Dear Mahatma: Is there a target completion date for the Big Rock Exchange? I'd heard mid-2015, but every day I drive through I hope the project is ahead of schedule. Will it open in phases or all at once? -- Big Rock is a Big Pain
Dear Pain: The Interstate 430/630 interchange project is now approximately 85 percent complete. A completion date for the whole thing is May. That is told by David Nilles, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department.
The interchange will open in phases. The first three phases to open, looking at mid-October, are the new ramp going down the hill from I-430 North to I-630 East, the dedicated lane from I-430 North eastward to Baptist Hospital, and the Shackleford overpass leading to and from Financial Centre Parkway.
Dear Mahatma: While driving through the Interstate 430/630 interchange I noticed that the new flyovers have different thicknesses of the beams. Surely they will all carry the same weight. So will the taxpayers be paying too much for the thick ones or too little for the thin ones? I don't want to be overcharged but I also don't want to fall over and go boom. -- Concerned Motorist/Taxpayer
Dear CMT: The poor guy on the receiving end of this one was another Highway Department spokesman, Danny Straessle.
He graciously explained that the larger flyover beams are used where lengthier spans are required. That is, where the flyovers "fly over" (his pun) I-430 and the collector-distributor roads along side it. Note how the columns are spaced farther apart.
In other places where the columns are smaller, they are closer together and provide the requisite support.
Some of the larger beams are in the curved parts of the flyovers. Curved structures, Straessle said, have significant lateral forces as the traffic runs over them. The larger beams are designed to keep everything in place.
Dear Mahatma: My wife encountered one of those new traffic lights in west Little Rock with red and yellow left-turn arrows. What does it all mean? -- Lawyer Guy
Dear Guy: A solid red arrow is the same as a solid red ball. Stop, folks. If a red arrow is flashing, the signal is out, same as when a red ball is flashing. When a yellow arrow is flashing, it means the same as a yellow ball. Proceed, but with caution.
Dear Mahatma: Is it true that no bill of sale is needed for a vehicle sold for less than $5,000? -- At the Ballpark.
Dear Ballpark: Roger Duren, administrator of the Office of Motor Vehicle, clarifies.
A bill of sale is needed to establish the purchase price. If the purchase price of a motor vehicle, trailer or semitrailer to be registered for highway use is less than $4,000, no sales tax is due, but a bill of sale is needed to make that determination.
Vanity plate seen on a BMW: 4YOSOUL.
Mahatma@arkansasonline.com
Metro on 08/30/2014