to have the public agencies attempt to get involved in day-to-day operating decisions.

Senator WILLIAMS. We have precedents that bear you out in the State of New Jersey, for example. The State government provides money on a contract basis. This doesn't put them into the operation of the roads at all.

Mr. TOMLINSON. And this is exactly what is happening in Operation Reading. The public agency participates in the planning of the service levels. It does not participate in the operation of the trains in any way.

Senator WILLIAMS. The contract and agreeemnt wtih the governing body spells out service.

Mr. TOMLINSON. That's correct.

Senator WILLIAMS. And these are the terms of the contract.

Mr. TOMLINSON. That's right. Now in a long-term program we would like to add that the contract spells out performance clauses, which, if met, would yield the railroad more income, or more support payment than if not met.

Senator WILLIAMS. When you talk about how many million rides did you say per year?

Mr. TOMLINSON. 12 million rides a year.

Senator WILLIAMS. How many passengers each day use the Reading Railroad as their means of getting to work and getting home at night? Mr. TOMLINSON. There are 45,000 rides each weekday on the Reading lines. Half of them come in and half go home. Thus there are 22,500 people who come in each day on the Reading lines. Of that 22,500 about 12,500 are in the peak period and the other 10,000 are in the offpeak period. We are running approximately 55-percent peak hour ridership and 45-percent off peak ridership.

Senator WILLIAMS. As far as the communter, the working commuter then, it is in the neighborhood of what; 30,000?

Mr. TOMLINSON. 12,500 come into Philadelphia in the morning and 12,500 go home at night, as far as the working commuter is concerned, that is right. I think, based our own surveys, that some of the people that go out in the early morning are also commuters, but we consider them an off peak rider. It is not the main thrust of the business. Senator WILLIAMS. Are you under contract with SEPTA?

Mr. TOMLINSON. We are now under contract with SEPTA in providing Operation Reading, that is right.

Senator WILLIAMS. Maybe you mentioned this, I might have overlooked it: What have you applied for through a governing body under the Federal program?

Mr. TOMLINSON. In 1962, working with the old SEPACT organization and the HHFA we went into a demonstration program on the North Penn lines. It was a program basically limited to one line. It has had, as Mr. Parkhouse said earlier today, good results in terms of added ridership. Then Operation Reading was another demonstration program and it has been the Federal Government support that has been largely responsible for the increased public support we have had since 1963. I am afraid we are about out of things to demonstrate in the operating area.

Senator WILLIAMS. How much money came from the Federal program?

Mr. TOMLINSON. The Operation Reading received $3 million from Federal funds. Operation North Penn-Hatboro received about $1.6 million from Federal funds. The Operation North Penn-Hatboro program provided for more service and lower fares and did not result in much improvement in our deficit. Operation Reading in effect said, "Let us try everything we can to reduce the deficit, putting as much of the burden on the rider as possible, putting as much of the burden on the employee as possible, putting as much of the burden on management as possible." And as a result of that program, we have increased the ridership and raised fares. We have gotten work rule changes. I think the management of the railroad has made some improvements on its own in the deficit. That was illustrated in the chart that took us from $5.1 million in 1963 to $3.8 estimated for 1966.

Senator WILLIAMS. That suggestion is that the key, the most important factor in increasing the number of people who use, in this case, commuter rails, is service.

Mr. TOMLINSON. Absolutely.

Senator WILLIAMS. If you have a service that meets the commuters' needs, they prefer that to Schuylkill?

Mr. TOMLINSON. There is no question, if you have new equipment, fast rides, and frequent service, the people will take the rail, simply because it is much cheaper.

Senator WILLIAMS. Well, I am glad to hear that. I am glad that that is a fact and not an opinion.

Mr. TOMLINSON. It is a fact. Two people can take the train in the commuter period more cheaply to the center city than they can take a car pool.

Senator WILLIAMS. Very interesting. Thank you very much, Mr. Tomlinson. We appreciate the fact that you are willing to go over until the afternoon.

Mr. TOMLINSON. I was glad to, thank you.

