Highway Bill ends soon...funding at stake: here we go again!

[hbelkins]

Back on topic...

My belief is that transportation spending is a local/state issue, and the federal government should not be involved.

Your belief is wrong.

Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution:

Section 8
The Congress shall have Power...
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

This gives the federal government the authority to build roads upon which mail is carried. And realistically, that is just about every one of them in the nation.

[Zmapper]

The Constitution says they have the authority to establish post offices and post roads, not that they have to. Realistically, you don't need a 10-lane freeway to deliver mail, so even if Congress was required to build a path to every city, a gravel road would suffice. While most of the constitution is still very much relevant, it is hard to tell if the founding fathers would have stuck that clause in there if the Constitution were being written today. They had horse-and-buggy and sailboats; we have airplanes, steel roads (railroads) 10-lane superhighways, and nuclear powered boats.

On that note, does anyone have more information as to why the Post Road clause was added to the Constitution? Here in 2012, it seems very archaic and outdated. I highly doubt that much discussion went on as to the most efficient form and structure of mail delivery. 

[J N Winkler]

On that note, does anyone have more information as to why the Post Road clause was added to the Constitution? Here in 2012, it seems very archaic and outdated. I highly doubt that much discussion went on as to the most efficient form and structure of mail delivery.

At the time the Constitution was drafted, there was not in fact any regular mail delivery service, let alone one administered by a government agency or public corporation.  A post road was simply a road which was suitable for delivering messages--written or oral--by a dispatch rider on horseback.  That was a vital national interest which could not be left to the vagaries of any one state, especially since technology at the time did not permit messages to be transmitted or received through a wired or wireless infrastructure.

There are a couple of additional justifications for federal involvement in infrastructure investment.  They are pragmatic rather than constitutional.  (I for one frankly find it exhausting to see the Constitution used all the time as a stalking horse for obtuse anti-collectivist arguments which the Founding Fathers, fresh from the experience of the Articles of Confederation, would have found both disturbing and deeply destabilizing.)

*  Federal funding is weakly redistributive and allows us to have a semblance of a regional infrastructure policy, which at least ensures that poor access to transport is not a reason pockets of poverty stay poor.

*  Federal funding ensures that crossings of state borders are available to serve interstate commerce even when these crossings do not serve the direct interests of the states involved.

Edit:  Congress was granted few if any powers in the Constitution in the expectation that they would be left unexercised.  The only example of a fallow provision that comes readily to mind is the power to grant letters of marque and reprisal.  (The major European powers swore off privateering about 75 years after the Constitution was ratified.  We never signed the relevant convention, but aside from brief flirtations with the idea of letting private yachts attack enemy ships, we have generally found it in our national interest to abide by it.)

[Alps]

Having a cohesive transportation network is something in the Federal interest of a sovereign nation. This is why the MUTCD carries so much weight - uniformity helps drivers, but it also helps move goods, and that moves our economy. I think our government does stick its nose into too many places, but transportation is not one of them.

[Zmapper]

Is it really a national disaster if Oklahoma uses blue guide signs or if Nebraska uses the Swiss road font? Every traffic light on earth uses red for stop and green for go without a single UN mandate, because standards for actual life-critical details will be naturally implemented over time.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Is it really a national disaster if Oklahoma uses blue guide signs or if Nebraska uses the Swiss road font? Every traffic light on earth uses red for stop and green for go without a single UN mandate, because standards for actual life-critical details will be naturally implemented over time.

For the same reason everyone who posts on here uses the same font, size, and color.

[Scott5114]

You should read this history of the MUTCD: http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/kno-history.htm In short, a coalition of states basically did a lot of the early heavy lifting to standardize signs, and then the MUTCD was later established to codify this.

Honestly, it is obviously better that everyone can see that a given sign is a guide sign because it is green. Allowing the states the latitude to break ranks and use whatever color they want only makes things worse for the road user, just so we can say "ooo the state can decide something the federal government can't!" What is the point in giving someone that option if exercising it just makes things worse for the population?

[Zmapper]

Different colored signs in different states would probably not be the result of a states only transportation policy, because there is value in some standardization between states. What may happen is some states may decide to make toll-road signs all purple at the decision point, or some state may decide to make the area around an airport logo blue, etc.

