Vehicles travel north near the site of a flyover bridge that will soon connect College Avenue traffic to the Fulbright Expressway and the Mall Avenue and Shiloh Drive area.
Todd Gill, Flyer Staff
City officials expect work to soon begin on the highly anticipated flyover bridge that will connect northbound College Avenue traffic to the Fulbright Expressway and shopping areas near the Northwest Arkansas Mall.
Instead of making a U-turn at Joyce Boulevard, drivers will be able to take a left-lane bridge that extends over southbound College Avenue traffic. Drivers can then head west on the Fulbright Expressway or exit into the Mall Avenue and Shiloh Drive area between Logan’s Roadhouse and Olive Garden.
A conceptual drawing shows how the flyover bridge will connect northbound College Avenue traffic to the Fulbright Expressway and the Mall Avenue area.
Staff-modified graphic
Pre-construction work could start as early as Monday, Jan. 28, including installation of signage, mobilization of equipment, and placement of silt fencing and other erosion and sediment control devices.
No lane closures are planned as part of the pre-construction process.
Emery Sapp & Sons of Columbia, Mo. was the low bidder on the project and has been awarded the $6.3 million construction contract. The contract allots 17 months for the company to complete and open the bridge to traffic.
The flyover project is 80 percent funded by a 2006 federal earmark appropriation for the Fayetteville Expressway Economic Development Corridor. The city’s portion, which will be paid from the Transportation Bond Fund, is expected to cost about $1.47 million.
The project is scheduled to be complete by mid-2014.
So the flyover will be after the 71/Millsap stop light? The flyover is to avoid having to go through 2 stoplights and now you will have to go through just 1 stoplight? Steep price to pay to add an eyesore and avoid 5 minutes transit.
Should have been done 40 years ago when the bypass was first built.
Its not just about avoiding 5 minutes of transit..think about how much less traffic will be at the joyce intersection(one of the busiest intersections in arkansas); which means you wont have to wait for 3 lights just to pass through anymore..thus reducing your 5 minutes of transit drastically if your heading through Joyce. Also if I remember correctly the plans showed a new ‘exit’ to Mall Ave.? If you were a business owner along that street your thoughts would be much different on this new addition.
The Joyce/College intersection has always been a crowded nightmare at peak hours, and a significant number of cars reach it intending to make an illegal and dangerous U-turn there or at the top of the hill.
A bypass will relieve a lot of pressure on that intersection and free up the left turn lanes for people who actually want to turn left onto Joyce. I can’t wait for it to be operational.
i dont think it is an illegal U-turn but i agree it is much needed. They should have included an eastbound flyover to Joyce. Atleast we are getting something.
What would really be nice is if we could level the whole interchange and replace it with a giant roundabout.
Better late than never. This area still isn’t near as bad as Wedington at 540. Hands down the worst planning I’ve ever seen.
You think they actually did any planning? A group of drunken monkeys could have designed a better interchange than HWY16/I540.
When I540 was built it was designed to be a bypass only- no one knew NWA was going to grow so much so quickly. It was a major fight to have the Wedington Rd. intersection to be built with an overpass. The Fayetteville bypass section was built before it was sure that the section north of it would be built. Just to shed some perspective on it all.,
What do you mean “No one knew” More like No one would listen, Just like now! Traffic will double again by 2025! Where’s THAT plan? They simply wave there hand some kind of Jedi and that’s the end of it. I’ve been asked if the University of Arkansas actually had Engineering Department. I told them “Well tuition is cheap”~
In the late 70′s when the bypass was being planned the UA had 14,000 students and Fayetteville had a population in the 35,000 range. No one knew that the UA would grow to 24,000 or the city population would double, or for that matter that the entire metro would grow to 450,000.
Agreed. Apart from the mall, the area around the bypass was essentially rural when the highway was built.
While not ideal, that intersection functioned pretty well for the first 20 years of its existence. Glad to see a flyover being built now.
Like I said NO ONE would listen! I was in highschool at the time and I knew geez. Just wave your hand again and tell me NO, that’s how it’s done around here.
Harp’s, Wal-Mart, gas station Bus station Hotel, strip malls, etc were all approved within the past ten years without one iota of thought for traffic hazzards.
I’m with you that planning for future traffic has been botched. We’ve needed the flyover for several years. Now, if we can only get the university to ban freshman from bringing cars…
Some nice changes happening for NWA transit as Springdale moves forward with a couple projects as well. Agreed this fly over is way overdue, but will help traffic once complete.
What about the South bound rubber necking, yield, on ramp thingy from Fulbright Expy? I see at least one rear end collision there everyday! East on milsap from Fulbright in a 18wheeler, Oh wait he’s making a u-turn north.
I was thinking about this as well in regards to the flyover work–when are they going to fix that awful yield onto college from Fullbright? It’s possible that it won’t ever be fixed without a ramp to get to Millsap (a bit ridiculous), an earlier exit and discontinuation of that section of road (ain’t gonna happen), or additional lanes on College to remove the yield (probably the hardest as loads still want to turn to get onto Millsap).
The continuation of Shiloh Dr. across the creek to tie in by the “Tilted Kilt” would help that dead zone of business and maybe eliviate the gaunlet of traffic going up Mall Avenue in between Wal-Mart and Bed, Bath and Beyond. I suspect that traffic will increase exponential with the completion of the flyover.
The entire area around should be studied in colleges across America as a prime example of poor planning.
I wonder if there’s any way in heck they can save that old oak tree there, or if they’ll even consider it.