many years ago. We are still working on the same type of legislation, in trying to make it available for other transit purposes. I think it is very interesting, too, and very important that you have the support of the California Automobile Association. Mr. PEIRCE. That is true. The California State Automobile Association, through its board of directors, a year ago last February unanimously endorsed our rapid transit program and specifically endorsed the legislation diverting, if I may use that word, surplus bay bridge tolls paid by automobile operators to finance the underwater tube. Their reasoning was that by relieving congestion on the bay bridge and making it easier for the people who have to use their automobiles to use that bridge, it would be in the interest of the motoring public. I might add that the president of Standard Oil Co. of California, in an address before the Commonwealth Club of California last November 27, endorsed our program in the interest of doing something about traffic congestion that was undermining the interests of the motoring public. Senator WILLIAMS. That, of course, is helpful-that there is no competition here between autos and rails. We want to see opportunities for them to be coordinated so both can be improved. Mr. PEIRCE. They are complementary to each other. Senator WILLIAMS. And the journey either way will be an efficient one. Mr. PEIRCE. That is right. Senator WILLIAMS. I would think the topography or geography of the city of San Francisco would present real planning problems. Your basic approach to the city will be through the proposed tube under the bay; is that correct? Mr. PEIRCE. The basic approach to San Francisco from the east shore communities will be through the transbay tube. However, to the north bay counties, we will use the Golden Gate Bridge. A lower deck on the Golden Gate Bridge can be constructed and will be constructed to accommodate rapid transit trains. Of course, there is no problem going to the south because San Francisco is on a peninsula. Senator WILLIAMS. Has the ferry service been discontinued in the bay area? Mr. PEIRCE. Yes. I might point out that with the opening of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in 1937 and the Golden Gate Bridge a year later, competition arising from the use of automobiles forced the ferries into a precarious position, and the ferries no longer exist. I might add that at one time, we had five commuter railroads feeding people into and out of San Francisco, four of which had ferry auxiliaries. It was the Northwestern Pacific toward the north in Marin County; on the east shore, there was the Southern Pacific; the Key system; and the Sacramento Northern. Those four commuter services no longer exist because automobiles took their places with the advent of these two new bridges. The only public rail service into San Francisco now is the Southern Pacific leading to the south down the peninsula toward San Jose, and that facility is quite inadequate. Senator WILLIAMS. Did you say "inadequate"? Mr. PEIRCE. Inadequate because its terminus is rather distant from the center of downtown San Francisco, more than a mile away, and that discourages commuter service. Our plan calls for rapid transit facilities right into downtown San Francisco. Senator WILLIAMS. What would be the nature of the rapid transit intracity service? Mr. PEIRCE. You mean by type of construction? Senator WILLIAMS. Yes. Mr. PEIRCE. In core center areas such as downtown San Francisco and downtown Oakland, the facilities would be under the ground. Then, in other areas, aerial structures which would be graceful in appearance with facilities practically noiseless, providing the roadbed for transit trains. Then, where possible, on the surface with grade separation provided so that the high-speed concept of the maximum of 70 to 80 miles an hour would be possible. Senator WILLIAMS. What is the aerial structure envisioned here? Is that a monorail? Mr. PEIRCE. No. The aerial structure would be a supported tworail type of track and not monorail. The reason we are apparently having to discard the monorail idea is because there are a number of engineering problems that have not been solved, and we could not venture the expenditure of a vast sum of money on some device that has not been fully tried and tested. So we are recognizing the problems of the law of gravitation by staying on the ground, but on grade separated rights-of-way so as to facilitate or to permit high speed. We believe that high speed is the secret of getting people out of their automobiles. Senator WILLIAMS. I do not recall in your statement the description of the number of people here that have to be moved daily in and out of San Francisco or within the district. Mr. PEIRCE. Into and out of the city of San Francisco itself, at the present time, approximately 150,000 people every day. About a third of those people travel on public transportation, and the other twothirds use their individual private passenger automobiles, which has created the problem of congestion with which we are faced. Of the total, about 10 percent travel by Southern Pacific rail commuter trains up the peninsula. So the rail service is 10 percent of the total. Buses and Greyhound stages, make up the difference between that and the 33 percent, with 66 percent coming in their own individual private passenger automobiles. Those figures relate to the city of San Francisco, but we have a tremendous problem of circulation between the district that does not involve San Francisco alone. On the east bay, we have the great city of Oakland and