Years of repaving has left portions of North Little Rock's Main Street between the viaduct and Pershing Boulevard uneven, making for an awkward ride, Chief Engineer Mike Smith said.
"It's been overlaid so many times [and] the crest has built up so much, some large trucks have hit some of the poles on the side of the street," Smith said. "It's awkward to drive and very rough. Going through several of the intersections is like going over a big hump."
The four-lane section between 13th Street, at the edge of the Main Street Viaduct, and Pershing Drive, about 13 blocks, is long overdue to be smoothed, leveled and repaved. Though no written plan exists, Mayor Joe Smith said recently that it is a project he intends to accomplish in the summer of 2016.
"It's been repaved so many times that it really needs to be milled down," said Joe Smith, no relation to the city engineer. "By that time, in 2016, construction at the high school [22nd and Main] will be substantially complete, if not finished. We can repave from 13th all the way to Pershing."
Doing the job in the summer of 2016 will overlap with the closure of the Broadway Bridge over the Arkansas River between Little Rock and North Little Rock for its replacement.
The Broadway Bridge is expected to be closed six months, starting in May 2016. The closure is projected to send about 12,000 extra vehicles daily over the Main Street Bridge from downtown Little Rock. Taking Main Street through North Little Rock's downtown and over the viaduct is a straight shot for northbound traffic going to Interstate 40 and to John F. Kennedy Boulevard. Motorists can also turn east to access Interstate 30.
Neither the mayor nor the engineer sees the two projects conflicting with each other.
The Main Street project is similar to an overlay project on McCain Boulevard this spring that took about two weeks, Mike Smith said. Main Street could take six to eight weeks for milling down the pavement and for the overlay, he said, depending on how fast the work can proceed.
"I'm not even sure it will be a factor," he said, referring to the Broadway Bridge closure. "We would have to maintain the traffic flow on Main Street regardless. Traffic control will be a part of the expense of the job.
"It will require taking out a whole lot of asphalt, bringing it down to where you have a lot gentler cross-slope and a lot smoother pavement," he added.
The mayor said the McCain Boulevard work was done "without a whole lot of traffic disruption."
"We would make sure the workers are not there during rush hour," he said of the Main Street work. "I think it can be done fairly quickly."
The cost to overlay Main Street would be about $1 million, both estimated. An exact cost won't be determined until nearer to the expected time frame for the work.
"There's not anything in print yet," Mike Smith said regarding a project plan. "It's just an idea we've been considering for years. It will be just a matter of where it's included in the budget in 2016 for a rebuild of Main Street."
The mayor said his plan is to set aside a portion of the city's street funds for paving next year to pay for the Main Street work in 2016. Joe Smith, elected in 2012, said during his mayoral campaign that year that a poll of residents determined that fixing streets is a priority for the city.
"This is my plan. I'm going to spend at least half a million on paving in 2015," he said. "I can then take a lot of my paving money from what I saved in 2015 and use it to redo Main Street."
With sidewalks and utility poles on either side, widening the street isn't expected to be part of the plan, the mayor said.
"I don't think we need to widen Main Street," he said. "It's four lanes and it moves traffic fairly well at all times. It gets a bit crowded at rush hour, but you can't design a road to handle rush-hour traffic 24 hours a day."
Metro on 12/01/2014