It may not become Manteca’s yellow brick road but Main Street from Yosemite Avenue to Alameda Street could become the most colorful street in the city.

And you can have input on what color the 2,000-foot plus stretch of Main Street will end up being  during a Zoom Public Meeting taking place this evening from 6 to 8 p.m.

Besides the Main Street widening project, the Zoom meeting will discuss major pavement projects in the Springtime Estates as well as Mayors Park neighborhoods. It will also include an update on the diverging diamond interchange project now underway at Union Road and the 120 Bypass.

Details on the meeting and registration are contained in a flyer posted on the City of Manteca Facebook page. You can also phone into the meeting.

The city contact is Project Manager Alfredo Mijango in the Public Works Department at (209) 456-8422 or via amijango@ci.manteca.ca.us

Typically street pavers are offered in variations of red, salmon, tan and gray with mixed patterns used in some cases. Pavers used for travel lanes, crosswalks, and turn arrows will be in either white or yellow.

The Main Street project is expected to start in October and have a much shorter construction period that won’t require full street closures that would have occurred if the city had opted for full pavement replacement and removing sections of sidewalks.

There is a bid, however, from some merchants that want the project delayed until after Christmas fearful that they could lose business during the holiday season due to construction.

The goal is to eliminate the two-lane bottleneck on Main Street through the downtown area.

A plan originally advanced would have cost more than $4 million as the street would need to be widened by four feet and eat into sidewalks. It would also require all street lights and traffic signals to be relocated. In addition an underlying 6-inch thick slab of concrete that was the original Highway 99 would needed to have been cracked or completely removed to prevent the asphalt pavement put in place from having a shortened life.

Staff decided to take a holistic approach  to addresses lingering flooding problems that have persisted after two significant storm drain system improvements since 1989 failed to completely compensate for the flatness of the area in sudden downpours.

That prompted Public Works staff to look at the paver solution that addresses a multitude of problems.

They include the desire to retain 10-foot wide travel lanes, avoid costly relocation of street lights and traffic signals that would be subject to notorious PG&E delays that drive the cost of projects up, eliminates the need to replace 4,000 plus feet of curb and gutter, addresses perennial flooding during heavy or sustained downpours at the Main and Center intersection, recharges the groundwater, and does not require taking out sidewalk and making them narrower or having store doors replaced so they open inward.

It also eliminates the need to paint traffic lanes, sidewalks, and turn lane arrows as those are put in place with colored pavers.

There is also the low maintenance cost. Pavers have a lifespan of 65 years versus asphalt at 17 years. Also if utility work is done, pavers are removed to get into trenches and then replaced without unsightly and often uneven pavement patching. If by chance several pavers “settle” they can easily be taken out and repacked using sand.

The original cost for the project was pegged at $3.9 million with PG&E relocation work that would be required costing another $500,000 to $1 million and possibly delaying the project longer. By using pavers the project will cost $1 million to $2 million for the 2,600-foot long stretch and roadway that averages 50 feet in width depending upon the condition of the existing 6-inch thick concrete. The concrete is a required base for pavers. The initial savings from going with pavers could easily exceed $2 million.

The pavers also beautiful the areas much like they do in downtown Ripon as well as some neighborhood streets in that city. Pavers tend to slow traffic down a bit adding another benefit. And while the city will not allow the upgraded Main Street to be used as a truck route, the pavers are strong enough to handle trucks. Pavers were used by Stanislaus County to address a problematic area in Westley off of Interstate 5 that is used extensively by trucks.

By using pavers the 2-foot wide gutters can be eliminated on both sides of the street. That space can then be added to travel lanes so all four lanes and the turn lane in the middle are 10 feet wide to avoid having to widen the street.

Pavers are packed in sand making them a permeable road surface. The area under where the gutters are now would have a 2-foot wide “French drain” or storm water infiltration system using gravel. The drains will run the distance from Yosemite to Alameda on both sides of the street and will go down far enough runoff can effective recharge the ground water and take pressure off the storm drain system.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com