STATEMENT OF GLENN E. BENNETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, Mr. BENNETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. I appreciate Congressman Weltner's introduction, and I am very happy to be here before this committee. My name is Glenn Bennett, and I am the executive director of the Atlanta Region Metropolitan Planning Commission, Atlanta, Ga. I also act as secretary to the newly created Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority and secretary of the Metropolitan Atlanta Council of Local Governments, which was organized in 1964. I am grateful for the opportunity to appear before you in support of H.R. 12946, which provides incentives in the form of grants for properly planned development projects in metropolitan areas. This I am certain is in the public interest. The emphasis is on metropolitanwide comprehensive planning and coordinated programing of public improvements in metropolitan areas. In effect it provides a bonus for coordinated capital improvement programing throughout an area, and it elevates metropolitan planning to a point closer than it has been in most areas, to actual decisionmaking by local governments. It provides encouragement for the translation of metropolitan plans into action, and the grants proposed under this bill could also make it possible for certain projects stalled for lack of funds to go forward. We are all hard pressed for money for open land, sewer facilities, mass transit, and airport facilities. Every Federal aid bonus helps and in this case funds are contingent on sensible planning. I would like to comment briefly on the progess we have made in metropolitan planning in the Atlanta area where we have had a metropolitan planning commission for many years. It was formed by local initiative long before most of the current Federal aid programs were created. Good use of the so-called 701 Federal planning assistance has been made; since 1955 we have received grants totaling approximately $372,669, including those projects now in progress. Other applications are pending which amount to $110,372. We have successfully employed the funds in studies related to rapid transit, open spaces, housing and building codes, economic and social research, comprehensive land use planning generally, and airport planning, I would like to point out that our commission has always had elected officials and heads of governments as a part of its membership. This, I think, is important. We have considered our functions to be (1) regional research; (2) long-range planning; (3) planning assistance for communities; and (4) coordination of local government activity; Our efforts have successfully brought into being a council of local governments, a metropole, which is an area wide organization of lawenforcement officials, and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority to implement rapid transit plans. These are action agencies; they are metropolitanwide and capable of assisting implementation. They can deal with regional problems that flow across jurisdictional boundaries-traffic, urban transportation, pollution, and law enforcement, for example. The degree to which we have been able to influence land use, highway location, and other regional develop ment has varied from time to time but it is safe to say, I believe, that we have been moderately successful over the years. are con ade. CTOR TON m very Bennett. to the ity and nments Implementing regional plans throughout the many jurisdictions is difficult, to say the least. It would appear to me that H.R. 12946 would assist in this respect; it encourages that which some of us have been trying to do all along, and it rewards local governments for comprehensive planning and coordination. I have long been in favor of some form of regional referral to a politan metropolitan agency for those capital improvements which have regional significance. This bill provides an incentive and could very well upgrade significantly the decisionmaking processes in a metropolitan area. This is indeed the objective toward which we are all striving. Suppor nts for I am glad to say the Atlanta region has the organizational facilities to make good use of the provisions of this bill. Good foundations have This been laid for area wide coordination, and we are experienced in metropolitan planning. Our local governments have supported and used ing of metropolitan planning for a long time without any particular incentives from Washington. This bill could increase its effectiveness. rides 1 ughen поге seme ning Mr. Chairman, if I may I should like to make some remarks about rth title III, "Urban Mass Transportation." Not so long ago, as Conregressman Weltner mentioned, I had the honor to appear before several ol of you and discuss this subject prior to the passage of the Mass TransId asportation Act of 1964. We now have, as I mentioned earlier, an to agency with the legal authority to construct and operate a regional rapid transit system. Plans developed in 1962 with 701 assistance were used as a basis for a recent 702 public facilities loan request in the amount of $1,100,000 for preliminary engineering and further refinement of plans. We are now told that the money is not available to meet this request, although the application is in order and all the earlier planning provides a sound basis for this stage of our transit development. We have been told we have "done our homework well," but that funds under this program are short. I mention this disappointing situation in the hope that you gentlemen may be able to remedy it sometime soon. had's Atlanta is starting from scratch to build a new rapid transit system. We are about to start on engineering a 36-mile line that will cost probably $300 million to construct in 1969 or 1970. The mass transit bill as it stands now doesn't help us much, since nowhere near the amount of the funds we need are yet in sight. In spite of this our local governments and the State government are going bravely and confidently ahead with preliminary steps. If some assurance could be given to cities like Atlanta that substantial assistance can be forthcoming over a period of years, our present dilemma would be eased considerably. The present authorizations and appropriations under the mass transit bill help only the small cities that need buses and the large cities that are extending existing transit systems. For those of us trying to create new systems the funds are totally inadequate; and with traffic congestion rapidly growing worse our plight is dramatized daily. The case for enormous public expenditures for transit grows Stronger and our planning forecasts repeatedly turn out to be too low. The same could be said, for that matter, about our air traffic in Atlanta as well, but that is a matter for another day. |