City suggesting changes to Gordon Hollow Road project
Posted on Tuesday, February 26, 2008
BELLA VISTA - The city will recommend to the Property Owners Association a realignment of the proposed Gordon Hollow Road widening project, which should quell safety and traffic concerns of residents at the project's southern end in Bella Vista.
Moving the southern portion of Gordon Hollow Road to the east would allow for an additional arterial street to be built - connecting Oniell Drive to Scotsdale Drive - to avoid an increase in traffic congestion, according to a resolution passed Monday at the City Council's monthly meeting.
"If the road ends where the POA wants it to, that will be the end of it," Alderman Doug Farner said.
The well-traveled shortcut from the west side of the city to just across the Missouri state line at U. S. Highway 71 would be expanded to four lanes until it leads into Oniell Drive, a narrow residential street that cannot hold the amount of traffic the project could create.
A traffic study performed there a year ago showed approximately 1, 350 vehicles each day take Gordon Hollow Road from the west side of Bella Vista to U. S. 71, according to Travis Harp, Benton County assistant administrator.
Several residents from Oniell Drive attended the meeting and applauded when the council passed the resolution.
"It's a collision waiting to happen," said resident Jack Kellog of the current project alignment. "The street can't handle the volume it has today."
The proposed project is a joint effort between Benton County and McDonald County, Mo., along with the POA, which must release easements on land it owns in the area.
Gordon Hollow Road winds through McDonald County from U. S. 71 and across a lowwater bridge - slated to be replaced in the project - before the road crosses the state line into an unincorporated county area and joins Oniell Drive in Bella Vista.
In other business, the council passed a resolution to seek federal funds for the construction of a traffic signal at the intersection of Arkansas highways 279 and 340.
Based on traffic studies performed by the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, the intersection meets the criteria to warrant a traffic light, Mayor Frank Anderson said.
The federal aid, part of a bill signed in 2005 by President George W. Bush that will allocate $ 244 billion to states and cities for highway projects through 2009, was touted as the largest transportation investment in the country's history.
Eighty percent of a project's cost would constitute the federal aid, with states and cities both chipping in 10 percent each. The bill's Surface Transportation Program includes projects on eligible highways relating to intersections that have high accident and congestion rates.
Also on Monday, the council did the following • Heard a second reading on a proposed animal-control ordinance • Heard second readings of three proposed nuisance ordinances regarding parking of vehicles, noise and nuisance structures; and • Put on hold until next month's meeting a nuisance ordinance involving unsanitary conditions.
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