The Government Accountability Office has made "Surface Transportation" one of its 13 urgent issues for President-Elect Obama to address. Others include the financial crisis, the wars in the middle east, the digital TV transition, and the retirement of the Space Shuttle. GAO: "The nation's surface transportation system is critical to the nation's economy and affects the daily life of most Americans. However, as illustrated by the 2007 bridge collapse in Minnesota, the system is under growing strain, and the cost to repair and upgrade it so that it can safely and reliably meet current and future demands is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars." GAO.gov