GRIDLOCK GURU : U.S. 62 east of I-540 can try patience
Posted on Friday, September 12, 2008
Vance Vanderburg of Eureka Springs thinks U. S. 62 through Rogers toward Interstate 540 is a bear.
The Guru this week sought out the traffic jam to feel Vanderburg’s pain and because he ain’t scared of no bears.
There’s also space to figure out what’s up with a Springdale traffic light that’s acting up.
Question: “Traffic going west on U. S. 62 is often jammed for about two miles east of I-540, causing delays of 15-20 minutes or more,” Vanderburg writes. “It’s caused by improperly spaced stoplights. The Bekaert Road stoplight near the Sam’s Club gas station lets traffic entering U. S. 62 fill the lanes going west, preventing U. S. 62 traffic from going through the green light. I would hope U. S. highway traffic would have priority. Even if that’s not the case, the stoplights along U. S. 62 need to be adjusted to better manage traffic flow.”
Answer: The section of U. S. 62 that jams up is near Bentonville’s Northwest Arkansas Community College, but the traffic clogs farther to the east in Rogers.
The Guru spent Wednesday morning there, driving on U. S. 62 between 24 th Street in Rogers and I-540 in Bentonville. Most westbound trips were five to seven minutes.
The trips got longer when a woman in a red Toyota Prius who was headed north on I-540 exited the highway and turned left to go to Bentonville while texting on her cell phone. Few people can text and turn. She did, and she blocked the intersection, meaning other westbound drivers couldn’t go when they saw green.
Traffic worsened after 8 a. m. when a tractor-trailer turning left off I-540 hit a car. Bentonville police cleared the wreck quickly, but it was too late. Traffic backed up past the community college, and The Guru’s next trip west took 12 minutes.
Cars stretched past Bekaert Road. The few drivers turning left off Bekaert did fill the U. S. 62 lanes going west sometimes, but it was nothing over-the-top bad.
The Guru welcomes other e-mail about the area. Surely, he caught U. S. 62 on a good day.
Q: “What is wrong with the stoplight in front of Lowe’s in Springdale ?” writes Becky Baugh of Springdale. “When you leave Lowe’s, the light never turns green. I sat for 15 minutes at that light, blocked by cars waiting to turn left and the light is constantly red.
“ Cars coming from the opposite direction get a green light. This happened three times to me, and I have ended up waiting for cars behind me to back up and turn right so I can do the same. I have also parked across Sunset Avenue and observed other cars sit and sit, and it never turns green.”
A: Moisture and filth on the video detection camera’s lens can cause it not to detect cars and that may be what happened when Baugh’s vehicle sat on Rieff Street waiting for the Sunset light to change, said Dub Janczys, Springdale’s signalization supervisor. The city replaced the camera Tuesday.
“The most common issue is diesel exhaust and dirt clouding the lens,” Janczys writes. “The cameras are like our eyes. If they have dirt in front of them, they don’t see too well.” Robert J. Smith, aka The Guru, writes on traffic issues in Northwest Arkansas each Friday. He can be reached at gridlockguru @arkansasonline. com or www. nwanews. com / gridlockguru
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