Proposed US 412 Upgrade

[Road Hog]

If you think those overpasses are narrow now, imagine what it was like driving those 1960s and early 1970s land yachts back in the day.

[MikieTimT]

This one is the one I've had to deal with the most. Right in the middle of town, and good luck seeing if there's oncoming traffic.

And good luck being held legally accountable for whatever the unreadable signs on either end of that bridge allegedly warned against.

[Scott5114]

This one is the one I've had to deal with the most. Right in the middle of town, and good luck seeing if there's oncoming traffic.

And good luck being held legally accountable for whatever the unreadable signs on either end of that bridge allegedly warned against.

They're warnings about fines for throwing things off the bridge, so I would imagine that the poor condition of the signage wouldn't be much of a defense. I've only ever seen those signs on OTA bridges; ODOT bridges don't have them.

[Bobby5280]

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2619194,-97.6377882,3a,75y,257.52h,68.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2r1sA3VoRQvFfOSKCrGLkA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

This particular bridge got broadsided by the May 3, 1999 F5 tornado. The Google Street View image is looking WSW in the direction at the field from where the tornado approached. That monster tornado gouged most of the top soil off the field. The concrete Jersey barrier on I-44 had what looked like bite marks knocked out of it. OTA patched that, but the concrete patches were visible for years. I think OTA replaced that barrier when that part of the turnpike was resurfaced. For a long time that one lane bridge over I-44 was stained with red clay soil. It's kind of amazing the bridge withstood 300mph+ winds, only getting cosmetic damage.

[rte66man]

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.2619194,-97.6377882,3a,75y,257.52h,68.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2r1sA3VoRQvFfOSKCrGLkA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

This particular bridge got broadsided by the May 3, 1999 F5 tornado. The Google Street View image is looking WSW in the direction at the field from where the tornado approached. That monster tornado gouged most of the top soil off the field. The concrete Jersey barrier on I-44 had what looked like bite marks knocked out of it. OTA patched that, but the concrete patches were visible for years. I think OTA replaced that barrier when that part of the turnpike was resurfaced. For a long time that one lane bridge over I-44 was stained with red clay soil. It's kind of amazing the bridge withstood 300mph+ winds, only getting cosmetic damage.

Yes, all of the Jersey barrier was replaced for the 5 mile stretch of new pavement south from "South" US62

[MikieTimT]

https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2022/feb/07/arkansas-oklahoma-to-partner-on-us-412-interstate/?fbclid=IwAR3FM0W4Vcgv0cbc0vD2b2DojTE85gpjUkwjWa5xF7n1vk8c90VTEE7fJuE

Forget the US-412 Interstate upgrade. The real meat in this piece is ARDOT is Opening a regional office in NWA.

It tells you they are serious about improving traffic access in NWA which may pass metro Little Rock in population in just a decade or two.

I thought the most interesting part was "the quarter-cent sales tax dedicated to highways." Right now there's this thread happening about alternatives to the gas tax for highway funding. I think we'll see more of this as EV numbers increase.

I think the EV transition will start accelerating due to world events and potential longer term disruptions to the fossil fuels we currently know and love.  Arkansas landed an EV manufacturer a few weeks ago not far off US-412 down I-55 in NEA nearby to the massive new steel plants sprouting up along the Mississippi River.  With the relatively cleanly sourced steel locally available and with plans to start mining lithium from the brines of south Arkansas, there seems to be a renaissance of manufacturing in the state as of late, with a fair amount of it coming to historically depressed areas.

Envirotech Vehicles Announces Osceola, Arkansas as Site of its State-of-the-Art Manufacturing Facility

We'll see if it all comes to fruition as not many EV companies have grown into sustainable entities yet.

[kphoger]

I think the EV transition will start accelerating due to world events and potential longer term disruptions to the fossil fuels we currently know and love.

Because the countries that mine materials used in batteries are never plagued by politics, war, or supply chain disruptions...

[Scott5114]

I think the EV transition will start accelerating due to world events and potential longer term disruptions to the fossil fuels we currently know and love.

Because the countries that mine materials used in batteries are never plagued by politics, war, or supply chain disruptions...

Well, he did mention in his post that apparently they have found at least one of those materials in Arkansas. Now, Arkansas is definitely plagued by politics, but I don't know about war...

[abqtraveler]

I think the EV transition will start accelerating due to world events and potential longer term disruptions to the fossil fuels we currently know and love.

