Hope Kiwanis Hears Update From Arkansas Department of Transportation

The Hope Kiwanis Club heard a program from Arkansas Department of Transporation District Engineer William Cheatham.  He was also joined by Resident Engineer Austin Morace of ArDot.

Cheatham’s district encompasses eight southwest Arkansas counties.  He gave some updates on current projects in the area.  He noted ArDot is the third largest state agency with approximately 3,900 employees.  Cheatham’s district has about 250 employees.  About 200 are in the maintenance area and about 50 are in engineering offices.  Cheatham said they had 3 engineering offices in the district.  There are in Hope, Texarkana, and Nashville.

ArDot oversees over 16,000 miles of state highways and interstates.  They have 7,400 state bridges plus county and city bridges.  The department inspects these bridges at least every two years.  In our district, there are over 1,500 miles of state roads they maintain, almost 700 state bridges plus county and city bridges.  They mow about 31,000 acres during the season.  ArDot also picks up litter.  Last year ArDot spent about $5 million dollars on littler pickup.  This amounted to 47,000 cubic yards of little, enough to cover a football field 22 feet deep.  In March, ArDot had a statewide littler pick-up and everyone from the engineers to the maintenance employees participated.  Cheatham said they picked up 1,200 bags of trash in this district in one day.

An interesting note, Cheatham said the state highway system is valued at $140 million dollars.

Cheatham said the department is currently working on a three-year budget covering 2025 to 2028.  This encompasses 743 projects statewide, over 4,500 miles of roadway including bridges, and is budgeted at $5 billion dollars.

Cheatham says 2025 will be one of their lighter years of work but projects are expected to pick up next year and continue over several more years.

Current projects in Hempstead County include work on 195 near DeAnn where three smaller bridges are being replaced with box culverts.  Estimated completion is set for November and the job will cost around $3 million dollars.  Another job is replacement of two bridges with box culverts on highway 29 north of Blevins.  This is budgeted at $2.2 million dollars and should be finished in January of next year.  Concrete work is underway the edges of I-30 for the “wire road safety fence” is going in.  This helps keep out of control vehicles from crossing the median into oncoming traffic.  This is expected to finished locally in September.  ArDot is working on replacing two bridges north of McCaskill on highway 195 with box culverts.  The budget for this is $4.3 million dollars.  It should be finished in the spring of 2026.  ArDot is also working on replacing two temporary culvert cross drains on US 371 between Blevins and Prescott.  This is a $4.3 million dollar job and is estimated to be finished in November of this year.

Cheatham talked about some future projects.  These will include a safety improvement job on I-30 westbound from mile marker 27 to 29.  There have a lot of wet weather accidents and they will do a thin asphalt overlay to improve the friction of vehicles.  That will come in 2026.  Also in 2026 a bridge west of DeAnn on state highway 332 on Crews Creek a bridge is scheduled for replacement in 2027.  There’s a long overlay job from Lewisville to Hope for Highway 29 in 2026.  Highway 29 north of 332 to Blevins is scheduled for an asphalt seal in 2026.  Beards Bluff to Saratoga is scheduled for an overlay in 2026.  Highway 67Third Street will receive an “ultra thin” overlay encompassing Hope next year.  Highway 73 from Saratoga to 278 will be overlayed next year.  Highway 174 from US 67 to Spring HIll and highway 355 from Spring HIll to Highway 29 is scheduled for overlay in 2026.  Cheatham also noted US 278 from Hope to Rosston will also see work next year.

Cheatham said the city of Hope has applied for intersection improvements at traffic signals at Hazle and the bypass and US 67 at the bypass.  Evaluation of those projects is underway.

Cheatham said $140 million dollars in highway improvements have been undertaken in Hempstead County over the last ten years in Hempstead County.

The club asked Cheatham questions about everything from the cost of materials to potential roundabouts and flooding railroad underpasses.