The Arkansas Highway Commission on Wednesday picked a Texas consultant to study the feasibility of building the North Belt Freeway in north Pulaski County as a toll road to help defray its projected $500 million cost.
The study is expected to take a year to complete. The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department and Metroplan, the central Arkansas long-range transportation planning agency, are splitting the cost of the study, which can be no more than $500,000.
For a time last year, the long-planned freeway connecting U.S. 67/167 south of Jacksonville to the Interstate 40/Interstate 430 interchange had been in doubt as state and local transportation officialswere unable to agree on a timetable to fund the longsought project. It has been on the region’s long-range plans since 1947.
The five-member commission voted unanimouslyto accept the agency recommendation to use Atkins North America of Austin, Texas, to conduct the study. Department staff members recommended the firm over two others considered, Jacobs Engineering Group of Little Rock and Garver LLC of North Little Rock.
Negotiations on a contract with Atkins could take up to two months, said Randy Ort, a department spokesman.
“After the negotiations, we’ll know the timing, the scope of the work and how much,” he said.
This isn’t the first time the commission has looked at tolls to help build the North Belt Freeway. A 2001 toll study that looked at eight major corridor projects and 17 segments of proposed projects found only the North Belt would generate enough revenue to build the route and maintain it.
But Scott Bennett, the agency director, said that study is too dated to use now. He noted that since the 2001, parts of U.S. 67/167 and Interstate 40 have been widened.
“The traffic demand at North Belt is a lot different than it was before,” Bennett said. “In a lot of ways, it will be like starting over.”
Also Wednesday, the commission selected a consultant to design frontage roads on a section of future Interstate 555 in northeast Arkansas. The 49 miles of what is now U.S. 63 is built to interstate standards but a 5-mile section between Payneway and Marked Tree in Poinsett County that crosses the St.Francis Sunken Lands Wildlife Management Area remains an impediment to the route’s designation as I-555. That is because farmers must use it as a crossing over the wildlife-management area, which is part of a flood way. Farm vehicles aren’t allowed on interstates.
Michael Baker Jr. Inc. of Little Rock was the consultingfirm with whom the department recommended negotiating to design the frontage roads. The department has $3 million available from a federal earmark to pay for the study.
The commission also approved a set of guidelines for the department to use to deal with small water districts that can’t afford to move their lines out of the way of significant road-construction projects.
The department has identified five such projects totaling $1.8 million that are now being held up because small water utilities don’t have the money to move lines placed in the highway right of way years ago. State law allows utilities to use highway rights of way, but it also requires that they pay to move their lines when the department needs the right of way.
The affected projects include widening a section of U.S. 65 near Bee Branch in Van Buren County, widening a section of U.S. 63 near Mammoth Spring in Fulton County and three widening projects on U.S. 167 in Union and Calhoun counties.
State highway officials are concerned that similar issues could affect work under the $1.8 billion road-construction program voters approved in November. The program, financed in part by a 10-year, 0.5 percent increase in the statewide sales tax, focuses on widening major highways that fit into the Arkansas Highway Commission’s four-lane grid system meant to connect major cities to interstates.
Until now, the department has looked over the utility’s finances to confirm they are unable to pay and has tried with no success to enlist other nearby entities to help with the cost of the relocation.
Under the new guidelines, the department can, on a “caseby-case basis,” pick up the cost on major projects and ask cities and counties to accept responsibility and maintenance for some low-use state highways in their area.
Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 01/10/2013