Highway project’s delay is requested

LR groups say review has flaws

A coalition of Little Rock neighborhoods challenging the nearly $1 billion 30 Crossing project went to court once again Friday to enjoin the Arkansas Department of Transportation from beginning construction on the project.

In the court papers, the coalition said the department notified them that construction on the project to rebuild and widen the 7.3-mile corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock is scheduled to begin later this month.

Crews will begin re-locating utilities on July 21, telecommunications relocation work as well as other pre-construction work on the grounds of the Clinton Presidential Library will begin July 28, and “construction on the roadbed portion of the project is anticipated to commence in mid-October,” the filing said.

The renewed motion came in a lawsuit the coalition filed against the department and the Federal Highway Administration last year.

A representative for the department noted that the court papers were filed

Friday afternoon and left neither state agency nor federal agency attorneys a chance to review them.

Given how immense and expensive the project is, “the commencement of work on the project would constitute an irrevocable and irretrievable commitment to a particular course of action,” the coalition said in its motion. “In addition, the commencement of work on the project would cause permanent and irrevocable harm to the environment and to Plaintiffs’ interests as set forth in the complaint, and frustrate any further meaningful environmental review of the decision of FHWA and ArDOT to perform the project work.”

The coalition was notified of the construction schedule on June 5, four days after a Federal Highway Administration reevaluation of the environmental effects of the project concluded that all previous findings “remain valid” and that the work had “no new or additional significant impacts” since its initial approval more than a year ago.

The reevaluation took place after parties in a lawsuit challenging the work won a pause in the litigation in December to determine whether the federally approved “finding of no significant impact” issued in February 2019 remained valid in light of a new project scope.

It came out in court papers that the state transportation department decided to break the project into phases after the joint venture that will do the construction — Kiewit Infrastructure South of Fort Worth and Massman Construction of Kansas City, Mo. — said it would cost about $1 billion to build as originally envisioned.

The department initially had said $631.7 million was available for the project.

The entire project — at nearly $1 billion — would be built if voters in November approve making permanent a o.5% statewide sales tax that is used to pay for road and bridge construction. It will have been in place 10 years when it expires in 2023.

The project, the planning of which began six years ago, is the most expensive that the department has undertaken. It focuses on improving the congested corridor through