Something that blows my mind: We are debating an infrastructure stimulus package, and a 6yr reauthorization of Federal surface transportation legislation. Together these account for at least $2 trillion. But we have no real data on how we spent the last $2 trillion.

95% of the money gets sent to States by formula. Federal agencies provide oversight and approve individual plans/programs and projects. But NOBODY has aggregated this information up and analyzed it.

You might assume that FHWA and FTA have big databases of information on what kinds of projects were built, what they cost, and how they affected transportation performance (congestion, access, equity, land use, economy). But they absolute don’t.

So USDOT and Congress don’t know answers to fundamental questions like: What are we getting for this $2 trillion? Could we invest it better? What would the impact be of more or less funding? What policy changes would benefit the most people?... They are all guessing.

The most insane part is that Federal rules require States to publish their plans and programs. But they all use different formats and usually include scant real information about the projects. Sometimes obscuring information using terms like “modernization.”

Regardless of what ends up in these next bills, we won’t have any frame of reference to know if they changed State behaviors. It is already too late.

So to me the top priority for these bills should be to establish standardized and centralized data tracking, with easy public transparency, so we can actually know how the money is being spent in every state, region and county.