The biggest art gallery in the 209 is arguably downtown Manteca.
With nearly 30 murals gracing various walls, Manteca has embraced public art in a big way.
The latest effort is the mural on the eastern wall of The Spin Cycle in the 100 block of East Yosemite Avenue that depicts the final link of the Transcontinental Railroad being completed at the nearby Mossdale Crossing on Sept. 8, 1869.
Some 66 volunteers stepped up during the Pumpkin Fair to work on the Manteca Mural Society’s seventh Mural in a Weekend project. They helped tackle the bulk of the mural with the rest being completed this week under the supervision of muralist Dave Gordon.
A lot of people tend to beat up on downtown saying it’s not Lodi, Pleasanton, Livermore or Tracy. But give credit where credit is due. The Manteca Mural Society started 15 years ago has left its mark on downtown by telling Manteca’s story in terms of its culture, its people, its economy, and its history. At the same time the murals have become a source of community pride.
It represents a major investment on the part of the community with the murals costing more than $750,000 to complete when everything from prepping walls to hiring professional muralists are taken into account.
Their idea: Allow two left turn lanes at some
intersections
Now for some constructive criticism overheard at Applebee’s.
A group of diners last week were talking about how nutso driving has become in Manteca.
Their biggest grip centered on having to wait multiple traffic light changes at some intersections on an ongoing basis at various times during the day.
Specifically they zeroed in on westbound Industrial Park Drive turning left onto southbound Main Street, eastbound Moffat turning left onto southbound Main Street, and southbound Cottage Avenue turning left onto eastbound Yosemite Avenue.
They noted both Industrial Park Drive and Moffat Boulevard back-ups can be reduced substantially if two lanes were allowed to turn left on a green instead of just one. The sequences do not have to be changed to either intersection as the left ant straight lanes on Industrial Park Drive are always green at the same time while the left and right turns at Moffat are green as well concurrently.
Industrial Park Drive has substantial traffic throughout the day made worse by truck traffic. Moffat gets especially dicey when Manteca High classes end for the day.
Their complaint about Cottage and Yosemite has everything to do with how the green always stays fairly long for Spreckels traffic turning west onto Yosemite even though there is little back-up in the two left turn lanes. Meanwhile through traffic on Cottage to Spreckels backs up to the point that often it takes you multiple signal changes to clear the intersection.
It should be noted that the comment that got the most agreement from the table was “you’d think someone from city hall would bother driving the streets to see where the problems are.”
