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"South Dakota side of Heartland Expressway gets funding in bill," by Chet Brokaw, Associated Press, 5 August 2005, http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/12313252.htm.

The Heartland Expressway is one of many projects called the "NAFTA Highway," part of a new system of four-lane roads build to link the economies of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. For a bill that became law in 1993, it's only taken 12 years to begin serious work on South Dakota's portion of it.

Twelve years that Tom Daschle was in the Senate.

Now that the Mouth Rushmore State's most famous obstructionist is gone, real work can begin

The federal transportation bill is about to make a dream come true for Black Hills business leaders and government officials who began planning about 15 years ago for a four-lane route from Rapid City to Denver.

About $69.5 million, a quarter of South Dakota's allocation for special projects, is slated to complete South Dakota's portion of the Heartland Expressway to the Nebraska border within the next six or seven years.

"For that to come through is wonderful," said Bill Honerkamp of the Black Hills, Badlands & Lakes Association, a nonprofit organization that promotes tourism in western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming. "It was a surprise and thrill to see the funds that would achieve it all the way to the Nebraska line were there."

The Heartland Expressway will increase commercial traffic, draw more tourists to the Black Hills from Colorado, and give South Dakotans a faster route to Denver, Honerkamp said.