Want to see the future ghost of horrible city development?
Drive down Airport Way if you dare.
Hodge-podge piecemeal growth.
A congested two-lane corridor.
Massive PG&E transmission towers that cost a fortune to move to widen the road.
Traffic snafus where the road meets Highway 120.
Heavy residential traffic mixed with existing truck traffic.
A former two lane country road pounded into oblivion by heavy traffic.
How could anything possibly get worse?
Never underestimate self-serving developers.
The city is about to plant the seeds for a future Airport Way disaster on Manteca’s east side.
It will take place on Austin Road.
And the first nail in the coffin is Yosemite Square.
It is a threat to Manteca’s future quality of life that rivals an out-of-town developer’s push to build a major Yellow Freight terminal on the southeast quadrant of the 120 Bypass and Main Street interchange in 1989 that was stopped at the last minute by a 3-2 council vote deep-sixing the project.
Imagine how lovely traffic would be on Main Street south of the 120 Bypass today of there were an extra 500 or so trick movements a day.
On Austin Road we’re not talking about trucks or even a business park. Instead, it is catering to Manteca’s No. 1 addiction — large single family home subdivisions.
It replaces the previous Yosemite Square endeavor envisioned by local developers who believed it would be a major disservice to build houses and nothing but houses on what is the most prime location on an interchange arguably in the Northern San Joaquin Valley — the 120 Bypass/Highway 99 interchange.
The locals had a much larger project in mind with office buildings along the freeway to accommodate up to 3,000 regional white collar jobs, commercial on the corner of East highway 120 and Austin Road as well as a holistic approach to widening Austin Road to four lanes.
The out-of-town developer jettisoned all of that and is going for the easy and quick bucks — single family homes.
And Manteca will be paying the price for decades to come.
Fehr & Peers — the traffic consultant that said Chick-fil-A would cause no traffic issues — has determined the traffic impact of Yosemite Square “will be less than significant.”
They base that on the smaller project not having office uses and having somewhat less housing.
The original project would have generated up to 14,561 daily vehicle trips.
The new project will generate 7,741 vehicle trips daily — not including Amazon style delivery vans — with the peak PM hour dumping 765 more cars a month on Austin Road.
It is less than significant compared to uses previously proposed but is it sure as heck is a major impact based on existing use.
But in the jargon of handsomely paid traffic consultants there is a less than significant impact.
The previous plan added economic worth and a four-lane road. It also had more robust access to and from project instead of just two access streets fairly close to each other just north of Graves Road.
Let’s not forget that those vehicles traveling to and from Yosemite Square will impact two major regional transportation crossroads.
The first is East Highway (Yosemite Avenue) at Austin Road. Can you imagine trying to get through that intersection on a Friday night?
The other is the Highway 99/Austin Road interchange.
Fehr & Peers conveniently doesn’t mention the little detail that Caltrans is going to remove the off ramps and onramps that allow future Yosemite Square homeowners to go to and from their jobs that will either be in the Bay Area, Tracy, or Lathrop.
The ramps will be out for at least 10 or so years and won’t be completed until funding is found for the third phase of the $154 million upgrade of the 120 Bypass/Highway 99 interchange.
That means almost every vehicle from those 814 homes will access Yosemite Square using East Yosemite Avenue between Highway 99 and Austin Road.
It already is dangerously congested. What’s another 7,741 car trips a day?
Widening Austin Road is not in the city’s growth fee plan for funding. Worst yet, Yosemite Square will create an impact that won’t be addressed until decades later assuming piecemeal development occurs along Austin Road as is happening along Airport Way.
It also will not be cheap to relocate the transmission lines PG&E has in place. The city should know by now there should be a surcharge for developers that trigger the need for such moves given how costly the Union Road interchange work relocation was. To refresh the memory of the city the cost was north of $2 million to relocate similar transmission lines on Union Road for a much shorter stretch than what will ultimately be required for Austin Road.
Then there is the issue of truck routes.
Austin Road should be a truck route today based on existing use.
It also needs that designation because it would take truck traffic heading toward Oakdale and Sonora from the south and vice versa off of the already heavily congested East Yosemite Avenue at Austin being a bypass connecter between Highway 99 and East Highway 120.
But it isn’t because Manteca is trying to set a world record for foot dragging given a citywide truck route was promised to be in place years ago after the city spent more than $150,000.
The good news is the project is early enough in the process that it may not enjoy a free ride on the back of Manteca’s future.
Given the general plan update is not in place, there needs to be a special overlay district for southeast Manteca east of Highway 99. Little thought has been given to developing that area of the city and the unique expenses that the city may be forced to pay for such as relocating a mile or so of PG&E lines in the future in order to widen Austin Road.
The council could seek an emergency moratorium of development projects being approved that are more than two acres in size on the Austin Road corridor while they come up with a concrete plan to make sure Austin Road doesn’t turn into Airport Way 2.0.
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
