The city of Conway will be widening Meadowlake Road from Donaghey and Washington venues.

Communications Coordinator Bobby Kelly said, “The road is extremely narrow and old, and it’s falling apart and the area around it is developing.”

Kelly said that there is a need to put in some sidewalk and cycling infrastructure.

“There is no existing sidewalk infrastructure. There is no existing cycling infrastructure, and we need to add that in there,” Kelly said.

Director of Engineering for Conway Department of Transportation Kurt Jones said, “The first phase of the project is complete. The total project extends from Dave Ward up to Prince. What we’ve done at this point is we’ve completed the portion from College back down to Dave Ward.”

Jones also said that instead of it being called a “road widening” project it is more so a “complete street” project.

“It’s a complete street project, is how we would term it. It incorporates safety aspects as well as traffic calming and again the intersection improvements, which in the form of mainly the roundabouts in the corridor,” Jones said.

Jones said despite progress, there is still more work to be done in the second phase of the project.

“We’ve kind of just started in doing just the intersection improvements at the roundabouts, but as far as the roadway portion, there is still a significant amount of utility relocations that need to take place,” Jones said. “Right now we do not have a hard timeline on when we are going to do that next phase.”

Kelly said that most of the public feels that this will be good for the city.

“For the folks that live in that area, they’re all about it. We have a handful of folks that complain anytime that we try to improve anything which is to be expected when you are running a city,” Kelly said.

Kelly said he also thinks that this will be great for the community.

Kelly said, “It’s going to be great for that area, for the walkers, cyclists and for the folks that use that road… I think, socially, we’ve outgrown it due to the people choosing different modes of transportation.”