Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Rogers to add roundabouts
One planned for Pinnacle Hills Parkway, Northgate Road
ROGERS — Four roundabouts are in the works to improve traffic flow in the developing area across from Pinnacle Hills Promenade on the city’s west side, the city engineer said.
The city will begin construction this summer on roundabouts at Northgate Road, Champions Drive and J.B. Hunt Drive along Pinnacle Hills Parkway and at the intersection of South Champions Drive and West Pauline Whitaker Parkway that includes the entrance to Pinnacle Country Club, engineer Lance Jobe said.
The intersection at Pinnacle Hills Parkway and Northgate Road has a temporary signal.
“Doing a conversion from a signal to a roundabout on that busy street is going to be a painful experience,” John McCurdy, community development director, said at a December Transportation Committee meeting.
The traffic count just north of Northgate Road on Pinnacle Hills Parkway is 13,000 vehicles per day, Jobe said.
“Traffic signals stall traffic,” he said.
The construction is included in the $299.5 million bond issue voters approved in August, McCurdy said.
More development is coming in the next few years to the area encompassing Pinnacle Hills Promenade, the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion, the John Q. Hammons Center, banks and restaurants.
The Planning Commission on Feb. 5 approved plans for Uptown Square, a project including 260 multifamily units, 20,000 square feet of retail space and 7,500 square feet of office space on 13 acres between South Champions Drive and South Pinnacle Hills Parkway.
Construction on the Pinnacle Heights project began in December on about 13 acres off South Champions Drive, said Tom Allen of Sage Partners, one of the developers.
Pinnacle Heights will include a hotel and restaurant, retail space, a 300-unit apartment complex with a pool and fitness center and 10 live/work units that can rent as both residential and office or work space. There also will be space for parks, an amphitheater and food trucks, Allen said.
Allen estimated it would take about two years to complete Pinnacle Heights.
The city also will convert a roundabout at Pinnacle Hills Parkway and Pauline Whitaker Parkway in front of the Walmart Neighborhood Market from two lanes to one lane to make drivers more comfortable using it, Jobe said.
“I believe some of the confusion at that particular roundabout is that it is a double-lane traffic circle and there is confusion about how to navigate it,” said Keith Foster, spokesman for the Rogers Police Department.
The roundabout, which was built in 2007, has never made the city’s top 10 intersections for number of accidents, Foster said.
The department doesn’t have data for how many accidents happened at the roundabout when it was first built, but there were 14 accidents in 2017 and 10 in 2018, he said.
McCurdy said at the December meeting the converted roundabout would allow motorists to drive in the single lane and exit at right turns.
“I think about it as a roundabout on training wheels. It’s really hard to mess that up,” he said.
Amy Taylor, school director at Primrose School on South Pinnacle Hills Parkway, said she sees traffic get “pretty heavy,” especially between 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. and 5 to 6 p.m.
She said additional roundabouts would help, granted that people know how to use them.
“Sometimes when I go around it, I see people not using it correctly,” she said of the roundabout.
Taylor said converting the roundabout to one lane would likely make it safer.
The city doesn’t yet have a cost estimate for the roundabout projects, Jobe said.
Danny Straessle of the Arkansas Department of Transportation said “it depends on who you ask” as to whether roundabouts help.
“They seem to be a hot topic among city engineers in terms of serving traffic needs,” he said.
Roundabouts tend to work best at low-speed intersections, Straessle said.
Conway has more roundabouts than any city in Arkansas. City engineer Finley Vinson said Conway has been adding roundabouts since 2005 and has 24 ranging from single- to triple-lane.
Roundabouts are safer than any other form of intersection, Vinson said.
“Roundabouts do tend to make people uncomfortable,” he said.
Vinson said municipalities tend to get pushback when they first introduce roundabouts because drivers aren’t accustomed to them. Although Conway has experienced some problems at its larger roundabouts, Vinson said those problems are minimal and residents are generally comfortable with them because the city has slowly implemented them.
Rogers is also moving forward with design plans to extend J.B. Hunt Drive about a half mile from Pauline Whitaker Parkway to Bellview Road, a project expected to cost about $8 million, he said.
The cost includes construction of a bridge over Blossom Way Creek. The city received a $1.3 million grant from the Arkansas Department of Transportation to go toward the project, Jobe said. The extension is expected to be completed in about two years.
The city also will convert a roundabout at Pinnacle Hills Parkway and Pauline Whitaker Parkway in front of the Walmart Neighborhood Market from two lanes to one lane to make drivers more comfortable using it, Jobe said.