The American Way (1970s)

h [Music] from the dawn of our nation we have always had a special feeling toward travel the spirit that made us Trailblazer continent is still alive today maybe that's why the the freedoms we cherish also include the freedom of movement to wander our land at will to use all forms of transportation to travel wherever and whenever we please [Music] [Music] there has always been a Vitality to American Transportation we are a mobile Society with a passion for Mobility you can see it every working day it begins on the back roads then in the small towns and suburbs then among the hundreds of thousands who daily commute into the great cities if America can be described as a living entity then transportation is its circulatory system you can see it everywhere 200 million passengers riding a multitude of vehicles an annual $200 billion industry in all its forms the largest industry we have it is the role of transportation to link people with jobs with goods and with each other and do it safely and efficiently [Music] [Music] we have come to take transportation for granted much of our Leisure Time devoted to enjoying transportation in its many forms so great has this National passion been that travel for pleasure alone has become an industry unto itself quite apart from the necessary elements of transportation we have bought the vehicles of transportation for sheer Joy flaunting Transportation as a symbol of success driving to work all week long then on a Sunday taking another drive just for the fun of it mindless of any harmful effects or limits to our resources [Music] perhaps more so than any other form of transportation the symbol of Total escape has been the airplane seconds out of a city minutes out of a state brief hours to another Nation A5 billion industry with 2,000 air carriers 130,000 private aircraft [Music] for years the dominant symbol of our movement of freight has been the railroad trains sometimes over 2 miles long offer a constantly moving Panorama across 200,000 M of [Music] track 2 trillion tons of freight roll yearly and 40% of it rides the nation's trains carrying everything Americans need or want from Cars to color [Music] television next to rails our country's economic history is bound to water transportation the bulk of our exports reach foreign Shores by sea and exports have increased more than fourfold since 1940 on inland waterways Alone 1 and 1/2 billion tons are shipped annually [Music] and then there is the automobile in American Transportation the car has been King the very symbol of our transportation success and freedom there is a motor vehicle for every other person in this country the highway Transportation industry touches every sector of the economy accounting for 177% of our gross national product providing 13 million jobs and burning about half of all petroleum products used in the nation highways form the One Transportation mode that links all the others together yet this very success is causing problems each day 700,000 Motor Vehicles enter New York's Central business district every day half a million cars and trucks drive into Chicago's downtown we need alternatives to the automobile the problem is not that cars are bad but that they have been good so beneficial for so long that other modes of transportation withered and died leaving the commuter with no choice and the urban Crush asals all the senses it can be seen felt touched heard smelled it can also be wholly subconscious affecting the very way we live and feel as surely as years of rainfall wear upon a rock faced with the Staggering growth in traffic volume American cities now face a transportation crisis an atrophy of [Music] movement transportation has always been crucial to the health of America and that's even more true now so in 1966 Congress created a cabinet level department to provide National leadership Claude Briner is the nation's thirdd Secretary of Transportation he is responsible in effect for taking the nation's Transportation networks and making of them a system it's help the states in formulating comprehensive and coordinated highway safety program a major problem facing the secret AR is that while some elements of the transportation industry have prospered others have not is the role of the United States Department of Transportation to develop programs to make each mode individually strong and also to make them work together in harmony with the most efficient use of our energy resources the key word is balance balance in transportation begins on the drawing boards placing emphasis where it is needed for the last 25 years much of the emphasis in transportation construction has been on highways today highways are almost synonymous with the over 42,000 M interstate highway system the greatest Public Works program in History built Under The Guiding hand of the Federal Highway Administration the system has given us a Mobility that is the Envy of the world it has opened new markets and cut shipping costs shrunk travel time and brought new recreational areas within the reach of weekend Travelers trucks alone haul $70 billion worth of freight [Music] annually but still there are the cities and the roadways in the cities here Engineers are making better use of valuable Urban Land terracing highways building a city above and beneath its roadways or making them part of other Transportation modes the land taken for transportation must be used more effectively this means making use of common corridors such as in Chicago where a rail Rapid Transit line runs down the median of a highway another common Corridor experiment a joint project of the Federal Highway and urban mass transportation administrations is proving very successful just outside Washington DC commuters are being attracted back to mass transit with new clean carpeted buses and a highway strictly for buses and car pools right down the middle of the original Road speeding them on their daily trip into town past backed up traffic while making highways more efficient is critical making them safer is every bit as important the interstate system tackles much of the problem with its built-in safety features like energy absorbing crash barriers [Music] other life-saving devices can be developed more quickly by using the computer to design and analyze safety features and letting mathematical models take the Hard Knocks but still the car is a fragile thing even at moderate speeds and so are its occupants so other work by the national highway traffic safety administration centers on the car the driver and the passengers for example the airbag the critical factor in every crash is the second impact when the human body strikes a part of the car's interior the airbag prevents this without any action by the car's occupants it is a passive restraint activated only by the impact of a crash the airbag is a prime feature of the experimental safety vehicle the search for the perfect safety car this vehicle will never see mass production but its proven safety features will be built into future production automobiles the problem of safety is everywhere and the transportation Department's programs don't stop with the land the US Coast Guard watches over the nation Sea Coast and its inland waterways it oversees the safety aspects of both ship construction and shipping operations and in emergencies the Coast Guard carries out search and rescue operations seeking out disabled or foundering vessels the head each year 60,000 such missions are conducted bringing an annual saving of about 2500 