The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department on Wednesday announced its schedule for more than 30 state projects that will use a half-cent sales tax Arkansas voters approved in November.
The first six projects are all in Northwest Arkansas.
They include three sections of the long-awaited Bella Vista Bypass, which will give drivers a stoplight-free stretch of road between the Missouri border and Interstate 40; phase one of the Springdale Northern Bypass from Interstate 540 to Arkansas 112; and two stretches of I-540 where new lanes will be added.
Also on Wednesday, the Arkansas Highway Commission opened bids for I-540 widening between Wedington Drive and Porter Road in Fayetteville. That project could begin next month and wrap up by early 2015, said Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Highway Department. The apparent low bidder was Pace Construction of St. Louis at $16.6 million.
Timeline
The Projects
Bid schedules for the first six half-cent sales tax projects are:
• Bella Vista Bypass (I-540 interchange): Late 2013
• Bella Vista Bypass (U.S. 71 to Arkansas 72): Late 2013
• Bella Vista Bypass (Benton County 34 to Missouri line): Early 2014
• Springdale Northern Bypass (I-540 to Arkansas 112): Late 2014
• I-540 Widening (Southeast 14th Street to East Central Avenue): Early 2015
• I-540 Widening (Fulbright Expressway to Sunset Avenue): Mid-2015
Source: Arkansas Highway And Transportation Department
The 1.3-mile project is one of 17 segments of I-540 that will be widened to six — and even eight — lanes between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Fayetteville and East Central Avenue in Bentonville. The work extends 26 miles. Widening began last year when a third lane was added in either direction between King Boulevard and Wedington Drive.
Nine interchanges — at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Wedington Drive, Greathouse Springs Road, Don Tyson Parkway, Elm Springs Road, Wagon Wheel Road, West Monroe Avenue, Southeast Walton Boulevard and Southeast 14th Street — will be improved. Straessle said work on the King Boulevard and Wedington Drive interchanges could begin in late 2014.
The interstate projects will use a combination of money, including half-cent sales tax proceeds, local matches, bonds voters approved in 2011 for highway repairs and federal transportation improvement program dollars.
The half-cent sales tax raised the state sales tax from 6 percent to 6.5 percent for 10 years. Arkansas residents began paying the tax July 1. It is expected to generate $1.2 billion for four-lane highway construction during the next decade.
More than $400 million will go to projects in Northwest Arkansas. Seventy percent of the tax is for four lane highway construction throughout the state. Thirty percent will be distributed to cities and counties based on population and land size and can be used for local projects, including streets, sidewalks, trails and transit.
“It’s allowing us to complete projects, routes and major corridors that we would not have been able to do,” Straessle said.
Mike Malone, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Council, said Wednesday he was thrilled to see I-540 widening continue.
“It’s one of the busiest highway segments in Arkansas,” Malone said. “There are almost daily traffic backups. It’s becoming a dangerous situation for commuters and families. As fast as they can go, the better.”
Two sections of the Bella Vista Bypass — around Hiwasse and from Arkansas 72 to Benton County 34 — are under way. The three projects scheduled Wednesday will create an interchange with I-540 south of Bella Vista, tie I-540 to the south Arkansas 72 interchange, and extend the highway from Benton County 34 to the Missouri line.
The projects, totaling an estimated $100 million, will become part of Interstate 49, which will stretch from New Orleans to Canada. Straessle said the Highway Department only has enough money for two lanes of the bypass at this point. But, he added, it will eventually become a four-lane divided highway. Bids for the three new sections of the bypass are expected to be let later this year and in early 2014.
Bids for the first leg of the Springdale Northern Bypass from I-540 to Arkansas 112 are scheduled to be let in late 2014. The project is intended to pave the way for a new access road to the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport.
Two other sections of I-540 widening — from Southeast 14th Street to East Central Avenue in Bentonville and from the Fulbright Expressway in Fayetteville to West Sunset Avenue in Springdale — are scheduled to be bid in early and mid-2015.