I-49 will rev up Texarkana area’s economic engine when completed

Once Interstate 49’s final 140-mile leg connects Fort Smith, Ark., to Texarkana, the road can become a fuel injector—converting Texarkana into an economic engine that generates more business for the Ark-La-Tex.

Earlier this spring, I-49 International Coalition President Curt Green spoke before a Tri-State Conference of local, regional and state officials in Natchitoches, La. Green focused on how cities, such as Texarkana, that dot I-49’s corridor can become economic power plants.

Green’s presentation featured the Twin Cities’ economic goal of benefiting the area’s residents by bringing in new dollars from outside the city. This could be done through an economy based in tourism and local companies selling outside products and services.

Green’s presentation further showed how the Texarkana area’s primary employers—such as Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. and the Domtar paper mill in Ashdown, Ark.—create jobs by selling products and services outside the area. These sales benefit local suppliers and, in turn, build a local retail economy for now and the future.

Other primary employers cited in Green’s presentation include Red River Army Depot and International Paper. But he also listed TexAmericas Center, Maxwell Industrial Park near Texarkana Regional Airport and Nash Business Park and Falvey Industrial Park on the Texas side as poised to help fuel Texarkana’s economic engine. Green further emphasized TexAmericas because of its large, open real estate and strategic geographical position near the future Interstate 30 and I-49 intersection (once that last 140 miles is built between Fort Smith and Texarkana). Formed in 1997 in the aftermath of the Base-Realignment and Closure Commission’s 1995 review of the RRAD, TexAmericas now has 12,000 acres of land available for modern industrial and commercial business development— space that is also inside the foreign trade zone that covers much of Bowie County. The center is in the process of repairing and maintaining 36 miles of rail system, 200 miles of roadway, 240,000 square feet of warehouse space and 1,700 square feet of dry storage space. Getting back to the roadways, Green said I-49’s recently completed link between Shreveport, La., and Texarkana, which officially opened in November of last year, is more prepared than ever to ultimately help serve 12 states—nine beyond Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. They include Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. Besides intersecting fully with I-30 on the north side of Texarkana once that final stretch to Fort Smith is complete, the vast majority of I-49 that’s already built intersects with five existing interstates running east to west in the United States. Starting from the south, these intersections include I-10 near New Orleans, I-20 running through Shreveport, I-40 farther north around the ArkansasMissouri border and I-44 and I-70 still farther north—all along a 1,700-mile stretch of I-49’s north-south reach. Once complete, this stretch will connect New Orleans to Winnipeg in Canada. Apart from offering access to a grid of east and west-running interstates that could economically benefit Texarkana, Green said a completed I-49 would offer such overall benefits as reduction and alleviation of traffic congestion from north to south near the country’s center. Green added that I-49 would improve transportation safety and economic development in unserved areas and provide a new route for hurricane evacuation from the Gulf of Mexico—as well as transportation support for national defense and national security by offering a firm central route for military ground traffic. As for where things stand now, I-49 is about 80 percent complete, with 5 percent of that remaining 20 percent now being worked on in the 140 miles between Fort Smith and Texarkana. The remaining 15 percent of the incomplete I-49 still needs public funding, but Green has said that Arkansas is now having a difficult time obtaining the federal money needed for completion. Arkansas highway officials have confirmed this, saying that 56 proposed highway and bridge projects had to be withdrawn from consideration for bid openings in March because of the “continuing uncertainty of federal aid reimbursements” through the Federal Highway Trust Fund.

Nevertheless, the effort is too close to being finished to stop now. There’s still hope.