As transportation in America has continued to evolve and expand in America the transportation policy has lacked the same evolvement and growth. Faced with an ever growing population and an economy that depends on transportation more than ever, American transportation network is based on a policy that has not been significantly updated since the 1950’s. With a policy that is so out of date it has become increasingly hard to secure funding to maintain and build new roads, this is where the issue of federalism arrives. Working with the federal, state and local government there has to be a solution to the transportation policy. The Transportation Policy as we know it today started as the Interstate program according to Shirayanagi, H., & Kitamura, Y. (2011) “in 1956 also called the 1956 Federal-Aid Highway Act, appropriated $25 billion (about $197 billion in 2009 dollars) to build 41,000 miles of multi-lane, limited access highways.” (p.253) While it was done to connect states and make it easier for economic center to connect it helped develop travel within cities themselves. These highways were built with 90 percent federal funding the only problem was that the local government did not get any money to improve the transportation systems. Fast-forward to August 2005 according to Shirayanagi, H., & Kitamura, Y. (2011) “ the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: (SAFETEA-LU) which is our current transportation policy signed by President George W. Bush, authorized $286.5 billion dollars to fund our nation’s transportation network through September 2009…” (p.257) The bill expired on September 30, 2009 and has been extended multiple times since that date.
The main reason Congress cannot come up with a new policy because first and for most the federal government does not want to fund state and local projects without any help from that state, second the state is always looking at their cost to maintain, while the local government doesn’t have the funds without the backing from the state and federal government. You add this all up you have a clear case of federalism at its best, everyone wants their state to fix the roads now, but they might not necessarily have the capabilities or funding to fix them. While the state is waiting on the federal government to fix the roads the federal government comes up with this transportation policy that does not cover that local area, now we’re in a bind trying to find what government should be held accountable to fix the roads. This is federalism.
With federalism come pros and cons. Most of the pros and cons to the transportation policy has to do with the way money is raised to fund this policy. Some feel that there is better ways to raise money than just to tax, while a pro for creating revenue this way would be the FairTax this sales tax is a consumption tax, meaning that visitors, tourists and even those just passing through a region will contribute to fixing the roads and congestion problems for an area. While a con to this would be that we currently pay for a lot of our own major transportation projects through the state and federal gas tax anyway. However, the biggest problem is the horrible selection of projects consisting of mass transit and economic development projects for a city, a lot of which does not improve roads or traffic congestion which leads to misused funds.
A major concern that the states rise that brings more pros and cons to light in this debate is, if the government does build new projects, roads, and transit, who will bear the cost if the funds run out. The pro to this is that for transit projects, there are 10 years of maintenance and operations funds from the date they are opened included in the budget. This providing an opportunity for operating costs to be factored into the revenue that will be generated from those projects creating a system that should be self-sufficient. The con to this would be if the operating cost to one of the transportation project is more than the revenue generated then the tax payer will cover the bill, which will lead to higher taxes.
In looking at the pros and cons of this policy we must also look at the effectiveness and the consistency to really gain an accurate outlook on this policy. I feel that the effectiveness of any policy should be based on can it or has it withstood time and how long can be in place before being changed again. So for effectiveness I would have to say that the transportation policy is effective. Also based on the American federalism’s constitutional framework that I feel is designed to keep the state and local government accountable for their regions I feel it has been consistent. By making sure the state and local government does not piggyback of the federal government to get this done.
Even though I feel that the transportation policy has been effective and consistent there is still room for improvement. Federalism I feel has become deeply entwined with the transportation policy until that is undone I feel there will be no real progress made with this policy. Working with the federal, state and local government there has to be a solution to the transportation policy there has to be.

Reference
Shirayanagi, H., & Kitamura, Y. (2011). Effect of Changes in Time and Fares of Highway Buses and City Railroads on Transportation Activities: Plans and Performance of the Intermodal Transport Policy. With English summary.). Studies In Regional Science, 41(1), 251-261.