Busting the Trust:

Unraveling the Highway Trust Fund

1968-1978

by 

Richard F. Weingroff 

Federal Highway Administration

President Richard M. Nixon signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 in the Oval Office on 

August 13. Behind him, l to r, are Senator Jennings Randolph (D-WV), Senator Howard H. Baker, 

Jr. (R-Tn.), Representative Robert P. Hanrahan (R-Il.), Secretary of Transportation Claude S. 

Brinegar, Administrator Frank C. Herringer of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, and 

Federal Highway Administrator Norbert T. Tiemann. 

June 2013 

Busting the Trust:

Unraveling the Highway Trust Fund 1968-1973 

Table of Contents 

FOREWARD .................................................................................................................................. 1

Introduction: The Highway Trust Fund .......................................................................................... 3

Part 1: The Sacrosanct Trust ......................................................................................................... 14

The Transit Crisis ...................................................................................................................... 19

President Kennedy’s Messages on Transportation ................................................................... 27

A Profoundly Significant Urban Measure ................................................................................. 37

Diversion to Transit .................................................................................................................. 43

The U.S. Department of Transportation.................................................................................... 45

The Fiscal Bomb ....................................................................................................................... 54

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968..................................................................................... 62

Changing of the Guard .............................................................................................................. 69

Urban Transit Challenges.......................................................................................................... 79

A Program for Urban Mass Transportation .............................................................................. 85

Public Attitudes Toward Highways .......................................................................................... 90

The Highway Lobby Fights Back ............................................................................................. 99

National Transportation Trust Fund ........................................................................................ 102

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970................................................................................... 108

Action in the House ................................................................................................................ 114

Cleaning the Air ...................................................................................................................... 126

Impoundment Goes to Court ................................................................................................... 129

Part 2: On Shaky Ground ............................................................................................................ 132

A Highway Advocate Leaves the Scene ................................................................................. 132

A New Direction ..................................................................................................................... 133

Terms of Battle ....................................................................................................................... 141

Thwarting the Will of Congress .............................................................................................. 157

Troubled Transit ...................................................................................................................... 159

The Boston Revolt .................................................................................................................. 170

Public Enemy No. 1 ................................................................................................................ 180

Bicycle Revival ....................................................................................................................... 184

A Statement on National Transportation Policy ..................................................................... 186

A Question of Proper Mix....................................................................................................... 191

Part 3: The Year of Reckoning ................................................................................................... 204

Planning for Reelection ........................................................................................................... 204

Cracks in the Lobby ................................................................................................................ 206

Bottomless Pits ....................................................................................................................... 215

An Efficient and Balanced System ......................................................................................... 219

The Single Urban Fund ........................................................................................................... 234

Taking the Case to the Hill ..................................................................................................... 243

The Administration Bill .......................................................................................................... 264

In the Senate ............................................................................................................................ 268

End of an Era—A Legend Steps Down .................................................................................. 291

Party Platforms ........................................................................................................................ 295
Addressing the Urban Crisis ................................................................................................... 297

The Senate’s Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 .................................................................... 301

1972 National Transportation Report ..................................................................................... 306

Commission on Highway Beautification Interim Report ........................................................ 316

Rebellion Against the Concrete Ethos .................................................................................... 317

Floor Action ............................................................................................................................ 327

The House Rules Committee .................................................................................................. 343

Passing the House Bill ............................................................................................................ 363

The Conferees Reach Agreement............................................................................................ 375

Post-Mortems .......................................................................................................................... 387

Part 4: Finishing the Job ............................................................................................................. 406

Aftermath of a Historic Landslide .......................................................................................... 406

Claude S. Brinegar .................................................................................................................. 412

The Super-Secretaries ............................................................................................................. 422

One More Passing ................................................................................................................... 427

State of the Union ................................................................................................................... 429

Setting the Stage for Action .................................................................................................... 433

The Advocates on PBS ........................................................................................................... 436

Ongoing Battles....................................................................................................................... 444

Los Angeles: 20th Century Ghost Town ................................................................................. 449

The Opening Salvo ................................................................................................................. 454

Hearings Get Underway .......................................................................................................... 463

Secretary Brinegar’s Busy Day: A.M. .................................................................................... 466

The Secretary’s Busy Day: P.M. ............................................................................................ 472

Familiar Voices ....................................................................................................................... 477

Watergate Committee ............................................................................................................. 485

The Kennedy-Weicker Bill, S. 679 ......................................................................................... 486

AAA, American Trucking Associations, and the Highway Action Coalition ........................ 494

Governor Sargent .................................................................................................................... 506

More Familiar Voices ............................................................................................................. 512

William D. Ruckelshaus ......................................................................................................... 517

The Final Day of Senate Hearings .......................................................................................... 525

The Brinegar Bill .................................................................................................................... 531

A Change of Heart .................................................................................................................. 535

King Auto’s Day of Judgment ................................................................................................ 536

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 6 ....................................................................................... 548

The Senate Committee on Public Works Bill ......................................................................... 549

The Senate Takes Up The 1973 Act ....................................................................................... 556

The Senate Finishes Its Bill .................................................................................................... 581

Ramifications .......................................................................................................................... 599

Frank C. Herringer .................................................................................................................. 605

Urban Mass Transportation Act Hearing ................................................................................ 609

The Senate’s Highway Safety Act of 1973 ............................................................................. 621

Desperate in New York City ................................................................................................... 632

The Watergate Controversy Gathers Steam ............................................................................ 643

Secretary Brinegar Makes His Case ........................................................................................ 650

More Voices ............................................................................................................................ 672
The Hearings Continue ........................................................................................................... 689

Protesting the AAA Position ................................................................................................... 724

Massachusetts Makes the Case ............................................................................................... 727

More Views ............................................................................................................................. 737

A Significant Crossroads in the History of Transportation ..................................................... 766

Professor Hilton Gets Attention .............................................................................................. 832

Elsewhere on March 19-23 ..................................................................................................... 846

While the Committee Drafts the House Bill ........................................................................... 851

The House Committee’s Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 .................................................. 863

The House Rules Committee Acts .......................................................................................... 873

Appeal on Impoundment ......................................................................................................... 883

Dilemmas at a Time of Decision ............................................................................................ 885

The House Debate ................................................................................................................... 891

The Showdown ....................................................................................................................... 940

Finishing the 1973 House Bill ................................................................................................ 959

Reaction to the House Bill ...................................................................................................... 980

Norbert T. Tiemann ................................................................................................................ 990

The Conference Committee Convenes ................................................................................... 997

Rethinking the City ............................................................................................................... 1001

Bicycle Boom Continues ...................................................................................................... 1008

Meanwhile, Back in Washington .......................................................................................... 1013

An “Innovative” Proposal ..................................................................................................... 1018

Long Island Sound Bridge .................................................................................................... 1028

Dealing with an Impasse ....................................................................................................... 1035

The Antipollution Charade ................................................................................................... 1044

Conference Breakthrough ..................................................................................................... 1051

Senate Action ........................................................................................................................ 1062

The House Takes Up the Bill ................................................................................................ 1072

The 1973 Act Becomes a Law .............................................................................................. 1088

The Priority of Quality .......................................................................................................... 1097

Part 5: A Blessing in Disguise .................................................................................................. 1100

Transit Battles On ................................................................................................................. 1100

Downfall of Vice President Agnew ...................................................................................... 1113

The Quiet Revolution ............................................................................................................ 1116

The Energy Crisis .................................................................................................................. 1119

The Safety Bonus .................................................................................................................. 1125

AASHTO in L.A. .................................................................................................................. 1128

The Transit Bill ..................................................................................................................... 1133

United Transportation Assistance Program .......................................................................... 1138

Trying to Craft a Transit Bill ................................................................................................ 1142

Revenue Mechanisms for Transit ......................................................................................... 1151

The President Resigns ........................................................................................................... 1155

The Ford Administration ....................................................................................................... 1156

National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974 ......................................................... 1159

The Coconuts, the Bread, the Dollars ................................................................................... 1166

Finding a Way for S. 386 to Move ........................................................................................ 1173

The Continuing Fight for/Against Impoundment ................................................................. 1181
Ending Impoundment of Federal-Aid Highway Funds ......................................................... 1191

$2 Billion Worth of Job Generation...................................................................................... 1196

Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974 ........................................................................ 1197

New York City’s 35-Cent Fare ............................................................................................. 1209

Herringer’s Biggest Disappointment..................................................................................... 1221

Taking the Sting Out of the 1970 CAA ................................................................................ 1222

Secretary William T. Coleman, Jr. ........................................................................................ 1225

Interstate Substitution-Withdrawal ....................................................................................... 1232

A Statement of National Transportation Policy .................................................................... 1243

Sense and Nonsense .............................................................................................................. 1254

Parting Shot: A Statement of National Highway Transportation Policy ............................. 1258

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1976 ........................................................................................ 1262

Increasing the Gas Tax to Conserve Energy ......................................................................... 1274

A New Direction ................................................................................................................... 1285

Right Turn on Red ................................................................................................................ 1296

Priority Primary Routes......................................................................................................... 1297

John D. Kramer ..................................................................................................................... 1300

Mayor Bradley’s Fight for Mass Transit ............................................................................... 1317

The Catalytic Converter ........................................................................................................ 1325

Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway .......................................................................................... 1328

Bicycles Roll On ................................................................................................................... 1331

President Jimmy Carter ......................................................................................................... 1338

New Thinking About Transportation .................................................................................... 1343

Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978 .................................................................... 1351

Surface Transportation Administration ................................................................................. 1365

Dealing With the Energy Crisis ............................................................................................ 1366

Senator Harrison A. Williams ............................................................................................... 1379

The Interstate Founding Fathers ............................................................................................ 1381
1 

Busting the Trust: 

Unraveling the Highway Trust Fund

1968-1973 

by 

Richard F. Weingroff 

Federal Highway Administration

FOREWARD

“Busting the Trust” began as a history of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, the landmark 

legislation that introduced Interstate withdrawal/substitution, strengthened metropolitan 

transportation planning, and gave local officials the option of using some Highway Trust Fund 

revenue for rail transit. As I researched the history of the legislation, I found that the story had to be 

put in the context of the social, economic, and environmental changes of the 1960s and 1970s. I 

also found that the story did not end on August 13, 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon signed 

the legislation.

As “Busting the Trust” evolved, it became the story of Federal-Aid Highway Acts from 1968 to 

1978, evolving mass transit legislation during that time, changing attitudes about highways, and 

efforts to divert Highway Trust Fund revenue to transit. The story involved political changes, the 

fights in New York City and elsewhere for transit operating subsidies, a battle between highway 

supporters and transit advocates, a break-in at the Watergate and a war in Israel, the impact of broad 

legislation such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Air Act, and the people 

who contributed to the legislative process. Many of the themes were new at the time, but they 

continue to affect transportation policy to this day. 

As a result, the article I intended to write about the 1973 Act changed into a monograph on the 

history of a pivotal time in the evolution of the Federal-aid highway program that began in 1916 

and continues to this day. Readers can continue the story in other articles on the Highway History 

Web site such as: “Palace Coup: President Ronald Reagan and the Surface Transportation 

Assistance Act of 1982,” “Creation of a Landmark: The Intermodal Surface Transportation 

Efficiency Act of 1991,” and “Backbone: Creation of the National Highway System.” 

This monograph would not have been possible without the personnel and collection of the U.S. 

Department of Transportation Library. I have relied on the library for almost all my articles on the 

Highway History Web site, but as I looked through my stacks of research material for “Busting the 

Trust,” I saw that a high percentage of it came from that single source. Much of the material was 

available on the library shelves, but I needed the special assistance of the DOT Library staff, 

especially Loretta Hoffman and Rosalind Romain, to locate additional material that was critical to 

the story I wanted to tell. Since beginning my highway history research in the 1970s, I have worked 

with several generations of DOT librarians, and Loretta, Rosalind, and their colleagues have 

continued the tradition of outstanding service to library patrons. I can’t thank them enough for their 
2 

cooperation, unfailing courtesy, success in finding what I requested, and patience when I didn’t 

return it by the due date. 

I hope this monograph will be a helpful addition to the study of transportation legislation.

 

Richard F. Weingroff 

 Information Liaison Specialist

Federal Highway Administration 
3 

Introduction:

The Highway Trust Fund

President Herbert Hoover was convinced that in the midst of the worst Depression the Nation had 

experienced, the Federal Government must balance its budget. Doing so would require cuts in 

Federal programs and increases in Federal revenues. 

The Revenue Act of 1932, approved June 6, 1932, enacted dozens of taxes, including taxes on 

estates, corporations, income, capital gains and such consumer products as admissions to any place 

by ticket or subscription; auto bodies, tires and inner tubes; cameras, candy, chewing gum, furs, soft 

drinks, and sporting goods; firearms, shells, and cartridges; coal, coke, and copper ore; telegraph, 

telephone, cable, and radio dispatches; and checks, jewelry, matches, refrigerators, stamps, and 

toiletries. In addition, a tax of 1 cent a gallon was enacted for gasoline, to be collected from 

refineries. It was expected to raise $150 million a year for deficit reduction. The tax was not linked 

to funding for the Federal-aid highway program. 

