Arkansas’ highways are a major topic in the Arkansas Legislature these days, and on Monday Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed into law his highway funding bill.
According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Tuesday, “the law relies largely on portions of state surplus and increased earnings on state treasury investments to raise about $50 million a year, which will help the state obtain an additional $200 million a year in federal highway funds under a five-year federal highway funding law.”
On the local level, county roads and bridges are always at the forefront of issues with Arkansas county judges.
According to Columbia County Judge Larry Atkinson, there are 1,200 miles of county roads in Columbia County. There are 2,132 culverts, and 121 bridges. Of these 121 bridges, 64 are maintained by the state, with 57 maintained by the county.
Atkinson said now Columbia County - along with other Arkansas counties — is dealing with a lot of heavier traffic on county roads and bridges. “Log trucks can pull 85,000 pounds legally,” he illustrated, adding that oilfield trucks and other heavy industrial vehicles can be just as detrimental.
The Association of Arkansas Counties recently published a flyer entitled “County Roads: Critical to rural infrastructure, state’s economy and local communities.”
According to the AAC publication:
•There are 1,196 obsolete and deficient county road bridges throughout Arkansas. This includes 778 functionally obsolete bridges and 418 structurally deficient bridges. It is estimated the cost to replace them all would total $480 million.
Forty-eight percent of the counties’ obsolete and deficient bridges are weight restricted to 15 tons or less.
•Routine maintenance costs for the 4,307 county road bridges is approximately $340 per year per bridge - or more than $1.4 million. That cost is estimated to climb to more than $2.9 million in 20 years.
•Of special concern is school children. The average school bus weighs 11 to 14 tons empty. Add 84 passengers, and the weight can climb to 18 tons.
•Counties throughout the state maintain about 50,000 miles of roadways.
•Only 26 percent of Arkansas’ county roads are paved.
•The cost to annually maintain an asphalt road is $5,000 per mile.
•Routine costs to maintain a rural gravel road is $2,564 per mile.
•Rural maintenance programs are often curtailed by floods and other disasters.
•The annual road maintenance budget obligation for county roads - both paved and gravel - is approximately $154 million.