FAYETTEVILLE — City Council members got their first look this week at plans for Rupple Road improvement.
City officials say the multimillion-dollar project will give drivers a much needed north-south corridor on the west side.
“You’ve had explosive growth out there,” Mayor Lioneld Jordan said Wednesday. “If we have Rupple Road four lanes from (Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) all the way to Wedington (Drive) and then up to Howard Nickell (Road), that will give people a way to go up and around the city.”
The project will eventually extend Rupple Road about 1.5 miles to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from where it ends at Owl Creek School. A stretch between Persimmon Street and Wedington Drive near the Boys & Girls Club will be widened to four lanes, and Rupple’s southern intersection with Mount Comfort Road will be moved east to make a new four-way stop.
Street Committee members reviewed drawings Tuesday showing a four-lane boulevard with landscaped medians, sidewalks and a 12-foot-wide pedestrian path on the west side of Rupple.
At A Glance
Speak Up
Residents will have at least two opportunities to share their thoughts about Rupple Road improvement. A Ward 4 meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. May 20 at the City Administration Building, 113 W. Mountain St. Officials also plan to hold a public input session at the Boys & Girls Club of Fayetteville. No date has been set for that meeting.
Source: Staff Report
A street plan aldermen approved in 2011 calls for similar improvement north of Mount Comfort Road sometime during the next 20 years. Chris Brown, city engineer, said Rupple Road will eventually be extended from where it ends north of Holt Middle School. Four lanes are planned along Howard Nickell Road — also known as Arkansas 112 — to Interstate 540. Brown said Wednesday he couldn’t give a timeline for that construction.
The improvement is in response to rapid population growth. Planning staff members have counted rooftops in old aerial photos and analyzed Census data to conclude 25 percent of the city’s population lives west of I-540, compared to 10 percent 20 years ago.
With that growth came traffic.
“It’s the worst I’ve seen it,” said Alton Pennington, a resident for about 40 years, who lives off Rupple on Weir Road.
Pennington said new Rupple Road connections will ease congestion on the bridge over I-540, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and access roads on either side of the interstate.
His wife, Joyce Pennington, who works for the Springdale School District, said rush hour traffic is bad every morning at the Arkansas 112 interchange. A co-worker who travels from Farmington to get to the east side of Springdale would benefit from having a new route to work, she said.
“This is needed,” Joyce Pennington said.
Street Committee members generally supported the plan, but had some concerns.
Rhonda Adams, a Ward 4 alderwoman who represents the west side, said she wants to preserve parking on the west side of the street for people who live in row houses between Persimmon and Wedington.
Matthew Petty, Ward 2 alderman, questioned preliminary plans for a traffic roundabout at Rupple and Persimmon. He said, with a school and Boys & Girls Club in the area, the city needs to be careful about ensuring pedestrian safety.
Plans presented Tuesday didn't include street widening between Wedington Drive and Mount Comfort Road. Mayor Jordan said he wants to see the roughly 1-mile section converted to four lanes. Brown said it would be relatively inexpensive to do, because a street is already in place. He added city officials would have to come up with a way to pay for those improvements.
Property acquisition, design and construction between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Wedington Drive is expected to cost $10 million. That portion of the project will be paid for using sales-tax-backed bonds voters approved in 2006.
The realigned Mount Comfort Road intersection, which will require a new bridge over Hamstring Creek, is expected to cost $3.7 million. Eighty percent will be paid using federal money available once the population in urban areas in Northwest Arkansas reached 200,000. The remaining 20 percent will be paid using bond money and the city’s sales tax capital improvement fund.
Rupple Road improvement is part of Mayor Jordan’s longstanding vision for a “box” of four-lane streets around the city. He called Rupple Road a Crossover Road for west Fayetteville. Other sides of the box include Van Asche Drive and Zion Road on the north and 15th Street and Huntsville Road on the south.
Brown said staff members will be contacting property owners in the coming weeks to give them an opportunity to ask questions or voice concerns about the project.
“This is an important connection,” he said. “We want to do it properly and make sure all the property owners have a chance to comment.”
The City Council’s Street Committee is scheduled to set street widths and approve conceptual alignment by June. Project design could wrap up this fall. Brown said he expects construction to begin in 2015.