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HOUSING LEGISLATION OF 1966

29

get the appropriation for it. The amount of new construction won't be anywhere near the 20,000 units that need treatment. It would be a small percentage of that.

Most of his would be rehabilitation of the existing houses. And one of the means of doing this would be through urban renewal. You could acquire the housing that needs rehabilitation, and sell it at a writedown to be rehabilitated for use by low- and moderate-income people. This instead of taking the writedown which we now use when we tear down all of the stuff, clear the area, and write down the land for its new use and then we have it redeveloped. Why can't you? I think you can and I think you should write down the house that is going to be rehabilitated in that given area without tearing it down. This would be the principal economic tool and I think this would answer the chairman's question as to how this will be primarily financed.

Senator PROXMIRE. I think this is most encouraging. I can see you are going a lot farther with a limited amount of money than I thought you could.

I am still concerned because, of course, Wisconsin, unlike Illinois and New York, does not have one of the five or six big metropolitan areas. Would there be any limitation on any area? In some of our past legislation we provided a limitation on the portion that could go to any one city. Has anything like this been considered? How about an amendment providing protection for the smaller cities?

Mr. WEAVER. I have a feeling this would probably be in the tradition of what Congress would do. Such an amendment should be looked at carefully, and the tradition of having it done on a State rather than on a city basis would probably be the better instrumentality.

Coming, myself, from one of the most populous States, I must say I am not an advocate of that approach, but I recognize it probably will have to be.

Senator PROXMIRE. I have one other area I wanted to question briefly about. In your grants to metropolitan development, $24 million the first year. That would be 1967, is that correct?

Mr. WEAVER. Yes.

Senator PROXMIRE. That would contemplate taking in about a dozen metropolitan areas according to your statement on page 14?

Mr. WEAVER. Yes. These are the number we think would be able to qualify after doing some spot research.

Senator PROXMIRE. I missed a specific figure in your subsequent 5 years. You said something about bringing in 75 metropolitan areas. Would it be fair to estimate that this would be something like $150 million a year?

Mr. WEAVER. I think it is more in terms of around $60 or $70 million, but I will have to check this out.

Senator PROXMIRE. And you contemplated this program might develop over a 5-year period to a total of around $600 or $700 million? Is that your estimate?

Mr. WEAVER. I will have to supply those figures. I don't have them at my fingertips, but they are of a lower magnitude than that.

(The following information was subsequently submitted for the record.)

HOUSING LEGISLATION OF 1966

31

Senator PROXMIRE. You did estimate apparently then that the $25 million for the dozen metropolitan areas would include some of the bigger ones?

Mr. WEAVER. Yes.

Senator PROXMIRE. And it may be in subsequent years the smaller cities might be included?

Mr. WEAVER. Yes. Of course, in many of the metropolitan areas you will have some with large and small cities. Maybe a large city core and a lot of satellite cities around.

Senator PROXMIRE. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator WILLIAMS. Mr. Secretary, this is your maiden voyage as a Secretary of the new Department, isn't it?

Mr. WEAVER. Yes, sir.

Senator WILLIAMS. Well, I don't want to delay your safe return to port. It's been a very successful journey so far.

Mr. WEAVER. Thank you.

Senator WILLIAMS. There are no dollar amounts written into the legislation before us, as I see it, on either of the new programs; is that right?

Mr. WEAVER. No. I think the language says that there is authorization for such appropriations as may be necessary to carry this out. As I recall that is what it is.

Senator WILLIAMS. Isn't that the language that gets us in a lot of trouble around here? Don't we normally put money figures in these bills?

Senator SPARKMAN. We do for marking them up. May I say that this committee has never gone along with an open end authorization. Therefore, we will insist, I am quite sure, if we adhere to past practices, upon putting in figures before it is passed.

Senator WILLIAMS. At any rate the proposal is not to authorize brick, mortar, concrete, demolition, rehabilitation, hardware the first year. It is strictly planning money.

Mr. WEAVER. Yes, sir. First year.

Senator WILLIAMS. Now as I understood your specification of what could be anticipated, it seemed as though the demonstration city program is a coordination comprehensively of existing programs. You did use the word, you hoped imaginative new approaches would be developed. Are there any specifications that you and your staff might think of in terms of new approaches?

Mr. WEAVER. Yes; I think so. I think you are quite right in saying that there is the idea of a coordinated approach. This makes a lot of sense. I think anyone who knows anything about these problems realizes and we certainly have learned over the last 30 years-that when you start talking about rehabilitating blighted areas you have got to rehabilitate the people as well as the area. If you don't do the two together, neither one will last very long.

What we are trying to do is to bring in the social tools which are in existence as well as the physical tools which are in existence, have them coordinated on the focal level in a plan, in an imaginative plan that will bring in new approaches and new types of techniques.