Highway interests were opposed and would remain opposed to the tax for decades. A tax 

penalizing a specific group should not be imposed, they argued, for the support of general 

government purposes. By the 1950s, with the tax at 2 cents a gallon, many Governors opposed the 

gas tax, which they considered a State prerogative, and the Federal-aid highway program, which 

they thought should be devolved to the States. 

At the same time, many State highway officials favored continuing the tax and the program. For 

political or policy reasons, many States would not be able to increase their own gas tax by 2 cents if 

the Federal Government stopped collecting the tax. If a State’s tax income declined, toll authority 

officials would benefit because they would be the only source of revenue to build the expressways 

the Nation needed. The authority of State highway officials would diminish. The alternative they 

came to favor through the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) was linking 

the Federal gas tax to expenditures for the Federal-aid highway program. After all, Federal-aid 

highway funds were made available to the State highway agencies. Linkage, as Professor Mark 

Rose pointed out, "offered financial security and vastly expanded opportunities to build roads." 

[Rose, Mark H., Interstate Express Highway Politics: 1939-1989 (Revised edition), The University 

of Tennessee Press, 1979, p. 46] 

Some Members of Congress agreed that linkage between Federal highway user tax revenue and 

Federal highway expenditures was a good idea. Bills were introduced to create a highway trust 

fund, similar to those established at the State level, to ensure a direct linkage between gas tax 

revenue and highway construction. For example, Senator Warren Magnuson (D-Wa), a former 

Representative (1937 to 1944) who had been in the Senate since December 14, 1945, introduced S. 

216 on January 7, 1953, on behalf of himself and Senator Harley M. Kilgore (D-WV). The bill 

would set aside revenue from excise taxes on automobiles, tires and tubes, gasoline, and lubricating 

oil for the Federal-aid highway program. All revenue collected from these sources would be 

"appropriated" to the "Federal-Aid Highway Trust Fund" and all trust fund receipts would be used 

for highway projects. Senator Magnuson explained: 
4 

The American Association of State Highway Officials at its thirty-eighth annual meeting in 

Kansas City, Mo., December 12, adopted a resolution urging that Federal-aid for highway 

authorizations be increased to the full amount of the Federal revenues from gasoline taxes. I 

am today introducing a bill embodying this plan and design to carry out that objective. 

[“Reservation of Certain Excise Taxes to Aid Federal-Aid Program,” Congressional 

Record-Senate, January 7, 1953, p. 159-160] 

On March 3, 1953, Representative John C. Kluczynski (D-Il.), a member of the Committee on 

Public Works in his second term in office, introduced a companion bill, H.R. 3637. As he did so, 

he commented on the condition of the Nation’s roads: 

In 1941 we began running out of roads when we had 32 million motor vehicles registered. 

Our main highways were bursting at the seams. To the present time roadbuilding and 

maintenance have been interrupted [by World War II and the Korean War] and so today 

with 52 million vehicles using the highways our whole economy has and is being built 

around motorized transportation of both people and property. 

The result of the growth of vehicles, while highways remained static, was that the main highways 

and secondary roads were “badly congested, being too narrow, too winding, and antiquated.” The 

solution is “a uniform and unified system of four- and six-lane highways.” 

He explained the logic of the trust fund idea: 

Why should not the public that pays the tax from motorized traffic then have the full 

benefit and assistance that that tax can provide? No one can deny that the proper 

source to look to to solve our muddled traffic problems should be the manufacturers’ 

excise taxes on automobile accessories and the kindred products. 

He added:

Our whole economy and federal defense must have this aid. It is the only way we can keep 

America on the move. 

He, too, noted that AASHO had “recently decried the urgent need of such a bill as I today present.” 

[“Automobile Excise Tax to Aid Federal-Aid Road Program,” Congressional Record-House, 

March 3, 1953, p. 1569] 

Commissioner of Public Roads Thomas H. MacDonald, who had headed the U.S. Bureau of Public 

Roads (BPR) since 1919, was not so sure. He had reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 

1950, but President Harry S. Truman had extended his service in the emergency of the Korean War. 

 Under new President Dwight D. Eisenhower, MacDonald was fired in late March 1953, a few 

months before his planned retirement that summer. In speaking to the press before leaving office, 

he stressed the importance of the Federal-State partnership:
5 

[It] is a workable plan to accomplish a continuing program that involves both local and 

national services; second, it sets a pattern in harmony with the concepts of federal 

government. 

To meet growing needs, he told reporters: 

It is logical to borrow for important needs and to retire the borrowings from user income. 

By setting aside the income from a fraction—say a cent of the gasoline tax, there is an 

assured fund that can be used to retire bonds. 

As always, though, his attitude toward toll roads was cautious: 

Financing toll roads with bonds paid for entirely out of revenue [tolls collected on the road] 

can lead us into a dangerous situation. Only certain stretches of heavy traffic roads, like the 

New Jersey Turnpike, can be self supporting on that basis. 

Issuing bonds backed by earmarked gasoline tax receipts was one way of paying the difference 

between bond charges and toll collections. 

Observing that the Federal Government collected $800 million a year in fuel tax revenue but 

provided funds to the States at a rate of only $575 million, he thought it "desirable to equate federal 

aid to federal gas tax revenues." He was not, however, convinced that all Federal highway user tax 

revenues should be dedicated to highways, citing excise taxes on such products as perfume and 

alcoholic beverages as examples of taxes levied simply to meet government expenses. "Take the 

cigarette tax," he explained. "I don't know how you would apply its proceeds for the benefit of 

cigarette users." [“MacDonald retires as Commissioner of Public Roads; F. V. du Pont takes over," 

Engineering News-Record, April 2, 1953, p. 52, and Odlin, William S., Jr., "MacDonald Stresses 

Antiquity of 76 Pc. of U.S. Main Roads," Transport Topics, April 6, 1953, p. 1] 

During the 1952 presidential campaign, General Eisenhower had spoken of the value of good roads 

in a statement to the Hearst Newspapers. He had said:

Next to the manufacture of the most modern implements of war as a 

guarantee of peace through strength, a network of modern roads is as 

necessary to defense as it is to our national economy and personal safety. 

We have fallen far behind in this task—until today there is hardly a city 

of any size without almost hopeless congestion within its boundaries 

and stalled traffic blocking roads leading beyond these boundaries. 

A solution can and will be found through the joint planning of the Federal, state, and 

local governments . . . . 

The election campaign, of course, turned on other issues. 
6 

With the Korean War and other matters vying for his attention in 1953, the new President did not 

take any noteworthy steps on highways until 1954. He signaled his intentions in his State of the 

Union Address on January 7, 1954. His goal, he said, was "the building of a stronger America." He 

described what he had in mind: 

A nation whose every citizen has good reason for bold hope; where effort is rewarded and 

prosperity is shared; where freedom expands and peace is secure—that is what I mean by a 

stronger America . . . . We mean to build a better future for this nation. 

He outlined the Administration’s plans to sustain a strong economy, which included “public-works 

plans laid well in advance.” On the subject of national highways, the President said: 

To protect the vital interest of every citizen in a safe and adequate highway system, the 

Federal Government is continuing its central role in the Federal Aid Highway Program. So 

that maximum progress can be made to overcome present inadequacies in the Interstate 

Highway System, we must continue the Federal gasoline tax at two cents per gallon. This 

will require cancellation of the 1⁄2 cent decrease which otherwise will become effective April 

1st, and will maintain revenues so that an expanded highway program can be undertaken. 

At a White House ceremony on May 6, the President signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1954, 

a traditional 2-year authorization, as Members of Congress who had crafted the bill looked on. He 

said he was pleased that it worked within the framework of the Federal-State partnership under the 

Federal-aid highway program, that its total of $2 billion was the highest ever for Federal-aid 

highways, and that it represented a rough linkage of gas tax revenue and highway authorizations. 

He explained:

In recent years the nation has accumulated tremendous highway needs which are becoming 

increasingly acute. Our highways badly need modernization and expansion to accommodate 

today's vastly increased motor traffic . . . . This legislation is one effective forward step in 

meeting these accumulated needs.

He added that, "the needs are so great that continued efforts to modernize and improve our 

obsolescent highway system are mandatory." 

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 had authorized a 40,000-mile “National System of Interstate 

Highways,” but had not provided additional funds for its construction. The assumption was that the 

State highway agencies would recognize the importance of this new network and use their regular 

Federal-aid fund apportionments to build their segments. Most States preferred to address their 

own priorities rather than build new roads for travelers from other States. 

By the 1950s, Congress was ready to turn back to consideration of the Interstate System, but the 

amounts authorized initially were inadequate. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1952 had 

authorized only a token amount, $25 million a year for fiscal years (FY) 1954 and 1955, for 

Interstate construction at the traditional Federal-State matching share of 50-50. The 1954 Act 
7 

increased funding only to $175 million a year, with the Federal share 60 percent, for FYs 1956 and 

1957. 

(The Excise Tax Reduction Act of 1954 (March 31, 1954) extended the excise tax on gasoline to 

April 1, 1955, and the Tax Rate Extension Act of 1955 (March 30, 1955) extended it to April 1, 

1956.) 

President Eisenhower was one of the people who understood the limitations of the legislation. 

Even as he hailed the 1954 Act in public, he was running out of patience with the pace of highway 

planning within his Administration. The Interstate System, he thought, would provide stimulus 

during economic downturns. He told his staff that he did not want to "get tagged like [former 

President Herbert] Hoover did, unjustly, of not doing anything to help in economic bad times." 

[Ambrose, Stephen E., Eisenhower: The President, Simon and Schuster, 1984, p. 158] 

He had good reason to understand the value of roads, good and bad. In 1919, he had participated in 

the U.S. Army’s first transcontinental convoy of military motor vehicles. The convoy began with a 

ceremony at the Ellipse in Washington south of the White House and drove north to Gettysburg, 

Pennsylvania, where it turned west to arrive in San Francisco 2 months later. From Gettysburg, the 

convoy followed the Lincoln Highway, the Nation’s most famous road, although the drivers needed 

scouts in some locations to determine where it was. The convoy encountered mud, ruts, inadequate 

bridges, blowing sand, steep grades, vehicle breakdowns and crashes, and interminable speeches in 

every town that welcomed the soldiers. 

During World War II, General Eisenhower observed the autobahn network of expressways that 

Germany had built in the 1930s. Prior to the war, they had been the envy of highway engineers and 

politicians in the United States. Now, the express highway network demonstrated its value during 

the war to Germany and in its aftermath to the victorious allies. 

Years later, former President Eisenhower recalled the impact on these experiences on him:

I think that every officer on the convoy had recommended in his report that efforts should be 

made to get our people interested in producing better roads. A third of a century later, after 

seeing the autobahns of modern Germany and knowing the asset those highways were to the 

Germans, I decided, as President, to put an emphasis on this kind of road building . . . . This 

was one of the things that I felt deeply about, and I made a personal and absolute decision to 

see that the nation would benefit by it. The old convoy had started me thinking about good, 

two-lane highways, but Germany had made me see the wisdom of broader ribbons across 

the land. [Eisenhower, Dwight D., “Through Darkest America with Truck and Tank,” At 

Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends, Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1967, p. 166-167] 

In an address scheduled for July 12, 1954, to the Governors’ Conference, President Eisenhower 

intended to talk about these experiences as background for his ideas on improving the Nation’s 

roads. Due to a death in the family, he was unable to attend, but Vice President Richard M. Nixon 

delivered the address from the President’s notes. The Vice President, on the President’s behalf, 

challenged the Governors to join in a $50 billion “grand plan for a properly articulated system that 
8 

solves the problems of speedy, safe, transcontinental travel -- intercity communication – access 

highways – and farm-to-market movement – metropolitan area congestion – bottlenecks – and 

parking.” 

The Grand Plan involved each level of government, Federal, State, county, and municipal, 

improving the roads under its jurisdiction. The centerpiece would be “a program initiated by the 

Federal government, with State cooperation, for the planning and construction of a modern State 

highway system, with the Federal government functions, for example, being to advance funds or 

guarantee the obligations of localities or States which undertake to construct new, or modernize 

existing highways.” This would be the Interstate System.

President Eisenhower asked retired General Lucius D. Clay to head the President's Advisory 

Committee on a National Highway Program. The Clay Committee, as it was commonly called,

would work with the Governors to develop a plan for submission to Congress. The President asked 

General Clay to devise a plan that would be "self-liquidating" in that it would generate the revenue 

to pay for itself – by which the President appears to have meant toll roads – 

and would not add to the national debt. 

The President submitted the Clay Committee’s plan to Congress in February 1955. To finance the 

Interstate System, the President proposed a bond program similar to the concept MacDonald had 

mentioned. A new Federal corporation would issue $30 billion in bonds, with the Federal gas tax 

dedicated to retiring the bonds over a 30-year period. The bond revenue would be collected in 

advance of a 10-year Interstate construction program and would be doled out as needed. 

This plan proved too controversial for Congress in 1955, primarily because of the debt feature. It 

promised funds upfront to build the Interstate System in about 10 years, but included large amounts 

of debt that would tie up gas tax revenue to repay wealthy investors with interest over 3 decades. 