the city of Berkeley. In fact, we have 51 incorporated cities within the five counties of the district. I might add at this time that the legislature contemplates that our district someday will embrace nine counties and not just the five within the district. We believe very shortly that the county to the south, Santa Clara County, where San Jose is situated, will join our district because they have the second most rapid growth of population of any county in California, having doubled in the last 10 years. With 650,000 people living in that county, there is growing need for a transit connection between San Francisco and San Jose on the peninsula, and between Oakland and San Jose on the east side of the bay. Senator WILLIAMS. Outside the city of San Francisco and its approaches from the other areas, what are your plans as to a basic method of transit? Is it a grade rail proposal? Mr. PEIRCE. In downtown San Francisco, downtown Oakland, it will be under the surface, a subway. Down the peninsula, in all probability, it will be on the surface, grade separated. In Marin County, it will probably be on the surface, but in the east bay cities and in part of San Francisco, it will be on aerial structures. Senator WILLIAMS. This would, I imagine, for the future before us, protect you against the unbelievable dilemma that the Los Angeles area now has before it in terms of cost for new population. The fig ures that we have seen compiled by the Southern California Research Council in 1958, estimating public expenditures in terms of capital investment, 1957 to 1970, show that $10,200 for each new family will have to be spent on streets, roads, and highways. This compares with the next highest expenditure per family of $2,160 for schools, going down to water supply, $155, flood control, $270, sewage system, $200. It is staggering, and I would imagine we would have people in southern California more than just anxious, just perplexed beyond belief, faced with this fact that they are now caught and trapped in the rubber-tire transit method that has been developed there. Mr. PEIRCE. The city of Los Angeles is known as the most freewayminded city in the world, and it is interlaced with these great freeway structures. To continue the building of more and more of these freeways is causing great concern among the people of that area. As somebody pointed out this morning, 66 percent of the area of downtown Los Angeles is devoted to purposes in connection with automobile use, streets and freeways and parking lots. Senator WILLIAMS. The question is: When you were describing the various methods of travel within your district, comparing automobiles and rail and bus travel, was the rail travel just at the peak hours, whereas the automobile travel is stretched throughout the day? Mr. PEIRCE. No, they are both around the clock. Senator WILLIAMS. I see. I want to express for the committee our gratitude to you Mr. Peirce, for joining us here across the country and helping us with our problems. By "ours," I mean yours and mine, all of us. That is why some of us are most anxious at the national level that this problem receive the attention it deserves, but has not received. Mr. PEIRCE. Thank you, Senator. Senator WILLIAMS. The sponsors of this legislation include Senator Engle of California, whose support we feel is most promising for this legislation. The committee will now stand in recess until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, an earlier hour for beginning, that was made necessary because of other complications. Maxwell Lehman of the city of New York will be our lead-off witness tomorrow morning in this room at 9 o'clock. (Whereupon, at 3:53 p.m., the hearing recessed, to reconvene at 9 a.m., on Tuesday, May 24, 1960.) The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, in room 5302, New Senate Office Building, at 9:08 a.m., Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr., presiding. Present: Senators Williams, Clark, and Bush. Also present: Senator Javits. Senator WILLIAMS. The subcommittee will come to order. Before we call our first witness we have a statement from Senator Bible which will go in the record, together with his letter. (The statement and letter referred to follow :) CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, JOINT COMMITTEE ON WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN PROBLEMS, Hon. JOHN J. SPARKMAN, Chairman, Subcommittee on Housing, Washington, D.C., May 23, 1960. DEAR SENATOR SPARKMAN: Allow me to comment on S. 3278, which is being considered by your committee this morning. I regret that an executive session of the Joint Committee on Washington Metropolitan Problems, which is considering the transportation needs of the National Capital region, is being held at the same time, and hence I cannot appear before you in person. I trust that the attached statement will be received by your committee and treated as if read. During the past 2 years our joint committee has given extensive consideration to the problems of metropolitan area transportation, and from that experience I can testify to the importance of the objectives of S. 3278. Our cities have to deal not merely with the ruins of an obsolete mass transportation system, that is carrying down with it great areas of blight and slum in our central cities, we have to build a new urban transportation system, one that will not only meet the transportation needs of our new and rapidly growing metropolitan populations but that will strengthen the cities themselves and contribute to the solution of their housing and other urban