The kid on the bike couldn’t have been more than 12.
It was clear he was getting frustrated.
The temperature was on the backside of 90 degrees Sunday when he was first spotted by the Industrial Park/Spreckels Avenue railroad crossing at 6:40 p.m. Now he was downright antsy 20 minutes later as he baked in the early evening sun.
He was still straddling his bicycle but was easing it out onto the northern tracks. He was clearly contemplating trying to scale a coupler between box cars so he could continue his journey. For whatever reason, he thought better. He then scooted back to the relative safety near the crossing arm.
The train causing his frustration had been parked on the siding at least 25 minutes at that point. I know that because at 6:35 p.m. I flipped a U-turn on Industrial Park Drive and used the Main Street crossing to reach Moffat that I took to Cowell Avenue to go home, drop off some groceries from Safeway and then grab my camera and head back out.
I was following up on a complaint a reader made saying the City of Manteca continues to be unresponsive to traffic hazards along Moffat at Woodward Avenue that she said are atrocious, especially on the weekends.
Reader says parked trucks make turning
off Woodward onto Moffat hazardous
She was specifically talking about parked semi-trucks that are making it more and more dangerous with each passing month to turn left or right off of Woodward Avenue that T-intersects with the Union Pacific Railroad tracks at an awkward angle.
If elected leaders and high-level bureaucrats are unaware of the problem which has been brought up at council meetings over the years, truck drivers opt to park in areas between Moffat and the tracks.
They have two favorite areas to do so. One is between Austin Road and a point west of Woodward Avenue. The other is between the track spur that links the main line with Spreckels Park distribution centers to the nearby traffic signal.
The area near the spur for years has been posted for 18 years at least with two signs reading “no parking anytime.”
It is rarely, if ever, enforced by Manteca Police. It is city-owned property that was posted back in 2003 when the City Council at the time was serious about cleaning up the Moffat Boulevard corridor and before they dumped $2 million into pavement upgrades, sidewalks, curbs, gutters, street lighting, and storm drains.
It was posted with other city-owned land that is where the VFW Hall is today.
The issue at the time — much like it is today — were semi-trucks parking on city property along with illegal dumping and the homeless occasionally setting up house.
City management actually enforced no
parking rules on Moffat 18 years ago
The council back then cleaned up Moffat and invested in the corridor. City management kept it clean by actually enforcing laws that they recommend elected leaders pass.
In other words it was a time when it wasn’t all show and “no do”.
The folks at 1001 West Center Street didn’t wait to act until enough people got fed up and started complaining. Nor did they wait to spring into action to address truck parking issues that created safety hazards along the corridor not just for nearby residents trying to access the linear parking known as the Tidewater Bikeway or many of the 1,700 students that attend Manteca High.
A prime example of waiting to tackle obvious sightline issues until someone got hurt was addressing truck parking crowding crosswalks near Manteca High six years back when a parked truck trailer minus the tractor created a visibility issue that contributed to a Manteca High student getting seriously injured crossing Moffat.
11 trucks parking Sunday in
area signed ‘no parking’
On Sunday there were 11 semi-trucks parked by the two signs installed by the City of Manteca reading “no parking anytime.”
Further down by Woodward Avenue there were 22 semi-trucks parked south of Woodward on top of the intersection and eight to the south.
It was a light day for truck parking on Moffat near Powers Avenue and Cowell Avenue. There were just 11 trucks where they can be as many as 20. And there were just two detached truck trailers when often there are three times more.
The crossing point for pedestrians going from Cowell Avenue to a short stretch of asphalt the city put in place to reach the Tidewater Bikeway was only partially blocked instead of completely blocked by a semi-truck. And, yes, a nearby fire hydrant was blocked by a truck as it typically is.
Moffat Boulevard is a truck route where truck parking is legal unless otherwise designated. That said truckers still have to park legally and not illegally as many do now by blocking a fire hydrant, detaching trailers and leaving them behind, and blocking the sightlines of pedestrians attempting to cross at intersections.
