Except for a few intra-city projects, the Interstate highway system is finished. But that doesn't measure transportation's political importance.
Entitlement programs eat up more and more of the budget, but they essentially run on autopilot.
And representatives can't exactly promise to bring home more Medicare to their districts. Transportation is one of the last areas where individual congressmen can personally deliver federal dollars to constituents in a literally concrete way. It takes on added significance this year because the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 is up for reauthorization. First, Congress takes care of its own. And that was when he was only the ranking minority member on the Transportation Committee.