Because the countries that mine materials used in batteries are never plagued by politics, war, or supply chain disruptions...

Or the countries that provide those materials are sworn enemies of America "[cough] China!"

[Plutonic Panda]

I think the EV transition will start accelerating due to world events and potential longer term disruptions to the fossil fuels we currently know and love.

Because the countries that mine materials used in batteries are never plagued by politics, war, or supply chain disruptions...

Well, he did mention in his post that apparently they have found at least one of those materials in Arkansas. Now, Arkansas is definitely plagued by politics, but I don't know about war...

Same thing in SoCal on the salton sea although I've always dreamed of it becoming it's originally conceived idea of paradise.

[skluth]

I think the EV transition will start accelerating due to world events and potential longer term disruptions to the fossil fuels we currently know and love.

Because the countries that mine materials used in batteries are never plagued by politics, war, or supply chain disruptions...

Well, he did mention in his post that apparently they have found at least one of those materials in Arkansas. Now, Arkansas is definitely plagued by politics, but I don't know about war...

Same thing in SoCal on the salton sea although I've always dreamed of it becoming it's originally conceived idea of paradise.

The Salton Sea will never be a paradise again. The Salton Sea's worst problem is the salts along the edges of the lake become a toxic dust from the agricultural pollutants used by Imperial Valley farms. The algae blooms are a secondary concern, but still an issue. However, below the lake is believed to be one of the largest lithium resources on the planet with an estimated one to six million metric tons of lithium contained in the brine trapped in the sand below the lake bottom. The Salton Sea lies in a gap between the North American and Pacific Plates and the brine has been collecting in the gap for millennia. 

[US 89]

The Salton Sea lies in a gap between the North American and Pacific Plates and the brine has been collecting in the gap for millennia. 

And for that reason, the Salton Sea should actually be higher - over 200 feet higher. Matter of fact, the entire Imperial Valley should be underwater. That geological feature is what forms the Gulf of California, and it extends all the way up to somewhere around Indio CA. The only reason the Gulf doesn't go that far north is because over a few million years, the Colorado River deposited so much sediment into the basin that enough of it accumulated to build a low, broad ridge above sea level dividing the basin in two: the Gulf of California basin to the south and the Salton Sink to the north. This was fascinating to learn for the first time as it's not really something you easily get from a typical road map, but look at a satellite view and the picture of a SW-flowing Colorado River into a NW/SE-oriented depression quickly becomes apparent.

The current Salton Sea is there because our own canals failed 100 years ago and delivered the full volume of a flooding undammed Colorado River into the Salton Sink over a span of about two years. It should never have existed to begin with.

[edwaleni]

The current Salton Sea is there because our own canals failed 100 years ago and delivered the full volume of a flooding undammed Colorado River into the Salton Sink over a span of about two years. It should never have existed to begin with.

Agreed. And if it wasn't for the Southern Pacific Railroad at the time, the water would still be flowing west. Now it's named after a minor pop star of the 1960's whose ex-wife keeps the Palm Springs plastic surgery clinics on quick dial.

[The Ghostbuster]

Does anyone know when we might hear some news about what Interstate number the US 412 corridor will receive in the future? The suspense is killing me.

[Scott5114]

Does anyone know when we might hear some news about what Interstate number the US 412 corridor will receive in the future? The suspense is killing me.

Remember, it took ODOT the better part of a decade to build a single stack interchange. These are not people that move quickly.

I think it's likely to be years on down the road. ODOT/ArDOT haven't even finished conducting their study to see what upgrades would be needed to get an Interstate designation on this corridor. If there's a substantial amount of work, I doubt they'll make any decision about that at all until after that's funded and possibly even completed. The only thing that might change that is if ArDOT is eager to get a number for some reason.

If the work is expensive enough, ODOT may well just not pursue the designation. It wouldn't be the first time they took no action on a designated Interstate corridor.

[MikieTimT]

Does anyone know when we might hear some news about what Interstate number the US 412 corridor will receive in the future? The suspense is killing me.

Arkansas has some recent experience now at this point with multistate interstate projects.  They will want to designate their portion as soon as there's a completion between logical termini (at least the connection between I-49 and I-44) or the gap is small enough to be inevitably closed within a decade or so.  But at this point, the facility isn't designated with a number either in legislation like the I-57 segment between Sikeston and Little Rock, and no request has been made for any of the portion that's completed as a limited access facility, like Arkansas did back in the early 90's with I-49 with AASHTO that was initially rejected, forcing the temporary I-540 designation of the US-71 replacement between Bentonville and Alma.

