GRIDLOCK GURU Trees are no threat to surface

Trees planted along a road can grow massive, just-below-the-soil root systems that push up streets and sidewalks.

Derek Ridenoure of Springdale wonders if a new road is destined for problems of that nature.

After answering that query, The Guru gives the lowdown on what’s up with a Bella Vista traffic signal.

Question: “Driving down the new Wagon Wheel Road in Springdale is so much better now,” Ridenoure writes. “The road is so much wider.

However, I noticed some time back that the shrubbery and trees that the city planted seem precariously close to the road, and it makes me wonder who at the Springdale planning department approved this.

“It already looks as though the small trees need to be trimmed, and I can imagine what the road and sidewalk will look like in 10 years. Will Springdale taxpayers be forced to pay for a ‘new’ Wagon Wheel Road again when the trees tear up the road and sidewalk?”

Answer: The trees along Wagon Wheel were picked by Construction Dynamics Group, which was hired in 2003 to oversee more than $100 million in improvements to city streets.

The Summit green ashes, Greenspire Littleleaf Lindens, Green Vase zelkovas and Dynasty lacebark elms won’t lift up pavement or sidewalks, said Jim Robbins, an arborist and landscape installation expert with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service in Little Rock. Robbins called them excellent choices.

Robbins particularly liked the choice of the lacebark elms and Green Vase zelkovas, saying they aren’t big trees and even have relatively small leaves, making for few visibility issues for motorists.

So what are bad roadside trees? The London planetrees planted along Garland Avenue on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville were a rotten selection, Robbins said. They can have an 80-foot spreads and have been known to lift up pavement.

Q: “Please tell me why and when the traffic lights at Arkansas 340 and Arkansas 279 were installed, that a left turn light was not included?” writes Ellyn Gerstein of Bella Vista.

“This would have been the perfect addition and a much-needed one.”

A: Bella Vista and the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department do plan to modify the intersection, but it won’t change the traffic signal.

Rather, the city will take out two center medians on Arkansas 340 so that left-turn lanes can be built. That means Arkansas 340 traffic going straight through the intersection in either direction will no longer have to wait behind left turners.

While Arkansas 279 will remain a two-lane highway in which drivers going straight must wait for left turners in front of them, removing the 340 medians should make it easier to turn from 279 onto 340, said Mark Lyons, a Highway Department traffic engineer.

Robert J. Smith, aka The Guru, writes on traffic issues in Northwest Arkansas on Fridays. He can be reached at nwaonline.com/ guru or [email protected].