A new "urban lifestyle" for the city of Conway or a lack of space for Hendrix College is the question we need to be asking. Hendrix College has been steadily increasing its enrollment and is running out of space. This isn't a new issue but it is the impetus for the new village. Just like many other colleges across the state Hendrix's enrollment is quickly growing, so much so that the need to expand is a must for the college. But what kind of expansion will they need? One that offers the most efficient use of the land they own. Hence the Village, the new urban lifestyle.
The designers of this project have come up with a plan that emphases pedestrian traffic thereby reducing the need for parking. The idea here is to have shops, living space, and the college campus all within walking distance of each other. This way students have access to everything they could need while at school. The designers have done a masterful job with the village concept but have a slight problem, Hwy 64 better know as Harkrider.
Harkrider, the great divide, separates the campus from its visionary village concept. With traffic speeding by it will make it difficult to integrate the campus with its village via the one lone footbridge. So designers had an idea, why not make the highway part of the village, this way it would create a nearly seamless transition from campus to village. But how do you sell that idea to a city? Why you overload their senses with highly graphical presentations and tantalize them with visions of prosperity. Let's add a roundabout and sell this as an integral part of the design. Not only will it effectively take over Harkrider, it also will make it great focal point and draw much attention to our changing campus.
This all sounds great, if you are on the board of directors of Hendrix College, but for the average citizens of Conway who live, work, or travel by the campus it stinks. Now we cannot fault Hendrix for wanting to make the best of its property, the village sure does that, but the integration of Harkrider into the plan and passing it off as needed for the plan to succeed goes beyond being good neighbors to its city. What I fail to understand is why the Mayor would cast the deciding vote that allowed Hendrix to proceed without seeing the final plan. It was a very irresponsible decision on his part, he obviously was swayed by all the pretty details and could not see past the dollar signs swimming in his eyes.
Does Hendrix need this Village? Absolutely. Will the city benefit from Hendrix's Village? Again the answer is yes. Does the city and state have to sacrifice Harkrider for this Village? Absolutely Not. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Hendrix College is the only one who will benefit from a roundabout on Harkrider, not the city, not the state, and not the taxpayer. So people call your state representatives and have the roundabout idea rejected. We do not need to spend any of our tax dollars to fund a private venture. . .
3 comments:
KTHV's website has video of the Clearwater FL roundabout that handles about 10,000 more vehicles per day than Harkrider. During spring break, it handles more than that.
How many vehicles a day does Harkrider handle and where did you get this figure? That seems to be missing from this equation. We, the public, have been told that these roundabouts are a necessity but where are the facts that state so? Early on in these discussions the questions was asked what if the roundabouts don’t work? They said they would simply install the traditional traffic lighting again. The question then is if traditional light will work as a contingency plan then why won’t the work instead of the roundabouts.
Now the Clearwater Roundabout when it was first constructed it was a nightmare for the citizens of the area. It was touted as being a colossal disaster and the city had to spend millions of dollars for alterations. After many years, and those millions of dollars lost, it finally did work out for them. However Clearwater’s situation called for a roundabout. They had 5 heavily traveled intersections converging at nearly the same point with a lot of pedestrian traffic so the roundabout was needed.
At Hendrix however this is not the case. Even after the village is complete it will not the traffic in and out of the area will not rise to the level of need for a roundabout. If you look closely at the KTHV video you will see in the bottom right-hand side of the shot there is a pileup of traffic waiting for their turn to enter the circle. About 12 to 15 cars stopped as if they were at a light. And notice the traffic in the circle, they are group as if they had been at a light that had just turned green. How is this any different to what we have now? People will still have to stop from time to time, just as they do now. The only difference is they are all having to go slower and that will cause traffic problems in and around the area.
The simple truth here is the roundabouts are not needed, they are only being used to slow down traffic to benefit the college and tax
I live downtown not far from the intersection. The traffic lights there (actually all the traffic lights on Harkrider) are awful, and a roundabout will be a major improvement. I wish we had roundabouts in town years ago, but the intersection that REALLY needed it was the 64/65 split. Now the city has let it build up too much for that to be a reasonable option. Whoever approved putting the Sonic, IHOP, Lowe's and doctor's office drives so close together just was not thinking about safety or traffic.
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