Roundabout out of design for roadway
New Cantrell plans drawn after neighbors raise ruckus
A preliminary design of a proposed project to widen a busy section of Cantrell Road at Interstate 430 in Little Rock has been tweaked to eliminate a roundabout that residents in the nearby Walton Heights neighborhood and others had strongly opposed.
The roundabout, which would have served the Walton Heights neighborhood, some residents along River Mountain Road and people wanting to use the Arkansas River Trail and the bridge to Two Rivers Park, left residents furious over how much land, including homes, would have to be taken to accommodate it.
They also said the removal of homes would open up the side of the mountain to additional development. The site was once contemplated for a Costco, a warehouse club similar to Sam’s Club.
The new look will be formally unveiled at a public meeting Sept. 18 at Christ the King Catholic Church. The meeting also will unveil plans to extend widening Cantrell Road, also called Arkansas 10, an additional 2 miles west, from Pleasant Ridge Road to Sam Peck Road.
The project will extend from Pleasant Ridge Road to the west to Pleasant Valley Road to the east.
A similar meeting on July 17 at the same church generated the opposition that prompted the Arkansas Department of Transportation to take another look at the roundabout.
Kevin Odum, president of the Walton Heights/Candlewood Homeowners Association, termed it a “little bit of an uproar.”
The July 17 meeting generated “numerous” comments opposed to the roundabout, said Mike Fugett, the agency’s assistant chief engineer for design. Odum also reached out to the department.
“We came up with a [new] proposal,” said Fugett. “It accommodates the traffic movements and still does what we need it to do.”
Fugett met earlier this week with the homeowners association board to discuss the new design.
“We’re still really concerned about possible development,” Marion Gavin, the board’s treasurer, said Thursday. “But this really seems to help at the moment. They will not be demolishing any homes. One day at a time.”
At least one and possibly a second home would’ve been needed to accommodate the roundabout, Fugett said.
“There will be no one relocated,” he said. “That is a benefit of the new design.”
The project is aimed at reducing congestion on what agency officials say is the busiest non-interstate thoroughfare in Arkansas. About 54,000 vehicles travel the section between Pleasant Valley and Pleasant Ridge roads each day, according to department data. The agency projects it will carry 76,000 vehicles daily in 20 years.
The project is centered on a single-point urban interchange design in which the section of Cantrell, widened to six lanes from four, will have a ramp to carry traffic over the North Rodney Parham Road intersection rather than through it, as Cantrell does now.
The elevated roadway is similar to the ramp that carries traffic on Interstate 630 over South Shackleford Road in the Interstate 430/Interstate 630 interchange.
The “single point” in the interchange design would be underneath Cantrell at North Rodney Parham. One traffic signal would control traffic moving onto or off Cantrell, which would allow motorists going east and west on Cantrell to avoid stopping at a light to accommodate North Rodney Parham traffic, a feature that is a source of much of the congestion in the corridor.
The design also includes a feature known as a “Texas turnaround,” which will allow drivers traveling south on I-430 to turn east on Cantrell. Motorists actually would travel west for a short distance, then make what amounts to a U-turn back to the east underneath the Cantrell Road ramp.
The Texas turnaround would replace a loop ramp that traffic now uses to go from southbound I-430 to eastbound Cantrell and would eliminate an element that has the southbound I-430 traffic merging into the same lane used by eastbound Cantrell traffic to access northbound I-430.
A Texas turnaround on the west side of the interchange will allow some motorists exiting the Pleasant Ridge shopping center to go west on Cantrell as well as allow westbound motorists access to Trinity Assembly of God Church on the north side of Cantrell. A new road that would replace the traffic circle also would allow access to the church.
Meanwhile, the preliminary work on the project using a new method to deliver road-construction projects has proved successful enough for state highway officials to consider extending the project west beyond Pleasant Ridge Road.
The project is the first to employ the construction manager/contractor method in which the contractor works with the department’s design team to better control costs and manage traffic during construction.
Typically, a project is designed first and contractors submit bids based on the design; the contractor which submits the lowest bid amount is awarded the contract.
Three firms already are working on the project.
The contractor is Kiewit Infrastructure South of Fort Worth, which recently completed a $22.9 million project that added a new ramp from Cantrell westbound to I-430 northbound.
Innovative Contracting & Engineering of Las Vegas is the independent cost estimator that will work with the contractor and the design team. Garver LLC, the multidisciplinary engineering services firm based in North Little Rock, is the engineers’ estimating consultant.
Under the construction manager/contractor method, Kiewit will be able to submit a bid to do the work without involving other contractors.
Kiewit’s bid will be compared to a project cost estimate developed by Garver, which will monitor the design team’s work. Garver will share its cost estimate with agency officials but not Kiewit.
If Kiewit’s estimate is within 10 percent of Garver’s cost estimate, it will be awarded the job.
If it isn’t within 10 percent, the project will go through the normal bidding process. Kiewit wouldn’t be precluded from submitting another bid at that point.
Department officials have liked what they have seen so far in the new contracting method.
“We’re already seeing what we feel are substantial savings, and substantially being able to deliver this job much faster than under our normal procurement process,” Fugett said. “We’re trying to position ourselves to when and if this savings does present itself, we might be able to use those funds to extend the project toward Sam Peck [Road].”
Depending on the amount of savings, the additional work could be limited to purchasing right of way or actually building more roadway west toward Sam Peck Road, he said.
“What we’re trying to do is get the environmental process complete out to Sam Peck,” Fugett said. “That way we have an opportunity to do this when and if it presents itself.”