What is important for this case is that it probably won't happen for a couple of years. If Federal funding expires on June 30, the state DOT won't go around making traffic signals pink, orange, and blue and making stop signs tetrahedrons on July 1st. There is value in inertia and not changing things just to change things.

Sure, you may say that states can experiment, they just have to do it through the FHWA. Do you know how much paperwork and time it takes for a city to color the bike lanes at conflict points, like has been done in Europe for half a century? Federal bureaucracy has its cost in time, lives, and money.

The top service planner at RTD (the bus system in the Denver Metro Area) told me that when he used to work for the Oregon DOT at the time when Federal Funding started rolling in (you can see how old he is!) for highway enhancements, Oregon was building brand new rest areas with 92% federal funding while having to cut deeply into snow-plowing and trash pickup. Would Oregon with control of all of their money be willing to build a new rest area, or would they prefer to focus their resources on life-critical needs?

My city, Fort Collins, is currently building a fancy BRT busway one block west of the main street. 90% of the cost is paid for by the Federal Government or by state sources, and can only be spent on concrete. It sounds fine until you see that bus service stops running at 7pm and all day on Sundays! We have hourly headways on most routes, and transit generally sucks. No transit planner worth his salt would tell you the first thing you need to do is build a busway! Yet Fort Collins is building a busway, because the local transit agency adapted a circus-seal mentality and will only make improvements if they get a bailout from Congress.

I see the 18.4 cent gas tax we are sending up to Washington, and wonder why the hell Washington has to even get involved at all! We send our tax up to them, they spend it on other things, and then we have to fight based on how many favored politicians we elect just to get back a few pennies. Not only do we get back pennies of what we put in, it comes back with plenty of red tape and bureaucratic nonsense.

In Canada, the Federal Government stays out of transportation for the most part. There is no country-wide gas tax, because transportation is left to the provinces and cities. What they have to show for it is a 10% NATIONWIDE transit modal share, decent transit in smaller cities, frequent transit to every part of the larger Metropolitan areas, and overall financial resiliency. What bus routes where you live run every 3 minutes at 3pm, let alone 3 am! You don't get such amazingly good service by spending all your money pouring concrete, you get it by giving your customers what they want, which is service.

Lets do a little math. Federal tax is 18.4 cents, and federal funds cover about 20% of all transportation spending, counting capital and operating costs. 2 cents goes into a separate transit account, so 16.4 cents goes to highways. The state gas tax in Colorado is 22 cents. What you can see here is that 80% is supported with 22 cents, and 20% is supported with 16.4 cents. See the problem yet? If the Federal Gas tax went away, all that it would take to fund transportation at state spending levels would be a 5.5 cent increase in the state gas tax. Already, we have saved 10.9 cents and our roads are in no worse shape. With those 10.9 cents, lets give 5.9 back to the taxpayer, give 1 cent to more frequent repaving, 1 cent for more frequent maintenance, and give 3 cents for increased public transportation. (Though if you wanted to fund public transportation, the best source would be a property tax, and the second best source would be a sales tax. I only used the gas tax so you could compare apples-to-apples.) The end result is the taxpayer having lower taxes, better transit, more frequent repaving, and higher standards of maintenance, all from eliminating Federal Government meddling in transportation.

[J N Winkler]

Different colored signs in different states would probably not be the result of a states only transportation policy, because there is value in some standardization between states. What may happen is some states may decide to make toll-road signs all purple at the decision point, or some state may decide to make the area around an airport logo blue, etc.

This already happens to an extent with federal funding participation, since only substantial (not absolute) conformity is required, and some rather large excursions from national standards are tolerated since FHWA tends to pursue a "low-hanging fruit first" approach.

Sure, you may say that states can experiment, they just have to do it through the FHWA. Do you know how much paperwork and time it takes for a city to color the bike lanes at conflict points, like has been done in Europe for half a century? Federal bureaucracy has its cost in time, lives, and money.

