The “perfect storm” behind mass transit development within and between Indiana’s metropolitan areas showed its strength again recently with news about the $8 billion President Barack Obama and Congress have set aside for high-speed rail.

Add the federal support to the list of factors Ehren Bingaman, executive director of the Central Indiana Regional Transportation Authority, has cited in his coining of the storm metaphor: growing political and popular support for public transportation throughout Central Indiana, tied to concern over gasoline prices, foreign oil dependency, congestion, pollution and quality of life.

If now is the time to strike, though, it is important to do so with pragmatism and precision.

While relatively economical to operate, rail is enormously expensive to build and cannot come near replacing the rubber-tired mass transit mode on which most cities, particularly this one, depend. Even if the proposed commuter train between Hamilton County and Downtown Indianapolis were workable, which is doubtful, the day is far away when the bulk of the burden is not shouldered by the bus system.

Any system will be as good as its funding; and IndyGo’s budget is nothing but anemic compared with its counterparts elsewhere. When the nation’s 12th-largest city moves commuters with the nation’s 99th-largest bus service, and when a single urban freeway repair job exceeds 10 years of that bus service’s budget, regional mobility still awaits the 21st century.

A major hopeful indicator of a weather change is legislation in the Indiana General Assembly that would permit local areas to form regional transportation authorities and to select their funding mechanisms. Resoundingly passed by the House and boasting strong support in the Senate, House Bill 1660 could push talk into action by letting communities follow exciting examples of pain-free revenue generation. In Charlotte, N.C., to take one, a half-cent sales tax raises more than $50 million a year for public transportation, a sum exceeding IndyGo’s entire budget.

The state, a modest contributor to mass transit, could assist the locals with more than just enabling legislation. The $4 billion Major Moves fund, now restricted to highways, could be opened up to modes of transportation that relieve stress on those highways. If Gov. Mitch Daniels is serious about applying federal stimulus dollars to state uses that can sustain themselves down the road, he and legislative leaders can deepen state government’s involvement in the forces riding the perfect storm.