Construction shuts major road near Fresno. What’s being built? How long will it be closed?
Fresno County drivers who use Manning Avenue to get to and fro are finding the route disrupted by the closure of the major east-west country road for high-speed rail construction.
Contractors with the California High-Speed Rail Authority are working for the next two years on an overpass that will eventually carry traffic on Manning Avenue up and over the future bullet-train tracks adjacent to the existing BNSF Railway tracks between Maple and Chance avenues in the rural hamlet of Bowles, about six miles south of Fresno.
Work began earlier this month and is expected to continue through March 2026. In the meantime, traffic on Manning Avenue is being rerouted on a detour between Cedar and Maple avenues. Drivers are being directed to South Avenue, about a mile north of the construction zone.
Construction in the area has already proven to be a “big pain” for Manning Gardens, a 59-bed convalescent center, said Kenny Kinnersley, the center’s business manager. The facility sits on the south side of Manning Avenue between Cedar and Chance avenues, but the primary access to its parking lot from Manning has been closed.
Instead, a small street behind Manning Gardens and nearby homes has been extended west to Cedar Avenue to provide indirect access to the rear of the facility.
“It’s actually been a very significant disruption,” Kinnersley said. In addition to disconnecting Boyd Avenue from Manning Avenue to create a cul de sac, he said work has also taken up part of the center’s parking lot.
“There’s less space for people to park, and we have to have access for emergency vehicles, deliveries and more,” he added. “It’s impacting quite a few people,” including families of patients and about 100 staff who work there.
Because there are no plans to restore direct access to Manning Avenue for the center, Kinnersley said, “now we have to do major work to make the back of our building look like it’s the front of our building.” He added that the business has been unsuccessful in working with the rail authority’s right of way agent to secure financial help for the changes that need to be made to the facility.
The Manning Avenue overpass is one of three dozen grade-separation structures being built by rail contractor Dragados-Flatiron Joint Venture along a 65-mile stretch of the high-speed rail route from south of Fresno to the Tulare-Kern county line. The detour will take drivers over a similar overpass on South Avenue that was completed in 2022. That structure is almost 400 feet long and is 47 feet high at its tallest point.
