Little Rock board hears I-30 plan faulted, boulevard touted

This three-dimensional rendering shows one of two alternative plans for renovating the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock. The six-lane with collector/distributor lanes alternative features a new Arkansas 10/Cantrell Road interchange.
This three-dimensional rendering shows one of two alternative plans for renovating the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock. The six-lane with collector/distributor lanes alternative features a new Arkansas 10/Cantrell Road interchange.

A plan the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department is considering as part of a $637 million project to improve the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock would move the state's capital city in the "wrong direction," according to a consultant retained by critics of the agency's project.

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Democrat-Gazette file photo

City director Dean Kumpuris is shown in this file photo.

In a presentation to the Little Rock Board of Directors on Tuesday, transportation consultant Norman Marshall said the plan by the department, which it describes as "six lanes with collector/distributor lanes," would divert more traffic to downtown Little Rock, create new bottlenecks in downtown, "lock up a huge amount of land off the tax rolls" and "suck up so much money that it is likely that other Little Rock projects would not be funded."

The I-30 project, called 30 Crossing, is meant to reduce congestion and improve safety in the 6.7-mile corridor of I-30 between Interstate 530 in Little Rock and Interstate 40 in North Little Rock. It calls for replacing the 50-year-old I-30 bridge over the Arkansas River and expanding it to eight or 10 lanes. But critics say it will threaten the economic vitality of downtown Little Rock.

Marshall, who is a principal in Vermont-based Smart Mobility Inc., said his proposal to convert the section of I-30 in downtown Little Rock into a boulevard and build another bridge over the Arkansas River at Chester Street would divert a significant amount of traffic to Interstate 440 and Interstate 430, which also have bridges crossing the river, and spread downtown traffic across the downtown street grid and avoid bottlenecks.

And some of the traffic that now crosses the I-30 bridge over the river will disappear, he said. "When freeway capacity is removed, travel is reduced," Marshall's report said, citing projects in New York City and San Francisco in which freeways were removed.

The projects were among a handful that Marshall cited as freeways being converted into boulevards.

"Although there are few examples of freeways that previously carried large volumes of traffic being converted to boulevards, every such conversion has been highly successful," the report said.

Marshall's report comes as support for the department's plan builds among Little Rock civic organizations. It is one of four alternatives the department has presented.

The alternatives include two versions of a 10-lane project, one that features a new interchange at Cantrell Road in downtown Little Rock and another that shifts it farther south of Cantrell. The other alternatives include the same interchange configurations, but both contain eight through lanes.

Earlier this month, Cromwell Architects Engineers, which initially opposed the department's I-30 corridor project, signaled its support for the 10-lane alternative, which has six through lanes and two additional lanes in each direction that segregate local traffic to get into and out of the downtown areas of both cities, which state highway officials say is more accurately termed a six-lane with collector/distributor lanes.

The firm also supports moving the Cantrell Road interchange that now serves downtown Little Rock in the pedestrian-friendly River Market entertainment district to the south and building it as a split-diamond interchange that moves traffic in and out of the area by using East Fourth and East Sixth streets and Capitol Avenue.

"The solution addresses many concerns that were raised earlier in the process: better connectivity between east and west sides of the corridor, increased park space, accommodates multimodal transportation, connects cultural institutions, activates the park/streetscape below the new interstate," Charles Penix, the Cromwell firm's chief executive officer, said in a May 5 letter to Scott Bennett, the state Highway and Transportation Department director.

The 3rd Street Merchants Associations also endorsed the proposed alternative earlier this month, joining the Downtown Little Rock Partnership, the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Central Arkansas Library System and the Clinton School of Public Service, among others.

Marshall has been retained by the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, an advocacy group that was founded in the early 1960s to foster school integration and is long associated with other community causes. The cost of the study has not been disclosed.

Marshall, in response to questions from city directors, said he has not met with state Highway and Transportation Department officials to discuss his reports. City directors urged him to do so.

But Marshall told the city directors that widening I-30 to 10 lanes -- he contends it is actually 12 or more in some locations when ancillary lanes for exit and entrance ramps and frontage roads are included -- was a case of the department "putting all of its eggs in one basket."

And while the project would ease congestion in the corridor for a few years, Marshall contended, it would create bottlenecks outside the corridor, including in downtown Little Rock. He pointed, in particular, to Fourth Street and Broadway, where traffic headed to the Broadway Bridge and traffic headed east to I-30 would create a bottleneck in the afternoon commute for which the city, not the state, would be responsible to fix.

It's outside [the department's] study area," he said. "It's not their problem."

Marshall, in a presentation to the city board last month, said the department's project, if built, would attract more traffic than the agency's traffic modeling predicts because of "induced demand," a phenomenon in which motorists who use other roadways or avoid traveling during peak traffic hours would divert to a newly widened interstate.

But some city directors, including Doris Wright, Lance Hines, Dean Kumpuris and Gene Fortson, expressed skepticism at aspects of Marshall's proposal, particularly the building of the Chester Street bridge, which Marshall said was critical for the boulevard concept to work.

The bridge isn't on the master street plans for either Little Rock or North Little Rock. No environmental studies have been done. A state building used for archives is near the south side of where the bridge would be and, according to Kumpuris, plans for a private development at the site also have surfaced.

"Is it something the Highway Department will go along with?" Wright asked Marshall.

"You'll need to get help from the Legislature," he responded.

Marshall conceded that putting his plan into action would be difficult.

"It's not simple," he said. "That's why it hasn't been done more. But it's worth doing."

Kumpuris expressed worry about the difficulty a boulevard would present to motorists going into and out of downtown Little Rock, noting that many motorists who now use I-30 work in downtown or near downtown, such as at Stephens Inc. and Arkansas Children's Hospital.

The boulevard would carry no more than 65,000 vehicles daily. About 125,000 vehicles daily use the I-30 bridge now.

Kumpuris, who has been instrumental on the board in the development of the downtown area, said he wanted assurances that Marshall's plan "is not going to kill what I've tried to build up."

He also said he was deterred by the absence in Marshall's plan of a way to pay for the bridge, and expressed doubts about local governments borrowing the money to do it. Marshall's report didn't include a price tag for his proposals, but he said they would less expensive than the department's plans.

Fortson likened the proposal to "social engineering," essentially moving the bottlenecks away from downtown to other parts of the city. Hines, who represents west Little Rock, said he didn't believe that residents would welcome more traffic, given the congestion at times on I-430 and Interstate 630 now.

Marshall said that by moving the congestion, it could be managed better because the downtown street grid system would allow motorists to get around bottlenecks, but widening I-30 would limit options and make getting around bottlenecks more difficult.

City Director Kathy Webb, who backs Marshall's proposal, took issue with calling his plan "social engineering."

"I don't understand how you can say a boulevard is 'social engineering,' but a 15-lane freeway is not," she said.

The board voted to defer again her resolution formally asking the Highway and Transportation Department to consider alternatives to widening the corridor.

The board is expected to hear Monday from its own consultant, NelsonNygaard -- a San Francisco-based firm with offices in seven other cities across the nation -- which was hired to review the department's work from the city's perspective.

Metro on 05/18/2016

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