Is one of America’s most car-centric cities ready to go back to the future? Fresno, whose early neighborhoods were shaped by streetcars, is ready to reboot its relationship with rail.
Caltrans officials greenlit a $700,000 grant this month for regional transportation planners to study whether a light rail system for the Fresno-Clovis metro makes sense.
The Fresno Council of Governments – the region’s transportation planning body – is exploring light rail in response to community feedback, according to Deputy Director Paul Herman, in an email to Fresnoland.
The regional transportation board also greenlit a study in May to explore regional rail across the county, connecting rural communities with Fresno along underused freight corridors.
The light rail study will assess whether there’s enough passenger demand for the system, cost estimates to build it out, along with recommendations on where the best locations for new light rail lines and stations might be. It will look at different types of passenger rail systems, from light rail to streetcars.
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer is on board – with the study, at least.
“While attending the US Conference of Mayors in Kansas City, I was inspired by their two-mile streetcar segment, the ease of transportation and vibrant economic activity throughout the route was impressive,” Dyer said, in an emailed statement to Fresnoland.
He said he was initially inspired by rail to help downtown revitalization efforts, by connecting many regional amenities – the hospital, convention center, Amtrak, and so many businesses – across the sprawling district.
“I would love to expand on that vision, and see the Tower District, Blackstone Corridor, Fresno State and other jewels within our community connected as well,” he added.
Where could light rail go in Fresno? A 2023 plan suggests that Blackstone and the Cesar Chavez corridors are likely options, based on bus ridership trends. But Shaw Avenue, connecting Fresno State and Clovis, has also been highlighted as a high-ridership corridor.
Officials plan to kick off the study this winter, according to Herman.
The light rail study comes just as Fresno County officials have entered a tense season of negotiations over the next version of Measure C, the 40-year-old sales tax funding transportation, expected to hit ballots in November of 2026.
If successful, Fresno would join a large crop of American cities that have made big bets on light rail to alleviate growing traffic concerns and spur economic activity over the past two decades, from Los Angeles to Tuscon.
It’s not our first rodeo with light rail plans.
About a quarter-century after the city’s last streetcar ride in 1939, Fresno’s then-Mayor Floyd Hyde wanted to bring rail transit back.
On the heels of a successful voter referendum in 1962 led by Bay Area business leaders to build BART – with San Diego following next – Fresno leaders explored a similar path.
In May of 1966, Hyde called on the Fresno City Council to develop a bold transportation plan for the 20th century, including a major rethinking of mass transit “that would be more convenient and more rapid than driving your own vehicle,” he was quoted. He suggested exploring using what is now the BNSF rail tracks as a corridor for fast commuter trains, inspired after a recent trip to Japan.
Throughout the 1960s, Fresno city leaders pursued an effort to create a new metropolitan transit district. City leaders hit consistent roadblocks with the county board of supervisors, who protested including unincorporated areas near Fresno and Clovis in the district, according to reports from The Fresno Bee at the time.
But voters turned down one effort in 1971 that didn’t include Clovis. After Fresno County LAFCO – the agency who approves new special districts – shut down the transit district proposal in 1972, The Bee called it dead.
Local business leaders instead coalesced around a plan to build out the three main freeways of our regional system: the 41, 180, and 168.
Opposition to the freeways was fierce, with a few groups organizing and taking legal action to prevent their completion. But the freeway boosters were able to still secure necessary environmental and bureaucratic approvals.
The only problem was money.
Then Gov. Jerry Brown was more interested in transit than building freeways. So the freeway aspirations languished, until Brown left office in 1983. When Gov. Deukmejian promised to resume California’s freeway building aspirations, Fresno’s business and political leaders had an opening.
Between effective lobbying from Fresno’s representatives in Sacramento, and a brand-new sales tax in 1986 dedicated to freeways, called Measure C – the highway boosters won.
In 1987, a handful of county leaders unsuccessfully led an effort to try to include design for light rail as the future 41, 180, and 168 freeways were being planned and built out.
A 1988 light rail study never made its way into any official plans.
When the next version of Measure C was resurrected in 2004, and then again in 2006, many new types of public transit options were discussed, from monorail to ‘personal rapid transit’ vehicles seen at some large airports. But not light rail.
County and city transit leaders decided that bus rapid transit would be a more cost effective way to move people around the city – without cars – faster.
Planning efforts for the city’s downtown and older neighborhoods – designed around an expansive streetcar network in the early 20th century – revived interest in rail.
Mayor Alan Autry even led a trip of community leaders in 2007 to Portland to look at the city’s successful streetcar line through downtown and nearby neighborhoods.
A 2010 study looked at whether Fresno should consider bringing back a streetcar along the historic lines through downtown, Chinatown, and the Tower District. It never got much of a public hearing.
A public draft of the latest light rail study is expected by the summer of 2027, according to Herman.
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