Senator WILLIAMS. By the way, let me ask a personal question here. How long have you been in transportation?

Mr. TOMLINSON. That is a broad industry. I have been in transportation since 1954, starting with the auto industry at that time and shifting to the rail industry in 1961 when I joined a consulting firm. Senator WILLIAMS. Now are you full time with Reading?

Mr. TOMLINSON. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. Headquartered in Philadelphia?
Mr. TOMLINSON. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. What do you think of Senator Tydings' idea of fellowships for advanced academic work in transportation?

Mr. TOMLINSON. Well, I agree that the industry has not attracted either scientific research or management talent to itself over the years, because it is losing money and why work for a company that is losing money, when you can work for the chemical companies or auto companies?

I think we have to get management into the industry, and we have to get research into the industry. I suggest, however, that today in many railroads we have an awfully large loss that has to be dealt with now, we have a lot of people who have to get to work tomorrow, and I would not wait for these long-range programs to spend money, I

62-551-66-pt. 2- -19

would start getting capital money spent right away. We have that We do have to invest in management talent and

need with us now.

research, but that is many years in the payoff.

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you very much.

Mr. John Taylor.

You manage Fresno, Calif., I understand, Mr. Taylor?
Mr. TAYLOR. That's right.

Senator WILLIAMS. Fresno is a great city; the population is about

Mr. TAYLOR. 160,000.

Senator WILLIAMS. We had hearings out there a couple of years back. We were very, very hospitably treated.

How far is Fresno from San Francisco?

Mr. TAYLOR. 185 miles.

Senator WILLIAMS. We welcome you here, unless you are against these bills. If you are, we will still hear you but we might ask some questions.

Mr. TAYLOR. You mean you don't want to hear all sides of the issue?

Senator WILLIAMS. No. I will say, however, that these are the most unusual hearings I have ever been part of. I don't know what happened to my staff, but they didn't seem to drum up any opponents. And you know, you sharpen your knife on the whetstone, but everybody has been for these things.

Do we have any opponents? Where is the chamber of commerce? We have had national chamber people here opposing our mass transit national program, but you know they were sort of smothered by metropolitan chambers from Boston to San Francisco.

That is about the only opposition I can recall to our mass transit program of 1962 and 1964.

Mr. TAYLOR. Any from the rural interests?

Senator WILLIAMS. I can't recall any. The Farm Bureau didn't come in. They would have been opposed. This isn't exactly a farm program. We are talking about what will be for about 75 percent of the population of the country, with the increasingly complex metropolitan areas.

Well, that is a digression. You are on.

STATEMENT OF JOHN L. TAYLOR, CITY MANAGER, FRESNO, CALIF.

Mr. TAYLOR. I think I probably come to you with different charteristics than most of the people who have spoken before, because I don't come from one of the major cities, including those who had the professional major league baseball teams that were mentioned earlier.

I also, incidentally, avoided Senator Douglas' April-November problem, because I have never registered with a political party, which may be a sin around here, but it helps me when city councils change complexion, as one did on me in your State, Mr. Chairman.

It does seem apropriate that the committee should be concerned in the field of commuter transportation, not only with the large cities, but also with the intermediate-size cities which some day will be large cities. And I suspect I might be most useful to the committee simply by describing the Fresno situation as it regards mass transportation.

Fresno is the eighth largest city in California, the largest city between the San Francisco metropolitan area and the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It is the 90th largest in the Nation.

The Fresno metropolitan area consists of the city of Fresno, about 160,000 persons, plus a surrounding unincorporated area of about 125,000 persons, for a total of about 285,000 surrounded by agricultural land. It is in an area which is growing at a fairly steady, but not catastrophic pace, some 3 percent a year.

The city commuter service is a bus system and not a rail system, and as we see it, it will continue that way, because of population densities. The city bus system serves the entire metropolitan area, both in the portion inside and outside of the city.

Until 1961 the city of Fresno was served by a private busline. In that year the company indicated very abruptly that it was suffering losses to the extent that it was going out of business immediately, and essentially offered the city of Fresno the opportunity of taking it over. And in order to save this essential transportation, the city did take over the operation of the busline. At that time we acquired some 30 buses from the bus company, and are now utilizing 27 of these old buses.

