Meeting on plans for revising I-30 corridor draws 400

More than 400 people attended a public meeting Thursday evening held to gather comments on the latest plans for renovating the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock.

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Engineers and consultants developing the largest highway project in Arkansas -- with a price tag that could reach $600 million -- welcomed the heavy turnout that also reflected growing concern about the I-30 interchange with Arkansas 10 and the project's impact on the Rock Region Metro streetcar and traffic patterns in Little Rock's downtown.

"It's such a big project," said Jimmy Moses, a developer who sits on the Rock Region Metro board of directors. "It's changed. People are getting nervous. People now are fully aware and engaged."

He was among several Rock Region Metro board members and executives who turned out to support the streetcar. The meeting was held in the gym of the Friendly Chapel Church of the Nazarene at 116 E. Pine St. in North Little Rock, just a few blocks from the interstate.

The meeting was part of an environmental review phase of the project that requires engineers to evaluate the initial recommendation and an alternative, which would limit the I-30 widening to eight lanes instead of 10.

Moses reiterated his hope that increased concern for the streetcars and for the interchange could be channeled into a larger discussion of how to better integrate the interstate with the surrounding community.

In a letter to Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department Director Scott Bennett, StudioMain -- a nonprofit architectural organization with a mission of advocating for better design and of challenging conventions -- outlined its concern over the current design of the "largest infrastructure project of this generation." The 11-page letter was posted on its Facebook page.

The nonprofit is a member of the department's I-30 project stakeholder advisory group, which was formed to help solicit concerns and ensure that people and organizations potentially affected by the project keep abreast of the project's progress.

StudioMain, according to the letter to Bennett, believes that the project should be part of a larger long-term comprehensive transportation plan for the community, and should better address concerns about protecting connections to either side of the interstate, development of space under the bridge and integration of other transportation modes such as pedestrian, bicycle and public transit.

The department has said it wants primarily to increase traffic capacity, make it safer to travel through the corridor and mitigate how the project would affect the development on both sides of the interstate.

The 6.7-mile corridor stretches from Interstate 530 in Little Rock to Interstate 40 in North Little Rock, and includes a small section of I-40 between I-30 and U.S. 67/167, also in North Little Rock, that goes through the heart of the heavily developed downtowns of both cities. The corridor and the I-30 bridge, which carries 125,000 vehicles daily, were built 50 years ago.

The combination of heavy traffic and outdated roadway design helps produce three times more crashes annually than any other corridor in the state, according to Jerry Holder, a Garver LLC engineer and program manager for the department's $1.8 billion Connecting Arkansas Program, of which the I-30 project is a part.

Thursday night's environmental review was a step up from the first phase of the project, called the Planning Environmental Linkages study. The latter produced a preliminary recommendation in April that the highway be widened to 10 lanes from the current six, with two of the new lanes in each direction limited to serving as collector-distributor lanes only in the immediate vicinity of both downtowns.

The collector-distributor lanes would be separated from the eight main travel lanes to allow for slower and safer speeds for leaving and entering the interstate and for local traffic traveling between Little Rock and North Little Rock.

Even before that first phase was complete, the engineers had concluded that it was more prudent to replace the bridge than to widen the existing one. The new bridge also would accommodate concerns expressed by barge operators who said the existing bridge piers make it difficult to maneuver their barges.

The first phase also invited criticism on its recommendations for interchanges on both sides of the river.

The interchange with Curtis Sykes Drive initially was eliminated. In widening the interstate, engineers believed that the southbound on-ramp from Curtis Sykes Drive was too close to the Interstate 40/Interstate 30 interchange. Traffic entering I-30 from Curtis Sykes would have too short a distance to cross four lanes of traffic to go to I-40 west.

But members of the predominantly black neighborhoods and businesses in the area objected. Eliminating that interchange would leave only one interchange -- at Broadway -- in that part of North Little Rock. They also pointed out that predominantly white neighborhoods such as Levy, Park Hill and Lakewood had their own interchanges.

As a result, a compromise was reached that, among other things, will retain the southbound off-ramp from I-30 to Curtis Sykes.

"Everybody was pleased with the outcome," said Harlan Hunter, president of the Baring Cross Neighborhood Association. "It was a compromise. Everybody couldn't get what they wanted."

By contrast, few appeared happy with the changes proposed to the Arkansas 10/LaHarpe Boulevard area, which Holder said came at the request of the city of Little Rock, which was concerned about increased traffic from the interchange in the area of the River Market District, a popular downtown entertainment district that has high pedestrian traffic.

The changes will channel traffic entering the interstate onto East Fourth Street and traffic exiting the interstate onto East Second Street and make both avenues state highways. At the same time, access to and from LaHarpe Boulevard would be shifted farther west, and that section would become a city street.

East of the interstate on East Third Street, the streetcar spur serving the Clinton Presidential Center and Heifer International headquarters is in the way of the interchange.

Moses said he hopes the process slows down enough to allow more ideas to integrate the project into the broader community. Another hearing will be held in the spring to come up with a preferred alternative that will be, in part, based on comments submitted at Thursday's meeting. Federal approval could come by the end of next summer. Construction is tentatively scheduled to begin in early 2018.

"Their goal is to build highways," Moses said. "Our goal is to build a vibrant community. Some of the ideas are good, and they're listening. But some need additional thought."

Metro on 10/23/2015

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