lives the Coast Guard also keeps an eye out for the nation's weekend Sailors teaching them rules of the waterways and small boat safety and aiding those in trouble [Music] the phenomenal growth of American Aviation along with new aviation technology has placed greater demands on our airports than the extensive Airways Network operated by the Department's Federal Aviation Administration [Music] 83 the burden of safety weighs heavily on the shoulders of the 25,000 air traffic controllers who keep watch over the world's safest and most complex air control operation the national airspace system automation is seen providing relief and Improvement in that system computers take raw data radar images and voice traffic and refine them into easily identified symbols that tell a controller all he needs to know about an aircraft but the Department of Transportation can get more down to earth about safety programs trucks for instance through the Bureau of Motor Carrier safety helping State Highway departments with safety programs geared especially to trucks and buses continuous inspections weight restriction drivers Towers brakes lights tires and passenger safety standards new rules for trucks and drivers have meant less accidents and fewer Goods lost to [Music] theft nor is rail safety ignored for years the nation's railroads enjoyed a good safety record but the general decline in the railroads changed that now the picture is improving again through regulations sponsored by the Department's Federal Railroad Administration that established standards for track roaded and Rolling Stock a 10-year upward Trend in rail accidents has been reversed [Music] [Music] but safety is not the only real interest of the department in one of its programs the Department of Transportation sought virtually to revive the dead rail passenger service the route taken was through a new level of train service tied to that key word b balance the need for balance called for passage of the national railroad Transportation Act assurance that the nation's passenger trains which had all but died would still have a vital role in American Transportation the Act created a wholly new Corporation to run the nation's passenger trains Amtrak amtr is not a nostalgic return to the good old days beneath the glossy exterior of its new trains lies a core of solid reason a viable competitive system of inter city passenger travel it now seems possible that this long neglected form of transportation can provide an alternative to the pressures of travel across the country the answer to inter city travel seems on the track once again [Music] the concept of balance extends to the Sea and to what has become known as America's fourth Sea Coast the great lakes and the St lawen Seaway the US side of the Seaway is operated by the transportation Department's Seaway Development Corporation down this Waterway steam ships from 50 Nations serving 60% of the nation's population farms and industries in the country's Heartland balance in transportation includes not only the modes themselves but interaction between modes in a word intermodalism across the country it can be a trailer that rides on a train a trailer has been fed across half a continent by a train now it will be hold to its final destination by truck what it means is moving cargo EAS easily and efficiently between Transportation modes it's been used in the Freight business for some time now the key to intermodalism is containerization standardization of shipping containers most technological problems of container design and handling have already been solved including a network of Intermodal Freight terminals for Speedy transfer from mode to mode cargo is stored in a van sized box secure whatever the mode from Shipping dock to receiving platform compatible wherever however it travels often with only a single bill of lading but Freight is only the opening of the door there's still the passenger and what intermodalism has done for Freight it is just beginning to do for people in Chicago two trains head toward a familiar rendevu one is a high-speed commuter that reaches far out into the suburbs the other a Rapid Transit local that scurries through the cities downtown they meet at a special station an intermodal station in Northwest Chicago a station planned and built with transportation department assistance A continuing problem in the urban Transportation crisis has been to lure people from their cause and onto mass transit intermodalism helps the walk between the two trains is brief convenient comfortable no waiting no fuss from the high-speed Suburban commuter bringing people into town to the rapid transit local which helps get people around town or for other destinations a local bus system running out of her terminal next door intermodalism for the passenger is extending to other modes of transportation mobile lounges have taken the walking out of air travel for passengers at Washington's dullas International Airport here passengers don't trace long corridors to the plane they take a super bus an extension of the airport itself the passenger never sets foot on the pavement the lounges can accommodate any size aircraft any distance from the terminal [Music] the Department of Transportation is looking towards similar devices at other airports all aimed at saving time and annointing in getting from here to there intermodalism containerization automation they're becoming a part of the present and they'll all be a part of the [Music] future the future is already here in San Francisco in the form of Bart the Bay Area Rapid Transit System the first all new Urban Transit System in this country in half a century Bart has it all common corridors sharing highways and even Rail lines automation fully computer controlled all 75 miles from signal lights to station announcements intermodalism at every station ready access either to a bus or a freeway or a street car and all aimed to please the passenger making him comfortable give him a choice and Bart is only the beginning the Department of Transportation is putting Millions into building other new systems and bringing old ones up to date in many cities the Department's efforts have saved urban mass transit from Total collapse the score over a 100 Transit companies rescued hundreds of new rail Transit cars and commuter coaches bought and thousands of new buses on a smaller scale there is Dial A Ride mini buses that run like taxi cabs mass transit to the front door for open only the price of a bus ride and for the future the department is testing prts personal Rapid Transit small automated Vehicles designed to operate like horizontal elevators to ease the Crush in crowded urban [Music] areas for [Music] the Department's experimental programs look to the year 1990 when we will have to double our present Transportation capacity right now the future is being tested in the Colorado desert in the form of the linear induction motor the limb is essentially an electric motor with no moving Parts half of the motor is in the track and half in the vehicle an electric current drives the vehicle at speeds of up to 300 mph this could make inter city travel truly convenient and could even make long commuting distances practical as well as efficient and [Music] clean even more in Ovations lie ahead and they must be tried and developed and made practical because if our country's growth has been linked with ever improving Transportation it's clear that even better transportation will be necessary to keep the nation alive and growing [Music]