An ambitious road building and repair program should have Northwest Arkansas well situated for continued growth and prosperity, according to local leaders.
"What we're doing is we're preparing for the traffic of the future as well as now," said Dick Trammel of Rogers, a state Highway and Transportation Department commissioner.
"It's just going to be unbelievable the effect this will all have on the time it takes to get to work, safety and bringing tourists and more people to Northwest Arkansas," he said.
The program is expected to take up to seven years to complete, he said.
"When we finish, we'll have one of the best conditioned interstates in the country. I will say it will give us continual growth for the next 20 years," Trammel said.
Highway Department officials said Northwest Arkansas can expect to see more than $400 million in highway construction.
The region's cities and counties also should receive an estimated $60 million for local projects over the next decade from a half percent statewide sales tax increase for roads.
Mike Malone, chairman and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Council, said catching up with highway needs is good for the people who live here and the businesses that operate here.
"Highway infrastructure, like airports, water and wastewater, are key building blocks for any region, but it's especially important in a fast-growing region like Northwest Arkansas," Malone said, noting the construction itself creates jobs. "There's still going to be highway needs even when it's done, but we're thrilled about it and it will be a big economic benefit of the next few years."
Kathy Deck, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Arkansas, said the economic benefit of highway improvement programs will spread throughout the region. Deck said the combination of a growing economy and a known set of projects to be built creates a virtuous cycle.
"We have more workers, which means we need more office buildings, which means we need more streets to get them there, that kind of a nice cycle, and this is just a particular piece of the supporting industry to make it all happen," she said.
Deck said good roads can be seen as building blocks that allow more economic development to follow.
"When we look at the economic impact of anything, let's say you're building a building, you get the immediate construction impact, which means there are purchases made in the local economy, there are local contractors hired, people have jobs," she said.
"But then the business that takes place in that building also has an ongoing economic impact. Infrastructure is very wonderful that way, you get shots in the arm both ways," she said.
Deck said road spending is actually a small percentage of the region's gross domestic product, but it's still a lot of money.
"Our whole economy here in Northwest Arkansas, just to get a sense of it, our GDP in the last year was about $20 billion," Deck said. "So, if you want to talk about a half of a percent increase in GDP, it may not sound like much, but that's a huge difference in prosperity and employment."
More capacity also means motorists won't sit idling their time away, she said.
Sitting in traffic costs Northwest Arkansas residents more than $103 million a year in wasted time and gas, according to a study commissioned in 2012 by the Northwest Arkansas Council. The study concluded that finishing the Bella Vista bypass, building a U.S. 412 bypass around Springdale and widening Interstate 540 would relieve much of that congestion.
"When you build a new road, the frontage, of course, becomes more valuable because you can get there but it also does make the actual transportation from here to there more efficient and easier, you're not stuck quite as long," Deck said.
John McLarty, senior planner at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, said the projects in the pipeline were not randomly selected, but solve connectivity problems first identified by planners a decade ago.
"The Don Tyson Parkway interchange, that's not just another random interchange to help get on and off I-540 in that area," he said. "That's allowing Don Tyson Parkway to connect from Arkansas 265 to I-540 with an interchange. The Arkansas 265 extension up to Rogers, that's more than just a local project, that's completing a corridor on the east side of the urbanized area all the way from south Fayetteville to east Rogers, a major alternative to going up U.S. 71B or I-540."
Some projects don't necessarily span the length of the two counties but are still significant, McLarty said.
Fayetteville's Rupple Road project is part of what city officials hope will eventually be a loop around the city. The 56th Street project in Springdale will connect from Greathouse Springs Road in Johnson all the way up to Elm Springs Road and right by Arvest Ballpark, an area city officials expect to see a lot of development..
The portion of the U.S. 412 bypass the Highway Department plans will tie in with the future airport access road, he said.
Scott Bennett, Highway Department director, said most of the work in Northwest Arkansas involves improvements to the I-540 corridor, but there are other important projects in the pipeline.
Bennett said there's $400 million or so between the Interstate Rehabilitation Program to reconstruct or add capacity to almost all the interchanges on I-540 and the Connecting Arkansas program, which will complete widening of I-540, build more of the Bella Vista Bypass and build the first section of the Springdale northern bypass.
Smaller, yet still meaningful jobs include the just-let contract for U.S. 62 from Avoca to north of Garfield, a $20-$25 million job. The Prairie Grove Bypass is nearing completion. Widening Arkansas 16 on the east side of Fayetteville is underway and, the widening of Arkansas 265 is being finished from Fayetteville to Springdale.
NW News on 03/23/2014