WASHINGTON, June 29, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
GETTING UP TO SPEED
Profile America - Sunday, 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 largest highway system in the world. The original cost of the interstate system was more than $25 billion. From rural dirt roads to the interstate highways, 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 almost 11,000 businesses, employing over 260,000 people in work worth more than $106 billion a year. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at www.census.gov.
Sources: http://www.history.com/topics/interstate-highway-system
http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/transportation/a_highway.html
http://nationalatlas.gov/transportation.html
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/faq.htmquestion3 http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=BP_2011_00A1&prodType=table
http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ECN_2007_US_00A1&prodType=table NAICS 237310
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
