When it’s completed the grade separation on Lathrop Road will cement the thoroughfare’s status as the city’s transportation core.

And it’ll soon be a much more comfortable drive as well.

Tonight the Lathrop City Council will decide whether to award an engineering contract to Mark Thomas and Company for the preliminary planning work for the widening of Lathrop Road from 5th Street down to Harlan Road. The bid, with a 10 percent contingency, is just north of $630,000.

Last month the final connecting pieces of the grade separation – the second of its kind on Lathrop Road – were laid in place to provide a pass over to the heavily-used and at times congestion-causing Union Pacific railroad tracks underneath. When coupled with Manteca’s recent realignment of the Lathrop Road overpass at Highway 99, the bypass to the railroad tracks was set to make the route popular with local traffic passing between Central California’s main arterial highways.

The final pieces of the work will be completed over the course of the next year and will include the new construction of a surface street that will tie in the entrance to nearby Woodfield Estates and the nearby Fireside Longue. Multiple public meetings were held in advance of the project construction to give the public the opportunity to have a voice in not just the layout, but the ways in which construction impacts would be kept to a minimum.

 Road closures along Lathrop Road and at 7th Street where it intersects have already taken place. 

Currently the section of roadway between the points is only two lanes wide – one in each direction – and would be doubled by the time that construction is completed. Traffic patterns along Lathrop Road within the last decade have prompted the city to raise the speed limit to 45 miles per hour, based on a standard speed survey, although the council three years ago voted to lower it down to 35 miles per hour, citing narrowness and nearby homes.

According to the staff report, the widening would not only improve traffic flow but also storm drainage and pedestrian and bicycle safety while increasing connectivity to parks, businesses and schools.

Four proposals for the engineering work were received and were scored and rated based on work history, qualifications and overall knowledge and scope of the project.

The Lathrop City Council meets on the first and third Monday of the month at Lathrop City Hall, located at 390 Towne Center Drive. For more information visit www.ci.lathrop.ca.us.