by Christopher Kendalls

Created on: January 06, 2008

Transportation infrastructure is one of the major issues plaguing major metropolitan areas today. States with older metropolitan areas are grappling with the fact that the smaller cities and grid systems that used to serve towns for years cannot handle their needs today while cities with a lot of suburban sprawl and entirely new cities altogether, such as those found in the South and in the West find that one can never truly build transportation infrastructure right.

Americans gravitate towards what appears to be at the time an excessive approach to transportation infrastructure. We are infatuated with wide roads, the number of lanes in a road and the length of a road. We like to break in new highways as though we were young lovebirds wanting to break in a new bed and can never get enough of places to put our automobiles. Yet these roads, both in length, width and complexity are very expensive, and residents of counties often absorb the costs.

When the costs cannot be borne by property taxes alone tolls are implemented, at times creative situations come about, such as absorbing the costs through speeding tickets and other traffic fines; localities almost always try to force new businesses to add to the transportation infrastructure in order to make up for the extra burden on existing infrastructure.

Yet there is an unfailing truth about transportation infrastructure; people always go to what is newest and the most attractive, often neglecting to choose alternate routes that are more productive. The widest roads and highways will always be more attractive than side streets, which are rarely taken unless there are accidents or other concerns, the same goes for bridges and tunnels. At the end of the day metropolitan areas often find that the only way to avert a complete paralysis of their transportation infrastructure, is to include more public transportation; which is something that everyone wants when they are without an automobile and no motorist really wants around.

Yet none of this is really the burden or responsibility of the federal government. There are times when the federal government may have a vested interest in doing so, depending on how the metropolitan area lies in importance to the rest of the countries economic interest, but quite honestly, transportation infrastructure is something that cities can and often do address by themselves without the help of the federal government.

Too often the federal government gets involved in the business of rescuing

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