With the U.S. facing an almost trillion dollar backlog of unmet highway and bridge needs, Maine U.S. Senator Susan Collins chaired a Senate subcommittee hearing today Wednesday exploring how to improve the nation’s infrastructure.
Among those joining Collins at the hearing in Washington was Maine Transportation Commissioner David Bernhardt, who’s heading a national association of transportation officials. Bernhardt told the panel that assured federal funding is very important.
“At Maine DOT we produce a three-year work plan containing all the work we plan to do over that period of time,” Bernhardt says. “Having stability in federal funding makes this work much more of a reality than a guessing game.”
A lot of today’s testimony focused on money and the need for more of it. Bernhardt says Maine is reacting to the funding crunch by trying to become more efficient, by innovating and by stretching dollars as far as possible.
