Yosemite Avenue could be the next four-lane arterial to get a roundabout instead of traffic signals.

Plan for a proposed 62-unit apartment complex on the northwest corner of the Fishback Road and Yosemite Avenue intersection will include right-of-way for a regulation roundabout.

The Yosemite Avenue project is before the Manteca Planning Commission when they meet Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Civic Center council chambers, 1001 W. Center St.
The complex will be bordered on the west by a truck parking facility while there is vacant lot and then Kaiser Hospital to the east.

There is no time table set for the roundabout construction.

t likely won’t occur until Fishback Road is extended north of Yosemite Avenue to eventually connect with Center Street.

Center Street will ultimately extend to Airport Way.

The approval of the apartment complex has a stipulation that the northwest corner of the intersection be designed to accommodate a roundabout. Similar requirements will be made on the other three corners as development occurs.

The existing T-intersection currently gets significant traffic twice a day when Sierra High is in session.

Unlike the city’s first roundabout on a major arterial that was placed on Louise Avenue between the Highway 99 overcrossing and Cottage Avenue, the Yosemite Avenue one will not be off-center.

It will be closer in design to the Grantline Road/Eleventh Street roundabout east of Tracy where a four-lane and two-lane roads intersect\.

The south side of the Louise Avenue roundabout  was already developed with housing. That is why it was shifted to the north.

The city opted to still go with a roundabout despite the need to shift it that was predicated on the fact another traffic signal that close to Cottage and Louise would create significant traffic flow issues.

 The plan calls for three buildings with 57,024 square feet. There will be 32 one-bedroom apartments and 30 two-bedroom units.

The complex will have 110 parking stalls. Of those 62 will be covered, 36 will be uncover and 12 will be dedicated to charging stations for electric vehicles.

The Louise Avenue roundabout allows access for nearly 500 homes when The Collective is completed.

Roundabouts help keep traffic flowing while reducing extended waits at intersections that can be negative on air quality as idling vehicles are a large source of air pollution.

Traffic signals that now cost upwards of $750,000 to install are also more expensive than roundabouts. They also cost more to maintain.

Access to the Yosemite Avenue Apartments will be from Yosemite Avenue. A second access will be added when the city extends Fishback which would run between the eastern edge of the proposed apartment complex and Kaiser.

Four other nearby

development projects

Four other development projects have been approved nearby including one that is already under construction.

*A 10,150-square-foot medical office building designed as a dialysis center is now being built on  the northeast corner of Airport Way and Yosemite Avenue. The complex will have 16 hemodialysis stations, five hypertensive heart disease home hemodialysis-training stations, and one ultrafiltration room.

*The 420-unit Prose project planned for both sides of the western extension of Center Street to the east of the Kaiser Medical Office Complex. The apartment complex will also front Yosemite Avenue and tie into the exiting the existing traffic signals at Winters Drive and Yosemite Avenue.

* The two-story, 72,401-square-foot, 116-bed residential care facility known as Manteca Assisted Living building is planned for 2.7 acres facing West Yosemite Avenue on the southeast corner of the Fishback Road intersection kitty comer from the Yosemite Apartments project.

*A new neighborhood along Airport Way that will be the largest concentration of duplex units ever built or proposed in Manteca. The plan is to build up to 123 residences — almost all duplexes although some may be detached single family homes – on 13.2 acres on the east side of Airport Way north of Yosemite Avenue bordering a new segment of Center St.

 To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com