What about Highway 41?
-October 13,2022-
Getting from Lost Hills in Kern County to Paso Robles will be a breeze once Highway 46 East becomes a 4-lane divided expressway from US 101 in Paso Robles to I-5 in Lost Hills. Another five mile segment was approved recently by the California Transportation Commission.
By contrast Highway 41, connecting Fresno County, Lemoore and Visalia to the coast has zero four-lane segments from Fresno County to The Wye near Cholame in San Luis Obispo County.
The 55 mile two-lane road winds through the hills of Kings,Kern and San Luis Obispo foothills, looking pretty much the same as it did in the 1940s.
Despite that, the highway is clogged with weekend warriors fleeing the weather in the Valley most weekends along with plenty of big-rig truck activity all the time.
Then there are those continuing horrific crashes resulting in multiple fatalities like we saw just last month north of Kettleman City. In this case, a van with three children and mother was hit by a speeding motorist traveling at 80mph and making an unsafe passing maneuver.The result was a head-on with two children suffering major injuries and one died along with the speedster.
“This is another tragic example of what happens too often on these unsafe gaps in our highway system,” commented Assembly member Jim Patterson.
Patterson has been an advocate for expanding Highway 41 to at least two lanes in both directions all the way through.
“Widening 41 will likely not happen in our lifetime” Terri King predicts
But CalTrans has no plans at all to make any segment of this stretch of Highway 41 a divided highway. Lack of political support to widen highways in Sacramento is part of the problem, says Kings County Assn of Governments (KCAG) Executive Director Terri King. Don’t look for anything much to happen beyond a few extra passing lanes, shrugs King.
“Widening 41 will likely not happen in our lifetime” Terri King predicts.
King cites another factor- lack of public demand to make Highway 41 widening a priority. King says her KCAG group will discuss the issue soon. But there is some movement in the arena .
Leading the public effort to widen Highway 41 north of 198 has been Lorna Roush who helped lead the charge to get additional funding to widen 41 in the Riverdale area now slated for construction because of a public outcry over fatal crashes there.
Roush recently told a TV news reporter that she hopes people in the Kettleman City area, where the fatal crash happened in September, will be inspired to rally around expanding their section of Highway 41.
It will take more than that to make widening happen.
For the time being this single-lane stretch between Lemoore and Cholame has few champions in Sacramento. Instead the next road south – State Highway 46 – has enjoyed multiple four-lane improvements over the past few decades.
Map: Site of deadly crash in September
Photo: Highway 41 looks the same as it did in the 1940s