77,000 cars slow work on freeway

Dear Mahatma: Someone should investigate the highway job in Jacksonville on U.S. 67/167. This job has taken many, many years — way too long. Meanwhile, Interstate 530, Interstate 440 and the Broadway bridge have all been completely rebuilt. There is no excuse for this level of laziness, especially on such an important corridor. — Richard

We put on our Sherlock Holmes hat and brutally interrogated Danny Straessle, chief yakker for the Arkansas Department of Transportation. He respectfully disagreed and offered a different viewpoint.

Straessle stressed that the Broadway bridge was demolished and rebuilt minus the 25,000 daily vehicles that used it. And there was much preparatory work done before the bridge was closed to traffic.

On the other hand, the ongoing — and ongoing, and ongoing — project in Jacksonville is being done under live traffic, about 77,000 vehicles daily. The project also includes two bridges. Those are the Redmond Road overpass, which also crosses a railroad track, and the Main Street overpass.

The Department of Transportation also made a design change to accommodate a Texas turnaround underneath the north side of the Main Street Bridge. Straessle said the frontage roads in Jacksonville between Main Street and James Street are being converted to oneways, and the turnaround is necessary to get from one side of the freeway to the other. This change required a change in the length of the Main Street Bridge, he said.

Straessle said the project has progressed well, and completion is expected in mid-2018.

A Texas turnaround, by the way, is a loop that allows cars traveling on one side of a one-way frontage road to U-turn to the opposite frontage road without having to go through a series of traffic lights.

Dear Mahatma: I regularly travel the stretch of U.S. 70 between Benton and Hot Springs. I’m impressed with the improvements being made. Are there any plans to improve or replace the deplorable restrooms at the rest area? — David

Dear David: The Arkansas Department of Transportation said it has no such plans.

Dear Mahatma: I fear you have confused Tweety Bird with Lili Von Shtupp in Blazing

Saddles. It is she who said “It’s true, it’s true” (“It’s twoo. It’s twoo.”) in the famous scene with Cleavon Little. Tweety said, “I DID, I DID see a puddy tat.” I can’t wait to see the wording in the correction box. — Cheers

Dear Cheers: To mangle another movie quote, we don’t need no stinking correction box. When we mess up, we fall on our sword right here. Man, that hurts.

On the bright side, this makes us think of Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower, who before D-Day had two messages ready depending on the outcome. In one message, Ike gave full credit to the men of the invading force. In the other, he accepted full responsibility for failure.

Was he a great American, or what? There should be a statue.