3392 replies to this topic

[Arkansawyer]

Mith242, on Jul 8 2005, 05:10 PM, said:

I already mentioned the widening of Gregg St between Township and Futrall.  Here's a list of the next projects that will be worked on, eventually somewhere down the line. 
1--Arkansas/Gregg Connection--Extension 2-3 lane collector-------------$12,615,500
2--Cato Springs (S Shcool to Razorback) widening--------------------------$4,400,000
3--Crossover (Mission to city limits) widening 5 lane principal arterial-----$5,503,000
4--15th St (Happy Hollow to S College) widening minor arterial------------$3,909,000
5--Garland (North to Melmar) widening 5 lane principal arterial------------$5,653,000
6--Garland (Melmar to I-540) widening 5 lane--------------------------------$1,883,000
7--Garland (I-540 to Howard Nickell) widening 5 lane------------------------$2,400,000
8--Howard Nickell/Van Asche (Rupple to Garland) widening minor arterial-$8,401,500
9--Huntsville (Happy Hollow to Stonebridge) widening minor arterial-------$2,225,000
10-Huntsville(Stonebridge to Falcon) widening minor arterial----------------$6,392,000
11-Kings Dr (Lakeside to Columbus) reconstruction 2 lane------------------$---750,000
12-Mall Ave (Joyce to Mud Creek) widening 3 lane---------------------------$---918,000
13-Mount Comfort (Rupple to Alpine) widening minor arterial---------------$4,208,000
14-Mount Comfort/Shiloh/Deane Solomon  major intersection readjust----$2,718,000
15-North College/Fulbright Flyover  bridge and Mall Ave connection--------$6,352,000
16-Old Wire Rd (Mission to Crossover) extension 2-3 lane collector--------$8,595,000
17-Rupple Rd (6th to Persimmon) new minor arterial------------------------$7,094,000
18-Rupple Rd (Persimmon to Mt Comfort) widerning minor arterial--------$--997,000
19-Rupple Rd (Wedington to Mt Comfort) widening minor arterial----------$7,290,000
20-Rupple Rd (Mt Comfort to Howard Nickell) widening/new arterial-------$5,668,000
21-Shiloh Dr (Cato Springs to Summerhouse Ln) extension/collector-----$1,732,000
22-Shiloh Dr (Mt Comfort to Wedington) extension--------------------------$2,978,000
23-Van Asche (Gregg to Garland) new principal arterial--------------------$4,675,000
24-Zion Rd (N College to Crossover) widening 2-3 lane--------------------$5,236,500
25-Scull Creek Trail  extension multi-use trail--------------------------------$7,299,500

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

No mention of Razorback Road? Please tell me they are going to expand that in the future. I know it can't be expanded on the northbound side because of Razorback Stadium, but surely some land could be taken along the southbound side for widening the road. That is one of the most poorly planned roads I've seen. It's a nightmare during Razorback athletic events, and is the main artery to the UA from I-540.

[Mith242]

I know a lot of people want an expanded Razorback Road.  It's been talked about but I think part of the problem is the university.  I keep getting the impression they don't want a major 4 lane road near the university grounds.  They aren't happy about connecting Gregg to Arkansas Ave because it's directing more traffic towards their direction.  They made a section of Garland near the university 4 lanes not long ago and I've heard some talked of them wanting to cut it back down to just a 2 lane and make the rest for parking or something.  Not sure if that will happen but they do seem to really trying not to have any 4 lane roads even along the edge of the university.

[Mith242]

Sounds like good news for the trail system here in Fayetteville.  They annouced a plan that would keep a lot of the development of the trail system 'in-house' and speed up the process and cut down the costs.  They have 41 miles of trails they want to add at 5 miles a year.  What makes this special is that it's just not for recreational use but also for traveling purposes.  To provide people an alturnative to having to do everything by vehicle and help cut down on growing traffic.

[Mith242]

