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Major road work ahead
City warns of detours, delays in coming months
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East Yosemite Avenue between Commerce Drive and Cottage Avenue will have major resurfacing work in the coming months. - photo by HIME ROMERO
Period detours this spring and summer will ultimately mean smoother rides on five segments of some of the most heavily traveled streets in Manteca.

Road construction projects in the hopper include:

• West Yosemite Avenue between Walnut Avenue and Winters Drive.

• East Yosemite Avenue between Cottage Avenue and Commerce Derive.

• The entire length of Moffat Boulevard.

• Woodward Avenue from Main street to a point midway between Airport Way and McKinley Avenue.

Businesses and residents along impacted routes will receive mail notification of road closures and suggested detours.

“There is a lot of work that will be going on,” noted Phil Govea of Manteca’s Public Works Department.

And unlike most typical road work several of the projects include extensive construction work besides impacting major roads.

The first to move forward will be the West Yosemite Avenue segment. It is ready to start in the next few weeks.

It will include grinding up concrete from the original Highway 120 built in the 1920s that has been covered with several layers of asphalt.

That will eliminate the rough drive from buckling asphalt.

The crown on Yosemite Avenue crossing Union Road will be lowered. In addition some sidewalks at the Union Road/Yosemite Avenue intersection will be lowered as well.

The work at the intersection will eliminate left turn lanes in all directions except for southbound Union Road for a number of days while work is being done.

Yosemite Avenue during times when actual construction work is taking place will be reduced to one-lane of travel in each direction.

East Yosemite Avenue will have new thermal stripping added after work is done to provide easier-to-see lane markings.

Moffat, which was once part of the original Highway 99 route also has the original concrete highway beneath the asphalt. But in the case of Moffat the buckling isn’t a problem which means the entire length will simply be resurfaced.

Spreckels Avenue during work will be reduced to one lane in each direction where it crosses Moffat.

Atherton Drive will be extended between Main Street and where it currently dead ends west of Wellington Avenue by the Paseo Villas apartments.

Work on the four-lane roadway through vacant land will have minimal impact on traffic since Atherton Drive currently T-intersects at Main Street

The most problematic of the road projects is on Woodward Avenue.

It involves digging deep trenches for sewer lines as well as water lines. The road will be rebuilt with a number of the planned landscaped medians with trees installed. The reconfiguration of the road follows a City Council directive to keep Woodward as a two- lane road instead of widening it to four lanes west of Main Street.

To minimize inconvenience to residents, only a half mile at a time on Woodward will be closed to allow for work to be done. Residents will still have access to their driveways. It could take as long as 18 months for all of the work planned along Woodward to be completed.

The projects are being paid for with either state road bond money, federal stimulus funds, or gas taxes and can only be used for road projects.

No general fund money is being spent.