AHTD, mayors meet on road-closing communication
By Bill Lawson and Peggy Kenyon / Staff Writers / blawson@jacksonvillepatriot.com
Thursday, February 4, 2010 11:55 AM CST
On Christmas Eve the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department shut down Arkansas 67/167 just south of Jacksonville’s Redmond Road exit to I-440 because of rising floodwaters, creating problems for holiday travelers.
David Nilles, a spokesman for the AHTD, said the traffic count on that half-mile stretch of highway that runs through what locals call the bean field is around 58,000 vehicles on an average day, and considerably more during a holiday.
The highway opened back up on Dec. 26 at 1:15 p.m., Nilles said, but the confusion motorists suffered is still on the minds of local authorities.
He said that AHTD director Dan Flowers, engineer Emanuel Banks and spokesman Randy Ort met with the mayors of Jacksonville, Cabot, Sherwood, Ward and Austin to make plans to communicate better.
“We were trying to get better communications with the highway department,” Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher said.
Fletcher said he wanted highway department officials to give cities notification ahead of time of such actions (road closures). “We didn’t get any notice (of the road closures due to the Christmas flood).”
He said that although AHTD now knows of his request, no firm method to contact city officials was implemented during the meeting. “It was just a brainstorming session,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher said he believes AHTD needs to expand its Intelligent Transportation System, which consists of electronic signs denoting road closures, and including alternate route information.
At Christmas Fletcher said about 60,000 motorists ended up on Jacksonville roadways without any official information about a safe route.
Nilles said that the group agreed to meet again. Mayors were asked to identify streets within their cities that didn’t flood that can be used as a detour route.
And highway officials will make plans on how to handle should an occurrence in the future.
For example, Nilles said the AHTD will shut down the entrance ramps to flooded highways to prevent motorists from getting stuck, post stationary and electronic signs out from the closure further away to alert travelers, as well as identify contact points within the cities to alert about such a closing.
