Report: Traffic Congestion in NWA Tops $100 Million Annually

With less than a month left until Arkansas voters decide on a key transportation initiative, the Northwest Arkansas Council released a report Tuesday it hopes will drive home a strong point.

Traffic congestion in Northwest Arkansas has an annual price tag of $103 million, according to a report prepared for the NAC by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.

Dr. Tim Lomax, a co-author of the report, joked during Tuesday’s news conference in Rogers that Northwest Arkansas is edging up “the congestion stardom list,” in the United States.

“That is a list you don’t want to be on,” he said.

The cost of congestion is defined in the study as the value of time delay and excess fuel consumption based on an hourly rate of $20.50 per hour of delay.

Mike Malone, president and chief executive officer of the NAC, termed the report’s findings staggering.

“We spend more than $100 million a year sitting in traffic, consuming more gas and waiting unnecessarily,” he said.

Lomax and co-author David Schrank arrived at the $103 million total by researching eight stretches of road — all infamous for traffic congestion — in Northwest Arkansas, and then estimating overall traffic congestion in Benton and Washington counties.

TTI produces the Urban Mobility Report, the nation’s most thorough review of traffic congestion, and has created an annual evaluation of every highway and major roadway in the state of Texas for the last four years, a ranking of the most congested that is referred to as the Texas 100.

Of the eight road segments that were studied in Northwest Arkansas, half would be on the Texas 100 list.

What’s notable about that is that areas that have almost twice the number of residents as Northwest Arkansas — El Paso or McAllen in Texas, both with metro populations of 800,000 — don’t have that many roadways included in the Texas 100.

“Even in an area this size, big city problems can find their way to a place like Northwest Arkansas,” Schrank said.

The most congested corridor in Northwest Arkansas, according to the study, is U.S. Highway 412 in Springdale from Arkansas Highway 112 to Thompson Street, with about 137,000 hours of delay per mile.

Delay per mile is defined as extra travel time during the year due to congestion, divided by the corridor length.

Delay, Schrank said, is calculated through a formula combining traffic counts and speed data.

Highway 412 would be the 55^th most congested roadway in Texas.

Following Highway 412, the most congested roadways in Northwest Arkansas are:

• Walton Boulevard in Bentonville from Central to Moberly (130,200 hours delay per mile);

• College Avenue in Fayetteville from Lafayette to Main (107,100);

• Walnut Street in Rogers from Interstate 540 to West Hudson (99,600);

• U.S. 71 in Bentonville/Bella Vista from Arkansas 340 to North Walton (62,000);

• Thompson Street in Springdale from Main to County Line (58,500);

• Interstate 540 in Washington County from U.S. 62 to Arkansas 112 (24,700); and

• Interstate 540 from the Pleasant Grove exit to the Elm Springs exit (17,900)

The research shows that an investment in highway infrastructure is critical to Northwest Arkansas.

Voters will decide on Nov. 6 if it’s an investment they want to make.

A proposed amendment, known as Ballot Initiative No. 1, would finance a $1.3 billion bond issue with a 10-year, half-cent sales tax.

The proceeds would go to a number of highway projects across the state that supporters say will help alleviate traffic congestion.

In Northwest Arkansas, the key projects include the Bella Vista Bypass, the U.S. 412 Bypass around Springdale, and widening of Interstate 540 to six lanes from Fayetteville to Bentonville.

Madison Murphy of El Dorado, chairman of the Arkansas Highway Commission, spoke at Tuesday’s news conference.

He said he hopes the TTI report — specifically the dollar amount — will help drum up support for Issue No. 1.

“The cost of doing nothing is in fact greater than the cost of trying to solve the problem, or seems to be,” he said. “I really applaud the Northwest Arkansas Council for trying to empirically ascertain what is the cost of doing nothing. We have an opportunity as Arkansans to address the issue.”