You skated right by the important part of the. The feds are going to be spending 1.5 million dollars to build a simple @$^&*% bus stop.

Who's going to go to court to stop the money spigot?

The constitutionality is an interesting question. The intersate highway system--probably the greatest public works program in US history and the origin of the mroe recent transportation bills--was conceived by Eisenhower as a "national defense" strategy.

I am not sure if there is any case law challenging the constitutionality of federal transportation spending.

...

Doesn't necessarily make it a constitutional expenditure. Just because something's a good idea doesn't mean the Constitution allows it.

In fact, that confusion right there defines the battle over judicial nominations.

Are you saying that the Feds should only be involved in transportation projects that occur between state borders?

A functional, multi-modal transportation system is essential for the economic health of the country.

The main problem with our transportation policy is that there is no cohesive national strategy. As the Anchorage project suggests, our transportation "policy"--for decades--has merely been a free-for-all pork fest where members of Congress bring federal money to their districts without regional--let alone national--coordination and a serious debate about what the US transportation system should look like.

Of course transportation is, in reality, a function of land use. Land use is regulated at the municipal level; but it is not a stretch to argue that one of the reasons our post-War suburbs look the way they do has been because municiplaities have develop policies with a view to get fdereal money.