Fort Smith Mayor Sandy Sanders, left, speaks alongside Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan Wednesday afternoon inside Fayetteville City Hall. The two mayors held joint news conferences in both Fort Smith and Fayetteville to announce plans to work together on regional transportation issues.
Todd Gill, Fayetteville Flyer
Fayetteville Mayor Lioneld Jordan and Fort Smith Mayor Sandy Sanders announced a plan Wednesday to strengthen the connection between the second and third largest cities in Arkansas.
The two said they plan to hold a series of four joint meetings this year – two in Fayetteville and two in Fort Smith – to explore ways to work together on transportation issues that could benefit the two cities and the region.
“Our cities have been joined by commercial transportation for more than 150 years,” said Jordan at a news conference inside Fayetteville City Hall. “The first stagecoach left Fayetteville on Sept. 18, 1858 and arrived in Fort Smith at 2 a.m. the next morning.”
With rail service beginning 20 years later, the paving of U.S. Highway 71 in the 1930s, and the completion of I-540 in 1999, the mayors said it’s time to renew the historic connection between the two cities.
“We each have strengths that can benefit and support the other,” said Sanders. “A closer working relationship has the potential to be the catalyst for creating more vibrant growth and development.”
First on the mayors’ list is advocating for the completion of Interstate 49, a planned federal roadway that would run through Northwest Arkansas to eventually help connect the Gulf Coast to the Canadian border.
“I-49 will have a tremendous economic benefit for our two cities,” said Sanders. “We will be at the center of an east-west interstate corridor in the center of the country and job growth will be substantial.”
Other projects mentioned include expanding rail and air service between the two cities, and the deepening of the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, which would help expand regional river barge transportation.
If successful, the projects would create a regional intermodal freight transportation system. Intermodal operations cut down on cargo handling which improves security, reduces damage and loss, and allows freight to be transported faster and cheaper.
“As I’ve said before, the I-540 tunnel is a connector, not a divider,” said Sanders. “Our new partnership brings our two cities together in ways that will strengthen our economies and help our citizens and businesses thrive.”
No dates have been set for the joint meetings, but city officials said they will be publicized and open to the public.
Ten largest Arkansas cities by population
1. Little Rock – 193,524
2. Fort Smith – 86,209
3. Fayetteville – 73,580
4. Springdale – 69,797
5. Jonesboro – 67,263
6. North Little Rock – 62,304
7. Conway – 58,908
8. Rogers – 55,964
9. Pine Bluff – 49,083
Sounds more like joint campaign photo-ops than anything else.
I believe opening the line of transportation via the Arkansas – Missouri railroad is one option. Allowing people to stay 1 – 2 nights as needed and take a train back. Of course the train would need to be much more than a tourist train, but it seems like something easy to adopt.
Ft. Smith would need to add bus service to Van Buren – not sure why this doesn’t exist already, plus Van Buren needs to add a hotel downtown as to attract people. The same would be said for people traveling to Fayetteville. Once the new hotels open up people could easily access them and stay comfortably downtown. All without driving. This is more geared towards the community and not the intermodal transport. I’m sure there is room for improvement here as well.
I’m with glutenfree, I was really hoping for something with some actual substance, this is just campaign posturing.
I-49 is nothing we should be interested in. Most of us like NWA and Fayetteville the way it is. A bunch of longhaul traffic through here will just mean a bunch more fast food and gas stations. I grew up near West Memphis, its a tumor. NWA is a beautiful place to live, I would hate to see it turn into yet another truckstop city.
Economic growth does not mean just routing more traffic through your city. And access is important for some types of economic growth, but are we really expecting a bunch of manufacturing jobs to roll into town? Of course not. We need to be looking at high-tech industry and tourism.
Seems like we used to have a mayor who was aggressively pursuing high-tech industry…seems like there was a wave of woodwork hillbillies afraid that he would “turn us into Austin”. Oh, the horror. So in exchange, we got this guy.
We now have a breakfast taco truck, we have turned into Austin already!
Seems like we used to have a mayor who was aggressively pursuing a bottled water company from Iceland and a TIF Bond issue to subsidize developers of a Marriott Hotel to replace the Mountain Inn. Oh, the horror. So in exchange, we got this guy.
We already have a train, let’s put it to use, we could have Bentonville commuters on the train coming from Ft Smith every day, but that might turn us into Chicago, oh the horror