Good point.

It's easy for politicians to support new construction so they can have their names plastered all over said projects, but not a one of 'em are willing to spend an equal amount of money on maintaining or improving existing infrastructure that's falling apart. We "can't afford" to repair or replace bridges and tunnels that are about to fail (or are failing, albeit too slowly for anyone other than possibly oft-ignored engineers and inspectors to notice yet) but yet politicians like Ted Stevens can find the money to build "bridges to nowhere" whose cost far outweighs their possible need or usefulness. Having light rail or HSR may be "sexy", but it does no good if there aren't connecting transit options that allow riders to leave their POVs at home or at least keep the POV-caused traffic jams due to people driving to or from the HSR or light rail stations to a minimum. We need to spend more money on maintaining and improving what already exists and also do a better job of integrating our existing transportation systems into a truly integrated network (which we really aren't doing at all) before we start pouring money into "sexy" projects that won't meet our transportation needs all by themselves.