submitted by Congressman Widnall, of New Jersey, which I feel is a very logical and practical extension of that act.

Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee, that concludes Ly oral statement.

(The complete statement of Mr. Schaefer follows:)

STATEMENT OF GENE R. SCHAEFER, DIRECTOR, MASS TRANSIT OPERATIONS, WESTINGHOUSE AIR BRAKE COMPANY (WABCO), PITTSBURgh, Pa.

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, my name is Gene R. Schaefer. I am director of mass transit operations for the Westinghouse Air Brake Co (Wabco) headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pa. My company's interest in and knowledge of urban and interurban transportation developments and deficiencies is based on years of experience in supplying this industry. Today our work in the urban transit field ranges from taking preliminary soil samples, to air pol lution studies; from tunneling and excavating roadbeds, to designing and manufacturing computerized control systems for new transit properties. In fact. nearly 75 percent of the world's present rapid transit systems are, in one way or another, constructed, controlled, braked, routed or protected by Wabco prod ucts. Our investment in the future of urban transit is great.

Understandably, we have a strong desire to see the urban mass transportation industry in this country prosper. This desire is based not only on our long-range commitment and necessity of making a profit to stay in business-it is also based on our firm belief that improved and adequate mass transportation will make our cities better places in which to live.

With few exceptions in recent years, this country's urban mass transit facilities have been little improved and are generally inadequate to meet fast growing urban area transportation needs. As is often the case, this inadequacy was not publicly recognized until it became a serious problem in many cities. Today the lack of adequate means to efficiently move great numbers of people into, out of. and within urban centers is recognized as more than a local problem. It has become a dilemma of national importance.

Let me put the problem in perspective as I see it.

Seriously inadequate facilities to serve essential needs of the people living in urban areas is at the root of the mass transportation problem. Urbanization has proceeded until nearly 70 percent of our population is concentrated in urban areas; but mass transit facilities have not only deteriorated, they have de creased. Future population growth will mean further urban growth. By 1980 it is expected that our population will reach 250 million and that 3 out of every 4 persons will be living within urban areas. Urban transportation needs will grow accordingly.

Urban growth has brought changing living habits and patterns. Growing masses of people living farther from their places of work and the city's core need and want fast transportation. The automobile, with its fiexibility and convenience, has been increasingly used to meet most of the expanded transportation demand.

But it has become evident that the automobile alone cannot provide the total answer for the transportation needs of a modern urban area. Traffic flow has outpaced the capacity of our streets and highways; on- and off-street parking facilities are filled as fast as provided; bumper-to-bumper travel and the competition for parking space are levying heavy tolls on the finances, the time, and the nerves of urban and suburban dwellers.

Although the great majority of total urban transportation needs is and will continue to be met by private auto travel, improved public transportation in our cities will reduce the overall cost of providing adequate transportation facilities and will give their residents greatly increased convenience and flexibility of choice.

In our larger cities, as much as 90 percent of the peak-hour travel into the city is dependent on public transportation-a daily mass transfer of ponnlation that can only be met by large-scale transit, such as buses, subways, and commuter trains. Also, many persons in both large and small urban areas are completely dependent on public transportation at all times. They include those too young or to old to drive, and those who find owning a car too inconvenient or too expensive.

Today our urban transportation functions have been thrown seriously out of balance. As more cars congest our streets, slow our traffic, and entail increasingly heavy costs in thoroughfares, parking, and traffic control, one of our largest urban investments, that of our public transportation systems, is being steadily liquidated at a time when the need for it is increasing.

Unable to meet the needs out of the fare box for improved and extended service, our public transit systems have curtailed service and increased fares, and as a result have forced more people into automobiles.

In the 10-year period between 1952 and 1962, the number of revenue passengers carried by all forms of transit service declined about 40 percent in the face of an exploding urban population. Declining patronage has brought declining income, higher fares, curtailed service, and further losses in passengers.

Caught in this vicious circle, many transit lines and systems have gone out of business. Since 1954 a total of 199 have been abandoned, and many others are in serious financial difficulty.

The Federal Government has a basic interest in the efficient functioning of our cities, where nearly 70 percent of our people live and where most of our services and wealth are generated. Our transportation system, moreover, has been a Federal interest since the founding of the Nation.

Congress has voted billions of dollars to help build highways and airports, dredge harbors, build canals, and improve river navigation. It voted substantial assistance to our railroads when they needed help in opening the undeveloped frontier areas for settlement. Not until the trial program authorized in the Housing Act of 1961, however, did we recognize the Federal responsibility to aid in the mass transportation systems of our urban economy.

