As published by Ed Wytkind in The Hill
Say it isn’t so. Some candidates for president seem to believe that we can have a modern transportation system and strong economy if we dump transportation policy and funding duties on the states. Yes, apparently these candidates want to run our transportation system as though what happens in Pennsylvania doesn’t matter in Oregon. Talk about an absurd proposition.
Anyone who understands the intricacies of America’s integrated supply chain and vast transportation system that gets people to their destination knows that it is nonsense to think that our economy can succeed if we strip the federal government — through wrongheaded “devolution” proposals — of its role as steward of our national freight and passenger network.
If we were to follow these reckless plans and push everything onto the states, including difficult political decisions on funding, the nation would be forced to rely on a patchwork of transportation systems conceived and funded (or, more likely, under-funded) by individual states. Translation? We’d be living without any guarantee that the state transportation systems would weave together to serve the entire nation.
Read more in The Hill.