istea. until istea, that legislation was adopted, enacted and signed into law, as a matter of federal policy we divided transportation into separate systems. we had, on the one hand, highways. on the other hand we had rail. on the other hand we had transit. our policies didn't really consider them as a united, unified, integrated system, which is how most commuters and most travelers in our nation really thought it to be. istea sought to change that. istea sought to change that by requiring integrated regional planning of transportation systems that for, that accounted for and better facilitated connections amongst our highways, our rail, and our transit to enable more efficient freight movement and more efficient movement of people. it was around the same time we also integrated our transportation policy with the clean air act, which represented a major strengthening of our pollution laws to respond to urban smog, acid rain, ozone depletion and other air pollution problems. for the first ti