There Will Be A Slight Delay (1971)

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Your attention. Please, [Music] >> there will be a slight delay. >> That's the message you get over and over these days. >> There will be a slight delay. There will be a slight delay. >> It's what you encounter on your way to and from work. >> There will be a slight delay. >> And in crowded airports, >> delay >> and commuter stations, >> there will be a slight delay. It doesn't happen everywhere all the time, but at some time or other, >> delay, >> you'll get the message. >> There will be a slight delay. >> Delay is the name of the game. >> Slight delay. >> It is a classic comment on our times. >> There will be a slight delay. There will be a slight delay. There will be a slight delay. There will be a slight [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] More and more often and in more places, the mobility that America has been noted for is becoming a myth. We have learned to expect delays in our efforts to move about the metropolitan areas where most of us cluster. We know that there will be a slight delay in our mail service, on the commuter train, or on the bus. There will be a slight delay if we want a downtown parking place. And when we leave town, there's have to be a slight delay on our way across country to where we can get away from it all. And what about our goods? What about the raw materials and the service needs? All these are subject to slight delays. Delays that add up to billions of dollars in extra transportation costs each year. All told, more than 20% of our national income goes for the transportation of people and goods. In round figures, this approaches $200 billion a year. 200 billion. For this money, we ought to have the world's finest transportation facilities. And probably we do. All in all, we have millions of miles of fine highways, roads, and streets of all kinds carrying motor traffic in and between cities. We have airways, airports, and the aircraft that use them. We have railways crisscrossing the continent, water transport, including inland and coastal watercraft, and all kinds of metropolitan public transit. These are the facilities we have. But something is wrong. The facilities don't seem to be serving us as they should. We keep having those eternal delays, slight and not so slight. Why is this happening? What do we do about it? To get some answers, we have turned to some of the nation's leading transportation authorities. specialists in the various travel and transport forms and facilities we depend upon system. >> Their consensus is that population growth has led us into a series of what might be called bottlenecks in every transport mode we have. The bottlenecks are physical, financial and political and they keep the various parts of our total transportation network from functioning together smoothly as a system. The system will work efficiently only if we can open these bottlenecks in and between cities, on highways and city streets, in the air and on rails. The greatest number of bottlenecks involves automotive transportation simply because this is the largest segment in our total facilities. >> Highway system is the network of any the basic network of any transportation system. The greatest preponderance of travel in this country is by highway. Highway travel is uh is important not only in its own right but it also serves to link together other modes of transport as well. >> The big success story on our highway network is the interstate system. It has proven immensely popular with most motorists and immensely successful in the view of most authorities. The interstate system was created by the federal highway act of 1956. It is financed by the highway trust fund so that interstate highways are paid for by those who use them in proportion to how much they use them. This is the user tax principle. The trust fund is entirely maintained by user taxes on vehicles, on fuel, oil, tires and other automotive necessities. Highway freight carriers pay additional taxes into the fund. But in spite of the success of the interstate highway program to date, it has its bottlenecks. >> Must be finished as early as we had hoped. Originally, it was expected that it would be finished in 1972. >> Not only is the interstate system not completed, there is some doubt that it will be completed. There have been persistent suggestions that trust fund money be diverted to other uses. There is an argument that we should use uh the transportation system as a form of subsidy for certain groups in the country whether it be the urban poor uh the farmers or others. Uh if we want to subsidize these particular groups, I think we should do so directly. But the transportation system should not be used as the conduit for uh providing them subsidy. it uh it may be however that there will be some use of the trust fund money for purposes of other modes of transportation. >> Authorities believe that further delays in completing the interstate system will make it more costly not only in terms of money but also in human lives. >> We're finding from experience that the record of fatality rate on the interstate system is less than half that on roads of conventional design. But for all its advantages, the interstate system, even when completed, will carry only about one quarter of the total highway traffic in people and goods. 