On the recordNovember 2, 2011
I am here today to discuss the critical need to address our Nation's crumbling transportation and infrastructure system. The cracks in this system became abundantly clear to all of our country and, in fact, the entire world when, on the afternoon of August 1, 2007, the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed into the middle of the Mississippi River, taking the lives of 13 Minnesotans and injuring so many more. As I said that day, a bridge just shouldn't fall down in the middle of America, especially not an eight-lane interstate highway which is one of the most heavily traveled bridges in our State, especially not at rush hour in the middle of a metropolitan area, especially not a bridge six blocks from my house that I take my family over all the time to go visit their friends. That is what happened on that day, in the middle of a sunny day in the middle of America. Yet, years after that bridge collapsed and then was rebuilt, 25 percent of our Nation's bridges are still structurally deficient or obsolete. I wish I could say the bridge collapse was the only tragedy my State has suffered because of a broken infrastructure system. It is not. We saw another one just this October in Goodhue County on Highway 52, which connects the Twin Cities with Rochester, home to the Mayo Clinic. Within a 10-day span, one intersection on Highway 52 between Rochester, MN, and the Twin Cities of Minnesota was the site of two fatal crashes that claimed three lives and injured others.…
