Rhiannon Hampson drives hundreds of miles across Maine's countryside each week as the U.S. Department of Agriculture's top rural development official in the state and says she's never seen so many newly paved roads and rebuilt bridges as in the past year.
Replacement of Maine's century-old Ticonic Bridge in Waterville and upgrades to the airport in Presque Isle are among the thousands of projects nationwide funded by President Joe Biden's bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure law.
But that fact is often lost on the people that use them, Hampson said. "We've had historic levels of funding in the last couple of years," she said, "but maybe it's just harder for us in rural spaces to see the breadth of it."