Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:
The Arkansas Department of Transportation is working to extend Interstate 49 in Arkansas with another 13 miles across the River Valley.
The department’s next project is building a section of interstate from Arkansas 22 near Barling in Sebastian County to the interchange of Interstate 40 and Interstate 49 at Alma in Crawford County.
“That piece from the river up, it certainly will benefit a lot of people,” said Chad Adams, a district engineer with the Transportation Department. “Everybody south of the river, it’s going to improve their connectivity up to Fayetteville and Bentonville and to I-40 east and west.”
The timeline is undetermined. Adams said some preparation work has been done for the section north of the Arkansas River, but the portion south of the river is still in the planning stages. Crews are out doing survey, environmental and geological work required to decide how and where to build across the river bottoms.