Highway officials get input on Arkansas 102

BENTONVILLE — The Arkansas Department of Transportation presented results Tuesday from a study aimed at improving a congested artery running from Rogers through Bentonville to Centerton.

Department officials presented and discussed the preliminary findings for shortand long-term improvement to U.S. 62/Arkansas 102 between Arkansas 102B and Arkansas 94. The 10-mile stretch is labeled Centerton Boulevard, Southwest 14th Street and West Hudson Road through the cities.

Kip Strauss, project manager with HNTB Corp., a firm consulting on the study, said the Highway Department identified the corridor as needing improvements. After looking at the problems and getting input from the public and city officials, improvements were proposed.

“There are many problems in the corridor but I would boil it down to three focus areas,” Strauss said. “Certainly [U.S. 71B]/Walton Boulevard on the west side is a choke point — the interchange is a choke point — and then on the east side Eighth Street and Second Street intersections are choke points.”

The I-49 and Eighth Street interchange, a separate project, is being redone to add turn lanes and improve traffic flow, Strauss said. That project is expected to be done sometime in the summer.

“That’ll have a significant impact on the operations of the corridor as well as opening up Eighth Street,” Strauss said. “That’ll take some of the traffic off of this corridor and move it to Eighth Street. We expect to see a lot of benefits from that.”

Strauss said plans for the U.S. 62/Arkansas 102 corridor call for more auxiliary lanes and turn lanes to get people out of the through lanes and add capacity to the road. Some awkward intersections also need to be reconfigured to reduce accidents.

“This is just the first step, identifying if there was money available, what would ArDOT spend it on. There’s no identified funding for this corridor right now,” Strauss said. “So far, from the public, we’re hearing a lot of positive feedback — certainly feedback that something needs to be done in the corridor and they hope the sooner the better — but, they like our ideas.”

Dylan Shaddox said the proposed improvements should improve his commute.

“I travel 102 every day coming from Bella Vista going southbound for work,” Shaddox said. “I wanted to make sure the right improvements are being made and that we can get to work safely and to wherever we’re going that day. I think it’s a pretty good plan.”

Peak traffic hours along the corridor are 7-8 a.m. and 5-6 p.m. Between 25,000 and 37,000 vehicles travel the corridor at various points throughout each day, according to state data.

There were 2,629 crashes along the corridor from 2012 through 2016, an average of almost 1.5 per day. Five of those crashes were fatal, and half involved a driver rear-ending another, according to the department’s data.

Transportation officials held an input session in March looking for individual driver experiences and suggestions on ways the corridor could be improved. Some drivers reported it took them 45 minutes to drive from Centerton to Bentonville.