Some aspects of the process have been streamlined with interim approvals (which, if memory serves, were introduced in the 2003 MUTCD).  And in any case, coloring bike lanes is a bad example.  I am not aware of a single European country which has thought well enough of the efficacy of the technique to establish bike lane coloring as a traffic sign, to require coloring for any significant proportion of the bike lanes built or maintained by local agencies, etc.  In Britain, for example, bike lane coloring is not a traffic sign and is therefore unregulated, so there is no uniformity in the colors used, red and green being the most common.

The advantage of the MUTCD experimentation process is that it requires a demonstration that a proposed new technique (such as bike lane coloring) really does improve traffic movement or safety before it is added to the MUTCD.  While it can be argued that it is inequitable for a single agency to bear the administrative cost of a successful experiment when its peer agencies throughout the entire US benefit from the results at no cost to themselves, that is really an argument for pooled funding for experiments rather than against evidence-based policy development.  (There is, in fact, an ongoing TCD pooled fund study.)

I see the 18.4 cent gas tax we are sending up to Washington, and wonder why the hell Washington has to even get involved at all! We send our tax up to them, they spend it on other things, and then we have to fight based on how many favored politicians we elect just to get back a few pennies. Not only do we get back pennies of what we put in, it comes back with plenty of red tape and bureaucratic nonsense.

Lets do a little math. Federal tax is 18.4 cents, and federal funds cover about 20% of all transportation spending, counting capital and operating costs. 2 cents goes into a separate transit account, so 16.4 cents goes to highways. The state gas tax in Colorado is 22 cents. What you can see here is that 80% is supported with 22 cents, and 20% is supported with 16.4 cents. See the problem yet? If the Federal Gas tax went away, all that it would take to fund transportation at state spending levels would be a 5.5 cent increase in the state gas tax. Already, we have saved 10.9 cents and our roads are in no worse shape. With those 10.9 cents, lets give 5.9 back to the taxpayer, give 1 cent to more frequent repaving, 1 cent for more frequent maintenance, and give 3 cents for increased public transportation. (Though if you wanted to fund public transportation, the best source would be a property tax, and the second best source would be a sales tax. I only used the gas tax so you could compare apples-to-apples.) The end result is the taxpayer having lower taxes, better transit, more frequent repaving, and higher standards of maintenance, all from eliminating Federal Government meddling in transportation.

Your math is just flat-out wrong.  Every state has a guaranteed minimum recovery (typically in excess of 90%) of its share of the federal gasoline tax that goes to Washington.  In order to replace this, the gasoline tax in Colorado would have to rise by at least 90% * 18.4c/gallon = 16.6 c/gallon to replace the lost federal contribution.  It is not appropriate to apply the alleged 20% federal share in all transportation spending to Colorado without first establishing that the national funding mix (which includes incomings and outgoings on toll roads, bond issues, heavy-rail urban mass transit systems, etc.) is representative of Colorado.  Plus it is no longer true that motoring taxes collected at the state level support the residue that is not paid for by the federal gas tax.  In the absence of a comprehensive reauthorization bill which reaffirms the user-pays principle and taxes use at a level commensurate with expenditure, subsidies from state general funds (which are fed partly by sales, income, and property taxes) have become substantial.

In Canada, the Federal Government stays out of transportation for the most part. There is no country-wide gas tax, because transportation is left to the provinces and cities. What they have to show for it is a 10% NATIONWIDE transit modal share, decent transit in smaller cities, frequent transit to every part of the larger Metropolitan areas, and overall financial resiliency. What bus routes where you live run every 3 minutes at 3pm, let alone 3 am! You don't get such amazingly good service by spending all your money pouring concrete, you get it by giving your customers what they want, which is service.

I don't think it is actually true that Canada has no federal fuel tax.  My understanding is that it does and the Canadians do not even attempt to dedicate the revenues to transportation.  I also think climate plays a large role in Canada's higher transit modal share because large American cities in northern states with hard winters, such as Chicago and Milwaukee, have comparably high transit modal shares as well as hard cores of residents who don't drive.

[vdeane]

Is it really a national disaster if Oklahoma uses blue guide signs or if Nebraska uses the Swiss road font? Every traffic light on earth uses red for stop and green for go without a single UN mandate, because standards for actual life-critical details will be naturally implemented over time.