These are things that occur every day. Perhaps there is no pressing need to enforce basic safety rules because another kid hasn’t ended up in the emergency room or in a body bag due to city inattentiveness.
So what happened to the kid on the bike?
At 7:02 p.m. the train started moving. He was able to go on his way minutes later after almost 25 minutes of waiting. Traffic was also able to move.
City leaders wisely walked away from getting serious about creating a train trench through Manteca that would have easily topped $1 billion.
When you are struggling to come up with the money to break ground on an interchange at McKinley Avenue on the 120 Bypass that folks at city hall at one point thought would be moving traffic this year or even spend a penny on planning to upgrade the Main Street and Airport Way interchanges on the Bypass, a rail trench is at best a fantasy.
Manteca on track to have a train
passing through every 10 minutes
There are nine at-grade crossings from Austin Road to Airport Way in Manteca on the Union Pacific Railroad’s heavily traveled Fresno line that slices the city in half. There are and five at-grade crossings between Roth Road and McKinley Avenue on the Altamont line.
Back in 2019 there were 56 daily trains passing through Manteca.
That was the same year Union Pacific shared their expectation that eventually 135 trains on any given day may end up passing through Manteca due to increased reliance on the Lathrop-Manteca intermodal yard to move freight and Northern California’s growth.
That is in addition to Altamont Corridor Express’s initial 6 trains starting in 2023. Added together that is 141 trains or 85 more than pass through Manteca today.
When the projection is maxed out it means a train would be passing through Manteca just over one every 10 minutes. The frequency now is one just over every 25 minutes on average.
Without expensive undercrossings or overcrossings of the tracks at $30 million plus per pop or double tracking much of the Fresno line as it passes through San Joaquin County and into Stanislaus County traffic delays will become more frequent.
The Caltrans project expected to start next year that will replace the Austin Road interchange with a bridge that will clear the tracks will help somewhat if drivers make a long circuitous detour from surface streets to access the 120 Bypass and Highway 99 to get across stopped trains.
Siding where trains block traffic, pedestrian
movements represents biggest problem
But a bigger problem by far beyond infrequent train stops on the main line after an accident blocking city crossings for an inordinate amount of time is the daily occurrence of trains being diverted to a siding that crossed Woodward Avenue as well as Industrial Park Drive/Spreckels Avenue a minimum of one time a day and often multiple times.
The siding is needed to allow a train from the opposite direction to pass through.
The siding was put in place decades ago when only a handful of vehicles used Woodward Avenue to reach Moffat. The Industrial Park Drive crossing was the old narrow Spreckels Road that led to the back entrance of the sugar beet processing factory by the same name. It was so rutted with potholes that rarely did a vehicle venture down it.
That started to change when the first tract home was built in 199 south of the 120 Bypass.
Councilman Gary Singh has what he believes is a cost effective way of addressing the egregious and daily recurring track blockage that occurs at Woodward as well as the Industrial Park Drive/Spreckels Avenue crossing.
He’d like to see city staff reach out to Union Pacific and enlist whatever regional or state transportation support is possible to move the siding to start south of Austin Road. The next at-grade crossing isn’t until Salida where another siding handles sidetracked trains that will block one or two of that community’s at-grade crossings.
Singh noted as Manteca High expands from 1,700 to 2,250 more students will be crossing the tracks where the young man waited in frustration for 25 minutes on Sunday.
The additional 550 students will come primarily from southeast Manteca beyond Woodward Avenue.
Besides either walking, bicycling or driving to school people in their households will need to use the same crossing to reach shopping, downtown, the hospital, and dining options.
It goes without saying that when the Spreckels/Industrial Park Drive is out of commission for 15 to 30 minutes multiple times a day it will simply divert more traffic to Main Street.
Top bureaucrats who are pushing their agenda to make Main Street more walkable coupled with what is literally coming down the tracks will create a living traffic hell in Manteca unless they devise a traffic plan that takes into account the train delays that are going to keep growing.
They need to be focused on the harsh reality of an antsy 12-year-old dealing with daily blocked railroad crossing instead of putting energy into a dream of sidewalk latte sipping by making Main Street more walkable through downtown.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
