All quiet on Rahling Road front

Dear Mahatma: I travel frequently on Rahling Road. Lots of trees have come down, and there are a couple of poles for traffic lights erected. But I don’t see any development or construction. What is the area zoned for, and what’s planned?

— Coffee Drinker

Dear Coffee: We have no clue. So we asked the esteemed Lamor Williams, the all-knowing communications and marketing manager for the city of Little Rock. His job description includes a requirement he answer impertinent questions from newspaper guys. He also knows to ask the planning and zoning people.

Both sides of Rahling Road are owned by Deltic Timber Corp., Williams reports. Deltic is, as we all know, the developer of Chenal Valley. Improvements to Rahling Road were funded by Deltic as a part of a long-term development plan. Construction included provisions for a traffic signal that will be activated once traffic from adjacent development warrants a signal.

Cleared land to the east is zoned for a mix of commercial and multifamily housing uses. The time frame for initiating the first phase of this development is not known at this point, Williams added.

On another topic, the newspaper’s expert Capitol reporters have, um, reported that a law changing the name of the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department to the Arkansas Department of Transportation is now in effect.

Here’s hoping the editors will allow ADOT on second and subsequent reference. What say, dudes?

On another topic, last week’s column asked if anyone remembered how big rigs would sometimes tump over a retaining wall at Markham and University before the intersection was expanded and improved. Paul Ward remembers. “I remember the unfortunate woman whose car suffered from a tumbling truck on the southwest corner of Markham and University on two separate occasions,” he writes. “After the second event, she said her husband had told her after the first event to not park there again. But she did, and suffered the same result. I can’t remember why she was there, but Worthen had a branch office there.”

Worthen Bank — an Arkansas institution long gone.

And from Ghostbuster: “You asked if anyone recalled big rigs falling off the concrete embankment turning south onto University off eastbound Markham, twice crushing the car of an unlucky driver. Actually, O Sage of Drivetime History, there was, sadly, an even unluckier person involved in an 18-wheeler tumping over that wall.

“I recall reading, in the Arkansas Democrat, a pedestrian walking along Markham right beside that wall. A big rig going to make that turn slid off the side and actually crushed the pedestrian. So, in response to your request, I do sadly remember an actual fatality at that very poorly designed (for trucks) intersection. I don’t recall the circa, but it was in the mid- to late 1970s.”

We remember, too. Whatever faults this busy intersection has now, they pale in comparison.

Vanity plate on a Dodge Ram: WTSIT2U