Keep the San Joaquin Valley Moving
A safe and efficient multimodal transportation system is the heart of a strong economy, and here in the San Joaquin Valley, that backbone is State Route 99. It is a critical corridor for moving our bountiful ag goods up and down the state on their way to feed people across the nation. It is a connector of people and jobs, of students and education, of people and opportunity. State Route 99 is a quality-of-life corridor for the San Joaquin Valley and beyond. And yet, State Route 99 remains unfinished.
In 2005, Caltrans published the SR 99 Business Plan, which outlined a strategic approach to transforming SR 99 into a safe and efficient trade corridor. The plan solidified Caltrans’ long-term goals for the route and a corresponding list of projects to achieve those goals, thereby streamlining funding decisions for corridor improvements. A key priority for this work was completing widening projects necessary for SR 99 to be a six-lane corridor.
Today, the goal established in the Business Plan of widening SR 99 from 4 to 6 lanes from Kern County to San Joaquin County, remains unfinished. As a result, the corridor is needlessly congested and unsafe, hampering economic activity, negatively impacting the quality of life in the San Joaquin Valley, and adversely impacting air quality and the environment.
The Facts
SR 99 is the north-south state highway stretching from Kern County in the south to Shasta County in the north, ranging from 4-lanes to 6-lanes throughout the corridor. From Kern County to San Joaquin County – 274 miles of the corridor are through the heart of San Joaquin Valley.
Eight segments in the San Joaquin Valley totaling 35 miles through Merced, Madera, and Tulare counties remain unfinished and need to be expanded from 4-lanes to 6-lanes.
Where SR 99 changes from 4-lanes to 6-lanes and back to 4-lanes again, bottlenecks create congestion and serious safety issues.
The unfinished segments include approximately 12 dangerous bottlenecks along this vital corridor.
The San Joaquin Valley is the heart of the state’s agricultural economy – generating more than $45 billion in agricultural products annually and providing 25-percent of the nation's food supply.
The SR 99 corridor, on average, supports 1.3 million daily truck trips. Approximately 90-percent of freight through the San Joaquin Valley is moved by trucks, and those truck trips primarily occur on SR 99.
In addition to the jobs and economic output from the agricultural sector, over 44 percent of all employment in the San Joaquin Valley is associated with goods movement-dependent industries, which is higher than goods movement-related employment in all other regions of California.
When people, goods, and services sit in congestion, it exacerbates dangerous and unhealthy air quality conditions and contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Finishing SR 99 throughout the San Joaquin Valley is a critical part of the transportation solution. A six-lane SR 99 corridor is essential to support jobs, the economy, goods movement, farm-to-market needs, reduce air quality and climate impacts, and most importantly – to protect the lives and livelihoods of the traveling public and the 4.4 million Californians that call the San Joaquin Valley home.
WHO WE ARE
We are a coalition of cities, counties, regional transportation planning agencies, labor organizations, and business groups aligned in our support for finishing State Route 99. We support transportation solutions that increase the San Joaquin Valley and the State of California’s economic vitality. We support transportation solutions that solve safety issues and prevent serious injuries and the loss of life. We recognize the agricultural sector’s meaningful role in California, across the United States, and internationally. We support transportation solutions that help the San Joaquin Valley feed the world. We support jobs – jobs created by investing in infrastructure and jobs that transportation infrastructure makes possible. We support people – and improving the overall quality of life for millions of Californians.