62-551-66—pt. 1- -4

39 We have in mind, for example, a new approach, as suggests, by size so the program will have an impac large area really to mean something.

We have in mind an approach which talks about t ment, not only improving the structures but impr of the streets, the quality of the open space, the qual so forth.

There is the point raised by Senator Douglas-th of cost reduction. Here we are going to try to gra the limitations which exist in some of these codes. are going to do this on a large scale we are going to that problem. It is a difficult one. I don't know wh it. But we certainly are going to try.ange

Then we want to have the idea of course of a residential area and we will have new types, we hope, new types of structures. But I suppose the really are going to be the innovations as to how you do t human rehabilitation, how you get this thing we ta involvement-how you get people to be able to be a ning, at the same time recognizing that you have engineer if you want to plan and design the foundati Indigenous leaders may be wonderful but they can't d for a project.

How do you get the type of local participation wh mum degree, people who are part of the neighborhoo ipate in the physical rebuilding but also do the typ have been done on an experimental basis in New Ha and the Ford project. There the indigenous people a social services to people with whom they can commu effectively than some people who are trained but n speak the language of the people they are working the innovations contemplated among many others.

But I think the real innovation is the totality of try to solve the problem really permanently. We wi difficult problems here and very frankly the whol this as a demonstration is recognition of the fact tha the cities are hard pressed for money, we also recog we had all the money that were needed and all this available to cities, they would still have to learn ho these things and they would still have to train some do them better than they have been doing them. demonstration.

Senator WILLIAMS. You mentioned that other de Federal Government would naturally be involved in sive approach. Is your Department coordinating w planning of how to proceed?dien

Mr. WEAVER. Yes and no. What we have done is t tion of saying to other departments this is the way y gram. But we are saying if you want these supp you are going to have to coordinate these programs a to help you to do it.

The coordination comes at the local level. The Fed is there to help the city do the coordination and also to

HOUSING LEGISLATION OF 1966

33 the various departments so they will get the right people to carry out their coordinated program rather than our coordinated program.

Senator WILLIAMS. But the Federal coordinator is your appointee. Mr. WEAVER. He is our appointee. He works for the city and with the city to help them carry out their plans and he will have to be a very knowledgeable effective generalist.

Senator WILLIAMS. I won't get into my favorite subject, mass transit, only to wonder if it would be possible for our record to give us a description of the results as you were going to for other

Mr. WEAVER. We will give you a complete description.
Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you.

(The information follows.)

MASS TRANSPORTATION DEMONSTRATION PROGRAM-ACCOMPLISHMENTS

The demonstration program has been actively under way since March 1962 when the first project was approved for a brief test of a service schedule improvement on one line of the Detroit bus system. As of April 1, there were 40 project approvals for a total Federal grant commitment of $34.4 million. Projects are distributed among 17 States and the District of Columbia, and involve every section of the country.

The great majority of experiments are moderate in cost and well distributed among representative cities and suburban areas. More complex and technical projects are being undertaken in the larger metropolitan areas. Grants range

in size from $10,000 to the University of Washington for an analysis of the Seattle Monorail operating experience and public acceptance, to more than $6.2 million to SFBARTD (the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District) for a program of rapid transit design and engineering studies and tests for its new system.

Of the 40 active approved projects, 7 have been completed and closed out, and on 9 more, the demonstrations have been concluded and final reports are in preparation or already received.

The more prevalent experiments in the program have been those concerned with improvements in local service schedules, fare schedules, routing patterns, feeder-bus arrangements, service to new communities, coordinated localexpress service, and park-and-ride arrangements.

New systems, new equipment, and new techniques are also being tested. The air-cushion vehicle is being tested under a grant to the Port of Oakland; SFBARTD's design and engineering tests promise far-reaching improvements in rail rapid transit; the Port Authority of Allegheny County is testing a rapid transit system for urban areas of moderate density, using a new lightweight vehicle on a concrete track. In several experiments, the adaptation of the computer to operational improvements is being tested. Special attention is being given to the transit design to meet the needs of small cities; and at the same time, the rail commuter problem is the subject of demonstrations in several large metropolitan areas.

Experience with the demonstration program has been particularly encouraging. There is wide interest on the part of transit operators, public officials, urban planners, and the transit industry generally, in the findings and results of the ongoing and completed experiments.

Some of the demonstrations, like the series of service improvement experiments in Massachusetts, and the study in Rhode Island, have resulted in State legislative action establishing the basis for coordinated State and local action and financial support to maintain and improve public transportation systems and facilities. The experiments with new types of systems and equipment are, of course, being watched with interest all around the world.

The Massachusetts project, with an extensive series of service improvement experiments for bus and commuter rail systems, produced some interesting and to some, even startling-conclusions. Although the individual experiments with improved schedules, fares, and other improvements were by no means uniformly successful, the over-all experience indicated that: (1) the declining trend in public transportation ridership is not inevitable;