Discussion at previous public input sessions
This would cut out the winding, narrow section of Highway 25 including a turn that, for traffic headed toward Lake Beaverfork and Wooster, is sharp, downhill and off-camber. This is a combination that gives the turn a history of sending drivers of top-heavy vehicles like log trucks into the weeds and being dangerous even for cautious drivers in winter conditions. (Click here and scroll to around 1:30 to see video of this turn in icy weather.)
The re-aligned highway, planned to be five-lanes-wide for the one mile of new construction, also fits into a Faulkner County road plan that contemplates continued population growth in Wooster, which is increasingly becoming a “bedroom” community for Conway, and would also improve the road as a Highway 65 alternative for Conway-Greenbrier traffic.
Plans show the roadway centerline going right through one house on Beaverfork Heights Road, and several residents that are now on rural, local-traffic-only roads would find themselves living beside what is expected to be a busy highway. Staff Writer Becky Harris noted in 2011 that the new route would also separate part of a farmstead just north of the interchange from its pond.
A proposed alternative road more-or-less constantly arcing along roughly the existing path of Blaney Hill Road and Highway 25 to the lake was up for discussion at previous public input sessions, but was not included in drawings and maps on Tuesday.
The highway department hasn’t yet started the process of negotiating to buy the properties the new road will need or, failing that, to take the land through state eminent domain authority and have the price settled in court. If the new road is built, the county would take over maintenance of what is now Highway 25 up to the lake.