Second, support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.

Hello again everyone and thanks very much for joining us.

It took months and all manner of maneuvering by the White House and its congressional allies, but that long debated infrastructure.

Bill is legislation become law applauded by Governor Hutchinson, opposed by all six members of the Arkansas congressional delegation, eagerly anticipated by the transportation establishment and other beneficiaries, the package will bring more than $4 billion to our state.

The bulk of it.

For highways, but there's also money for airports and the environment, bridges and broadband.

Our state's share of the money where to spend it, specifically, how soon, and who decides in a moment, how to expand and how fast high speed Internet in the state with serious gaps in cyber connectivity.

But first concrete and asphalt Joe Quinn is executive director of the Arkansas Good Roads Council, the private entity that represents the highway establishment, commercial users and the construction industry.

Joe Quinn.

Thanks for coming aboard.

Uh, Steve.

With the math right, Joe Quinn, it's closer to 5 billion than than it is 4.

But anyway, the bulk of it is going to surface transportation.

So what is what is the next step from the industry standpoint from the user standpoint?

I think there's a couple of next steps.

I mean, it's it's 3.8 billion for roads and bridges, 244 million for public transportation.

There's money to start to really think about and build an electronic vehicle charging station infrastructure in the state, 117 million for airports, 23 million for safety.

I think the next steps are the federal government starts to put together the funding formulas that will be used as the money is divided out to States and they're also.

Is a lot of safety money in there that states can apply for as grant money on on top of what they're getting in the initial allotment?

So I think it's kind of appropriate that we're sitting here talking about this on Thanksgiving weekend.

You know, when tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Arkansans are in their vehicles going to grandmother's house for pumpkin pie?

Because this is about better roads and and safe roads and kind of an appropriate weekend to be kicking this around here with you.

We continue the analogy here.

A lot of opponents of this legislation called it a Turkey, so now we're on Thanksgiving weekend.

Obviously you think it's pretty tasty bird.

Well, I think a couple of things matter right now.

Steve, I I think at the in the height of the pandemic we passed issue one in 72 of 75 counties which was a really significant thing and in a very sort of angry, divided political world.

We passed.

Issue one.

You know in the middle of COVID and then a year later.

Joe, let me interrupt you.

Better remind us now what issue one is.

Some of our audience is a little younger than you and I are.

Yeah, issue one was the ballot issue that allowed us to extend a sales tax and continue funding local and state road and bridge money and which was hugely significant Steve because head issue one not past the average county or mayor would have lost 30% of their local road budget.

So that was a year ago and now we come back a year later and we got the federal infrastructure bill passed.

So I think for the first time in many years are we're in pretty good shape.

As we look to the future of transportation, well, it's not as though Washington is writing one big check and deposit again.

And state of Arkansas State Treasury.

What's the process now that we're likely to see unfold what this is going to be an incremental process?

Well, it'll be an incremental process.

It's a five year process to sort of pass along the money, but let's not forget that even if the money is passed along in five years, significant road and bridge projects in Arkansas take a long time.

We just dedicated the Bella Vista Bypass, which really, you know, finishes the connection from Kansas City to Fort Smith.

It is.

It was a very significant project that took 25 years from conception to the day it was open, so.

You know when it comes to road and bridge issues when it comes to the infrastructure bill, we're playing the long, long game, not the short game.

So I mean it takes a while, but I I do think see what has changed at the state Capitol instead of hallway conversations where you hear people say, well, you know now we can go after the funding for this or that.

It's not a question of finding the funding right now.

It's a question of prioritizing the the projects that can have the most impact.

Well in terms of the foundation.

What are what are the foundations priorities?

The priorities for the foundation are reminding Arkansans why quality roads and bridges mean safety.

Safety is a huge issue.

Why that funding has to be consistent to local communities, and I also think Steve.

The other thing that's happening in this country right now, and I think this is very relevant where we're seeing all these national stories of severe supply chain problems with these massive massive shipping containers backed up off the coast of California.

The pandemic, you know, expedited the fact that most of us felt we can do our shopping and have whatever we need delivered to our front door.

We live in a society now where people have decided that their paper towels and their toothpaste need to be delivered overnight and as a result, whether you live in an urban urban area like Jonesboro or Little Rock or or in a small town, the infrastructure has to keep pace with the future and the future is a lot more freight and home delivery happening on our roads.

