Manteca crews — using new equipment allowing them to more effectively handle road repairs in house — were hitting the streets Wednesday in the greater St. Francis Estates neighborhood north of Louise Avenue and west of Union Road.

Crews started on Quincy Avenue digging out cracks and potholes before applying asphalt.

The city is expected to do the other half of Quincy today and then seal coat their work.

In the coming weeks, they will be tackling other streets in the area as well as addressing 12 other areas that residents brought to their attention after road repair needs were discussed at last week’s council meeting.

“When you have an issue (with streets we) are going to take it 100 percent seriously,” said Councilman Mike Morowit.

The area in question had already been identified as needing work by the city streets division when Morowit went out the next day to revisit Quincy Avenue.

The arrival of new equipment plus an opening in scheduling allowed the city to move forward with the work now instead of later.

Moworit said those that contacted or called the city with issues in their neighborhoods will be tackled by city crews packaging work together in specific areas.

The goal is to do the work this summer in addition to the in-house street crew handling other day-to-day issues such as emergency repairs of water pipeline leaks.

Morowit said the in-house crew is tackling issues in a priority that puts pressing emergency repairs first, heavily traveled corridors next, and then repair work such as the cracks that are prevalent in the St. Francis neighborhood.

Unlike the multimillion dollar road work projects, the city needs to put out to bid due to their size, when the in-house crew tackles arterials they do the work in manageable sections targeting the most egregious segments of a corridor.

The prime example is the Spreckels Avenue-Industrial Park Drive corridor where four of the worst segments were repaired and new pavement put in place over three years.

The strategy the council adopted three years ago is designed to correct more pavement issues quicker without having to wait until they can accumulate enough money to do an entire corridor at the same time.

Hence, how the Spreckels Avenue-Industrial Park Drive corridor is being tackled. The city has indicated another segment of Spreckels Avenue is on the in-house to do list.

The city also will be working this summer on pavement issues along Northgate Drive between Crestwood Avenue and Union Road in a similar fashion as was done on Spreckels.

It will also include some safety-related improvements near Neil Hafley and East Union High schools.

In the 1990s and 2000s, city management eschewed in-house repairs on the current scale as well as any in-house paving work of any consequential size except for renting equipment so city crews could pave alleys in neighborhoods such as Powers Tract.

The reason was the city did not want to add personnel that would add to ongoing budgetary costs, preferring to contract almost all road work out to the private sector.

At the same time, aging equipment wasn’t being replaced with much of it breaking down excessively making it virtually impossible to use.
“The streets staff said this is the most equipment they’ve ever had,” Morowit said.

The city used some of $14.7 million in federal COVID relief funds that they did not need to backfill city costs related to the pandemic as well as revenue losses from the mandated closure of most businesses.

Measure Q not only allowed the city to buy more equipment but also the materials needed to do the actual roadwork.

In the 2010s, the decade started with the city slashing seven positions from the 15 allotted to street work due to the Great Recession triggered by the mortgage meltdown. Most of those positions have been restored.

Morowit praised the street crews for the quality of the work they are doing.

Eventually — several years down the road — the city will do a similar neighborhood-wide project as was done in Mayors Park and Springtime Estates that also were riddled with cracks and even potholes for a more permanent fix to extend the pavement life. That undertaking will require an outside contractor.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com