Dear Mahatma: Are there plans to fix the Big Mess at the Big Rock Interchange? By mess I mean congestion going east in the morning around Barrow Road. -- Eastbound and Down
Dear Down: Things are looking up. But to get to the bottom, we have to let Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, explain in deliberate detail. We will charge him by the word.
The primary goal of the project is to efficiently move 200,000 vehicles a day through Big Rock, the design of which gives priority to higher volumes of traffic from Interstate 430 southbound to Interstate 630 eastbound.
Traffic that heads east from Financial Centre Parkway moves in two lanes that are elevated over Shackleford Road. Those lanes merge and become the outside lane of I-630. Straessle said it's important to remember that in those two lanes motorists are encouraged to use both and then take turns at the merge point. This is known as a zipper merge.
Now the rub. That is, lots of traffic that comes onto I-630 eastbound from Baptist hospital, plus Barrow Road and Rodney Parham Road. Given that all three lanes of I-630 are at capacity in the morning, congestion happens.
The solution? The Highway Department will take bids for a project early this year to add a fourth lane to I-630 in both directions between Big Rock and University Avenue. The lanes will be added on the outside. In a better world, this would have been done when the Big Rock was built, but the Highway Department didn't have sufficient dough at the time.
Mahatma: Can you provide an update on the roundabout at Rahling Road and Pebble Beach? The one lane we have is an inconvenience. -- Austin
Dear Austin: Yours is one of two such questions that have piled up on our desk. Our old friend and bookend, Jennifer Godwin, reports back from City Hall with what she calls the most current info.
Weather has been a factor for the Deltic Farm and Timber contractor on the project, she said. The roundabout is expected to be open by press time, once permanent signage is in place. But work will continue in the area for several more weeks after a new traffic pattern is established.
Godwin reinforces what the traffic guys have told us about traffic circles. When entering a roundabout, motorists should stay to the right and must yield to vehicles already in the roundabout.
Dear Mahatma: If public restrooms are provided, must a handicapped accessible one be included? Those of use on walkers would like to know. -- Sam
Dear Sam: You refer to a recent Q&A about commercial places that are essentially required to provide toilets for the public.
Do you know how complicated this is? Bottom line, after much eye-glazing reading, is the Americans with Disabilities Act requires all washrooms, whether new or renovated, to be usable by people with disabilities.
Mahatma@arkansasonline.com
Metro on 01/07/2017