The City of Bentonville is establishing an Active Transportation Advisory Board in order to increase citizen input on the development of trails and bikeways. City Council approved the initiative unanimously at its Tuesday, Oct. 8 meeting following several prior discussions.

Luke Powers, an 11-year resident of the Bentonville area, began biking to work after moving closer to his office in 2023. He has been actively involved with the city on biking safety after he was clipped by a truck on his bike a year and a half ago. After spending some time connecting with city officials and doing independent research, he said he felt poor road design in Bentonville increased safety issues for bikes on the roads.

“Yes, that driver made the wrong decision, but everything about the situation incentivized him to make that decision,” he said, explaining that after tapping him, the truck pulled out into traffic before his wife — who was behind him — had made it across. “There’s all of these pieces that set that driver up to make the decision that wasn’t just him making a bad mistake.” 

Six months after the incident, his neighbor — who was 38 weeks pregnant — was hit at Exit 88A on Central on her cargo bike with two children on the back. She was rushed to the ER where she had trauma-induced labor. She’s had at least three surgeries on her foot since. Powers shared a letter she wrote about the incident at a previous City Council meeting.

Powers worked with Councilwoman Gayatri Agnew to bring the idea for an active transportation advisory board to the City Council. He has also spoken during the public comment period of several Council meetings to voice his support for the board.

Powers said he would like the committee to review the plans in place to implement the Bike & Pedestrian Master Plan, create standards to make active transportation safer and more accessible, and review and comment on the design of new roads and trails before they’re built.

“It actually gets to the heart of how we design roads in America versus how other countries design roads. America designs roads for the perfect user, assuming everyone will perfectly follow all posted signage,” he said. “Other countries say, hey, let’s design the perfect system, knowing the users are faulty.”

The board will be composed of nine citizen voting members, plus non-voting members including the parks and recreation director, the transportation director, and the planning director. One voting board member will represent the disability community, and a Bentonville youth currently in grade ninth through 12th will be appointed to serve as a non-voting member of the board.

Board member terms run three years, with three seats expiring each year, and members are eligible to serve two consecutive terms. The board will be administered by Parks & Recreation, which will begin advertising open positions to community members with a goal to be operational in early 2025.

Voters Support Active Transportation Infrastructure

According to a 2024 survey, support for building active transportation infrastructure in Bentonville has grown along with increased frustration over traffic congestion.

The survey consisted of 150 registered voters living in Bentonville and 300 voters living elsewhere in Benton County. Denver-based nonprofit City Thread was contracted by the Bentonville Moves Coalition to conduct the study. 

In a presentation to the City Council on Monday, Kyle Wagenschutz of City Thread said it found 74% of residents believe the city needs to act quickly so people can get around without putting more cars on the road — up from 60% in 2023. 

Sixty-four percent believe that developing alternatives to driving is the best way to reduce the community’s traffic issues. The survey also found that 73% of voters believe it’s important to support separated bike lanes so everyone can get around more safely and easily, up from 63% in 2023.

“Generally, that is an indication to us that we are working with a population that values transportation options, that values choice, that values the opportunity to — if they want to — leave a car at home, but we have to create the conditions by which they’re actually able to accomplish that,” Wagenschutz said.

Traffic congestion and affordable housing are tied for the biggest concern in Bentonville — all other challenges pale in comparison to those two, Wagenschutz said. Support for the Connecting Bentonville Plan — the city’s Bike & Pedestrian Master Plan — is high, with 89% of voters supporting the plan’s implementation.

“It’s important that this would not just be about building bicycle lanes or people wearing spandex with multi-thousand dollar bikes,” Wagenschutz said. “It’s important to think about children. It’s important to think about seniors. It’s important to think about people with disabilities.”