FORT SMITH, Ark. — Halff Associates of Little Rock has developed an alternate downtown Fort Smith truck route with an estimated cost of $4.5 million. The plan will be presented the Fort Smith Board of Directors at a Tuesday (Dec. 6) study session at the Fort Smith Convention Center.
James Arbuckle, vice president with Halff Associates, reported to the Fort Smith Board of Directors from a downtown traffic and truck study conducted throughout 2019 in February, offering “seven truck routing scenarios to reduce the negative impacts of large trucks traveling through downtown and to mitigate delays caused by conflicts between trucks and other travel movements.” Of those, two alternatives plus a no-build alternative were evaluated based on how well they addressed the project goals, objectives and performance measures, Arbuckle said.
Arbuckle, project manager of the Fort Smith Downtown Traffic and Truck Study, and his team spent most of 2019 meeting with key players, looking at survey results and reviewing traffic studies in order to come up with viable solutions to the downtown traffic.
The Fort Smith Board of Directors passed a resolution in November 2018 that authorized an engineering services agreement with Halff Associates of Little Rock for the Fort Smith Downtown Traffic and Truck Study. The study, not to cost more than $151,986, is based on recommendations from the Propelling Downtown Forward Plan, which was adopted by the board in August 2017 as “a master plan addressing specific development and revitalization issues in the downtown and Central Business Improvement District (CBID) areas,” information on the study states.