I was as shocked as anyone when I heard the news that the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis had collapsed. As our U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar said, “A bridge in America just shouldn’t fall down.” There are thousands of bridges across the nation in the same or worse condition as the one that fell in Minneapolis. Will the response from President Bush and Congressman Kline to this situation continue to be too little, too late?

Almost immediately, Minnesota’s senior Congressman and Chair of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Jim Oberstar, secured $250 million from the federal government for reconstruction of the bridge. A week later, he developed a National Highway System Bridge Initiative to address the problem of deteriorating bridges all over the country – some 70,000 of them. That’s the kind of rapid response to a crisis that Minnesotans deserve from a sitting Congressman from the state, even though the bridge did not fall in his district. Therefore, I found it equally troubling three and a half months later when Minnesota’s own Congressman John Kline voted against funding to rebuild the bridge. If anything says he’s with the President more than he’s with Minnesotans, it was that wrong vote.

But this is bigger than bridges. As a nation, we used to think big about this economic backbone. How would we ever have built the interstate system with a timid, piecemeal approach to transportation? America should have the best transportation system in the world. This includes not only raising standards for bridge inspections and creating a trust fund to care for them, but also recognizing that most of our current infrastructure was not designed to bear the loads it bears. While it’s difficult to believe anyone foresaw the collapse of an interstate highway bridge, it’s no secret that our transportation infrastructure has lacked needed investment for many years. We owe it to our children to stop passing on to them a transportation system suffering from severe neglect.

That said, the answer is not simply more roads. The 2nd District is home to a large number of commuters. One of our transportation goals should be choice – and right now, practically speaking, we don’t have that. People need various ways of getting both downtown and around town, and all those ways should be connected. Park and rides, buses, trains, cars, bikes and walking should all be part of the mix.

How much are we paying for our lack of transportation choices? Here’s just one consideration from State Rep. Shelley Madore: the average commuter on Cedar Avenue/Highway 77 burns 48 gallons of gas per year sitting in traffic. Given the skyrocketing costs of fuel, that’s expensive inertia.

We must always be vigilant in providing for the safety and security of our transportation system – whether from outside interference or internal neglect. As with most issues that face us today, we either pay now or pay later.

It’s time to change course on our too little, too late approach to transportation. Neglecting the I-35W bridge is costing us much more in human suffering and scarce dollars than if we had made smarter, smaller investments before there was a crisis. But as we learned on an August day in Minneapolis, the price for being penny-wise, pound-foolish is sometimes greater than any of us can bear.