BENTONVILLE, Ark. — The City of Bentonville has completed the 8th Street Corridor improvements between 1 Street and J Street and celebrated the accomplishment on Friday with a ribbon cutting.
Numerous city leaders were present at the event, which was hosted at Thaden School, along with the Bentonville Moves Coalition.
"We've expanded the roadway from two lanes to four lanes with a median boulevard area that we've added landscaping to with trees," said Dennis Birge, Transportation Director for the City of Bentonville. "We've also incorporated a bicycle track, the first one we've had in Bentonville. We've had our signals modified to accommodate for the bicycle track."
The project was $28.1 million dollars and dates back to 2016. They built the project in phases and it spans 1.4 miles. Birge called it a complete street, as it ensures safety for people using all modes of transportation, as a pedestrian, cyclist, or driver.
"It's one of the first that we've been able to incorporate all of those modes of transportation with the pedestrian, the bicycling and the vehicle traffic," Birge said. "It'll connect the new home office. It'll connect the new 8th Street Park. It's a connector to our Main Street Project, which leads to Downtown Bentonville to the square."
Bentonville Moves Coalition has a mission to make the city the safest and most connected it can be for every mode of transportation. Manager Jessica Lee Pearson said this project has a much broader impact for mobility across the city.
"We're standing on the main vein for active mobility. This is eventually going to connect gateway park to the Walmart home office campus. There's going to be protected bike lanes and shared use paths, cycle paths along the entire corridor, which is just incredible," Pearson said. "You think of the amount of recreational trail infrastructure we have here, and, of course, the incredible Razorback Greenway. There are so many people who live here and visit here with bikes, and they would use those to get to different locations in Bentonville, if they could do so safely and reliably."
As part of the project, students at Thaden School in an urban studies class were tasked with a project to address the safety issues at 8th Street and Main Street. They worked closely with engineering firms to create a solution, which was then implemented in the new design.
"Our project originally was to basically make sure that pedestrians, people walking through the intersection would feel safer and be more protected from cars," said Laura Bailey, a senior at Thaden School. We were able to improve the safety of this intersection over here by installing a locally inspired mural and crosswalks."
Bailey said the project took hundreds of hours of work and it's important to get young people involved in these conversations.
"You need to make sure cities are created by everyone, and once they're made by everyone, then they can serve everyone," Bailey said. "We wanted to make sure young people had a voice and that their solutions were actionable and able to affect positive change."
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