Behind stalled bill: Infrastructure is about visions for America

United States Route 275 has all the signs of a split personality. Running east out of Norfolk, Nebraska, it’s a four-lane divided highway for 12 miles until, inexplicably, it narrows to a two-lane road and makes a long lazy bend southward to Scribner, where it becomes a four-lane again all the way to Omaha.

That 45-mile stretch of unimproved country lane irks Josh Moenning, mayor of Norfolk, a city of 24,000. With a steel manufacturer in town and major cattle-feeding operations in the area, Norfolk sees a lot of truck traffic but has no four-lane access to an interstate or major city. “It’s putting lives in danger,” he says. “And it’s also limiting our community’s ability to grow.”

Detroit has the opposite problem. State and local officials

A vision beyond just repairEra of change in transportation