Interstate 49 in Arkansas

 

I-49
Get started doddridge
End Bella Vista
Length ~300 mi
Length ~500 km
Route
Louisianadoddridge

Lake Road

Fouke-South

Fouke-North

County Road 26

County Road 10

State Route 237

→ Texarkana Loop

East Street

Division Street

9th Street

19th Street

Broad Street

Arkansas Boulevard

→ Dallas / Little Rock

Sanderson Lane

Stateline Avenue

Texarkana – Fort Smith (planned)

Massard Road

Roberts Boulevard

Fort Street

12 → Oklahoma City / Little Rock

21 Collum Lane

24 Rudy

29 Mountainburg

34 Chester

45 Winslow

53 West Fork

58 Greenland

60-67 Fayetteville

60 Fulbright Expressway

62 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard

64 Wedington Drive

65 Porter Road

66 Garland Avenue

67 Fayetteville Business District

69 Johnson

72-76 Springdale

72 Sunset Avenue

73 Elm Springs Road

76 Wagon Wheel Road

77 → Siloam Springs

78 Lowell

81-83 Rogers

81 Pleasant Grove Road

82 Promenade Boulevard

83 New Hope Road

85-93 Bentonville

85 Walton Boulevard

86 14th Street

87 8th Street

88 Central Avenue

93 Walton Boulevard

284 Centerton

287 Gravette

289 Highlands Boulevard

Missouri

Interstate 49 is an Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of Arkansas. The highway is to form a north-south route through the west of the state, from the Louisiana border at Doddridge to the Missouri border at Bella Vista. The highway serves the cities of Texarkana, DeQueen, Fort Smith, Springdale, Rogers and Bentonville. The planned length is approximately 500 kilometers.

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Travel directions

Southern Arkansas

I-49 begins at the Louisiana state border, where Interstate 49 enters Louisiana from Shreveport. The highway has 2×2 lanes and heads north through the woods, parallel to the Red River. The highway leads through flat terrain with quite a lot of forest, but partly also some meadows. After about 50 kilometers you reach Texarkana, of which I-49 forms the eastern ring road. A small portion of the Texarkana ring road has 2×3 lanes, but the majority has 2×2 lanes. On the east side of Texarkana, it interchanges with Interstate 30, I-49 then branches west and ends at US 71 on the north side of Texarkana, on the border with the state of Texas.

Northwest Arkansas

I-49 at Johnson.

The second part starts a lot further north as an incomplete bypass of the city of Fort Smith. The highway here has 2×2 lanes and leads over the grounds of the army base Fort Chaffee. I-49 runs along the edge of Fort Smith here, through traffic uses Interstate 540, as I-49 is not yet crossing the Arkansas River.

The third section begins further north at the village of Alma at an interchange with Interstate 40, just outside Fort Smith. Here too, the highway has 2×2 lanes and heads north through hilly terrain. The highway has a few higher viaducts and a short tunnel. One then reaches the row of towns in Northwest Arkansas. The highway has 2×3 lanes along Fayetteville, Springdale and Rogers. The region has no urban highway network, I-49 is the only freeway through the region. I-49 then forms a bypass of the hill country via the west, the so-called Bella Vista Bypass. At the Missouri border, the route merges into Interstate 49 in Missouri toward Joplin and Kansas City.

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History

Louisiana – Texarkana

The oldest portion of I-49 today is the Texarkana East Bypass, which was commissioned in 1977-1979. The section opened in 1977 was bypassed in 2013 by a new route, the old section is now the Four States Fair Parkway.

In 2001, a portion of the Texarkana bypass, which is now numbered State Route 245, opened. In 2012, its extension to I-30 on the east side of Texarkana opened. In 2004-2005, much of State Route 549 opened between Doddridge and Texarkana. On May 13, 2013, a 15-mile section opened along the northeast side of Texarkana. On November 10, 2014, the southernmost 7 kilometers between the Louisiana and Doddridge border opened. This completed the Interstate Highway between Shreveport and Texarkana.

