"experts say much of the stimulus spending may promote urban sprawl while scrimping on more green-friendly rail and mass transit. "

Patrick Deneen with a post that I agree with in spirit:

"Road Dependency

A recent article in the Washington Post outlines what is likely to be a battle that the political Left is likely to lose more decisively than the choice of Inauguration Day pastor - namely, whether the lion's share of the infrastructure stimulus will go toward existing transportation projects, or toward the creation of a new, "green" economy. Obama has already signaled that he will push for immediately effectual stimulus through the funding of "shovel ready" projects, meaning projects aimed at enlarging or reinforcing the current transportation system( IT'S FINE WITH ME IF THERE ARE SAFETY ISSUES INVOLVED ). Even without the exigencies and pressure for immediate stimulation of the economy (and the creation of large numbers of unskilled jobs), there was a strong likelihood that the lion's share of any stimulus package was going to go to "traditional" sorts of public works projects that have been at the heart of the great American build-out for the past 50+ years. There are simply too many interests, organizations and lobbying groups to ignore( I AGREE ); demands by Congress alone would have ensured that legislation would be over-brimming with a variety of locally desired pork projects( THEY'VE PROMISED NOT TO, SO WE'LL HAVE TO SEE ). With the added pressure for immediately effective economic stimulus, any efforts for long-term and not immediately stiumulative investment in a new, alternative "green" future are all-but likely to be put on permanent hold. Path dependency is simply too determining, especially in this case.

It is either farce or tragedy that we will invest further in an economic model premised on permanently cheap and readily available energy sources at a time when we have had our first taste of the reality and experience of peak oil. We will sink more of our increasingly limited funds (or, increasingly limited ability to borrow funds that we can no longer create) in maintaining or expanding a transportation system that, for a few months at least in the last year, was decreasingly being used as the price of energy rose so high to be a disincentive to travel. We saw - and continue to see - the housing of the far-flung suburbs losing its value as people began to re-think the wisdom of purchasing more house at distances that not only entailed lengthy and deadening commutes, but which were becoming so cost prohibitive to force people - for the first time in decades - to consider distance to be a factor in considerations of where to live( I HOPE SO ). And, we are likely to sink more money into a transportation system at just the moment we witness the collapse of America's automobile industry - the industry for which the massive investment in roads was largely built to support and expand( TRUE ). Growing up alongside the massive public investment in roads, bridges, and the corresponding build-out of auto-based businesses, that in one way or another employs so many Americans that the taxpayer was not only on the hook in making the growth to such massiveness possible, but is now on the hook in preventing its collapse. The reason for its demise was long in the making, but the nails in its coffin were being nailed in when it was decided that it would continue on its own path dependency of massive energy wastefulness in placing all its bets on the SUV even after our first and second experiences with various energy shocks and the industry's (and government's) awareness that the era of fossil fuels was reaching its apogee. ( WE'RE NOT HELPING THEM OUT BECAUSE OF ECONOMIC REASONS, BUT SOCIAL REASONS, WHICH ARE IMPORTANT )

The decision to bail out the automobile industry is essentially born of the same set of necessities that will orient the stimulus package in sustaining and expanding our current transporatation system, and more fundamentally, our current economic model. At the most obvious level, we have thrown so much of America's wealth into the creation of this system that it cannot be allowed to collapse( TRUE. IT ALSO HAS MANY ADHERENTS ), even though that collapse is taking place because of our confrontation with a permanently constrained energy future. More deeply, it cannot be allowed to collapse because the American way of life has become defined by the massive expenditure and waste of finite resources( I AGREE ). We will continue to maintain this system - of roads, automobiles, suburbs, vast and wasteful supply lines, and in general our "consumer" culture - because it is who we have become( TRUE ). Yet with each additional dollar that we throw into this black hole of unsustainability, we spend ourselves closer to the collapse of this groaning, creaking, crumbling system that has no future. Nearly every dollar we spend privately and that is appropriated publically now goes to sustaining the unsustainable. Yet we can be certain that we will continue to spend what is remaining to be spent to do just this - holding off, if for only a few years or months longer, the demise of a way of life that was from the outset based on wishful thinking, short term thinking and deeply flawed assumptions about a future of bottomless energy and infinite growth. "

I agree with how he feels, but I don't really know how much oil is left, or want to tell people what to buy. I simply dislike cars, suburbs, shopping malls, consumer culture, etc., personally. So, if these things were to decrease, then I would be happy. There is some economic and political sense to weaning ourselves off of oil, suburban development, more roads, etc., but the American people need to vote for these with their own money. I don't mind a nudge, but can't accept more than that. For me, it's a moral and cultural issue, which politics can only partially address. The rest is up to me or others being able to convince people through cogent argument and analysis that the things we favor are desirable for them as well.

