It’s been just over 50 years since Manteca got its first traffic signal to replace the flashing red light at the four-way stop at Main Street and Yosemite Avenue where Highways 99 and 120 once intersected.

Later this year, the city’s 51st signalized intersection will be added when work is completed on the missing gap of Atherton Drive east of South Main Street. The $200,000 signal project is being done in concert with the $2.9 million extension of Atherton Drive. The council this past week called for bids to be accepted through April 12 for the traffic signal improvements.

When finished it is expected to alter traffic patterns not only south of the 120 Bypass but also between two major Manteca retail clusters - The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley and Spreckels Park.

You can’t get much of anywhere on Atherton Drive today.

It exists as three separate segments with the heaviest used section connecting Union Road and Main Street as access to The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley.

Another segment dead-ends on both sides of Airport Way to provide access to nearby neighborhoods.

The third section dead-ends west of Wellington Avenue by the Paseo Apartments and then curves to the south to T-intersect for the time being with Woodward Avenue.

The work now under way will connect Main Street with the segment that ends near Paseo Apartments.

It also will open more freeway frontage for commercial and office development. Commercial real estate experts before the recession hit believed that the 120 Bypass corridor will eventually become one of the hottest locations in the Northern San Joaquin Valley given its traffic movement of commuters from Modesto, Stockton and the foothills to Bay Area employment centers plus the heavy weekend traffic from the Bay Area to the Sierra.

Atherton Drive’s long-range destiny is to not only serve as access to what is envisioned as teeming retail and office along the 120 Bypass but also to provide the major surface street connection to southeast Manteca where the 1,049-acre Austin Road Business Park is being pursued. Atherton Drive will eventually head south of Woodward Avenue toward rural Ripon to serve as the development’s major north-south street.

Austin Road Business Park is envisioned for 3.5 million square feet of general commercial or five times the size of Orchard Valley when it is finished. The plan also calls for 2,358 traditional single-family homes, 1,840 multiple family units, plus 8 million square feet of industrial and business park projects. The employment centers would be the equivalent of 15 buildings the size of the Ford Motor Co. distribution center in Spreckels Park.

Austin Road Business Park could add 10,200 residents to Manteca and has the potential of creating up to 13,000 jobs.

Atherton Drive is being developed as growth occurs so that the taxpayers aren’t saddled with the cost or the financing.