Thank you, Grzrd!
I've got a lowly, only anecdotal story from yesterday to add to Mr. Green's comments:
I went out west of Bella Vista to see how the bridge on Rocky Dell Hollow Road (atop the second section of the BV bypass, set to open in the fall) was coming. A few hundred feet off the road I noticed a ArkDOT or subcontractor fuel trailer leaking profusely. Had no idea how to stop it and it's not my property so I called 911...Gravette police, Gravette fire, city of Bella Vista and Ark DOT subcontractors all responded.
I could hear the poor fire engine siren winding and weaving its way through the curved roads they now have to traverse, and it took them several minutes to get there. GPD and the subcontractors, however, just peeled down the dirt carriageway of future I-49. They were all saying what a blessing it will be for emergency vehicles getting to west Bella Vista when this is finished. Just a reminder that things WILL change, maybe big time, when we have a fully linked I-49 in the NWA metro.
Now imagine such convenience for multiple cities from Winnie and Duluth to the ports of Houston and south Louisiana and onto Brownsville/McAllen/Laredo, then remember that when the Panama Canal is finished ship traffic that for the longest time has been docking in Los Angeles will be heading in ever greater numbers to the aforementioned ports.
It's very sobering, and I can see why a guy like this has been devoted to this project (whether or not he personally lives to see benefits) for his community longer than today's graduating seniors at Texas, Liberty-Eylau, Arkansas and Pleasant Grove high schools have been alive.