{"id":353237,"date":"2026-06-09T15:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/353237\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T15:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T15:30:08","slug":"measure-c-funds-could-bring-high-speed-rail-facility-to-fresno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/353237\/","title":{"rendered":"Measure C funds could bring high-speed rail facility to Fresno"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite its polarizing nature, the California\u2019s High-Speed Rail<\/a> project\u2019s economic promise could drive Fresno-area officials to use local tax dollars to help bring one of the future train\u2019s most important facilities to town.<\/p>\n

The California High-Speed Rail Authority announced last week that it will choose either a site in south Fresno<\/a> or an alternative near Hanford for its Heavy Maintenance Facility, which will generate a large number of permanent specialized jobs wherever it\u2019s built.<\/p>\n

Fresno has $4.5 million set aside from Measure C<\/a>, the half-cent sales tax that generates money for transportation projects throughout the county, to help extend utilities to the facility if it\u2019s built in south Fresno. But the allocation would still require an approval from the boards of the Fresno Council of Governments, or COG, and the Fresno County Transportation Authority \u2014 both made up mostly of Fresno County supervisors and mayors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe project throughout its history has been controversial, but we believe there\u2019s probably enough support,\u201d said Robert Phipps, executive director of the COG.<\/p>\n

Before making a decision, Phipps added, Fresno County officials will need guarantees from the rail authority that the facility will be built in Fresno and that its construction is otherwise fully funded.<\/p>\n

The Heavy Maintenance Facility<\/a> will be the only one of its kind on the entire Los Angeles-to-San Francisco rail system. It will be the main hub for in-depth maintenance, inspections, repairs, fleet support, testing and acceptance of train sets. That means it should become active \u201cwell before\u201d full passenger service begins, said Will Oliver, CEO of the Fresno County Economic Development Corporation.<\/p>\n

He expects the facility to generate at least hundreds of direct jobs and possibly thousands more from rail-related activities.<\/p>\n

The rail authority still has to conduct more environmental studies, which are expected to wrap up next year, before deciding between the Fresno and Hanford sites. It\u2019s not yet clear how much the facility will cost to build.<\/p>\n

Fresno had $25M for HSR facility. Most was reallocated during project delays<\/p>\n

The rail authority recently experienced a backlash from Central Valley mayors<\/a> over its idea to capture local tax dollars to help pay for high-speed rail and station-area infrastructure.<\/p>\n

But Fresno-area officials voted in 2010<\/a> to set aside $25 million from Measure C in a fund for the rail maintenance facility. The money in Measure C\u2019s rail facility program was intended to be used for land acquisition, site infrastructure, planning and development and other related activities.<\/p>\n

In the decade that followed, Fresno competed with areas across the San Joaquin Valley to be chosen as the site of the maintenance facility. At one point, the county\u2019s transportation authority voted to advance $500,000<\/a> to the City of Fresno for the purchase of land where the maintenance facility could be built.<\/p>\n

But as the rail project fell off track overall, a decision on the facility\u2019s site was also delayed. It wasn\u2019t until last week that rail authority staff said the agency had whittled a list of 11 potential sites<\/a> down to Fresno and Hanford.<\/p>\n

Most of the money in the Measure C fund for the facility, however, is gone. The county transportation authority voted in 2023 to use $20 million from that fund to help build BNSF Railroad underpasses<\/a> at the intersection of Blackstone and McKinley avenues.<\/p>\n

That leaves $4 million plus the $500,000 set aside in 2017 for site acquisition.<\/p>\n

Phipps, the COG executive director, said there is still an opportunity to use the money for the facility \u2014 if the state guarantees the Fresno location and fully funded construction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t foresee that our elected officials would want to use it (the money) speculatively,\u201d he said. \u201cFresno has been a good partner to date with High-Speed Rail, and we think there\u2019s a lot of opportunity to continue that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A A photo posted on the California High-Speed Rail Authority\u2019s website shows a heavy maintenance facility. CALIFORNIA HIGH-SPEED RAIL AUTHORITY\/Deutsche Bahn AG
\n Related Stories from Fresno Bee<\/p>\n


\n \"Profile
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Erik Galicia<\/a><\/p>\n

The Fresno Bee<\/p>\n

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\u2019s decline on its adjacent farm worker communities in the Southern California desert.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite its polarizing nature, the California\u2019s High-Speed Rail project\u2019s economic promise could drive Fresno-area officials to use local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-353237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}