Salem, Saltillo roads to receive stimulus funding

Faulkner County will take a slice of the $350 million in stimulus package money heading Arkansas' way, it was decided in Metroplan and Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department meetings Wednesday.

The $5 million Salem Road railroad overpass project will get funding from Metroplan's $14.2 million cut of the money, it was announced Wednesday at a Metroplan Board of Directors meeting. A $2 million project to relocate a section of Saltillo Road, identified by County Judge Preston Scroggin as the a road project that came about "in the right time and place" to benefit from the stimulus package, was also picked for funding at an Arkansas Highway Commission meeting that day.

"The Salem Road overpass ... is going to be paid for by stimulus money in 80/20 match," Mayor Tab Townsell, a member of the Metroplan board, said. "It could have been 100-percent match, but that project is going to eat up somewhere between half and a third of Metroplan's total allocation. To spread the money further, we're still maintaining the 80/20 match formula."

Townsell said this project was already set to got to bid this year with funding from normal Metroplan revenues, but the stimulus package money accelerates this plan "somewhat" while freeing up the Metroplan funds originally dedicated to Salem Road for other projects.

The Saltillo Road project involves "straightening out" an S-curve at the approximate halfway point between the communities of Saltillo and Hamlet and building a new bridge there where the road crosses a creek. Scroggin said this project will not be directly funded by stimulus money, but rather by regular AHTD funding streams that now flow more freely with the addition of federal money.

Also, $24 million in stimulus money is going toward overlay projects, two of which are on Highway 65: One through Greenbrier and one on the Interstate 40 off ramp in Conway. Vilonia will also benefit from the stimulus package, with Safe Routes to School program funding made available for a sidewalk, complete with pedestrian bridge, connecting downtown Vilonia and the Vilonia School District campus.

These and other statewide projects leave AHTD about $300 million that hasn't been spoken for, and the highway department must have at least half of this amount obligated to projects by July 8, AHTD spokesman Glenn Bolick said. With more than $1 billion in projects that need only funding to begin, Bolick said, spending the money will not be a problem, but it won't be soaked up by a few large projects.

"(The highway commission) is going to look at this money in the spirit of the bill, as an economic stimulus, not a highway program," Bolick said. "We're looking at projects that will stimulate the Arkansas economy. It won't necessarily be the most needed project out there. We're probably talking more (smaller) projects as opposed to fewer large projects. We could go out and spend a very large sum on one project, like the Vilonia bypass, but the spirit of the bill would be to split that.

"We're not only talking about spreading that to different corners of the state, but to different contractors, different suppliers opening that opportunity to everybody in the business," he said.

(Staff writer Joe Lamb can be reached by e-mail at joe.lamb@thecabin.net or by phone at 505-1238. Send us your news at www.thecabin.net/submit)