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February 11, 2017 • Vol. XX • No. 3 • 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215-885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215-885-2910
Inside
Top Priorities…
Leader to Seek $2.6B for Brent Spence Bridge
MITA Hosts Annual Conference in Mich. …12
‘Northern Green’ Showcases Outdoor Tools…14
A private coalition of Branson’s business leaders has spearheaded an $80 million, sixyear-long upgrade of the corridor that transports tourists through the town’s entertainment district, just to the west of downtown.
Major Roadway Revitalization Under Way in Branson, Mo. By Eric Olson
Industr y Gathers for World of Concrete…16
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CEG CORRESPONDENT
Even though the small town of Branson, Mo., has about 12,000 residents, the picturesque Ozark Mountain
community is projected to draw close to 8.8 million visitors this year. That is due, of course, to Branson being one of the nation’s most popular vacation and entertainment desti-
Attachment & Parts Section ...................................... 39-43
nations with 16,500 hotel rooms, hundreds of restaurants and retail stores and almost 80 live show venues and attractions. Not surprisingly, the ecosee ROADWAY page 52
CINCINNATI (AP) The new leader of a threestate regional transportation planning organization said top priorities include getting funding for a project to replace the Brent Spence Bridge over the Ohio River. The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Government’s Board of Directors recently approved the appointment of new officers to lead the organization for 2017. Butler County Commissioner T.C. Rodgers will serve as president. Rogers told the Hamilton-Middletown JournalNews that his goal is to get funding for the Brent Spence Bridge project. The bridge connecting Cincinnati and northern Kentucky is considered functionally obsolete, but there’s been disagreement on how to fund an estimated $2.6 billion project. Rogers and other representatives will be going to Washington in February to meet with the congressional delegations. (This story also can be found on Construction Equipment Guide’s website at www.constructionequipmentguide.com.)
USDOT: Backlog Reaches $926B
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The U.S. Department of Transportation in a new “conditions and performance” report estimates that the backlog of needed highway and transit infrastructure projects has reached $926 billion.
The U.S. Department of Transportation in a new “conditions and performance” report estimates that the backlog of needed highway and transit infrastructure projects has reached $926 billion, and that many billions more will be needed in the next 20 years to keep up with demand. The congressionally mandated biennial report “identifies an $836 billion backlog of unmet capital investment needs for highways and bridges,” the USDOT said, and $90 billion more for transit
systems. The Trump administration has described a plan to generate an estimated $1 trillion in overall infrastructure investment over the next decade, much of it by incentivizing much more private spending on projects. However, that total was for varied types of infrastructure and the USDOT report indicates that the backlog for highway and transit projects see USDOT page 72