Interstate 540 To Be Completed This Fall

The largest highway project in Arkansas — the $450 million construction of Interstate 540 from Alma to Fayetteville — is scheduled to be completed this fall, says Randy Ort, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department.

“We’re pushing to get it completed as early this fall as possible,” he says.

The project consists of 42 miles of roadway. The highway that will be designated Interstate 540 is a total of 50 miles long. Eight miles of what will be 540 was completed years ago and is often referred to as the Fayetteville bypass.

When completed, the four-lane, controlled-access 540 will traverse the Ozark Mountains from Interstate 40 to the northern edge of Fayetteville, where it will connect with U.S. Highway 71. The southernmost 10-mile segment of the roadway (from Alma to Mountainburg) was completed three years ago.

Arkansas 540 is expected to take traffic off busy U.S. 71, a primarily two-lane highway that runs parallel to 540.

A major construction project within the highway project is the creation of twin 1,600-foot tunnels through a mountain near Winslow, the only highway tunnels in Arkansas. Earlier this year, the tunnels were named the Bobby Hopper Tunnel in honor of Hopper, a Springdale resident who has served for 16 years on the state highway commission, longer than anyone else in history.

Construction of the tunnels will cost $37.1 million (which is included in the overall cost above). J.F. Shea Co. of Walnut, Calif., is expected to finish the tunnels this fall. When completed, each tunnel will be 44 feet wide and about 27 feet high.

Ort says 540 will be a “very expensive highway” at a little more than $10 million per mile. Federal highway guidelines are strict concerning hills and curves, so it costs more to build interstate highways through the Ozark Mountains than it would to build other roadways. Construction on 540 began in January 1987 at the Interstate 40 interchange in Alma.

U.S. Highway 412

The second-largest highway project in Northwest Arkansas is construction of the White River bridge over part of Beaver Lake east of Springdale and widening of about six miles of U.S. Highway 412 approaching the bridge. The entire cost of the project is estimated at $26.8 million.

Work began in September 1997 and should be completed in late 1999, says Ort.

U.S. Highway 412 will be widened to four lanes from near the Springdale Airport east for about four miles to the bridge. The highway will also be widened to four lanes for about two miles — to Nob Hill — east of the bridge.

The bridge and immediate approaches are 1.4 miles long. The bridge project alone is estimated at $10 million. The new bridge will replace a two-lane bridge just to the south of the new route.