It was MUCH WORSE than that before the MUTCD was adopted.  Signage between states wan't just a little different - it was completely unrecognizable!  It would be as if one state used US style signs and the state next door used European signs.

[Alps]

Is it really a national disaster if Oklahoma uses blue guide signs or if Nebraska uses the Swiss road font? Every traffic light on earth uses red for stop and green for go without a single UN mandate, because standards for actual life-critical details will be naturally implemented over time.

It was MUCH WORSE than that before the MUTCD was adopted.  Signage between states wan't just a little different - it was completely unrecognizable!  It would be as if one state used US style signs and the state next door used European signs.

If only our drivers had to pass actual tests, we could adopt European signs and people would understand them.

[TXtoNJ]

Is it really a national disaster if Oklahoma uses blue guide signs or if Nebraska uses the Swiss road font? Every traffic light on earth uses red for stop and green for go without a single UN mandate, because standards for actual life-critical details will be naturally implemented over time.

Yeah, and that process usually involves the populace growing intolerant of ghastly traffic fatality rates.

[Zmapper]

Different colored signs in different states would probably not be the result of a states only transportation policy, because there is value in some standardization between states. What may happen is some states may decide to make toll-road signs all purple at the decision point, or some state may decide to make the area around an airport logo blue, etc.

This already happens to an extent with federal funding participation, since only substantial (not absolute) conformity is required, and some rather large excursions from national standards are tolerated since FHWA tends to pursue a "low-hanging fruit first" approach.

True, there can be substantial variation between states.

Sure, you may say that states can experiment, they just have to do it through the FHWA. Do you know how much paperwork and time it takes for a city to color the bike lanes at conflict points, like has been done in Europe for half a century? Federal bureaucracy has its cost in time, lives, and money.

Some aspects of the process have been streamlined ... evidence-based policy development.  (There is, in fact, an ongoing TCD pooled fund study.)

Bike lane coloring was just the first example that came to mind. While there is an interim approval process, it takes plenty of time and plenty of consultants (read: money) to do something that is currently done in other cities or countries.

I see the 18.4 cent gas tax we are sending up to Washington, and wonder why the hell Washington has to even get involved at all! We send our tax up to them, they spend it on other things, and then we have to fight based on how many favored politicians we elect just to get back a few pennies. Not only do we get back pennies of what we put in, it comes back with plenty of red tape and bureaucratic nonsense.

Lets do a little math. ... all from eliminating Federal Government meddling in transportation.

Your math is just flat-out wrong. ... subsidies from state general funds (which are fed partly by sales, income, and property taxes) have become substantial.

If I had more accurate numbers for the state level, I would use them.

Even if transportation funding were "evenly" distributed, the underlying point still remains. Why the hell does the federal government even have to get involved at all? We send our money to them, they mismanage and waste it, and we have to fight to get pennies back in return.

According to the FY2012 Budget Highlights, the USDOT has about 9800 non-FAA employees. While some of the employees would have to be retained, and most would be diverted to state-level jobs, a good number of employees don't really do anything that couldn't be accomplished at the state level.

I happened to stumble upon this a while back, and while obviously a comment on an online blog isn't the best of sources for policy decisions, he did take the time to go through every DOT program. My thoughts on eliminating the DOT are roughly similar to his, so instead of going through the list one-by-one I linked to the initial review. Basically, the DOT is a lot of bacon on a pulled pork sandwich.

In Canada, the Federal Government stays out of transportation ... what they want, which is service.

I don't think it is actually true that Canada has no federal fuel tax. ... hard cores of residents who don't drive.

As far as I am concerned, there is no difference with transportation policy if there is no fuel tax or a fuel tax to fund healthcare or education.

Weather probably only plays a small role in transportation decisions, though excessive cold would prompt people to favor cars over transit. The examples you give of Chicago and Milwaukee might have something to do with higher rates of poverty than compatible cities in North America. If people are too poor to afford cars, then they will end up using transit regardless of if they like it or not.

Perhaps you had other constraints, but I find it interesting that you didn't reply to the part of my post about ODOT and the BRT system in Fort Collins. I would be interested in reading what thoughts you may have on those topics.

