The circular road is a $300,000 temporary solution

This is the end of the road.

After heading north from the Arkansas River Valley, spanning Frog Bayou and skimming the tops of the Boston Mountains, Interstate 49 ends at Bella Vista, where drivers are shunted onto U.S. 71 and through a gauntlet of stoplights.

It is there, near the confluence of those two roads and what will be the Bella Vista bypass, the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department plans to build a temporary five-pronged roundabout.

And that has some folks concerned.

Rumors have circulated on Facebook the proposed roundabout is permanent and would be in the middle of I-49.

Neither of those rumors is true, said Danny Straessle, a spokesman for the Highway Department.

Officially known as "the Bella Vista interim modified connector," the two-lane roundabout will be adjacent to I-49, he said. It will help motorists navigate an interchange between Bentonville and Bella Vista until the Bella Vista bypass is completed -- whenever that is.

As soon as Missouri gets the money together to complete its 6-mile portion of the Bella Vista bypass, Arkansas will "rip out" the roundabout and replace it with "a single-point urban interchange," said Straessle. At that time, Arkansas will also work to complete its portion of the bypass to the Missouri line.

Arkansas' part of the four-lane Bella Vista bypass will be 14.3 miles and will cost $188 million to construct, said Steve Lawrence, an engineer for the Highway Department. Work has already begun, and a 5.4-mile, two-lane segment is open to traffic.

The bypass will be part of the larger I-49. Plans have been in the works for 30 years for a 1,700-mile interstate corridor that would connect the Gulf of Mexico with Canada and run through western Arkansas.

Currently, I-49 in Arkansas stretches from Alma north about 80 miles to Bella Vista. In southwest Arkansas, a portion of I-49 is complete from Texarkana to the Louisiana line. A section of "future I-49" is complete in Fort Smith. Building I-49 through the rugged Ouachita Mountains from Fort Smith to Texarkana will take some time.

In Northwest Arkansas, the bypass would relieve large-truck traffic through Bella Vista. An average of 20,000 vehicles a day cross into Missouri at Bella Vista, and 18 percent of those are trucks, according to the Highway Department. In the center of Bella Vista, U.S. 71 carries about 38,000 vehicles a day.

In the meantime, as Arkansas waits for Missouri, the roundabout is a cheap fix at $300,000, Lawrence said. The permanent interchange at that location will cost about $42 million.

"We can't put that in right now because it would make the traffic situation worse," Straessle said.

He said the permanent interchange will give preference to the bypass and will remove the seamless transition from U.S. 71 onto I-49. Because the bypass isn't completed to Missouri, it's not yet channeling "through" traffic off U.S. 71 in Bella Vista.

Funding for the roundabout is coming from a half-percent sales tax approved by voters in 2012. Straessle said it will be the sixth roundabout on an Arkansas highway. The others are in Conway and North Little Rock.