The Arkansas GIS Office is pleased to announce an update to the Arkansas Road Centerline File on the Arkansas Spatial Data Infrastructure. This update represents the very first release of road data processed in a joint effort by the counties, the Arkansas GIS Office, and the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department (AHTD).  The undertaking is to create an all public roads linear referencing system in accordance with a Federal Highway Administration mandate, ARNOLD.

ARNOLD stands for “All Roads Network Of Linear referenced Data”

MAP-21, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (P.L. 112-141), was signed into law by President Obama on July 6, 2012. Funding surface transportation programs at over $105 billion for fiscal years (FY) 2013 and 2014, MAP-21 is the first long-term highway authorization enacted since 2005.

MAP-21 is a milestone for the U.S. economy and the Nation’s surface transportation program. By transforming the policy and programmatic framework for investments to guide the system’s growth and development, MAP-21 creates a streamlined and performance-based surface transportation program and builds on many of the highway, transit, bike, and pedestrian programs and policies established in 1991.

The Arkansas GIS Office is working with the AHTD to retool the existing Arkansas Centerline File by adding Road Inventory information, road ownership, surface type and other valuable attributes. The information provides state and local decision makers with a comprehensive look at the the mileage of paved and unpaved roads in the counties and the jurisdiction responsible for maintaining these assets.  “County Judges will have an absolutely clear picture of the total miles of roads they maintain, and how much of that is paved or unpaved.  They’ll be able show their Quorum Court members and constituents the level of financial burden it takes to keep up with road maintenance on the county road systems,” said Shelby Johnson, State Geographic Information Officer.  In addition, State transportation officials will also be able to better communicate with the federal government on their reporting into the national infrastructure.   The cooperative effort in Arkansas is similar to efforts in other states, which are rushing toward meeting the 2017 deadline.  Arkansas is well on pace to make the deadline.  The 54 remaining counties in the state are in stages of production with many others being nearly complete.  The GIS Office will be continually publishing the remainder of these counties as the information rolls up to the agency.

The project has involved multiple county staff members as well, including County Judges, Road Superintendents, E9-1-1 and other County employees who were responsible for reviewing the detailed maps, and marking down their jurisdictions, along with the pavement status.  The entire effort began in 2015 with kick-off meetings in the counties to outline the details of the project.  AHTD staff, and GIS Office staff have the job of creating route, section and log-mile segmentation for every public road in the state.  The next step involves entering in the pavement status, and jurisdiction assignment for every road segment.  The final step is publishing the result in a massive GIS database of the roads that becomes a part of the Arkansas Spatial Data Infrastructure.  Going forward the counties and the state will be able to maintain the database by having county personnel make updates to the information as needed.  Johnson went on to say, “The cooperation to complete this project has been exceptional.  We simply could not compile this much information into a single state system without everyone working together.  As an Arkansan, it makes me very proud to know our state is up to the challenge.”

The Counties that have completed the ARNOLD/Map-21 processing and have been updated are as follows:

Arkansas
Ashley
Calhoun
Chicot
Cleveland
Dallas
Franklin
Grant
Howard
Independence
Lafayette
Lee
Little Rock
Mississippi
Monroe
Newton
Prairie
Sharp
Van Buren

Data can be downloaded here:

http://gis.arkansas.gov/?product=arkansas-centerline-file

Access is provided through web and feature service here:

http://gis.arkansas.gov/arcgis/rest/services/FEATURESERVICES/Transportation/FeatureServer