U.S. 62 project halfway done
Posted on Friday, July 25, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/67466/
The widening of U. S. 62 between Farmington and Prairie Grove is about halfway complete, according to state highway department officials.
Work on the $ 14 million widening project began in the spring of 2007 and is estimated to be completed in the spring of 2009.
Randy Ort, spokesperson for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, said the project is 4. 6 miles in length and basically widens the road from two to five lanes with curb and gutter through the city of Farmington. Once outside the city limits, he said, the road is widened to two travel lanes with a striped median and open shoulders.
The project stretches from Highway 170 in Farmington to the Illinois River Bridge.
Two new traffic signals have been installed as part of the project — one at the Highway 170 intersection in Farmington and one west of Farmington at Rae’s Mill Road.
The signals should be activated within the next week or two, Ort said.
“ Generally (the signals ) will just flash for the first week or so before going into operational mode, ” he said. “ That gives people the chance to recognize that they’re there and get used to them. ”
The signals are the result of traffic studies conducted in 2004 that determined traffic counts exceeded the necessary threshold to warrant their installation at both intersections.
The widening project will eventually lead to a Prairie Grove bypass.
The highway department identified a route last spring for U. S. 62 to bypass Prairie Grove to the south. The bypass will consist of four travel lanes with open shoulders and a grass median.