JONESBORO -- City officials will conduct an environmental study and create design plans for a railroad overpass on Arkansas 18 in east Jonesboro to alleviate traffic issues caused by trains that frequently stop on the tracks.
The city received a $1.2 million U.S. Transportation Department grant Friday to fund the study, U.S. Sens. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and John Boozman, R-Ark., announced.
The overpass would span the BNSF Railway crossing at Highland Drive, where 30 to 40 trains pass through daily, said Mark Nichols, city traffic operations engineer.
Many of the trains stop and block the crossing while waiting for Union Pacific trains to pass through a railway intersection farther down the tracks. At times, a train stops traffic for nearly an hour, he said.
About 14,000 vehicles pass through the intersection daily.
"It makes for a difficult situation," Nichols said. "You have traffic stopped for a total of two hours a day by trains."
He said the delays make it difficult for ambulances and the city's bus system, along with workers who drive to and from the city's industrial park on the eastern edge of town and traffic from the Nettleton junior and senior high schools nearby.
"It becomes very evident that the major east-west arterial route in the city is severed when the trains stop," said Nichols, referring to the long backup of traffic on East Highland Drive and East Nettleton Avenue, which runs parallel with the BNSF tracks and crosses Highland Drive.
Nichols and members of the city's information technology department installed video cameras at the crossing last year to record the stopped trains. On May 22, 2013, a camera recorded an ambulance trapped in the right lane of traffic stopped on East Nettleton. The video shows the ambulance driver leave his vehicle to ask other motorists to move forward to clear a path for him so he can turn around.
Nichols said he used that video when applying for the federal grant.
Pryor, who spoke with Transportation Department officials about giving Jonesboro the grant months ago, said he was stopped by a train when campaigning in Jonesboro recently.
"We eventually had to turn around and find an overpass," Pryor said.
The Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant was created to invest in transportation projects that will have an economic impact, Pryor said.
"It's helped fund projects around the state," he said. "It's creating partnerships with cities and state agencies."
This project will help the state Highway and Transportation Department, said District Engineer Walter McMillan of Paragould.
"This study will lay out some of the options for us," he said. "This will be a complex project due to its location. We will have to look at rights of way, utilities, construction costs, everything. This will be a fairly extensive project."
Officials said the overpass will cost between $12 million and $15 million.
Nichols and other city leaders will meet with BNSF Railway representatives next month to discuss the overpass plan.
"This was so encouraging to get the news of the grant," he said. "This is a critical crossing in Jonesboro. We can see the ball rolling fast now."
He said the city will soon find a consultant to do the environmental study and design plans. Nichols hopes the Highway Department will approve funding for the overpass in 2016.
State Desk on 09/13/2014