It will only be bad if we don’t figure out how to move goods and people without using so much cash and energy. Taking out freeways as they creep beyond their expiration dates would save us billions in future maintenance.

Shifting intra-city trips to bicycles would likewise save loads of money.

After the highway bills, which basically said, “we are the federal government, you do it our way, which is a freeway” this was a welcome relief.

Instantly, the competition for funds amongst the various modes increased. From the beginning, since it was based on fuel taxes, the debate was why should car drivers subsidize transit. Transit funding was cut through each successive TEA authorization, to where, if you had a population over XXX (I think it was 1 million), then there is no federal subsidy for operations.

Anyway, it seems like what was started with TEA is now continuing with Complete Streets. Lets hope that program gets into the legislation.

In the end, the fight over how to divide federal transportation funding shoudn’t distract us from the real problem: the inevitable decline in gas tax revenue. While the Federal government can certainly throw “stimulus” dollars at the problem, the fund will ultimately need a transportation-based source, but the most credible ideas that you mention — tolls and mileage taxes — are both likely to be functions of state government.

So we could see de facto shift of transportation funding to states. I know Yonah tends to advocate strong Federal government roles in transportation policy, but there’s also a strong case to be made that aggressive pro-transit states like California, Oregon and New York will be best able to lead the way if they have more discretion over funds sourced from their citizens. It’s an interesting and to some extent eternal debate in federal democracies everywhere.