HIGHFILL -- Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport officials hope to have a long-awaited access road built and open by spring or summer 2019, if all goes well.
The access road is expected to be a restricted highway about 4 miles long and will connect where the U.S. 412 Northern Bypass intersects with Arkansas 112. The airport has about $14 million in federal money for the estimated $30 million project and is working to find the rest.
XNA traffic study
A draft study of traffic around the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport has been completed as part of efforts to build a new access road. Some of the findings and forecasts include:
• Some 15 percent to 20 percent of traffic on Airport Boulevard and Regional Avenue is “cut-through,” going someplace other than the airport.
• The north/south split of traffic on Airport Boulevard is 52 percent going north and 48 percent going south. That is forecast to remain consistent through 2035.
• About 4 percent of the vehicles are trucks.
• Vehicle traffic is expected to increase 253 percent between now and 2035.
• Airport Boulevard and Regional Avenue are expected to require widening between 2030 and 2035.
• Signals at the Arkansas 264 and Arkansas 112 intersections are expected to be required between 2025 and 2030.
Source: Staff report
Rick Dunkleburg and Jerry Farrar, consultants working on the project, told board members Wednesday they have two potential routes identified. The proposed schedule for land acquisition, design and construction anticipates having final environmental approval by the end of May 2016, which would allow land acquisition to begin immediately thereafter. Acquiring the land is expected to take about a year.
Design could begin at the same time as right-of-way acquisition and also be completed by May 2017.
Bidding and construction could begin immediately after that, if the money is available, and is expected to take about two years to complete.
Officials hope to have environmental impact studies submitted to state and federal highway officials in December and to be in position to request public input hearings about the location of the road.
Both routes are around the southwest side of Cave Springs and outside the Cave Springs Recharge Area.
As always in Northwest Arkansas, a tiny fish could play a role. In this case it's the snail darter. Habitat of the protected species was found in the area and is likely to result in one of the routes being abandoned.
"The darter will have a big impact on the route," said Jerry Farrar, a consultant from CH2M Hill. "Our biggest concern is dealing with (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife."
Farrar said consultants need to accelerate their efforts to update cost estimates for right-of-way acquisition and design for the project. No concrete decisions have been made on whether to do the full four-lane project or to begin by grading for four lanes and build two.
Scott Van Laningham, executive director of the airport, said the highway department is considering doing about a mile of the road on the south end beginning at the Arkansas 112 interchange, but no decision has been made.
Highway crews are moving earth for an interchange just south of Cave Springs that will be part of the U.S. 412 Bypass and the jumping off point for the access road. The bypass route runs from Interstate 49 near the Wagon Wheel Road interchange east to Arkansas 112.
NW News on 10/01/2015