If you are driving near downtown Bentonville, or near Dickson Street in Fayetteville, you might see some new street signs asking you to not drive through those areas to help with social distancing.
For the next couple of months, those signs will be posted near the busiest areas of Bentonville and Fayetteville encouraging people to slow down and take an alternative route so the community can visit the local shops and restaurants with more room to practice social distancing.
After a trial run, the slow street signs received positive feedback. Officials with Bike NWA are now posting these signs near routes in downtown Bentonville for the next few months. The signs are supposed to help traffic steer clear of busy parks or biking trails.
"Some of these areas do not have sidewalks, and some of these sidewalks are not big enough for 6 feet of social distancing," said Lauren Hildreth with Bike NWA.
Also, these signs will be posted over a 3-mile radius in Fayetteville. The signs detouring vehicles from Dickson Street and Wilson Park which see a lot of foot traffic.
"We purposefully included areas with many businesses on them...restaurants, coffee shops. We're giving people a different way to get to those places" said Hildreth.
"These are not street closures, they are just asking that "thru traffic" take an alternate route. If you are a resident or visiting a business in the area, you're still welcome to drive-thru" said Bianca Montoya with Bike NWA."People didn't even realize they needed this, like "oh i can get in the middle of the street" and not worry about cars, it makes you feel like a little kid again just bopping around your neighborhood,"
These slow street signs will only be posted on Sundays from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m., lasting until the beginning of August.
Click here to view the locations of those signs.