Center Street was never designed as a collector street.

Nor was it ever intended to be a bypass of Yosemite Avenue.

Over the past 115 years or so it kept being extended westward as Manteca grew.

If you had told Joshua Cowell — the guy credited for founding Manteca and who at one time was the owner of the town’s biggest general merchandise store covering 400 square feet — that one day they’d be a 140,000-square-foot store known as Costco where people stocked up on their supplies accessed from Airport Way he would have told you that you were crazy.

An area of 140,000 square feet was bigger than all of downtown Manteca when the commercial district first took hold.

As for Airport Way that had a different name back then, it was way, way, way out of town.

A hired traffic consultant that makes his money inputting numbers into software to model traffic impacts in the abstract, would not view Center Street as a collector nor a bypass of downtown.

It wasn’t designed as such.

The people who drive in Manteca day in and day out aren’t traffic consultants. If they were, apparently they would avoid Center Street like the plague in a bid to maneuver around congestion.

Fortunately, Manteca has planning commissioners that are taking their job more and more seriously.

And while it might not be in their general job description depending upon how one interprets it, they have been pushing back against the wit and wisdom of traffic consultants more and more.

Their recommended rejection of the 814-home Yosemite Square traffic debacle-in-the-making on Austin Road is a prime example.

But it is also the little things the commissioners see and question that will assure  a better quality of life as Manteca grows and reduce the chance for tragedies and even costly fixes at a future date on the taxpayers’ dime.

Such was the case when the commission agreed with the observations, concerns, and general solution of fellow member Judith Blumhorst regarding what might strike some as a nonconsequential and minor detail.

The 420-unit Prose apartment complex before the commission straddles Center Street, just like the existing Stonegate complex.

And just like the Stonegate complex, the Prose apartments will have the community center and swimming pool on one side of Center Stret. That means roughly half the people living in the complex  — including children — will need to cross Center Street to use the swimming pool right now.

It’s not that big of an issue currently with Stonegate for one very big reason. Center Street west of Union Road, for all practical purposes, is only one block long. It connects to Yosemite Avenue by the block long Trevino Avenue.

When — not if — Center Street is punched through to Airport Way or even to St. Dominic’s Drive that accesses Kaiser Medical Offices and Kaiser Hospital — the amount of traffic will skyrocket.

The speed will also pick up.

The commission was right in conditioning the project with some type of enhanced crossing for kids — and adults — from one side of the Prose complex to go to and from the swimming pool and community center.

That, however, is just the start.

There also needs to be ways to slow down traffic so Center Street — at least between Union Road and Airport Way — doesn’t become a heavily traveled and fairly high-speed thoroughfare passing through a neighborhood of close to 700 housing units that are not single family homes.

The crosswalk that the commission wants could be designed as a traffic calming device as well.

If it’s midblock, it could include a raised pedestrian island in the middle with traffic lanes moved toward the curb a ways and parking eliminated.

If aligns with a driveway into the complex, it could be a roundabout.

The developer is paying to extend the street. This is the time to address likely scenarios. That’s because after the area is developed the city may be forced to resort to picking from limited options such as speed tables to tame speed and enhance safety.

It goes without saying the city would be wise to require a roundabout when St. Dominic’s Drive and Center Street eventually meet. A second roundabout between there and Airport Way may also be called for when  development occurs.

It may not prevent all drivers in the future frustrated with traffic on Yosemite Avenue to use it as a shortcut between Main Street and Airport Way, but it will discourage some and it will slow down those that use it as a traffic bypass.

Blomhorst made another observation that was also incorporated into the approval.

And it’s one that thousands of Manteca drivers are likely happy that the commission did.

While checking the general area of the project Blomhorst talked to people who had concerns about existing current apartment complex driveways accessing Center Street due to robust on street parling.

If you look at it, the real issue in 2022 is that the traffic standards we employ were made in the early 1960s.

That’s when the profile of almost all vehicles driven by the general public were about the same height, including so-called called American economy cars. Pickups high enough off the ground to forge the wide Missouri and SUVs weren’t around in great numbers.

Meanwhile more and more demands are lower to the ground for aerodynamic fuel efficiency.

You simply can’t see around most parked cars exiting driveways any more if you are in a modern sedan or economy car.

The commission wants the driveways of Prose Apartments to have red curbs along Center Street for two car lengths in each direction.

Better yet, Greg Showerman with the city’s engineering department promised to take the issue to an internal municipal traffic and safety group ort determine if the same two- car-length red curbs on either side of existing driveways would enhance visibility and safety.

Growth is inevitable.

It is why Manteca needs to sweat the details to minimize the negative impacts.

And to do that, the real Manteca traffic experts — the five  members on the Manteca Planning Commission who actual drive the city’s streets — need to be forward thinkers.

That’s because it is clear with projects such as Chick-fil-A and Yosemite Square that paid traffic consultants can’t see beyond their screens.

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