Work on Arkansas Highway 45 remains uncertain as traffic grows and adjacent businesses expand

The Arkansas Highway 45 intersection in the area of Planters Road is a hub for Fort Smith and Sebastian County employment. It’s also a traffic nightmare. Narrow lanes hinder truck shipments and everyday traffic routinely uses it as a high-speed backroad with no traffic signals or stop signs to slow the flow.

During a three-year period from 1999 to 2002, there were more than 90 accidents, which prompted many of the area businesses, including Maverick and Zero Mountain to spend “considerable monies” enhancing the turn radius to allow trucks to enter Arkansas 45 at a slightly different angle thus avoiding interference with southbound traffic, according to Sam Cope of Maverick and Mark Rumsey of Zero Mountain, who addressed their concerns with City Directors at a Fort Smith Board of Directors meeting last year.

For many of these businesses which Talk Business & Politics estimates employ more than 2,000 workers, the question persists as to why nothing has been done in spite of the project being talked about for 15 years. It was a question City Director Tracy Pennartz voiced at an October 2015 study session, pointing out that priorities as determined in the city’s current CIP for streets, bridges, and associated drainage show a continued lack of progress through 2020.

Stan Snodgrass, the city’s director of engineering, said the effort would have to involve Sebastian County and the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department (AHTD) and expected the city would have to enter a cost-sharing plan with the two entities to move this up the state’s priority list.

Talk Business & Politics recently interviewed Snodgrass about developments over the last few months and posed the question of how two other projects – the $154,000 traffic signal adjacent to Parrot Island Water Park and the Jenny Lind widening in front of the former Whirlpool plant –could progress as quickly as they have while the Highway 45 intersection has languished.

THE ANSWERS
Snodgrass explained that the Parrot Island signal project “did not require any widening to the highway to accommodate the traffic signal.”

“You may recall that the water park was jointly funded by the county and the city and the area of the water park was annexed into the City limits. The traffic signal project was funded with the city’s 1-cent CIP for street and drainage improvements.”

That same 1-cent tax has also helped to fund $21.6 million of the $28.8 million project widening Jenny Lind Road between Zero Street and Cavanaugh Road. The remaining $7.2 million is federally funded.

“While that section does go in front of the old Whirlpool facility, and we do have people asking ‘why are we doing this?,’ it’s not just about Whirlpool. That’s a major arterial street, a major north-south road that connects the city, and it’s only the first phase with ultimate widening plans that will extend through the years,” Snodgrass said.

While Snodgrass was uncertain how long the Highway 45 project had been on AHTD’s Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP), he said the proposed 2016-2020 STIP has made room for it provided the city and Sebastian County can come to some agreement on cost-sharing. The newest incarnation of the project would run around $15 million, $5 million of which would have to come in the form of a local match, and it would encompass the widening to five lanes of Highway 45 from Zero Street (Highway 255) to U.S. 71. If approved for the 2016-2020 STIP, Snodgrass said, construction would begin in 2020, and would be preceded by design, acquisition of right-of-way, and utilities relocation.

THE HISTORY
The Highway 45 and Planters intersection traffic signal project originally started several years ago as a basic signal project (estimated cost $150,000-$200,000) to be cost-shared between the AHTD and Sebastian County with the city taking responsibility for maintenance of the traffic signal, Snodgrass explained.

He continued: “In this area the city limits run down the center of Highway 45 with Fort Smith being on the west side, and the area to the east where the businesses are located being outside of the city limits and in Sebastian County. During the preliminary design by the AHTD, the project grew from a basic traffic signal project to one that would require major street widening to accommodate turn lanes and large radii for the heavy truck turning from these businesses.”

Since that time, the AHTD has indicated the city “may want to hold off on the commitment talks until this larger project takes shape as the Planters Road intersection is located within the limits of this major project,” Snodgrass said. Still, there would be some cost-sharing involved regardless, and Snodgrass said that he and Deputy City Administrator Jeff Dingman would likely meet with Sebastian County Judge David Hudson to discuss “in the next couple of weeks.”

KEEPING HIGHWAY 45 ON THE RADAR
For Fort Smith City Director Tracy Pennartz, the talks can’t come soon enough.

“What I want to avoid happening is what happened last time,” Pennartz said. “The ball got dropped, and then there was no discussion of it for years by the county, the state, or the city. So my concern is keeping it on the radar and making sure there’s progress in the talks between those entities and the industries out there.”

While Pennartz called it “a public safety issue,” she also acknowledged Snodgrass’s view that “we don’t want to expend money that’s going to be torn up by the state in their improvement of that section of the Highway.”

She also joined Snodgrass in commending the work at Jenny Lind, stating that it was needed and that “the connectivity that it will give to people on that side of town to (Highway) 71 that live near that area and work there is going to be helpful and convenient, I think.”

She continued: “Now is it a lot of money? Yes, it is. But most of those big road projects that are dealing with connectivity and arterial streets rather than collector streets – those projects are expensive because of the right-of-way and the length of time it takes to bury and relocate pipes.”

In the meantime, the city has received approval from the Highway Department to put flashing beacons up announcing the Planters/45 intersection to southbound traffic. Snodgrass didn’t have final details, claiming only that they could be solar- or electric-powered, but said they would provide “some advanced notice” until further movements could happen on that section of highway.