Stretch the roads the Faulkner County Road Department is responsible for maintaining end to end, and they would reach Charlotte, North Carolina. That’s more than 900 miles under its control; more than any city in Faulkner County or the Arkansas Department of Transportation manages within county lines.  

“I have tasked [County Road Administrator] Tom [Anderson] and the entire road administration with two things: we have to get our work done, and we have to be prepared for tomorrow,” Dodson said. “Those are two different things. One is the operational side of the organization and the day-to-day of everything from personnel to capacity to purchasing major items of equipment to prioritizing projects and managing the life cycle of our roads. The other side is envisioning and planning for years into the future for Faulkner County. 

As Faulkner County continues to grow, it requires more thought toward the future and matching the needs of residents throughout the county. Conway recently surpassed 72,000 residents and was among the 100 fastest-growing cities in the nation, but the growth was not only in the county’s largest city. The smaller communities have seen consistent growth, too. In 2025, Greenbrier grew 4.7%, Vilonia grew 4.4%, and Wooster grew 3.4%. 

“Faulkner County has a lot to be proud of just as a place, as a community, and for all those reasons, it leads to higher growth,” Dodson said. “With that, you cannot afford to be behind in your strategic planning.” 

One way the county has modernized its operations is by working to digitize its road quality for every mile of county road to help drive decisions on improvements and updates, based on current conditions. 

“Tom has been a proponent of a system where we digitize road quality for every inch of county road,” Dodson said. “We hire a third party to come evaluate and report to us the conditions of our roads. We use that technology as a starting point for priority setting for resurfacing, maintenance, and other projects.” 

This helps the county set a cohesive plan for action, while also monitoring situations as they arise.  

“A road can fall apart faster than another, so if something crops up that is more urgent, naturally, we’re going to fix that,” Dodson said. “We cannot have roads that are impassable.” 

Looking toward the long-term growth of the community, Dodson is focused on moving forward with a Conway loop that would help move traffic more efficiently in and around the county’s major city. 

The Baker-Wills Parkway, which opened in 2017, was the first phase of this project that will continue over the next decade and beyond.  

“In my view, that will be the biggest milestone for Faulkner County for the next 50 years,” Dodson said. “Obviously, we are talking about quite a few years and completing it in segments, but at the end of the day, it’s an opportunity to simplify the current state of the transportation network in and around Conway as being the spine of I-40.” 

No decisions on next steps have been made at this time, but early contenders for next steps would be a connection between U.S. highways 64 and 65 in east Conway, and the continuation of the Baker-Wills Parkway in the southern portion of the city. 

“The challenge is we don’t want to put it too far out where drivers pass through and don’t stop and buy a burger,” Dodson said. “There’s a tension there that you have to make an informed decision with engineering data and try to find that balance between what makes sense today and what will make sense 40 years from now.”