Caltrans analysis questioned in lawsuit to stop Highway 99 project in Fresno
The accuracy of an environmental impact analysis of Caltrans’ Highway 99 interchange expansion in south Fresno came into question at a recent hearing of a lawsuit vying to stop the project.
The lawsuit filed by community advocate groups argues new interchanges would increase truck traffic pollution in neighborhoods already overburdened by poor air quality along Highway 99.
Fresno Judge Geoffrey Wilson last Friday heard arguments from attorneys both for and against the South Fresno State Route 99 Corridor project, which would reconstruct two interchanges on American Avenue and North Avenue. The interchanges would be converted from two to four or six lanes, thereby connecting Highway 99 to local roadways in the small communities of Calwa and Malaga just south of Fresno.
The community organizations Friends of Calwa and Fresno Building Healthy Communities filed suit against Caltrans and the Federal Highway Administration shortly after the $140 million project was announced in 2023. The lawsuit argues the project’s environmental review violated state and federal laws by not acknowledging the existence of any impacted communities, including Fresno County’s Juvenile Detention facility, which is roughly 100 yards away.
After the two-hour-long hearing, Judge Wilson took the matter under advisement. He has 90 days to issue a ruling.
Fresno judge questioned Caltrans’s environmental impact report for Hwy 99 project
Law clinic lawyers at Yale Law School, Maria Michalos and Thomas Peterson, represented the community groups. They said Caltrans’s environmental review was unacceptable and failed to account for the thousands of residents who live in the area, violating the California Environmental Quality Act.
According to the petitioners’ brief, upgrading the interchanges would produce an estimated 2 million additional truck trips per year in south Fresno, an area with some of the worst air quality in the nation due to heavy industrial activity, and increase pollution by 854%.
“The EIR is riddled with defects, not in one place, not in two, but throughout,” Michalos said.
Caltrans attorneys said the project is not an expansion, but rather an update to existing facilities from the 1960s needed for safety.
A judge ruled to stop a Costco project in northwest Fresno under similar circumstances in May 2024, forcing the city to revise its environmental impact report before seeking new approvals for its construction.
Judge Wilson asked why Caltrans did not analyze the health impacts on the incarcerated kids at the juvenile justice center, one of the largest structures in the area.
Caltrans attorneys pointed to a study saying the truck traffic could not be heard from the area, which led them to conclude the incarcerated kids would not be impacted. They said it was not something Clatrans was trying to hide and was based on a visit to the facility.
“Caltrans takes its job seriously; we don’t go out and try to harm people,” Caltrans lawyer Robert Gini said.
The Yale legal team also argued that the project would lead to the build-out of more industrial-zoned land, including a 3,000-acre industrial park near the community of Malaga.
“It deprives kids from going outside and playing and just having a childhood that other kids would have,” Milena Alvarez, an organizer with Friends of Calwa, said at a press conference a few days ahead of the hearing. “Just being able to be at their homes comfortably without being worried about all the pollution, all the ozone going into their communities.”
Caltrans said the project is partially in response to industrial growth in the area, and not intended to create more of it.
Many community members attended the hearing Friday in favor of squashing the project.
“We want Caltrans to honor our lives and to honor our communities,” Sandra Celedon, president and CEO of BHC Fresno, said at the press conference.
Alvarez told The Bee after the hearing that they were pleased with how events unfolded in court and were encouraged by the community turnout.
This story was originally published January 14, 2026 at 11:22 AM with the headline "Caltrans analysis questioned in lawsuit to stop Highway 99 project in Fresno."