The entirety of Airport Way through Manteca as well as all of Main Street except between Moffat Boulevard and Louise Avenue is proposed to have truck route designations.
That information is gleaned from a map on Page 73 of the just released public review draft for the Manteca general plan update.
If adopted, it would mean trucks up to 65 feet could legally travel the length of Airport Way to reach the 120 Bypass and even Atherton Drive going to and from the United Pacific intermodal yard on Roth Road. The UP facility is expected to ultimately have 2,186 daily truck trips or 130 percent more than it currently generates.
At the same time trucks from a proposed rezoning of land on the southwest corner of Louise Avenue and Airport Way that would allow up to 5 million square feet of distribution center space could legally travel east on Louise Avenue and then turn north on Main Street to reach Highway 99 via the Lathrop Road interchange.
The plan is not likely to sit well with residents whose homes back up against Airport Way who have spoken out against the corridor being converted into a truck route.
Truck route on Airport
Way would increase
pavement pounding
Putting more truck traffic on Airport Way is likely to accelerate the deterioration of the pavement. Truck traffic is what primarily triggered the need for the city to spend $1.4 million last year to completely rebuild 2,550 feet of Lathrop east of Airport Way. Lathrop Road is one of three truck routes that legally exist in Manteca.
The council is hoping to make interim upgrades to the worst segments of Airport Way from Woodward Avenue to Roth Road in the next year or so given work needed for the overall length is expected to top $20 million. Staff has indicated the interim work may cost $4 million to address.
It is not clear whether those cost estimates took into account putting in a road base robust enough to handle repeated truck weight pounding making Airport Way a legal truck route would generate. Airport Way, just like Lathrop Road, initially was built as a county road before being annexed into the city and land along them developed.
At the same time those along Louise Avenue to Main Street will likely have similar objections given all truck movements would be legal 24/7.
Under state law trucks can go off designated truck routes to make deliveries and pickups to stores and such. As such truck traffic is seen occasionally on Louise Avenue.
Critics point in the last 20 years there have been several truck accidents that have involved either the truck or another vehicle being sent through masonry sound walls behind residences. In both cases they involved trucks making deliveries. If adopted trucks going to the Pacific Business Park where Amazon Prime and Medline are located along with the area set aside for business park development south of the Manteca Unified district complex would legally be able to travel Louise as far east as Main and then Main north to Lathrop Road.
Trucks have to be able
to reach city approved
distribution centers
While the proposed truck routes clearly may not make residents happy, the city has approved the building of business parks — and is preparing to create more zoning for them — along the Airport Way that need to have a legal way for trucks to go to and from distribution centers.
Manteca currently has three designated truck routes. One is a standard legal California truck route the length of Moffat terminating at Main Street.
There are also two truck routes for 65 feet and longer trucks. Such routes are designated as Surface Transportation Assistant Act (SJAA) routes.
One is Lathrop Road. The other runs from the 120 Bypass north on Main Street for a short ways, turns right on Industrial Park Drive/Spreckels Avenue, and then right on Yosemite. It continues under the freeway and then right on Vasoncellos Avenue.
Given the SJAA route allows trucks with a wider turning radius, language in the draft general plan document calls for future streets that will be built to accommodate STAA trucks have things such as intersections constructed in a manner to accommodate the trucks without them going up on sidewalks and/or taking out traffic signals street lights, or signs.
It also calls for making such improvements where they don’t exist on current STAA routes.
The truck study was first commissioned by the city 29 months ago. It came after the council received numerous complaints about trucks parking along as well as traveling the Airport Way corridor that is not currently a designated truck route. Others were concerned STAA trucks were not be properly accommodated by the city along the Lathrop Road corridor.
Manteca has been approving
business parks & dumping truck
traffic on Lathrop streets
The draft general plan also calls for addressing another sore point. It calls for exploring a joint truck route facilities district with Lathrop and other neighboring jurisdictions. Lathrop has complained for years that Manteca has been allowing distribution centers and such to be built along its western city limits with Lathrop and instead of providing an in-city truck route for truck movements has simply been dumping truck traffic on Lathrop city streets to reach Interstate 5.
The plan also calls for California legal truck routes on:
*Atherton Drive between Airport Way and Main Street.
*Main Street south of the 120 Bypass to the southern city limits.
*South Main Street between Moffat and Main Street to connect a standard truck route with a STAA truck route for trucks longer than 65 feet.
*Lathrop Road east of Highway 99 to Austin Road if and when that area is annexed to the city.
*Interior streets in the Spreckels Business Park including Commerce Drive, Commerce Court, Phoenix Avenue, and DuPont Court.
*McKinley Avenue north from the future interchange with the 120 Bypass to Daniels street where it will turn east and end at point near Great Wolf.
The plan calls for STAA routes for 65-foot and longer trucks on:
*Austin Road south of Highway 99 to the city limits as well as north to Graves Road.
*Airport Way between the freeway and Daniels Street and the west to a point near Great Wolf.
*Roth Road from the railroad tracks to Airport Way.
*Intermodal Way that runs south of Roth Road behind the Amazon and 5.11 Tactical distribution centers that will terminate now into eventually two truck parking yards that will hold a combined 649 trucks and trailers.
The plan also calls for STAA routes when land north of Lathrop Road is annexed into the city including:
*Airport Way from a point south of Lovelace Road to French Camp Road.
*The future Roth Road extension east of Airport Way.
*French Camp Road to Highway 99.
The draft general plan review period begins on Monday, March 22, and closes on Thursday, May 6. The General Plan and EIR can be viewed on the city’s website at: https://manteca.generalplan.org/content/documents. Submit written responses by 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 6, to J.D. Hightower, Deputy Director, at the address above or by email at jhightower@ci.manteca.ca.us
For more information contact the Development Services Department, 1512 W. Center Street, Suite 201, Manteca, CA 95337. Phone: (209) 456-8500. Fax: (209) 923-8949.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
