Why Concrete
Pavement?

BUILDING AMERICA:
BEFORE THE "MODEL T"
We were driving on concrete pavement 17 years before Henry Ford. Today, it's the
heart of America's surface transportation infrastructure.
Bellfontaine, Ohio, 1889, in the true spirit of American innovation, engineer
George W. Bartholomew proposed the idea of concrete pavement to the city
officials. Two years later (and a full 17 years before the first mass-produced
automobile--the "Model T" Ford) America's first concrete pavement was laid, an
8-foot-wide strip of Main Street along the side of Bellefontaine's Courthouse
Square. Wagons and teams of horses were used to haul the cement, gravel and sand
to the paving site.
Today, America's legacy-it's greatness-is all about it's highways, streets,
roads and airports. It's about this nation's surface transportation
infra-structure, a hallmark of civilization and a key to this nation's
prosperity.
Automobile, truck, bus and airport traffic is growing every year, and the loads
are getting heavier. Today's highways often handle two to three times the
traffic they were designed to carry. Heavier loads, increased traffic and higher
speeds are creating greater demands on America's overcrowded surface
transportation network. But there is good news!
Concrete pavements are the only paving solutions able to carry the load. One
hundred and nine years after Bellfontaine, Ohio, concrete is still building
America! MORE>> |