[vdeane]

The federal government manages roads because historically the states have proven themselves incapable of doing so.  Before the US Route system, for example, rural areas had no postal service because the roads were so bad.

Do you really want to return to the days of turnpikes ending in cow fields because one state built their portion of a multi-state road and another couldn't be bothered to fund it?

[J N Winkler]

Bike lane coloring was just the first example that came to mind. While there is an interim approval process, it takes plenty of time and plenty of consultants (read: money) to do something that is currently done in other cities or countries.

The point is, after agencies go through this process, they are left with something that they know works.  The efficacy of bike lane coloring is unproven, which is one reason it is left unregulated in countries like the UK.

If you know what works and what doesn't, you can avoid spending scarce resource on things that don't work:  that is the main justification for a formal testing and approval process.

Even if transportation funding were "evenly" distributed, the underlying point still remains. Why the hell does the federal government even have to get involved at all? We send our money to them, they mismanage and waste it, and we have to fight to get pennies back in return.

According to the FY2012 Budget Highlights, the USDOT has about 9800 non-FAA employees. While some of the employees would have to be retained, and most would be diverted to state-level jobs, a good number of employees don't really do anything that couldn't be accomplished at the state level.

Better than 90% revenue recovery from the federal gas tax for the vast majority of states is hardly "pennies"--that alone amounts to about $50 billion a year--and since it is settled law, it is not something that has to be fought for.

9800 employees for USDOT outside FAA is not large in comparison to typical state DOT employment numbers, which are around 3,000 for state DOTs responsible only for a primary state highway system, and quite a bit higher (up to 6,000 or more) for DOTs which have to handle a secondary state highway system as well.

I happened to stumble upon this a while back, and while obviously a comment on an online blog isn't the best of sources for policy decisions, he did take the time to go through every DOT program.

Actually, no, he didn't.  He picked strings from the USDOT alphabet soup and wrote a scommatic paragraph on each--hardly in-depth analysis.  Aside from the obvious bias (evident not just from the text itself but also its location on Redstate.com), he does not distinguish between the functions of regulator and service provider.

As far as I am concerned, there is no difference with transportation policy if there is no fuel tax or a fuel tax to fund healthcare or education.

In terms of service provision the distinction is probably unimportant, but it is one that has to be made if you see the "user pays" principle as a key part of ensuring that transportation is adequately funded.

Weather probably only plays a small role in transportation decisions, though excessive cold would prompt people to favor cars over transit. The examples you give of Chicago and Milwaukee might have something to do with higher rates of poverty than compatible cities in North America. If people are too poor to afford cars, then they will end up using transit regardless of if they like it or not.

I don't agree.  Large cities like Chicago and Milwaukee tend to have dense cores with professionally trained or high-income apartment dwellers for whom the cost and trouble of parking or storing a car tend to outweigh the benefits of being able to travel in areas poorly supplied with transit.  In the winter after a major snowfall, it is easier to walk through deep snow to a bus stop which is on a bus route which receives priority snow removal than it is to get into a car which can easily get stuck in drifts on uncleared back roads.  Winterization of cars also imposes significant cost and effort burdens in Canada's climate since Canada is snow-tire, engine-block-heater country.

Perhaps you had other constraints, but I find it interesting that you didn't reply to the part of my post about ODOT and the BRT system in Fort Collins. I would be interested in reading what thoughts you may have on those topics.

I didn't say anything about Oregon DOT because I don't know enough about their spending priorities to comment in detail on the relative merits of rest area renovation versus bike lanes.  I also didn't say anything about BRT in Fort Collins because I know too little about what it is supposed to do in terms of improving local transportation.

It is all well and good to argue that if we were designing the transportation funding system from scratch, it would be more efficient to leave the oversight (as well as the service provision) functions to the state DOTs.  But to introduce such a system now would mean paying some costs to convert from the current system of federal oversight, which developed in part because some state DOTs have historically been very corrupt, while other regulated providers of transportation services (such as local bus companies) have openly engaged in price-fixing, cartel or monopoly formation, and racial discrimination.  Granting the point that federal involvement leads to undesired consequences at the local level, such as inappropriate goldplating combined with exclusion of workable options, are we really better served if waste of money at the federal level is substituted with waste of money at the state level?  Why should waste smell better if it is generated by the state DOT rather than USDOT?  If you accept the point that waste is waste and should be avoided, regardless of which agency is responsible, how do you ensure that state DOTs avoid it while paying appropriate attention to legitimate national interests?

