In the short period of time which has elapsed since federal funds became available under the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, many communities have taken advantage of the opportunities afforded in the form of loans, grants and demonstration projects. At the same time the Housing and Home Finance Agency has had the benefit of the experience of transit systems throughout the country in these demonstration projects. In our own community of Nashville, we have conducted three demonstration projects. On one of the projects it was demonstrated within a period of a few months that the service was not desirable because of the two and three car families in the area. On the other hand, the other two projects ran their full course of two years and after the expiration of the projects, service is being furnished by the local transit operator. It would not have been possible for the local transit operator or the local government to have financed completely these demonstration projects which resulted in the furnishing of new service in areas of the community where the service needs were developed by these projects. With the cooperation of the local regulatory agency, the local government and the private capital company, federal aid was obtained and some people who did not have transit service now have and now use transit service. The results of these projects have been embodied in reports which are available for communities similarly situated who would profit by the experience just as the experiences in other communities through these demonstration projects are available to us in Nashville. A general examination of the use of funds heretofore appropriated for federal aid to transit discloses grants have been made for the purchase of assets of a bus company; for the purchase of motor buses; for the purchase of garages. garage sites and to improve shops and equipment; for the installation of mobile radio units; for the improvement of stations, stops, shelters and lighting; for newly planned transit ways and pedestrian malls, for the improvement and extension of rapid transit systems; for new rapid transit cars; for new ferry boats and for other improvements in plant and service equipment. There have been demonstration grants for bus and rail service and reduced fare experiments; for bus system design for cities of various sizes; for the use of small buses for regular or special services in central business area; for tests of small and more maneuverable buses in small city service; for contractual fare bus services: for express bus services; for study of the monthly transit pass; for studies of appropriate information aids to transit riders in using the bus system; for tests of use of mass transit by a growing satellite community; for rapid transit engineering and rapid transit extensions: for improvement, modification and coordination of commuter railroad services and facilities; for studies of a modern rail system; for studies of automobile-rail commuter and bus-rail commuter services: for rapid transit fare collection study and experimentation; for coordination of projected rail, rapid transit and existing bus services in urban metropolitan areas; and for computer scheduling and run cutting. The results of all of these demonstration projects have been embodied into comprehensive reports, creating a vast source and fund of information for the transit industry, by which the needs and demands in any particular community can be measured against the results obtained through demonstration projects in similar communities. Through the federal aid to transit, the public conscience has been awakened to the fact that to meet the demand of future urban growth, provision must be made for adequate transportation facilities in both new and older urban communities. The importance of the demand for the control of traffic congestion through greater efficiency in the use of space per person moved is accentuated. and the efficiency of the urban transit vehicle in this facet of urban development has been emphasized. Further, through federal aid to transit, the public consciousness has been awakened to the fact that essential transit services in an urban area must be planned, along with the planning for overall community development and integrated into a balanced transportation system along with other local transportation modes. This new legislation has given to urban transit a type of public support that long has been enjoyed by the automobile and highway, and thus has attracted the constructive attention of the public officials, city planners and the architects of urban growth and development. And even more important, federal aid to transit and the various programs thereunder have stimulated the establishment of direct and effective programs of state and local transit aid as indicated by recently enacted state transit aid legislation. Local governments through observing developments in other municipalities have had their attention focused upon the position of transit in their own com munities, with the result that urban transit is receiving more attention today from local government than it has received in the past two decades. In communities served by private capital transit companies, such as Nashville and Chattanooga, Tennessee, with which I am familiar, a spirit of cooperation exists between local government officials and transit officials, the purpose of which is to encourage continuance of private capital in local transit and at the same time to use the position of local government to the fullest extent possible to encourage the use and growth of local transit as a means of individual transportation in the general community good. Local transit is generally a publicly regulated industry. There is ample opportunity for cooperation between the local government and the local transit company. The fact that the local government and the local transit operator are required to participate with the federal