ple rapidly is occurring in many cities of 100,000 across the country, is it not?

Mr. DENNIS. Yes. That is why I expressed myself so far as knowing it was a metropolitan development because it is essential that our city, any other city, have good public transportation, whatever it is, whether it is a bus, a streetcar or a commuter line or what you will.

I think the whole approach to transportation must mean that we have the best that the area needs. If New York needs this, they should have it. If Rochester needs this, they could have it and get some direction and advice to help us as to how to get it. Time is a great element, and if we get good bus service, frequent schedules, we can save time, which we can all use.

Senator WILLIAMS. Just one further inquiry on my part, and the chairman of this subcommittee, as you know, Senator Sparkman, who is here, will probably want to comment. So I will be brief.

We have been advised, and this bill is in response to this advice in part, that transit companies, railroads, and others concerned with mass transportation, have run on some rather difficult financial days. That their structures are such that borrowing at the high commercial rates is unattractive and impossible for them. Therefore, if anything is to be done, they have to have money available at a rate they can afford. The rate provided in this bill is a quarter of 1 percent above the average cost of Federal Government borrowing, notwithstanding the fact that it is above cost and notwithstanding the need that we feel.

We do hear comments that this is a subsidy, and people are opposing the effort, some of them, on that basis. Would you give us your feeling of the financial aspects of the Federal Government making money available on the basis of this bill?

Mr. DENNIS. I have been brought up in a Scotch house. We were trained to go on our own. However, we are going at such a terrific pace, and urban areas are developing so fast-again, I am speaking for myself in this particular case-but I am of the opinion that any reasonable and economic way of helping public transportation is indicated. I would prefer, if you will, and maybe it is impossible, to have the bus company operate as it does in our own city. They are able to go on their own. But I realize we have a different situation. my judgment, whatever is an economic way to do it, a businesslike way to do it, I believe they must be helped. They have to be helped in some way.

In

Surely, they should go on their own, but there are too many things they cannot control. If they could control their entire operation, I think I would go along with my own bringing up, you wriggle yourself out of a bad situation. But there are so many things they have no control of.

Senator WILLIAMS. In their nature of being public utilities and under control and regulation.

Mr. DENNIS. That is right.

Senator WILLIAMS. We are grateful, more than grateful, for the support of this effort by a man of your high standing and proven success in business.

Senator Sparkman?

Senator SPARKMAN. No questions, Senator Williams. I did not get to hear all of Mr. Dennis' statement. I did hear a good part of it, and I simply want to say that I enjoyed your approach to it, and I go along with Senator Williams in expressing appreciation that you would come here and help out on this complex problem.

Mr. DENNIS. Thank you.

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you, again, Mr. Dennis.

Our next witness is Col. C. K. Harding, chief of the Planning Division, Georgia Department of Commerce. Is Colonel Harding here? Will you join us here? We are grateful for your appearance here this morning.

STATEMENT OF COL. C. K. HARDING, PLANNING DIVISION,
GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Colonel HARDING. Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, I was announced as chief of the Planning Division of the Georgia Department of Commerce. Actually, I am, in effect, one of the Indians. My chief was unavoidably detained in Atlanta and could not make it. So he asked

me to come.

I am going to talk briefly about this bill and the city of Atlanta. Atlanta, as you know, is a city within its corporate limits of about 520,000 people. The metropolitan area is expected to reach 1 million people in this 1960 census.

I have submitted testimony which is actually in answer to a list of questions which Senator Williams sent us a week or so ago. I could read those answers, but most of it, I believe, you have heard with reference to other cities. It has to do with the terrific, complicated problem that we do have in mass transportation of the people from the entire metropolitan area and, of course, beyond those limits. It is a terrific problem in Atlanta.

We have there no rapid transit facilities as such. We have the several railroads that come into the city. They do not operate commuter trains as such. We are dependent entirely on buses, trolleys, trackless trolleys, and, of course, private transportation. The city has gone into expressway plans and planning. It has a metropolitan planning commission which was created by the general assembly of the State for the purpose of coming up with a master plan for the city, metropolitan area, for its orderly growth and controlled growth. They have recently made and completed studies of the expressways and exactly what they are accomplishing and what they will accomplish in the way of alleviating the tremendous problem. The question of getting the people into the downtown area and getting them out of there in the evenings. The material that I have submitted, most of it, has come from the staff of that metropolitan commission because they are the ones who have been studying this problem. And our own planning agency there in the State has not gotten into that particular subject.