Since then we have purchased 10 new ones. Both the old buses and the new buses were acquired by lease, or lease-purchase under very unfavorable financial terms, although we have since learned some lessons in how to finance better. We are now carrying about two and a quarter million passengers per year, with a basic 25-cent rate, although we charge 5 or 10 cents additional for outlying zones.

This municipal transportation system loses about $2 per capita per year. That is the required making up of the deficit that the city undertakes. And the fact of life is the city government finds it very difficult to continue to meet these operating deficits.

For each 25 cents the passenger puts in the fare box, the city puts in about 16 cents additional. Yet raising fares to cover this deficit probably would drive many people away from riding the buses, and seriously penalize the low-economic level persons at a time when both the Federal Government and city government are trying particularly hard to improve the living level of these persons.

It has been testified previously concerning some of the findings of the Commission chaired by John A. McCone, I think, and I intended to read some of that into the record, but it has already been pretty well done. But let me stress that we think that the Watts event is not an isolated affair, that such things have happened on a less broad scale throughout the country and will continue to.

I would like to add two short sentences from the McCone Commission report which were not read this morning

We believe that adequate and economical public bus transportation is essential to our community and that it should not be ignored because of the debate over mass rapid transit * * *. Public transportation is particularly essential to the poor and disadvantaged who are unable to own and operate private automobiles. The necessity for this transportation is essential for people who don't own automobiles. As shown in the Watts situation, bad transportation contributes to a lot more problems than simply not getting to work. Senator WILLIAMS. As a matter of fact, those individuals who, beyond the folks who live in poverty and can't afford an automobile,

are either too young or too old or disabled, represent a rather large part of the population.

Mr. TAYLOR. Right.

Senator WILLIAMS. Obviously, they are going to have to rely on public or privately operated mass transit facilities. I think the figure runs almost 40 percent of the population.

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. Too young, too old or disabled, or too poor.
Mr. TAYLOR. Of course there are problems also

Senator WILLIAMS. There are some places that the opportunity for movement on a mass transit facility has broken down altogether. There are cities that did have buses, that have wholly discontinued this kind of service. The people just have no way, no opportunity to get anywhere.

Mr. TAYLOR. I have one of seven city councilmen who says we should get out of the business.

Senator WILLIAMS. What is his alternative?

Mr. TAYLOR. He doesn't have any alternative. He in effect says we can't provide all services for all people and just because a service is not provided privately doesn't mean the Government should take it over.

Senator WILLIAMS. You have how many rides a year?

Mr. TAYLOR. Two and a quarter million.

Senator WILLIAMS. Well, something would suffer disastrously.
Mr. TAYLOR. Right.

Senator WILLIAMS. It would be a disaster to individuals who absolutely rely on mass transit and to commerce and industry that need those people.

Mr. TAYLOR. Right.

Of course, we do have problems also from people who do have automobiles. They drive them to work, or to put it another way, they drive them to the center city and the center city has a number of problems. And many automobiles occupy more space when being parked than the worker does when he is working at his desk in the center city.

Senator WILLIAMS. The statistics we have worked with for years, and I don't know if they have changed or not, show that in the area of Greater Los Angeles, the center city of Los Angeles is given over to automobiles-better than two-thirds of the city.

We heard from Atlanta yesterday that it is about 54 percent, streets, highways, throughways, freeways, whatever they are, and parking. Those cars aren't paying any taxes appreciably.

Mr. TAYLOR. Right, and worse than that, they are creating congestion and a choking that the center city just simply can't afford or it is going to die. And a number of center cities of course have come pretty close to dying.

Although the city of Fresno is much smaller than many of the areas which are affected by this legislation, we do feel we have a big stake in mass transportation. Fresno is growing. We are spending a lot of money trying to be sure that it grows right. For instance, we are convinced that someday it is going to be larger than the city of San Francisco, although probably not larger than the entire bay

area.