Brawley: ‘We have no say-so’
MPO Study Director says Arkansas side of the river’s fate in the hands of TDOT with bridge project
By John Rech
news@theeveningtimes.
The West Memphis Metropolitan Planning Organization finished with its series of first quarter meeting with a run-through of road improvement projects for the next generation.
Marion Mayor Frank Fogleman quipped that he did not know why the group was looking ahead farther than most everyone’s life expectancy. His counterpart, West Memphis Mayor McClendon noted he’d only be 65 come 2046. As the grand preview of roadways yet-to-come was unveiled, one project drew questions from McClendon.
The overview of the Crump Boulevard and Interstate 55 Interchange reconstruction in Memphis elicited the McClendon’s inquiry.
The project will reduce traffic on the Memphis and Arkansas Bridge to one lane each way.
Road work at the Tennessee end of the old bridge was set to start this year.
“Is it really going to be one lane for seven years? Is that the max?” asked McClendon.
“It’ll take six or seven years to do with one lane open,” said MPO Study Director Eddie Brawley. “They backed off their original plan to shut the whole thing down for two years to go back to the “old way” (of conducting traffic).
The seven years was a guess. I’m hoping the contractors won’t want it to take that long.”
“Its a tough nut because everything is built over existing traffic lanes, but I can’t imagine it would take that long,” ventured Marion City Planner Ed Cain.
One sober statement came with the one remaining unanswered detail about the whether interstate trucking would be diverted to Interstate 40.
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MPO Study Director Eddie Brawley OLD BRIDGE————
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“I don’t know if they will put the trucks over to Interstate 40 or not,” said Brawley. “It was in the books that way at one time but now going back to the old way, I am not sure about that.
We have no say so from this point on.”
In all 29 road improvement projects were previewed during the meeting through the year 2048.
The MPO scheduled four bridges needing rework over Ten Mile Bayou in West Memphis. The Redding Street bridge that fell apart during reconstruction in February 2019 next gets contires struction in 2024. The delay allowed the project to get state highway grant funds to reduce the estimated $829,000 box culvert redesign.
Park Avenue Bridge revamp was slated for 2026 with a price tag of $862,000. Planners estimated the 2030 bridge replacement on Ingram Boulevard at $1.51 million dollars. The Rich Road Bridge cost projected at $971,210 in 2032. The Lehr Street bridge was listed on current plans awaiting transportation department approval.
The Marriage of Hino Road from highway 147 east to Southland Drive via AFC O road with an Interstate 55 overpass was listed in phases beginning in 2034.
Improving Kuhn Road and adding an Interstate 40 exit and entrance started with a funding in 2027.
Seven phases mark the widening of Old Military Road and Mound City Road From the Marion the BNSF crossing on Old Military Road in Marion past the new subdivisions on Mound city Road. The work was slated for widening a few thousand feet of roadway at a time over a 20 year span beginning in 2028.
Marion was slated for an Interstate 55 overpass connecting L.H. Polk starting with funding beginning in 2025.
The two lane South Loop connection was marked for construction start later this year.
The plans were at 60 percent completion.
Planners discussed the right of way acquisition. The project cost estimate cost $12 million.
The MPO planned 2020 improvements to Seventh Street from Broadway to Highway 77 for $7.24 million.
The work would include the first roundabout intersection in the area at Southland Drive just north of the hospital.
