West Memphis gearing up for summer projects

West Memphis gearing up for summer projects

Bridge work, road repairs on the agenda

news@theeveningtimes.com

Updates on the Hino Bridge fix and a construction update for the Southland Drive extension were the highlights of the City Engineers report at the June Meeting of the West Memphis Public Works meeting.

Engineer Phillip Sorrell also talked about weed control through the city and at the city port area.

“It started raining back in

early May just as we were getting ready to do our dirt hauling,” said Sorrell about the Southland drive work. “We have no progress in 30 days. They are out there this week. The sunshine is dry- ing up the road sub grade. The are discing it over to help dry it out. They’ll be back at it in earnest this week.”

Getting the bridge fixed, speed bumps removed and speed limits back up for trucking in and out of the inter-modal yard moved forward in the planning and paperwork progress accord to Sorrell. Plans under review and discussion called for the Arkansas Department of Highways and Transportation (AHTD) funding the lion’s share of the project with the cities of West Memphis and Marion each picking up ten percent of the project cost plus splitting the cost for an engineer.

“We just received an agreement from AHTD,” said Sorrell. “We’ll sit down soon with the mayor and the city attorney to review that. The city Attorney David Peeples is also working on an agreement with Marion so we can get that executed and moving forward when the Federal fund allocation comes in after the first of September. We are moving quickly because of the funding deadline.”

The city worked to keep the weeds down throughout the city undertook some special maintenance at the port and along the rail spur.

The city owns four miles of track from 8th Street to the port.

“We sprayed the rail for weeds last month,” said Sorrell. “We spent $19,000 on cross ties and other issues. That has gotten to be quite a busy rail. A lot of freight moves in and out of there. The volume of cars on that rail track has gone up significantly.”

By John Rech