E&E News
By Sean Reilly
August 24, 2021
When the Senate approved a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package this month, backers praised it as a crucial step to the future in bolstering public works, addressing environmental concerns and rebuilding public confidence in Congress’ ability to do its job.
But cradled deep in the fine print is $1.25 billion for a road program drawn up more than 50 years ago. If lawmakers view proposed funding for the Appalachian Development Highway System as help for a long-beleaguered region, skeptics see it as emblematic of an inability to break with a road-building status quo that encourages sprawl and carbon emissions.
Despite the inclusion of a climate change program and a historic amount of dollars for mass transit, the bipartisan package puts “a lot more money into very old ideas, and there is no older idea than the ADHS,” said Steve Davis, spokesman for Transportation for America, a research and advocacy group.
The $1.25 billion, to be spent over five years, would be spread over 11 states on a formula tied to the amount of incomplete stretches on the approximately 3,100-mile network, originally intended to improve transportation and spur economic growth in areas along the Appalachian mountain range.
Of those 11, two — Alabama and West Virginia — would split almost half the pot. In Alabama, most, if not all, of its $369 million share would go to the Northern Beltline, a 52-mile undertaking intended to create a six-lane loop around Birmingham.
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