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Written by Ron Swift / His Voice
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Friday, 25 April 2008 |
Money talks; West Side loses
 Ron Swift
Despite how hard West Side residents tried to state their case against the oversized business park proposal at the Crows Landing Air Facility, the majority of the supervisors had long ago made up their minds. It was like they were saying, “West Side be damned. We’ll do what we want, regardless of how it may affect you.”
If the West Park development is successful, here’s what I predict in the years ahead.
- Population growth of the cities of Newman and Patterson, especially the latter, will increase exponentially. The demand of major developers to construct housing for West Park workers will overwhelm our agricultural area. What size will our city become? 50,000? 100,000? 150,000?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Remember, money talks.
- Undoubtedly, the ugliest sight in the Central Valley will be observed by motorists passing by on Interstate 5. Have you ever seen the Port of Oakland or the rail yard serving the stock yards in Chicago? Not pretty. Throw in the tall warehouse buildings that will serve West Park businesses and you can visualize what we will have in our immediate backyard.
But remember, money talks.
- Throw in the 140,000 vehicle trips a day to and from the development, including an estimated 10,000 trucks, and you begin to realize the projected size of this project. In one word: massive. (By way of comparison, I-5 west of Patterson carries an average of 40,000 vehicles each 24-hour day.)
But remember, money talks.
- Massive road widening will be necessary to handle cross-county traffic to West Park. West Main Street is projected to go four lanes, as is a portion of East Las Palmas Avenue and Sycamore Avenue south to Marshall Road. The latter will be rebuilt to four lanes, as will Crows Landing Road and Highway 33 from Patterson south through Newman, Gustine and beyond. All of this roadwork is in the plan of the developer, as is expanding Highway 140 from Gustine to Merced to four lanes. The county and the state will be busy keeping up with the roadway widening demands, as well as plans to finance the work.
But remember, money talks.
- West Side agriculture, with some of the best farmers in the world farming some of the best farmland, will ultimately suffer greatly from the impacts of growth. The loss of food production to developments such as West Park will become a national travesty.
But remember, money talks.
And it all could have been avoided with a certain amount of reason.
Yes, we need jobs in Stanislaus County, and the publicly owned Crows Landing Air Facility could have provided a modest number of them. Its nearness to I-5 is a plus for shipping by truck, but no better than Modesto and Turlock on Highway 99.
Let’s use some reason. If industrial development would be directed to our Stanislaus County cities and train traffic hauling from the Port of Oakland terminated in western San Joaquin County, all of the above problems here would be prevented. The overwhelming of our West Side communities by housing developers, the blight of a humongous rail yard and warehouses, the endless string of cross-county vehicles and the roadway widening needed to handle them, and the loss of prime ag land could all have been avoided if our supervisors hadn’t decided to jam West Park down our throats.
One local official recently mentioned the idea of the West Side splitting off and becoming a county of its own. It can’t happen because it isn’t financially feasible, but just the thought is appealing.
Ron Swift, editor/publisher emeritus of the Patterson Irrigator, is president of the West Park opposition group WS-PACE.org.
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