As for the Obama Administration, from Bloomberg:

"Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Missouri’s plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn’t square with President-elect Barack Obama’s vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation’s infrastructure.

Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways.

While many states are keeping their project lists secret, plans that have surfaced show why environmentalists and some development experts say much of the stimulus spending may promote urban sprawl while scrimping on more green-friendly rail and mass transit( I OPPOSE THIS ).

“It’s a lot of more of the same,” said Robert Puentes, a metropolitan growth and development expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington who is tracking the legislation. “You build a lot of new highways, continue to decentralize” urban and suburban communities and “pull resources away from transit.”( I OPPOSE THIS )

In proposing a stimulus plan that could total as much as $1 trillion, Obama has promised a new federal infrastructure program that would dwarf President Dwight Eisenhower’s interstate highway system that began in 1956. Obama told reporters at a Dec. 7 news conference that his effort would go beyond “roads and bridges” and fund more innovative projects.( LIKE WHAT? )

Fiscal Shortfalls

His plans are colliding with deep fiscal shortfalls among states with a backlog of road-building needs and pressure from lawmakers to use his economic recovery package mainly for “ready to go” projects that will immediately bolster the economy.

Highway construction advocates say numerous projects are needed because of years of neglect of the nation’s infrastructure. Along with new roads, these include resurfacing existing ones and guardrail installation. As evidence of the economic impact of such work, they cite President Ronald Reagan’s $12 billion investment in federal highways during the 1982 recession that created 700,000 jobs by 1985.

Caterpillar Inc. executives have said the U.S. needs as much as $700 billion in road, port and airport investments to remain competitive with countries like China. The largest maker of construction equipment stands to see a boost from the spending plan, along with rival Deere & Co., crane makers Terex Corp. and Manitowoc Co., and material producers U.S. Steel Corp. and Olympic Steel Inc.( LOBBYING )

Little Oversight

Members of Congress and some officials with the incoming administration are moving toward legislation that gives states funds through existing formulas that provide little oversight to ensure the spending fits into a broader plan to modernize the nation’s infrastructure grid and promote energy efficiency, according to several lobbyists and congressional aides.

“We like the environmentally friendly way of doing things but the charge we were given was to come up with something that can happen quickly,” said Jim Berard, a spokesman for House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar, a Minnesota Democrat. “We can’t lose sight of what the primary goal here is, and that is to put people to work.”( I DON'T AGREE WITH THIS PRIORITY. THE PROJECTS SHOULD BE GOOD INVESTMENTS. )

Urban planners and mass transit advocates say that approach may undercut Obama’s goal of more innovation in upgrading the nation’s infrastructure.

‘Bad Projects’

“The fear is that you would begin a bunch of bad projects that would have to be funded all the way,” said Petra Todorovich, director of the New York-based America 2050, a coalition of transportation officials and civic, business and environmental groups. That would make it “a lot harder to make the big investments needed to build high-speed rail and public transit.”( WHICH ARE WHAT I SUPPORT )

Advocates of surface-road and highway building say these projects would prove environmentally friendly because they would help relieve congestion.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has identified 220 bottlenecks that significantly increase the number of vehicles idling in traffic. “If you can eliminate the congestion, you can dramatically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Jeff Solsby, a spokesman for the Washington-based American Road and Transportation Builders Association.( OK )

The Missouri plan reflects the current needs of the state, where 90 percent of travel is by cars on highways and roads, said Sally Oxenhandler, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Transportation.

‘Strike a Balance’

“We had to take a look at the needs and strike a balance, and also look at projects that we had ready to go in 180 days,” she said.

Polly Trottenberg, director of Building America’s Future, a Washington-based group promoting innovation in infrastructure improvements, counters that “there are plenty of projects that can put Americans back to work immediately and also start the transformation that is needed.”

Her organization and other groups have pinpointed $16.5 billion in mass-transit projects on which work can start within a year, and in many cases within four months( GOOD ).

In Europe and Southeast Asia, governments are investing tens of billions of dollars in high-speed rail projects that include systems designed for the rapid transport of merchandise. Proponents of a new approach to transportation in the U.S. are pushing for the stimulus package to fund similar projects.( SHOULD BE LOOKED INTO )

They also are backing a provision in the stimulus legislation that would require states to spend funds on maintenance before building new roads( GOOD ). And they also want to direct funds to metropolitan planning authorities and to create a national oversight group to help coordinate the spending( GOOD LUCK ).

This could be similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s creation of a national resources planning board during the New Deal that developed long-range plans for infrastructure spending, Todorovich said. It laid the groundwork for the interstate highway system 20 years later."

It seems that Deneen is correct. I would rather the money go, after safety, to green and environmentally friendly investments for the future. I simply hope that some of it does.