3/4s will continue to move over other highways, the so-called ABC roads, and many of these are sadly in need of repair and upgrading. With this concentration on the interstate system development, the other systems of highways, primarily the primary and secondary systems, received less attention. >> Lack of adequate attention to these thousands of miles of ABC roads has created more and more bottlenecks in the total highway network. And these bottlenecks are critical because >> highway travel, highway transportation either in private cars or in public transportation has to be the predominant mode of transportation. And of course in goods movement uh it's usually is either the beginning or the final or sometimes both modes of transportation. >> And 10 to 12,000 new vehicles are being added to our roads daily, far more than are being retired. Yet efforts to accommodate this growing volume of essential highway travel meet continuing opposition. There are charges that we are spending too much on highways, that we are paving over America. >> Back when the federal aid highway system was was first authorized in in 1921, we had something over 3 million miles of road at that time. We have somewhere around 3.7 million miles now. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the heaviest concentration in transportation planning has been on highways. But most authorities insist >> if there is an imbalance uh in the expenditures in this country on transportation, it is not that we have spent too much on highways, it's simply that we've spent too little on other modes. >> As a result, these other modes face their own bottlenecks which prevent them from helping to relieve the automotive traffic burden. Air and rail will have to assume a greater share of the total transport load. Air transport capacity in particular must expand because uh we can expect travel to increase approximately 300% in the next 10 years in air cargo operations. However, we would expect an even still greater increase. >> So we can look for present bottlenecks to worsen unless we deal with them immediately. The principal bottleneck for the air traveler. Uh if we measure the problem in terms of total travel time is uh the system of access to the major airports. Uh followed close behind that are the systems for processing passengers and baggage. uh the procedures for ticketing the passenger and the distance that he travels from the ticket counter to the aircraft. >> Airport congestion will be compounded as more of the larger aircraft go into service. >> The public is aware by now that the jumbo jet can carry an awful lot of people very rapidly and just deposit them or almost dump them at an airport over a very short period of time. Anyone who has traveled by a jumbo jet will appreciate that. then your problems really start. >> And we are facing the problem of getting the people to and from the airport as well as moving them around inside the airport. New systems are definitely going to be needed to do this. >> One plan aimed at easing future airport congestion is the so-called people mover project. This is a means of eliminating long walks to and from gates and improving access to parking lots. >> We're studying various types of mechanisms, various types of forms of mechanical design, but in effect they'd operate like a an elevator but on a horizontal basis. >> Now, what about our facilities for handling the aircraft itself? Actual congestion in the air above and around airports may not be the hazard it once appeared to be. We have been fairly close to saturation so far as our airspace needs are concerned. Fortunately, however, because of the relief that we found in the greater productivity of aircraft now being introduced, uh it hasn't reached critical proportions. This productivity meaning the ability of each airplane to carry more people may authorities say ease the airspace congestion but it will compound difficulties on the ground because the productivity of these aircraft will induce larger numbers of passengers to travel. We are very definitely going to need more airports in our large transportation markets. Uh we're seriously deficient in airport capacity at the present time. >> What we will need are airports with efficiencies like those of Dallasos International Airport serving the District of Columbia. >> Dallas is an excellent example of airport design and particularly passenger handling capabilities. I believe it's recognized increasingly over the country and perhaps even over the world as a model of good airport design. The exclusive access road for Dallasos is unique and uh it provides a very efficient uh method of access to the airport. >> But as a rule, access to most airports is not good at present. So far, not enough has been done to tie in air travel with other modes. >> Again, it just doesn't do you any good to go very fast on one length of your total journey and then have to wait for the the rest of your journey because of uh bad urban transit or a bad interface, which is a technical term to describe how you transfer from one mode of transportation to the other. So somehow we've got to interface with the urban systems or provide feeder and collection systems uh to the terminals at the end of the mass transit lines. >> Better coordination between airlines and railroads may help to improve the service of both. Each can complement the other. Over short distances, less than 200 m, the railroad is theoretically a more efficient passenger carrier than the airplane. But a choice between the two modes is rarely available. The virtual abandonment of rail passenger service has put new burdens on other modes. >> Some of the uh rail traffic, the rail passenger traffic undoubtedly was diverted to the airlines. So this has tended to increase their traffic. The bulk of it was probably diverted to highway transportation. >> Some improvement in service may come as the result of the formation of the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. This is a quai governmental corporation which has taken over operation of a basic national rail passenger system linking most of the major cities of the country. But the plan is very limited in its scope. How or whether it will be expanded to all areas where rail passenger service may