BENTON COUNTY : Wider U.S. 62 to skirt military park, Garfield
Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/239784/
GARFIELD — A plan to divert U. S. 62 north of downtown Garfield apparently caught one business owner and the mayor by surprise Thursday.
After a June 12 public hearing, they thought the public favored the downtown route.
“We want it to go right through the middle of town, like one of the routes showed,” said Tommie Cheatham, who owns The Shortstop, a convenience store along the highway. “I thought the feeling at the meeting was, in general, that the public favored the route through downtown.”
Mayor Laura Hamilton agreed.
“I’m surprised,” she said. “I thought most of the public comment I heard was for it going down the existing Main Street. Some of those businesses down there rely on the traffic.”
On Thursday, Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department officials announced the preferred route, which shows U. S. 62 being diverted south of Pea Ridge National Military Park and north around downtown Garfield.
“We’ve got to consider their comments, the costs, the environmental aspects, historical aspects,” said David Nilles, a Highway Department spokesman. “All that goes into the mix. When it’s all said and done, that’s what we came up with.”
The entire 10 1 / 2-mile project includes widening the highway from two to four lanes from Avoca to Arkansas 37 at Gateway. Total cost is estimated at $ 44. 5 million.
The proposed route wasn’t universally disliked by those in Garfield.
“I am very, very happy,” said Jimmy Chen, who owns the Buss Stop Grill in Garfield. Famous for its foot-tall ice cream cones, the 46-year-old Buss Stop might have been razed for right-of-way if a southern route had been chosen.
“If they go south, this corner would be finished,” Chen said.
The new route also takes the busy highway away from historic Garfield Elementary School and into farmland a quarter-mile to the north. The school zone will be safer and quieter as a result, Principal Suzanne Ellington said.
“Preserving our school is important to us,” she said of the one-story structure built in 1942 of native limestone. The school is on the National Register of Historic Places.
West of Garfield, near Wimpy Jones Road, U. S. 62 will branch to the north for about a mile, effectively bypassing the heart of Garfield and reconnecting with the old route near Roberts Road.
Before requesting approval from the Federal Highway Administration, the state Highway Department must conduct surveys and archeological investigations, then come up with a preliminary design. Construction on the 6. 4-mile stretch from Avoca to Garfield could begin as early
1 as 2012 and be complete in 2 / 2 years, Nilles said. No time estimates have been made for the second phase, which consists of 4. 1 miles from Garfield to Gateway. U. S. 62 passes through the southern part of the 4, 300-acre Pea Ridge National Military Park, where about 26, 000 Civil War solders fought in March 1862. The proposed route will move the highway about one-tenth of a mile to the south, where it will skirt the southeastern edge of the military park for about 1. 5 miles.
The proposed highway improvements include four lanes with an 11-foot painted median and 8-foot shoulders. There will be a 30-foot “clear zone” on both sides of the new highway, except within Gateway, where the lanes will be a foot narrower at 11 feet with a 12-foot painted median. The new route may affect some businesses, but Hamilton, the mayor, said motorists heading to Beaver Lake still will provide some economic stimulus to her town of 457 people. “We’re still going to have the lake traffic,” she said. “So I’m hoping that’s going to be enough to sustain our businesses that are related to tourism.”