When we delve deeper into each state, we can see things even more clearly. Here's a map of the flow of transportation revenue in my home state of Minnesota. Contrary to what many in rural America believe, money flows from urban areas to suburban and rural areas. There is a huge net subsidy of suburban and rural living from the tremendous financial productivity of urban areas.

Let me summarize: In a very coarse sense, federal transportation dollars flow from blue-leaning states with more urban dominance to red-leaning states with more suburban/rural dominance while state transportation dollars tend to flow from blue-leaning urban areas to red-leaning suburban/rural areas.

And we have a red state senator and a red state representative pushing a transportation funding bill that would end the largest of those transfers.

Where Will Innovation Happen?

Outside of the lobbyists and vested interests trying to continually expand the trough at which they feed, there are two primary arguments against the Transportation Empowerment Act.

The first is an equity argument: We owe it to states like Wyoming and Georgia to ensure that they have high quality transportation systems. My response to that is simple: (1) We already do with the interstate system, which will be maintained even better with a more focused federal approach, and (2) the evidence is that federal transportation spending -- especially that outside of interstate maintenance -- is actually making us poorer. If we want to help people, there are many better ways to do it than transportation spending.

I want to spend more time with the second argument, which I think has greater validity: If we want innovation in transportation, state DOT's, along with county/regional transportation entities, are the least progressive actors on the stage today. The federal government is trying to do innovative things. Taking them out of the loop and giving that money to states is going to take us backward.

Let's be clear about how the federal government innovates. In government, new ideas are a threat to all existing programs. The only way new ideas happen is if they add to, not replace, existing systems. So we are spending $1 on highways and want to innovate by spending $0.10 on transit. That means we need to spend $1.10 (likely $1.20 as in $1 for highways, $0.10 for transit and a $0.10 highway sweetener to get the bill passed). So federal innovation never involves shifting money away from destructive practices -- the kind of innovation we desperately need when it comes to transportation -- but instead it means trying to counteract bad spending with smaller levels of targeted good spending.

This is the approach that has given us transit systems that follow the 1960's commuter model and the provide-marginal-service-to-the-poor model but nothing predicated on broadly building wealth in our communities. We get complete streets (separate but equal), Safe Routes to School (instead of schools on safe routes) and TIGER (local indebtedness initiative) as innovations. I'm not inspired.

Plus, we have to confront the hard reality of who is in charge right now. I'm not a hyper-partisan, but I can count. It looks like the transportation bill that will soon be on offer is going to be long on the worst kind of highway-, bridge- and interchange-funding -- perhaps even partially privatized -- and short on anything that anyone reading this piece is likely to call innovation. Give me a choice between that federal approach and taking my chances with the fifty states, and I'll hedge my bets. I know we can win in some and, when we do, create a model for others to follow as they get into more and more trouble with the standard approach.

But who says we have to give all the money to the states?

A BiPartisan Compromise

As we've interviewed thought leaders for our Infrastructure Crisis series, one thought continues to come to the fore: We should be giving transportation money directly to mayors. With no strings.

Part of the Transportation Empowerment Act was a phase-out of federal funding where the transition money was given as a block grant directly to the states. What if instead, as a way to generate a real bipartisan consensus in Congress as well as across the country, we gave a decent percentage of that transition money directly to our major cities? If we really want to drive innovation, that is where it will happen.

Funding for the interstate system was supposed to end in 1972. We were essentially done building the system by that time—a few stubborn segments, mostly in places that shouldn't have been built—were all that remained. Of course, it didn't end; we have continued to expand the system ever since. A surge in federal infrastructure spending right now is going to invest in the worst possible projects and, in the process, stifle innovation, make our cities poorer and set us back many years.

It's time to seriously consider alternatives to the big pot of federal money.

Top photo by Wikimedia.