A groundbreaking ceremony was held on at the corner of A Street and Yosemite Avenue for the State Route 145 Improvement Project.
The project will make improvements throughout a four-mile stretch of State Route 145, which will include repaving, restriping, adding bike lanes, and adding several roundabouts. There will also be many decorative improvements, enhancing the beauty of the corridor.
Thursday’s ceremony was met with much enthusiasm and encouragement as participants explained the history of the project and what it took to get where they are today.
Larry Johnson, Caltrans District 6 Public Information Officer, served as master of ceremonies at the event. He gave a warm welcome to all attendees as he introduced himself.
“It’s a very special moment,” he said. “It’s a very special project, and it’s been a long time in coming, but necessary. It’s a good collaboration between us and the city, and we’re really excited about it.”
Director Michael Navarro from Caltrans District 6 spoke about his involvement in the project.
“I’m excited to be here today, more than you know. I feel like this project has been almost the length in my entire career. I started Caltrans about 26 years ago in 2000,” he said. “A lot of the projects I reviewed were along the 145 corridor, and there were a lot of conversations back and forth with the city over the years about what to do with this corridor.”
He went on to explain that working with Caltrans meant focusing on highways, but the City of Madera had a different kind of vision for their downtown.
As the City worked with legislative issues over the last few decades, Caltrans finally decided to initiate a project in 2018 that was essentially just going to overlay this project at 145 through downtown.
“Around that same time, we partnered and collaborated with the city of Madera on a Caltrans planning grant,” Navarro said. “It was about $275,000 that allowed the city to do some strategic engagement and working with the downtown community to develop a true vision of what you’re going to see here on this downtown 145 corridor.”
He explained that the project evolved from what was about a $9 million rehab to about a $26 million transformational downtown revitalization project.
He thanked the City of Madera for their leadership, and for the people who had the vision for this community of Madera.
Lee Ann Eager, Commissioner of the California Transportation Commission spoke about how big the project was.
“In case you don’t know what it is that we do, we approve the projects and we write the big checks,” she said. “And this particular project is one of our largest of the kind. The CTC has put in so far about $22.5 million into the street here. And we’re so excited to partner with Caltrans and the city and the county to look at the dream of what we want for this area.”
Eager said she was born and raised in Fresno, but she had family in Madera.
“I remember trying to run across the street here,” she said. “As traffic went by and trucks went by, I remember, even as a youngster, saying, ‘How come there’s a freeway going through downtown?’ And we all know what happens when they first start looking at the transportation system in California, they didn’t care about separating communities. They just put roads in, and now all of us have been trying since then to remedy that to fix.”
Eager thanked the Madera City Council and others who have been diligent in seeing that this project comes to life.
“Congratulations to Caltrans. Congratulations. to the people of Madera for making this dream come true,” she said.
The Mayor of Madera, Cece Gallegos, who was born and raised in Madera, spoke of the partnerships it took to make this project happen for Madera. She noted all the support that has been given.
“It’s a $28 million project, and we have invested $5 million to do the sewer and water, which you’ve kind of seen the construction happening in the last few months,” she said. “With these improvements, it’s going to include beautiful things, medium islands, the lighting, beautiful landscaping that you can’t even imagine with the trees.
She thanked the Caltrans staff, all the commissioners and organizations involved, and the residents of Madera.
“Because with all the construction happening, they’re going to be patient with everything that’s happening,” Gallegos said. “Their businesses are going to thrive after this, and I know a lot more is going to come to make downtown beautiful.
“This is what we talk about when we talk about hometown pride. That’s what Madera truly is, hometown pride. We take pride in what we have here.”
Jose Rodriguez is a Madera City Council member, but also an MCTC Commissioner. He thanked all who attended this ceremony, as well as all who were involved to make this project happen.
“This moment has been years in the making, from the early design concepts to countless hours of stakeholder and community input,” he said. “And I think that’s important to show because when the early design concept came about, Will Oliver, who was then on City Council, had engaged with Caltrans to try to get that design process going and get the grant.”
He, too, thanked many who had been involved in the process of making the project happen for Madera, noting the hard work of the City Manager, Arnoldo Rodriguez.
To the City Manager, who was at the ceremony, Jose Rodriguez said, “Your leadership, your unwavering support to enhance State Route 145, born and raised in Madera, you know the needs of our community.”
The final speaker was George Buenrostro, owner of TJ’s Bar & Grill, which is in downtown Madera.
“On behalf of Madera business owners, thank you, Caltrans and the City for making this happen for downtown Madera,” he said.
With enthusiasm, the shovels were picked up from the pile of asphalt and gravel set at the site of the ceremony, and the asphalt and gravel was then turned by the shovels. The ceremonial ground was broken for this long-anticipated project.