ARDOT Studying Garrison Ave./US-64 in Downtown Fort Smith for "Rightsizing"

[MikieTimT]

ARDOT has scheduled a public involvement meeting to consider several alternatives to address bicycling/pedestrian incidents along Garrison Ave. in downtown Ft. Smith.  The goal seems to be to get the truck traffic off Garrison Ave., although none of the incidents involving bicycles or pedestrian have actually involved commercial vehicles. 

The alternatives are pretty broad at this point, although I think the ones involving an additional Arkansas River crossing or additional mileage on the Oklahoma side of the border are going to wind up on the chopping block.

https://public-meeting-040851-hwy-64-fort-smith-planning-study-en-ardot.hub.arcgis.com/

[Bobby5280]

"Rightsizing" sounds like a slimy new term for "road diet." Bottle-neck a surface street from 4 lanes down to 2 in order to paint-in bicycle lanes and other stuff.

From looking at the crash map of incidents involving pedestrians and bicycles it looks like just about all the crashes are happening at intersections. Garrison Avenue has adequately wide sidewalks on both sides of the street. There are no protected bike lanes however. Is it legal for bicyclists to use the sidewalks or do they have to try their luck riding on the street?

When looking at Street View imagery of Garrison Avenue in Downtown Fort Smith I think I can see why some of the bike/pedestrians accidents with vehicles are happening: poor visibility.

Garrison Avenue has good sidewalks. But the buildings along the street are built really close to the road. And the city has tried to "beautify" the arterial by adding a bunch of trees, decorative signal posts, clocks and other stuff. Add to that all the diagonal parking slots along the street, which look like they're regularly filled with big vehicles. All of those things do a good job of obscuring pedestrians walking along sidewalks and whether they may be trying to use a crosswalk. "Right-sizing" Garrison Avenue down to a 2-lane street might not fix those problems. If anything, the town beautification committee might add even more trees and bushes so pedestrians can be hidden from view so much better.

[The Ghostbuster]

Would it be possible (or practical) to convert Garrison Ave. and 3rd St./Rogers Ave. to one-way streets? That could increase capacity and make the corridors safer. Bicycles could always use N. A and N. B Sts., which are already one-way.

[Rothman]

Rightsizing usually takes into account traffic volumes, though.

[MikieTimT]

Their goals are to get the truck traffic out of downtown and reduce pedestrian and cyclist impacts with auto traffic.  Trouble is, there's a truck route and industrial areas within a block of it, and the trucks aren't the ones running over the hikers and bikers.  And US-64 is a US highway after all with the only connection to I-40 without having to go along the river and through Van Buren to I-540.  I just think they have way too many conflicting priorities for this really to go very far.  It's tough to maintain the historic district itself and make it pedestrian and bicycle friendly with the buildings being where they are, and the Arkansas and Poteau Rivers being where they are.  Not saying that this is impossible.  But being from the Fort Smith area, let's just say that forward thinking isn't Fort Smith's cup of tea even if ARDOT is the one driving this.

[Bobby5280]

It sounds to me like they need to focus more of their walk-ability and beautification efforts on the adjacent streets rather than Garrison Avenue. After all, it is indeed the main street going through downtown Fort Smith. Garrison Avenue is a 4-lane divided highway crossing the Arkansas River. On the Oklahoma side US-64 is an almost-freeway before reverting into a standard 4-lane divided highway the rest of the way to I-40.

Honestly, I think the real solution on Garrison Avenue is getting rid of the visual obstructions at crossing streets and crosswalks. Trees and bushes are nice, but they shouldn't be stuffed into the corners of the intersections. Rather than remove lanes on the street, why not remove a couple of the diagonal parking slots next to the intersections? Someone driving on Garrison Avenue can't see through a fat SUV parked next to the street corner.

Also, I think they probably need to place additional speed limit signs at the end of the bridge coming into Fort Smith, and maybe even drop the 30mph limit down to 25mph.