[NE2]

The point is, after agencies go through this process, they are left with something that they know works.

Not quite. Staying on the topic of bike lanes, AASHTO's guide allows door-zone bike lanes: http://www.humantransport.org/bicycledriving/library/AASHTO_DZBL.pdf

[triplemultiplex]

So no one has heard any rumors of a representative inserting a new interstate into this bill yet?

[Zmapper]

The point is, after agencies go through this process, they are left with something that they know works.

Not quite. Staying on the topic of bike lanes, AASHTO's guide allows door-zone bike lanes: http://www.humantransport.org/bicycledriving/library/AASHTO_DZBL.pdf

When a state wants to do better and innovate, they are obviously too stupid and corrupt to be able to do so. But when the amazing Federal Government rubber-stamps blatantly dangerous designs, they must be respected and implemented, for our federal government overlords from 2000 miles away surely know better then we munchkins do.

Yea, that makes a whole lot of sense...

[NE2]

Actually AASHTO is the states. Go troll yourself.

[Zmapper]

It is all well and good to argue that if we were designing the transportation funding system from scratch, it would be more efficient to leave the oversight (as well as the service provision) functions to the state DOTs.

Agreed, and that is probably one of the biggest hurdles to overcome if the USDOT were to be removed. To me, the slight cost is worth it in the long run.

But to introduce such a system now would mean paying some costs to convert from the current system of federal oversight, which developed in part because some state DOTs have historically been very corrupt, while other regulated providers of transportation services (such as local bus companies) have openly engaged in price-fixing, cartel or monopoly formation, and racial discrimination.

State DOTs are still somewhat corrupt and "stuck in the old days", but part of the problem may be in how funding is distributed. If the Federal Government gives your state $40 Billion for transportation, it is not like you have a blank check in the bank to go spend on anything related to transportation. Instead, the $40 Billion would be earmarked and specifically directed towards whatever Congress feels like is a priority.

Lets go back to 1950. Your state could build one of those new Interstate highways you have been reading about. Not only would the highway cut travel time across the city by half, if you build it through an "undesirable" neighborhood you could clean up that part of the city as well. It isn't like "real" people live in the city anymore, because they all packed up for the brand new suburbs like Levittown, NY or Greenbelt, MD.

Of course, people didn't like the freeway coming through their neighborhood. Freeways are noisy, polluting, ugly, environmentally destructive, etc. The natural result is people organized against the new freeway for various reasons. In a federalist society with local control, the freeway could have possibly been voted down, and the neighborhood in question would still be standing. Sure, the people that ditched to the suburbs might not like the outcome much, but they weren't paying taxes in the city anyway.

Fast forward to 1956. Eisenhower just signed the Interstate Highway Act, and your city is slated to receive an E-W and N-S freeway, plus a circular bypass. You don't want freeways in the central city? Tough, national "needs" dictate that it must be built. Besides, the federal government will cover 90% of the cost, so it is like you will get a full freeway for only 10% of the cost. The end result is the freeway gets built, the neighborhood deteriorates further, people are pushed out to the suburbs, etc.

What happened there is you paid for 100%, because the other 90% that came from the federal government actually came from you in the form of taxation. By having the government decide how your city will spend your money, you remove local control and potentially force environmentally undesirable results. What would have likely happened if local control existed would be the cancellation of most or all of the N-S and E-W freeways, but the building of the circular bypass. Through traffic can still get around the region, but they just have to add 5-10 miles to a 1000 mile trip. The central neighborhoods would still be intact, and people could still get places. They just couldn't fly through old neighborhoods at 55mph oblivious to the people below. The alleged state or city DOT corruption is actually a result of funding trickery and the federal government involvement.

