President Clinton Avenue in downtown Little Rock to close in early August
August 2-8, 2021
By Daily Record Staff
As construction work continues on the I-30 Crossing project in downtown Little Rock, President Clinton Avenue will be closed for several days in early August, Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) officials said last week.
Weather permitting, crews will close President Clinton Avenue and detour traffic to 3rd Street, which will be temporarily opened for two-way traffic, starting on Tuesday night, August 3 at 10 p.m. and continuing through Thursday morning, August 5 at 5 a.m. “These operations are part of a maintenance of traffic plan to demolish the overhead on-ramp to I-30 eastbound. During this work, local communities should expect impacts from construction noise and work lights,” ARDOT officials announced on July 26.
Below are the details for the traffic changes. (See detour map for additional information.)
President Clinton Avenue westbound traffic will take Dean Kumpuris Street to 3rd Street and will use Sherman Street to return to President Clinton Avenue.
President Clinton Avenue eastbound traffic will take Sherman Street to 3rd Street and will use Dean Kumpuris Street to return to President Clinton Avenue.
The construction work on I-30 is part of the ongoing construction of the I-30 Crossing project, the controversial $1 billion downtown project that is widening a 6.7-mile section of the interstate through downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock. The project is expected to be completed by late 2024 or early 2025.
The multi-year project consists of reconstructing the existing six-lane I-30 roadway while adding two decision lanes in each direction that ultimately feed into the collector and distributor lanes located at the I-30 Arkansas River Bridge. A split-diamond interchange will be used to distribute traffic onto the downtown road network.
The long-term and permanent travel impact interactive map is available at 30Crossing.com, along with additional project information. Statewide, the Connecting Arkansas Program (CAP) is the largest highway construction program ever undertaken by ARDOT. In 2012, through a voter-approved constitutional amendment, the people of Arkansas passed a 10-year, half-cent sales tax to improve the state’s intermodal transportation system, including projects that widen and improve approximately 200 miles of highways and interstates.
Locally, construction crews in early July began closing parts of Interstate 30 between 6th Street and the Interstate 630 interchange to move traffic onto frontage. Ramps were also closed in mid-July at the I-30 interchange with Cumberland Street in Little Rock. All these ongoing operations are part of an overall construction plan to demolish the interchange and reconstruct the I-30 bridge and associated ramps.
Once the I-30 eastbound exit ramp to Cumberland Street is closed, the 6th/9th Street exit ramp (Exit 140) will be the only I-30 eastbound exit to downtown Little Rock, including the River Market, MacArthur Park, and the East Village. The next exit drivers can take will be to Broadway Street in North Little Rock.
ARDOT officials caution drivers to exercise caution when approaching and traveling through the downtown area and all highway work zones. A long-term and permanent travel impact interactive map is available at 30Crossing.com, along with additional project information. Additional travel information can be found at IDriveArkansas.com or ARDOT.gov.
I-40 bridge repairs “getting close” to reopening, highway officials say
Meanwhile, the I-40 Mississippi River bridge on the Arkansas-Tennessee state line remains closed as traffic is detoured across the river via Interstate 55 or State Highway 49. Arkansas and Tennessee highway officials are continuing to repair the I-40 bridge that has shut down one of the nation’s busiest transportation corridors since early May after a drone inspection found evidence of structural damage to the busy 1.8-mile river span.
Highway officials still have not set a date yet for the bridge reopening but noted that contractors were able to make “significant progress” on Phase Three repairs over the last weekend in July. Those repairs included installing 17 plates for additional bridge support and the removal and reinstallation of lateral bracing. Stress tests were expected to be scheduled late last week.
“We do not have an exact opening date yet, but we are getting close,” ARDOT officials said on July 26.
Earlier this summer after the Mississippi River bridge was shut down, the Arkansas Trucking Association released a report saying the trucking industry had absorbed over $70 million in unanticipated costs. However, in late June, the ATA released new data suggesting that the work-around to reroute traffic in one of the nation’s busiest transportation corridors had reduced financial costs to the trucking industry from $2.4 million to $936,000 a day.
“We commend the Arkansas and Tennessee Departments of Transportation (TDOT) for acting in response to the concerns of the trucking industry and implementing measures to improve traffic flow on this major east-west shipping corridor,” said Arkansas Trucking Association President Shannon Newton. “When the bridge first closed, delays were regularly exceeding an hour. Now thanks to ARDOT’s traffic engineering, implementing strategic lane shifts, that delay is down to only 15 minutes.”
Operational cost data provided by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) indicates the average cost of operating a truck to be $71.78 an hour or $1.20 a minute. ATA said lane changes enacted by ARDOT and Tennessee Highway officials in June reduce overall cost estimates by $21.9 million.
“In just the two weeks since ARDOT reconfigured traffic in West Memphis, we have saved roughly $21.9 million in expenses as the estimated cost per day decreased from $2.4 million to $936,000,” said Newton. “Trucking is still losing nearly a million dollars a day, but these improvements are proving significant to an industry that is already struggling to meet demand.”
Overall, truck traffic over the Mississippi River has decreased only slightly from 26,500 trucks per day down to 23,500 trucks. Using the latest ATRI data, Newton said 3,000 trucks that are re-routing 60 miles or more from the I-55 bridge are losing $513,000 per day in lost time and increased mileage while the cost of the 15-minute delay for the 23,500 trucks using the I-55 bridge is an estimated $423,000.
“We are confident the ARDOT and TDOT are working with the utmost expediency to re-open the bridge so that it is safe for all traffic,” said Newton.
PHOTO CAPTION:
President Clinton Avenue in downtown Little Rock will be closed in early August due to construction on the I-30 bridge project.
