No Railway or the Highway

A report from Tampa, Florida on The PBS NewsHour re-affirmed my lamentable conclusion about the utter stupidity of this country's federal transportation policy.

Tampa wants to build a light rail line to serve the central city and the surrounding suburbs in Hillsborough County, and it has the strong backing of the city's Democratic mayor. It would increase mobility and create more jobs Local Republican leaders, citing the tax increases and extra spending this would involve, oppose it, and they have similar reservations if not outright hostility toward a high-speed rail line to connect Tampa to Orlando. The Republican mayor of nearby St. Petersburg, to his credit, supports it so long as his city is also included in this line, which would mostly run down the median of Interstate 4.

One local Tea Party member insists that the federal government only has basic duties, such as the common defense and a national highway network. He didn't come out and say the government does not have the responsibility to build a railway network - which is of course public transportation, not like a highway, which is a public right of way for private vehicles - but that's pretty much what he intimated.

And I could have sworn he said the Constitution provides for the Interstate Highway System, although I don't recall the Founding Fathers suggesting a need for concrete roads for motorized vehicles. As for the idea of the Constitution mandating a national road system, Henry Clay repeatedly tried for a national road and canal network in the early nineteenth century, but his opponents kept thwarting him, insisting that transportation was a state issue that the federal government had no right to be involved in. President Andrew Jackson, for one, didn't think Clay's proposal constituted interstate commerce and so wasn't covered by the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which states that Congress shall have the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."

And oh yes, "Interstate" 4 only goes through Florida. As with any other mainline Interstate, its construction was funded federally with money shared by the states. Did this help interstate commerce? Or was this highway, which crosses the Florida peninsula between Tampa and Daytona Beach, just built to encourage development in central Florida?