Lindsey Graham: “I encourage you to adhere to the design created by TEA-21. The Congress has the opportunity, through ITS and other…”

“I encourage you to adhere to the design created by TEA-21. The Congress has the opportunity, through ITS and other programs, to strengthen our national transportation infrastructure in a cost-effective, efficient manner. We undermine those efforts if we don't follow the criteria established and passed by Congress in TEA-21. So in that context, it was with dismay that last Friday morning, when I finally had an opportunity to look at the Transportation conference report, I realized that again we were committing the same mistake. For the second year in a row, none of the top 15 traffic-choked cities got funding for intelligent transportation system technology to assist them in alleviating their gridlock. Taking the list even further, none of the top 20 most congested cities received intelligent transportation system funding. Those additional five cities included Denver, Phoenix, San Bernardino, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and Tacoma, WA. Those five cities are added to the 15 that I have previously read in the category of cities that are the most 20 congested cities in America, none of whom received any of the intelligent transportation system money. This suggests to me a total disconnect between the problem that led to the creation of ITS in the first place and the allocation of dollars by the appropriators.”