The Senate approved a plan developed by Senator Al Gore, Sr. (D-Tn.), chairman of the 

Subcommittee on Roads, Committee on Public Works, that authorized funds for the Interstate 

System but did not include a means of financing it. Under the Constitution, such plans had to 

originate in the House of Representatives. Later that year, the House rejected the President’s plan. 

Then, to the shock of most observers, the House also rejected a plan developed by Representative 

George H. Fallon (D-Md.), chairman of the Subcommittee on Roads, Committee on Public Works, 

based on highway user taxes. Highway interests, especially truckers, objected that highway users 

should not have to pay exclusively for a plan that provided general benefits to all Americans, 

including those who did not own a motor vehicle. 

In 1956, Congress returned to highway user tax revenue as a direct means of paying for the Federalaid highway program on a pay-as-you-go basis. The question was how to do so. 

On January 26, 1956, Chairman Fallon released H.R. 8836, the Federal Highway Act of 1956. The 

new Fallon Bill called for $24.8 billion to complete the 40,000-mile National System of Interstate 

and Defense Highways in 13 years as well as increased Federal-aid for the primary, secondary, and 

urban programs. It proposed a pay-as-you-go program, with the details on tax changes to be 
9 

worked out by the Ways and Means Committee under the leadership of Representative Hale Boggs

(D-La.). 

During a January 31 meeting with Republican legislative leaders, the President abandoned the Clay 

Committee’s plan and endorsed the pay-as-you-go financing method. Representative Joseph W. 

Martin, Jr. (R-Pa.,), who had been Speaker of the House from January 3, 1953 to January 3, 1955, 

and was now House Minority Leader, announced the President's decision, summing it up by saying, 

"We want the roads as fast as we can get them." Rose pointed out that following the meeting, 

Eisenhower told his aides to "yield to Democratic insistence on financing" and "cooperate in the 

development of an appropriate tax proposal." 

Already, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn (D-Tx.) told reporters, bipartisan agreement had been 

reached on a plan to increase the gasoline tax from 2 to 3 cents and to increase taxes on tires and 

tubes. Some details remained to be worked out, he said, but "I just know we aren't going to get any 

roads unless we put in some decent taxes." [Odlin, William S., Jr., “President Approves Program 

Urged by Congress Democrats,” Transport Topics, February 6, 1956] 

On February 6, Representative Boggs introduced H.R. 9075, the Highway Revenue Act of 1956, 

containing the financing mechanism. It was based on an estimate that the Interstate System and the 

existing Federal-aid highway program (other than for Federal domain roads, such as roads in 

National Parks, which were funded out of the general Treasury) would cost approximately $35 

billion over 15 years. All the revenue from highway user taxes would be set aside for highway 

purposes. The committee report explained: 

The legislation will set aside for highway purposes all of the revenues now derived from 

gasoline, diesel guel, special motor fuels, and tires and inner tubes. This represents a vast 

increase in the present approximately $700 million per annum from these sources now being 

used for highway purposes. 

Over the 15-year period of the program it is estaimted that almost $22 billion of the 

approximate $35 billion required will be derived from existing revenues. 

We have after much study written in exemptions from the proposed increase in taxes. These 

exemptions would include bus transportation systems operated within metropolitan areas, 

fuels and tires which are used on vehicles which are not highway vehicles, and the farmers’ 

exemption provided for in legislation recently pass by the House of Representatives. 

Every study indicates the tremendous [need] for the proposed highway program, both from 

the point of view of the economic development and security of the Nation. 

The bill was, according to Representative Boggs, the result of “intensive studies” by his staff, the 

Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, the Treasury Department, and BPR. [Highway 

Revenue Act of 1956, Hearings Before the Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of 

Representatives, 84th Congress, 2d Session, 1956, p. 6] 
10 

The reaction to the Fallon and Boggs Bills was generally favorable, although the Administration 

and some of the interest groups had reservations 

The House Ways and Means Committee held hearings on the Boggs Bill in mid-February. 

Secretary Humphrey, the first witness on February 14, confirmed that President Eisenhower had 

endorsed the pay-as-you-go concept, which he said would be far preferable to the Clay Committee's 

bond proposal. However, he was convinced that the taxes Boggs had proposed would be about $12 

billion short of the amount needed for a 12-year program covering the Interstate System and the 

other Federal-aid systems. [Highway Revenue Act of 1956, p. 11] 

He agreed additional tax revenue would be needed and suggested taxes to be considered, but 

resisted repeated requests by committee members to endorse specific taxes to close the gap. He 

explained some of the difficulties associated with linking all highway user taxes for highway 

purposes: 

Mr. Boggs, if what you want to do is to dedicate, to try to be logical and to dedicate, as you 

say, all of the taxes that have to do with automobiles or road use of any kind and you want 

those to go into this pot, you will deplete our general revenues, which you gentlemen have 

voted for us to spend by that amount of money . . . . You cannot switch money out of our 

general revenues that you have already authorized us to spend and that is being spent, and 

put that money out of that pot, and not put it back . . . . Under any guise or theory or 

anything else, it won't work. [Highway Revenue Act of 1956, p. 23] 

With Representative Boggs becoming increasingly exasperated by Secretary Humphrey’s refusal to 

endorse specific highway user tax changes, the Secretary replied: 

I have given you a list of all of the things [taxes] that have been suggested to me, or that I 

have heard suggested, and given you the ratios at which you can tax them. Now, it is not my 

function . . . to pick out who shall pay these taxes. I think this is the job of the Ways and 

Means Committee . . . . Now it is up to you to figure it out. Who is the proper fellow to 

put the burden on? [Highway Revenue Act of 1956, p. 24] 

The next questioner, Representative John W. Byrnes (R-Wi.), immediately began asking the 

Secretary about the linkage: 

Mr. Byrnes. Now, do you have any procedure to accomplish this dedication, so that as far 

as these new taxes go and the present tax on gasoline and diesel, so that they do not in the 

future get mingled up with general fund operations, and we know where we are going as far 

as actual revenues for road purposes? 

Secretary Humphrey. I would suggest this, Mr. Byrnes, that we follow a practice similar to 

the practice that is followed for the social security and the other funds, and that we do not 

get to the physical earmarking of funds, but that we do as we do with those funds; that we 

estimate the amounts to be collected in these categories, and that those amounts be 

deposited in a special fund to the credit of a special fund; that the withdrawals then be made 

from that fund; that credits in that fund shall not be credits to the budget; but that deficits in 
11 

that fund shall be deficits in the budget . . . . If I have made myself clear, I think that is the 

proper way to handle the accounting for these funds. 

Mr. Byrnes. Can that be done administratively? Or should that mechanism be worked into 

the legislation itself?

Secretary Humphrey. I suppose it should be indicated in the legislation how it would be 

handled. There is no new plan at all. It is exactly the way we handle the funds today, the 

other funds . . . . 

Mr. Byrnes. We do not handle it that way insofar as any road funds at the present time are 

concerned.

Secretary Humphrey. No. I suppose that is an item that should be covered properly in the 

legislation. [Highway Revenue Act of 1956, p. 25-26] 

Questioning shifted to other subjects, but Representative Aime J. Forand (D-RI) returned to the 

trust fund idea: 

Mr. Forand. I wonder if I interpret correctly what you have been telling us to mean that you 

would set up a separate fund, to be known as the highway building fund, to which all these 

taxes we talked about would be dedicated, and only used for highway purposes. 

Secretary Humphrey. They would be credited. That is correct. [Highway Revenue Act of 

1956, p. 33] 

Representative Herman P. Eberharter (D-Pa.) brought the subject up again during his questioning of 

Secretary Humphrey:

Mr. Eberharter. Mr. Secretary, is not the proposal here to earmark revenue receipts for 

special purposes? 

Secretary Humphrey: This is not earmarking, Mr. Eberharter. I would not recommend 

earmarking. I am talking about handling this about the same way as we handle the trust 

funds. 

Mr. Eberharter. Isn't that earmarking? 

Secretary Humphrey. No, trust funds are not exactly earmarked. There is a provision for 

the estimating of amounts and the crediting of accounts. And I would handle these the same 

way we do trust funds. 

Mr. Eberharter. If all of the revenue receipts from gasoline and fuel and lubricating oil, for 

instance, would go into a special trust fund, is that not exactly the same as earmarking it? 

That is the only thing you could spend it for. 

Secretary Humphrey. The only reason I shy away from the word "earmarking" is that there 

are all kinds of technical definitions of earmarking. Let us just stick to saying, "We will 

handle them the same way we handle the other funds." 

Mr. Everharter. The way we handle general funds? 

Secretary Humphrey. No, no. The trust funds. 

Mr. Eberharter. I want to shy away from that earmarking, myself, if I possibly can. 

Secretary Humphrey. That is right. What is technically earmarking I do not think is 

required, or desirable. [Highway Revenue Act of 1956, p. 36-37] 
12 

The committee acted on Secretary Humphrey's advice. In revising the bill following the hearings, 

the committee included a provision establishing a Highway Trust Fund. Based on the committee's 

data, the trust fund was expected to be self-financing over a 16-year period (an extra year was added 

in response to the Secretary's concern that 15 years would not be sufficient). Provision was made to 

obtain advances from the general funds of the Treasury to meet temporary deficits in the trust fund. 

 The advances would be repaid when sufficient trust fund revenues became available. In addition, 

the bill committed Congress to bringing about a balance of receipts and expenditures of the trust 

fund for the entire period; if a balance would not be obtained, Congress was to enact legislation to 

bring about such a balance. 

The Fallon bill became Title I of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, while the Highway 

Revenue Act developed by the Ways and Means Committee became Title II. The House approved 

the bill on April 26, 1956, by a vote of 388 to 19. 

The House bill went to the Senate where Title I was modified by the Committee on Public Works to 

incorporate features of the Gore bill. The Committee on Finance considered Title II. Chairman 

Harry Flood Byrd (D-Va.) introduced a unique feature to the Highway Revenue Act. A lifelong 

highway booster, Senator Byrd was also a lifelong pay-as-you-go man with a nearly pathological 

hatred of debt, whether private or public. He had been one of the strongest opponents of the 

President’s debt-based plan and now he feared that highway expenditures might exceed Highway 

Trust Fund revenue, creating debt that general taxpayers would have to satisfy. To address this 

problem, he added what came to be called the Byrd Amendment. It provided that if the Secretary of 

the Treasury determined that the balance in the Highway Trust Fund would not be enough to meet 

required highway expenditures, the Secretary of Commerce was to reduce the apportionments to 

each of the States on a pro rata basis to eliminate the estimated deficiency.

The Senate approved the revised Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 on May 29 by voice vote after a 

14-hour session. 

After a Conference Committee reconciled the House and Senate bills, Congress approved the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 on June 25. President Eisenhower signed the legislation on June 

29. In addition to launching the program to construct the Interstate System, the 1956 Act 

authorized the Highway Trust Fund as a way of assuring motorists that their highway user tax 

revenue would be dedicated to highway and bridge construction, not any other purpose. As 

Representative Boggs had said during the Ways and Means Committee hearing: 

I think the only way you can justify this proposal [to increase excise taxes on highway users] 

to the people is that you are using revenues for the first time substantially the same as you 

are collecting to build highways. In other words, we are now going into the concept of a 

user tax. [Highway Revenue Act of 1956, p. 31] 

In 1957, the Department of the Treasury credited nearly $1.5 billion in highway user tax revenue to 

the Highway Trust Fund, and over $2 billion in 1958. 
13 

The word “ trust” allowed highway officials to assure motorists paying this tax that their payments 

would be used exclusively to improve the Nation’s roads. Maintaining that trust, even in the early 

years, would not be easy. 
14 

Part 1: 

The Sacrosanct Trust

Such a large pot of money was a tempting target from the start. 

Roscoe Turner, chairman of the American Legion’s aeronautics committee, was one of the first to 

stake a claim for a share of the revenue. In Planes, the magazine of the Aircraft Industries 

Association, Turner proposed that part of the Highway Trust Fund revenue be used to construct 

small airfields. Only about a third of the country’s 15,000 urban areas were accessible by air. 

Extending aviation’s reach would benefit the general economy. As for tapping the Highway Trust 

Fund, Turner saw several advantages: 

• The same kind of machinery is used for both kinds of construction; 

• It would be possible to acquire the small amount of land needed for the airstrips at minimum 

cost if it were purchased at the same time highway rights-of-way were acquired;

• The airstrips would be invaluable not only for general aviation purposes but also as 

emergency fields for airline use; and

• In a civil-defense emergency every part of the country would be accessible by air even if 

highways and railroads were destroyed or congested because of enemy action. [“Road 

Money for Airfields?” Better Roads, February 1957, p. 4] 

Turner’s proposal was not adopted. (In 1969, President Richard M. Nixon proposed a “designated 

account” for airport and airway programs. With the Highway Trust Fund in mind, Congress instead 

approved the Airport and Airway Trust Fund to reserve air user tax revenue for to improve air 

service, approved by President Nixon on may 21, 1970 (Public Law 91-258).) 

The Department of Labor was more successful in tapping into the Highway Trust Fund. 

Under Section 115 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, the Department of Labor had been 

charged with determining prevailing wage rates for Interstate construction projects in accordance 

with the Davis-Bacon Act. Before 1956, the Davis-Bacon Act had applied to federally funded 

highway projects only if a Federal Agency was the contracting agency, as was the case with BPR’s 

work for other Federal Agencies, such as the National Park Service and U.S. Forest Service. 

