I am pleased that President Bush has proposed to fully fund the highway and transit programs in TEA-21, at the guaranteed levels. He proposed to fully fund the authorized levels for airport grants in AIR-21. I am looking forward to seeing the proposal you will be announcing later this week.
Transportation is key to our nation's well-being.
But the tool that made the biggest difference in my community was transportation. Nothing else had as great an impact on our economic development, on the pattern of growth, or on the quality of life, as transportation. A safe and efficient transportation system is essential to keeping people and goods moving and cities and communities prosperous. A central challenge for the department and the nation is to close the gap between demand for transportation and the capacity of our transportation infrastructure. With more vehicles traveling on our roads and more passengers and flights traveling in the air, our transportation system is operating at near capacity and, in many places, demand is far exceeding that capacity.