Metroplan staff, advisers at odds on 6-lane waiver
Advisers to central Arkansas’ transportation planning agency recommended Wednesday that it not waive a policy limiting the width of area freeways, while the agency’s staff recommended that it should grant the exception.
The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department requested that Metroplan, the long-range transportation planning agency for central Arkansas, waive its long-standing policy that freeways be no more than six lanes wide.
The Highway Department is making plans to improve the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock, and it has both eight- and 10-lane designs in mind.
The Metroplan staff recommended the waiver to the board on Wednesday, while the agency’s Regional Planning Advisory Council voted to recommend the waiver not be granted. Neither recommendation is binding on the board, composed of mayors and county judges in central Arkansas.
Both recommendations will be on the 34-member board’s agenda for its regular monthly meeting next Wednesday.
A board vote against the waiver would jeopardize the project for which the Highway Department has identified $630.7 million in state and federal money.
The board also must eventually consider amending its long-range transportation plan and its transportation improvement plan to include the project before it will be eligible for funding. The Federal Highway Administration also will have to approve the project before the project can go forward.
The staff recommendation and the recommendation of the council underscored the deep divide over the project, which the department calls 30 Crossing.
It focuses a series of improvements on the aging and congested 6.7-mile corridor between Interstate 530 in Little Rock and Interstate 40 in North Little Rock. The project also includes improving a small section of I-40 in North Little Rock between John F. Kennedy Boulevard and U.S. 67/167 and replacing the bridge over the Arkansas River.
In the monthlong public comment period leading up to Wednesday’s council vote, Metroplan received 106 comments expressing support for the waiver and 147 against. Another seven comments voiced what Casey Covington, an agency official, said were “general concerns.”
“There is substantial support for and against the project,” he said. “There seems to be a division in the community about this project.”
The deep division doesn’t extend to the Regional Planning Advisory Council, which voted 20-3 to recommend against granting the waiver, which has been part of Metroplan’s longrange transportation plans going back to the 1990s, including the most recent update of the plan, called Imagine Central Arkansas.
The board policy has been to widen all freeways to six lanes within the region. At that point, according to the policy, investments in freeways would be limited to improving interchanges, maintaining pavement and bridges, and using advanced technology to improve traffic flow.
Construction alternatives for the I-30 project require that the policy be rescinded or an exception be granted.
Of the two construction alternatives, one calls for eight main lanes. The other calls for six main lanes, with four additional lanes designated specifically for local traffic in the vicinity of the bridge.
Regional Planning Advisory Council members long have criticized the project as a product of an inadequate planning process and too expensive. They contend that the state’s eight- and 10-lane proposals are too wide and a threat to the continued development of downtown Little Rock.
The council is a 39-member group that advises the Metroplan board on the long-range transportation plan. Cities and counties are allotted representatives
based on population. Interests groups that represent people with disabilities, freight, trucking and other business concerns, airports, environmentalists, bicyclists, and public health agencies also have a seat at the table.
The Highway Department has a member on the council as does the Federal Highway Administration. The latter is a nonvoting member. At recent meetings, about two dozen council members have attended.
The three who voted to allow the waiver were Paul Simms, the Highway Department’s representative; Jack Stowe, who represents Maumelle; and Jeff Hathaway, chairman of the Greater Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber is among several other organizations, including the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, the Central Arkansas Library System and the Clinton School of Public Service, that have endorsed the 10-lane alternative that includes eliminating the Arkansas 10/LaHarpe Boulevard interchange and building a new one in the vicinity of Sixth and Ninth streets.
Charles Cummings, who represents the freight industry and is the council’s longtime chairman, proposed that the council discuss a total of five potential motions the council might adopt involving various degrees of support for and against the waiver.
But Hathaway and others said they preferred a simple vote for or against the waiver. Stowe expressed frustration with the continued discussion, which he said has been carried on so long that “we’re embarrassing ourselves.”
He said the Metroplan board “will make a decision no matter what we do.”
Hathaway made an initial motion to grant the waiver, but it failed 3-19, with one abstention, with only Simms and Stowe joining Hathaway.
Some council members expressed annoyance that the Metroplan staff supported granting the waiver. Coreen Frasier, who represents Bicycle Advocacy of Central Arkansas, said she felt the council was being “railroaded” into supporting the waiver.
But Covington and Jim McKenzie, the Metroplan executive director, said they believed the 30 Crossing project had met the prerequisites for a waiver, including consulting with Metroplan and regional governments, considering alternatives
and making changes as a result of public input.
Also, Metroplan staff members tried to come up with a alternative that was limited to six lanes and address all the inadequacies of the corridor and was unable to fit their alternative within a strict six-lane limit.
“Because of the complexity, does the corridor justify a waiver?” McKenzie said in response to a question from Patrick Stair, the Sierra Club representative on the council. “We believe it does.”
Ben Browning, the Highway Department’s design/build director who is helping oversee 30 Crossing, said he welcomed the input from both the Metroplan staff and the council, often referred as ARPAC.
“We respect the ARPAC,” Browning said. “That’s their opinion. We appreciate the Metroplan staff for their recommendation. We now look forward to the board as they consider both the staff recommendation and the ARPAC recommendation and make a decision on how to move forward.”