However, the Public Works Committee had voted to apply the provision to the Interstate System at 

the request of Senator Richard L. Neuberger (D-Or.), who argued, "We don't want coolie labor 

building our interstate highways." Congress had agreed, after much debate, that laborers and 

mechanics working on the Interstate System, but not other Federal-aid highway projects, would be 

subject to the Davis-Bacon Act’s prevailing wage requirements. 

In November 1956, the Labor Department’s Solicitor, Stuart Rothman, explained that the use of 

prevailing wages “had been a stabilizing influence in the construction industry and at the same time 

a bulwark of protection for the working man against substandard wages.” The Labor Department 

issued 23,000 wage determinations in the year before enactment of the 1956 Act. In addition, over 

1 million craft minimums were established for federally financed or assisted construction projects. 

Despite the new work necessitated by the 1956 Act, Rothman assured the highway community that 
15 

the Labor Department “is determined to carry out its responsibilities . . . in full accordance with the 

spirit of the law and the intent of Congress, making every effort to avoid unnecessary delays in 

letting of highway contracts because of the wage determination process.” [Rothman, Stuart, “The 

Role of the Department of Labor in the Interstate Highway Program,” Road Builders’ News, 

November 1956, p, 4] 

To support this work for the Interstate System, the Labor Department requested an appropriation of 

$365,000 from the Highway Trust Fund for FY 1958 for salaries and expenses in the Office of the 

Solicitor. The 1956 Act had opened itself to this diversion by providing interim funds to the Labor 

Department to administer the Davis-Bacon Act because the Labor Department’s appropriations act 

for the year (FY 1957) had passed before Congress decided to apply the prevailing wage law to the 

Interstate System.

When the Labor Department’s FY 1958 Appropriations Act came before the House, Representative 

Boggs rose in opposition: 

I submit that this completely and totally violates every concept of the highway trust fund. 

The highway trust fund was created by this body in order to assure the motoring public of 

our country that the billions of dollars collected from highway users would be devoted to the 

purpose of constructing highways. 

As a matter of fact, we had heard for many years . . . complaint after complaint about the 

diversion of funds collected from highway users, to other purposes. So in order to assure 

the taxpaying motoring public that we would build highways out of the funds derived from 

the taxes that they paid to use those highways, we created a trust fund. 

The legislation specifically allowed for payment of BPR’s general administrative expenses – 

spelled out by name to avoid “any conceivable mistake.” 

The Davis-Bacon Act, Boggs pointed out, had been enacted in the 1930s: 

Since that time we in this Congress have provided that its provisions were to apply to many 

projects, yet never have we provided that the funds necessary for administering this DavisBacon Act with respect to specific projects were to be provided out of any other fund than 

the appropriation of the Department of Labor itself. Why now can it be thought that the 

Congress intended to make taxes levied for the purpose of building roads available to the 

Department of Labor for the administration of the Davis-Bacon Act?

In a colloquy with Representative Boggs, Representative Fallon asked: 

Mr. Fallon. Did we not in all of our hearings before your committee and our committee 

promise the people who are the users of these highways and who are going to pay these 

taxes that every dollar would be used for construction? 
16 

Mr. Boggs. Yes, we did. That was one of the principal arguments for the enactment of this 

legislation.

Further, including the proposal in an appropriations act would improperly modify a provision of an 

authorizing act, which Boggs pointed out “is in direct violation of the rules of the House.” He had 

to admit, in response to a question, that “it is against the rule to legislate in the Committee on 

Appropriations, but you did it all the time. I agree with that.” [“Diversion of Highway Trust Funds 

Debated,” American Road Builder, April 1957, p. 15, 25-27] 

Despite this discussion, the House included the $365,000 in the appropriations act for the 

Department of Labor. 

In the Senate, the Appropriations Committee made clear that “not one penny” should be diverted 

from highway construction. The committee asked the Senate’s Legislative Counsel for an informal 

opinion. The opinion stated: 

While it may be argued that the language (of the Highway Act) is broad enough to imply an 

authorization to use the Trust Fund to defray the expenses of the Secretary of Labor, we do 

not believe that such a construction should be placed upon (its language) in the absence of a 

more specific indication of legislative intent.

A broader interpretation would open the Highway Trust Fund to other expenses, such as the 

expense of the Secretary of the Treasury in managing and operating the fund: 

We believe that the objects for which the Trust Fund moneys are to be expended should be 

narrowly, rather than liberally, construed. 

The Senate Appropriations Committee excluded the requested appropriation and the Senate went 

along. 

In the conference committee to resolve differences between the two appropriations bills, the House 

stood firm for the $365,000. Senate conferees refused at first, but compromised on $200,000. The 

conference report became law.

Representative Fallon introduced a bill (H.R. 8648) to close the loophole. In explaining the bill, he 

referred to the temporary nature of the Federal-aid provided to the Labor Department for the first 

year:

I assumed that this year the Labor Department would obtain funds to administer the DavisBacon section of the act in the regular way, through the regular departmental appropriation 

act. I was, therefore, astonished when the Labor Department came back this year seeking 

another diversion from the trust fund . . . . What the Labor Department has done, as a 

matter of fact, is to seize the opportunity to crawl through a legal loophole. I think that this 

loophole ought to be closed tightly. [“Fallon Bill Designed to Prevent Highway Trust Fund 

Raids,” American Road Builder, July-August 1957, p. 33] 
17 

He was even clearer when he addressed the First General Session of the American Road Builders 

Association (ARBA) convention on January 20, 1958. He and his colleagues in the House Ways 

and Means Committee had thought, he said, “that this Fund was highly protected.” The Labor 

Department’s successful raid had “greatly disturbed” highway advocates in the Congress. “I 

denounced it then and I denounce it now.” As bad as that was, he said, after seeing the 

Administration’s Federal Budget proposal for FY 1959, “it appears we were talking about peanuts.” 

He explained:

What is now proposed is that $32 million collected from a Federal tax of aviation gasoline 

be diverted from the Trust Fund to the General Treasury; that another $32 million for Forest 

and Public Lands Highways now financed from the General Treasury be financed in the 

future by the Trust Fund; that the Treasury Department be paid $3.75 million for 

administering the Trust Fund; and that the Department of Labor receive $250,000 for 

administering the Davis-Bacon provision . . . . 

There is practically no end to the clever devices which may be employed to milk money 

intended for the Interstate Program. 

He summarized his view: “Don’t tamper with the Trust Fund.” [Fallon, George H., “After 18 

Months – What’s Next,” American Road Builder, February 1958, p. 12] 

Senator Gore told ARBA that he also objected to the raids: 

The Highway Trust Fund was established to remove from the financing of this program the 

uncertainties of annual appropriations procedures. The Congress proposed to say to the 

states and to the industry: “You can count on using these specified revenues for highway 

purposes.” 

We in the Congress thought at the time that the Administration had also agreed to the 

concept.

He cited the “misapplication” of funds for the Labor Department and the Administration’s budget 

proposal to “grab about $68 million from the Highway Trust Fund”: 

I object to these raids on the Highway Trust Fund in order to make pretense of a balanced 

budget. Should the Congress approve these proposed withdrawals and deletions from the 

Trust Fund, there will be other suggested diversions. Instead of a Trust Fund in the true 

sense of that word, we will have a grab bag which might be a useful gadget for the Director 

of the Budget but of diminishing value for the building of highways. 

I will oppose vigorously these efforts to divert from the Highway Trust Fund any part of the 

revenues previously designated for that purpose. I hope a majority of the congress will 

concur. 
18 

At the urging of Representatives Boggs and Fallon, the House rejected the attempt to divert $3.5 

million to the Treasury Department. They tried, successfully on this occasion, to enforce the 

longstanding principle against legislating in an appropriations act. In addition, Congress rejected

the proposal to shift the responsibility for funding park, forest, and Indian Reservation roads to the 

Highway Trust Fund. 

Representative Boggs made his views clear in an address to the 7th Highway Transportation 

Congress in 1958: 

As chairman of the subcommittee which drafted the tax provisions [of the 1956 Act], I was 

convinced that this Trust Fund would be regarded as its name implies, as a sacred trust and 

that the billions of dollars which would move into the Fund could only be used for highway 

purposes . . . . 

In my judgment, we made a solemn promise that every nickel of that tremendous sum would 

be utilized exclusively for the purpose of constructing roads, acquiring right-of-way and 

paying administrative expenses of the Bureau of Public Roads . . . . 

He pointed out that Section 209(f) of the 1956 Act made these restrictions explicit by providing that 

expenditures from the Highway Trust Fund “shall be available . . . to meet those obligations of the 

United States heretofore or hereafter incurred under the Federal-Aid Road Act approved July 11, 

1916, as amended and supplemented, which are attributable to Federal-aid highways (including 

those portions of general administrative expenses of the Bureau of Public Roads payment from such 

appropriations).” 

He summarized attempts, particularly by the Department of Labor, to secure revenue from the 

Highway Trust Fund even though such a payment “violated the intent and the letter” of the 1956 

Act.

Representative Boggs described how on March 4, 1958, the House was considering the TreasuryPost Office appropriations bill, which incorporated a presidential recommendation to provide $3.5 

million from the Highway Trust Fund to pay the Department of the Treasury for expenses incurred 

administering the Fund. He had raised a point of order that the bill was an improper attempt by an 

appropriations act to change an authorizing act. When his point of order was upheld after spirited 

debate, he said, “I have never enjoyed an experience more in my whole tenure in the House of 

Representatives.” He was certain he had established a precedent that would prevent similar raids. 

[Boggs, Hale, “A Sacred Trust,” Highway Highlights, May-June 1958, p. 34-36] 

Attempts to “raid” the Highway Trust Fund would continue, with perennial issues including the 

public lands expansion and restoration of aviation gas tax receipts to the General Fund. By 1961, 

another idea was to use Highway Trust Fund revenue to pay homeowners forced to move because 

of highway construction. The highway community fought these efforts to divert funds from 

construction even as the projected cost of the Interstate System increased from an estimated $27 

billion in 1956 to $41 billion in 1961 (Federal share: $37 billion). 
19 

The Transit Crisis

While the highway community and Members of Congress fought diversion of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue, mass transportation was reaching a crisis. Through the 1950s, private companies provided 

most transit service, including commuter rail, but the companies faced growing financial pressure 

as their passengers relied increasingly on their cars. As transit historian Professor George M. 

Smerk explained about the 1950s: 

Virtually no thought was given to investment by government in transit; after all, except in a 

very few places, it was a private enterprise responsibility . . . . Even if a sharp and notable 

crisis was lacking, transit was not a happy place to be in the 1950s because of the constant 

erosion of ridership. Management’s natural reaction was to enter a cycle of service cutbacks 

and fare increases which further discouraged riders and ridership. Eventually, the process 

came to feed on itself. Many smaller cities lost service entirely, and transit service was 

becoming lackluster in medium-sized cities . . . . 

Railroad commuter services were often provided by cars that had been built in the World 

War I era, or even earlier. The railroads could not be blamed because there was no profit to 

be found for the privately owned railroads that operated all the commuter roads. [Smerk, 

George M., The Federal Role in Urban Mass Transportation, Indiana University Press, 

1991, p. 47-48] 

Often, the companies were despised by their customers and local officials as service, especially to 

low income areas, declined and occasional corruption scandals erupted. Further, from a Federal 

perspective, transit was a local problem, not a national concern. Congress was not ready to use 

Federal funds to pay for capital expenditures or subsidize operating deficits. 

In Philadelphia, a new Democratic leadership under Mayor Joseph S. Clark, Jr., identified 

transportation as one of the tools for the city’s revitalization. The city’s network of electrified 

commuter rail, rapid transit, streetcars, and light rail was in decline. As Smerk explained:

Sadly, over the years there had been little modernization of either the facilities or the 

equipment; the visible elements of plant and equipment had grown shabby and patronage 

had been slipping. By the 1950s, the lack of investment had become acutely obvious and 

was particularly severe for the commuter railroads . . . . Understandably, there was no 

incentive for them to invest in their services or to make any changes other than taking costcutting steps or raising fares . . . . [Smerk, p. 55-56] 

Mayor Clark established the Urban Traffic and Transportation Board in 1953 to investigate the 

city’s problems. In 1955, the board recommended a coordinated road and rail program that 

included upgrading and extending rail service. “The program,” Smerk said, “appeared to be a 

hopelessly expensive undertaking indeed, especially because the city of Philadelphia had neither the 

money nor the jurisdiction to do the job.” The surrounding jurisdictions were unwilling to 

contribute, while the State legislature was dominated by rural interests with highway ties. [Smerk, 

p. 56] 
20 

Mayor Clark left office after one term on January 2, 1956, and campaigned successfully for election 

to the U.S. Senate, which he joined on January 3, 1957. His successor, Mayor Richardson 

Dilworth, continued the search for answers to the city’s transit problem. In 1956, he talked with 

Federal officials about diverting some of the city’s highway funds to mass transportation: 

The mayor ran into strong opposition from highway groups. Dilworth then proposed an 

alternate plan in which highway funds would be used only for the planning and engineering 

work in designing mass transit systems. Dilworth suggested a federal lending agency 

modeled on the Federal National Mortgage Association to provide the capital funds needed 

for construction. 

