The Office of Federal Lands Highway header

U.S. Department
of Transportation
Federal Highway
Administration

Associate Administrator
John Baxter
202-366-9494
john.baxter@dot.gov
www.fhwa.dot.gov/flh/

Federal Lands Highway
provides planning,
design, and engineering
services to support the
highways and bridges
that provide access to
and within federally
owned lands.

Federal Lands Divisions

Eastern
Federal Lands

Eastern Federal Lands

Division Engineer
Melisa Ridenour
703-404-6201
melisa.ridenour@fhwa.
dot.gov
www.efl.fhwa.dot.gov

September 2007
See FLH website for sources

Fact Sheet

Arkansas FLHP

AR FLHP road miles: 1,037 Funding Authorized FY 98 – 07: $27,570,000 Federal land acreage as percentage of total state area: 9%* AR population: 2,810,872
National Park Service (7 units) U.S. Forest Service (2) Fish and Wildlife Service (10) This percentage includes Federal lands that are not part of the FLHP core program and not depicted on the map

Photo of the Mulberry River The Federal Lands Highway Program in Arkansas. Forest Highway 65 is a quaint gravel road leading through the Ozark National Forest and adjacent to the Mulberry River, which is designated as a Recreational River in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Due to increased recreational vehicle traffic the Arkansas Forest Highway no longer met highway safety standards.The gravel road did not have guardrails, was not wide enough for two-lane traffic, especially recreational vehicles, and could not physically accommodate the increased demand for accessibility to the scenic area. Due to the increased traffic, there was also a need to pave the gravel surface.The dust and sediment from the gravel measurably degraded the water quality of the river below.The challenge was to improve the quality of the road and bridges without disturbing the beautiful vista and river.

Eastern Federal Lands widened almost a mile of the existing gravel road in the most constrictive area of the corridor to accommodate two paved travel lanes with shoulders and designed functional and aesthetic retaining walls for the project. A natural rock retaining wall was constructed made with stones quarried just a half mile from the construction site. The taller retaining walls ranging in height up to 18 feet used an innovative method of mechanically stabilized earth wall system faced with the locally quarried stone in place of the man made wall system facing.Without mortar between the stones the walls are free draining which makes it more conducive to fluctuations in the water level of the adjoining Mulberry River.

Download the Arkansas State FLHP Fact Sheet

You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the PDFs on this page.

FLHP | EFLHD | CFLHD | WFLHD

FHWA Home | Feedback