Decreased speed is bad for business
In the past few days, the speed limit on Lee Town Road has been reduced by up to nearly 40 percent, on a several-mile long stretch of arrow-straight, extremely-safe section, of rural highway. I cannot remember seeing a single (lot less speed-related) accident here in our 20-plus years here, in this section of Lee Town Road.
I used to do some marketing work, and I cannot think of a stronger case of REVERSE marketing than this, for all of Pea Ridge's commercial customers who live in Avoca, Garfield, Gateway, Seligman, Mo., Eureka Springs, and the other towns on the U.S. Hwy. 62 corridor. I know that I consider Walmart, in Pea Ridge, as my favored grocery and gas station, shop at Fred's, bank at Arvest, and we have frequently eaten at the local pizza, Mexican, Chinese and fast food restaurants here -- like to the tune of several times this week, alone.
With the U.S. Hwy. 62 "five-lane" improvements from Garfield, into Rogers, the speed of the Hwy. 62 route has increased in some areas, from 55 mph to 60 mph. The times for commutes to the Bentonville square, from the U.S. Hwy. 62/Ark. Hwy. 72 intersection are 18 minutes. With that increased speed on Hwy. 62, the time through Rogers is now three minutes faster than taking Lee Town through Pea Ridge. That will decrease even more now.
I often do business in Bentonville, and have always taken the Pea Ridge route (though a few minutes longer), as it lent itself to my commercial interests -- I am small town and prefer to support small town. I resent losing what I consider to be my own local banking, businesses, groceries and restaurants because I cannot, and will not, throw away so much excessive travel time, just to continue taking this route.
I ask fellow residents, could anything be worse for all of Pea Ridge's commercial interests (from residents of all towns on Hwy. 62), than having the Hwy. 62 route to Bentonville now be so much faster, and easier, than going through Pea Ridge?
Let's not lose our small town friendliness and convenience to the action of some short-sighted, but very high impact, changes to commercial traffic. I am almost sure there was little comprehensive fore-thought in these radical and totally unmerited speed-limit changes, and sincerely hope they can be reversed. I have always felt that the in town section of "school-zonish," 25 mph -- with no school (on Lee Town) should be raised to 30 mph, but these new downward speed limit changes from 55 mph to as low as 35 mph, for the whole length of Lee Town Road, border on nonsensical.
Darshan HamiltonGarfield, Ark.
Editorial on 02/03/2016