Talking kind of conceptually here about you know where the where the foundation anyway wants to go.

Now there's reason to believe that out on the new bitten highway where the highway the Transportation department is R Dot is headquartered.

Anyway, they heard of the good Good Roads Foundation.

What are your priorities in terms of physical infrastructure?

What is at the top of the list of your membership for improvements or construction?

But I think a couple of things I I mean, R dot does a nice job on a month to month basis of putting a lot of thought into the long term plan you know, would you get out when you get down below Fort Smith there?

There's a lot of conversation about what.

What is the future of completing I-49 down there?

So there are certainly a lot of big projects.

Anybody who is driving to Memphis for Thanksgiving, you know, is aware that that is one of the heaviest travel truck.

Routes in the United States, so I mean there are big projects like that that people think about, but but also the bulk of road work on a day to day basis is managed by county judges and mayors in in small and medium sized communities, and they need funding to improve safety and to improve maintenance.

Arkansas is a conservative state, I think in in many ways we like to sort of maintain what we have before we build new and the the other thought about sort of projects in the future is I always.

Remind people that the Broadway Bridge, which really I think changed the complexion of downtown Little Rock, you know that was an $80 million project, so it it takes a lot of funding to make this work, and I think our dog will do what they have always done, which is rather thoughtfully prioritized major projects as we look to the future.

Well, you know, we're just coming.

We're coming off a couple of months here and which we had no I.

40 Interstate entrance into across the river into Tennessee.

It brought commerce.

In the entire region, if not the entire country.

Well immediately to a screeching halt and then a re routing.

That costs hundreds of millions of dollars from a.

From a standpoint of the political argument.

That had to be in a bizarre way, a macabre way almost kind of a selling point for this piece of legislation.

Well, I, I think you're you're spot on and I I don't know if I would call it a selling point, but I think for much of the summer that bridge going into Memphis was the center of the national infrastructure.

Conversation II was there the day that Transportation Secretary Bourget was there.

That bridge was built in 1973.

The bridge that traffic was re routed.

Aren't you while it was closed, was built at the end of World War Two.

Those are both kind of blunt reminders that when you build a bridge in 1973 and then it handles 40,000 vehicles every day since then, you know we have very real infrastructure issues in this country that need to be discussed.

And yeah, I, I agree with you.

I I think it's at the height of Washington talking about the infrastructure bill.

There was the the bridge.

Broke at Memphis and that sort of, I think elevated the discussion even more, but I think as as you and I as old news guys would say it put a human face on the issue and it was not an abstract academic conversation about infrastructure.

It was, you know, what are the traffic ramifications for West Memphis?

Because the bridge is closed.

It was a very localized version of the discussion.

Is if you you mentioned a second ago that we would prefer to, or at least in your estimation, Arkansans would prefer to maintain before they build.

That's going to be the focus inter, or that should be the focus anyway, in terms of the foundation's outlook.

Well, I I think there are.

I mean repairing any road is very expensive when you drive out in the state you spend some time with the county judge and you you walk around and and sort of kicked the pavement on a rural Rd.

You know, you realize that it's very expensive to fix any road.

So although we have issue one and although the infrastructure bill has passed and these are both things that give us reason for optimism as we look to the future, I mean the average may or the average county judge has more roads.

To repair and maintain, then and you would think about so you know, repairing and maintaining what they have, I think is the priority I I was with the county judge a couple of years ago who said to me if you take all the miles of road in my county that I have to manage, that's the equivalent of driving to Destin, FL.

He paused and then he said and we have to worry about cutting the grass on either side of the road.

So the average county judge wants more time than you would think on road issues and and and funding to maintain.

The existing roads is very important.

Well, this is going to be a break then for the judges and and the mayors as well as the state system.

Yes, I think I think anything that can allow a state or local entity to do a better, more sophisticated job planning for their future, because they know the funding is going to be there.

They can give more thought and evaluation to what needs to be done and spend less time sort of planning year to year because they don't know what the immediate funding issues are going to be.

Joe Quinn of the Good Roads Foundation.

Thanks very much for being with us.

Thank you Steve.

Have a great Thanksgiving and the same to you.

Come back soon and we'll be back in a moment.

And we are back in the 21st century.

It has become vital to economic development and almost as crucial to everyday life as electricity.

