Things are "really looking up" in Hot Springs, as far as highways go, according to the deputy director and COO of the Arkansas Department of Transportation.
"This is a great time to be in Hot Springs. We've got so much happening here," Randy Ort said recently. "A lot of stuff has been done in the past. A lot of stuff is underway right now."
The good news can be attributed to "the citizens of the state of Arkansas," Ort said. "You have enacted some legislation. The Legislature enacted some legislation. The people have gone to the polls and have supported highways and highway funding. And we're very, very, very grateful for that. A lot has been done. But the good news is there's a lot more coming."
Ort, in a recent speech to Hot Springs National Park Rotary Club, said highway funding has come a long way.
"Back in 1999, we had some of the worst interstates in the country, literally," he said. "We were one of only eight states in the country that had no bonded debt towards our highways. We had some of the worst interstates, so the people voted for forcing some additional revenue to allow us to issue, and we went from having some of the worst interstates in the country to some of the best."
Citizens in 2011 went back to the polls because they felt it was a successful program and wanted to continue the success, "and you're seeing the fruits of that going on right now," Ort said. "But the big thing was 2012, you all went to the polls in 2012 and you passed a half-cent general sales tax on yourselves for highway work."
This was a 10-year temporary tax that will go away in 2023. "We lined up the projects that were going to be done over that 10-year period of time, and we are on schedule with that program, I'm happy to say," Ort said.
"Beyond that, you all went back to the polls last November, and you voted to make that half-cent sales tax permanent. And that is going to be a fundamental change that I cannot express to you how important that is. You made the half-cent sales tax permanent."
He stressed the half-cent sales tax does not solve all the highway department's funding problems, though.
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"I don't want to give anybody the false impression we can meet all our needs," he said, "but being able to meet about 50% of our needs versus about 25% of our needs is a step in the right direction. More important than the amount of money that the half-cent sales tax is bringing in ... you've changed the structure, you change the mechanism for how we fund highways.
"We were totally reliant on registration fees on vehicles and the per-gallon tax on gasoline and diesel from since the early 1920s, so I'm so happy that we're getting away from that consumption tax. And as our main funding source, we now have a revenue stream that has potential for natural growth. The half-cent sales tax general revenue is going to give us a revenue stream that may actually grow some. Yes, the amount of money is important, but it's more important that the mechanism has grown."
Highways are not the only focus of upcoming projects. "Not everybody lives on the state highway," Ort said. "A lot of people live on county roads and city streets (are) very, very important. We feel it's very important to take care of what we already have. Everybody likes to go out and build a brand-new road, but we've got to do a better job of taking care of the roads and bridges that we have in place. This is not new construction. This is resurfacing, this may be adding some turn lanes. This is replacing or repairing all weight-restricted bridges in the state of Arkansas for the first 10 years."
In the Hot Springs area, "we've got $55 million set aside going forward for Highway 270," Ort said, "going from Hot Springs all the way out to Y City. Why is it important to west-central Arkansas? Because we're also going to improve I-49 coming south from Fayetteville that stops at I-40. We're going to build, not the ultimate four-lane interstate, but our plan is to build the initial two lanes of the ultimate four lanes of 49 all the way across the river south down to where Y City (and) 270 connects."
The highway will be useful for those traveling from Hot Springs to Fayetteville, because currently travelers go through Little Rock, or go up Highway 7. "This really is going to open up, I believe, west central Arkansas to the western part of the state," Ort said.
"We also have a good bit of money set aside for the interchange work to be done on the Highway 70 bypass," he said. "We need to do something about the interchanges. We've got to study what needs to be done there. But we also are going to make more improvements to Highway 7 going south towards Arkadelphia as well, another well-traveled route."
Ort said they have a "study going on to redo the interchanges along Highway 270 along the east-west arterial. As you know, they get very congested, they get very clogged up. There are some things we can do to make them handle the amount of traffic better. We hope to be able to announce the results of that planning study. But we've already got the money set aside and what you the public voted on last year to make this happen. So I don't know exactly what those improvements are going to look like right now but we should know about by the end of this year."
Ort says they will continue work on Highway 7 south from where the four-lane is right now, and will continue south just across the county line. "We're not wanting that to be four lanes at this point in time," he said, "but we are adding a center turn lane. We've got about 10 to $15 million, we're going to spend on passing lanes, just here in the next couple of years on Highway 7 between here and Arkadelphia."
Ort also discussed the project "I think everybody's familiar with," which "is extending the east-west arterial northward from Highway 70 all the way up to where Highway 7 and 5 come together. It's going along very well," he said.
"We've got a very good contractor out there ... McGeorge Contracting ... they're the ones who did the widening on U.S. Highway 70 between Hot Springs and Interstate 30. (They) did a very good job on that. I'm very pleased with the progress they're making on this project," he said.
"It looks like its estimated completion right now is going to be a little more than a year from now, late 2022. The interesting thing about this project, it will have a roundabout where (highways) 5 and 7 come together. That project's going to help so many. It's going to help alleviate a lot of traffic off Central Avenue. It's going to do a whole lot for people at the Hot Springs Village."
