Today, the highway system has about 48,000 miles of roads, tie girder. The closure resulted in an estimated $70 million in 10 transcontinental routes, 70 primary interstate highways, losses for the trucking industry, and a major inconvenience 590,000 highway bridges, countless supporting infrastructure, for motorists who use the bridge as a main artery. The bridge and an annual budget of $20 billion. Unfortunately, this great reopened with a temporary repair. But like so many other parts feat of engineering — perhaps, worthy enough to be a Wonder of our nation’s infrastructure, its future remains uncertain with an agreement on Capitol Hill of the World — is now in a in doubt. state of disrepair. Earlier this Unfortunately, this great feat of It took presidential year, the American Society leadership to bring all of Civil Engineers issued it’s engineering — perhaps, worthy interested parties together to annual report on the nation’s enough to be a Wonder of the build the national highway infrastructure, giving it a C-. system in the 1950s, and it will Among other things, the report World — is now in a state of take presidential leadership to found that 42% of the 617,000 disrepair. bring all parties together to bridges in the U.S. are more rebuild and modernize this than 50 years old, and more system today. Fortunately, in Dwight Eisenhower, Joe Biden than 46,000 of them are rated as structurally deficient. RF This bleak report was accentuated by the recent emergency has the perfect example to follow in that regard. closure of the Hernando de Soto Bridge, which was built in 1973 and spans the Mississippi River between West Memphis, U.S. Army Lt. Col. (Ret.), Lee Lacy is a teacher and historian in Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee. The bridge was hastily Kansas City, Mo. The views expressed in this article are those closed last month when a major crack was discovered in a of the author and do not reflect any official organization.
From 1956, a U.S. Department of Transportation map of the “National System of Interstate and Defense Highways” (as it was referred to at the time.)
RIPON FORUM July 2021
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