Plan for Business Access During Road Construction

As people continue to settle in Northwest Arkansas, traffic congestion will continue to be a major challenge for the region.

We all know that traffic congestion is a serious problem. In fact, a 2005 urban mobility study of 85 urban areas by the Texas Transportation Institute reported that in 2003 traffic congestion (based on wasted time and fuel) cost about $63.1 billion in the urban areas studied.

The average cost per traveler in these urban areas was $794. The report also said that 2.3 billion gallons of fuel were wasted in the 85 urban areas. According to the report, that amount of fuel would fill 46 super-tankers or 230,000 gasoline tank trucks.

This study also shows that as urban areas grow larger, their traffic congestion becomes more severe. With increases in Northwest Arkansas’ population and in gasoline prices, we can safely assume that congestion costs are also increasing in this region.

Transportation planners and engineers often advocate the use of “access management” as one of several ways to combat traffic congestion.

Access management applies land-use and transportation strategies that control the flow of traffic between the road and surrounding land. Access management can bring important benefits such as postponing or preventing more costly highway improvements, improving safety, reducing delays, promoting desirable land-use patterns, protecting the value of private investments, and making bicycle and pedestrian travel safer.

Some of the main techniques used for access management as stated by the Federal Highway Commission include:

• Access spacing: increasing the distance between traffic signals improves the flow of traffic on major arterials, reduces congestion and improves air quality for heavily traveled corridors.

• Driveway spacing: Fewer driveways spaced farther apart allows for more orderly merging of traffic and presents fewer challenges to drivers.

• Safe turning lanes: dedicated left- and right-turn lanes, indirect left-turn lanes and lanes for U-turns (as well as roundabouts) keep through-traffic flowing. Roundabouts represent an opportunity to reduce an intersection with many conflict points or a severe crash history (T-bone crashes) to one that operates with fewer conflict points and less severe crashes (sideswipes) if they occur.

• Median treatments: two-way left-turn lanes and nontraversible, raised medians are examples of some of the most effective means to regulate access and reduce crashes.

• Right-of-way management: as it pertains to right-of-way reservation for future widenings, good sight distance, access location, and other access-related issues.

Diagrams presented on this page show some of these access management techniques. Much more information is found in the Transportation Research Board Manual made available at www.TRB.org.

When some of these access management techniques are proposed, questions often come up concerning reduced access to business locations. This is particularly the case when planners propose that the middle two-way left turn lane be converted to a raised median strip.

Planners and traffic engineers must take these concerns into consideration and carefully study each specific location in detail.

However, in general, many studies show that economic vitality increases with appropriate access management. Often, shoppers will avoid entire commercial areas during peak periods due to the congestion.

If appropriate access management can reduce travel time while increasing the safety of an area, the market radius surrounding a commercial location increases significantly.

Of course, the best time to plan and employ access management is when cities improve or build new roads. In this way, much of the disruptions to businesses can be avoided.

With the update of the Northwest Arkansas Long Range Transportation Plan, we see that many roads must be built or widened in the next 10 years. These planned new road locations and widenings should be seen as an opportunity to prevent business disruptions and save tax dollars by implementing access management as part of the design process rather than retrofitting roads later.

Click here for a look at a few access diagrams.