Take a walk on the wild — and dangerously unsafe — side.
All you have to do is cross the 120 Bypass on foot or on a bicycle.
Clearly, you’re not going to do that per se unless you are one of the homeless that have turned the Bypass right-of-way into squatter’s row and you want to take a short cut across four lanes of pavement as some do from time-to-time to visit their neighbors on the other side of the wide freeway.
We’re talking about walking or bicycling over the Airport Way overpass — or Main Street for that matter.
On any given day you can see pedestrians and bicyclists on the overpasses that have neither sidewalks or bicycle lanes. It’s bad enough in congested traffic but there are times when vehicles are moving faster that you start realizing a split-second swerve would have dangerous consequences given there are barely a few feet separating 3,000-pound vehicles from pedestrians or bicyclists that are often tweens that aren’t even 90 pounds dripping wet.
Adding to the danger is the fact there is only 3-foot-high K-rail without cyclone fencing protecting pedestrians and cyclists alike from a drop to the Bypass below where traffic often whizzes by at 75 mph.
The bigger issue though is Airport Way. And it has everything to do with the Family City’s basic priorities and duties being out-of-touch with the realities on the ground.
Municipal leadership over the course of seven city managers — that’s 12 years based on the Gregorian calendar — has overseen a situation where at any given time there are 10,000 plus housing units in the development approval queue.
Understand as long as legal and environmental ramifications are met cities can’t really say no. But city managers are hired to “manage” and one of the highest priorities in Manteca should be the proper management of growth.
One would hope that would mean more than making sure growth doesn’t bankrupt the city. Things like keeping Manteca and livable and safe are part of the job description.
We elected people like Charlie Halford, Dave Britenbucher, Gary Singh. Ben Cantu, and Jose Nuno not only to make sure Manteca hires a city manager that is competent and effective but hopefully dynamic as well. Those council members — as Halford and Britenbucher astutely have pointed out — aren’t the trained professionals to make the nitty gritty decisions.
Such observations should give those of us that elect council members pause. While they are basically correct, it ignores the serious disconnect more than a few people at City Hall seem to have in terms of how Manteca is growing. For whatever reason, top level management is either blind or blissfully ignorant of the city they are in charge of making livable and secure.
That is why elected officials should feel they have an obligation to point out issues and advocate that they be addressed. The city manager, as City Attorney David Nefouse has strived to have them do since almost the day he arrived in Manteca, needs to make sure direction from council is clear and reflects the will of the majority elected to represent Manteca voters.
From there the concern is turned over to mid-management that tasks the city’s more-than-competent worker bees to devise solutions that are driven by what they find while vetting the issue and options. And — as has often happened — the council will eventually be presented with a course of action that will address the short-term concern along with a way to advance and put in place an even better long-term solution.
Hopefully Councilman Gary Singh’s concern regarding pedestrian and bicycle movements crossing the 120 Bypass will go through that process and be completely vetted by staff to put in motion an immediate move and start the ball rolling on advancing safety and mobility in the long range.
Singh specifically focused on connecting the $1 million pedestrian/bicyclist overcrossing of the 120 Bypass at Union Road with existing bicycle lane and sidewalks on both sides of the freeway. Driving his concern is the safety of students living south of the 120 Bypass going to and from school.
He noted the Airport Way interchange upgrade replicating the diverging diamond put in place at Union Road that the city has talked about using at both Main and Airport “is years away.” As such he believes it would be more effective to concentrate on bike lanes and sidewalks to make them complete at the Union crossing as opposed to the Airport Way crossing.
Singh is right. But if city management took a holistic approach to the concerns Singh addressed and that in a $200,000 plus active transportation mobility plan that focused on pedestrian and bicycling movements the city bankrolled a consultant to devise, they could come up with a plan to significantly improve Manteca’s livability.
The solution that needs to be put in motion is to working toward putting in place a pedestrian bridge crossing at Airport Way similar to the one at Union Road sooner than later. And given it is a lower cost project it could go in years ahead an actual diverging diamond at Airport Way.
The need for it is clear. There are no less than 4,000 more homes moving toward being built west of Airport Way coupled with homes already built on both sides of the corridor.
Manteca Unified, in order to leverage dollars and provide the most optimum education program, is pursuing a plan to accommodate growth that may never see a high school built south of the 120 Bypass or at least for the next 20 plus years.
All three high schools in the city — Sierra, East Union, and Manteca — are being taken up to 2,200 students. That is roughly 500 to 600 students beyond existing enrollment at each campus.
That means 500 or so more students from south of the 120 Bypass will be heading to Sierra High in the coming years.
Growth to the east south of the Bypass such as the 1,400-home development that has started on South Main Street will add to the Manteca High enrollment. They can access a safe crossing to Manteca High via the Van Ryn Avenue underpass separated bike trail making the need for a separate pedestrian bridge less pressing for now at the Main Street interchange.
The Union Road pedestrian bridge was the end result of former Councilman Vince Hernandez consistently pressing safety issues regarding pedestrians and bicyclists crossing the Bypass that splits Manteca in two.
Staff picked up the ball with Kim Koosun in the Public Works Department zeroing in on available grant money.
If Singh keeps bird-dogging the issue, council concurs it is a concern, and municipal management directs city staff to come up with short term and long-term plans to make Manteca more livable when it comes to navigating the Bypass to safety connect residents to schools, entertainment, and shopping the end result might just show the Family City can get things right.
We would end up with further enhanced safety for bicyclists and pedestrians crossing the Bypass at Union Road as well as see work started in the next few years on a similar pedestrian/bicycle crossing at Airport Way.
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
