Segment 12

Currently known as Charles W. Dean Bridge (formerly the Great River Bridge). Name derived from namesake engineer who came up with the idea of the bridge in 1984; he was born in 1927 and died in 1998. Act of Mississippi law named the bridge after him in 1999. Location of bridge to be 33°37'12" (33.62) north, 91°08'10" (-91.136111) west. Approximate locales are Arkansas City, Arkansas (western) and Benoit, Mississippi (eastern).

Current progress
==Listed as "shovel-ready", construction is subject to the availability of funding at the state and/or federal levels. All environmental and permitting processes have been cleared. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) approved the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) and issued record of decision (ROD) for bridge back in 2004. Will carry Interstate 69 and relocated US-278. Arkansas began land acquisition in 2006; Mississippi began same process in 2010. Project approved by United States Congress in 2009 but unfunded; plans are to make the bridge an active project as of 2017. ==

Design
The Charles W. Dean Bridge would be 4.25 miles long, with one 1500-foot cable-stayed span over the main channel of the river with support from two 450-foot towers. Bridge would be two lanes each way and be built to interstate standards (12-foot-wide lanes, 10-foot wide outer shoulder, 4-foot wide inner shoulder, etc.)

Bridge to cost an estimated $565 million dollars and would be built at first as a toll bridge. Once paid for, tolls would be removed.