LITTLE ROCK — The state Highway Department unveiled three designs Tuesday for a new Broadway Bridge that were met with a wide array of opinions and even a proposal that the whole project be put aside in favor of a new bridge upriver.
During two public meetings, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department also announced that the preliminary cost of the bridge replacement is now $58 million, up from the $45 million estimate the department made four years ago.
“It’s still not a cost estimate for a specific bridge, but it’s more reflective of what we’re going to build now,” said Randy Ort, a department spokesman, adding that the increased amount is because of design changes such as an extra travel lane and a bicycle/pedestrian lane.
In a meeting with local elected officials Tuesday morning and a public meeting Tuesday evening, the three designs — two variations of a low-profile bridge and a single-arch bridge similar to the existing Broadway Bridge — drew mixed reactions.
Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola preferred a plategirder bridge that was given a contemporary look with three large pylons along each side, while North Little Rock Mayor Pat Hays preferred another plate-girder design that had some traditional touches, including faux brick accents and pylons. Plate-girder bridges have decks supported by two or more plate girders, which are typically I-beams. They are a design well-suited for the short river span the Broadway bridge covers. The main river span will be about 880 feet long.
Stodola didn’t like the single-arch version, saying that having the arch on only half of the bridge stood out like a “sore thumb. I want the bridge to be a vision of the next 100 years rather than the last 100 years,” he said.
Hays said he had another preference, too: scuttling the plan to replace the bridge for now to concentrate on building a new crossing farther upriver, for the moment dubbed the Chester Street bridge. It would extend across the river from either Pike Avenue, which is also Arkansas 365, or Riverfront Drive, which also is Arkansas 100, in North Little Rock to Chester or La-Harpe Boulevard in Little Rock.
The proposal came after the design team briefed Hays and others on the potential “road-user cost” associated with the closing of the old Broadway Bridge. The 25,000 motorists who use the bridge daily will have to find a different route for at least 20 months — if the quickest-tobuild design is adopted.
The ensuing traffic headaches could add about $40 million in road-user costs, which is figured on a formula based on traffic on the three downtown bridges, the additional time motorists would need to commute, the additional mileage they will have to travel and the wear and tear on their vehicles.
“It’s going to be a zoo around here for two years or thereabouts,” said Hays, who announced last month that he would not seek re-election. “I’m sure glad I’m not going to be here when this takes place.”
John Ruddell, the bridge design manager for Garver LLC said the $40 million figure is an estimate and a small part of the overall road-user costs incurred by the 150,000 motorists now using the Broadway, Main Street and Interstate 30 bridges. Garver, which is based in North Little Rock, is the lead engineering firm on a team that includes HNTB, a Kansas City, Mo.-based engineering firm with an international reputation for bridge design.
Ort said it would be a “pretty significant shift in gears” to put on hold replacing the Broadway Bridge and pursue the construction of a new bridge somewhere else.
For one thing, the money earmarked for the Broadway Bridge is federal bridge-replacement funds that can’t be used on new construction, he said. For another, the department would have difficulty re-obligating the money it anticipates spending on the bridge to other bridge projects and risk losing that federal money, Ort said.
The department has other bridge-replacement projects, but whether it can have $58 million worth of projects ready to go in 2013 is difficult to say now, he added.
All three bridge designs featured a bridge deck with five lanes — three southbound and two northbound. The third southbound lane allowed for a dedicated rightturn lane from West Broadway in North Little Rock and a dedicated exit ramp to La-Harpe Boulevard westbound on the Little Rock side.
Each design also had in common on the bridge’s east side a 16-foot wide shareduse path for pedestrians and bicyclists. A concrete barrier separates the path from the roadway. And the shared-path features ramps connecting it to bicycle and pedestrian trails on both sides of the river. All three designs would be able to accommodate a future River Rail line.
The renderings reflect two goals of the effort, Ruddell said. One goal, he said, was to minimize the amount of time the bridge would be unavailable to traffic. The old bridge must be removed before construction can begin on the new one because features on both side of the river — Little Rock City Hall and Robinson Music Hall on the south side and Dickey-Stephens Park on the north — did not allow the room to build a new bridge alongside the old one.
The other goal was to build a cost-effective bridge, Ruddell said. That eliminated, for instance, a design that caught the fancy of some — a cable-stayed bridge like the one that now carries U.S. 82 traffic across the Mississippi River near Lake Village. Of the four bridge types designers considered, the cablestayed bridge also would have taken the longest to build.
The easiest and least-expensive bridge to build is the single-arch type.
Later Tuesday, more than 150 people attended a fourhour meeting the Highway Department hosted for the public to view the renderings, supporting documents and maps as well as ask questions and give their preferences on the appearance and function of the future bridge. The department will hold a design hearing this summer that Ort said will show actual bridge alternatives, based on the public input, plus more refined cost estimates.
Attendees reflected a wide spectrum of interests. Many were there to figure out how the construction would affect commuting.
“If the Broadway Bridge isn’t going to be there, it’s going to be bad,” said Lisa Smith, who prefers the Main Street Bridge to commute daily between her home in the Scenic Hill neighborhood of North Little Rock and her job in Little Rock.
Others were there to study the shared-use path. Most seemed to think it wasn’t wide enough even though, at 16 feet, it was wider than the Big Dam Bridge and the Two Rivers Park Bridge.
“I’m liking it better,” said Frank Kelley, a financial planner and chairman of the Arkansas Renewable Energy Association, who rode his bicycle to the meeting. “The separation from cars is a big necessity. But they are underestimating the future use of bicycles. People are getting run over.”
Rob Stephens, chairman of the Arkansas River Trail Task Force, said the path needs to be at least 20 feet wide.
He called user conflicts the “No. 1 issue on the River Trail,” mainly because the paths are too narrow to accommodate the heavy influx of bicyclists and pedestrians.
Others sided with Hays’ sentiment, preferring the Broadway Bridge be left alone and a new bridge constructed upriver.
“I think it would be a lot less disruptive,” said Don Zimmerman, executive director of the Arkansas Municipal League, whose headquarters sits on West Second Street in North Little Rock, between the Broadway and Main Street bridges.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/08/2012