---

This is 2012, and while it is important to keep in mind the past, racism and the other -isms have pretty much been stomped out. Honestly, when is the last time a bus driver wouldn't let a peaceful paying passenger board because he was Mexican, Black, Italian, etc? Transportation monopolies are another relic of the past, that could not occur again in the modern age. Back in 1910 your small town had exactly two options for transportation; Southern Pacific or walking. In 2012 your small town still has the railroad, but if they start getting greedy you could take the bus, a puddle jumper flight, or drive/hitchhike.

Granting the point that federal involvement leads to undesired consequences at the local level, such as inappropriate goldplating combined with exclusion of workable options, are we really better served if waste of money at the federal level is substituted with waste of money at the state level?  Why should waste smell better if it is generated by the state DOT rather than USDOT?  If you accept the point that waste is waste and should be avoided, regardless of which agency is responsible, how do you ensure that state DOTs avoid it while paying appropriate attention to legitimate national interests?

Gold plating is my biggest problem with the federal government involving, because it leads to cases like San Jose building the federally subsidized "Toonerville Trolley" light rail while cutting local bus service by 35%. I don't hate the concept of rail or busways, but when agencies build them while cutting local bus service it can lead to very poor overall results.

Another form of gold plating would be in project scope. Sure, you could just tear up ~20 feet of the center part of the road and slap down some tracks if you want light rail, but if "other people" are paying for it, why not rebuild the whole street? Suddenly the light rail project becomes a light rail/new pavement/artwork/urban revitalization/fancy sidewalks project.

[NE2]

This is 2012, and while it is important to keep in mind the past, racism and the other -isms have pretty much been stomped out. Honestly, when is the last time a bus driver wouldn't let a peaceful paying passenger board because he was Mexican, Black, Italian, etc?

Not a bus, but a plane:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/06/masudur-rahman-mohamed-za_n_858823.html
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/19/muslim-men-to-sue-airlines-after-allegedly-being-kicked-off-flight/

Wrecked.

[Grzrd]

Congress passed a two-year extension today:

Congress gave final approval on Friday to legislation that combines a two-year transportation measure with bills to extend subsidized student loans and revamp federal flood insurance, wrapping up a bruising session with measures that will be popular on the campaign trail .... The House passed it by 373 to 52, the Senate by 74 to 19. All the no votes were by Republicans.
"When all is said and done, this bill is what it is,"  said Representative Nick J. Rahall II, a West Virginia Democrat who was one of the senior negotiators. "It means jobs."  .... The transportation legislation extends federal highway, rail and transit programs for 27 months, authorizing $120 billion in spending, financed by the existing 18.4 cents-a-gallon gasoline tax and the 24.4 cents-a-gallon diesel tax, as well as about $19 billion in transfers from the Treasury .... The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, told reporters aboard Air Force One that the measure was a "good, bipartisan"  deal and that the president looked forward to signing it.

Here's the text of the bill.

[Kacie Jane]

This is 2012, and while it is important to keep in mind the past, racism and the other -isms have pretty much been stomped out.

I read this, and I tried really, really hard to ignore the troll, but I just can't.  I mean, seriously?  Not only is this statement completely and utterly false, but also completely unnecessary and irrelevant to the rest of your post.

[Zmapper]

Are you calling me a troll? Seriously? Considering I have been an active member for about 2 years, I am honestly offended. I may advocate an opposing viewpoint, but that my no means makes me a troll.

Again, when is the last time you have seen a "whites only" sign or other blatant racism? Okay, there are a few bad apples in a county of 300 million, but racism is pretty much gone by now. I included that statement as a reply to JN Winkler's remark about how state DOT's had a history of being racist. I don't deny the past that they may have racial intentions, but while there may be a few bad apples inside the DOT, as a whole they are colorblind.

[Alps]

Are you calling me a troll? Seriously? Considering I have been an active member for about 2 years, I am honestly offended. I may advocate an opposing viewpoint, but that my no means makes me a troll.

Again, when is the last time you have seen a "whites only" sign or other blatant racism? Okay, there are a few bad apples in a county of 300 million, but racism is pretty much gone by now. I included that statement as a reply to JN Winkler's remark about how state DOT's had a history of being racist. I don't deny the past that they may have racial intentions, but while there may be a few bad apples inside the DOT, as a whole they are colorblind.

Racism is far from dead, but overt racism has been mostly erased.