I-30's widening sets up foot-traffic puzzle

Engineers are working to address concerns that a project to improve traffic flow on Interstate 30 by adding more lanes through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock will make it more dangerous for pedestrians.

At issue is where La Harpe Boulevard/Cumberland Street intersects with President Clinton Avenue/East Markham Street on the western edge of Little Rock's River Market District, which has developed from an entertainment district dominated by restaurants and bars to an urban neighborhood with the addition of apartments, hotels and other venues.

The intersection, along with the Cumberland-East Second Street intersection a block to the south, catches much of the vehicle traffic that flows from Interstate 30 into or through downtown Little Rock.

An analysis of pedestrian and bicycle crashes in central Arkansas that Metroplan released in 2012 found the intersection to have the highest number of crashes over a 10-year period involving pedestrians in the metropolitan area, which includes Pulaski, Saline, Faulkner and Lonoke counties.

None of the nine traffic accidents involving pedestrians at the intersection was fatal. Still, some people involved in the interstate project's planning say that adding more vehicles flowing through the intersections can only exacerbate the troubles pedestrians and vehicles have trying to safely negotiate the area unless a solution is found.

"That remains very problematic," says Jimmy Moses, a member of a stakeholders advisory group for the I-30 corridor study who is also credited as one of the architects of the River Market.

Last month, engineers working on the estimated $450 million project to redesign the corridor said a preliminary recommendation found that the highway should be widened to 10 lanes from six now, with two of the new lanes in each direction serving as collector-distributor lanes in the immediate vicinity of both downtowns. The lanes would be separated from the main travel lanes to allow for slower and safer speeds to leave and enter the interstate.

The project to reduce congestion on the 6.7-mile corridor between Interstate 530 in Little Rock and Interstate 40 in North Little Rock and a small section of I-40 between I-30 and U.S. 67/167, also in North Little Rock, includes replacing the bridge over the Arkansas River. Construction is to begin in early 2018, according to the latest planning estimates.

Increasing the volume of vehicles on I-30 will increase the volume of vehicles entering or exiting the main connection between I-30 and downtown at East Second and Cumberland streets, which is part of the River Market District, said Jim McKenzie, the executive director of Metroplan, the long-range transportation planning agency for central Arkansas.

"You've got the city's entertainment district there, an area that started downtown Little Rock to catch fire," he said. "There's a lot of pedestrian crossings there."

To move the increased volume of vehicles will require longer green lights for the traffic to avoid backups, which means pedestrians would have less time available to cross streets in the area, especially when vehicles are turning right with a green light onto a street where pedestrians are crossing.

"All of that makes not for the best pedestrian environment possible," McKenzie said.

Engineers acknowledge the problem and have looked at at least a couple of ways to address it.

One was to have the traffic tunneled under the area between Second and Cumberland and La Harpe. But McKenzie said a huge drain that handles much of the drainage from downtown to the Arkansas River is located there.

Another was to build a flyover lane or lanes to bypass the intersection, which would create noise problems for the district.

"I don't think we've yet got the right solution," Moses said.

Another concern is that the city likely would have to pay for any improvements because the work would be "outside the scope" of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department because it involves city streets, Moses said.

The proposed design recommendation from the planning stage is now being forwarded to a design team that will focus on study mandated under the National Environmental Policy Act that will further refine the design.

"We've still got time to figure this out," said Moses, who praised the collaborative approach to the problem taken by the city, state and consulting engineers working on the project. "They're very much open to address this and are working hard to come up with a good solution."

Metro on 05/05/2015

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