Housing bargains encourage commuter lifestyle.

WITH MORE THAN 150,000 jobs in Little Rock and a total population of less than 200,000, the surrounding communities in central Arkansas outsource a large part of their work force to the capital city.

According to a study recently released by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, more than 75,000 people make their way to Little Rock during the workday, coming from Maumelle, Jacksonville, Sherwood and Conway, among many other home bases.

"We're like the long lines of worker ants you see making their way into their different little dirt piles every morning," said Glenn Bolick, a spokesman for the State Highway Department. Bolick makes his way to the agency's Little Rock headquarters every day from White Hall, about a 35-minute commute. "There's definitely a routine to it, but just like anything else, it's something you just accept and get used to."

But just as a large group funnels into Little Rock every morning, a steady flow of workers heads out of town--an estimated 60,000 people.

"When you're going against the grain with the sun to your back, it's really not that bad of a commute," said Jim Karrh, a west Little Rock resident who works in Hot Springs as marketing director for Mountain Valley Spring Co. "It all boils down to weighing the things that are important to you without messing too much with your quality of life. This lifestyle fits well right now.... I can't complain."

Many who consistently make an extended commute to work each day say that the decision to adopt the commuting lifestyle wasn't hard.

"If we could find the same house with the same amount of land and the same quiet and friendly neighborhood for the same price closer to Little Rock, then we'd probably go ahead and move there," said Seth Mulhearn, president of the finish-out division of Bell-Corley Construction in downtown Little Rock.

Mulhearn commutes from a growing subdivision located on the southern edge of Conway but is willing to make the 45minute drive twice a day for better riving conditions.

Apparently, a large percentage of Americans are a lot like Mulhearn. In a recent CNN poll, nearly 60 percent said they were prepared to commute longer distances for a better quality of life.

"There's a lot to consider, especially when you have children to think about," said Cara Smith, a Benton resident who is a paralegal at the law firm of Hatfield & Lassiter in downtown Little Rock. "I choose to live in Benton because the schools there were a much better choice for my children."

Of course, commuters from Benton and Bryant are all smiles since the Highway Department successfully completed its transformation of Interstate 30 after many years of dangerous and congested construction through that corridor.

"Now that it's three lanes through there with no construction, it probably shaves 10 or 15 minutes off my time," said Smith. "More importantly, it's just less hectic and a lot safer."

Traffic Control

Poised to help make commuters' quality of life a little better is Metroplan, an intergovernmental agency charged with planning and solving the Little Rock metropolitan area's transportation issues.

According to Jim McKenzie, the agency's executive director, central Arkansas commuters have it pretty easy compared to other metro areas.

"If you look at objective criteria, we're in really good shape, but congestion is not an objective measure," he said. "Congestion is relative; if you live in Dardanelle and come to Little Rock the traffic is terrible, but if you live in Little Rock and go to Dallas then you feel like you've gone to traffic purgatory.

"We do have congestion in peak periods, and it is slowly getting worse. But we're still a relatively compact metro area, and you can get around easily."

Metroplan recently unveiled a draft of a long-range transportation plan for how to spend nearly $3.2 billion in transportation money over the next 25 years. About $2.8 billion will go toward the roads, and $393 million will be earmarked for public transit.

The draft also contains Metroplan's vision of what central Arkansas' transportation system would look like if money was no object. It includes

a light-rail system connecting central Little Rock to west Little Rock, Jacksonville and Conway. It also calls for widening the central Arkansas interstate system to six lanes.

But the price for that kind of vision reaches nearly $10 billion, with $5.7 billion going toward roadways and $4.2 billion being spent on an improved public transit system over the next 25 years. So Metroplan also has a pared-down version called, appropriately, the Metro 2030 Financially Constrained Plan.

In order for a light-rail system to be self-supportive, a metropolitan statistical area population of at least 750,000 is needed, McKenzie said.

"Right now we're around 600,000, and we'll hit 750,000 around 2025 and 1 million by 2050, so by that time you'll see light rail," he said. "The answer right now is improving smaller arteries and bus transit."

Full Capacity

Not only are more people moving to the suburbs and other surrounding communities, but the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that many of this region's jobs are migrating with them. And that adds to traffic problems.

Employment growth in Bryant alone jumped 208 percent in the past decade, with Maumelle (85 percent) and Cabot (84 percent) growing dramatically as well.

With more people commuting from Little Rock to the suburbs and those in the suburbs commuting to Little Rock, smaller arterial roads need a massive overhaul.

"People have used up not only the capacity between areas like Conway to Little Rock or Cabot to Little Rock, but they've used up the capacity within those communities too," McKenzie said. "A road can only carry so many cars a day before it breaks down into gridlock. Once you get up towards maximum capacity, people are going to take a different route at a different time and some businesses may adopt flex time and allow telecommuting or move out of the central county to where they're employees are."

This is a daily reality for Karrh, who leaves his west Little Rock home up to four days a week to head to his Hot Springs office.

Though he's mainly going against the northward flow Interstate 30 and sees little problems once he's en route, Karrh still has to struggle to find the best way possible to get to the interstate in the first place.

"I either head down Chenal or Highway 10, depending on what I'm hearing on traffic reports," he said. "The channels that lead to and from the highways seem to be where most of the congestion in Little Rock is. That's my main trouble spot in the mornings."

McKenzie said along with central Arkansas' interchanges, its arterial network is Metroplan's largest priority.

To and Fro 

For some, the rural communities surrounding metropolitan Little Rock provide a lifestyle that's just too good to give up.

Sean Beasley, a transport engineer at Alltel Corp.'s Little Rock headquarters, makes more than an hour commute each day from Searcy. He has two carpoolers to keep him company. 2 "It didn't make any sense for all three of us to drive separately in from Searcy each day," he said. "It's not too bad when you have someone to talk to."

Beasley bought a fuel-efficient Ford Focus specifically to make the commute cheaper, and said he and his wife-to-be will most likely stay in Searcy after marriage.

Ken Gould, a professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's William H. Bowen School of Law, takes fuel-efficient commuting to the next level. Though he lives in the west Little Rock neighborhood of Walton Heights, the 62-year-old maneuvers his bicycle 15 miles to work and 15 miles back home at least three times a week.

"There's something very satisfying about getting to work and knowing that you got yourself there in an environmentally conscious and healthy way," Gould said.

But the commute does start to wear on some people.

J.J. Watkins, a finance program manager at the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority, said he and his wife recently abandoned their daily commute from Conway and bought a house in North Little Rock.

"We went from having about a 45-minute trip to having about a five-minute jaunt into work in the mornings," Watkins said. "I had made the commute my whole career and didn't know any better, but now the benefits seem to far outweigh making that drive. I'm generally less tired in the evenings and the extra time in the mornings is nice."

2000 LR-NLR MSA Largest City-to-City Communiting Flows

N. Little Rock to Little Rock   12,400
Little Rock to N. Little Rock    6,260
Sherwood to Little Rock          4,780
Benton to Little Rock            3,650
Jacksonville to Little Rock      3,615
Conway to Little Rock            3,460
Maumelle to Little Rock          3,440
Sherwood to N. Little Rock       3,034
Bryant to Little Rock            2,910
Jacksonville to N. Little Rock   1,985

Source. Census Transportation Planning Package 2000

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