Representative William J. Green, Jr. (D-Pa.) introduced the bill in 1957 but as Smerk explained, it 

was “well ahead of its time and the unprecedented bill . . . expired quietly in committee without 

attracting much notice.” [Smerk, p. 56-57] 

These early attempts to use revenue from the Highway Trust Fund for mass transportation alarmed 

the highway community. Major General Louis W. Prentiss, ARBA’s executive vice president, 

sounded the alarm in the June 1957 issue of ARBA’s magazine, American Road Builder. He 

described a recent meeting in Chicago of civic planners, municipal engineers, and transit operators 

to explore mass transit options as the solution to the survival of cities. Whether they were talking 

about buses, trolleys, monorail, subway, or surface rapid transit, the primary issue was how to make 

transit attractive enough to convince motorists to abandon their cars. 

Prentiss did not dispute the value of mass transit or of building express facilities on Interstate rightof-way. The cost was another matter:

These were the multimillion dollar questions raised but not answered at the Chicago 

meeting. However, it seemed to me that time and again covetous eyes were directed toward 

the Highway Trust Fund . . . . [Regardless of the merits of mass transit] we must resist all 

attempts to divert money from the Highway Trust Fund for any transit uses . . . . If those 

who seek to solve the mass transportation problems of the metropolitan areas would 

recognize that Congress does not intend to permit the Highway Trust Fund to be diverted to 

purposes or objectives other than those specifically stated . . . and would look to other 

sources of funds for financing, I am sure that the entire highway industry would gladly 

cooperate with them in seeking a satisfactory and early solution to these problems. 

[Prentiss, Louis W., “Mass Transportation a Problem—But . . .” American Road Builder, 

June 1957, p. 6-7, emphasis in original] 

Although cities around the country continued to have problems with their mass transportation 

network, the focus in the late 1950s was on highways: 

In local government, most American cities had no position on what should be done about 

mass transportation, and their actions often did more to hinder effective mass transportation 

service than to help it. Planners, downtown business interests, labor, civic interest groups, 

and academics who were interested in urban affairs were either ignorant, uninterested, or 
21 

unable to take a position on transit. Virtually all transportation-related interest continued to 

focus on highways, a form of transportation for which there was great political, financial, 

and popular support . . . . 

In 1958, there arose the kind of crisis that always appears necessary to force various groups 

together in order to gain action. Oddly enough, the whole process that eventually led to the 

development of a federal role in urban mass transportation got underway inadvertently, as 

Congress strove to provide some legislative relief for the nation’s railroads. The law of 

unexpected consequences was at work almost before anyone noticed. [Smerk, p. 58] 

The freight railroads had long subsidized unprofitable passenger service with profits from freight. 

In the 1950s, as more cargo shifted to trucks, rail profits declined, creating pressure for relief from 

the unprofitable passenger service. Congress addressed the problem by passing the Transportation 

Act of 1958 (Public Law 85-625, approved August 12, 1958), which provided a mechanism for the 

railroad companies to discontinue passenger service. Almost immediately (“almost before the ink 

was dry,” according to Smerk), the railroad companies began targeting commuter rail services for 

discontinuation. “Unexpectedly, legislation aimed at helping the railroads had become the vehicle 

for a major threat to the commuter rail portion of urban mass transportation.” [Smerk, p. 61] 

Although a Federal law had touched off the crisis, the Eisenhower Administration was convinced 

that transit was a local problem, not one the Federal Government should invest in. Pressure for 

Federal help would have to come from the cities. Mayor Robert Wagner of New York, Mayor 

Richard J. Daley of Chicago, Mayor Dilworth, and representatives of other cities met in Chicago in 

January 1959 with officials of commuter rail companies. Participants from the east favored a 

Federal role while those from the west, where the commuter rail lines were in better shape, were 

reluctant to seek Federal help, fearful that it might lead to a Federal takeover of the railroads.

In March 1959, Mayor Dilworth and others initiated a study that the American Municipal 

Association (AMA) issued late in the year. The Collapse of Commuter Service summarized the 

declining prospects for commuter railroads and broader mass transportation service. In December 

1959, during AMA’s annual congress in Denver, the group adopted a resolution calling for Federal 

support for alternatives to highways, including long-term, low-interest loans to help cities buy 

equipment and refurbish facilities. 

Mayor Dilworth worked with James Symes, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, to develop a 

legislative proposal that called for tax relief for commuter rail lines, low-interest loans by the 

Department of Commerce for capital improvements, and a study of grants for rail rapid transit. The 

proposal received as little consideration as the earlier bill that Representative Green had introduced. 

 

Seeing that working through the highway-oriented Commerce Department and the Public Works 

Committees had been a tactical error, Mayor Dilworth and his colleagues decided to shift their 

focus to finding a way for Federal urban renewal and redevelopment programs to cover mass 

transportation. They found a champion in Senator Harrison A. “Pete” Williams, Jr. (D-NJ), who 

had served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1953-1957) before winning election to the Senate 

in 1958. Smerk said of Williams:
22 

Williams was an ambitious man, a freshman in the Senate in 1960, and he was seeking an 

issue or role he could play that would be important to his New Jersey constituents and still 

possess relatively broad national interest. Williams found his issue in mass transportation . . 

. . 

Williams and his staff went to work on a new strategy for the transit legislation, and they 

made alterations to the Dilworth and Symes legislative proposal. The first strategic move 

was to shift the bill from the venue of the Department of Commerce by offering the 

legislation as a measure for urban areas rather than as a transportation program. That was, 

the legislation would fall under the jurisdiction of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, 

which in 1960 was the nearest thing to a Department of Urban Affairs within the federal 

government. The legislation would then be under the jurisdiction of the Senate [Committee]

on Banking and Currency, of which Williams was a member. 

The Williams bill, S. 3278, proposed to offer $100 million in loans (down from $500 million in the 

Dilworth-Symes bill) and emphasized a focus on urban mass transportation programs, not just 

commuter rail. The Senate approved the bill on June 27, 1960, and forwarded it to the House of 

Representatives, but it never emerged from House committee consideration. [Smerk, p. 70-71] 

Nevertheless, Mayor Dilworth, the AMA, and officials from other cities were encouraged by the 

prospects for their new approach and the prospects under President John F. Kennedy, who took 

office on January 20, 1961. 

While cities sought Federal assistance, transit continued its gradual decline: 

But the transit industry as a whole stayed at least marginally profitable until the mid-1960s; 

it was a last hurrah, and probably specious at that. It is not an unfair statement to say that 

the “profits” of the transit industry, however marginal they may have been in some places, 

were due in part to a failure to maintain fixed plant and equipment adequately. [Smerk, p. 

47-48] 

Cities became convinced that public agencies could do a better job than the private sector of 

providing needed transit service. Through the 1960s, cities converted private transit to public 

operation and then searched for funds when costs almost inevitably exceeded farebox revenue. 

Smerk described the transition: 

Counteracting the image of mass transit as primarily a big-city concern was the slow but 

steady failures of private mass transit firms in all parts of the U.S. and in cities of all sizes. 

The industry in the aggregate ceased to be profitable in the mid-1960s for a variety of 

reasons. The growing inflation of the late 1960s was a serious blow to an industry that was 

fairly labor intensive. The cost of living was rising, and transit labor costs rose sharply as 

new contracts with transit workers’ unions were hammered out. The cost of equipment and 

supplies also began to go up substantially, likewise due to inflation. If service was to be 

maintained, there was a limit to how much fares could be boosted and service cut. The 

aging fleet of transit vehicles grew inevitably older and more expensive to maintain, and 
23 

there was little or no money in the transit property coffers for new equipment that was less 

costly to maintain. Marginal private operators all over the nation began to go out of 

business. An increasing number of cities—large, medium, and small—found that they 

would have to get into the transit business themselves if service was to continue. Slowly, 

pressure began to mount on Congress to augment the mass transit programs. The lobbying 

groups for cities began to take note of the transit problems expressed by their members. 

[Smerk, p. 110-111] 

As President Kennedy took office, ARBA’s Prentiss again warned his colleagues that, “Any 

diversion destroys the pattern of fairness and equity which we are at such pains to achieve” in fair 

taxation of highway users: 

Some have argued that the highway user is a proper source of tax revenue to be used to 

subsidize commuter rail transit, on the theory that public support for all modes of 

transportation should come from some common pool of funds. The Highway Trust Fund is 

apparently the handiest pool. The fallacy in the argument lies in the fact that the Highway 

Trust Fund itself cannot be justified except as a means to the fair and equitable distribution 

of the highway tax burden. 

Wherever tax support for another mode of transportation is proposed, it is not unreasonable 

to look to the beneficiaries of that mode of transportation to supply the necessary revenue. 

Commuter rail transit, for example, benefits not only the individual riders, who pay fares, 

but also the downtown business establishments and the suburban communities which are 

served by the facility. These indirect beneficiaries contribute to the support of general 

government through various general taxes. The Highway Trust Fund, consisting of special 

taxes, should not be tapped for non-highway purposes. [Prentiss, L. W., “Highway Funds 

for Highways,” American Road Builder, January 1961, p. 17] 

In view of the increased estimate of the cost of the Interstate System, ARBA told readers of its 

magazine:

If new requirements are made of the fund, it will prove to be inadequate to carry the 

increased load. In the interest of a continuing long-range program, it is essential for ARBA 

to guard against encroachments on the Highway Trust Fund. 

After listing the usual potential encroachments, the article added, “Some argue that highway user 

taxes collected for the Trust Fund should be used to help provide rail transit facilities for 

commuters. If unchecked, raids on the Trust Fund can wreck the highway program.” [“ARBA 

Looks to the Future,” American Road Builder, July 1961, p. 7] 

 

Federal Highway Administrator Rex M. Whitton, a highway engineer who had risen through the 

ranks to become Missouri’s Chief Engineer before President Kennedy appointed him to the Federal 

post, discussed transit eligibility for Federal-aid highway funds in a reply dated June 20, 1962, to an 

inquiry from Senator Williams: 
24 

With respect to the specific questions in your letter, I should like to answer first the one with 

respect to provision of right-of-way for rail transit in the median of freeways, for here we 

have a firm precedent. We cannot legally participate with Federal-aid highway funds in the 

cost of any right-of-way required for rail transit, nor in any additional cost that may be 

involved in the increase in length of structures crossing the freeway necessitated by the 

space occupied by the rail line. Other costs, such as increased cost of utility relocation that 

results from the rail line, would likewise be ineligible.

This decision on participation with highway funds resulted from discussions in connection 

with the present or potential use by rail transit of medians in freeways in the Chicago area. 

The position was mutually acceptable to the State and local government agencies, and to the 

transit interests. There is also recent substantiation of this position by the Congress, through 

its action in authorizing the National Capital Transportation Agency to acquire land in or in 

connection with freeways in the Washington area for use for rail transit lines where its 

studies show them to be desirable. 

We believe that this position with respect to rail transit is sound, mutually acceptable and 

practicable of administration. However, we feel that as a general rule, rail facilities in a 

major highway median strip are not efficient, safe or desirable.

The use of freeways by buses was “quite a different matter.” Bus operators contributed to the 

Highway Trust Fund and they operated highway vehicles. “They do and should use the highways, 

and where the public interest warrants, we feel that appropriate special provision for their operation 

can be made with highway funds.” Whitton explained: 

While we cannot state rigid rules covering all eligible or ineligible items, in general we 

regard any special roadways, widening, acceleration or deceleration lanes, or stopping areas 

over which buses operate as eligible. Special features such as stairs or shelters provided for 

the benefit of the bus passengers alighting from or boarding the buses would be ineligible. 

We should expect that the bus operator would be able to give assurance of reasonable use of 

such facilities if they are to be provided. We would have to consider each case on its merits, 

rather than to set inflexible standards or conditions. 

As for exclusive bus lanes on freeways, Whitton wanted to consider each case on its merits, but be 

wrote that in general, “I believe that in the public interest we should expect that the bus operator be 

able to give assurance that more passengers not only can but will be moved in a reserved lane by 

buses than would be served by passenger cars alone during the time it is so reserved.” Such 

assurances would have to emerge from “the findings of comprehensive urban transportation studies 

of the type now being widely conducted in the major metropolitan areas.” [Underlining in original.] 

Whitton added that BPR had long been “strongly impressed by the potential of the motor bus in 

urban transportation.” Proper coordination between bus operators and highway officials “offers real 

opportunity to reduce the demand for private vehicle use.” Buses could “nearly match” the private 

vehicle for “flexibility as to termini, route, and schedule” better than rail or other fixed forms of 

transit:
25 

[Buses] can adjust readily to changing urban transportation demands. And since it is a 

highway vehicle, provision for its use can properly be made from highway user revenues, 

and thus avoid entirely, or substantially reduce, the enormous fixed capital investment 

required for other forms of public transport.

