Rogers plans multiple interstate overpasses

ROGERS -- The city wants to help drivers get across Interstate 49 while avoiding cars getting on and off the busy road.

The city is asking voters to extend a 1 percent sales tax to raise almost $300 million for various capital projects, including road work, and pay off the current bond issue. The new issue, if approved, would continue a 2011 bond refinanced in 2015 by extending the sales tax.

Other projects include city parks and the Fire and Police departments.

The transportation work would get $180 million and pay for about 30 new and ongoing projects throughout the city, said John McCurdy, community development director.

One large project would be building three to five overpasses across Interstate 49, said City Engineer Nathan Becknell.

"I-49 is a real barrier to local traffic, and this is the way to get across the interstate without having to go through those clogged up interchanges," Becknell said.

Separating the interchange traffic from cars trying to get from one side of I-49 to the other would be more efficient for everyone, McCurdy said.

"If you look at the traditional city grid, you have a major road about every quarter mile," he said. "With our overpass project, we will have an overpass or interchange about every quarter mile and create a better level of connectivity between the sides of the interstate.

Rogers resident Amy McLarty said she's unsure if the added overpasses will help with traffic congestion.

"It honestly just depends on where they're adding them," McLarty said. "But I still think there will be traffic regardless. It's just something that happens in such a growing area."

The other proposed road projects are grouped into four city quadrants. Each project will include development needed along with roads, such as trails and sidewalks. Officials chose the projects from an infrastructure study done last year by Crafton Tull, a local civil engineering firm.

"What Crafton Tull did was go back and summarized all previous studies over the last 20 years, which ranged from economic studies to water, utilities and sewer studies and previous street studies," Becknell said.

The firm created a list of projects that totaled more than $300 million. City officials ranked the projects.

"Each of these areas is its own unique animal that we are looking at as a system of roads, so we're assigning city engineers to focus on each of those four quadrants. Each has its own unique challenges and objectives," McCurdy said.

The northwest projects focus on the area connected to Bentonville near the planned new Walmart headquarters, which will be in west Bentonville near I-49, McCurdy said.

"A lot of people that live in Rogers that work for Walmart drive through Rainbow Road, but when the headquarters is relocated, traffic is going right to the interstate," he said.

Walmart's headquarters is moving to the east side of J Street between Central Avenue and Southeast 14th Street, about a mile where a new interchange is being added to Interstate 49 at Southeast 8th Street. Bentonville's Southeast 14th Street becomes Hudson Road in Rogers.

City officials want to prepare for a large shift in traffic patterns once the headquarters is built, Becknell said. Rogers worked with Bentonville and Walmart's transportation and engineering departments to determine how to avoid traffic congestion.

The northeast work would be all about making downtown more pedestrian friendly. Transportation officials would be working with parks officials during the Frisco Park renovation to add sidewalks, as well as bury utility lines.

The southwest project would focus on trails, streets and water systems near the planned Mount Hebron park, as well as building additional roads near the park to establish a grid system on the west side of the city.

"Right now, there is not a lot of a grid plan in the west area of the city. It's mostly neighborhoods built around old county lanes," Becknell said.

Additional streets on the southwestern area of Rogers would be beneficial for both the city and residents living in the area, McLarty said.

"I have a lot of friends and relatives that live in that area so I can really see how having more roads on that side of town could help," she said.

The southeast project would build streets as well as add roundabouts and traffic lights. Becknell said multiple options of where to drive disperses traffic.

McCurdy said adding streets often is better than widening roads.

"Ultimately it's a lot more efficient to create additional roads. Eventually roads get too wide," McCurdy said. "If you had a 50-lane intersection with a 50-lane road, it becomes absurd," he said.

While McLarty agrees constantly widening roads can be inefficient, she said additional roads in the more developed areas of Rogers, such as downtown and the area around it, are not necessary.

"I'm 25 and I've lived here since I was 3 months old and I just don't see how more roads will help make less traffic," she said. "The interstate has three lanes but it still gets congested whenever people try to merge in."

Ongoing projects the bond would help pay for include an I-49 overpass on Magnolia Street, reconstructing the interchange at Walnut Street and I-49 and additions to Pleasant Grove Road.

"Right now, if you drove west on Pleasant Grove Road, it eventually stops and you're forced to turn north. We're going to extend it so that it eventually gets to [Arkansas] 112," Becknell said.

McCurdy said he hopes voters will approve the transportation issue because the work will be needed as Northwest Arkansas continues to grow.

If the issue passes, McCurdy and Becknell said design firms will begin working within days of the decision, and residents should see progress by next summer.

NW News on 07/29/2018