Dear Prestigious Pundit: For many years there has been an area on University Avenue alongside UALR that has a 25 mph speed limit. It's where a faculty member was killed crossing the street. The speed limit was subsequently lowered. NO ONE observes this limit! The wisest thing to do would be to raise the limit to 40 mph, standard for most of the avenue. What's the possibility? -- Confused Car Creeper
Dear Confused: We remember this fatality from many years ago, and the subsequent lowering of the limit at the request of the university. Students do cross the avenue to get to the other side. And always will.
We have driven that way ourselves, more than once, forgetful of the lower limit change and blown through.
There are two solutions. The first is to ask the Little Rock Police Department for enforcement. As we all know, speed enforcement is driven by complaint. Start with the front desk at 371-4605.
This is obviously not the solution you desire. The other, to make the speed uniform, is a political one, in our opinion. Start with your city board members. Or call UALR's newest chancellor, Dr. Christina Drale, 569-3200. Ask her to ask the city to make the change.
Your point, Confused Car Creeper, is that the speed limit is ineffective.
Sometimes that argument works; sometimes not.
Dear Mahatma: Looks like we lost a barge-bumper on the upstream side of the Interstate 30 Arkansas River bridge. Any plans to replace it? -- Dude
Dear Dude: The formal name of that round thing is "pier protection cell." It failed back in the spring when the river, its tributaries and The Mahatma's golf courses were flooded. Failed means pretty much broke up.
The Arkansas Department of Transportation tells us it's working on a construction project to repair this protection cell and a couple others on the river system.
Fortunately, the I-30 bridge has two navigation channels. River traffic has been told to use the other.
The need to repair the I-30 cell has added importance because of the upcoming 30 Crossing project, which aims to replace the bridge. During construction, river traffic may need to switch between the two navigation channels.
Dear Mahatma: Why in the world is there not a left-turn signal both ways at Kavanaugh Boulevard and Cantrell Road? -- Nancy
Dear Nancy: There is left-turn signalization for the east-west lanes. But not the north-south direction.
This is because the volume of left-turning vehicles isn't high enough to warrant the installation of the additional phases. So says Bill Henry, the city's traffic engineering manager. He adds that turning-movement counts have been done here multiple times and the numbers don't add up.
That's what he says. The Mahatma says: Time is short and must be used wisely. No sense giving unwarranted time to a left-turn maneuver, thus bottling up traffic in the other direction.
Fjfellone@gmail.com
Metro on 12/21/2019