Skip to main content

Byrd, Webb, Casey and other Senators propose legislation to continue ADHS for five more years

Robert Byrd is still alive and kicking as he and five other U.S. Senators are crafting legislation to continue funding for the Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS) for another five years.

Currently, the ADHS program is set to expire on September 30th.

Co-Sponsors of the legislation include - Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.; Jim Webb, D-Va.; Bob Casey, D-Pa.; Mark Warner, D-Va.; and Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

The bill, if approved, will allow federal funding for the completion of the ADHS which began in 1965. Currently, 2,672 miles or 86.5 percent of the 3,090 mile system has been completed or is currently under construction.

A significant amount of the unfinished system is Corridor H - an east-west corridor through Central West Virginia from I-79 in Weston to I-81 south of Winchester, VA.

Earlier this year, President Obama's fiscal budget cut funding for Corridor H - an outcome Byrd vowed to fight.

Though it is not said how much money would be allocated in the bill to finish the ADHS. On the Appalachian Regional Commission's website, it is noted that nearly $6.5 billion is needed to complete the entire system. The figure is based on September 2008 estimates.

Pennsylvania and Alabama would need the most funding. Pennsylvania needs an additional $1.5 billion to complete their portion of the ADHS. While Alabama would need close to $2.25 billion.

Most of Alabama's needs are for Corridor X-1, a northern bypass of Birmingham. Corridor X-1 was added to the ADHS in 2004 from legislation in the FY 2004 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

Story Links:
Senators announce support for legislation ---Northern Virginia Daily
Byrd: Finish the corridors ---Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail
Senators seek highway renewal ---Beckley Register-Herald

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Old River Lock & Control Structure (Lettsworth, LA)

  The Old River Control Structure (ORCS) and its connecting satellite facilities combine to form one of the most impressive flood control complexes in North America. Located along the west bank of the Mississippi River near the confluence with the Red River and Atchafalaya River nearby, this structure system was fundamentally made possible by the Flood Control Act of 1928 that was passed by the United States Congress in the aftermath of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 however a second, less obvious motivation influenced the construction here. The Mississippi River’s channel has gradually elongated and meandered in the area over the centuries, creating new oxbows and sandbars that made navigation of the river challenging and time-consuming through the steamboat era of the 1800s. This treacherous area of the river known as “Turnbull’s Bend” was where the mouth of the Red River was located that the upriver end of the bend and the Atchafalaya River, then effectively an outflow

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third

California State Route 203 the proposed Minaret Summit Highway

California State Route 203 is an approximately nine-mile State Highway located near Mammoth Lakes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of Mono County.  California State Route 203 as presently configured begins at US Route 395, passes through Mammoth Lakes and terminates at the Madera County line at Minaret Summit.  What is now California State Route 203 was added to the State Highway System in 1933 as Legislative Route Number 112.  The original Mammoth Lakes State Highway ended at Lake Mary near the site of Old Mammoth and was renumbered to California State Route 203 in 1964.  The modern alignment of the highway to Minaret Summit was adopted during 1967.   The corridor of Minaret Summit and Mammoth Pass have been subject to numerous proposed Trans-Sierra Highways.  The first corridor was proposed over Mammoth Pass following a Southern Pacific Railroad survey in 1901.  In 1931 a corridor between the Minarets Wilderness and High Sierra Peaks Wilderness was reserved by the Forest Service for po