Request to halt road work rejected

A circuit judge on Friday rejected a request for a preliminary injunction that state highway officials said would have immediately halted work on an ongoing construction project on Interstate 630 and a planned job on Interstate 30.

The request came in a lawsuit saying a “plain reading” of Amendment 91, which governs much of the money spent on those and other projects in the $1.8 billion Connecting Arkansas program, limits the funding of improvements to four-lane highways or two-lane highways being widened to four lanes.

A 2.2-mile section of I-630 is being widened to eight lanes from four in an $87.4 million project that began last summer and is scheduled to be completed early next year.

The I-30 project is $631.7 million worth of work to improve a 6.7-mile section through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock, including replacement of the Arkansas River bridge. It is scheduled to begin construction early next year.

Both projects use significant monies from the Connecting Arkansas Program, which focuses work on regionally significant projects around the state. It is financed in large part by a half-percent sales tax contained in Amendment 91, which voters approved in 2012. The tax is in place for 10 years.

Justin Zachary of Conway, the lead attorney in the lawsuit, said the plaintiffs wanted to see work on both projects continue, just not with the Amendment 91 money.

But Scott Bennett, director of the Arkansas Department of Transportation, said neither project could have proceeded without the money.

The amendment language defines “four-lane highway improvements” to include “four-lane roadways, bridges, tunnels, engineering, rights of way and other related capital improvements and facilities appurtenant or pertaining thereto, including costs of rightsof-way acquisition and utility adjustments.”

The language also includes “the maintenance of four-lane highway improvements constructed with proceeds of the bond” within the definition of “four-lane highway improvements.”

The amendment contains other references to four-lane highways, including that the bonds issued as part of the program are payable from the Arkansas Four-Lane Highway Construction and Improvement Bond Account.