Manteca is now in the midst of a $1.5 million preventative maintenance project in the  area bounded by Yosemite Avenue on the north, Spreckels Avenue on the east, Moffat Boulevard on the west and Main Street on the west.

It is not being done to “fix” the asphalt per se and give it a smoother ride.

The micro-surfacing slurry seal and cape seal is being done to extend the life of the asphalt.

Misconceptions about street work such as was just mentioned as well as street-related issues and challenges will be discussed during a Facebook live townhall meeting tonight at 5:30 p.m. on the city’s Facebook page.

It will feature:

*Public Works Director Carl Brown.

*City Engineer Kevin Jorgenson.

*Finance Director Shay Narayan.

Mail any questions you may have to feedback@manteca.gov. Questions will be answered at the end of the presentation.

The town hall will also be posted on Facebook after it is completed for future reference.

The city has taken a two-prong approach to street maintenance in recent years.

Public Works is taking care of the smaller projects with municipal staff while engineering is designing and bidding out the larger projects such as Lathrop Road between Main Street and Union Road that is now underway as well as wrapping up Louise Avenue work primarily between Main Street and the Highway 99 overcrossing.

The city also performs preventative maintenance with surface treatments that are put out to bid such as the current project.

The purpose of the preventative maintenance will be explained tonight.

 A 2023 pavement index survey of city streets identified more than $50 million of work that needs to be done over 10 years to address street deterioration and other issues.

The engineering firm conducting the survey noted that the need for more significant work will continue to grow if identified work isn’t done. As such, the cost of the needed work will skyrocket.

Currently, the city is only able to roughly spend $2.5 million work on street maintenance a year.

Based on gas tax and Measure K — the countywide half cent road and transit tax — the city is getting less than 50 percent of the $5 million a year that is needed annually over the next 10 years to do what work has been identified in the plan.

The city can go after pots of state and Measure K funds as they have in the past to fund needed work. But the money they are seeking is also being sought by  every other city in the state and county depending upon the funding source.

Demand — even with increased gas taxes— exceeds the identified needs throughout the state.

It should be noted the city’s street maintenance needs is a moving target.

That’s because streets that were in good to excellent shape based on the pavement condition survey and not in need to of some type of attention to prevent pavement from getting worse will age.

That means even in  the 10-year horizon the street maintenance plan covers they could be a need to perform work due to unanticipated wear and tear such as from shifting traffic patterns.

And even in the best case scenario if the city knocks down all $50 million of identified work over the next 10 years, other streets will be in need of work a decade from now.
The  city as of the first of 2023 had 264.70 center lane miles of work. If stretched end-to-end that represents pavement that would extend from Manteca along Highway 99 to a point 17 miles south of the Tehachapi Pass after merging with Interstate 5.

Seventy-two percent of the city’s streets — or 190.4 miles — are classified as residential or local streets. There are 86.8 miles of collector streets and 83.6 miles of arterial streets.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com