Workshops to look at South Stanislaus County freeway

The time to get serious about a South County Corridor is almost here.

Public workshops, where people can argue about the best route for the future expressway linking Highway 99 to Interstate 5, begin next week. Preliminary information already is available on the Internet.

A main issue is where the 18-mile, four-lane expressway should connect to Interstate 5 on its west end. Patterson officials for years have hoped for a new interchange just north of town at Zacharias Road, while Newman leaders would prefer something closer to their city, to the south.

It looks as though talks will begin with a neighborly tone.

“We’re willing to look at whatever is in the best interest of the (entire) south county,” Newman Mayor Ed Katen said. In a separate interview, Patterson Mayor Luis Molina called Katen “my good friend and colleague.”

Patterson’s economic surge in recent years has been the envy of the region, drawing huge logistics centers for Amazon, Restoration Hardware and much more. The city a few weeks ago inked an agreement with Stanislaus County to share the $1 million cost of engineering studies to upgrade its Sperry Road interchange at Interstate 5, with construction expected to cost $15 million. In the summer, the city and county also agreed on how to spend $1.75 million beefing up nearby roads – including some near Zacharias Road.

Patterson’s general plan, a document guiding growth, has talked about a future Zacharias interchange and hints at its role in the future South County Corridor.

When Newman residents head north to Interstate 5, they generally take Stuhr Road. They would be ecstatic for a South County Corridor compromise link at the Fink Road interchange near Crows Landing, between Patterson and Newman, but Katen says his people will keep an open mind.

Other issues to consider, Molina said, include moving farm products and preserving Patterson’s beautiful palm trees lining its Las Palmas Avenue east entrance.

The expressway’s east stretch seems conflict-free. Everyone assumes it would replace the mostly two-lane West Main Street from about the San Joaquin River all the way to Turlock, providing new access for Bay Area-bound trucks from the city’s growing industrial areas.

Transportation leaders with the Stanislaus Council of Governments in September agreed to pay a consultant $350,000 to develop a feasibility study for the South County Corridor. That effort has produced a website with basic information on plans and the upcoming workshops, and people can sign up to receive email alerts.

After this month’s series of meetings will come two more rounds, to analyze in detail the route alternatives and funding scenarios. The feasibility study should wrap up in February 2016.

Next week’s workshops are aimed at exploring the best route for a South County Corridor and whether enough money can be gathered to build it. StanCOG leaders are angling for a 2016 countywide vote on raising the sales tax to benefit transportation, including fixing neighborhood streets as well as future freeways such as the South County Corridor, the further-along North County Corridor from Modesto to Oakdale, and a new Highway 132 bypass west of downtown Modesto.

Turlock’s Measure B road tax, which might have raised $5.6 million a year, failed on the November ballot.

This story was originally published January 6, 2015 at 4:32 PM with the headline "Workshops to look at South Stanislaus County freeway."