Add the 59-home townhouse project known as Paradise Villas to the growing list of developments where municipal staff has assured skeptical Manteca Planning Commissioners that traffic experts know best.

That growing list includes Chick-fil-A, Raising Cane’s, and Cottage Village Apartments among others.

And it almost included Rotten Robbie’s until the planning commission pushed back hard enough.

In recent years commissioners have been come more outspoken about staff’s buy-in of traffic modeling by the city’s go to hired hand for traffic consulting issues related to development high piecemeal and otherwise — Fehr & Peers.

At the root of their grumblings is the assumption that modeling in a vacuum using traffic generation figures for specific developments and the turn movements patrons or residents will make is devoid of any weight given to human factors.

Those human factors cross the spectrum of traffic movements ranging from well-established shortcuts and driving behavior that is somewhat unique to Manteca because of what is already in place that isn’t reflected in modeling.

It also reflects two distinct approaches best explained by the “desired path” phenomenon that prompted some institutions of hiring learning over the years to place sidewalks where students chose to create well-worn paths. At the heart of the approach isn’t a desire to let people go where they please but to make improvements based on the behavior of people who actually walk to get around a university. The application to driving would be taking into account what local drivers do.

Commissioner Sean Randall in the case of the townhome project in east Manteca the Planning Commission ended up approving Thursday raised the question of whether a left turn pocket should be required on Pestana Avenue.

There is only one access point in and out of the townhouse project and it happens to be on a curve that fellow commission member Jeff Zellner described as a “blind curve”. Given the tendency for motorists to exceed the speed limit on the southern end of Pestana where it is wider and not lined on both sides with detached housing Randall’s question was based on the belief applying some paint on the Pestana Avenue asphalt to create a middle lane for turning would add a degree of safety.

Staff in response to Randall and other commissioners assured them it was unnecessary because the consultants hired by the city said their models determined it was unwarranted.

A half mile away more than four years ago planning staff aligned traffic consultants to successfully pushback on similar concerns the commission expressed about the 48-unit Cottage Village Apartments that also has only one access point.

In that case they pushed for requiring stop signs at Alameda and Cottage Avenue at the base of the Highway 99 overcrossing.

Council members including then Mayor Steve DeBrum had similar concerns when the project went before them.

Again, staff said experts determined such a requirement wasn’t warranted and that the city would keep an eye on the situation. DeBrum argued the city had more options by acting then than in the future given two sides of the intersection was part of the development. That meant a shifted roundabout such as the one on Louise Avenue east of Cottage could have been put in place before the apartments were developed.

During the first year of the apartments being occupied there have been three accidents requiring police response including one where a driver was hospitalized for more than three months.

Chick-fil-A got the blessing of city staff after traffic engineers hired by the city dismissed commission concerns about potential traffic back-ups.

The commission concerns were based on what they saw day-in and day-out at the Yosemite Avenue-Northwoods/Commerce intersection. It included sharpened congestion Friday thru Sunday from the traveling public accessing more than two dozen food options on their way to and from the Sierra.

Several commissioners spoke on traffic issues with other Chick-fil-A locations. They were dismissed because the consultant’s model for a fast food operation the size Chick-fil-A was proposing showed there were no potential traffic issues.

For 19 consecutive months Chick-fil-A has backed up traffic on Northwoods and Yosemite Avenue due to patrons lining up for the drive-thru queue. It is progressively worse on Saturdays where the backup often extends onto the southbound Highway 99 offramp. Commission members took exception to traffic consultant assurances dangerous turn movements that led to accidents before the city’s original McDonald’s at that location was shuttered and razed would ever occur for the Raising Cane’s fast food operation.

They pointed out patrons leaving Raising Cane’s who wished to go east out of the western most driveway would adhere to a sign that reads “right turn only” and drive to the intersection of Yosemite and Spreckels/Cottage and make a U-turn. It has never been legal to make a U-turn at that intersection or any intersection controlled by traffic signals on Yosemite from Raising Cane’s to the western city limits.

Commission members stuck to their guns on Rotten Robbie’s that wanted two access points to busy Airport Way for a gas station and convenience store they plan on building just south of Wawona.

The experts hired by the city again said it wouldn’t be a problem despite how close it was to the Airport Way/Wawona intersection.

The City Council agreed with the commission and rejected the traffic consultant’s work as essentially being out of touch with realities on the ground in Manteca as they approved a development plan minus the northern most driveway closest to the intersection.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com