Modesto Bee endorses this traffic-smoothing option to extend Highway 132 bypass

The best option for a second phase of the Highway 132 bypass now under construction west of Modesto is Alternative 2, which would extend the expressway another five miles west by 2026.

The California Department of Transportation should forget Alternatives 3 and 4, which envision upgrading nearby Maze Boulevard on its current alignment instead of building an expressway. Both are meaningless proposals requiring the bulldozing of up to 40 homes, which Caltrans won’t do, and would produce slower-moving traffic.

Alternatives 1 and 2 both are superior options. The state has acquired 60% of the property required, and people farming that rural land have been aware for some six decades that a roadway would be coming.

Alternative 1 would feature roundabouts to handle cross traffic where the bypass meets Hart and Gates roads, while Alternative 2 would employ more traditional interchanges. Either is acceptable.

Several local office holders prefer Alternative 2. Although it would cost more — $182 million, compared to $116 million for Alternative 1, because interchanges require more land — Alternative 2 would move drivers more efficiently. Average morning commute speeds would be 57 mph compared to 46 mph for any of the other three options, engineers say.

Alternative 2 would sacrifice one business and four homes, compared to four businesses and 34 homes for Alternative 3 and four businesses and 40 homes for Alternative 4. Four businesses and no homes would go under Alternative 1.

“We’ve waited 60 years to do this; let’s do it right,” said Terry Withrow, who represents that area on the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors and also is chairman of StanCOG, our local transportation planning agency.

“We just can’t cheap it up at this point,” said Vito Chiesa, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.

Both believe an efficient, smartly designed expressway will better attract state and federal transportation money.

The timing is good. Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress met Wednesday with President Joe Biden to discuss his $2 trillion infrastructure bill providing money for roads, bridges and other projects.

Caltrans reserves authority for choosing the preferred option, but rarely dismisses a united recommendation from local leaders.

Officials on all levels won’t seriously consider Alternatives 3 or 4.

Caltrans seems to have learned a lesson from designing the first phase a few years ago. Neighbors heaped criticism when the agency quietly removed from contention an option on paper for upgrading Maze just west of Modesto, rather than building a new freeway near Kansas Avenue. The Maze idea would not have satisfied goals for improving safety or traffic and stood no chance of approval, but many were enraged when the mere possibility disappeared.

West Modesto neighborhood deserves soundwall

Terhesa Gamboa, who has advocated several years for affected west Modesto residents, said many are sore about construction of the $92 million first phase. It began in December 2019 and should conclude by the end of this year.

Modesto leaders of years past did them wrong by allowing developers in the 1980s to turn fertile farmland into their neighborhoods right next to the path of the future roadway. The Woodland West Community Neighborhood northeast of Morse Road and Kansas particularly is upset that the road will be about level with vulnerable houses there, as opposed to further east, where it dips below grade, running under Carpenter Road and Rosemore Avenue.

These people should not be forced to pay for planning mistakes of former leaders. Caltrans must drop its hardhearted refusal to shield them with a soundwall, and find a way to accommodate the neighborhood’s legitimate concerns for disruptive freeway noise.

Withrow says he will work to make that happen.

Both phases of the Highway 132 expressway are huge improvements over Maze, much of whose length is a dangerous two-lane road with no median called by some Blood Alley for its deadly head-on crashes.

“132 will improve transportation, which is a good thing,” said Modesto Councilman Chris Ricci. “Sometimes even good things have consequences, so let’s work together and address those consequences.”

A new link toward the Bay Area and its economic powerhouses will help lift our profile. Efficiently moving people and goods is important to the future of our entire region, not just Modesto.