Political Quotes

“Mr. President, today Senator Casey and I are introducing a bill to help facilitate the completion of critically important transportation infrastructure to the Appalachian region of the United States. The Appalachian Development Highway System, ADHS, is designed to alleviate Appalachia's isolation from major commercial corridors and create better transportation connectivity between communities within the Region and to destinations outside of Appalachia. According to the Appalachian Regional Commission, ARC: ``Because the cost of building highways through Appalachia's mountainous terrain was high, the Region had never been served by adequate roads. Its network of narrow, winding, two-lane roads, snaking through narrow stream valleys or over mountaintops, was slow to drive, unsafe, and in many places worn out. The Nation's interstate highway system had largely bypassed the Appalachian Region, going through or around the Region's rugged terrain as cost-effectively as possible.'' That's why in 1964, ARC recommended that investments in improving Appalachia's highways were essential to economic growth of this historically economically depressed region of the country. The ADHS is currently authorized at 3,090 miles and is nearly 88 percent complete or under construction. The remaining miles left to be built are located in some of the more difficult places to build located near the mid- Atlantic portion of Appalachia.…”