Fort Smith Board gets truckers’ blessing on making changes to downtown truck route

The Fort Smith Board of Directors unanimously approved the Propelling Downtown Forward strategic redevelopment plan at Tuesday night’s (Aug. 1) meeting from the Fort Smith Public Schools Service Center.

The document from Dallas-based Gateway Planning — the group behind the Rogers, Ark., downtown redevelopment plan — had been a source of controversy for the city’s trucking industry due to language suggesting restrictions on certain truck routes. Russ Bragg of OK Foods was one of the plan’s biggest detractors when it was first unveiled to the city’s planning commission, Board of Directors, and Central Business Improvement District (CBID) in a June 13 joint meeting.

“Within the project, there are key statements that the community and the city will work with the trucking community to seek alternate routes, yet most of the language can be perceived as anti-trucks,” Bragg said at the previous meeting, reading portions of the document like “the transformation of Riverfront Drive from a truck-oriented thoroughfare to roadway design that supports efficient traffic flow”; “Truck route bypass for remaining in downtown and regional bypass options”; and “A major challenge for this corridor is the truck traffic that passes through,” for effect.

“In clear language, ‘no trucks,’” he added.

On Tuesday, Bragg said he was “satisfied” with the dialogue that had opened up between trucking interests, 64.6 Downtown, and Gateway Planning as a result of the initial meeting.

“I think the process has worked. When we started this a couple of months ago, and when I talked to Kelsey (Berry of Gateway Planning) this evening, she reiterated the fact that prior to this, there wasn’t a lot of discussion with trucking communities and business communities that relied on trucks and the group that wanted to push the Propelling Downtown plan forward.”

Subsequent to that “and because of that,” Bragg said, “we’ve had a lot of very good dialogue, and during the course of the dialogue, with the help of the 64.6 committee, Gateway Planning, and others, we got the caveats in there that allow and protect the rights of the trucks to be downtown, but to follow the truck routes and follow the state-marked highways.”

One of the biggest changes made to the Propelling Downtown Forward plan as it relates to the trucking industry, according to First National Bank of Fort Smith President and CEO/64.6 representative Sam Sicard is “the option to restrict trucks coming over the bridge in effect to the local service delivery area – as an example, from South B to North B Street,” which would mean trucks “could only come over to service that area and any others would have to go around I-40.”

“That really concerned a lot of folks, but certainly the businesses on Wheeler Avenue. We agreed to strike that as an option,” Sicard told Talk Business & Politics in a previous interview.

Tuesday night Bragg commended Gateway and 64.6 for “coming to the table and saying, ‘What works for you and what doesn’t work for you? What do we need to do to move this thing forward?'” He said the two camps were “gracious” and “open” and “accepting of our ideas and our thoughts and the challenges that we foresaw as stakeholders.”

Bragg continued: “No matter what plan you work up, you’ll always be able to say, ‘We could do that differently or that differently.’ But when we look at the composite of the whole plan and what 64.6 Downtown wants to do — what it means to downtown Fort Smith when you’re down there on the weekends and see all the festivities … That’s the environment they’re trying to create, (and) I want everybody to know we came out at that first board meeting and had a lot of concerns about it; but we’re here today saying, ‘We can support this plan going forward. We appreciate everybody’s hard work.'”

Bragg said the process was “what debate and politics are all about — trying to reach a common good for everybody. And I feel very comfortable that we did that. I’m very proud of everyone’s efforts, and I think we can now officially propel downtown Fort Smith forward.”