problems. It is in this spirit that I am confident your committee will consider the provisions of S. 3278, with whose objectives and general provisions I wish to concur. Cordially, ALAN BIBLE, Chairman. STATEMENT OF ALAN BIBLE, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEVADA Experience with the Interstate Highway program by now has made it abundantly clear that the urban portions of this national network of expressways present more problems than had at first been contemplated. These parts of the System are extremely expensive, due to the land-acquisition costs. In New York City we are about to build the Nation's first $100 million mile of highway. Costs of $15 million per mile are not uncommon. The impact of such enormous engineering developments is terrific. Distance has been annihilated between remote points in metropolitan areas, accelerating the tendencies toward industrial and residential recentralization that have created problems for cities everywhere. The deterioration of older, central areas has also been speeded, further complicating municipal problems. State and local budgets have been distorted by the effort to raise even the modest amounts of money needed to match the 90 percent Federal highway-program grants. The dislocation of many thousands of urban families, and the difficulties of relocating them in new homes, have posed a new problem for city welfare and housing authorities. In retrospect, the Federal Interstate Highway program, as it is working in our large cities (where one-sixth of the 41,000-mile net is found), is a veritable Pandora's box from which have come problems even gretaer than those the highways were designed to relieve. Much of these difficulties, perhaps most, seem to be the result of an effort by State highway departments to reflect local commuter traffic in estimating the need for metropolitan expressways. These large volumes of journey-to-work trips were never clearly authorized by Congress as the major element in the interstate program they have since become. The language of the Interstate Highway Act merely permits such travel to be recognized in the discretion of State and Federal highway officials. It is clear that this provision of the act is not sufficient to present these burdensome and unwise travel demands from finding accommodation in the interstate program. The conclusion reached by many thoughtful people is that national bankruptcy, and the destruction of our cities, will be the result of any sustained attempt to solve the commuter-travel problems of America's great metropolitan areas solely by constructing new expressways. I recognize certainly the need for expressways. They are our most modern and efficient form of highway. They can carry nearly four times the number of vehicles at two or three times the speed of ordinary highways. They have brought about spectacular reductions in travel time, and made great contributions to the reduction of highway accidents. All these advatnages are fully appreciated by the American people. And, I may further recognize, the limited access expressway has brought a new and uniquely welcome standard of highway beauty, free from roadside blight, and allowing us to appreciate once again the great American landscape and many sections of our cities previously hidden behind billboards, filling stations, and used carlots. There can be no doubt of our need for a national system of expressways, or of the fact that it can be largely a self-liquidating proposition, paid for out of charges on the highway user. But this can be said only if we are willing to restrict expressway building in metropolitan centers. The problem we face, then, is the rush hour in big cities. Again, we must recognize that great changes have been taking place in urban movement. Much travel from home to work is not to central city destinations, but to new employment centers in the suburbs. It is travel around the central city. Further travel originates in the need to get to new schools, shopping centers, or recreational areas within metropolitan areas. I believe most of this travel demand will have to be met by private motorcars. But what about the residue? What is the most efficient way of carrying people into the central area and between destinations in the central city? Here we must have some more efficient method of transportation than the highway, or even the expressway. We must have it to serve efficiently and economically the enormous volumes of travel at the rush hour. We must keep the expressway system free to do its job, or it will break down under the hopeless load thrust upon it. We must develop alternative ways to carry the commuter traffic if the central city is not to become one vast and unprofitable parking lot, and if the additional expressways required are not to cover our cities in costly and destructive rivers of cement, flooding quiet residential streets with their traffic, and making the city hideous with "the roaring traffic's boom." Modern transit is the only way to carry the city's rush-hour traffic. By transit I mean mass transportation in exclusive rights-of-way operating at high rates of speed. Transit may mean the improved but rather conventional forms of electric railway we know today, on the surface or in subways. New power sources and signaling devices are creating a rail revolution. It may mean rail or express bus lanes, perhaps in the median strips of expressways as is suggested by the design of the Congress Street Expressway in Chicago. Or it may embrace some advanced transportation technology such as the monorail, the low-pressure air |