Senator WILLIAMS. Is this commission that was created at the State level just for the planning in Atlanta, or for all other communities in the State?

Colonel HARDING. For Metropolitan Atlanta, which comprises five counties. They have determined that any system of expressways

that are at all practical or feasible financially or physically, engineeringly, will not be the answer to this problem. Their thinking now is that there must be some form of rapid transit, surface rapid transit, to take care of a great part of this burden.

The problem downtown, of course, is the same as any large city. The expressways bring these masses of people into the city, into the heart of it, rapidly. But when you get there, the outloading capacity of the city streets is entirely inadequate. Also, areas, buildings, downtown are rapidly becoming parking areas for cars. It is, in effect, a waste of land that could be otherwise more profitably used.

There is one thing about this bill that we feel should be a caution in it, and that is section 701 of the Housing Act of 1954. Actually, in our opinion, it authorizes planning of this particular type, but I do not think it contemplated the magnitude which this particular bill

considers.

Senator WILLIAMS. That section suffers from anemia; does it not? There is not very much money available for it.

Colonel HARDING. That is what I was getting at, Senator. We do not want the little money that we have for the conventional planning that is provided in section 701 to go into this particular expansive study.

Senator WILLIAMS. You will be glad to know that Mr. David Walker, the Commissioner having jurisdiction over the section 701 program would be grateful for more money for this purpose. He is a member of the Administration, and that was his testimony, I believe, Mr. Chairman.

Senator SPARKMAN. Yes, sir.

Colonel HARDING. There never has been enough money, of course, for the community planning and metropolitan area planning to take care of the whole United States.

Senator WILLIAMS. Has Atlanta availed itself of the present program of planning grants?

Colonel HARDING. Yes. They have, I think, received three grants. I do not have the figures to show what those amounts are.

That is about all I have to say, sir. I have submitted these two reports of the Metropolitan Planning Commission which cover the expressway studies.

They are now engaged in a study of mass transportation and rapid transit in particular. They expect to finish that this year.

One reason the proposed amendment to the bill is attractive to us is because it does furnish money which is now not available.

Senator WILLIAMS. What do you mean, "not available." Colonel? Colonel HARDING. We just do not have the money. We need Federal help.

Senator WILLIAMS. Could you not go out and borrow in the regular money markets?

Colonel HARDING. No, because the city is limited by legislation to the extent to which it can borrow. In other words, its bonded indebtedness is so much.

Senator WILLIAMS. Are you near your ceiling and, therefore, not in a position to

Colonel HARDING. I am not positive on that, but I believe that is the situation.

Senator WILLIAMS. I wonder if there would be another limitation on the ability of the city to borrow in commercial markets, and that is the high interest rates that are now required.

Colonel HARDING. Yes, that certainly would retard it.

Senator WILLIAMS. Does the fact that this Federal program of lending would be at a low rate of interest just a bit above the average being charged to the Government, change your view of this legislation? Would that make you hesitate, or do you still favor the legislation?

Colonel HARDING. No, I do not think so; no, sir.

Senator WILLIAMS. There is just one other aspect I would like to deal with, and we will include your full statement, of course, in the record. The hour is getting late, so I will terminate with this observation: I am not familiar with Atlanta, but its reputation nationally is that it is a city of charm and attractiveness, a city that is inviting for people to come to and enjoy the opportunities for business and recreation there. Is your city a city of amenities?

Colonel HARDING. Yes, it is. We feel so. I am not a native of Atlanta myself. I have lived there now on two separate occasionsthe first time for 2 years. I have been there now the last 6, and I find it everything that you have just said. It is an attractive city, and it is growing. But, of course, its growth is out beyond the corporate limits. It is an attractive city, and it can become very unattractive and undesirable downtown if conditions continue to grow as they are now. This is just due to the fact that we cannot get around downtown.

