I-40 upgrade, 1st in $1.8B program, done

Glenn Bolick (left) of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department holds a placard Wednesday as state Highway Commissioner Frank D. Scott Jr. signs it at an event on the Norman Road Interstate 40 overpass in North Little Rock celebrating completion of the $38.4 million I-40 widening project. Waiting to sign are commission Chairman Dick Trammel (center) and Emanuel Banks, the Highway Department’s deputy director and chief engineer.
Glenn Bolick (left) of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department holds a placard Wednesday as state Highway Commissioner Frank D. Scott Jr. signs it at an event on the Norman Road Interstate 40 overpass in North Little Rock celebrating completion of the $38.4 million I-40 widening project. Waiting to sign are commission Chairman Dick Trammel (center) and Emanuel Banks, the Highway Department’s deputy director and chief engineer.

The first project under a $1.8 billion road construction program that voters approved a little more than four years ago has been completed.

Widening the section of Interstate 40 between Interstate 430 and Arkansas 365 now makes I-40 a six-lane route between North Little Rock and Conway. The $38.4 million project also added lanes to and from Conway at the Interstate 430/I-40 interchange in North Little Rock.

Up to 66,000 vehicles drive daily on that section of I-40, according to the latest Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department estimates.

"It's a lot less stress and a lot less delay than it used to be," Tab Townsell said by cellphone while he was driving from Little Rock to Conway on Wednesday afternoon. "I'd like to hope it's a lot more safer than it used to be."

Townsell is the outgoing Conway mayor and the incoming executive director of Metroplan, the long-range transportation planning agency for central Arkansas.

The stretch of highway still isn't perfect, he said.

"You don't see the backups -- you see some -- and an accident can still gum up the works," Townsell said. "But it's been much, much easier at some times of the day. It's been easier at most times of the day."

The project is among three projects totaling 12 miles and worth $88 million that have been completed so far under the Connecting Arkansas Program, which focuses on road construction projects of regional significance and constitutes one of the largest such programs the department has undertaken.

The aim of the program is to improve connections between cities, increase highway capacity, reduce congestion, improve safety, accelerate the completion of larger projects and provide a new revenue source for road construction. The department largely depends on a mix of state and federal fuel taxes to fund its regular construction program.

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The other two substantially completed projects are newly widened sections of Interstate 49 in Northwest Arkansas: Between U.S. 412 and Wagon Wheel Road in Springdale and between U.S. 71B in Fayetteville and U.S. 412.

Another eight Connecting Arkansas Program projects covering 33 miles and worth $300 million are under construction, and low bids on two more projects covering 22 miles and worth an estimated $162 million will be opened this month.

The latter two projects include U.S. 70 between Interstate 30 and Hot Springs, and a section of U.S. 67/167 from Vandenberg Boulevard in Jacksonville to Arkansas 5 in Cabot.

"We're making a lot of progress," Scott Bennett, the Highway Department director, said Wednesday at a meeting of the Arkansas Highway Commission.

Voters jump-started the program in December 2012 when they approved an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution establishing a temporary half-percentage-point increase in the statewide sales tax to help fund the program. The tax is in place for 10 years, by which time the department has said it aims to have all of the projects completed.

The Highway and Transportation Department receives 70 percent of the revenue generated by the tax, with the remaining 30 percent evenly distributed between cities and counties for their street and road departments.

Through October, the department has netted $547,390,746 from its share of the tax, less than 1 percent off from Arkansas Finance and Administration Department estimates.

"We're pretty close," Bennett said of the estimates.

But the agency still has a long way to go. The program has taken time to ramp up because of the planning, design and environmental assessments for many of the projects.

"A lot of projects will be coming on line" in the next few years, Bennett said.

The department has scheduled eight Connecting Arkansas Program projects to be awarded contracts next year. They cover 48 miles and are estimated to cost $325 million. They include widening I-630 from Baptist Health to South University Avenue in Little Rock, and two projects on U.S. 67 around Hampton in south Arkansas.

The bulk of the Connecting Arkansas Program projects won't take place until 2018-19, when contracts are scheduled to be awarded for 15 projects worth an estimated $1.03 billion.

Much of the spending will be associated with just one project: The 6.7-mile corridor of I-30 through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock. It stretches from Interstate 530 in Little Rock to I-40 in North Little Rock, and includes a section of I-40 from John F. Kennedy Boulevard to U.S. 67/167, also in North Little Rock.

The project includes replacing the I-30 bridge over the Arkansas River and widening the corridor to eight or 10 lanes. Planning began in early 2014. The contract for the project isn't expected to be awarded until 2018.

Metro on 12/01/2016

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