Two semi-trucks on Wednesday decided to park on private property at Atherton Drive and Union Road.
One driver was actually servicing his truck before he hopped in a car and drove away.
The property owner wasn’t amused.
He called the Manteca Police who he said told him there was nothing they could do about it.
Fed up with what he believes is the city’s wholesale capitulation not to enforce standards that surrounding jurisdictions place on trucks to make sure a balance is struck between the need for trucks and quality of life, he took things into his own hands.
He had the trucks towed as his cost. And while it isn’t cheap to have big rigs towed the property owner said he’ll keep doing it.
“This is not right,” stated the property owner who declined to be identified, “It’s running the town down. Truckers are parking where ever they please and the city does nothing. It’s crazy.”
The owners of the towed trucks to avoid paying overnight or monthly parking fees in commercial trucking lots park where they essentially want to. They will be forced to pay storage and other assorted fees to retrieve their rigs from the tow yard. Not only that they will have the inconvenience of having to retrieve their trucks.
“No one is against trucks but they need to follow rules like everyone else and the city needs to enforce them,” he said. “It is getting worse and if the city doesn’t do anything it’ll get even worse.”
He noted truckers are businessmen and paying to have their truck parked in a proper location is part of the cost of doing business.
He said the city is allowing truckers to ruin the quality of life as well as create safety issues in Manteca just so the truck drivers can save money.
The towing of the trucks came on the same day a frustrated former councilwoman — Debby Moorhead — shared how she almost got struck by a vehicle again while trying to turn left on Moffat Boulevard from Atherton Drive.
“You can’t see oncoming traffic because trucks park three deep from the road to the gravel (at the base of the railroad tracks),” Moorhead said. “Making it worse is the traffic (heading toward Spreckels Avenue) on Moffat never goes below 50 mph.”
Moorhead is the latest in a growing number of Manteca residents fed up with trucks parking in such a manner they jeopardize pedestrian and motorist safety, block traffic lanes, create pollution issues by doing mechanical work while parked on city streets, and contribute to the deterioration of the quality of life.
Moorhead emphasized she had no issue with trucks per se as they are essential and a vital part of the Manteca economy. But she added that is no reason why they should be allowed to park where they please and break rules the city “doesn’t seem to be too interested in enforcing.”
Moorhead said in recent months she has had people knock on her door and complain about the truck parking on residential streets in their neighborhoods.
“I have to remind them I’m not on the council anymore,” said Moorhead who lives in a newer neighborhood east of Woodward Park.
A number of drivers will unhook their cabs from trailers they leave along Moffat and drive their truck cabs to their homes where they leave them parked on city streets for a long period of time and often often night and over weekends.
Moorhead said the city in the past year has looked the other way with growing regularity to illegal truck parking that includes leaving trailers separated from truck cabs on truck routes such as Moffat between Powers and Spreckels avenues and then driving the cabs to their home.
In that section of Moffat she has seen trucks double parked, blocking the bicycle lane, drivers parking their vehicles in the continuous center turn lane, and blocking locations where “de facto” crosswalks are at the intersection where Cowell Avenue T-intersects with Moffat and an access point to the Tidewater Bike Path that is a 34-acre city park.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
