As mud, puddles leave south Modesto children frustrated, officials finalize sidewalk plans
Sidewalks are coming to a dozen south Modesto blocks where residents have long slogged through mud.
Stanislaus County got a $2.38 million state grant to upgrade Glenn and Butte avenues between Crows Landing Road and Las Vegas Street. The sidewalks will improve access to Bret Harte Elementary School and Hanshaw Middle School, both on Las Vegas.
The work could be completed during the summer 2023 school break, Public Works Director David Leamon said.
The project is one of several in a decades-long effort to bring sidewalks to south and west Modesto and the Airport District. Those neighborhoods, home to many Latino families, began as Dust Bowl settlements in the 1930s.
Maria Murillo lives on Imperial Avenue. Every school day, she walks 10 minutes to Bret Harte to pick up three of her grandchildren after classes end.
“We have to cling to the fences because there’s no way to cross,” she said as cars zoomed by.
Her grandson Armando described the conditions as they walked home Tuesday.
“It’s kind of annoying because we’re used to just going straight home,” the 8-year-old said. He pointed to a section of the road that had flooded a day earlier. Sometimes, his grandmother added, the puddles are so large that they have to take a different route home, which takes twice as long.
With that, Armando and older sisters Yazmannie and Jaylannie joined their grandmother in stepping gingerly along the muddy street shoulder.
The upcoming project will give the Murillo family a sidewalk, but only for two of the four blocks along their walk to school. The other roads they travel, Dallas Street and Imperial Avenue, fall outside the scope of the grant. The funding does not include storm drains, which would help clear the puddles.
The grant also will pay for more visible striping at five crosswalks and for roadway markings that tell motorists that these are bicycle routes.
Leamon said the county has worked with the state for three or four years on the grant. Final approval came Thursday from the California Transportation Commission.
The grant is from the Active Transportation Program, which seeks to make life easier for people on foot, bicycles and other non-motorized modes. It gives most of its money to lower-income areas such as south Modesto. A separate $4.9 million grant covered most of the cost of new sidewalks and bike paths nearing completion in part of the Airport District.
Supervisor Channce Condit has identified these sidewalks and street improvements as key priorities for his office. This August, the Board of Supervisors allocated $16.9 million in Covid-relief dollars to infrastructure projects in his district, which includes unincorporated areas like south Modesto. He wants to see sidewalks, storm drainage, curbs, gutters and lighting along all the streets where Murillo and her grandchildren walk, not just sidewalks along the few blocks covered by the Active Transportation Program.
He expects these additional improvements to start in the next two years. “With the cost of living and inflation going up, we have to move on this as soon as possible,” he said.
He wants “to make our money stretch as far as we can” and pointed to recent projects like the Bonita Pool in Crows Landing as a warning. The pool faced delays as costs climbed due to inflation.
The ultimate goal, he said, is to upgrade the infrastructure in this unincorporated neighborhood so that the city of Modesto can annex it.
Until then, neighbors like Jose Vasquez are taking the matter into their own hands. On Tuesday, he shoveled dirt off the street after water and mud left the routes around his home in disarray.
“I see the kids walking to school, and I come here to clean up a little, thinking of them and the old folks who use their walkers,” he said.
Vasquez lives at Glenn Avenue and Seattle Street. He’ll get a sidewalk on the side of his home that is adjacent to Glenn Avenue as early as next summer, but the other side of his house will have to wait until Condit’s projects come through.
This story was originally published December 12, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
