The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, signed in June 1998, reauthorised federal surface transportation programmes through 2003 with about 218 billion dollars, the most expensive public works bill to that point. Succeeding ISTEA, it continued the devolution of planning authority to metropolitan planning organisations and gave urban areas flexibility to tailor investment across highways and transit. It required transportation planning to weigh economic, social and environmental outcomes and to include broad public participation. The act sustained the multimodal direction of US transportation policy.
TEA-21 consolidated the metropolitan, multimodal model of US transportation planning and tied large-scale funding to environmental and social goals.
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