allow the rail authority to build a temporary detour that allows drivers to stay along Herndon Avenue while bypassing the high-speed rail work. The detour will work similarly to the one on Shaw Avenue, which the rail authority expects to reopen as an overpass by the end of the year.
A construction alert from the California High-Speed Rail Authority shows an upcoming closure of the Herndon Avenue exit on the northbound Highway 99. CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY How initial Herndon Avenue closures will work near Highway 99
Herndon Avenue will close between Highway 99 and Golden State Boulevard beginning Thursday, April 23 — the same day that the northbound Highway 99 Herndon Avenue exit begins.
The following day, the Herndon Avenue closure will grow from Highway 99 to Weber Avenue. Golden State Boulevard will be closed between Veterans Boulevard and Kathryn Avenue, near the Starbucks.
A temporary road acting as a Herndon Avenue detour is expected to open Monday, May 10, but Golden State Boulevard will remain closed through 2027 as Herndon Avenue is built into an underpass.
Blancas said the underpass will look similar to the Tulare Street and Cesar Chavez Boulevard in downtown Fresno.
A construction alert from the California High-Speed Rail Authority shows upcoming closures on Herndon Avenue. CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY
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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.