The Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department is working with city officials in Jonesboro to address traffic at Hilltop. Engineers have released several options for addressing the clogged traffic on Highway 49 between Arkansas State University and NEA Baptist Hospital. In 2013, the Highway Commission ordered a feasibility study to determine the best options for handling the massive amounts of traffic on that stretch of highway. According to the Sun, five different options were presented to Mayor Harold Perrin, with three of those options being called the most feasible. Some of the options call for widening East Johnson Avenue to six lanes and widening Old Greensborough Road to four lanes. The most expensive option and the option that is deemed as the best would also include construction of trumpet interchanges where Red Wolf Boulevard ends and where a new portion of Highway 351 would begin. Some of the new Greensborough Village and Arkansas State University’s Equine Center would be used in the construction. The project could cost as much as $40 million dollars, with the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department sharing the cost with local jurisdictions. The city of Jonesboro has pledged $1.7 million dollars in the project.
Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.