Costly fix will smooth ride over Turlock tracks

Shoppers and commuters traveling Monte Vista Avenue have spent weeks jostling over the railroad tracks at its eight-lane intersection with Golden State Boulevard. But a more mellow crossing is coming, hopefully giving Turlock drivers one more thing to give thanks for in late November.

Track maintenance by the Union Pacific Railroad closed the major traffic artery Aug. 22 to 24. The closure shut a key route into the city’s largest shopping area and cut off the straight shot from California State University, Stanislaus, to Highway 99 just as students arrived for fall classes, starting Aug. 24.

When the lanes opened, drivers expecting to coast over the newly placed rails found themselves instead four-wheeling it over a rough patch while their coffees sloshed.

“You know how a million zillion people go over that intersection!” said one irate caller to The Modesto Bee.

“I was expecting the railroad track and road to be smoother. But in fact, it is worse than it was before,” wrote in reader Darlene Graham.

Turlock city workers knew the upgrade would raise the rails up to an inch above the asphalt, and planned for a simple sliver of transition to ease wheels up and over, said Director of Development Services Mike Pitcock.

“But lo and behold, when we got in there we found there was quite a variation, from 1 to about 3 inches,” Pitcock said Friday. “It’s quite abrupt to cross over the tracks.”

The city recognized the new crossing was off to a rocky start and is on the hook for the fix, he said.

“The railroad owns the right of way, and we have an easement over it,” Pitcock said, which means Turlock will have to cough up the cash.

The city put out a bid to angle the road to the rails and back again, a 30-foot feathering, he said, “in an effort to bring it up to what we consider a minimum standard.”

The City Council will vote on awarding the bid, a $71,530 contract, to George Reed Inc. of Modesto at its Tuesday meeting. The money is expected to come from gas tax reserves, the agenda item notes.

A wider section of Monte Vista will close for a couple of days, probably in mid-November, to complete the work, Pitcock predicted.

This story was originally published October 9, 2016 at 5:22 PM with the headline "Costly fix will smooth ride over Turlock tracks."