Long-Range Survey Found Rail Support

On the Roads Again
Click here for a sample of questions and results from the recent omnibus transportation survey. (Chart requires Adobe Acrobat viewer. Click here for a free copy.)

Every five years, the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission must update the area’s 25-year Long Range Transportation Plan as required by federal and state transportation programs. Public input plays an important part in this planning process.

As part of the public input process, the commission worked with the University of Arkansas’ Survey Research Center to include five transportation questions in the Northwest Arkansas Omnibus Survey. Through the project, the Survey Research Center gathered opinions at random of more than 600 participants. With a potential sampling error within plus or minus 4 percent, the regional planning commission got a good look at how the general public feels about some important long-range transportation decisions.

The results obtained should be of interest to elected officials, transportation planners and the general public. For example, the first question points out that an independent study recommends widening Interstate 540 to six and eight lanes and improving 16 interchanges at a cost of $350 million. The two options presented a choice of moving forward with the recommendations or improving the most congested interchanges first and widening alternative north/south and east/west city streets.

More than 57 percent of the respondents recommended the second choice of improving the most congested interchanges and alternative routes first. Perhaps they were asking themselves what would traffic congestion be like on I-540 with only one-lane open during reconstruction.

On the question of developing a regional passenger rail line, more than 64 percent were in favor or strongly in favor of such a project. Certainly this result sends a strong message that the public in Northwest Arkansas believes that the region cannot rely solely on more roads and automobiles to meet future transportation needs.

The third question asks citizens how they would like to pay for regional transportation improvements. Raising taxes, of course, is something no one wants to do.

A major part of the planning process centers on determining future needs and how much they will cost. If we just add up three major projects — the I-540 improvements, the U.S. Highway 412 bypass north of Springdale and the Bella Vista bypass — we are looking at more than $900 million.

Local officials and Regional Planning staff are still working on a projected dollar estimate of how much the improvements on what is called the “grid network” will cost. Ballpark estimates suggest that this figure will be well more than $100 million. If so, the region’s total needs for the next ten years will cost more than $1 billion. State and Federal funding estimates during the next ten years add up to only $80.1 million.

There is always hope for special grants from the U.S. Congress (known as “earmarks,”) but with large national budget shortfalls, our region might not meet all projected funding needs. Without knowing how much funding is needed, 43 percent of the respondents said that they would favor constructing projects only as funds become available. However, more than 49 percent suggested building toll roads, raising sales taxes, or implementing a local gas tax to meet transportation needs.

On question four, we found that 36 percent of the respondents would consider carpooling or vanpooling at least two times a week. Almost 8 percent would consider walking, 6.7 percent would consider bicycling and 22.7 percent would consider taking a bus. Planning officials should be happy to learn about these responses since these transportation alternatives are now available and can be further encouraged with relatively low-cost infrastructure features such as park-and-ride lots and wider bicycle shoulders and trails. Another 14.5 percent of the respondents would ride passenger rail at least two times a week if it was available.

On the horizon, transportation planners are considering an interstate-quality highway that would run in a north-south direction from western Bella Vista, west of the regional airport and eventually would reconnect to I-540 in the Greenland area. Interestingly, 66.1 percent of the respondents said that they would like to see such a road completed within the next 10 years. As we have seen with the development of I-540 and the proposed 412 bypass north of Springdale, major highways take many years between initial conception and completion. Given the need to secure right-of-way and all the other development details involved, the sooner a region starts a project the better.