Looks like there's more future development for Dickson St.  I still find it interesting how it's changed.  When I first moved up here it was somewhat run down and known for having a rough and tumble type of crowd at nights.  Then in the 90's the Walton Art Center was built and it totally changed the area.  The Shipley Bakery building, Laundry building, Icehouse building, Reindl Warehouse, UARK Bowl and Collier's have all undergone some rennovations in the last several years.  In 2000 the Three Sisters Development opened up.  It has now become a dominant feature, adding more retail, restaurant and also condo space to the Dickson Street area.  There are now talks of a mixed-use development around the Frisco Rail Depot.  A multi-level tower between the Underwood building (designed by E Fay Jones) and Qdoba's.  More condos at 600 W Meadow St near the Dickson St area.  A mixed-use structure at 401 W Watson St also near Dickson.  I believe I've seen something going on West St just north of Dickson.  There's also talks of development of the area where Something Urban is located across from Collier's and the Post Office.  Bordino's should be moving into their new building on Dickson sometime later this year.  It looks to be not only best Italian place in town but possibly one of the best restaurants in Fayetteville.  I believe there are also plans for a 6-9 level condo building a bit north of where Jose's and Bordino's are.  The one thing I'd like to hear more about is a parking structure somewhere in the area.  The parking lot across from the Walton Art Center is pretty big, but parking can still be an issue sometimes and a parking deck would help out.  There are also some other smaller places I haven't mentioned that have renovated former lots or buildings.  Dickson Street has certainly become an interesting place for Fayetteville.  I'm not really sure if Little Rock has anything quite like it or not.  I think just being down the street from the U of A certainly gives it a 'feel' that maybe you can't get from something close to it in Little Rock.  Now if we could keep the development going and slowly get it to extend over towards College Ave.  I'd like to see some of College Ave get redeveloped especially around Dickson St.  We've already got something going on College not too far away from Dickson and the Square with the former Mountain Inn Project.  I'd like to imagine what this area will look like and be like 10 years from now.

[Mith242]

Well apparently they had some meetings about all the future projects possibly happening up here in northwest Arkansas.  Somehow while keeping up with all the news I somehow never saw this so I didn't get to go.  They set out all the plans and gave people coins/tokens.  You could put your tokens in the projects you thought were best or if you really liked one particular project you could put all your tokens just in it.  Here's how the results turned out.
Light Rail Transit--------------------320
Western Bypass---------------------307
Bike Facilities------------------------202
I-540 Improvements ---------------187
Arterial Road Network--------------180
Bus Service--------------------------150
Eastern Parkway----------------------91
Intelligent Transportation Systems--75
Ride-Share Programs-----------------52
This was in the northwest edition of the Ark Dem-Gaz by the way.  The article made sure to also make mention of some of the differences between the meetings between Fayetteville and Bentonville.  The extended bike facilities only got 13 tokens in Bentonville but got 189 in Fayetteville.  Just to help show how priorities are set in Fayetteville.

[johnnydr87]

Very interesting.  I"m pleased to see all the support for the light rail transit.

That bike vote sure does differentiate the cities quite a bit.  One's a bit more youthful and liberal, the other older and more business practical.

[Mith242]

I admit I was a little surprised the light rail got as much support as it did.  I was afraid there wouldn't be enough people willing to give up their vehicles for a project like that to work.  It's more of a risk than the other projects, it's a lot of money for something you're not positive people will use and take advantage of.  I have heard a lot of support for the western bypass.  I'm not sure I like this project very much.  I usually don't complain about any new roads up here in this area.  But I guess I'm not so opposed to I-540 being expanded to 6-8 lanes.  Apparently that seems to be a big psycological move to a lot of people.  I guess it goes back to people wanting growth up here but at the same time are still trying to avoid being a bigger type city.  Almost like trying to hide the fact that the metro is really bigger than it actually looks and feels like up here.  I imagine many people who have lived here for a long time may noy like the idea of a 'big city' up here.  Then there are also people who are new up here who came here to leave bigger cities.  I don't mind if we do things differently up here, but I hope we don't keep doing this type of response.  That we trying to make it look like we're actually a smaller metro than what we really are.  I admit there are times when I hear the figures of all the growth and I just find a hard time believing it.

[Khashbaatar_Tsagaanbaatar]

Good to be back...


Now I won't be very much help in this discussion for a bit, as I live closer to Dallas, TX than I do to Fayetteville, but I would like to add this:  Downtown Fayetteville is absolutely GORGEOUS in fall.  I'll be at the U of A next year, and I hope to experience all that is Fayetteville.

[Mith242]

Khashbaatar_Tsagaanbaatar, on Jul 16 2005, 10:32 PM, said:

Good to be back...
Now I won't be very much help in this discussion for a bit, as I live closer to Dallas, TX than I do to Fayetteville, but I would like to add this:  Downtown Fayetteville is absolutely GORGEOUS in fall.  I'll be at the U of A next year, and I hope to experience all that is Fayetteville.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Great, if there ever anything you want to know about the area let me know.

[FortSmithGuy]

johnnydr87, on Jun 17 2005, 07:46 PM, said:

Fayetteville's also fairly close to Fort Smith, no?  That's why the 50 mile radius population is so big.

According to google, Springfield is 45 miles away from Branson.  Fort Smith 57 from Fayetteville.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

IIRC, isn't Fort Smith the 2nd largest city in AR, population-wise, right behind Little Rock?  I don't think they include the populations of the handful of small towns around here in that total.

