ARDOT kicks off first phase of $500 million Highway 112 widening project

About 100 people, including city, state, and federal leaders, gathered on a mild and breezy Thursday (Nov. 6) to mark the start of a $500 million project to widen Arkansas Highway 112 from two to four lanes between Fayetteville and Bentonville.

The first segment of the 18-mile project will cost $43.94 million, which includes $11.6 million for relocating city water and sewer infrastructure. Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) awarded the 1.44-mile segment of the project to APAC-Central Inc. in Fayetteville.

ARDOT Director Jared Wiley, who approved the contract with APAC-Central on Oct. 16, said this will be the first of eight phases in the overall project that’s expected to improve safety and mobility. When completed, the widened highway will have 27 roundabouts between Fayetteville and Bentonville.

“And roundabouts … some folks aren’t sure about them at first, but they’re a proven way to move traffic safer and more efficiently,” he said. “This group of projects was a great place for us to use this many roundabouts.”

Wiley noted that while the overall project is expected to cost $500 million, that number rises to $700 million when considering right-of-way and utility relocation costs.

“Highway 112 is our only north-south highway corridor in the metro area west of Interstate 49,” Wiley said. “And we know over the years, it has become quite congested. These eight widening projects will improve regional mobility, alleviating traffic on Interstate 49 when complete and providing our traveling public with options. And they can choose how they go north and south through the metro area.”

He said the money is available for the first four phases of the project, including between Pleasant Grove Road and Arkansas Highway 12, Don Tyson Parkway and U.S. Highway 412, and Highway 412 and Arkansas Highway 612 (Springdale Northern Bypass). ARDOT will take bids on those through 2028. Each phase is expected to take about two years to complete. The remaining four projects will be completed as funding becomes available.

Asked how ARDOT could mitigate the rising cost of construction, Wiley said better plans and partnerships. ARDOT implemented “constructability reviews early in our process, and we’re seeing fruits from that labor. We’re seeing tighter bids and better bids and more questions from contractors to help us refine our projects.”

The cost is about $25 million a mile to widen a highway from two to four lanes.

“As we face inflation and cost escalation, the cost of transportation projects does continue to rise,” Wiley said. “Vehicles are becoming more fuel-efficient. We’re seeing more electric vehicles, which our user-based revenue stream for highways isn’t keeping up with construction costs. So we’re working hard to continually identify funding for all the remaining phases.”

SEGMENT DETAILS, TUNNEL
Construction on the first segment of the 18-mile project is expected to start in early 2026, and once underway, it will take about one year and nine months to complete. This segment runs from Truckers Drive near Sam’s Club to Howard Nickell Road and will widen the road to four lanes with a raised center median. It will have three roundabouts, two turnarounds, sidewalks, a 12-foot-wide shared-use path, and a 14-foot-wide, 10-foot-tall, and 177-foot-long pedestrian tunnel constructed south of the roundabout at Van Asche Drive. Other roundabouts will be north of Truckers Drive and at Howard Nickell Road.

Wiley said the construction of the pedestrian tunnel, which will run under Highway 112 and connect to the Clabber Creek Trail, was paid for by the city of Fayetteville. He said that without ARDOT’s partnership with the city of Fayetteville, the construction of the tunnel would’ve required a separate construction project, amounting to additional costs and traffic disruption.

ARDOT also worked with the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission on the overall widening project. The commission received a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to help pay for a side path along the entire project.

Without the grant, ARDOT would’ve been working for “a few more years” for the money for the side path, Wiley said.

Tim Conklin, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission, said once the Highway 112 project is completed, including the shared-use paved trail, it will create “a 31-mile active transportation spine similar to the Razorback Greenway from Bentonville all the way down to Fayetteville. You’ll be able to go from Kessler Mountain Regional Park all the way to the new Bella Vista mountain bike chairlift park that’s being developed today.”

Conklin provided several metrics regarding how the project will improve safety, including reducing crashes along the corridor by 25% to 31% and reducing intersection crashes by 78% to 82% because of the roundabouts. Pedestrian and cyclist crashes are expected to be reduced by 53% because of the side path and sidewalks. Over the next 20 years, the combined safety and reliability benefits are projected to total more than $380 million, including $217 million in reduced fatal and serious injury crashes and $163 million in travel time savings.

“Today is really a testament about the collaboration from the local level, regional and state levels and a shared commitment to improving the safety, capacity and connectivity along the Highway 112 corridor,” Conklin said. “This corridor goes through eight different cities from Fayetteville all the way to Bentonville.”

INTERSTATE DESIGNATION
U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Rogers, said seeing and hearing the continuous flow of traffic along Highway 112 illustrates “that Northwest Arkansas continues to grow and develop, and it is not waiting on us to provide the infrastructure necessary with which to be able to do it more efficiently. And that’s why we’re here today. Finally, we are taking a big step toward a very important and much-needed, and shall I say, overdue project.”

Womack said he hoped the federal government shutdown would end soon so he could work with legislators in the House and Senate to receive approval for $108 million in fiscal 2026 appropriations that would benefit the 3rd District of Arkansas. If the appropriations bills are approved, the money could support 15 projects in the 3rd District, including $59 million for the extension of Highway 612 (Springdale Northern Bypass) east to Arkansas Highway 265.

Construction on the second phase of the western segment of Highway 612 is underway, between Highway 112 and Highway 412, and was projected to be completed by mid-2027. Wiley said the Northwest Arkansas National Airport (XNA) connector road, which will intersect with the Highway 612 segment that’s under construction, is expected to be completed ahead of schedule. He said new construction completion dates might become available within about a month. Like Highway 612, the XNA connector will be a four-lane, interstate-style highway and was projected to be completed in mid-2027.

Once the western segment of Highway 612 is completed, Wiley said ARDOT will ask the Federal Highway Administration to designate that part of the highway, from I-49 to Highway 412, as Interstate 42.

Arkansas and Oklahoma transportation officials have been studying a 190-mile stretch of Highway 412 from Interstate 35 in Noble County, Okla., to I-49 in Springdale. This corridor is planned to be designated as I-42. If approved by the Federal Highway Administration, designating the highway as an interstate would allow ARDOT to receive “a higher percentage of federal investment to maintain that highway,” Wiley said. “Instead of being 80/20 federal/state, it’s 90/10 federal/state.”

“That’ll be a big day for Arkansas, adding another interstate corridor to the network,” he said. ARDOT might seek federal approval to designate Highway 612, between I-49 and Highway 412, as an interstate as early as mid-2026.