Representative Fallon remained vigilant. In 1962, for example, he appeared before the House 

Subcommittee on Interior and Insular Affairs to object to the diversion of as much as $8 million to 

establish a Land Conservation Fund to acquire land for public outdoor recreation and other 

conservation uses. The diversion involved refundable but unclaimed taxes on fuel used in 

motorboats. He said he supported the proposed Land Conservation Fund, but opposed the use of 

highway user tax revenue:

[While] the proposed diversion is relatively small, the principal at stake is extremely 

important. Once the precedent is established that the Highway Trust Fund can be tapped for 

nonhighway purposes, we will no longer be assured of long-term continuity of revenue, or 

of continued equity in the distribution of the tax load. Without these assurances, the Trust 

Fund concept is of little value. 

He justified the motorboat fuel revenue going into the Highway Trust Fund because the owners of 

the boats haul their boats on the roads or travel on roads to where their boats are docked: 

Thus, I see no inequity in the present arrangement. But even if I did, I would be reluctant to 

adopt a piecemeal approach to amending the revenue legislation supporting the Highway 

Trust Fund. [“Congressman Fallon Once More Defends the Trust Fund,” American Road 

Builder, August 1962, p. 2, emphasis in original] 

Another diversion had been taking place all along, as Prentiss explained in a report to ARBA 

members:

As a matter of fact, the Trust Fund is being tapped now, by means of state and local taxes 

applied to construction contracts and gross receipts of contractors, and sales taxes on 

highway materials. These taxes are, of course, reflected in contractors bid prices, so that in 

the case of an Interstate system contract the Federal Government actually pays 90 per cent of 

the taxes from the Highway Trust Fund. The cost to the Highway Trust Fund is at least $40 

million per year, and it may be more. [Prentiss, L. W., “The Annual Report,” American 

Road Builder, March 1963, p. 14] 

Prentiss acknowledged that this problem would be hard to solve. 

Still, diversion for transit was the biggest concern, as Representative Fallon made clear in a 

February 1963 speech to ARBA’s 61st annual convention. He did not object to rail transit; he noted 

that he commuted from Baltimore to Washington every day by rail: 

The problem is that the rail transit operators are seeking relief in two directions—increased 

subsidies from federal, state and local governments, and decreased competition from motor 

vehicles.
26 

Their plan, in some cases, includes curtailment of urban freeway construction and the 

substitution of rail lines. To this, I object. 

I am strongly opposed to any mass transit proposal which would have the effect of limiting, 

curtailing or slowing down established federal aid highway programs . . . . 

In seeking sources of money for rail transit expansion, the transit enthusiasts are casting 

covetous eyes on the Highway Trust Fund. They reason that if less highways are needed, 

there will be a surplus of money in the Trust Fund which will be available for nonhighway 

purposes. Of course, one way to avoid such a surplus would be to reduce highway-user 

taxes, but that isn’t mentioned. As a matter of fact, the transit boosters are in favor of 

making automobile travel expensive enough to make people want to ride the trains to work. 

It is highly important that the Highway Trust Fund not be tapped for nonhighway purposes. 

[Fallon, George H., “Rapid Progress Is Important,” American Road Builder, May 1963, p. 9-

10, emphasis in original] 

Representative Boggs, sponsor of the Highway Trust Fund provision in the 1956 Act, was equally 

opposed: 

Some have sought to amend the Highway Trust Fund to channel funds into improving 

transit systems in the great urban centers. I am unalterably opposed to this concept. The 

Trust Fund must be utilized for highway purposes. Once the Fund is violated, every 

department of government will make some claim on it. I have striven to prevent this from 

happening in the past, and I intend to fight such moves in the future. [Boggs, Hale, “The 

Trust Fund: Its Present, Its Future,” American Road Builder, April 1964, p. 17] 

Even as the highway community fought to keep transit out of the Highway Trust Fund, the Federal 

Government took its first steps toward a role in mass transit. 

The breakthrough occurred on June 30, 1961, when President Kennedy signed into law the Housing 

Act of 1961 containing three provisions related to mass transit. It authorized $25 million for mass 

transportation demonstration projects, with local governments responsible for one-third of the cost; 

added mass transportation as part of comprehensive urban planning; and authorized $50 million in 

loans for capital improvements at low interest rates. The loans could not go directly to a private 

company at a time when private companies still provided most transit service; the loans had to be 

channeled through a government agency. Smerk said of the legislation: 

The mass transit portion of the Housing Act of 1961 was a modest start for the federal 

transit program, especially when compared with the high hopes of the coalition that had 

worked so hard to get the program enacted. The dollars were small: despite the $75 million 

authorization, only $42.5 million was appropriated to pay for the demonstrations and the 

loans. Even so, it was a start, a foundation to build upon. Even if the new law did not 

provide grants of capital and money to help pay operating expenses for financially troubled 
27 

transit properties, the 1961 Act offered eventual hope for more favorable action in the 

future.

Smerk added, “The Act of 1961 in and of itself did not do much to help the sagging fortunes of 

urban commuter railways or mass transit systems.” [Smerk, p. 80-81] 

President Kennedy’s Messages on Transportation 

In August 1957, the country had slipped into a recession that increased unemployment to over 7 

percent and reduced corporate profits by 25 percent by April 1958. To stimulate the economy, 

Congress passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1958, which increased Federal-aid highway 

authorizations but without a change in taxation to boost revenue. It also suspended the Byrd 

Amendment for 2 years and temporarily increased the matching share from 50 percent to twothirds. 

President Eisenhower approved the 1958 Act on April 16, citing “the desirability of speeding up 

construction of our badly needed system of Interstate Highways” and “the hope that in the 

acceleration of work on this system and on the other federal-aid highway programs some impetus 

may promptly be given to public and private efforts to increase employment.” These benefits 

overcame his reservations about “grave defects” in the bill, such as the increased Federal share and 

advances to the States to help finance their share of Federal-aid primary, secondary, and urban 

system projects. He also pointed out: 

It will be necessary for the Congress in its next session to return to the subject of highway 

legislation in order to provide funds for the enlarged federal assistance under this Act. Its 

action at that time should accord with the sound principles that established the Trust fund as 

a means for keeping federal-aid highway expenditures on a self-sustaining basis. 

The bill became law just as the short recession was ending. 

With expenditures now exceeding income to the Highway Trust Fund, President Eisenhower 

recommended a temporary 11⁄2-cent increase in the gas tax to maintain the Interstate construction 

schedule. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1959 (approved September 21, 1959) added only a 

penny, making the gas tax 4 cents a gallon. The temporary increase was to expire at the end of FY 

1961 on June 30, 1961. 

On February 28, 1961, just 5 weeks after taking office, President Kennedy sent a Message to 

Congress on the Federal Highway Program. It began, "Our Federal pay-as-you-go highway 

program is in peril" and focused on funding options for putting the program back on a sound 

financial footing. He cited the revised estimate issued in January showing that the total cost of the 

Interstate System would be $41 billion, with a Federal share of $37 billion. To keep the Interstate 

System on schedule and continue other Federal-aid highway programs, the Nation needed $11.56 

billion in additional authorizations or about $900 million more a year through FY 1972 to keep the 

program on a pay-as-you-go-basis.
28 

Completing the Interstate System "at least as fast as originally scheduled is essential to our 

economy." He opposed "stretching out or cutting back" the program, two options that critics had 

suggested. Instead, he recommended making the temporary 4-cent gas tax permanent. 

The President’s message also addressed urban development issues. “A Federal Highway program of 

this scope cannot be isolated from other programs for social and civic improvement, particularly 

our progress in urban renewal and planning. More effective use of both highway and urban renewal 

funds can result from increased coordination . . . .” He had, therefore, directed Secretary of 

Commerce Luther H. Hodges and Housing and Home Finance Administrator Robert C. Weaver "to 

increase their joint planning at every level, to improve coordination of urban renewal and freeway 

construction plans in the same area, and to invite the cooperative efforts of State and local highway 

and housing officials and private experts." 

Federal urban renewal law, enacted in 1949, required that every contract for Federal assistance 

include provisions assuring the availability of decent, safe, and sanitary housing at reasonable prices 

in suitable locations for all families displaced by urban renewal projects. This law did not apply to 

the Federal-aid highway program. President Kennedy recommended legislation to help families 

displaced by highway construction find "reasonable housing at reasonable costs, a problem that he 

said "has been largely overlooked." 

After he submitted legislation on March 14 to achieve these and other purposes, Congress acted 

quickly. On June 29, exactly 5 years after President Eisenhower had approved the landmark 1956 

Act, President Kennedy approved the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1961 "with the greatest 

pleasure." The new law made the 4-cent gas tax permanent and adjusted other excise taxes to 

provide the revenue needed to complete the Interstate System. It also adjusted remaining 

authorizations for the Interstate System to a total of $25.2 billion over 9 years. With State matching 

funds, the legislation accounted for $27 billion in funding for the remainder of the program through 

FY 1971, the same amount Congress had thought in 1956 would be the total cost of the program. 

Secretary Hodges and Administrator Weaver submitted their recommendations to the President on 

March 28, 1962. “Transportation,” they said in the transmittal letter, “is one of the key factors in 

shaping our cities.” They continued: 

The major objectives of urban transportation policy are the achievement of sound land-use 

patterns, the assurance of transportation facilities for all segments of the population, the 

improvement in overall traffic flow, and the meeting of total urban transportation needs at 

minimum cost. Only a balanced transportation system can attain these goals—and in many 

urban areas this means an extensive mass transportation network fully integrated with the 

highway and street system.

They agreed that highways are vital but believed that an increased emphasis on mass transit was 

needed in urban areas, especially in view of declining transit service in recent years. 

Comprehensive planning was the key to achieving good urban transportation: 

One of our main recommendations is that Federal aid for urban transportation facilities 

should be made available only when urban communities have prepared or are actively 
29 

preparing up-to-date general plans for the entire urban area which relate transportation plans 

to land-use and development plans. 

Their recommendations reflected these views. Planning should be a continuing process involving 

all agencies and jurisdictions within the urban community; coordinated with policy making and 

administration; and part of a systematic consideration of land use and development. It should focus 

on planning the system as a whole, not just its individual elements. 

The Institute of Public Administration had advised them that capital requirements for mass 

transportation in the next decade totaled $9.8 billion. In considering how to find this amount of 

funds, they said: 

Mass transportation must be viewed as a public service and often cannot be a profit-making 

enterprise. While mass transportation is provided on a more of less limited scale in 

hundreds of localities, it is generally not possible to support a large-scale investment 

program from the fare box. But the price to the community and the Nation of inadequate 

mass transportation can be uneconomic uses of land and higher than necessary costs of 

public facilities, excessive travel, and increasingly aggravated congestion at peak hours.

Local governments often have limited resources and ability to raise taxes, making substantial 

Federal aid a necessity.

Among their recommendations were proposals for a $500 million, 3-year program for mass transit 

grants, with $100 million authorized in FY 1963. The Federal share of project costs should be twothirds. An emergency program should be available to pay one-half the cost of projects to meet 

urgent needs where an existing facility or service would otherwise no longer be available. The 

Federal loan program should continue. 

They recommended that the Federal-aid highway program “continue undiminished” because it was 

“contributing substantially to the solution of the urban transportation problem.” Freeways, as well 

as new and improved streets and highways, were “an essential part of the urban transportation 

program.” The report did not recommend increased funding, but did say that “greater flexibility in 

the use of Federal-aid highway funds to meet urban transportation needs can be provided” by 

allowing Federal-aid secondary funds to be used on urban extension of secondary routes and by 

providing room in Federal-aid highway right-of-way for exclusive use of specific types of motor 

vehicles, such as rail lines and buses. Combined right-of-way could be effective, but “the 

additional cost occasioned by the rail facilities could not be borne by highway funds.” 

The joint report indicated that BPR had agreed to permit the exclusive use of highway lanes by 

buses, encourage sharing of highway right-of-way with rail transit, and emphasize that highway 

planning should promote adequate traffic control systems, parking facilities, and circulation systems 

for city streets commensurate with traffic volumes expected on freeways and major arterials. 

The report included several recommendations for urban highway programs, the most important of 

which involved planning: 
30 

Beginning not later than July 1, 1965, approval of Federal-aid highway programs for 

projects in any metropolitan area should be made contingent upon a finding by the Secretary 

of Commerce that such projects are consistent with adequate, comprehensive development 

plans for the metropolitan area or are based on results of a continuing process carried on 

cooperatively by the States and local communities and that the Federal-aid system so 

developed will be an integral part of a soundly based, balanced transportation system for the 

area involved. 

Secretary Hodges and Administrator Weaver also recommended relocation assistance for those 

displaced by highway or mass transit projects and additional funds for research and demonstration

projects in urban transportation and especially mass transportation. “It is essential to stimulate and 

support experimentation with new equipment and systems to test their practicality and demonstrate 

their effectiveness in improving and reducing the total cost of urban transportation.” 

They concluded their transmittal letter to the President by saying:

We are convinced that the program proposed herewith will contribute significantly to the 

welfare of our people and the sound growth of our economy. 

[“Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1962,” Congressional Record-Senate, September 13, 1962, p. 

