MAUMELLE, Ark. — Now that commuters in the fast-growing suburb of Maumelle have a long-sought third highway interchange with I-40, travel times are coming down. But now the city wants to hear from residents how to handle the traffic flow on the main arteries leading to that exit.
"We've heard reports, depending on where you live and where you're going, it could shave 10 or 15 minutes off your commute," said Maumelle mayor Caleb Norris. "It is taking some traffic off of [Maumelle] boulevard and putting it down Counts Massie and toward White Oak Crossing."
Those are the two roads that connect the often clogged main drag through the city and the new exit 146. There's a sharp turn where they meet. New drivers are coming into a growing part of town with new and planned developments springing up along the road.
But before putting in a traffic control plan in place, Maumelle wants to round up some opinions about roundabouts.
"We're doing a warrant study to study whether or not the current flow is optimal," the mayor said. "It certainly doesn't seem optimal as you're looking at it."
"We posted it on social media to hit prime time Sunday evening and we've already got about 800 responses," mayor Norris said not yet 24 hours after sharing the survey on Facebook. "For a city of under twenty-thousand, that's a pretty good turnout."
Engineers are pushing roundabouts. Up the road, Conway has embraced them wholeheartedly, but there are other options on the table.
"It's whether we throw in stop signs, whether you throw in a traffic light, or whether you throw in a roundabout, and then if it's a roundabout where would that be," said the mayor, who added cost and feasibility of working with neighboring North Little Rock will also have to be considered.
"Maumelle doesn't have any full-size roundabouts so one of the things that we're doing is trying to test the waters to see what the residents want," he said.
The survey can be found here and will be open through Sunday, March 1st.