At present, 50- to 90-percent grants are available for urban highways under the Federal-aid highway program. Under this program about $20 billion will be spent, and should be, on the urban portion of the Interstate System alone, and additional hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent each year on the urban primary and secondary systems. Thus, massive and continuing grant assistance is available for needed urban highways, whereas the only Federal assistance for vital urban mass transportation has been the temporary $50 million loan program of 1961, and the soon-to-expire $375 million demonstration grant program. In this situation, it is very difficult for local officials to make objective decisions as to whether particular urban transportation needs are to be met by private automobile or mass transportation facilities. You have heard several mayors testify to this fact during this hearing.

The mass transportation problem is national in scope. It is a major problem and a difficult burden in all our larger cities. And it is equally critical in many of our small ones as well. There are today at least 60 cities with populations between 25,000 and 50,000 that have no organized transit service at all.

The problem is no longer one that can be dealt with on a local basis alone. It has long since spilled over the boundaries of local political jurisdictions and even over State lines. Some 53 of the country's approximately 200 metropolitan areas either border or cross over State lines, with their transit needs ignoring local boundaries.

Even more acute than the jurisdictional difficulties are the financial difficulties of the local governments. Many are hard pressed to pay for essential services to growing populations. Many have reached maximum debt limits.

Yet the revenue from fares alone cannot provide the capital needed to meet growing urban transit needs at fares that are economical for the riders and the company. Private capital must be supplemented by public investment, as we have done in the past for airlines, railroads, shipping, and automobile travel, in order that our transit systems can help to meet the urgent needs of our expanding urban areas.

House bill 13732 submitted by Representative Widnall, of New Jersey, would amend the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 to authorize additional annual appropriations for grants-providing limited but vital Federal and local assistance necessary to keep our mass transit systems in business and to develop balanced and economical urban transportation systems.

The potential of such Federal help has already been indicated through demonstration projects assisted under the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964. At this point I would like to commend John C. Kohl, former Deputy Administrator, Office of Transportation, Housing and Home Finance Agency (later Department of Housing and Urban Development), who has so capably

administered the first Federal mass transit assistance program. It has been a pleasure to work with both him and his efficient staff. The success this limited but important program has enjoyed is due in large measure to John Kohl's ability, dedication, and thorough understanding of the social, political, economic, and technological factors affecting mass transit. A lesser man in the job would not have succeeded. All of us in the transit industry owe John Kohl a debt of gratitude.

Much has been said recently about the need for a "crash program” of federally funded mass transit research. In some areas of research, particularly statistical and economic studies, the need is immediate. However, I have serious reservations about the wisdom of appropriating large sums of Federal money for hardware research and development until there is a better definition of urban needs. Wabco's transit research and development program, which we do not publicize for competitive reasons, is extensive. Our international complex of companies supplying the transit industry keeps us in close touch with technological developments throughout the world.

I can say to you without reservation that the technological progress applicable to mass transit, now going forward in this country, is second to none. As the market for mass transit products and services expands, private industry will quickly supply new and significantly improved products. One of the major problems facing all of us in the transit supply industry is the limited information available from most cities regarding their specific mass transit system and hardware needs or desires.

In conclusion, the complex problem of moving people efficiently and economically in our urban areas is acute. It will become worse. The limited Federal program now underway to help urban areas relieve this creeping congestion is a vital first step. The program must continue. Congressman Widnall's bill represents a logical, practical proposal to give our urban regions continuing assistance in upgrading and expanding inadequate mass transportation facilities. American industry, particularly the established suppliers to the transit industry, are pouring ever increasing resources into transit research and development programs. Much more needs to be done and will be done by the private sector to improve and expand transit products and services.

This country must and will have the finest urban mass transportation systems that known technology can provide. The Federal Government can and should fiancially aid our cities in planning, designing, building, and equipping these needed systems. I urge your favorable consideration of extending and expanding the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964.

Thank you.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you very much. We appreciate your very fine statement. I have no questions to ask you.

Mr. Widnall?

Mr. WIDNALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Schaefer, I certainly appreciate the support shown by you in your testimony for the bill that I have submitted.

I do feel that there is a definite need to put this on a permanent basis whereas you have a system of annual authorization that will permit adequate planning in the future. I think that your own company, having been in the field so long, the transportation field by way of supplies, research, is in a good position to testify on this out of its own experience as to the development of systems and also from the sidelines of watching the deterioration of systems because they have not had the means to carry on in the field here for the future of equipment or operations. Your comment is sound and I appreciate your coming before the committee.

Mr. BARRETT. Mr. Moorhead?

Mr. MOORHEAD. Mr. Schaefer, what relationship do you have or do you contemplate between Wabco and the Transportation Research Institute at Carnegie Tech?

