Forty-five miles east of Hickory as the crow flies is the sorriest stretch of Interstate 85 between Richmond and Atlanta.
The interstate between those cities stretches 469 miles, so that's really saying something.
If you've been in that neck of the woods, you know the place — it's the Yadkin River Bridge, not far from Salisbury.
There, the roaring traffic shrivels up to two lanes in each direction, with no shoulders to speak of. And it's not just the 55-year-old bridge — the stretch of road in Rowan and Davidson counties is a paved tribute to benign neglect.
State engineers stop well short of calling the bridge dangerous, but with 60,000 cars and trucks a day crossing it, its days are surely numbered. It looks exactly like what it is — a relic from another era.
The state has been angling for federal funding to replace the bridge and widen the interstate there. Last week, the Obama administration announced that the state will get $10 million for the project.
Ten million! If that figure sounds unimpressive to you in 2010 dollars, that's because it is. It's nothing more than seed money for project, which will cost between $300 million and $461 million.
If you're wondering how the a project can have such a wide range for the estimated cost, well, so are we.
Aside from a handful of supporters of a Mecklenburg beltway, the state's policy-makers are unanimous in their belief that the Yadkin Bridge is the single most-important road project in the state.
So what does it take to convince Washington?
Republican Congressman Howard Coble of Greensboro wonders how a state with a Democrat for a governor and a project with the backing of the entire North Carolina delegation to Congress could have come up so short.
Coble's obvious partisanship aside, it remains a good question. Why is it that we cannot get Washington's attention on such a worthwhile project?
Maybe the Obama administration has us confused with that other Carolina state, with the foot-in-mouth politicians and the wandering governor.
Regardless of the lack of funds, North Carolina plans to do some creative financing and begin the first phase of the project as early as April. State engineers say the final part of the project, widening three miles of the interstate, will have to be scrapped until more money is available.
That's a good plan. Regardless of federal funding, that bridge is the the most troubling piece of infrastructure in the entire state. It needs to be replaced, and soon.
The state should have started on it before now.
That bridge may be safe, but they probably said something like that about that bridge up in Minneapolis three years ago.
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