Drivetime Mahatma

Big Rock's skid marks mysterious

Interest remains high in the Big Rock interchange, the project that turned the congested western end of Interstate 630 into something cool to drive. Three things about Big Rock.

A reader reported a humongous skid mark on the flyover that goes from I-630 west to Interstate 430 south. Sure enough, there's a series of skid marks on the right concrete wall. They go on for a long, long time.

The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department is aware of the skid marks, spokesman David Nilles said. They have been photographed, and the Highway Department knows naught of the incident but promises to make known the cause if the cause is learned.

Another reader wrote to say he travels through the Shackleford Road/I-630 connection at all hours. He believes that the traffic signals are set to the same pattern regardless of the time of day or the level of traffic. He even referenced Bill Henry, the city's chief of traffic engineering.

On the contrary, Henry said.

He first confirmed a few fundamentals about the traffic lights in the vicinity of the interchange.

The city took over the timing of the lights after the Highway Department's contractor set the timing on the basis of the project's plans.

The signals run on an adaptive traffic control system that ties together all of the signals on Shackleford Road from Shackleford Crossing to Financial Centre, and on Financial Centre from Shackleford Road to Autumn Road.

The adaptive system is programmed to adjust the timing of lights on the basis of actual traffic flow and demand. Traffic demand is measured by video cameras mounted on the signal poles at the intersections.

This adaptive system, Henry said, "is a different bird. It's a better bird than what it was before."

"Traffic used to be backed up to Markham" from Shackleford's junction with I-63o, he said. "That's not going to happen anymore."

A third reader asked if the Highway Department would compile accident data at Big Rock. No, that job falls to the highway safety office of the Arkansas State Police. Bridget White is the administrator of the safety office.

Each year her office collects about 100 data points from accident reports submitted by law enforcement agencies around the state, she said. Those reports are of accidents that occur on public roadways.

How many accident reports annually? Roughly 60,000. About 16,000-17,000 of those are generated by the state police.

Sixty-thousand traffic accidents a year -- an average of 165 a day.

The statistics are compiled into an annual report that is posted on the website of the state police. The magnitude of the task means the last posted report was from 2012. White said the 2013 report will be completed soon, as will the 2014 report.

State police have moved to an electronic accident-reporting system, White said, which expedites the process. Some local agencies have, too. The rest of the data is keyed in manually.

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Metro on 10/24/2015

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