With Americans driving less for the first time ever, its time to create a new comprehensive plan for transportation in the United States.
"Our nation spends hundreds of billions of dollars a year on highways, bridges, rail lines, buses and railroads that connect communities, shape patterns of growth and development, and sustain the economy. But there is no comprehensive national transportation policy to drive this titanic task.
Given the energy and environmental challenges of this new century, such an uncharted course is shortsighted, wasteful and practically suicidal.
Developing new transportation policies for the new century will take the kind of commitment and vision that, more than 50 years ago, assembled the interstate highway system. Like President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the next president must harness the national will to meet critical new transportation needs centered in America's cities.
The deadly collapse last year of a four-lane bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis put a glaring spotlight on the nation's aging highways and bridges, and the need for a plan and commitment to rebuild them."
