Competing highways, space-industry expansion, big billfish: Down in Alabama
Road wars
One of the emerging political debates in Alabama is over infrastructure projects, and, according to reporting by AL.com’s John Sharp, it pits rural Alabama vs. populated Alabama and republican vs. republican.
At issue is prioritizing the widening of U.S. Highway 43 versus Interstate 65.
Highway 43 widening would link rural West Alabama areas with a north-south corridor. Thomasville Mayor Sheldon Day: “It will, at the very least, give us a chance to compete for those projects that have been out of our reach for generations.”
I-65 widening would relive some heavily-traveled areas. State Sen. Chris Elliott: “I-65 is a mess. We’re lucky in Alabama to not have a morass of interstates that a lot of states do, but we have important mainline corridors. We need to upgrade and widen them. It will be expensive, but I think it can happen over time.”
Note to Washington
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is again expanding operations in Huntsville.
The company, of course, is a major player in commercial spaceflight, and every step forward in that industry is not lost on those watching and waiting to see whether the Feds reverse course on putting Space Command at Redstone Arsenal.
A hoss of a fish
A tournament record was set for blue marlin at the Orange Beach Billfish Classic.
Brian Stover, aboard “Mollie,” hauled in a 776.4-pound beast around 150 miles offshore to the southwest.
Incidentally, that’s still short of the Alabama state record. Ginger Myers caught an 851.9-pound marlin during the 2020 Mongo Offshore Challenge.
On this date
In 1965, Vivian Malone of Mobile became the first Black student to graduate from the University of Alabama.
The podcast
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