State decides to replace, not add on to I-30 span

Traffic moves over the Interstate 30 bridge between Little Rock and North Little Rock on Wednesday. About 125,000 vehicles cross the Arkansas River daily on the bridge, which is more than 50 years old.
Traffic moves over the Interstate 30 bridge between Little Rock and North Little Rock on Wednesday. About 125,000 vehicles cross the Arkansas River daily on the bridge, which is more than 50 years old.

The latest plan for a $450 million project to ease congestion on the Interstate 30 corridor through North Little Rock and downtown Little Rock will require replacing the highway's bridge over the Arkansas River rather than simply widening it.

The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department reached that conclusion after inspecting the bridge and contemplating the cost to rehabilitate the structure, which now is more than 50 years old, and to add lanes to the six existing ones.

"It just makes sense to build a new bridge," said Earl Mott, the Garver LLC engineer who has been picked to manage the I-30 corridor project.

Building the new bridge won't interrupt traffic on the existing bridge, which now carries about 125,000 vehicles daily, he said in an interview Wednesday.

"We will not close the I-30 river bridge," Mott said. "Traffic will be maintained."

To accomplish that, one half of the new bridge will be built next to the span, Mott said. Once the first half is built, traffic on the existing bridge will be shifted to the new structure, the existing bridge will be torn down and the other half of the new bridge will be built in its place, he said.

"The width of the new bridge [section] is going to have to accommodate the six lanes of traffic" on the existing bridge, Mott said.

The Highway Department contemplated replacing the bridge three years ago as part of the $1.8 billion highway construction program known as the Connecting Arkansas Program. But in recent months, highway officials had hedged on whether the span would be widened or replaced with a bigger bridge.

News of the change in plans surprised about 40 people who attended a presentation by another Garver engineer, Jerry Holder, at a meeting last week of the Little Rock Downtown Partnership. Holder is managing all the projects in the Connecting Arkansas Program for the department.

"That's the first time anyone, to my knowledge, said it would be replaced," said Sharon Priest, the partnership executive director, who was among those who attended the meeting.

Little Rock television station KATV, Channel 7, first reported the news Tuesday.

The I-30 work won't begin until after another downtown crossing, the Broadway Bridge, is replaced. For that project, the existing bridge will be removed before construction on the new one begins. Traffic will have to be rerouted for up to two years.

The I-30 bridge carries about 10 times as much traffic as the Broadway Bridge.

"Maintenance of traffic will be a huge issue," said Randy Ort, a Highway and Transportation Department spokesman. The I-30 bridge "has the highest traffic volume in the state. How you accommodate that high a volume of traffic will be a huge component of the project."

Replacing the I-30 bridge has created some angst among downtown businesses, which already are bracing for the replacement of the Broadway Bridge, which will be closed for up to two years when construction begins early next year.

Immediate concerns for the downtown crowd, Priest said, were how the project might affect the existing on-ramps and off-ramps connecting I-30 to downtown, she said. Given that a reconfigured corridor could have as many as 10 lanes when it has only six now, how much property would the department need also is a concern, Priest added, especially in the Hanger Hill neighborhood on the east side of I-30 in downtown Little Rock.

Officially, the partnership members "haven't taken any positions," she said.

But the bridge is only one part of a larger project, Ort said.

"The project is the I-30 corridor," he said. "The project is not replacing the bridge. Replacing the bridge is one component of the corridor project."

The I-30 corridor study area covers 6.7 miles, stretching from Interstate 530 to the south and to Interstate 40 to the north and along I-40 to its interchange with U.S. 67/167 in North Little Rock.

The decision to replace the bridge comes as the department gears up to conduct two public meetings in the summer and fall to discuss the entire corridor project and solicit input from the people the project may affect. It is part of a federal planning and environmental process designed to shorten the amount of time between when a project is proposed and when construction begins.

The process, called planning and environmental linkages, has been used elsewhere but this is the first time it has been used in Arkansas, officials said.

"It's a more collaborative process," Mott said.

A public hearing scheduled for this summer will formally introduce the planning process to the broader public and make available a review of previous studies, a draft proposal and need for the project.

The hearing also will cover how the "universe of alternatives" will be developed and evaluated, according to documents state highway officials have presented at recent public meetings.

The meeting, which Mott said will be held in late July, will include a list of constraints that highway engineers have identified along the project. They include neighborhoods, churches, schools, cemeteries, historic buildings, "the whole gamut," he said. The constraints, for example, will determine which side of the existing bridge the first half of the new bridge will be built on, he said.

The first public meeting will be an important one, he said.

"Really and truly, the public needs to come out and make their comments," Mott said. "We will take what they say and apply it to the concepts we generate for the fall" meeting.

The meeting in the fall will make available the development and evaluation of preliminary alternatives.

Meanwhile, Mott said he and other engineers will make presentations at various meetings involving stakeholders. The Little Rock Downtown Partnership meeting last week was one such example.

"We plan on doing numerous stakeholder meetings," he said, adding that the project will even have its own Twitter account. "We're going to be proactive in how we communicate our story."

At the same time, meetings of a technical work group that has been established for the corridor also will be held. The technical work group includes representatives from about 55 resource and regulatory agencies, according to Mott. The agencies include the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Coast Guard, public works departments from Little Rock and North Little Rock, the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Union Pacific Railroad and area school districts.

One member of the technical work group welcomed reports that the bridge would be replaced.

Gene Higginbotham, executive director of the Arkansas Waterways Commission, said his members prefer a new bridge because it will allow for a wider navigation channel in the river for barge traffic. Two incidents involving barges and downtown bridges last year shut down traffic on one or more of the bridges before inspections showed the bridges undamaged.

"We've already made our concerns known," Higginbotham said.

Mott said it remains unclear whether enough money will be available to complete the entire project. Construction is not expected to take place until 2018.

About $450 million is available for the project. Of that, $50 million is expected to be spent on planning and design work, moving utilities and acquiring rights of way, which leaves about $400 million for construction.

The Connecting Arkansas Program, is financed by a 10-year, half-percent sales tax increase that voters approved in 2012. It will finance 31 projects on 19 corridors in the state.

A section on 06/19/2014

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