19339-19343] 

On April 5, 1962, President Kennedy submitted a message to Congress on "The Transportation 

System of our Nation." The message began:

An efficient and dynamic transportation system is vital to our domestic economic growth, 

productivity, and progress. Affecting the cost of every commodity we consume or export, it 

is equally vital to our ability to compete abroad. It influences both the cost and the 

flexibility of our defense preparedness, and both the business and recreational opportunities 

of our citizens. This Nation has long enjoyed one of the most highly developed and 

diversified transportation systems in the world, and this system has helped us to achieve a 

highly efficient utilization of our manpower and resources . . . . Transportation is thus an 

industry which serves, and is affected with, the national interest. 

The message was a broad statement that covered a wide range of topics, including freight shipments 

by land, air and water; international aviation and maritime issues; and labor relations for 

transportation workers. 

President Kennedy summarized a national transportation policy: 

The basic objective of our nation’s transportation must be to assure the availability of the 

fast, safe and economic transportation services needed in a growing and changing economy 

to move people and goods, without waste or discrimination, in response to private and 

public demands at the lowest cost consistent with health, convenience, national security and 

other broad public objectives. 
31 

The users of transport facilities, he said, “should be provided with incentives to use whatever form 

of transportation . . . provides them with the service they desire at the lowest total cost, both public 

and private.” He favored “continued reliance on unsubsidized privately-owned facilities, operating 

under the incentives of private profit and the checks of competition to the maximum extent 

practicable.” 

The section on urban transportation explained that changes in where people lived and worked had 

changed the patterns of urban travel: 

Higher incomes coupled with the increasing availability of the automobile have enabled 

more and more American families, particularly younger ones with children, to seek their 

own homes in suburban areas. Simultaneously, changes and improvements in freight 

transportation, made possible by the development of modern highways and the trucking 

industry, have reduced the dependence of manufacturers on central locations near port 

facilities or railroad terminals. The development of improved production techniques that 

require spacious, one-story plant layouts have impelled many industries to move to the 

periphery of urban areas. At the same time the importance of the central city is increasing 

for trade, financial, governmental and cultural activities. 

In the past, transportation networks were organized to permit travel to and from downtown. Now, 

travel within urban areas was "increasingly diverse" and less geared to fixed mass transportation 

systems: 

This drastic revision of travel patterns in many urban areas has seriously impaired the 

effectiveness and economic viability of public mass transportation, which is geared to the 

older patterns. A steady decline in patronage and a concomitant rise of unprofitability and 

financial problems have occurred. This has been particularly true of rail commuter and 

streetcar services limited to particular routes by fixed roadbeds. 

President Kennedy based his recommendations on the Hodges/Weaver report. He recommended 

that Congress establish a long-range program of Federal-aid to urban mass transportation ($500 

million over 3 years) in the form of direct grants to public agencies for rights-of-way, fixed 

facilities, including maintenance and terminal facilities, and rolling stock, as well as extension and 

rehabilitation of existing systems and creation of new systems. Only substantial, continuing Federal 

support "can induce our urban regions to organize appropriate administrative arrangements and to 

meet their share of the costs of fully balanced transportation systems." The President also proposed 

authorizing the Housing and Home Finance Agency to make emergency grants over the next 3 years 

to meet urgent needs for any existing mass transportation facility or service that otherwise might 

end. 

Because highways would remain an "instrumental part" of urban transportation, the President asked 

Secretary Hodges "to make his approval of the use of highway planning funds in metropolitan 

planning studies contingent upon the establishment of a continuing and comprehensive planning 

process." He also recommended a change in Federal law to make Federal approval of a program for 

highway projects in any metropolitan area contingent on the Secretary's finding that the projects are 

"consistent with comprehensive development plans for the metropolitan area and that the Federal-
32 

aid system so developed will be an integral part of a soundly based, balanced transportation system 

for the area involved." 

In addition, the President reiterated his concern about "the problems of families displaced by new 

highway construction." He cited Secretary Hodges' estimate that 15,000 families and 1,500 

businesses were being displaced by Interstate construction each year. In the interest of equity, 

President Kennedy recommended that "assistance and requirements similar to those now applicable 

to the urban renewal program be authorized for the Federal-aid highway program and the urban 

mass transportation program." Legislation was being submitted "to authorize payments not to 

exceed $200 in the case of individuals and families and $3,000 . . . in the case of business concerns 

or nonprofit organizations displaced as a result of land acquisitions under these programs." (The 

payment for businesses could be higher based on moving costs.) 

In conclusion, the President recognized that transportation problems were deep and could not be 

quickly or easily solved. “But few areas of public concern are more basic to our progress as a 

nation.” The time had come for Congress and the Executive Branch to seek solutions: 

The difficulty and the complexity of these basic troubles will not correct themselves with 

the mere passage of time. On the contrary, we cannot afford to delay further. Facing up to 

the realities of the situation, we must begin to make the painful decisions necessary to 

providing the transportation system required by the United States of today and tomorrow. 

Senator Williams and transit interests saw the Housing Act of 1961 as launching a temporary 

program; they hoped to mobilize support for legislation in 1962 that would provide more funds on a 

permanent basis as a result of President Kennedy’s recommendations. 

Smerk summarized hearings in the House and Senate on legislation embodying the President’s 

ideas:

These hearings were generally successful in pointing out the need for federal aid and gave 

evidence of support for the measure from various urban interest groups. 

The support was not as broad or deep from urban political leaders as might have been 

expected, save for the coalition of big-city mayors . . . . At the time of these early hearings 

the great majority of transit was still provided by unsubsidized private firms. To political 

leaders in most American cities transit embodied at best a troublesome fight on fare 

increases; in some places it was a continual succession of owners as properties changed 

hands in an effort on the part of some owners to get out of the transit business in the best 

financial shape possible. In contemplating more federal action in transit, Congress was 

actually ahead of most city leaders who were, if possible, in the main less than indifferent to 

the plight of transit and the thought of providing financial aid . . . . 

In addition, there was no strong, well-organized antagonism; the strongest opposition came 

from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and the American Farm Bureau 

Federation. Both of these groups possessed deep philosophical reservations about federal 
33 

programs on the local level . . . . The opponents recited the litany of free enterprise and no 

enlargement of government spending. Labor gave cautious support to the proposed transit 

legislation but expressed a short-sighted concern over the possible loss of jobs that might 

result from improved and more efficient transport systems. The loss of the right to strike 

was a concern if the program encouraged an increase in municipal ownership of transit 

companies. Automotive interests also gave cautious approval, taking care to point out that 

mass transportation and the private automobile were complementary to one another and that 

there was a laudable and necessary—though limited—role for mass transportation. They 

were, however, firm in resisting any diversion of highway user fees for the support of mass 

transportation programs. [Smerk, p. 87-88] 

The House Committee on Banking and Currency approved a mass transit aid bill on July 3 by a 

vote of 16 to 7. In doing so, the committee reported that traffic congestion cost $5 billion a year 

and would only get worse unless more commuters switched back onto buses and trains. The 

committee estimated that about $9.8 billion would be needed to upgrade mass transit in the 

Nation’s 26 biggest cities. Cities could raise “a large part” of this amount by raising fares, but 

taxpayers would have to pay the rest. [“Traffic-Jam Costs Placed at $5 billion,” The New York 

Times, July 4, 1962] 

The Senate Committee on Banking and Currency approved Senator Williams’ similar bill on 

August 3. Senator Williams was encouraged by the fact that Senator Homer E. Capehart of Indiana, 

the ranking Republican on the committee, voted for the bill. Three other Republicans, including 

Senator Prescott Bush of Connecticut, voted “no,” as did one Democrat, Senator Willis Robertson 

of Virginia. (Senator Bush was the father of President George H. W. Bush and the grandfather of 

President George W. Bush.) 

Senator Williams was hopeful the House and Senate would approve the measure “within the next 

few crowded weeks” before Congress adjourned for the November mid-term elections. [“MassTransit Aid Gains in Senate,” The New York Times, August 4, 1962] 

The chief obstacle to passage was Representative Howard W. Smith (D-Va.), chairman of the 

House Rules Committee, which decides which bills go to the House floor for debate as well as the 

rules of the debate. Chairman Smith, a conservative who used his position to block civil rights 

legislation and other bills he opposed, objected to the bill because he thought the $500 million price 

tag was too high coming just before an election. 

The Senate, of course, could vote on its bill regardless of whether Chairman Smith allowed a vote 

in the House. However, congressional leaders were usually reluctant to allow a vote on a bill in 

only one House; doing so would put members of that House on record, pro or con, on a measure 

that could not become law but could affect their reelection potential. In this case, Senate Majority 

Leader Mike Mansfield (D-Mt.) was even more reluctant to bring the Williams bill to the floor for a 

vote. The schedule was jammed with other bills requiring action before the election, including 

measures on taxes, trade, and foreign aid that had a chance of passing in both Houses. [Weaver, 

Warren, Jr., “Transit-Aid Bill Considered Dead,” The New York Times, September 5, 1962] 
34 

Any hope for a Senate vote came to an end on September 13 when Senator Frank. J. Lausche (DOh.) introduced an amendment that would require the bill to go through the Committee on 

Commerce prior to a floor vote. Senator Lausche had been the Mayor of Cleveland (1941-1944) 

and Governor of Ohio (1945-1946, 1949-1956) before entering the Senate. Although a Democrat, 

he was a staunch conservative and an opponent of labor unions who never felt bound by party 

leadership or direction. (By the time he lost his bid for reelection in the 1968 Ohio Democractic 

primary, he supported the Republican nominee for President, former Vice President Richard M. 

Nixon, and did so again in 1972.) [Saxon, Wolfgang, “Frank Lausche, Ex-Ohio Senator and 

Governor for Five Terms, 94,” The New York Times, April 22, 1990) 

Senator Lausche said his primary concern was jurisdiction. The Committee on Banking and 

Currency had developed and approved the Williams bill, S. 3615, but it dealt primarily with issues 

assigned to the Committee on Commerce:

As to Commerce Committee jurisdiction, the 1946 Reorganization Act granted, among 

other things, jurisdiction over, first interstate and foreign commerce generally; and, second, 

regulation of interstate railroads, buses, trucks, and pipelines. I respectfully submit that 

inasmuch as the so-called mass transportation bill would deal with buses and mass 

transportation systems crossing State lines from New York into New Jersey particularly, it is 

inescapable that the proper situs for the consideration of the bill is in the Committee on 

Commerce.

He also objected to the contents of the bill. He and Senator Williams agreed that about 1,300 

companies and 60 governments operated transit systems in the United States. By making the aid 

available only to government bodies, S. 3615 was “the beginning of the transition of the 

transportation systems into governmental ownership.” The inescapable end result would be “a 

socialization not only of the local systems, but also of the railroad systems of the country.” 

Senator Williams explained that the bill provided funds only to public bodies because it “requires 

the greatest degree of cooperation in planning.” He explained: 

It cannot be expected that a bus company will undertake coordination of transportation and 

the comprehensive planning of urban development. So the money would be made available 

to a governmental authority, a public body. However, under the bill the public body not 

only can, but must, consider how it can bring private carriers into the coordinated 

transportation plan. 

Senator Lausche was unconvinced: 

I will not stand for it, and will not support it, regardless of the impact my stand may have on 

my political future. I think it is wrong. It is not in accord with the fight we are making 

throughout the world against communism. We are trying to preserve the free enterprise 

system. But this bill does not do that. If this bill is enacted, it will destroy the free 

enterprise system, first in local transportation, and eventually in the railroad systems . . . . I 

am not going to be one of the parade which supposedly is going down the easy path and the 
35 

good path, but which is completely in conflict with what our system of government means.” 

 [“Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1962,” Congressional Record-Senate, September 13, 

1962, p. 19329-19332] 

Unable to resolve the dispute during the debate, the two Senators privately negotiated an agreement 

that the Senate approved without debate by unanimous consent the following day. The Senate 

agreed to refer S. 3615 to the Commerce Committee with instructions to report it back to the Senate 

by noon on Monday, September 24. [“Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1962,” Congressional 

Record-Senate, September 14, 1962, p. 19530-19531] 

Senator Williams still did not believe the Commerce Committee had jurisdiction, but as The New 

York Times put it, “The sponsors agreed, they explained privately, because they lacked the votes to 

block the move.” [“Senate Shelves Transit Aid Bill,” The New York Times, September 14, 1962] 

According to Smerk: 

In September, Senator Lausche held a one-day hearing that was generally hostile in tone; it 

was not a matter of wonder that the Commerce Committee reported the bill [on September 

24] without recommendation. [Smerk, p. 88] 

The bill was, by then, dead. Chairman Smith would not release the bill from the House Rules 

Committee for a House vote. 

On October 4, the Senate approved a 6-month extension of the mass-transit loan program to June 

30, 1963. Senator Williams said that about $32 million in loan funds remained available. 

Following House passage, President Kennedy signed the extension on October 16. 

With the 87th Congress due to end early so members could return home to campaign for the midterm elections in November, prospects for further action on other aspects of the President’s message 

were not good. However, Congress did complete action on the highway portion of the message by 

passing the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962, which President Kennedy signed on October 23, 10 

days after Congress adjourned for the year. 

