Engineers working on an estimated $450 million project to ease congestion on the Interstate 30 corridor through North Little Rock and Little Rock have reversed course on a recent decision to replace the highway's bridge over the Arkansas River.
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The about-face came at the request of the Federal Highway Administration, which has final approval over the project. The agency wants engineers to fully explore all options available for the bridge as part of a broader federally mandated review of the entire corridor that would include social, environmental and economic factors.
It is a process that could delay a decision for six to nine months on whether to replace or rehabilitate and modify the 50-year-old bridge, said Jerry Holder, an engineer with Garver, an engineering, planning and environmental services firm based in North Little Rock. Holder is the project's construction manager.
Last month, project engineers said an inspection of the bridge and the projected costs to rehabilitate it led them to conclude that it would make more sense to build a new bridge.
Sandra Otto, the Arkansas administrator for the Federal Highway Administration, however, said it was too early in the process to make such an important decision, Holder said.
"She told us the other day that it would be more appropriate to take another look, to be 100 percent sure, not just from a structural standpoint but from all impacts," he said Tuesday after making a presentation on the bridge project to the Central Arkansas Transit Authority board of directors. "I said, 'You know what? That makes great sense.'"
The bridge, which carries 125,000 vehicles a day, is a safe structure, but its design, called a "pin and hanger," no longer is used in bridge construction, said Randy Ort, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department.
"It is functioning fine, it is safe and it is serving its purpose," he said. "But when we evaluate the future of the structure, we have to recognize it is an older design. Some designs are more conducive to rehabilitation than others. We have to look at the design when it comes to rehabilitation or replacement."
But while Ort said it is too early to make a decision to replace the bridge, it ultimately will be an engineering decision.
Federal guidelines require project reviews to include the assessment of a range of impacts, one of which is doing nothing. If the bridge is rehabilitated and widened or if it is replaced, those impacts must be assessed, too, Ort said.
The bridge, for example, is near the Clinton Presidential Center, which is classified as a park. How the park would be affected if the bridge is widened would be part of the review, Ort said.
But he said the bridge also has a crack in its footing on the riverbed that state highway engineers have been monitoring since 2001.
To fix the crack would require encasing it in concrete, which would result in a narrower navigation channel for barge traffic on the river, Ort said.
Meanwhile, the first meetings inviting the public to comment on the 6.7-mile project, which stretches from Interstate 530 to the south and Interstate 40 and U.S. 67/167 to the north, have been scheduled for next month.
The project management team scheduled meetings on both sides of the river as part of an effort to "get as many people involved as possible," Holder told the CATA board.
The first meeting is Aug. 12 at the North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce, 100 Main St. in North Little Rock. The second will be Aug. 14 at the Comfort Inn & Suites Presidential, 707 I-30 in Little Rock. Both meetings will last from 4-7 p.m.
The meetings are part of what is called the planning and environmental linkage study portion of the project review. No plans will be presented because there aren't any, Holder said. Instead, maps showing the route and potential impacts will be on display.
The meetings will used to discuss the planning and environmental linkage, previous studies done on the corridor, a draft proposal and need for the project and the universe of alternatives, Holder said.
The planning and environmental linkage study "brings everybody into the room at the same time" and "is a way of evaluating all possible alternatives" with the goal of considering the environmental, community and economic impacts "early in the process," Holder said.
This stage of the process includes a technical working group consisting of 45 local, state and federal agencies. The group already has held a meeting, Holder said. The team also is holding briefings with elected officials as requested as well as coordinator meetings. Holder said Tuesday's meeting with the CATA board is an example of an outreach effort in which team members accept invitations to meet with different groups.
The state Highway Department contemplated replacing the bridge three years ago as part of the ongoing $1.8 billion highway construction program known as the Connecting Arkansas Program. But up until the decision last month to replace it, highway officials had hedged on whether the span would be widened or replaced with a bigger bridge.
The I-30 work won't begin until after another downtown crossing, the Broadway Bridge, is replaced. For that project, scheduled to begin next year, the existing bridge will be removed before construction on the new one begins. Traffic will have to be rerouted for up to two years.
The I-30 bridge, which carries about 10 times as much traffic as the Broadway Bridge, will remain in service whether it is rehabilitated or replaced. "Maintaining traffic" will be a "must have" for whichever contractor is awarded a contract for the corridor project, Holder said.
Holder said it remains unclear whether enough money will be available to complete the entire project. Construction is not expected to take place until 2018.
About $450 million is available for the project. Of that, $50 million is expected to be spent on planning and design work, moving utilities and acquiring rights of way.
The Connecting Arkansas Program focuses on building four-lane highways and easing congestion on high-traffic routes. It is financed by a 10-year, 0.5 percent sales tax that voters approved in 2012. It is anticipated that it will pay for 31 projects on 19 corridors in the state.
A section on 07/16/2014