be needed is a question. But as of now, >> rail passenger service in this country is pretty poor. The neglect of railroad equipment, both roaded and the rolling stock, has certainly caused deterioration of service. The obvious indication of this is the number of railroad wrecks, accidents, primarily those caused by derailment, have increased steadily. And the longer this is allowed to continue, the more costly it will be to bring back to an acceptable level of service. >> An acceptable level of service should mean more than just the restoration of equipment and road beds. Most passengers would hope it also means a general improvement in attitude toward them. >> Are you treated as a customer or are you treated as someone that the carrier would just assume was not there? Good quality rail travel will attract passengers. Public acceptance of the new high-speed trains of other countries proves this. >> The Japanese new Tokaido line, which goes from Tokyo down a corridor to the Osaka region, is a dedicated high-speed passenger lane. By dedicated, I mean that that roaded only handles passenger trains, no freights. In this country, high-speed trains such as the Metro Liner between Washington DC and New York City are generally popular and well supported by the public. >> We know how to design a railroad car so that it's efficient, comfortable, and rides well. Today, I think we ought to do it. >> So far, we have looked at bottlenecks that affect passenger and freight transport between cities. What about troubles within the metropolitan areas? The uh greatest traffic bottleneck in our country obviously is in the cities and is getting to be as much a problem in our suburban areas as in the central cities themselves. >> What is happening today in in our cities is that we're getting a a spreading of the peak as I call highways in California now have a peak that lasts three to four hours. Few years ago this was only two hours past class. Skull Freeway in in in Philadelphia now has a three-hour peak. >> They h there has to be some alternative to the passenger car in the central central city. >> If we have only one kind of transportation in the urban areas, then we will probably take much more land than the city can efficiently give up uh for transportation purposes. Even if land were available at acceptable cost and without massive displacement of people. And even if the cities could afford to give up the property tax revenue, construction of more and more urban streets and expressways would not be a long range answer to urban traffic jams. The only practical approach is to reduce the number of cars on the facilities we have. If we can supplement our existing freeway and street system by rapid transit and bus and subway and other forms of public transportation, we'll have a much more economical and sensible use of land and provide greater mobility for a greater number of people. about 75% of the population of this country now lives in metropolitan areas and this uh percentage is supposed to increase to something approaching 80% in the next few years. So that city uh traffic and city congestion due to traffic is uh pretty much a nationwide uh uh concern for the whole country. So mass transit is essential if we are to untangle city traffic jams and restore urban mobility. The type of public transit will vary from one area to another. >> The urban transportation solution lies in the integration of a number of modes of transportation into a single cohesive system. And it is this interreationship of freeways, highways, mass transit, circulation and distribution systems, airport access, better and improved airports, all together that will make for better urban transportation. >> But one thing is sure, to be effective, mass transit must prove itself to the average citizen an acceptable substitute for his private car. Unless the flexibility, the instant availability, and all the conveniences of the automobile can be approximated, we're not going to get a very large number of people into mass transit from automobiles. >> In some localities, steps are already being taken to lure motorists away from their automobiles. For example, San Francisco's new system, the Bay Area Rapid Transit, known as BART. BART will have 250 computerdirected electric transit vehicles speeding over 75 miles of elevated and subway lines. >> BART is is a very important experiment. It's an experiment to test whether a very high-speed, highquality service can give a great deal of relief to the highway system. No one knows what new forms of public transit may come in the future. >> French have developed a track air cushion vehicle which provides a very comfortable, pollutionfree, very low noise, high-speed transportation mode. >> Of course, not all American cities foresee the need for transit systems as elaborate as this or the BART system. Probably less than a dozen could now justify such investments. In most cities, the public transit needs of the years ahead probably can be met in less sophisticated ways. Mass transit in most urban areas will use streets and freeways. >> The more effective use of buses in urban transportation will be one of the key answers to a to a solution of the urban transportation problem. It's one way in which we can use highway funds to to work jointly with mass trans mass transportation funds in order to provide an intermodal solution to an urban transportation problem. Now we've had we've had uh very interesting and and quite successful experiments in the use of exclusive lanes for buses in which which a lane of the highway has been reserved for their use uh only and the increase in speed of travel by the bus has induced a much greater use of the bus than than was the case before >> and I think this is starting to make some impact on the people. You know, it's quite a a thing to