Caltrans is doing overnight repair work on the eastbound 120 Bypass embankment on Friday near the McKinley Avenue overcrossing.
There will be alternating lane closures.
*Beginning on Thursday, Jan. 19. at 10:30 p.m. until 6 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 20.
*Beginning on Friday, Jan. 20, 10:30 p.m. until 7 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21.
Motorists should expect up to 10-minute delays. Alternate routes should be taken whenever possible.
This work is scheduled to begin as listed, but is subject to change due to traffic incidents, weather, availability.
Work on converting the overpass into a partial cloverleaf started in August.
The interchange was first envisioned in the mid-1990s.
The interchange project will allow several things to happen:
*It will take pressure off of the Airport Way corridor.
*It will serve more than 3,000 plus homes in southwest Manteca.
*It will access a major business park employment center approved by Lathrop on the northwest quadrant of the interchange.
*It will improve traffic circulation to Daniels Street that serves the 120-acre family entertainment zone anchored by Big League Dreams and Great Wolf resort between Airport Way and McKinley Avenue.
The option that Great Wolf has to buy city land to possibly build an additional 200 rooms can’t be exercised until construction starts on the McKinley Avenue interchange.
The project is being funded with $12.3 million in state funds, $7 million in Measure K funds collected from the countywide half cent road and transportation tax, and well as $8 million the city has collected in growth fees for major road endeavors..
DeSilva Gates Construction was awarded the bid of $23,387,387 to build the last interchange to be built on the six-mile 120 Bypass.
When completed there will be five interchanges with a mile between each — Yosemite Avenue in Lathrop as well as McKinley Avenue, Airport Way, Union Road and Main Street in Manteca. They are all bookended by the interchange with Interstate 5 on the west and the interchange with Highway 99 on the east.
Later this year, there will be a second major interchange project underway within a five-mile stretch of the 120 Bypass.
Caltrans is targeted to go to bid this fall for the first phase of the $154 million revamp of the 120 Bypass/Highway 99 interchange.
The first phase of the 99/120 project will add a second transition lane to southbound Highway 99 from the 120 Bypass interchange. It also involves tearing down the existing Austin Road interchange on Highway 99 to accommodate additional freeway lanes.
The replacement overpass for Austin Road will be four lanes. It will also span the railroad tracks requiring connecting street work from Austin Road to Atherton Drive as well as a new crossing alignment for Woodward Avenue to reach Moffat Boulevard.
The city nearly three years ago completed a revamp of the Union Road interchange as California’s first diverging diamond. The plan is to eventually to do the same revamps at the Main Street and Airport Way interchanges.
The McKinley project will create a partial cloverleaf designed to eventually be expanded to a full cloverleaf as traffic warrants.
The big price cost for the project is the need to import dirt to construct the ramps on as the freeway at that point was elevated using dirt to elevate it out of the flood zone of the San Joaquin River.
That means the initial construction will have all left turns from McKinley Avenue to 120 Bypass onramps go through signalized intersections just as they currently do at the Airport, Union, and Main interchanges. When the loops are completed northbound McKinley Avenue traffic will be able to get onto westbound 120 without going through a traffic signal as would southbound McKinley to eastbound 120.
McKinley Avenue as it passes under the freeway will be widened to four lanes.
It will include a separated bike path underneath the 120 Bypass that eventually will connect with the Atherton Drive bike path to provide access to Big League Dreams and the envisioned family entertainment zone.
Ultimately it will be a link in a separated bicycle pathway that loops the city going along McKinley Avenue north to connect with a path that cuts behind Del Webb at Woodbridge that crosses Union Road and ties into the Tidewater Bikeway. The Tidewater then heads south and ties in with the Atherton Drive Bikeway via Industrial Park Drive and Van Ryn Avenue.
The interchange will have metered ramps for congestion control.
The McKinley Avenue interchange is also part of the long-range circulation plan for Manteca south of the 120 Bypass where more than 60 percent of the city’s population is expected to be by 2040.
It will take pressure off of the Airport Way interchange to provide access to more than 3,000 homes in four different developments that have started or are about to do so in southwest Manteca. Without it, all of the traffic generated from the new homes would have to funnel through the Airport Way interchange.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
