One day Austin Road could be reconfigured where it meets Lathrop Road to allow a direct connection for east Manteca traffic to what could be Manteca’s eighth freeway interchange.

It’s the long view of a proposal before the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors Tuesday to extend Roth Road east of where it now T-intersects with Airport Way to connect with a proposed interchange on Highway 99 midway between French Camp Road and Lathrop Road.

The board is being asked to split the cost of a $500,000 project report that is the first step toward making the extension of Roth Road to Highway 99 a reality.

The other two agencies involved are the City of Manteca and San Joaquin Council of Governments. Each of the three entities will contribute $166,667 each.

Supervisor Sonny Dhaliwal has already agreed to embrace tapping into District 3 county road project funds to cover the cost.

His effort is keeping with in a promise he made to do what he could to keep truck traffic off of Airport Way.

Dhaliwal represents both Manteca and Lathrop.

Punching Roth Road as four lanes through to an interchange at Highway 99 has major traffic implications for Manteca and to a lesser degree Lathrop. It also is a key route to accommodate business park and housing growth as Manteca moves north.

That said, the bulk of the truck traffic will originate from the Union Pacific intermodal yard that is in the county’s jurisdiction adjacent to the city limits of both Manteca and Lathrop.

The railroad is in the process of completing work that will be able to take 280,000 or so annual truck trips to and from the intermodal facility up to a max of 730,000 eventually based on Union Pacific documents.

The potential 260 percent increase in truck traffic involved with taking truck trailers and shipping containers to and from the facility where they are loaded and unloaded from trains translates into:

* the current daily average of 767 truck movements or 31 in an average hour will be able to top out at 2,000 a day or 83 on a prorated hourly basis.

*an average daily increase of 1,233 truck trips a day.

Could help open north-

east area to tract housing

 Although Manteca’s current focus is on addressing truck traffic as well as accommodate job and housing growth in what would be the city’s future northwestern area, the Roth Road alignment has major implications on the area to the northeast of Manteca as well as the eastern portion of the city.

The mere placement of an interchange on Highway 99 opens that area that is close to the existing city limits to development.

The envisioned extension from the interchange to the east to eventually curve into an alignment with Austin Road south of Lathrop Road, goes through areas that have larger parcels that are now farmed that are suitable for eventual converting larger housing tracts.

Given the land is surrounded on Castle Road, Northland Road, and Austin Road north of Lathrop Road that are lined with one to five acre parcels with homes on them, large development is problematic without a road punched through first by a government entity.

It also would create an eastern “partial outer loop road” that former Mayor Ben Cantu envisioned to provide for better traffic flow as Manteca develops to the east.

Based on the alignment envisioned with the Roth Road, it would create a major traffic corridor that would connect with Highway 99 at Austin Road in the south and the future Roth Road interchange in the north.

The partial loop road Cantu envisioned, though, was to the east of Austin Road. Given the alignment of what is proposed, that could still happen as Manteca grows eastward.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com