BENTONVILLE -- An Arkansas Department of Transportation public input session on proposed improvements to Arkansas 112 between the Springdale Northern Bypass and Arkansas 12 in Bentonville drew a house full of interested area residents, not all of them happy.
Residents of several expensive Bentonville subdivisions in particular aired concerns in July 2021 about the proposed route including flooding and the proximity of the road to their homes hurting property values and putting their children at risk.
The Transportation Department made several proposed changes to their original plans in response to residents' concerns, including alternate routes, but concerns remained Thursday evening.
"Our neighborhood has sent letters, we've sent alternative proposals for the last two years. We have neighbors who will be affected; their houses will be gone. They'll be bulldozed," said Beth Strickland, who lives in the Ozark Acres subdivision with her husband John. "We have a huge problem with flooding in our neighborhood that they're totally ignoring. The highway is going right through the valley which already floods. They do not recognize anything that we have offered."
John Strickland said he thinks the road should go farther west because that's where the traffic is headed.
"This is not going to be completed for at least five years. Everything is moving west," Strickland said. "They want to go to Centerton; they want to get out there to Vaughn. All the neighborhoods that are being built out there."
Strickland said Arkansas 112 is only four or five miles west of Interstate 49.
"In five years when they've spent $80 to $100 million, they're going to have to go further west anyway," Strickland said. "Why not go ahead and go west where everybody is."
Strickland said a more westerly route would serve that area and could also connect back to I-49 west-northwest of Bentonville.
Jamie Wolfe, who lives on Ozark Acres Drive, said he's concerned about the route being proposed and flooding, which is already a problem in the area.
"When they first proposed this there were several different other routes that would have affected us more directly, but these, the road doesn't touch our property," Wolfe said. "But we already have an existing water runoff problem, and we're concerned about it being worse."
Wolfe said he's not too concerned about increased traffic because Pleasant Grove Road being extended should alleviate some of the traffic on his road, which is used as a cut-through for some traffic.
"I really think we'll see traffic kind of diminish a little bit. The biggest issue for us is the water. To me, this route should have been decided before they allowed all those neighborhoods to be built up," Wolfe said. "When they built those neighborhoods, the runoff was not accounted for. Hindsight's 20-20 and always is, but there is some open land further west."
Wolfe said a more westerly route would affect fewer people and allow higher vehicle speeds than Arkansas 112.
The Transportation Department already has made several proposed changes to its plans in response to previous concerns such as roundabouts at either end of Cave Springs and a new alignment around the west side of Cave Springs to avoid downtown.
Farther north, two alignments are proposed. One alternative would follow the existing highway alignment until moving to a new alignment east of St. Valery Downs subdivision and would tie back into the existing alignment south of Arkansas 12. A second alternative would move the new alignment even farther east of St. Valery Downs subdivision.
Plans call for the road to be widened from two to four lanes divided by a 15-foot raised median with four 11-foot lanes, a 5-foot sidewalk with a 3-foot greenspace on one side and a 12-foot side path with a 6-foot greenspace on the other side.
Making Arkansas 112 a major north/south connection in the coming years is part of the regional Transportation Improvement Program for Northwest Arkansas. Arkansas 112 is the only major north-south highway serving local and regional traffic between Fayetteville and Bentonville west of Interstate 49, which makes it critical for regional mobility as the area continues to grow, according to the planning documents. It also connects to other major routes, including Arkansas 12 and 264, the Springdale Northern Bypass and U.S. 412, as well as I-49.
Regional planners in January 2019 agreed to move forward with a vision for Arkansas 112 as a four-lane, north/south corridor with managed access. The Arkansas Department of Transportation is responsible for the work.
The primary purpose of the Arkansas 112 widening is to allow the road to carry significant local and regional traffic, according to the planning documents.
The work is expected to be done in phases. Work on the road could begin sometime in 2024, Highway Department officials said.
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NoneIn case you missed it
Those who were unable to attend the Arkansas 112 public input sessions this week can still view meeting materials on the Transportation Department’s website and provide written comments at www.ardot.gov/publicmeetings. The comment period runs until 4:30 p.m. Jan. 13.
The agency will take input from all meetings, fine-tune the design and come back again for more input before completing the design, according to agency officials.
Source: NWA Democrat-Gazette