New report to make case for rural interstate funding

A study to be released Monday (Aug. 30) is meant to remind federal officials to not forget about rural America when allocating federal highway dollars, said Glenn Bolick, a spokesman with the Arkansas Highway & Transportation Department.

Bolick said the report includes a “brief” mention of Interstate 49.

“Connecting Rural and Urban America” is the title of the third in a series of reports from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). Officials from AASHTO and the AHTD will present the report at 1:15 p.m., Aug. 30 in the Arkansas Ballroom of the Little Rock Peabody Hotel.

The “Transportation Reboot” series by AASHTO seeks to “identify the need to increase capacity in our transportation system to unlock gridlock, generate jobs, deliver freight, and connect rural and urban America.”

John Horsley, AASHTO executive director, AHTD Director Dan Flowers, Mississippi Department of Transportation Director and AASHTO President Butch Brown, and The Poultry Federation of Arkansas-Missouri-Oklahoma President Marvin Childers will be involved in the report discussion.

“Arkansas is typical Rural America,” Horsley noted in the AHTD statement. “Every American is important to the national economy, whether they raise poultry or cattle, harvest wheat, deliver wind turbines or manufacture goods.”

The report advises that reauthorization of federal transportation legislation should:
• Continue to fund rural portions of the Interstate Highway System and other federal-aid highways that connect America;
• Double federal investment in rural transit systems to meet rising demand; and,
• Expand the existing capacity of the Interstate system, upgrade rural routes to Interstate standards and connect newly urbanized areas to the Interstate system.

“This report reveals the challenges that rural states like Arkansas face,” Flowers said in the statement. “We have many more highway needs than funds to meet those needs. We have over 16,000 highway miles in our system — 12th largest in the nation.”

Bolick said the report may be considered another piece of evidence to use in lobbying for more federal dollars for I-49 when Congress gets around to considering the next highway bill.

“It’s not just Arkansas highway officials and the officials on I-49 asking for that (funding). … It’s a national organization saying, ‘Hey, don’t forget about projects here (rural America),” Bolick explained.

The I-49 route stretches from Texarkana, up through Dequeen, Mena and Waldron, into Fort Smith and on through Northwest Arkansas. All that stands in the way of this interstate reality is several small segments (Bella Vista bypass) at the Arkansas-Louisiana and Arkansas Missouri borders and a large 185-mile segment between Texarkana and Fort Smith that posts a price tag of around $3 billion.

Of the $352 million Arkansas recently received as part of the federal stimulus package, $71.6 million was dedicated to portions of I-49.