LITTLE ROCK — Arkadelphia city leaders are waiting for the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department to respond to their request for a new Ouachita River bridge to be built in an area where the bridge would satisfy more than one need.
Jimmy Bolt, city manager, said he learned in December that the state had made replacing the Arkansas 7 bridge on the eastern edge of Arkadelphia a priority.
“The department came to us with abridge proposal on Dec. 1,” he said. “We knew they were looking at moving [the bridge] but had seen no plans and had no input in it.”
The Highway Department received improvement funds through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and made replacing the bridge the department’s No. 1 goal for District 7.
“The state deemed the bridge old and functionally obsolete,” Bolt said. “It’s too narrow.”
The bridge leads into one of the city’s main thoroughfares - Caddo Street -and is on a major route for big trucks.
A flood plain on the east side of the river poses a danger to human life, Bolt said, and moving the bridge out of the flood plain would alleviate the safety concern.
One plan called for a new Arkansas 7 bridge to “fly right over” the railroad bridge just south of the existing bridge.
“They had a plan laid out, and I didn’t think they’d give us an option,” Bolt said.
Shawnie Carrier, president and CEO of the Arkadelphia Regional Economic Development Alliance, had this to say when she saw the proposal: “I thought there had to be another option because this one did not alleviate traffic [downtown].”
She said that simply taking down the old bridge and replacing it with one that goes over the railroad bridge would not remove truck traffic from downtown Arkadelphia. The amount of truck traffic coming through town has long been a problem, both for the city and for local drivers.
Truckers traveling along Caddo Street or U.S. 67 (which runs into Sixth Street) and North 10th Street face at least one tough turn. The most problematic is at Sixth and Caddo streets, where trucks have barely enough room to maneuver. The stop sign at the intersection is frequently knocked down by trucks turning west onto Caddo Street.
“We want [the bridge] fixed,” Carrier said of the Arkadelphia Alliance, “but we also want to fix more than one problem.”
Bolt said a team consisting of city directors and members of the Economic Development Corporation of Clark County met with Highway Department representatives in March.
“We asked them to review their plan,” he said. “An acceptable solution to us would be to move the bridge farther downstream - maybe just south of the train bridge - and that would take cars out of the flood plain and remove a lot of the truck traffic from the downtown area.”
Carrier said the development corporation has industrial prospects looking at sites on the east side of the Ouachita River.
“One of those projects, if we land it, could add as many as 65 trucks a day to the amount of traffic that already exists,” she said.
“We have to think about the future. We’ve got to have greater ease of traffic movement.”
She said industrial prospects might consider the floodplain a reason to “say no” to locating in Arkadelphia.
Bolt said all kinds of trucks, including log trucks, cut through town, many of them on their way to Interstate 30.
Carrier said traffic noise poses a problem for businesses and customers downtown. A new through route south of downtown would improve the climate in Arkadelphia’s business district “110 percent,” she said.
Bolt said a new roadway would have to be constructed to access the new bridge, if one is built south of the existing one.
“I don’t think [the state] would be looking at building a whole lot of new road,” he said. “It would be elevated [on the eastern end], and that would keep cars out of the flood plain.”
If traffic is not taken out of the flood plain, Carrier said, the city’s ability to attract industries on that side of the river will be adversely affected.
“We’re not going to have anybody locate out there if they are in a flood plain,” she said.
Arkadelphia has multiple assets that make it a good match for different industries, she said.
“Some require more raw water, so they need to be near the river,” she said. “Some require access to rail or to the interstate, or they need a building - those needs can be satisfied at our industrial park. We offer all three things - the river, rail, interstate access - and that is something a lot of communities wish that they had.”
Regardless of where a new bridge is constructed, the city of Arkadelphia will receive the old bridge - free - from the Highway Department. Bolt said the bridge will be converted into a pedestrian bridge that will tie together two parks on the east side of town.
Receipt of the bridge depends on the Arkadelphia Board of Directors accepting the gift. Bolt said the state has also agreed to give the city $178,000, or the equivalent of the cost of tearing down the bridge, in addition to making repairs to the old span.
He said the city board will consider the matter in July.
“I’m hopeful the board will accept it,” he said. “So far, I’ve gotten positive feedback.”
Meanwhile, he is still waiting to hear back from the Highway Department on the exact placement of a new bridge.
“They told us it would be a few weeks,” Bolt said. “We believe there will be a new bridge built. Our hopes and prayers are that it will be built so that it fixes more than one problem.”
Staff writer Daniel A. Marsh can be reached at (501) 399-3688
Tri-Lakes, Pages 55 on 06/21/2012