The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA, pronounced ''Ice-Tea'') is a United States federal law that posed a major change to transportation planning and policy, as the first U.S. federal legislation on the subject in the post- Interstate Highway System era.

Objective

The act presented an overall intermodal approach to highway and transit funding with collaborative planning requirements, giving significant additional powers to metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). The act was signed into law on December 18, 1991, by President

George H. W. Bush George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; pr ...

and codified as and . The bill was preceded by the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act in 1987 and followed by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) in 1998, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) in 2005, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) in 2012, the FIxing America's Surface Transportation Act (FAST) in 2015, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021. ISTEA also provided funds for the conversion of dormant railroad corridors into

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

s; the first rail trail to be funded was the Cedar Lake Regional Rail Trail, in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

High priority corridors

The act also defined a number of High Priority Corridors, to be part of the National Highway System. After various amendments in subsequent transportation bills and other legislation, this is a list of the corridors:

High-speed rail corridors

The legislation also called for the designation of up to five

high-speed rail High-speed rail (HSR) is a type of rail system that runs significantly faster than traditional rail, using an integrated system of specialised rolling stock and dedicated tracks. While there is no single standard that applies worldwide, lines ...

corridors. The options were studied for several months, and announced in October 1992. The first four were announced by

United States Secretary of Transportation The United States secretary of transportation is the head of the United States Department of Transportation. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to transportation. The secre ...

Andrew Card, while the last was announced by Federal Railroad Administration head Gil Carmichael. *October 15, 1992: The Midwest high-speed rail corridor with three links from Chicago, Illinois to Detroit, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. *October 16, 1992: The Florida high-speed rail corridor linking Miami with Orlando and

Tampa Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County ...

. *October 19, 1992: The California high-speed rail corridor linking San Diego and Los Angeles with the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento via the San Joaquin Valley. *October 20, 1992: The Southeast high-speed rail corridor connecting Charlotte, North Carolina,

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

, and Washington, D.C. *October 20, 1992: The Pacific Northwest high-speed rail corridor linking

Eugene Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...

and Portland, Oregon with Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. However, there was not significant funding attached to these announcements: $30 million had been allocated to several states by 1997 to improve grade crossings, but that was a very tiny amount in comparison to the billions required for a true high-speed network. Aside from a few places in California and the

Chicago–Detroit Line The Michigan Line, sometimes known as the Chicago–Detroit Line, is a higher-speed rail corridor that runs between Porter, Indiana and Dearborn, Michigan. It carries Amtrak's ''Blue Water'' and ''Wolverine'' services, as well as the occasional f ...

, most areas outside the

Northeast Corridor The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston through Providence, New Haven, Stamford, New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, a ...

continued to be limited to until $8 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was distributed in January 2010.

Jeff Morales Jeffrey Morales is an American public servant who was the CEO of the California High Speed Rail Authority from May 29, 2012 to June 2, 2017. Early life Morales grew up in the Washington, D.C. area. His father George, a Mexican immigrant, was an ...

one of the principal drafters of this bill, is currently serving as CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which is currently constructing a high-speed rail line along the route originally proposed in this bill.

Airbags

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 also mandated that passenger automobiles and light trucks built after September 1, 1998, to have

airbag An airbag is a vehicle occupant-restraint system using a bag designed to inflate extremely quickly, then quickly deflate during a collision. It consists of the airbag cushion, a flexible fabric bag, an inflation module, and an impact sensor. Th ...

s installed as standard equipment for the driver and the right front passenger.

Notes

References

External links

Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991PDFdetails
as amended in the GPObr>Statute Compilations collectionH.R.2950 - Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991
- corridors are in section 1105

* * {{authority control United States federal transportation legislation United States railroad regulation 1991 in rail transport 1992 in rail transport 102nd United States Congress High-speed rail in the United States Airbags 1991 in American law