And to include Fort Smith in Fayetteville's population base is just plain silly.

[Mith242]

FortSmithGuy, on Jul 17 2005, 04:42 PM, said:

IIRC, isn't Fort Smith the 2nd largest city in AR, population-wise, right behind Little Rock?  I don't think they include the populations of the handful of small towns around here in that total.

And to include Fort Smith in Fayetteville's population base is just plain silly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yep Ft Smith is the second biggest city, and yes that is just what's in the city limits.  That's not including the metro area.  Although if you go by metro area Ft Smith is further down the list.  To be honest I'm not sure where Ft Smith's metro is exactly.  But I do know it's behind Little Rock's metro of course, and also behind northwest Arkansas's metro.  Technically there's also Memhpis since West Memhis is in Arkansas.  I'm not sure where Texarkana stands either but more of it's population is on the Texas side.  Come to think of it Ft Smith is the only metro on the border where more or most of the population is on the Arkansas side.  But anyway welcome to the board, it's nice to have someone else stop by.

[Mith242]

In another topic Arkansawyer raised a point about worried that northwest Arkansas will lose some of it's Arkansas character because so many people from out of stae are moving in.  As I have said before I think northwest Arkansas has always been a bit different from the rest of the state in the first place.  And although there have been a lot of Californians and hispanics and people from other parts of the country move in.  Quite a few people seem to be not too far from over the border in Missouri and Oklahoma.  Besides one of the complaints people have had about the Ozarks in general is that it lacks ethnic diversity.  This is one way to help work on that.  That and if we relied mainly on just people from other parts of the state to move here we'd have to wait a long time because Arkansas really isn't a very populous state.  But I do think Fayetteville will be the one best able to keep it's identity than the other northwest Arkansas cities.  Fayetteville has rather strict building codes and such and have seemed to try to keep the growth in control and let much of it go elsewhere in northwest Arkansas.  In a lot of ways Fayetteville reminds me of Santa Fe, both are about the same size.  Both have strict building codes.  Now Santa Fe has changed since it's small town days in the 60's and 70's but it is interesting to see how many anglos have picked up the hispanic culture.  Instead of all the anglos going in and totally destroying all the hispanic culture.  Although it's a different situation, I'd like to think Fayetteville will be somewhat similar in this aspect.

[johnnydr87]

FortSmithGuy, on Jul 17 2005, 03:42 PM, said:

IIRC, isn't Fort Smith the 2nd largest city in AR, population-wise, right behind Little Rock?  I don't think they include the populations of the handful of small towns around here in that total.

And to include Fort Smith in Fayetteville's population base is just plain silly.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Of course it's the 2nd biggest.  82,000.

I was referring to the website (which you may be doing), which measured not only Fayetteville's metro, but also edge into Fort Smith's metro.

[Mith242]

Well I've been noticed in the northwest edition of the Ark Dem-Gaz there has been some negative comments made in the editorial section about the light rail.  It seems many people think it's unrealistic.  No one has exactly knocked the idea, but they think it's a waste of money because they simply don't believe it will be used because of our vehicle-driven society.  I admit it is an expensive risk.  But I also wonder if they are looking at the big picture.  It has been mentioned that there isn't a huge need for one now.  But you have to get started now or else it will become prohibitively expensive when there is more need for one.  I also am wondering if anyone is considering the possiblity that traffic could get much much worse in the future.  people might start giving it a lot more thought if a trip from say Fayetteville to Rogers becomes too much of a hassle.  They've got an enormous amount of lansa and expressways around LA and it still seems they have major traffic problems.  Seems to me that no matter how many lanes of traffic you put in you're still going to have problems.  There are problems and limitations to a vehicle-driven society.  While it is a risk, I still applaud that people here are willing to take alternative looks at ways of improving problems we have here.

[johnnydr87]

If it's marketed and built correctly, I think the idea would fly.  Plus, I think that a lot of urban developments would be made just to accomodate it...which could be a major plus in the future.

[Mith242]

johnnydr87, on Jul 18 2005, 04:03 PM, said:

If it's marketed and built correctly, I think the idea would fly.  Plus, I think that a lot of urban developments would be made just to accomodate it...which could be a major plus in the future.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I certainly agree, but there are deffinantly those who want to just focus on the traditional more roads and more lanes outlook.  It is easier to justify building more roads and more lanes when you know they will certainly be used.  As opposed to a light rail that is a possibility on whether it will be accepted or not.

Edited by Mith242, 18 July 2005 - 03:13 PM.