Senator WILLIAMS. Yes, and it was also suggested that if the automobile makes it necessary to destroy or remove the amenities of the central city, after that has been accomplished, then we have the beginning of the seeds of blight. They are planted, and blight will follow.

I know of two cities where the pressures have developed to what I would consider unhappy results. The city of Newark, N.J., has a park right in the center of the city, a very lovely park, Military Park. That now has been totally torn up and an underground parking garage is being built. It is going to be covered again, and I gather trees will be planted. But it will be a long time before that amenity in that city is restored in full.

They have, in Boston, the same thing happening to Boston Common. I understand, there, they are preserving the trees. I do not know how they can preserve some of those ancient and beautiful trees, but we hope it is happening. I think we ought to ask the City of Boston what the charge is, how much that is going to cost, to save the trees on the Common when they are building a garage.

But these are examples of what can follow the mad rush toward automobile transportation to the exclusion of more efficient and better rapid transit.

Colonel HARDING. All over Atlanta, you see the older buildings being torn down. Probably they should be torn down. But coming up in their place is the typical multistoried parking facility for automobiles, and I do not believe I have seen very many of those that add to the attractiveness of the city.

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you.
Senator Sparkman?

Senator SPARKMAN. No, no questions.

Colonel HARDING. Thank you, sir.

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you very much.

Senator SPARKMAN. Glad to head the testimony from the representative of my neighboring city.

Senator WILLIAMS. I will be happy to advise Senators Russell and Talmadge of your help here this morning.

Colonel HARDING. Thank you, sir.

(The material supplied by Colonel Harding follows:)

COL. C. K. HARDING, PLANNING DIVISION, GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS RE S. 3278

1. What are the nature and dimensions of the urban mass transportation problem?

Perhaps no other problem being faced by metropolitan areas is quite as severe as the problem of urban transportation. In Atlanta, metropolitan planning commission has prepared numerous reports concerned with the urban transportation problem. The most recent of these, completed in 1959, are "Access to Central Atlanta" and "Crosstown and Bypass Expressways." In these reports it was indicated that the transportation problem in Atlanta cannot be solved by the expressway system as programed or even when supplemented by an intermediate loop. It was also indicated that rapid transit must be a partial solution to the overall transportation problem. This is particularly true for the peak hours of travel when congestion is worst.

One important finding expressed in metropolitan planning commission's report, "Crosstown and Bypass Expressways," is that, "An auto-dominant transportation system will never be able to carry radial loads adequately during rush hours, even with maximum possible use of expressway buses. Transit innovations, such as exclusive right-of-way rapid transit, will be absolutely essential and should be investigated as an immediate followup to this expressway study. Without rapid transit by 1970 we would need 120 expressway lanes radiating to and from central Atlanta, and a 28-lane downtown connector." This projection has not been made with sufficient accuracy to permit the designing of such facilities, even if it were a physical possibility.

Rapid transit for the Atlanta region is currently being studied as a followup to the expressway studies.

2. How important is it in relation to other metropolitan area problems?

The urban transportation problem is extremely serious and important, because it is directly related to all other metropolitan problems. For example, the problems of incompatible land uses are accentuated by the lack of transportation facilities serving these areas.

3. What are the States and localities doing to achieve a solution? Are they making maximum efforts? Are they capable of handling the problem alone? If not, what are the factors that prevent them from doing so? The State of Georgia is participating heavily in the interstate expressway system. Atlanta is one of the few metropolitan areas which receives six interstate expressways converging on the downtown area. This system, however, even when completed, will be inadequate to handle the volumes of traffic created by a regional center of Atlanta's importance. To illustrate this point, the northern portion of the expressway currently has 6 lanes, but has traffic sufficient to warrant 16 lanes. By 1970 this need will have jumped to at least 36 lanes. By no stretch of the imagination is it physically or financially possible to build such a facility.

Various studies are being undertaken by the State, the city of Atlanta, metropolitan planning commission, and by the Joint Bond Commission of Fulton County and Atlanta, and yet, these studies do not totally solve the urban transportation problem. There remains an illogical piecemeal approach.

Underway at the present time is a comprehensive origin and destination study and survey being conducted chiefly by the State highway department with financial assistance from the bureau of public roads. It is anticipated that this study will require approximately 3 years to complete. This study will give