Mr. SCHAEFER. The Transportation Institute which has just been formed at Carnegie Tech offers, I believe, a great hope for studies that would not be competitive with those undertaken by private enterprise such as Wabco. We would like to work-we fully expect to work very closely with Carnegie Tech and the new Transportation Institute in those areas of research that will contribute materially to the improvement of mass transit technology.

Mr. MOORHEAD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. BARRETT. Mrs. Dwyer?

Mrs. DWYER. No questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. Schaefer. We appreciate your coming. You make an excellent witness.

Mr. SCHAEFER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARRETT. Our next witness will be Mr. George L. DeMent, president, Institute for Rapid Transit.

Mr. DeMent, we are glad to have you. We certainly desire that you be completely relaxed here and we will give you the same choice we have given all witnesses. You may desire to make your statement in part or submit it for the record or if you choose to read it in full you may do so. We will go along with you.

Mr. DEMENT. I would like the privilege of reading it since I flew up from Miami where the sun was shining, to come to this hearing, because I think it is a most important subject. I think this committee is worthy of a full statement.

Mr. BARRETT. Thank you, Mr. DeMent, you may proceed with your statement.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE L. DeMENT, PRESIDENT, INSTITUTE FOR RAPID TRANSIT, AND CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF THE CHICAGO TRANSIT AUTHORITY

Mr. DEMENT. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, let me first introduce myself. I am George L. DeMent, chairman of the board of the Chicago Transit Authority, an autonomous, nontaxing public agency, operator of the mass transportation system in Chicago and 29 suburbs. Previously, I was public works commissioner of the city of Chicago, and have spent my entire professional career in public as an engineer and administrator. As commissioner of public works, I was responsible for completion of such projects as Chicago's initial subways, O'Hare International Airport and the new expressway system, of which one major route is the famous Eisenhower Expressway or West Route, which incorporates the first rapid transit route in the median strip of an expressway. Presently, I am also serving as a member of the newly created Illinois State Commission on High Speed Rail Transit and as a member of a special committee appointed by Mayor Richard J. Daley, of Chicago, for supervising preliminary planning of a new downtown Chicago subway system.

However, I am appearing before you today primarily as president of the Institute for Rapid Transit. The Institute for Rapid Transit is a not-for-profit corporation whose objectives are to promote, improve, and expand rapid transit, particularly rail rapid transit in the Nation's heavily populated metropolitan areas. The membership

of the institute embraces all facets of the industry-operating and planning organizations, manufacturers and suppliers, and consulting engineering firms. However, the institute's board of directors, as the policymaking body, consists entirely of representatives of the following operating and planning organizations: Bi-State Transit System (St. Louis), Chicago Transit Authority, Cleveland Transit System, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (Boston), Montreal Transportation Commission, New York City Transit Authority, Port Authority of Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, Toronto Transit Commission.

First, as a representative of the rapid transit industry, I would like to express our appreciation for the recognition that Congress has given to the need for financial assistance to mass transit improvements through the enactment of Mass Transportation Acts of 1962 and 1964. The position of our industry long has been that metropolitan areas must have a balanced approach to their transportation problems. Obviously, the automobile is here to stay. It is performing and will continue to perform an important function in fulfilling the overall transportation needs of the community. At the same time, however, I am sure we all realize that in our congested and growing urban areas the automobile alone cannot possibly perform the total transpor tation job. This is particularly true with regard to moving large numbers of people to and from the central business district in the peak hours of travel. The truth of the matter is that unless modern transit facilities, particularly rapid transit facilities in large areas, are provided along with similar urban highway improvements, there is little or no hope of maintaining prosperous and growing central business districts.

Our problem in the post-World War II years was that for the most part, this importance or need for public transportation was not recognized. To further complicate matters, funds were readily available for highway construction while little if any such assistance was

available for transit.

Now that Congress is being asked to continue this assistance, you might very well inquire about what has been accomplished with the assistance previously authorized. I think, Congressman, you asked that question.

Many cities throughout the country, grateful for this action on the part of the Federal Government, have taken immediate steps to avail themselves of this much needed assistance. Time would not permit a complete review of the benefits derived by the various rapid transit systems. We would like, however, to cite a few examples which are typical.

1. Cleveland: In Cleveland, Federal assistance now is making possible the construction, for the first time in the United States, of a rail rapid transit facility connecting a major airport with the downtown business district. Some local funds had been available for this extension for a number of years. However, these local funds were grossly insufficient to carry out the construction so the project lay dormant until Federal assistance became available.

2. New York City: I think Mr. Gilhooley explained that and I need not explain that. They bought 200 new cars which otherwise would not have been available to them.