Boston Globe: Commentary: The New Deal wasn't built in a day

From Boston Globe:

The last huge investment in infrastructure - back in the 1950s - brought usthe Interstate Highway System, a huge boon to mobility that, at the same time,shredded the fabric of our towns and cities by creating conveyor belts ofwealth to the suburbs. USautomakers - the very same corporations that crawled to Congress for a multi-billion-dollarbailout - accelerated the process of urban flight and downtown decay by buyingup, and then ripping up, public transit systems that met the mobility needs ofmillions of city dwellers.  More than half a century later, let's be sure toget our priorities straight before signing up for a spate of costly newhighways and interchanges. There are crumbling roads and bridges that cry outfor repair; these deserve our dollars. Along with those repairs, there is along list of transit projects that - if built - would go a long way towardreviving urban neighborhoods and downtowns that lost out so dramatically in thelast big round of transportation spending.