There is only one reason why the Chick-fil-A traffic debacle occurred.

It is the direct result of collusion that created the Bureaucracy-Consultant Complex. Common sense never stood a chance.

Even when Manteca Planning Commissioners openly questioned the wisdom of approving placing the high-traffic Chick-fil-A at the same intersection with two equally big draws in the form of McDonald’s and In-n-Out Burger, the Bureaucracy-Consultant Complex shot them down.

The traffic studies, they said, were done by experts who indicated there would be no problem. They said zoning and adopted city rules allowed such a fast food place to be built on the northeast corner of Northwoods Avenue and Yosemite Avenue. All of the “t”s were crossed and the “i”s dotted as far as the Holy Book of Planning Rules demanded, they said.

Apparently what we are seeing six days a week on East Yosemite Avenue and Northwoods Avenue is a figment of our imagination. One traffic lane of the busiest east-west corridor in Manteca at the main entrance to the city for the traveling public wasn’t granted de facto status as the queue for the Chick-fil-A drive thru lane. It’s just an illusion. Or, more appropriate, it’s delusional planning, Manteca-style.

Thank goodness Chick-fil-A isn’t open on Sundays or the traffic congestion that is a serious impediment to anyone not hankering for chicken would be an everyday occurrence.

How the process allows Chick-fil-A to scramble traffic on Yosemite Avenue and make life miserable for people who are inconvenienced six days a week so a store can hawk chicken sandwiches is the ultimate indictment of the Bureaucracy-Consultant Complex.

And it goes beyond hired guns affirming the bureaucracy’s outlook on planning to assure that the lucrative consulting contracts keep flowing their way. It is also more than the fact planners and planning consultants learn from the same basic planning textbooks and pledge allegiance to all of the same commandments of cookie cutter planning rules. It also goes beyond that as more than a few consultants at one time were — surprise — planners employed by cities.

The Bureaucracy-Consultant Complex tends to rely on modeling, Google Earth, and printed rules and regulations treated as the absolute gospel instead of on observations and common sense.

Actually, if any of them lived where they earn paychecks or strike the Mother Lode with consultancy contracts, they wouldn’t have to do a whole lot of observing.

All they would have to do is call on the nuances, patterns, and habits they would see if they lived in Manteca as they went about all their daily business here. When its quitting time and you’re doing the Fred Flintstone “yabba dabba doo” act to get out of Dodge as quickly as possible you tend not to notice a lot of obvious things that people who live and work here do.

All anyone had to do was to see how big of a mess In-n-Out Burger across the street at Chick-fil-A is at times to know Chick-fil-A was going to be a traffic disaster.

Customers of the burger joint take over parking places in adjoining centers, park illegally at times on Hulsey Way, and clog traffic mess. To their credit In-n-Out has eased it somewhat by hiring runners and having a kitchen operation that is on steroids.

It might surprise you to know that during the approval process two decades ago the planning staff at the time was astonished that In-n-Out was planning for significantly more parking spaces than city rules required. The In-n-Out representatives speaking at the Planning Commission indicated they knew what they were doing based on locations that existed elsewhere.

And let’s not forget the Starbucks drive thru lane next door that also is another banged up success story that was blessed by the City of Manteca’s by-the-planning-book approach for development.

The city’s archaic rules at the time called for minimal parking space for a coffee shop of its size.  The parking requirements were adopted long before anyone had heard of Starbucks. The city didn’t foresee the short queue for the Starbucks drive thru as a potential block of parking spaces or that it would back up onto Hulsey Way at times. That’s because their noses were stuck into their 1960s era planning books and the consultants were only too happy to oblige so they could get their payday.

Consultants are required so that studies can be conducted that meet the criteria and mandates of the California Environmental Quality Act that has been contorted and conferred gospel status even if it defies common sense and the goals that government leaders — elected and lifers — mandate.

How CEQA has helped create and exacerbate the dearth of attainable housing is the shining example of how government sets itself up to fail.

Worse yet it creates a culture where people don’t stray outside of the preordained lines even when common sense would tell them otherwise. That’s because they either will get their heads chopped off or they end up going on autopilot. That’s do to seeing any effort to try to change the status quo being ignored on a wholesale basis by those clutching onto every planning rule ever written as if they were on the same level of the Ten Commandments.

You might ask why the city isn’t taking action to correct the Chick-fil-A mess.

The answer is simple. They have little leverage after the fact.

Well, that’s not exactly the case.

There are things they can do.

They could paint the curb along Northwoods Avenue red and post no parking signs.

They could also treat the traffic mess for the serious, ongoing problem it is.

The Manteca Police Department should be directed to do targeted enforcement. That means ticketing drivers for blocking intersections, blocking crosswalks, and blocking fire lanes.

Do it for a couple of weeks including on Saturdays during the peak times of  traffic snafus and see what happens. Word gets around pretty fast on social media.

There is no way that not taking such steps can be justified. The mess poses a serious impediment for ambulance access to Doctors Hospital of Manteca at various times of the day and evening.

Not taking active enforcement of some type on an ongoing basis also is allowing one business to hijack a key public corridor.

Making customers pay for well-deserved traffic tickets might inspire Chick-fil-A to come up with a solution.

It could be having customers delivered their food at a point way past the drive up windows by hiring more runners. It could be having those that order via app to pick up orders curbside in the area on Northwoods Avenue just north of their exit getting a discount coupon for their next trip. (Surely if the city at certain locations in Manteca can restrict use in on street parking for specific people in neighborhoods and uses as they have over the years, something could be worked out.)

Or, here’s a winner for everyone, Chick-fil-A could come up with a plan to modify their structure and cannibalize the 82-seat dining room to expand their kitchen to increase order capacity to speed up the lines.

That would, of course, require medical crews to stand by while city officials hyperventilate. They’d likely require another traffic study by the same crack consultants that did the original one and take a couple years to give such a solution the OK.

It is clear the mess is not going away.

And as harsh as it might sound no one — not even a popular chicken joint — should be able to hijack a key corridor because of their business.

 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