government under the federal transit aid program has contributed immeasurably toward the improvement of the attitude of local governments toward the transit operator, and has required the transit operator to re-evaluate its attitude toward local government. The opportunities offered under the existing program of federal aid to local transit have been recognized both by publicly operated systems and by private capital companies. Many of them have accepted the challenge offered and have had loans, grants and demonstration projects approved. Many others, seeing what is happening to the communities which are participating in the program, now have applications pending or in the course of preparation. Much has been accomplished but much more remains to be done. The extension of Federal Transit Aid Legislation is essential to the preservation of an industry, the prosperity and effectiveness of which are indispensable if the American city is to be preserved. Senator WILLIAMS. Next we have Mr. Walter Bierwagen, Amalgamated Transit Union. STATEMENT OF WALTER J. BIERWAGEN, INTERNATIONAL VICE Senator WILLIAMS. We welcome you to our witness table again. My name is Walter Bierwagen. I am International Vice President of the Amalgamated Transit Union, AFL-CIO. The Amalgamated Transit Union has its offices at 5025 Wisconsin Avenue NW., Washington, D.C. Mr. Chairman, at the outset may we express our appreciation for this opportunity to present the views of the Amalgamated Transit Union with respect to S. 2804 and the related bills to amend the Urban Mass Transportation Act that are presently being considered by your Subcommittee. The Amalgamated Transit Union is the dominant union in the field of urban, suburban and interurban passenger transportation other than railroad commuter service in most areas throughout the United States. The railroad commuter end of this field is primarily represented by our friends of the railroad brotherhoods. We are, of course, most vitally interested in and affected by the proposals before your subcommittee to amend the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 to provide expanded Federal aid to all urban transportation service. Urban mass transportation is the field which this union represents and it is we who have by far the most at stake with regard to these proposals. It is our understanding, and we are happy to state, that the AFLCIO and the railroad brotherhoods join with us in supporting amendments to the act which would increase the authorization for Federal assistance under the act to at least $175 million annually beginning with fiscal year 1968. We are also agreed with regard to the general proposition that any legislation providing for Federal aid to mass transportation must retain intact the existing language of section 10 (c) of the act preserving the right to collective bargaining and providing for fair and equitable arrangements to protect employee interests affected by such Federal assistance. We shall direct the remainder of our comments to the major propositions underlying the bill, S. 2804, introduced by Senator Williams of New Jersey. Our organization shares with Senator Williams, Mayor Lindsay. and others the fundamental assumption that in many places across this country the deficiencies in urban mass transportation systems serving the general and commuting publics have become critical. Unless existing transportation systems can be maintained and new and improved service provided by these systems in massive amounts, the result will almost certainly be increasing strangulation of entire metropolitan areas and lasting damage to the health and welfare of all those who must continue to live in such strangulated areas. Fortunately, Federal financing is now available under the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 in the form of grants or loans to public bodies for the acquisition, construction, and improvement of capital facilities and equipment for use either by publicly operated systems or by lease or otherwise to private mass passenger transportation service in urban areas including railroad commuter operations. We believe these capital improvement programs supported by Federal, State, and local funds on a matching basis are sound in concept. Public mass transportation systems and services require too large a capital investment to be financed exclusively out of fare-box, or operating revenues. These existing Federal programs, while a good beginning, will not alone place urban mass passenger transportation on a sound financial footing, no matter how heavily they are funded. It is not for lack of adequate plant and facilities, although improvements may almost everywhere be desirable, that many cities from one end of the Nation to the other are still in imminent danger of losing not only their essential commuter service, but, in fact, all public transportation. Many private employers in our industry with relatively good equipment and facilities have long operated on the verge of bankruptcy. Others have abondoned services, or cut back unprofitable operations, and increased fares to the point where the remaining operations can scarcely begin to fulfill the needs of the community. A large percentage of urban mass transportation systems, public or private, cannot now operate at a profit and, at the same time, provide the kind of service the people need and want. This is true not only of rush hour commuter service, but of regular off peak service which, while needed by the community, more often than not fails to be self-supporting. To avoid any further abandonment or curtailment of existing mass transportation operations, contrary to the clear public interest in expanding such services and making them more attractive to the rider,. we are fully prepared to support a Federal operating subsidy program within the framework of the Urban Mass Transportation Act, provided certain conditions are met. (1) We think any such program must be