Hudson Jam Is Horrendous (Editorial)

Twenty three minutes.r

That’s how long it recently took us to drive the half mile from the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market in Bentonville to the southbound exit ramp for Interstate 540. For about 18 of those minutes, we could have killed the engine. We hear it’s that way twice daily.r

That intersection of Hudson Road (Arkansas Highways 62/102) and I-540 could be considered the northern boundary of Northwest Arkansas’ growth epicenter — the vehicle-hemorraging aorta that is the I-540 corridor from Lowell north. Pinnacle Hills, Pinnacle Point, Village on the Creeks, Walton Boulevard, Walnut Avenue and Scottsdale Center are all along this stretch, and Pleasant Crossing, a Perry Road interchange and The Peaks are coming.r

Those ready to whine about Fayetteville’s Fulbright Expressway or Springdale’s brutal U.S. Highway 412 snail trail can go ahead and cool their carburetors. A $400,000 area freeway study commissioned by the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department recently identified 17 congested spots along I-540. Ten of those are either general in nature or in Springdale and Fayetteville.r

Parson’s Transportation Group of Memphis did a field study in September and presented its preliminary findings in October. PTG is only four months into the 18-month inquisition, but we wanted to bring special attention to the “Hold Up on Hudson.”r

Within a mile of the Hudson/I-540 intersection to the west sits Mercy Health Center, NARTI’s Benton County facility, NorthWest Arkansas Community College, the neighborhood market and major employers in Bekaert Corp., Stribling Packaging Inc., Roark Printing Inc., Cryovac Corp. and FM Corp.r

A short retail jog to the east gives way to side streets linking the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Information Technology facility on Moberly Lane, scores of vendor locations and the ever-present citywide Wal-Mart corporate traffic. Hudson is also a prime connector to upscale residential enclaves. The result is the kind of congestion that Sudafed can’t clear.r

The two-county area grew an average of 10,712 people in each of the last 13 years. Census projections also expect that by 2008, the area’s population will have ballooned another 30 percent from 311,121 in 2000 to 403,725.r

We can only expect that all of them at some point, if something’s not done, will wind up sitting in Bentonville. r