U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for June 29

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U.S. Census Bureau

Jun 29, 2015, 12:01 ET

WASHINGTON, June 29, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:

GETTING UP TO SPEED

Profile America — Monday, June 29th. On this date in 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill establishing the Interstate Highway System, originally of 41,000 miles. Today, that system is America's main street — linking all 48 continental states along its nearly 47,000 miles, and making it the second largest highway system in the world. The original estimated cost of the interstate system was around $26 billion, while to date about $370 billion has been spent on the vast project and ongoing maintenance. There are nearly 4 million miles of roads in the U.S., on which we travel more than 4.7 trillion passenger miles annually. Building new roads and bridges involves more than 10,000 businesses, employing over 250,000 people in work worth more than $99 billion a year. Profile America is in  its 19th  year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.

Sources:
Beginning of interstate highway system and cost: http://www.history.com/topics/interstate-highway-system 
Length of highway system: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htm#question3 
Second largest system and cost to date: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch3en/conc3en/interstatemileage.html 
Miles of road: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2011/hm12.cfm 
Road and bridge construction firms and employment: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2013_00A1&prodType=table 
Road and bridge construction revenue: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ECN_2012_US_00A1&prodType=table 

Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). 

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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau

Related Links

http://www.census.gov

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