An environmental assessment of the $631.7 million project to overhaul the Interstate 30 corridor through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock has won federal approval to undergo a 45-day public review that will include a hearing next month.
The document, which state highway officials say exceeds 1,000 pages, will be available for public inspection at the Arkansas Department of Transportation headquarters; the main office of Garver, the engineering firm that is leading the project; and at the main libraries in Little Rock and North Little Rock.
The location-and-design public hearing, jointly sponsored by the department, the Federal Highway Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, July 12 in the Silver City rooms of the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel at 2 Riverfront Place in downtown North Little Rock.
Scott Bennett, the Transportation Department director, addressed the subject at a meeting Wednesday of the Arkansas Highway Commission when Tom Schueck of Little Rock, a commission member, asked for an update on the status of the project.
After months of delay, Bennett said, "We are well underway to wrapping this up."
Allowing the environmental assessment document out for public review is significant, he said after the meeting.
It shows "we've crossed all our 'i's' and dotted all our 't's' from a standpoint of legal sufficiency and withstanding legal challenges," Bennett said.
Once the public review ends, the department will have to prepare a response to each comment. The Federal Highway Administration then will review the comments and the department's responses and determine whether the responses are adequate or whether there are any other issues that require further analysis, he said.
If the department's responses pass muster, then the Federal Highway Administration will approve the document and make what is called a "finding of no significant impact," which would clear the project to go to construction, likely sometime early next year.
An assessment addresses a variety of environmental concerns, such as the project's impact on air quality and historic structures. Environmental assessments typically are less exhaustive in scope than environmental impact statements.
"If we haven't adequately addressed the comments or there is something else in there that needs additional analysis, they have the opportunity to say this needs to go forward to an environmental impact statement," Bennett said.
But he reiterated that agency officials developed the assessment as if it were an impact statement, which means that if the federal government concludes an impact statement is warranted, it wouldn't require a huge delay or cost to complete.
The project is the single largest one the department has ever undertaken.
The preferred alternative would widen the 6.7-mile corridor from Interstate 530 in Little Rock to Interstate 40 in North Little Rock to 10 lanes from six and replace the bridge over the Arkansas River.
Central Arkansas planners had long called for the congested corridor, which features the convergence of six major highways in the space of fewer than 7 miles. The I-30 bridge over the Arkansas River dates to the late 1950s and was built at a cost of $5.5 million. It now carries 124,000 vehicles daily.
The latest design for the 10-lane alternative features four lanes that would be more like city streets, with ramps to lower speeds, narrower lanes, traffic signals and other features that will, officials say, allow traffic moving on or off I-30 to safely interact with pedestrians and other noninterstate traffic.
The 10-lane alternative has been referred to as a mix of six main through lanes with four collector-distributor lanes. The latter are separated by a wall from the main lanes, have slower speeds and allow traffic traveling between Little Rock and North Little Rock to cross the bridge without entering the main interstate lanes.
The project also includes improvements to the section of I-40 between MacArthur Drive and U.S. 67/167 in North Little Rock and a new interchange in Little Rock to replace the one at Cantrell Road and I-30. Removal of the Cantrell/I-30 interchange would create what city officials envision as a 17-acre park.
The project has garnered the backing of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Central Arkansas Library System and the Clinton Presidential Center.
The Quapaw Quarter Association, which promotes preservation in downtown Little Rock, doesn't oppose the project but has said it would prefer another alternative that involves just eight lanes, which also will be presented at the July 12 public hearing.
The association is working with the city of Little Rock and submitted a 41-page document outlining the steps the city and state need to take to preserve the pedestrian-friendly character of downtown city streets.
Bennett acknowledged that agency officials were still "working through issues" on a side agreement with the cities of Little Rock and North Little Rock involving sidewalk widths, bicycle routes, lighting and other aspects of the project.
The project has drawn opposition from downtown Little Rock residents and other activists who haven't ruled out litigation in an effort to stop it.
Bennett anticipates the department will put out a request for proposals in September if the environmental assessment is approved.
The state department already has short-listed three contracting groups that responded earlier this year to a request for qualifications and has been meeting with them separately.
The short list includes the U.S. subsidiary of Ferrovial of Madrid; Granite Construction Co. of Watsonville, Calif., and Archer Western Construction LLC of Atlanta, participating as a joint venture; and Kiewit Infrastructure South of Fort Worth and Massman Construction Co. of Kansas City, Mo., also participating as a joint venture.
The team will be selected early next year, with construction expected to begin in early 2019. The project is expected to take about four years.
The project is to be built under the design-build method in which the winning "bidder" is selected on the basis that it has submitted the most effective way to complete the project within budget, which is $631.7 million. The method, officials say, allows the winning contract group to figure out more efficient ways to design the project.
Metro on 06/07/2018