Zombie planning is alive and well in San Joaquin County.
And like all things zombie, it will suck the life out of everything it touches.
The latest step toward the textbook planning apocalypse can be found on Airport Way between Roth Road and Stockton Metro Airport.
San Joaquin County is spending $570,609 on a consultant to determine what they already know they want to do.
The consultant is going to do “due diligence” to determine what the textbook writers planning in a vacuum already say will be done: Simply put, pave over paradise and widen Airport Way to four lanes.
One might say it is reasonable.
After all, Airport Way in Manteca will be four lanes between the 120 Bypass and Roth Road based on well publicized growth plans.
And it is four lanes between French Camp Road and the airport.
But it is not reasonable.
It is planning overkill, pure and simple.
The folks up on the sixth floor of 44 North San Joaquin Street in Stockton are probably shaking their heads and saying that’s crazy talk.
Is it?
Let’s see what the county has done.
They spent tens of millions of dollars making a corridor between Interstate 5 and Highway 99 via Arch Road. That included a grade separation of heavily traveled railroad tracks.
It was done to open up thousands of aces in and around Stockton Airport to business park and industrial park development.
And now they want to spend tons of more money to open north Manteca to business park and industrial park development.
It will also address the problem sitting in county jurisdiction, the 900-pound gorilla of truck traffic — the Union Pacific Railroad intermodal facility.
You know the one. It is the one that has an average of 767 truck trips a day that is being expanded to accommodate 2,000 truck trips a day.
The next money magnet is extending Roth Road east to Highway 99 where the county is partnering with the city to pursue a future interchange.
It is the second connection designed primarily for truck traffic to move to and from business parks to reach either Interstate 5 a and Highway 99.
It should be noted once the Roth Road and the new interchange are in place, only a handful of trucks will use Airport Way to go to and from the UP intermodal facility.
Arch Road and Roth Road would be four miles apart.
And that doesn’t mention the fact the French Camp Road interchange is between Arch Road and Roth Road.
That’s not the only overkill piece of the planning puzzle.
There’s the issue of “hopes and wishes” planning that sees wall-to-wall business parks from north of the airport just to the south of Roth Road.
It includes thousands of acres that Lathrop, Manteca, Stockton, and San Joaquin County envision as primarily business parks.
It includes Stockton’s long-range goal of annexing up to Manteca’s city limits on the northwest corner of Roth Road and Airport Way.
Keep that image in mind.
Now, chew on this for a few minutes.
What truck traffic needs to move down Airport Way to the 120 Bypass?
It is not the quickest or most direct route to freeways.
That is not to say Manteca’s plan to get a truck route from Roth Road to McKinley Avenue to 120 Bypass makes sense for what handful of business parks that need to get trucks to freeways.
There certainly is no pressing need for truck movements north and south on Airport Way.
The development north of French Camp on Airport Way would use either French Camp Road or Arch Road to reach the freeways.
As for that north of Manteca, most of it will gravitate to Highway 99. Using Airport Way would require truck traffic going of its way.
Now for the big lie.
For the past 20 to 30 years, elected leaders have spread the gospel that growth in San Joaquin County and its cities will be different. It will be smart. It will protect agriculture. It will make sure there will be real open space greenbelts.
Guess what?
The Airport Way widening blows a massive hole in that fairy tale.
What is wrong with having open spaces — or even a mixture of small farms, orchards, and small rural parcels with homes — breaking up wall-to-wall tilt-up style distribution center buildings?
Isn’t that making communities more livable?
Of course, there is the obvious question of whether the county is undermining its own agenda on the Airport Way corridor by toying with the ides of new massive business parks south of Tracy and east of Highway 99 in Stockton.
Does anyone really believe the market can absorb as much business parks now being envisioned for the next 100 years?
Do you really want to see solid urban development stretching along Highway 99 between Lodi and the Stanislaus River?
That’s exactly what zombie planning moves — such as are now taking place on the future width of 1.3 miles of Airport Way between Roth Road and the airport — will lead to.
Keep in mind, once a widening is officially adopted the fate of the area north of Roth Road is sealed.
You can’t put the monster back in the cage once you’ve unlocked the door.
Bureaucrats and politicians will tell people nothing is a done deal.
They can always pull the plug down the road.
And elephants can pilot 747s.
Once “ultimate” road alignments are adopted, they are rarely undone.
If it is not derailed in the coming months, the fate of a large swath of north Manteca to French Camp Road will be sealed.
The assumption, of course, is development will occur and every one owning land there will get rich and will live happily ever after,
However, there will more than likely be excessive business park capacity that likely can’t be developed in the next 100 years and overkill freeway capacity that translates into botched growth.
Why not plan an oasis here and there to make sure we have a livable community instead of wall to-wall concrete and asphalt?
There’s nothing wrong with growth.
But there is with growth that is overkill, investing millions in questionable infrastructure and fails to honor a commitment that somehow growth in San Joaquin County will be different.
This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
