Keeping Politics off Arkansas’s Highways By Deborah Horn There are political voices in Arkansas who have periodically suggested abolishing or rewriting the 70-year-old Mack-Blackwell Amendment. During the 2023 Legislative Session, Senate Joint Resolutions 7 and 15 were introduced that would give legislators more of a say in highway business and where commissioners are appointed from. These died in committee. During an Arkansas Good Roads Foundation speech late in his final te

Since early 2020, highway crashes, serious injuries, and deaths have sharply increased by about 40 percent, but in highway construction work zones the increase was estimated at up to almost 70 percent. These numbers are causing the asphalt construction industry and experts to take notice. Speeding, raging, drinking, and distracted driving are ranked as top causes, and nationwide the high numbers held steady in the first quarter of 2022, up by about 7 percent over the same per