There's still the western Springdale Bypass gap at minimum to close if ARDOT determines that the current US-412 divided highway between Tontitown and Siloam Springs is the best alternative to connect the border to the current limited access facility that ties into I-49 at Lowell, but regardless of whether or not that portion is converted to a limited access facility with overpasses and access roads, Siloam Springs/West Siloam Springs at a minimum will have to be bypassed, so since that will require coordination with both states logistically and financially, I wouldn't expect any news on much of any of the rest of the project until that coordination gets fleshed out, unless Oklahoma wants to push hard on the I-35 to I-44 segment as that wouldn't take much in the way of actual construction to be able to designate that portion as I-48/I-50.

I think with the facility ultimately (at least with this current designation) being just shy of 200 miles and across 2 states that it winds up being a 2di without question in my mind.  And my avatar shows my thoughts on the matter given that this winds up being the first portion of HPC-8 that gets done.

[kphoger]

It still looks cheap to me.

This doesn't look any worse than this to me.

Or...  Just found this one...  How about this on I-90?  How is I-44 really any worse?

[Scott5114]

It still looks cheap to me.

This doesn't look any worse than this to me.

Or...  Just found this one...  How about this on I-90?  How is I-44 really any worse?

Yellow-line to yellow-line distances:

I-90: 40 feet
I-8: 37 feet
I-44: 17 feet

[kphoger]

It still looks cheap to me.

This doesn't look any worse than this to me.

Or...  Just found this one...  How about this on I-90?  How is I-44 really any worse?

Yellow-line to yellow-line distances:

I-90: 40 feet
I-8: 37 feet
I-44: 17 feet

I was especially referring to the oncoming grain truck on the frontage road, with nothing but a barbed-wire fence in between.

[I-55]

It still looks cheap to me.

This doesn't look any worse than this to me.

Or...  Just found this one...  How about this on I-90?  How is I-44 really any worse?

Yellow-line to yellow-line distances:

I-90: 40 feet
I-8: 37 feet
I-44: 17 feet

I was especially referring to the oncoming grain truck on the frontage road, with nothing but a barbed-wire fence in between.

White line to white line is still ~30 feet

[kphoger]

I'm assuming a cable barrier is better at actually corralling an errant vehicle than a plain barbed-wire fence is, though, right?

[Bobby5280]

If the cable barrier is built to proper specifications it will be far more effective than an ordinary barbed wire fence at preventing an out of control vehicle from crossing over into opposing lanes.

Cable barriers are using much heavier gauge cables, multiple lines in a larger twisted cable. And there's usually 3 or 4 of those twisted cables running from post to post. A barbed wire fence just uses single strands of plain barbed wire. Cable barriers have far more posts than a typical barbed wire fence. Plus the cable barrier posts are metal.

[edwaleni]

If the cable barrier is built to proper specifications it will be far more effective than an ordinary barbed wire fence at preventing an out of control vehicle from crossing over into opposing lanes.

Cable barriers are using much heavier gauge cables, multiple lines in a larger twisted cable. And there's usually 3 or 4 of those twisted cables running from post to post. A barbed wire fence just uses single strands of plain barbed wire. Cable barriers have far more posts than a typical barbed wire fence. Plus the cable barrier posts are metal.

Cable Barrier = cars/trucks
Barbed Wire = Animals, deer, cattle

[Rothman]

If the cable barrier is built to proper specifications it will be far more effective than an ordinary barbed wire fence at preventing an out of control vehicle from crossing over into opposing lanes.

Cable barriers are using much heavier gauge cables, multiple lines in a larger twisted cable. And there's usually 3 or 4 of those twisted cables running from post to post. A barbed wire fence just uses single strands of plain barbed wire. Cable barriers have far more posts than a typical barbed wire fence. Plus the cable barrier posts are metal.

Cable Barrier = cars/trucks
Barbed Wire = Animals, deer, cattle, HighwayStar

My work is done here.

[MikieTimT]

I guess they figure that there isn't much traffic on the access road apparently to justify a full cable barrier.  At least barbed wire will keep ATVs/UTVs from hopping on the Interstate!