BENTONVILLE -- Benton County officials are hoping for understanding, if not forgiveness, when they close Spanker Road for nine months to replace a flood-prone bridge.
"There is no quick fix," Pat Adams, justice of the peace for District 6 and chairman of the Transportation Committee, said of the bridge replacement project. "I know it's going to inconvenience people for a while. But not any more than if it's shut down for days at a time because it's underwater."
Bridge work
Benton County has about $4 million in bridge projects included in the 2017 budget. War Eagle Bridge is set to be repaired this summer while Spanker Creek Bridge will be removed and replaced beginning in December. The county has also budgeted for a new bridge on Wildcat Creek and for work on Fisher Ford Bridge and Stagecoach Bridge.
Source: Staff report
Recent flooding forced the county to close the Spanker Road Bridge, just north of the McNelly Road intersection, and to do repairs after the floodwater receded. The water washed away the pavement, leaving the concrete structure of the bridge exposed, and the county has laid asphalt over the concrete to keep the bridge open until it can be replaced.
Renae Dudley's home is on the corner of Spanker Road and Spanker Ridge Road, a few hundred yards north of the bridge. She's very supportive of the plans to replace the bridge, but is worried about a detour and how the county's need for additional right of way may affect her property.
"I personally believe the bridge needs to be replaced," Dudley said. "I've lived in my home for six years. This is the fourth time in those six years the bridge has flooded out. The worst was in 2015 when it took out the guardrails and all of the asphalt. Without doubt, the bridge needs to be replaced."
Jay Frazier, public services administrator and head of the Road Department, said the best estimate is 7,000 vehicles a day use McNelly Road and as much as half of that traffic comes down Spanker Road. Frazier said motorists use the route to get from Bella Vista to Bentonville without driving on U.S. 71 or Interstate 49.
Frazier said the county will post a detour, using Spanker Ridge Drive, which runs east from Spanker Road and loops north and then south through a residential neighborhood before connecting to McNelly Road farther east. He said he hopes some drivers will choose to take Dartmoor Road, Euston Road and other options to ease traffic through the narrow neighborhood streets on Spanker Ridge Drive.
Dudley said she worries about using Spanker Ridge Road as a detour and she hopes the county will alert drivers well before they reach the bridge site they need to take another route.
"It's a very quiet residential neighborhood," Dudley said. "And the street is very narrow. There's not really room for two vehicles to pass each other safely. If they route all the traffic around that it's going to be kind of a nightmare. I would prefer they use Dartmoor Road. But I don't think there's any good solution."
Frazier said the bridge is a 60-foot span on a set of box culverts and is about eight years old. Replacement plans call for a 102-foot bridge and for raising both approaches to the bridge about 100 feet. The $1 million project will be done with a 50-50 match of federal and county money. The schedule shows the notice to proceed being issued in early December and the project being completed in September 2018.
"That will dramatically increase the amount of flow through there," he said. "This is a big project."
County Judge Barry Moehring said the county will work with Bella Vista and the Bentonville School District about the transportation problems posed by the road closing. He agreed with Dudley's assessment on the traffic issue.
"We're going to have to let all these folks know they're going to have to find other routes," Moehring said. "I hope they don't all come down that one route."
Adams said the county may be facing projects like the Spanker Creek Bridge more often if the growth rates continue. Roads and bridges in formerly quiet, rural areas are going to have more and more traffic.
"There's no doubt that with the number of people moving in the traffic loads are going to pick up on our roads and bridges," he said. "This is something we're not going to be able to ignore. From what I read in the paper this is the only area of the state that's going great guns. It's going to be up to the county judge and the Road Department to strike a balance between the more rural roads and those in closer to the cities. We don't want to neglect anyone. We just ask that people understand that what we're doing is for the benefit of the whole county."
NW News on 05/28/2017