Its broadband, high speed Internet and it's absent from too much of rural Arkansas.

Can the infrastructure package eliminate that deficit?

And how quickly with us now Steven Ports, the state Economic Development Commissions?

Executive broadband manager Mr Port thanks very much for coming aboard just a moment ago, you and I were chatting.

This is sort of a landmark event.

Anyway, in terms of expanding information capability into rural Arkansas.

Yes, I agree with that.

I I would term it is very historic.

We the pandemic has really shown us what we need to do in this area of broadband.

And as you stated earlier, it's similar to the electrification of Arkansas.

So it's very important that we have this because it's used in everyday life so.

It's it's something that we're working very hard to get across the state of Arkansas, and I think the infrastructure bill is really going to help with that.

Well, the pandemic, as you mentioned, exposed some real gaps in connectivity in in much of the state, far too much of the state in terms not only of well telemedicine, certainly, but also in K12 education.

Well, higher education in all its facets.

What did we learn?

What did the pandemic just shove into our face in terms of of black spots?

Arkansas that we had more of them than we, then we thought I I am.

I have been integrated with images of children in parking lots.

At McDonald's and at these different places, trying to do their homework during the height of the pandemic where they were talking about the need for social distancing and that problem wasn't just localize it was a lot through the rural areas of Arkansas, so thankfully we had a system in place to address that issue with the Arkansas rule connect, which was a put up right before the pandemic hit.

So everything happened right on time where we can try to get service to these areas because things temporary fixes like hot spots.

They're good for the immediate need, but Arkansas really needed a long lasting solution to the problem and.

Infrastructure is going to be that solution.

Well, so right now we've got quite a few projects out there, 132 of them over 200,000 Arkansans now have access to quality broadband that didn't before and were steady.

Increasing that number and the new infrastructure plan is going to add to that in the in a significant way.

Well, it's it's correct me if I'm wrong, but the new bill has about 100 million additional dollars for broadband.

Am I correct in that regard?

Yes, every state gets $100 million, but there's going to be more money to follow that the the way it works is the FCC is working on new maps.

The new maps are are important because they help us learn where the spots of needs are.

So once they get those new maps up, they're going to do a calculation and see how many unserved homes are in each state, and then they're going to allocate think.

Approximately $42 billion throughout the states to see, according to need, and then we'll take it and try to apply it to the areas they listed on their maps that we have almost well about.

Close to $300 million in broadband expansion already, much of that carried out.

Am I correct?

First, carried out through Federal Assistance, Emergency assistance funds, and I think about another 250 million more.

Uh is planned now.

Does that incorporate the new money?

And I guess finally my question is, what will $100 million more do?

That we we haven't done already?

Well, there's still areas that that have need.

We have what we consider high hanging fruit, which is those areas that are lightly populated.

We would like to see the ISP's, the Internet service providers take some of this money and then expand into those areas so that all Arkansans will have an opportunity to have access to the broadband with the infrastructure plan, the infrastructure plan.

States that they're looking for areas that are at least 80% unserved.

80% unserved, so that's huge, so that's going to be a challenge for the ISP's to get out into those communities that are at least 80% unserved and get a broadband infrastructure out there that that's not only high quality, but affordable, so that's what we're looking to do with this money from this infrastructure bill.

That's asking a lot.

Not that it can't be delivered, but to get into areas that are quite remote and at an affordable price.

What's the timeline on this?

Well, right now we're still waiting on the federal guidance.

That's going to give us more clarity on what what we can do and how they want us to take care of it.

The assistant secretary of Department of Commerce is charged with with giving us that information, so we're waiting to get that information from them, as well as to see what maps developed and actually see the amount that Arkansas will get so that we know.

How soon they act and how quickly to start getting things implemented.

So we're waiting on that federal guidance to to give us our marching orders there.

There has been some controversy of late regarding a study of feasibility and needs.

Is that going to hinder this process at all?

That political controversy that was around the awarding of a study contract is that going to hinder this work?

No, I don't think it's going to hinder it at all.

Here's here's the way we see it were.

We have BG Broadband Development Group that's going to employ a sort of a boots on the ground approach to broadband in Arkansas.

Find out where those areas of true needs are and they're going to construct the map about that so.

How this is going to work with the infrastructure bill?

When the FCC comes out with their maps?

