The blueprint for Arkansas highway construction and maintenance projects -- totaling $4.8 billion over five years -- is ready for public review and comment.
The centerpiece of the draft 2016-2020 statewide transportation improvement program, and its single most expensive item, is the $631 million project to remake the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock.
But every project large and small that the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department plans to do through federal fiscal 2020, or Sept. 30, 2020, is on the list, sorted by route, job number and county.
If a project isn't one of the more than 695 projects listed in the 351-page tome, it won't get built.
What about a $500,000 project to overlay the badly battered section of Broadway, which also is U.S. 70, between Interstate 630 and West Markham Street in Little Rock? According to the document, the department plans to award a contract for that project in 2019.
Or that $30 million access road to the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport in Benton County? It's on the list, too. For 2020.
Same with $64.2 million in estimated work on U.S. 67 in Jackson, White and Lonoke counties. The department has that project penciled in for 2018, noting that the precise locations will be identified by a pavement study.
The projects listed are the state's overall highway and transit programs and encompass all areas of the state, according to the highway department.
"This program is consistent with the state's long range plan and includes roadway, bridge, safety, traffic signal, intersection improvement, and transit projects," the department said in a news release.
The department is required by federal law to draw the list up at least every three years.
"A project has to be on the STIP in order for us to expend federal dollars on it," said Randy Ort, a top department official.
But the document, even after it receives approval from the federal government, isn't final. It can, and is, amended.
If a project is delayed for any reason, the document can be amended to restructure the project or to swap it for another one, Ort said. "We categorize the STIP as a living, breathing document."
Beginning next year, the department will conduct annual updates of the statewide transportation improvement program. The change, approved by the Arkansas Highway Commission earlier this month, will ease the department staff's workload by allowing it to add one year's worth of work to the program each year rather than updating the entire list every four or five years, according to department officials.
The last time a statewide transportation improvement plan went out for public comment was 2012. The department on Friday provided a handful of emails available from that comment period. All had to do with concern over the lack of bicycle lanes or sidewalks.
"Adding bike lanes is an extremely low-cost method of effectively adding two lanes to a roadway," Aly Signorelli, who identified herself as secretary of the Little Rock Bike Friendly Community, wrote in a July 17, 2012, email. "Facilitating transport by bicycle removes congestion from the car lanes which makes the roadway considerably more efficient as it is able to move more people per unit area of pavement.
"I strongly encourage you to include such provision in as many of the department's projects as possible."
People will be able to submit their own comments on the latest document through May 2. It is available for download here or at the department's website, arkansashighways.com.
It also can be reviewed at the department's central office in Little Rock, any of its district offices, Arkansas state clearinghouse offices, metropolitan planning organization offices or local planning/economic development district offices.
Copies of the draft document are also available by mail when requested through department's program management division at (501) 569-2262.
All comments regarding the document should be submitted in writing to Kevin Thornton, the department's assistant chief for planning.
The comments can be submitted through the department's website or by writing Thornton at the department, P.O. Box 2261, Little Rock, AR, 72203.
Metro on 03/21/2016