sit there in your automobile, bumper to bumper, and not moving at all in the middle of a rush hour and see some bus full of people go steaming on by right into the district where you want to work. >> The object of mass transit is to provide an attractive alternative to the one-man, one car system that clogs our cities as our automotive population swells. I would guess that we're going to continue to have substantially the same growth in the number of cars in this country as we have had in years past. >> But mass transit will keep millions of these cars off urban streets during the expanding rush hours if their owners are convinced of the advantages of public transit. I don't think there's any question but what a program of public information would help in in educating people to uh uh abandoning or leaving their cars at the edge of the central district. >> Fringe parking facilities will have to be provided at mass transit terminals along highways. Some are already under construction. So there are bottlenecks in every segment of our transportation system. mass transit, air and rail transport, private and commercial automotive vehicles on highways and city trafficways and all these bottlenecks affect the total system because all transportation modes are essential to the system. >> We we don't have any mode of travel is not essential simply as is evidenced by the fact that there is a demand and use of the modes that we have. So all bottlenecks whatever mode they affect are related and all equally critical. We cannot therefore deal effectively with the trouble spots here and there on a peacemeal basis. We must tackle them all at once collectively as a single national problem. This would be a systems approach. There's general agreement that the attack on the transportation problem should be a systems attack where we attempt to get balance between the various forms of transportation and not develop one at a faster pace or to a greater degree than than others. >> Our job will be to double our present transportation capacity in the next 10 to 20 years. This is not an arbitrary goal in view of the population increase to be expected. It is the minimum requirement according to most authorities for meeting our transportation needs. But this is not the impossible task it may seem. Doubling our capacity does not mean doubling our facilities. >> It's a matter of of finding the way in which each mode can best serve its purpose within the resources that we can apply to it. Authorities say that not only the federal government but also the individual states must apply the system approach to transportation problems. Already some states have incorporated highway departments into departments of transportation. >> The planning can be correlated. The inter relation of the various modes of transportation can be studied and provision can be made for developing those various modes of transportation. The systems approach to our transportation troubles will also require systematic financing and no one doubts that there are bottlenecks in this area. >> One of the biggest bottlenecks that we're facing and very ineffectively is that related to the government getting decisions made >> separate and distinct governmental entities, burrows, townships, uh cities and counties involved. But there are also nonconcurrent political terms of >> these are very complex decisions. Unfortunately, our governmental structure is even more complex and defies in many cases the getting a quick decision or even a sound decision. >> Nevertheless, we have precedents for the financing of a systems approach to transportation needs. The highway trust fund and a more recent airways airport trust fund. The the hope is that eventually the transportation system uh across the board in all modes will be able to pay its own way either through tariffs paid to carriers or alternatively in user charges which will be put into a a single unified transportation trust fund. >> Authorities do not believe that user taxes will pay for all our transportation requirements. is almost certain that mass transit will have to be subsidized at least at first and perhaps to some extent permanently. Thus, each of us may have to pay through taxes for some transportation facilities whether or not we choose to use them. The idea isn't popular, but there is logic behind it. >> Because when you consider the um beneficial effect of improved public transportation on increasing job opportunities, raising property values, and all of the concurrent effects that result from that, all of these things taken together are benefits far greater than whatever is the cost of any transit deficit. No one denies that the cost of eliminating bottlenecks from all our transportation modes will be high. We are already paying $200 billion a year for our transportation and we are not getting everything we want. So the question is can we afford to make our transportation what it ought to be? The answer has to be yes. We can afford it. We can afford it because it will cost less to correct our problems than to endure them until they become unmanageable. An inadequate transportation system costs more than a good system. If we do not act soon, the traffic jams of the future will make today's slight delays seem insignificant. Where does action have to begin? Well, at the local level and with each of us, because we all share the cost. If the experts have anything to tell us, it is this. Each of us will have his personal transportation requirements satisfied only when the needs of all of us are met. In other words, you must combine your own personal interests with those of others if we are to have the total transportation system that will accommodate all of us at all times and in all places. And this total need must be satisfied. We can no longer live with these slight delays.