initiated and developed on the local level, because every metropolitan area has certain singular aspects involving transportation and other aspects of civil life which have to be considered. (2) Any such operating subsidy program should apply to the entire field of urban mass passenger transportation. We feel that the commuter and other service provided by our industry is just as essential and in need of this support as that provided by the railroads. In New Jersey, for example, Public Service Coordinated Transport maintains many uneconomic commuter and other transportation services in the public interest. Such services should be as eligible for such assistance as the commuter services provided by the Erie-Lackawanna or the Jersey Central. (3) It should further be a requirement of any such Federal assistance that a hearing procedure be established on the State, regional, or local level, whichever is appropriate in the case of a particular project proposal, to establish the need, types, and amounts of such service that would have to be subsidized. The feasibility, practicability, utility, and necessity of each such project cannot properly be determined unless all interested parties have a fair opportunity to be heard. (4) Subsidies should be available to help meet the operating costs of essential commuter and other passenger services under a standard other than the operating deficit formula contained in the present bill. The operating deficit formula we believe implies unacceptable Federal controls over such essential elements of operating income and expenses as fare levels and labor costs. Without attempting to suggest such a formula, we believe an appropriate Federal matching contribution toward operating costs can be devised which will contain adequate safeguards without any Federal, State or local regulation of wages, hours, or working conditions, contrary to our national labor policies. (5) It should also be said that we would oppose any program of Federal operating subsidies which would make such funds available to public systems that, under State or local laws policies or practices, deny to their employees the right to strike without otherwise providing adequate access to channels for grievance and dispute settlement. Logic forbids that transportation workers in the public sector of the industry should be denied free collective bargaining based either on the right to strike or an equivalent peaceful means to obtain fair wages and working conditions, while private employees engaged in the same occupation and performing essentially the same service. should be guaranteed such rights by the national labor policy. (6) Finally, any such program of operating subsidy must not be allowed to siphon off any funds proposed to be authorized for capital improvements under the existing provisions of the act, which are already inadequate to the demonstrated need. We suggest that any grant program in aid of mass transportation operations, as such, should be separately financed, both in the authorization and appropriation stages. We fully recognize, of course, that any Federal operating subsidy to urban mass transportation is a far-reaching proposal which should only be approached in the spirit of careful inquiry and consideration. While supporting the principle of Federal operating subsidies to public mass transportation industries such as our own, we have attempted in this statement to suggest to the subcommittee certain aspects of the bill which we believe are meritorious of your further study and consideration. Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you very much. Mr. BIERWAGEN. Thank you, Senator. Senator WILLIAMS. This is a very thoughtful statement. I believe some of your anxiety, I think most of your anxieties will be worked out to your satisfaction. Mr. BIERWAGEN. Thank you. We appreciate that. Senator WILLIAMS. We are going to conclude with Mr. W. E. Skutt, assistant grand chief engineer, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. STATEMENT OF W. E. SKUTT, ASSISTANT GRAND CHIEF ENGINEER, THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS Senator WILLIAMS. Mr. Skutt, I know you weren't scheduled. We are glad to have you here. Do you have a written statement? Mr. SKUTT. I do not. Senator WILLIAMS. I just got an emergency phone call, if we could abbreviate, I would appreciate it. Mr. SKUTT. I will be very brief. My name is W. E. Skutt, assistant grand chief engineer of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and I am representing Mr. Perry Heath who is grand chief engineer. Mr. Heath regrets he is unable to be here, due to other commitments, and he has asked me to express his wholehearted support for your bill, 2804, and he will do everything in his power to support this legislation. As you know, we represent engineers on 99 percent of the railroads in the United States, Canada, and Panama Canal Zone and they are approximately 62,000 in number. About one-third of these are employed in rail passenger service. We are the oldest railway labor organization in the United States, in North America, as a matter of fact, and one of the oldest labor organizations on the continent. This legislation is of course very important to our membership. In addition, the benefits contained in the legislation are, we recognize, in the public interest. We do not believe in Federal control of the railroads and have never advocated it. However, we believe very strongly that if private management does not continue to operate passenger service, and commuter service, it will become necessary for the Government to take over and operate such service in the public interest. And we would not be happy with that. We believe that the rail passenger service, particularly commuter service, is as important as the Post Office Department, the police and fire departments, and other public services. It has been advocated by others that it is such an important public service that people should |