Credit: WHEC.com
Friday, June 29th. On this date in 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill establishing the Interstate Highway System, originally of 41,000 miles. Today, it’s nearly 47,000 miles, the world’s longest single system. The original estimated cost of the interstate system was around $26 billion, while to date about $500 billion has been spent on the vast project and ongoing maintenance.
There are 4.1 million miles of roads in the United States, on which we travel more than 3.2 trillion vehicle miles annually. Building new roads and bridges involves many of the nation’s nearly 39,000 heavy and civil engineering firms, which employ over 900,000 people.
You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online here.
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