Transportation plans call for Highway 65 widening

Sometime in the next decade, regional road planners expect to alleviate pressure along Highway 65 via two road widening projects.

The highway will be widened to four lanes between Teapot Dome Avenue and Highway 190, and the Scranton Avenue exit will be widened as it connects to South Indiana Street and then to West Gibbons Street. They will commence once $60 million in other countywide transportation projects are carried out this summer.

In the next two decades, the list of projects grows to include the widening of Highway 65 to the Kern County line, Highway 190 between Highway 99 and High 65, a new interchange at Highway 65 on North Grand Avenue and the renovation of the interchange at Highway 190 and Main Street.

“I’m very, very skeptical, everything on the Porterville side of the valley is very long term, Highway 65 was supposed to be completed by now,” Councilman Cameron Hamilton said. “The big projects are all happening in North County.”

The plans are outlined in the transportation authority’s 20-year planning document that qualifies the county and its eight cities for state and federal funding. The blueprint outlines all planned transportation improvement projects based on funding projections, and is expected to be adopted by the Tulare County Board of Supervisors in July.

The public will be invited to review the Regional Transportation Plan Update for a 45 day period beginning in April.

Ted Smalley, the executive director for the Tulare County Association of Governments, said the timeline for the projects is realistic, despite delays in other projects that have yet to come to fruition, such as the realignment of Highway 65 along Spruce Avenue, and passing lanes on the southern section of the highway.

Hamilton, who wrapped up a several year term as a TCAG board member three years ago, said that during his terms ground was set to turn on Highway 65 improvements south of Porterville, when construction costs rose and the plans were scrapped.

Smalley noted that local officials will be able to leverage millions of dollars in funding from the state by matching dollars from the State Transportation Improvement Program with local Measure R funds. More than $500 million in construction projects will be made possible in the next five years thanks to the pairing.

Passed by Tulare County voters in 2006, Measure R is a 30 year, half cent sales tax increase dedicated to transportation needs. About one percent is dedicated to transportation costs, while 50 percent is allocated to regional projects, 35 percent to local projects and 14 percent to bicycle and environmental improvement projects.

In Porterville, $4 million in Measure R money has garnered a financial partnership with CalTrans — the state’s transportation authority — which has committed to contributing $17 million to finish a shoulder-widening project along Highway 190.

Currently only a portion of the two-lane highway has extra space along the road reserved for motorists to pull over in emergency situations. With the $21 million, however, the shoulders will be constructed all the way to major arterial Highway 99.

“We were initially told it would take 15 to 20 years for this project,” Smalley said.

--Contact Jenna Chandler at 784-5000, Ext. 1050, or jchandler@portervillerecorder.com.