I had just crested the railroad crossing on Stewart Road and pedaled past a farmhouse nestled against an almond orchard and the levee that keeps the San Joaquin River within its course when I decided to come to a stop.

It was mid-June 1991. I had left my Park Place apartment off Crom Street by the Manteca Golf Course 15 minutes earlier headed west into the Delta for the first time after spending my first 122 days in Manteca cycling daily to as far east as Jamestown and as far south as Merced exploring every road I could by bicycle.

My goal that Saturday was to loop Stockton by heading into the Delta out of Tracy.  A fellow cyclist I had met by the name of Dale Burnham clued me in about a paved bike path along the 120 Bypass at the end of Guthmiller Road that crossed beneath Interstate 5 to connect with a route around the southeastern most part of the Delta.

I remember a lot of things about my ride that day. But nothing do I remember as vividly as my first day on the island.

As I was reaching to get a swig from my water bottle on the down tube where I had stopped on what was arguably the worst washboard San Joaquin County road I had yet pedaled down, I glanced to my left where the remnants of a watermelon crop could be found. I was taken aback by the water seepage in the field. A few minutes later as I continued on my way, I took a right off onto Paradise Road to take a ride down a short segment of the levee where you could see the Old River split off from the main channel once you passed a sickly looking orchard. Along that short levee stretch there were perhaps a dozen people fishing from various spots along the bench abutting the river. I found out later this was a popular place for the Hmong boat people to head —Southeast Asia refugees that had been settled in Stockton — when they wanted fresh fish for dinner.

There was no hint that long-term international investors at the time had picked the 4,800-acre Delta island known as Stewart Tract that seemed to flood every decade or so when levees failed in high water flows on the San Joaquin River as a place for a holistic planned community for upwards of 40,000 people.

It was clear why they liked the location. It was at the apex of the main West Coast freeway — Interstate 5 — that not only tied all of the major urban centers of the world’s sixth largest economy together by more than 308 miles running the length of California as part of the only Mexico to Canada route in the United States — but also the main freeway route into the heart of the Bay Area.

They also had enough vision to understand that within 25 years South San Joaquin County would be in a tighter orbit with the job rich, housing scarce Bay Area.

What you see unfolding today is capitalism at its best. There is little doubt the investors will profit. One doesn’t invest what will end up being 40 or so years when all is said and done and spend a sizable fortune — Cambay Group is going to spend $30 million alone in 2020 grading to level the remaining part of the tract that is 8 inches higher in the east — unless you plan to make money.

River Islands is arguably the most integrated and problem solving planned community ever to be built in California.

Groups such as the Sierra Club were absolutely correct when development plans were announced that it had the potential to end up as an environmental nightmare on a number of levels.

But what ended up happening is the creation and execution of a plan that is not simply smart growth but actually addressing and resolving to large degree in the immediate area of some of the most vexing problems in California.

River Islands had done — and is in the process of doing — four things all of the good intent of government has failed to do.

*Superior flood control by creating super levels that are 300 feet wide along one of the most flood prone stretches of river in California if not the West Coast.

*Reducing the potential for flooding from South Manteca to Stockton by working toward creating a seven-mile bypass of the problematic Mossdale bend and the split of the Old River from the main San Joaquin River channel by widening the Paradise Cut. It is the solution state flood and water experts have called for since at least the 1980s yet Sacramento has never been able to move forward.

*Restoration of not just wild lands and wildlife in the seven-mile Paradise Cut swath but also along levees.

*The largest universal access for public recreation along the San Joaquin River with the development of an 18-mile trail system atop the super levee system.

The smart growth component is being taken to a new level.

Interior roads were designed narrowed to reduce traffic speeds. Equal consideration was given to pedestrians and bicyclists in terms of movements on the island. The 18-mile trail ringing the island, as an example, will not have even one vehicle-pedestrian conflict thanks to pedestrian bridges across entry points to Stewart Tract.

There is an extensive purple pipe system that will employ river water and treated wastewater to irrigate common landscaping and parks engineered to return what seeps into the ground back to the river in relatively short order. All landscaping, including those in front yards, have moisture sensors to further reduce the use of potable water.

Interior lakes capture storm runoff that is passively filtered by deploying extensive cleansing rocks.

A self-funding effort to organize community/neighborhood events and such to avoid River Islands simply becoming another bedroom community that is convenient to the Bay Area is in place.

It will be the largest planned community ever on a major transit line in California. Not only is Cambay Group going to build a transit station for the Valley Link commuter rail system that will connect directly to BART in Pleasanton-Dublin but it will be surrounded from scratch by a transit village complete with apartments, condos, dining, services, and retail.

And for added measure, River Islands put in place a public utility system with the help of the South San Joaquin Irrigation District that is already delivering electricity at 5 percent below PG&E rates with the goal of being 25 percent lower. At the same time they plan to create mini-solar farms throughout River Island to generate even more green energy.

New home buyers pay into a fund that will be used to “buy down” development fees for those firms locating in a planned 320-acre employment center that is eschewing concerns relying on heavy truck movements.

As for those environmental groups that once viewed River Islands as evil, they are now working with Cambay Group to implement a vision that will not only make the lower extremely of the San Joaquin River the healthiest and teeming more with nature than it has easily been in 80 if not more years but also to allow public access to boot.

Slam capitalism all you want, but smart capitalism such as River Islands is delivering what government never has been able to do.