[Mith242]

Well development has spread to Beaver Lake now.  There are plans to build condos 12-25 stories tall in two different areas of Beaver Lake.  There has been some development on the west side of Beaver Lake near Rogers but nothing like this.  I haven't heard where exactly these condos will be built on Beaver Lake.  Of course some people aren't happy to see this much development starting to happen further away from the main metro area.  Although it's really just been a matter of time.  It's another advantage that Rogers has over other cities in the metro area.  They managed to annex a lot of prime real estate around I-540 before all the major growth started and they have Beaver Lake to the east of them.

Edited by Mith242, 19 July 2005 - 04:32 PM.

[Mith242]

Perhaps I shouldn't have named this topic Fayetteville but northwest Arkansas, since I tend to put the whole northwest Arkansas metro and not just Fayetteville.  But anyway, on the local news they mentioned a problem I wasn't aware of.  There's a lot of growth going on in Rogers but it's in western Rogers.  There have actually been some problems in east Rogers because some businesses and moved where all the growth is in the west part of town leaving some empty vacant buildings in east Rogers.  Something that might be somewhat surprising seeing all the growth going on elsewhere in Rogers.  Although I really believe this will be temporary.  Eventually I imagine growth will slow down in west Rogers as development fill up more and more of the now empty areas.  Second of all I think there is a lot of potential in east Rogers due to it's location to Beaver Lake.  With condoes and more high dollar development happen around Beaver Lake it will help business pick up on the east side of Rogers.  I forgot to mention this but those proposed condos near Beaver Lake will be going from $100,000 to $1 Mil.

[Arkansawyer]

Mith242, on Jul 15 2005, 09:01 PM, said:

Well apparently they had some meetings about all the future projects possibly happening up here in northwest Arkansas.  Somehow while keeping up with all the news I somehow never saw this so I didn't get to go.  They set out all the plans and gave people coins/tokens.  You could put your tokens in the projects you thought were best or if you really liked one particular project you could put all your tokens just in it.  Here's how the results turned out.
Light Rail Transit--------------------320
Western Bypass---------------------307
Bike Facilities------------------------202
I-540 Improvements ---------------187
Arterial Road Network--------------180
Bus Service--------------------------150
Eastern Parkway----------------------91
Intelligent Transportation Systems--75
Ride-Share Programs-----------------52
This was in the northwest edition of the Ark Dem-Gaz by the way.  The article made sure to also make mention of some of the differences between the meetings between Fayetteville and Bentonville.  The extended bike facilities only got 13 tokens in Bentonville but got 189 in Fayetteville.  Just to help show how priorities are set in Fayetteville.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, given the method and scale of voting, it doesn't seem like this was intended to be a serious springboard for development, but just to give an rough idea of what the citizens want. In other words, it sounds as if action is far, far away. How many of these are pie in the sky, and how many do you see eventually happening, Mith? Also, what is the timetable you would give for some of these projects? From an outsider's perspective, I think it might be best to expand arterial routes rather than I-540.

Edited by Arkansawyer, 19 July 2005 - 12:48 AM.

[Mith242]

Arkansawyer, on Jul 19 2005, 01:47 AM, said:

Well, given the method and scale of voting, it doesn't seem like this was intended to be a serious springboard for development, but just to give an rough idea of what the citizens want. In other words, it sounds as if action is far, far away. How many of these are pie in the sky, and how many do you see eventually happening, Mith? Also, what is the timetable you would give for some of these projects? From an outsider's perspective, I think it might be best to expand arterial routes rather than I-540.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes this isn't any serious vote on what will happen but it does give them an idea in which to look.  But as far as any project that's going to happen in Arkansas it's not just around the corner by any means.  Are there any projects that happen that quickly in Arkansas?  maybe elsewhere but certainly not northwest Arkansas.  I have heard people talking a lot about expanding arterial routes instead of widening I-540.  But there also seem to be a lot of people who loath the idea of I-540 being more than just a four lane highway.  I think many people are trying to keep the area from seeming to much like a 'bigger' type metro.  I would imagine that the light rail idea will be much more popular in Fayetteville than the rest of northwest Arkansas.  Not that Fayetteville has more to gain, but Fayetteville seems much more open to alternative ideas than just about any other area I know of in Arkansas.  I mean Fayetteville is trying to establish a bike/jogging trail from the southern part of the city to the northern part of the city as an alternative route to give people reason to travel without their vehicles, not just for recreational use.  I'd say any of the projects will probably not be happening anytime soon.  We're still waiting for the 412 bypass around Springdale that we've been hearing about for years.  But a project like the light rail would especially be a very long project to accomplish due to what's involved and the cost.