MONTICELLO – Well ahead of schedule, the extended Arkansas 83 Spur connecting U.S. 278 to the University of Arkansas at Monticello is open for business.
Arkansas Department of Transportation and local leaders put a ceremonial touch on the finished product, known in Monticello as Scogin Drive, despite the blazing midday sun Wednesday. The $30 million project lengthened Scogin Drive northward over the Arkansas Midland Railroad and installed two roundabouts, replacing the intersections of Scogin and Jordan drives and Scogin and Old Warren Road.
Department Director Jared Wiley said Mobley Contractors Inc. completed the extension of the spur six months ahead of schedule.
Highway and local officials tout the improved the safety of Arkansas 83 Spur, which they say improves the traffic flow from the Monticello School District campuses along the spur and enhances access to Baptist Health Medical Center-Drew County, formerly Drew Memorial Hospital. The railroad previously proved an obstacle for ambulance transportation from the north half of the city to the hospital.
“For this project, it has opened up additional land for development, but it has also improved the quality of life from a transportation standpoint,” said Nita McDaniel, director of the Monticello Economic Development Authority. “Our hospital, our university and our two public school districts, this connects all of them to our main corridor of transportation, which is (U.S.) Highway 278.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Arkansas 83S is also part of the highway department’s larger plans to connect southeast Arkansas to the Mississippi Delta via Interstate 69. A portion of the interstate from Houston to Memphis is being constructed from U.S. 278 in Monticello to Arkansas 293 near Selma, and then on to U.S. 65 north of McGehee.
McDaniel said local leaders and department officials are still fighting for funding to build a river bridge outside of Arkansas City as part of the I-69 project, as well as an extension of Arkansas 530 into Monticello.
“We would love to bring 530 in four lanes down here from Pine Bluff,” she said. “We continue to fight for these projects.”
Wiley expects the leg of I-69 from Monticello to Selma to be finished in two years. Wiley said the department has attained the right-of-way from McGehee to the Mississippi River needed for that project.
As for the proposed bridge: “That’s a billion, two-billion-dollar project depending on what numbers you look at, so it’s a big funding hurdle to get over,” he said.
The highway department will soon turn over portions of Arkansas 83 and Arkansas 83 Spur to the city and county. The city of Monticello poured $2.5 million into the project, of which $709,000 was awarded by the Delta Regional Authority. Drew County contributed $505,000.
“This is a great asset,” Drew County Judge Jessie Griffin said. “It slows traffic down, but it also is a great traffic control – who’s going next and who’s going where.”
When the roundabouts opened, McDaniel said she would bring her grandchildren to school using the new circular paths. The idle time on old intersections would cause her and others to be late to work if they had to drop their children off to multiple campuses.
“Now, trying to get two grandchildren to two different campuses, I got to work way ahead of time because I anticipated the same amount of time I needed way back then,” she said.
