Sixteen million dollars and several detours later, Lodi and Stockton residents are still undergoing the construction on Harney Lane.
The initial goal of this construction project was to build an overpass on Harney Lane, that would be over the train tracks that currently run through it.
This plan was aimed at helping decrease traffic for local drivers. However, since the start of this project in April 2016, drivers have faced all sorts of difficulties.
Therefore, it’s made the commute to school harder for students who don’t venture on to the freeway.
With the initial time estimate being 18 months of construction, local drivers have had to find new routes to get to where they need to go.
Jasmine Canela, a senior at Lodi’s Tokay High School, has experienced great difficulty when driving to and from school, due to the Harney Lane construction.
“It used to take me five minutes or so to get to school, and now it takes me 20 minutes on a good day. I hate that Harney Lane is closed,” said Canela.
Due to having limited options when it comes to available streets, the roads have become more congested and traffic has highly increased.
With Harney being a main street in Lodi and being currently unavailable to residents, other streets have been substituted in its place.
Streets such as Ham, Century and Stockton street have increased in the amount of cars that they normally have, as well as drivers and pedestrians being more accident prone. A freshman at Tokay High was recently hit while walking through a crosswalk to school on Ham lane.
“Everyone is always in a rush and the roads are so impacted now. I feel that all this traffic could potentially cause more accidents,” said Canela. San Joaquin Delta College student Yesica Torres, has endured great difficulty getting both her and her siblings to school on time due to all of the current traffic from the construction projects in both Lodi and Stockton. “Well, honestly, in terms of how I feel about the construction itself, it’s quite irritating to say the least. Traffic has become a real pain and it’s made it difficult for me when
I am either taking or picking up my siblings, I am constantly late picking at least one of them up. Which is why now, we always have to leave the house with time to arrange for handling possible traffic caused by the construction, so that I can get both myself and my siblings to school on time,” said Torres.
As for both Stockton and Tracy students, they have also had difficulty getting to school on time due to the traffic from several different construction projects. For Stockton students there has been traffic on both 99 and I-5 freeways, due to a current lane expansion project. Whereas Tracy students are currently dealing with traffic from construction on the 11th street Bridge. The 11th street Bridge is undergoing constructing to meet structural and seismic requirements and is estimated to be completed sometime during the end of 2017.
Therefore, students now have a legitimate reason for their tardiness, besides just “waking up late.”
