MODERN TIMES
by Art Hobson
ahobson@uark.edu
NWA Times 1 April
2006
REALITY CONFRONTS
NWA'S HIGHWAY ADDICTION, PART 2.
Two weeks ago this column looked at the problems facing plans for bypasses around Bella Vista and around U.S. 412 through Springdale. Now let's look at I-540.
Conceived as a western bypass around the cities of Northwest Arkansas, I-540 celebrated its grand opening in 1999 following 35 years of planning and construction. In line with the interstate highway philosophy, it moved long-distance traffic rapidly along a route that avoided cities.
Seven years later, the highway is already near failing. The stretch from Fayetteville to Bentonville received a D grade in a 2005 study and is predicted to receive a solid F by 2024. The study recommended a massive overhaul of this stretch by 2024, widening it to 8 lanes along most of its length and 6 lanes along the rest. The cost: $377 million, or $17 million per mile, excluding the considerable cost of widening the feeder roads into and out of I-540. Highway Commissioner Jonathan Barnett observes that, "We've got a real problem here. We just have to find some money to throw at it."
The cash to throw at it is nowhere in sight. But suppose that we did manage to widen this stretch. Where would we be then? The answer is: a little worse than when we started. It's predicted that, if completed in 2024, this stretch would then receive its present D grade along most of its length, but an F around Johnson and Springdale. As the saying goes, "the faster we run, the behinder we get."
The much lighter traffic south of Fayetteville, compared with heavy traffic north of Fayetteville, shows that locals are causing the congestion. Contrary to the intent of the interstate highway system, the Fayetteville-Bentonville stretch has become an ersatz main street for Northwest Arkansas.
Business interests are quickly making matters worse. Rogers is the leading offender. Developers plan to make a bundle out of lining I-540 with seven huge new shopping malls and a hospital complex. Never mind the congestion, sprawl, car crashes, pollution, taxpayer dollars, etc. that these vaunted "developments" will cost. Hey, if you can get the public to build roads for you out into the countryside where land is cheap, why not cash in on it? Ironically, Rogers Mayor Womack has been striving mightily to get some of the loot needed to pay for this scheme from the tax increment financing that was designed not for new strip malls in the countryside but for the restoration of older run-down areas.
These mindless developments will surely place the Rogers stretch of I-540 permanently into the F category, regardless of how many lanes it gets. A recent newspaper headline put it mildly: "RETAIL BOOM ALONG I-540 OUTPACING ROAD PROJECTS."
And now, despite all these bloated plans for new highways, and despite being flat broke, NWA traffic planners have prepared a final piece de resistance: the "western beltway." I like to call it the "bypass bypass," because it bypasses I-540, which itself was conceived just a few years ago as a bypass. Picture four lanes branching westward off of I-540 near Greenland, passing through the Ozark National Forest west of Tontitown, and re-connecting with I-540 along the still-imaginary bypass around Bella Vista.
The cost? $400 million, or $16 million per mile (but much more in future dollars). Nobody has any idea of where this might come from. Regional transportation planner John McLarty admits that it won't be constructed until after the completion of the Bella Vista and Springdale bypasses--which puts the start of this project off until sometime after 2050. As McLarty put it, "Logical minds think alike. We've all got to pull together for these big projects or they are not going to get built." I agree that these minds are all thinking alike, but I'm not sure I'd describe it as "logical."
You can thank the Northwest Arkansas Council for thinking this stuff up. Their transportation consultant, Christine Kefauver, claims that the western beltway would relieve traffic congestion on I-540. But isn't that what I-540 widening is supposed to do? And she claims that the western beltway "can become an urban service boundary. It makes sense to fill in what you have instead of continuing to sprawl out." --And if you believe that, then I have a watch I'd like to sell you. When I-540 was completed, Fayetteville immediately sprawled out to the new highway and beyond. We would also spread out to the new beltway, creating a whole new wave of sprawl throughout Northwest Arkansas.
If
you're saying to yourself by now that there's got to be a better way, you're
right. There are many better
ways: compact cities,
pedestrian-oriented development, growth boundaries, zoning that limits sprawl,
growth moratoriums, green belts, bicycle and walking trails, and, above all,
mass transit.
My
recommendations: Complete the
Bella Vista project as a toll road despite objections to tolls from trucking
and petroleum interests. Cancel
the U.S. 412 bypass, because it won't be completed until around 2050, which is
roughly the same as "never".
Require the businesses who profit from the interstate, and who are
turning the highway into a main street, to help pay for I-540 widening and for
related overpasses and on-off ramps.
Cancel the western beltway, and instead support mass transit and other
measures to stop sprawl.
Fayetteville's city government is a welcome exception to NWA's highway addiction. Let Mayor Coody and others know that you support this city's preference for alternative (non-automobile) transportation, and that you oppose the grandiose highway schemes being pushed by regional planners.