State to present interchange proposals on Tuesday

The Arkansas Department of Transportation is asking the public to weigh in on proposals it’s developed for improving congestion and safety at two of the county’s most-trafficked areas.

Potential improvements to the King Expressway’s Airport and Albert Pike road interchanges partially informed by suggestions the department and consultants from Alliance Transportation Group solicited during a February public involvement meeting will be presented Tuesday from 4-7 p.m. at Hot Springs Baptist Church, 144 Weston Road.

The meeting is part of a planning study that is also considering improvements to the Higdon Ferry Road and Central Avenue expressway interchanges and Central Avenue from the expressway to Higdon Ferry. Garland County and Hot Springs both contributed $50,000 to the study from their population-based shares of the $54,695,000 bond issue voters approved in a June 2016 special election for road improvements.

The study would have languished at the end of a two-year backlog had the city and county waited for the state to conduct it. Their contributions expedited the study, allowing the state to outsource the project to Alliance Transportation Group.

“The project team has developed alternatives that are intended to address the needs of the study areas, including safety and congestion,” Jesse Jones, the department’s division head for planning and policy, said. “Improvement concepts will be shown at the Tuesday meeting for the public to comment on. We will use the feedback from this meeting to further refine the alternatives.”

Jones said comments received earlier this year are only one of the elements shaping the proposals.

“Traffic data at various locations throughout the study area as well as historical safety data were used,” Jones

said. “Additionally, known environmental constraints, structure and pavement data, available survey data and relevant planning documents were reviewed for developing the potential improvement concepts.”

Rush hour congestion at the Airport Road interchange was raised by public officials at the February meeting. They commented on how the queue waiting to turn left onto Airport forms at the exit, extending onto the westbound shoulder of the expressway.

The congestion is compounded by Airport Road traffic waiting to turn left onto the expressway, blocking expressway traffic from turning left onto Airport Road. Officials have said the interchange is the most trafficked area of the county, with an average daily count of 37,000 vehicles. Congestion promises to increase as a growing percentage of the county’s populace lives along the Airport Road corridor west of the Lake Hamilton bridge.

For the interchange projects to receive funding, they will have to be placed on the State Transportation Improvement Program. The 2019-22 STIP is expected to be approved in September, the department said.

Interlocal agreements between the city and county obligate them to direct a portion of their population-based bond shares to partner with the state on Airport Road interchange improvements, provided the state has committed to the project by 2022.

The city and county received $7.3 million and $12.3 million, respectively, from the bond issue secured by the five-eighths cent sales tax that began being collected last July. The $30 million balance has been obligated to partner with the state on extending the expressway from the Highway 70 east interchange to the junction of highways 5 and 7.