Arkansas Blog

Thanks for the vigilance; please keep us posted.

I'd hope the fact that the Riverdale area is already considered congested during rush hour would be enough to discourage planners from sending more traffic to the area. You are right on about other areas needing road work more! Especially after the recent vote on increasing the Mayor's powers; people will be watching to see if Little Rock's government takes care of the infrastructure needs of the poorer areas of the city.

I agree with the assessment that traffic on Cantrell is not nearly as congested as we are led to believe. In fact, its not all that bad for a collector blvd through neighborhoods traffic lights and all.

Last Spring, Monday May 7th, a commuter challenge was held between Mayor Stodola driving a car from the intersection of Mississippi and Cantrell and cyclist Donnie Van Patter from the base of the BDB. The challenge was to see who would get to downtown LR first. (There was also one held on the NLR side with Mayor Hayes driving and Eric Gustafson cycling, but the subject here is on the traffic on Cantrell during AM rush) The Mayor would drive on Cantrell following the speed limit. Donnie would predicatably use the trails as designated and obey all traffic laws as well.

Initial plans for the event called for the challenge to start at 7 AM. Those familiar with a drive know there is no traffic to speak of on Cantrell at that time. 7:15 AM? Nope, still not enough to slow the car down. OK, 7:20 AM? No. 7:30 AM. That should be late enough and that's when it started. Nope, still not late enough.

As it was, the Mayor reported that even by following the 35 mph speed limit he was being passed all the time by cars going 10 - 20 mph faster. He arrived in LR just 2 minutes ahead of the cyclist. The finish time would have been closer had the cyclist not been delayed by traffic lights on W Markham.

As reported by several people trying to make it to the finish line, the traffic on Cantrell really picked up and became congested around 7:45 AM

What this tells me is:
1) Traffic on Cantrell is not congested in the AM unless you wait to leave at the last minute like a large number of motorists seem to do given an 8AM show time at work.
2) Motorists, once reaching LaHarpe, have an even easier time getting into LR than someone trying to use W Markham

Observations. UALR cited human engineering as one of the solutions to traffic congestion in their study over a year ago. We see that with every one leaving home so close to 8 AM, converging at the same time on the downtown area and worried about being late that frustrations evolve. If motorists would leave home sooner then this would be resolved in part.

Likewise, departure times from work can be engineered to the same affect. If everyone leaves at once, it will be congested. As motorist's spread out further away from the city center the flow picks up.

Or, motorists can elect to occasionally use another way to get to work other than a car. A way that fewer people use, is less congested or not congested at all and gives you the liberty to travel when you darn well please without consideration for anyone else. Wouldn't that be nice?

"I thought of it while riding my bicycle" - Albert Einstein,

ARK. BLOG: Great contribution. Thanks.

I used to work in Riverdale. I had to be there at 8:30 am. Traffic is never as bad on Cantrell as University, Markham, and several other roads. I could leave pretty late from the other side of the river and make it on time most mornings, unless something was happening on 30 or the Broadway bridge. I don't see any reason to address this before numerous other problems in other parts of the city.