Rush Hour Space Age (1966)

[Music] dawn and the metropolis begins to stir. After a deserving rest, the heart of its body, the central city, which has often undergone major surgery to keep it alive, starts to pick up the beat. The metropolis stretches out limbs that still feel the pains of growing, reaching out in all directions. Where people can find room to live, where industry can find room to [Music] expand. Its energy is recharged for the ordeal that is about to come. [Music] The metropolis is awake and its lifeblood. The people rush through its circulation system, a system that strains to connect all parts of the metropolitan body. [Music] [Music] This is the rush hour, a term that means different things to different people. But to most Americans and to commuters around the world, rush hour means the automobile. The automobile made the sprawling metropolis a reality, giving people the freedom to decide where they want to live and where they want to work. Now it threatens to choke the metropolis to death. As soon as a new throughway is built to relieve congestion, it is filled to capacity. The auto's exhaust works on the eyes and the [Music] throat and its mobility or lack of it works on the nerves. What is the solution? Urban authorities and civic planners agree there is only one. lure the commuter out of his car and onto mass transportation systems to bring about the return of a sensible balance in commuting methods. But how? Fortunately, we not only live in the age of the rush hour, but in an age of science and technology. For the decline in mass transportation, coupled with the increased use of private cars has also coincided with the growth of the space age. [Music] technology, organization and experience. But most important of all, determination. All over the world, with the help of systems organizations, progressive cities and transit lines are embarking on new mass transportation programs. These are some of [Music] [Applause] them. Chicago, a metropolis that boasts of its outstanding commuter railroad service. Yet, the commuters romance with his automobile and the vast expressway network that has blossomed out of this romance catch the commuter railroads in the strangle hold of declining revenues and rising operating costs. [Music] One of Chicago's major lines concentrates on a part of the commuting process that causes major headaches for the railroad and passengers alike. Fair [Music] collection. The collection and control of fairs with conventional methods accounts for 15 to 30% of a transportation systems total operating costs. Costs in passenger time and inconvenience cannot be calculated. [Music] to reduce its operating costs and keep fairs down and to provide the type of convenient fair collection that will help lure drivers off the highways and restore balance to transportation. This railroad turns to an automatic revenue control system, an electronic computerized system that controls all passengers and all fairs. This is the first railroad in the world to use such a system over its entire commuter operation. The ticket the passenger uses is a durable card with a magnetic surface that can carry hundreds of bits of data. When he buys the ticket, the passenger has it encoded with the fair for a single ride or for multiple rides. In the future, passengers will encode their own tickets for the desired rides in automatic ticket vending machines, similar to this one, paired up with automatic money changing machines in stations throughout the commuter line. When the passenger reaches the high-speed gate, he inserts the magnetic ticket. A computer electronically checks the starting point of his trip, and the gate opens automatically. The passenger makes his entire ride without onboard ticket or money handling. At the end of his trip, he inserts his ticket in the exit gate. A computer verifies the date and the points of origin and destination, subtracts one ride from the ticket, re-encodes and displays the number of rides remaining, and returns the ticket or captures it if there are no rides left. A computer not only controls the gates but also simultaneously records each transaction, giving railroad officials immediate information on passenger flow and density so that they can react quickly to the commuter's travel needs. The entire system is designed to meet the requirements of a specific commuter railroad and its passengers, just as future systems can be designed for any and all mass transportation systems. Valuable experience for this operational system was gained from other automatic revenue control operations conducted on an experimental basis. Hundreds of thousands of passengers passed smoothly through the automatic electronic turnstyle system installed at stations of a New York commuter railroad. And in Europe, advanced technology came to the world's oldest underground railroad. More than a million London commuters got to know the ticket collector they called automatic bill. Perhaps more than any other city in the world, London feels a squeeze of the automobile with more autos per square foot of roads than any city anywhere. All the new projects and systems we have seen have one thing in common. They extend the efficiency and economy of existing mass transportation systems. Some cities and metropolitan areas must take more drastic action to develop entirely new means of travel. Voters here did take action. They established the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District with a specific mandate to use a rapid rail system to cure the Bay Area's increasingly severe traffic congestion and to achieve a balanced and coordinated transportation network. The goal of this billiondoll program is to lure at least 50 to 60% of auto commuters out of their cars and onto trains. Ultramodern electric trains, speeding commuters to work and back home in safe, quiet comfort. Run completely by automatic control. Gliding over the tracks at 90-second intervals in peak traffic hours. slashing travel times by as much as 1/2 to 2/3. Every part of the transit system is designed for beauty as well as for function. From the sleek, plush passenger cars to spacious, inviting train stations equipped with automatic revenue and passenger control systems. These stations will be conveniently spotted along the 75mm system, connecting three counties of the San Francisco Bay area. A metropolis that is now strangled and confined by the amount of time it takes people to commute will be opened up with distant areas transplanted into vital, highly accessible communities. [Applause] The president of the United States at the groundbreaking for the Bay Area rapid transit system expressed the plight of transportation in America [Applause] today. Yesterday's frontiers were crisscrossed by wagon trains. Today's frontiers are clogged by automobiles. There are more than 80 million motor vehicles on our roads today. By 1980, there will be 120 million. Almost one vehicle for every two people. So we must develop adequate alternative means of transportation. or the coming crisis of congestion may do more to frustrate the growth and development of America than all the burning deserts and the baron mountains which stood in the path of our ancestors a century ago. Where people stand ready to take action to restore balance to our transportation systems. Modern resources and technology are prepared to help transform rush hour and every traveling hour into a productive, rewarding time of day. To keep the heartbeat of the city and the metropolis alive. to keep its life blood flowing. [Music]