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The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (Public Law 102-240; 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.
Contents
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. Signed into law on December 18, 1991 by President George H. W. Bush, it expired in 1997. It was preceded by the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 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, and the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) in 2012. ISTEA also provided funds for non-motorized commuter trails; the first trail to be so funded was the Cedar Lake Regional trail that was built in 1995 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
High Priority Corridors
ISTEA defined a number of High Priority Corridors, to be part of the National Highway System. After various amendments from other laws, 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 corridors. The options were studied for several months, and announced in October 1992. The first four were announced by United States Secretary of Transportation Andrew Card, while the last was announced by Federal Railroad Administration head Gil Carmichael.
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, most areas outside the Northeast Corridor continued to be limited to 79 mph (127 km/h) until $8 billion from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was distributed in January 2010.
Jeff Morales 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 airbags installed as standard equipment for the driver and the right front passenger.