We have the ability to challenge their maps.

If we have an area of need that's not reflected on those new FCC maps, what the Broadband Development Group is doing is going to help us to identify inconsistencies with what we found to be true with our boots on the ground approach and with what the FCC has so that we can successfully make any challenges we need to.

Come to the FCC in order to make sure that all of Arkansas is covered, not just the ones that they find, but the real ones where we're here on the ground looking at knowing that they need service.

Yeah, the controversy, though, seemed to be the process by which it was selected, and also the price.

That was the that was proposed.

The contract price that was proposed.

Does that cast any shadow at all over the work?

Well, as I stated before, it's going to be my goal to work with anyone, and that's what I'm doing.

BG has my full support.

I'm going to work with them because Arkansas is in need and we're going to satisfy that need.

And we can only do that by working together so.

He's out there.

He's having meetings.

He's meeting with community leaders.

He's setting those things up and we're in steady communication with each other and we're gonna see what we can do to get this thing done.

What about the findings thus far?

Anything to report there?

Well, right now we're just gathering information.

Once we gather that information up, then there's going to have to be some sit down analysis to it.

And they have Altman Solomon.

I think it's the the name of it is a group that is working with BDG.

That's going to help with this information and but in terms of findings thus far from the study, nothing to report at this point, no.

So we're only a mafia, right?

In terms of back to the, to the to the need for emphasizing or or for creating educational opportunities or backstopping the educational process through high speed Internet.

What message would you give the educators of Arkansas for that matter or pupils and their parents about the progress that we hope to make anyway in terms of getting them connected?

Well.

One of the things that that we do here at the art program, I tell any community leader where their mayor, county judge reach out to your superintendents.

Let me know exactly what areas where children are that don't have broadband service and we're going to see and see if we can work with those mayors and work with those county judges to make sure that those districts have what they need.

As far as broadband service.

It it's a.

It's a collaborative effort that is needed to make sure that this thing works across the board.

As I've stated to many people before, we need to have not only conversations but cooperation, and so we work with the Education Department.

We work with local officials and it's a public private partnership that is fueling this and making this work.

And I've received letters from superintendents.

Talking about those needs of the schools and we have addressed a lot of those needs and this infrastructure bill is going to help in those areas where the need is is greater than most because we're looking at 80% of those areas that are unserved 80%.

Yeah.

Did you and going into this, did you anticipate these these percentages of these numbers is it is the problem greater than you anticipated?

I think I I could say yes it is a lot greater than we thought it would be.

The pandemic really revealed just where our deficits are and broadband was one of those deficits and the federal government, along with the state, is now addressing that.

And I think, and we're making great strides in reducing that digital divide.

That digital divide.

Is.

Covers so much of contemporary life, education, telemedicine, but economic development as well, and particularly at a time when rural Arkansas is trying to revive itself, it it becomes all the more essential to get it in there and to get it in there fast, correct?

That is very correct, and we've taken a really aggressive, proactive approach to it.

We get our projects in we, we review them instead of just.

Flatly denying someone we actually tell him what's wrong with the project and that they need to make certain corrections in it before we can go any further with it.

So we're not just getting projects in and just summarily dismissing them.

We're really taking a proactive way of saying, OK?

Give us the information.

Let's see what what's wrong with it.

See, we can make those corrections and see if we can get that community served.

Of course, communities vary, and the geography varies.

The top ography varies, but in terms to go back to the timeline on this, when can Arkansan start to see a real significant increase or or connectivity established?

Well, I I think that they're singing now to be quite honest with you since we started this program.

Back in the summer of 2020, as we stated, there's about 90,000 households that we've covered so far, which estimates to be over 200,000 Arkansans that are receiving that.

The legislators has just passed a appropriation for over 100 million more dollars in projects.

That's going to go out right away so we can just go ahead and get more people funded.

And so we we've never stopped looking at projects and seeing which ones work and getting them out there.

We have 132 projects out there.

And now we're gonna add approximately 30 more to that.

So we we're, we're moving really quickly right now because we see the need, and we definitely see the urgency.

Steven, Porch of the Aedes Rural Connect program.

Thanks very much for being with us.

Thank you for your time.

Come back soon.

Thank you.

Alright, thank you as always for joining us.

Have a good, safe holiday.

See you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

The Arkansas Times and KAR FM 89.