Double meaning intended. The transportation system, as is well documented, still suffers - in spite of the injection of funding from ARRA - from a deferred maintenance problem. And the political and policymaking system is still broken down.

Yes, the Senate managed to pass a bill. But it is -- or rather was, since it took long enough to pass and then the House dithered further -- just a two-year deal. And while it has notable performance-oriented and structural reforms, as Emil Frankel and the BPC have advocated, it also has some criticism-worthy odds and ends like those Ken mentions.

But the House couldn't even do that. Determined to rely only on a majority of the majority rather than reaching across the aisle, GOP leaders put forth multiple proposals and never got to 218 except by passing a non-bill transportation extension with some riders such as the Keystone pipeline added to it.

The Miller Center's new report on transportation is worth a read, since it includes not just a helpful communications strategy (and I really do think we talk too much to ourselves and communicate neither enough nor effectively with the public) but also commonsense insights like this one:

"Typically, people in urban areas such as Los Angeles are more aware of deteriorating infrastructure and place a higher priority on investing to maintain and improve existing systems, particularly if they feel vulnerable to disasters that could significantly impact essential services (such as earthquakes that could cause a loss of power and water, or jeopardize vital bridges and roadways). Citizens of rural areas, by contrast, tend to have fewer complaints about the condition and adequacy of the infrastructure around them and are therefore less likely to see transportation investment as an immediate priority."

This might help explain why new transportation investment is not a burning concern among those who represent rural CDs and states, and therefore some of the gridlock in Congress on this policy.

I think we have a serious problem. The world is becoming more competitive, and nations need to invest in order to retain strong footing in the global economy. That means having world-class infrastructure that can move workers and goods effectively and efficiently. In that environment, turning the program back to a patchwork of 50 different programs is a losing proposition (to witness the consequences of inadequate union take a look at Europe where fiscal discipline may be too tall an order for the EU).

Keystone is a distraction from the kinds of infrastructure investments we really need to remain competitive. The hot air around gas prices is also a distraction. And interesting to note that in spite of the tar sands, Canadian fuel prices fluctuate along with the global price of oil just like ours, since this new supply doesn't ease prices there how can anyone claim it will help here?

I hope some of the policy debate will helpfully set the stage for a two-year bill with some reforms, as are contained in some of the MAP-21 titles. And that this will in turn lead to more reforms in the next reauthorization cycle.

However, it is an election year, and that tends to warp policy debates. So I don't have high hopes.

However, as the Miller Center points out, an election year is a very good time indeed to raise public awareness about policy issues that might otherwise languish in obscurity. So at this point I hope for more attention to transportation on the campaign trail while conferees wrangle with policy here in D.C. Check out the Miller Center report for ideas to make this happen.

Three aspects of the legislation described by Ken Orski seem of major concern:

First, the Senate bill (and also the reported House draft) rely on general revenues to finance desired expenditures, thus abandoning the traditional “user pays” principle for financing surface transport facilities.

Second, I am not able to digest a document consisting of “1,600 plus” pages, and suspect that few — if any — congress-people have read it.

Third, the discouragement of tolling and private financing.

These deficiencies strengthen the suspicion that transport is too important to be left to the vicissitudes of politics, and would be better provided by private markets, as are food, water, and other necessities.

Such a change could not be made quickly. But might it be reasonable to hope that no deal will be made this year, and that a future congress will legislate a path to turn back transport financing to the states, some of which would require travelers to pay for what they use? Might not the private sector then be able to provide the facilities that users were prepared to pay for, even without having to read “1,600 plus” pages of federal legislation?

"I have not been a student of the Senate bill because the Senate bill has been academic to me. But now that it's becoming a potential reality and I'm a potential negotiator, I will become conversant with the Senate bill line by line and then I'll have an opinion," Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR),answering a reporter's query about details of a provision in the Senate bill (quoted in POLITICO's Morning Transportation, April 19.)

As Rep. DeFazio observed, getting to know the finer details of the Senate highway bill (MAP-21, S. 1813) has taken on new significance now that a House-Senate conference negotiation on the reauthorization measure has become a reality. Understanding the Senate bill is important because the Senate measure is likely to become the basis of any final bill. The House bill (H.R. 4348) is little more than a 90-day extension of the current program (through September 2012) with the Keystone XL pipeline amendment attached to it. It is silent on nearly everything addressed by the Senate bill. And, equally, it is silent on nearly every issue germane to the transportation reauthorization.

It was in this spirit that we have provided to our readers a detailed analysis of one aspect of the Senate highway bill ---its finance and revenue provisions. We owe this analysis to Gary Hoitsma, editor of the Washington Letter on Transportation (published by the Carmen Group, www.washingtonletter.com ), who alone among the Washington reporters had the initiative and curiosity to go behind the rhetoric of "bipartisanship" and document the convoluted financing, bordering on gimmickry, of the Senate bill.

But other aspects of the bill also deserve a critical scrutiny--- some are changes that were inserted into the bill late in the process and adopted by unanimous consent without debate; others are provisions that are not even remotely germane to the core purpose of the bill; still others are provisions that many stakeholders object to because they discourage states to partner with the private sector (the so-called Sen. Bingaman amendment).

The non-transportation provisions include the creation of a new National Endowment for the Oceans, Coasts and Great Lakes to be housed in the Department of Commerce (Sec. 1603(4) of MAP-21), and a seven-year reauthorization for the Land and Water Conservation Fund which is a National Park Service program within the U.S. Department of the Interior (Sec. 1701 of MAP-21). Indeed, the Senate bill includes over $6.8 billion in new non-Highway Trust Fund spending that has nothing to do with the core purpose of the bill (see below).

The Senate measure also includes changes that were quietly slipped into the bill and were approved on the Senate floor by unanimous consent without debate on March 13, one day before the final passage of the bill. They include, notably, a provision transferring $5 billion in general funds ("out of money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated...") without offering any immediate offset (Sec. 40313 of MAP-21; for other transfers see Sec. 40301-03, 40306); and an amendment affecting the treatment of transportation "enhancements" (Sec. 1113 of MAP-21).

The latter amendment shifts the flexibility to decide how to spend the enhancements set-aside money from the state DOTs to local government agencies, thus substantially modifying an earlier agreement reached by the leaders of the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee. As the Committee's chairman, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and its ranking member Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) agreed at the November markup of the bill, it was only a compromise on that contentious issue that allowed the parties to move forward on the entire bill. All in all, the final Senate bill includes some quite significant changes from what was agreed to at the mark up a month earlier. As Hoitsma observed, "It is doubtful that many senators or other outside observers were fully aware of these changes or their significance."

It should be noted that the provisions cited above (and discussed in more detail in the Washington Letter on Transportation of March 19, March 26, April 2, April 9 and April 16 ) may be merely the tip of the iceberg. We simply do not know what, if any, other questionable items might have been slipped into this massive 1,600-plus page bill. It is now incumbent upon the House negotiators (hopefully with the help of the press and the concerned transportation policy community) to examine the Senate bill line-by-line as Rep DeFazio has promised to do, and to shine light on any other questionable provisions. To fail to do so would be to accept former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's notorious advice that we must let Congress pass the bill so that we would know what's in it.