Northwest Arkansas

In Northwest Arkansas, I-49 originated on the freeway that would replace US 71 in the urban areas of Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville. The oldest part of this is the Fayetteville Bypass, which opened in 1983. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the highway was extended in stages north to the north side of Bentonville.

In the 1990s, the highway between I-40 at Alma and the south side of Fayetteville was opened in two phases in 1995 and 1999. On January 8, 1999, this formally became part of Interstate 540, which was extended over the existing US 71 freeway to the north side of Bentonville. In April-May 2014, I-540 between Alma and Bella Vista was renumbered to I-49.

Finally, a bypass of Bella Vista in the far north of Arkansas has been constructed. This project was initially constructed partly as a super two after years of planning and has been temporarily numbered as State Route 549 in Arkansas. Construction began on October 15, 2019, its final phase all the way to the Missouri border. As part of this, the entire SR-549 was also widened to 2×2 lanes, so that it could also receive the status of I-49. This part was opened to traffic on September 30, 2021. This solved one of the most prominent missing links of the Interstate Highway system in the United States.

Fort Smith

Between 2009 and 2015, a segment was constructed through the southeast of Fort Smith over a former military base, which will not connect to other highways for the time being. An additional bridge over the Arkansas River is required to connect this section to I-40. So I-49 will not be routed over the existing I-540 past Fort Smith, but will run further east. This section of 10 kilometers was opened on 14 July 2015.

Opening history

From Unpleasant Length Date
US 82 / 9th Street Texarkana Arkansas Blvd (Texarkana) 2 km 1979
Exit 60 Fayetteville (South) Exit 67 Fulbright Expressway 11 km 1983
Exit 67 Fulbright Expressway Exit 72 US 412 (Springdale) 8 km 1985
Exit 72 US 412 (Springdale) Exit 78 Lowell 10 km 1986
Exit 78 Lowell Exit 85 Bentonville (South) 11 km 1987
Exit 85 Bentonville (South) Exit 86 Bentonville (SR-102) 2 km 1990
Exit 86 Bentonville (SR-102) Exit 93 Bentonville (north) 11 km 1992
Exit 20 I-40 (Alma) Exit 29 Mountainburg 14 km 00-08-1995
Exit 29 Mountainburg Exit 60 Fayetteville (South) 51 km 08-01-1999
SR-245 19th Street, Texas 6 km 00-00-2001
wrong SR-245 20 km 00-00-2004
doddridge wrong 20 km 21-10-2005
Arkansas Blvd (Texarkana) US 59 / US 71 (Texarkana) 15 km 15-05-2013
Louisiana state line doddridge 7 km 10-11-2014
US 71 (Fort Smith) AR-22 Fort Street (Fort Smith) 10 km 14-07-2015
Exit 93 Bentonville (north) Missouri state line 22 km 30-09-2021

Widenings

The Northwest Arkansas (NWA) region, which includes the cities of Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, and Bentonville, is growing rapidly and traffic on I-49 in this region has increased significantly. Therefore, parts of I-49 have been widened to 2×3 lanes in this conurbation. In early 2014, the first short 2×3 lane section opened between the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Wedington Drive in Fayetteville. On November 7, 2014, 2×3 lanes opened between Wagon Wheel Road and Lowell for about 3 miles on the north side of Springdale. On November 3, 2016, 2×3 lanes opened between the Fulbright Expressway and Wagon Wheel Road. At the end of 2017, the widening was completed further to Hudson in Rogers. This completed the widening along the cities in Northwest Arkansas.

Future

It is not yet clear when the middle section from Texarkana to Fort Smith will be constructed. This section runs north of Texarkana a short distance through Texas. In 2018, it was concluded that tolls would not be cost-effective as a method of financing I-49 between Fort Smith and Alma, with a new bridge over the Arkansas River. The cost was estimated at $776 million at the time.

Interstate 49 in Arkansas