Two overpasses in Jonesboro have been given the green light to move forward. During a meeting of the Jonesboro Area Metropolitan Planning Organization yesterday, Jonesboro Mayor Harold Perrin excitedly announced the city has been awarded a $1.2 million federal grant. According to the Jonesboro Sun, the money will be used to finance environmental review and design plans for a railroad overpass on Highland Drive. The city will have to pick up $300,000 of the cost of the $1.5 million study. The city applied for the grant in April and learned yesterday they had been approved for the grant. The city wants to place on overpass on Highland Drive due to many times that crossing has been blocked by trains. The crossing is blocked about two hours a day by an average of 30 Burlington Northern-Sante Fe trains. The purpose of the railroad overpass is to improve safety and reliable transportation in the city. Also approved yesterday is a proposal to seek federal funding to pay for feasibility and environmental studies to build pedestrian overpasses at Arkansas State University between South Caraway Road and Matthews Avenue. Federal transit funding from Jonesboro JETS would be used to pay for 80 percent of the estimated cost of the studies. If those are approved, pedestrian overpass could be constructed in 2016.
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.