FAYETTEVILLE -- Residents got a sneak peek Thursday at the biggest interchange project yet in a 26-mile stretch of Interstate 49 that's being overhauled.
The estimated $55 million undertaking will add a third lane in both directions on 2.5 miles of Interstate 49, from Porter Road to just north of the Fulbright Expressway.
At A Glance
Interchange Plans
Residents who missed Thursday’s open house will soon be able to comment on plans for the Garland Avenue/Fulbright Expressway interchange online. A project map and comment form will be available at arkansashighways.com under the heading “Recent Public Meeting.” For more information, call 501-569-2000.
Source: Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department
The work will require changing the interchange with Garland Avenue (also called Arkansas 112) and the Fulbright Expressway, which runs east to west from College Avenue to I-49.
Drivers traveling south on I-49 will no longer have to merge across traffic trying to exit westbound Fulbright Expressway at Garland Avenue. Those southbound drivers will go around the same curve northbound I-49 drivers now use to continue traveling north.
Garland Avenue drivers will be able to use new ramps to access northbound I-49 and eastbound lanes of the Fulbright Expressway without having to merge onto the interstate.
"Instead of everything like it is right now, where you have a lot of weaving and merging going on in a tight area, you're going to have a whole lot more room, and that's going to improve traffic flow," said Randy Ort of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department during an open house Thursday at Asbell Elementary School.
According to a project engineer with Garver LLC, Garland Avenue will also be widened to four lanes between Drake Street and Truckers Drive. Bike lanes and 6-foot-wide sidewalks are planned on both sides of the street.
Chris Brown, city engineer, said Thursday he wants to make sure there's adequate room for pedestrians on the Garland Avenue bridge over I-49.
Brown said it might be safer to have a wide "side path" on one side of the Garland Avenue bridge, rather than two 6-foot sidewalks. City officials want to be able to connect to the Clabber Creek and Shiloh trails, which eventually will converge near Sam's Club and run north along the west side of Garland Avenue.
Ort said it could be two years before construction on the Garland Avenue/Fulbright Expressway interchange begins. Construction will last for at least two years, he added.
The project is being paid for mostly with Federal-aid Highway money and a required match from the Highway Department, Ort said. He said city officials have agreed to chip in $3.5 million for construction and to move utilities.
The project will require obtaining land on the south side of the interchange, north of Drake Street.
Ort said it could be another year before the Highway Department and engineers with Burns & McDonnell of Kansas City, Mo., finalize designs for two other interchanges in Fayetteville: at Wedington Drive and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
A Highway Department spokesman earlier this year estimated those two interchanges would cost about $50 million combined.
NW News on 09/26/2014