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Highway Expansion Litigation in South Fresno, California

About the Case

In March 2023, the EJLA Clinic on behalf of clients Fresno Building Healthy Communities and Friends of Calwa, Inc. sued the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to challenge the agencies’ approval of a joint State-Federal highway expansion project in South Fresno, California. The so-called South Fresno State Route 99 Corridor Project would expand interchanges connecting State Route 99 to local roadways in South Fresno, California, adding new lanes, ramps, and overpasses to increase capacity for movement of heavy-duty trucks and cars between South Fresno and the highway. The Project is part of an eventual route concept to expand this section of State Route 99, a major goods movement corridor running through California’s Central Valley, from six to eight lanes.

The litigation is the latest chapter in a long history of community struggle for equitable transportation infrastructure in South Fresno. In the 1950s and 60s, State Route 99 was extended to cut through the South and West side of the City of Fresno—historic communities dating back to the 1880s that have long been home to immigrants and residents of color once barred from renting or owning homes in other parts of the city. When the highway was constructed, it destroyed more than twenty blocks of housing and created a physical divide cutting off South Fresno neighborhoods from downtown and from each other. Today, land use plans continue to concentrate industrial development in South Fresno, where census tracts fall in the top one percent of cumulative pollution burdens and social vulnerabilities in the state. Truck traffic running through South Fresno neighborhoods, and resulting air pollution, are among the most significant challenges to residents’ health, safety, and quality of life.

Against this backdrop, the South Fresno community, with leadership by Clinic clients Fresno Building Healthy Communities and Friends of Calwa, has organized to secure a safe, healthy, and environmentally resilient South Fresno. Central to these aims are reconnecting highway-severed neighborhoods and building pedestrian infrastructure and public green space. After exhausting efforts to work with Caltrans and FHWA in the administrative process to make the South Fresno State Route 99 Corridor Project compatible with these goals, Fresno Building Healthy Communities and Friends of Calwa decided to take the struggle to the courts. The Clinic represents the organizations in a pair of lawsuits in state and federal courts challenging the sufficiency of environmental review of the project as well as the defendants’ compliance with civil rights and fair housing protections. The Clinic is co-counsel in the litigation with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability (LCJA) and the Public Interest Law Project.

Friends of Calwa et al. v. U.S. Department of Transportation, et al., Case No. 23-CV-00353 (E.D. Cal.)

Friends of Calwa and Fresno Building Healthy Communities’ lawsuit against FHWA and Caltrans in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California challenges approval of the South Fresno State Route 99 Corridor Project under the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).  

The Clean Air Act imposes safeguards to ensure that the Federal government does not support highway projects that could interfere with efforts to attain National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). If a proposed highway project is located in a non-attainment area, the FHWA must make a formal finding that the project will not interfere with state implementation or maintenance plans to attain the NAAQS before the Federal government can approve or lend its support to the Project. Because this Project is in an area in non-attainment for particulate matter and ozone pollution, the FHWA is required to make this so-called “conformity determination” before approving or financing the Project.

In 2022, the FWHA ratified a conformity determination prepared by Caltrans, which concluded that the Project did not present air quality concerns. Friends of Calwa and Fresno Building Healthy Communities allege in this federal lawsuit that this conformity determination was flawed.

In December 2023, the FHWA agreed to a voluntary remand of its conformity determination so it could issue new public notices and reopen the public comment period. The FHWA reopened the public comment period for 45 days and held a public meeting in South Fresno in June 2024, during which residents and community groups voiced concerns about the Project’s impacts on air quality in South Fresno. In July 2024, the Clinic submitted public comments on the conformity determination on behalf of Friends of Calwa and Fresno Building Healthy Communities, accompanied by an expert report on induced travel demand from the highway expansion Project and associated emissions. 

On September 29, 2025, FHWA reaffirmed its initial conformity determination. The parties have asked the district court to lift its stay in the case to allow litigation on the Clean Air Act claims to resume. Also pending before the district court is a motion by Caltrans to dismiss the NEPA claims filed against it, which plaintiffs have opposed.

For more on the federal case, read:

Friends of Calwa et al. v. California Department of Transportation et al., Case No. 23CECG04109 (Fresno Superior Ct.)

Friends of Calwa and Fresno Building Healthy Communities’ lawsuit in Fresno Superior Court challenges Caltrans’ review and approval of the Project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), California’s anti-discrimination law (California Government Code section 11135), and California’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Law (California Government Code section 8899.50).

In June 2024, after its demurrer was overruled, Caltrans filed a motion for summary adjudication seeking to dismiss the CEQA claims as untimely. Petitioners countered that CEQA’s 30-day statute of limitations was tolled by their timely filing of the claims in federal court and prompt refiling in state court after Caltrans moved to dismiss the original action for lack of jurisdiction. After the Fresno Superior Court granted summary adjudication for Caltrans, the Clinic filed a Petition for Writ of Mandate in California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal in November 2024, seeking emergency relief. The Petition asserted that the trial court had erred by misapplying the law governing equitable tolling and by misapplying standards for summary adjudication.

On March 12, 2025, the Court of Appeal granted Friends of Calwa and Fresno Building Healthy Communities’ Petition and directed the Superior Court to vacate its order granting summary adjudication in Caltrans’ favor. The Court of Appeal’s ruling cleared the way for the CEQA claims to be heard on their merits. According to the Court of Appeal, although “appellate courts generally avoid using extraordinary writs” to review a trial court decision before final judgment, the Clinic’s filings had shown significant legal questions warranting the exceptional remedy.

Following issuance of the Writ, the Clinic filed Petitioners’ opening brief on the CEQA merits on August 22, 2025 and their brief in reply to the CEQA merits on November 21, 2025. Hearing on the CEQA merits is set for January 9, 2026 in the downtown Fresno courthouse.

For more on the state case, read:

Newsroom

'How did you miss it?' Fresno judge grills Caltrans over Highway 99 interchange expansion near juvenile facility, Jan. 9, 2026

Caltrans analysis questioned in lawsuit to stop Highway 99 project in Fresno, Jan 14, 2026