The 5-page legislation contained routine provisions, such as increased funds for the basic Federalaid highway program (the Interstate System had been funded in previous Acts), as well as two 

provisions President Kennedy’s message had requested. Section 5 addressed the growing concern, 

cited by the President and many critical articles, about relocated individuals and businesses. Before 

approving a project, the Secretary would have to receive assurances that the State highway agency 

would provide advisory assistance for displaced families. He also was required to approve Federalaid participation in relocation payments by the State to displaced individuals, families, business 

concerns, farms, and nonprofit organizations. The $200 limit for individuals and families and 

$3,000 for business or nonprofits proposed by the President was adopted. 

The most important provision was Section 9, “Transportation Planning in Certain Urban Areas.” It 

addressed the President’s call for a means of ensuring that Federal-aid highway and mass 
36 

transportation projects were part of a comprehensive and balanced urban transportation plan. The 

provision added Section 134 to Title 23, United States Code: 

It is declared to be in the national interest to encourage and promote the development of 

transportation systems, embracing various modes of transport in a manner that will serve the 

States and local communities efficiently and effectively. To accomplish this objective the 

Secretary shall cooperate with the States, as authorized in this title, in the development of 

long-range highway plans and programs which are properly coordinated with plans for 

improvements in other affected forms of transportation and which are formulated with due 

consideration to their probable effect on the future development of urban areas of more than 

fifty thousand population. After July 1, 1965, the Secretary shall not approve under section 

105 of this title any program for projects in any urban area of more than fifty thousand 

population unless he finds that such projects are based on a continuing comprehensive 

transportation planning process carried on cooperatively by States and local communities in 

conformance with the objectives stated in this section. 

This section launched modern transportation planning by calling for what became known as the 

“3C” process (for continuing, comprehensive, and cooperative). The 3C process remains the core 

of Section 134, which now contains nearly 20 subsections. 

Edward Weiner, in his history of urban transportation planning, explained: 

Two features of the act are particularly significant with respect to the organizational 

arrangements for carrying out the planning process. First, it called for a planning process in 

urban areas rather than cities, which set the scale at the metropolitan or regional level. 

Second, it called for the process to be carried on cooperatively by the states and local 

communities. Because qualified planning agencies to mount such a transportation planning 

process were lacking in many urban areas, the BPR required the creation of planning 

agencies or organizational arrangements that would be capable of carrying out the required 

planning process. 

These planning organizations quickly came into being because of the growing momentum of 

the highway program and the cooperative financing of the planning process by the HHFA 

and the BPR. 

In addition, the act restricted the use of the 1-1/2 percent planning and research funds to 

only those purposes. If not used for planning and research, the state would lose the funds. 

Previously, a state could request that these funds be used instead for construction. This 

provision created a permanent, assured funding source for planning and research activities. 

In addition, the act provided that a state could spend another 1/2 percent at their option for 

planning and research activities. [Weiner, Edward, Urban Transportation Planning in the 

US—A Historical Overview, U.S. Department of Transportation, November 1992, p. 42-43] 

BPR worked with AASHO and the American Municipal Association to implement Section 9: 
37 

The BPR moved quickly to implement the planning requirements of the 1962 Federal-Aid 

Highway Act. Instructional Memorandum 50-263, published in March [27,] 1963 and 

superseded by Policy and Procedure Memorandum 50-9, interpreted the act's provisions 

related to a "continuing, comprehensive, and cooperative" (3C) planning process. 

"Cooperative" was defined to include not only cooperation between the federal, state, and 

local levels of government but also among the various agencies within the same level of 

government. "Continuing" referred to the need to periodically reevaluate and update a 

transportation plan. "Comprehensive" was defined to include the basic ten elements of a 3C 

planning process for which inventories and analyses were required. [Weiner, p. 44] 

Neither Section 9 nor the BPR issuances required urbanized areas to form a permanent planning 

organization; the Intructional Memorandum called for “a formal procedure.” To address the new 

planning requirements, State and urban area officials formed ad hoc planning committees to reflect 

the “cooperative” element of the 3C process and hired consultants to gather and process the data. 

By July 1, 1965, each of the Nation’s 224 urbanized area had an urban transportation planning 

process in compliance with Section 9 of the 1962 Act. [Weiner, p. 47] 

(In an oral history, E. H. “Ted” Holmes, BPR’s Director of Planning in the early 1960s, recalled a 

1962 visit from Paul L. Sitton, who was examiner of transportation programs for the Bureau of the 

Budget from 1956 to 1964. Sitton handed Holmes a piece of paper:

It was virtually the ’62 Act [3C language]. I looked it over and said, “I like it, that’s what 

we’re trying to do. We are doing it in quite a number of cities right now . . . .” I said that 

there was only one thing I would change. He had used the word “plan” by July 1, 1965, 

there had to be a plan in place, developed cooperatively by the state and local communities. 

I said, “Paul, I’m really afraid that we can’t do that. I think that with the number of cities 

there are, I don’t think we have the capacity nor do the states to get that done in that length 

of time.” So I put in the words that are there now, “a planning process,” that’s the only 

difference in the language that Paul brought over, where he said plan I said planning 

process. [Oral History interview by Darwin Stolzenbach, 1988 Interstate Highway Research 

Project, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Transcript, p. 

18-19] 

(Sitton served as Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation and was the first 

Administrator of the Urban Mass Transportation Administrator (1966-1969).) 

A Profoundly Significant Urban Measure

On January 14, 1963, the first day of the 88th Congress, Senator Williams introduced the Urban 

Mass Transportation Act of 1963. It was basically the same bill that had failed in 1962. He said:

It will give municipal officials, agencies, and planners the encouragement and financial 

assistance needed to make mass transit feasible in our urban-suburban areas. As the history 

of the declining transit industry indicates, we will produce only talk until we put up the 
38 

money at the Federal level for a comparatively small part of the job that must be done in so 

many areas of our Nation. 

The bill I introduce today is sensible; it is modest; it can do the job. 

And it is one of the most important pieces of unfinished business left behind by the 87th

Congress. 

He summarized the history of the bill, beginning with President Kennedy’s statement emphasizing 

the importance of balancing transportation resources. The Housing Subcommittee of the Senate 

Banking and Currency Committee had conducted hearings from April 24 to 27, 1962, with only 3 

of 50 witnesses opposing the bill. A subcommittee of the House Committee on Banking and 

Currency conducted “even more extensive hearings.” Of 66 witnesses, only 2 opposed the bill. 

This widespread support, Senator Williams said, was because the 1961 breakthrough housing 

legislation “gave us reason to hope that a more adequate bill would be passed.” This hope was 

justified by passage of the 1962 legislation in the Senate and House banking committees:

In the closing days of the session, however, the bill was referred to another committee. 

Additional testimony was taken; no changes were recommended; but the bill could not be 

called up to the floor again because of our heavy work schedule at that time. 

To make certain that we will have adequate time this year, I am introducing the bill on the 

opening day of this session. 

The need for the bill “has grown more obvious during the past year,” as he explained:

[The] bill would combat a problem of increasingly critical proportions in the United States 

today. That problem can be summed up in a very direct way: at just the time when we 

anticipate our greatest period of urban growth, our ability to move large numbers of 

commuters in rapid transit vehicles is dwindling. Instead, we are relying—even for rushhour transportation—on automobiles and highways, the most costly and least efficient 

method of moving people. 

The decline of transit was clear. Between 1956 and 1960, bus and street car passengers had 

declined by about 25 percent, and from 1956 to the present, 363 transit companies had been sold or 

abandoned. About 60 cities of 25,000 population or more had no public transportation service: 

Over 85 percent of total daily travel in most urban areas today is by automobile. Traffic 

jams already cost the Nation about $5 billion a year in time and wages lost, extra fuel 

consumption, faster vehicle depreciation, lower tax yields, and so forth. 

There are forgotten people in our cities who cannot rely on automobiles because of 

disability, age, or other reasons. And yet, they are faced with a decline in public 

transportation facilities.
39 

Highways and transit were both needed because “our commuter problem today is simply too big to 

transform it into a feud between the highway people and the transit people.” The need for Federal 

concern and action can no longer be doubted: 

The basic justification for Federal financial assistance for local urban mass transportation 

systems is that the general welfare and the productivity of our Nation’s urban areas are 

vitally important to the welfare and productivity of our Nation as a whole; the welfare of the 

citizens in our towns and cities is essential to the welfare of all of our citizens regardless of 

where they themselves live . . . . 

The Federal Government is already deeply committed to providing financial support for our 

urban areas. For example, the Housing Act of 1961 committed $2 billion for the urban 

renewal program alone. The job which this program is trying to do will become 

increasingly difficult unless a greatly accelerated attack can be made upon our urban 

transportation problems. [“Mass Transportation,” Congressional Record-Senate, January 

14, 1963, p. 214-217] 

That evening, President Kennedy appeared before a joint session of Congress to deliver the State of 

the Union Address. In one section of the speech, he said that, “The quality of American life must 

keep pace with the quantity of American goods.” He listed fundamental premises to accomplish 

this goal, one of which was that “we need to strengthen our Nation by making the best and the most 

economical use of its resources and facilities.” The first example under this premise was:

Our economic health depends on healthy transportation arteries; and I believe the way to a 

more modern, economical choice of national transportation service is through increased 

competition and decreased regulation. Local mass transit, faring even worse, is as essential 

a community service as hospitals and highways. Nearly three-fourths of our citizens live in 

urban areas, which occupy only 2 percent of our land—and if local transit is to survive and 

relieve the congestion of these cities, it needs Federal stimulation and assistance.

On April 4, the Senate approved the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1963 by a vote of 52 to 41. 

Despite this promising start, the bill ran into problems in the House, as Professor Smerk 

summarized:

In the House there was trouble; southern representatives, in an effort to retaliate against the 

Kennedy administration’s civil rights program, took on an anti-urban stance. It was felt that 

there was a good chance the House version of the bill would never get out of committee. 

The impatient had much to be fidgety about. The House version of the bill remained in 

committee for more than a year, but in real fact the House Rules Committee [which held 

hearings in June 1963] was not responsible for the delay. The bill was held in the Rules 

Committee because House Speaker John McCormack [D-Ma.] felt that if the bill did come 

up for a vote on the floor of the House, it stood a good chance of being defeated. There 

were two good strategic reasons for the speaker’s reluctance; one was the need, for the 
40 

transit bill’s sake, to wait for a propitious moment. The second was political wisdom on the 

part of McCormack regarding more important legislation . . . . 

Following the assassination of President Kennedy, President Johnson called for passage of the late 

President’s stalled legislation, beginning with the civil rights legislation:

Speaker McCormack was fearful he would jeopardize the Johnson administration’s 

reputation for legislative success by bringing the urban mass transportation bill to the floor 

prematurely.

The fact that the mass transit bill was still not on the White House’s “must pass” list by April 1964 

“set into motion an unusual train of events” that went back to 1963 when the House of 

Representatives voted down a bill to construct a rapid transit system in the District of Columbia. 

“Labor lobbyists in Washington, in a virtual explosion of short-sightedness, were persuaded to 

bring pressure against Congress to defeat the bill as an anti-labor measure.” 

This defeat convinced transit supporters that in 1964, they would need a coordinated lobbying 

effort, particularly in the House, to get the Williams bill approved. They formed the Urban 

Passenger Transportation Association (UPTA) to lobby on behalf of “central city interests, the 

transit industry, the railroads, and organized labor (which was now firmly in the camp of transit as 

long as there was a quid pro quo in the legislation that protected jobs).” 

When President Johnson learned that labor was supporting this effort, he added the mass transit bill 

to the White House’s priority list:

With the UPTA group successful in impressing the White House, the problem then became 

one of persuading enough congressmen to vote in favor of it to assure passage. As in all 

things political, success means having enough votes. The speaker had to be shown that 

there were sufficient Republican votes from northern urban centers to offset the predicted 

loss of Southern Democrats opposed to the transit bill because of their fear of more (after 

civil rights legislation) federal incursions into local matters. 

With assurances from UPTA in early May that as many as 40 Republicans would vote for the bill, 

Speaker McCormack allowed the bill out of the Rules Committee, but still hesitated to schedule a 

floor vote: 

The speaker, yearning to keep the momentum of legislative success rolling on, could hardly 

be blamed for his foot-dragging, because late in May the House Republican Policy 

Committee took a firm party stand of direct and unalterable opposition to the mass transit 

bill. The Republican Policy Committee rarely digs in its heels when it fears defections from 

G.O.P. ranks, but UPTA had been busy lining up Republican support and the transit 

lobbyists felt they had enough votes to get the transit bill passed.
41 

Representative William B. Widnall, a Republican who represented a district based in Hackensack, 

New Jersey, finally forced Speaker McCormack to bring the bill up for a vote: 

Widnall threatened to embarrass both Speaker McCormack and the White House; he 

promised to call a press conference to indicate that there was Republican support sufficient 

to pass the bill and at the same time denounce the speaker and the White House for 

obstruction of legislative procedures. [Smerk, p. 88-90] 

On June 23, President Johnson held a press conference, during which he pressured Republicans to 

reduce obstacles to about 30 bills “that we think are desirable” and that “we would like to see acted 

upon.” He listed many of the bills, including the mass transit bill and the pending Federal-aid 

highway bill. 

The following day, the House began debating the measure. Despite strong opposition 

(Representative Oliver P. Bolton (R-Oh.) called the bill “the keystone in the arch of Federal 

domination and control of every town in this country”), the House passed the bill 212-189 on June 

25, with 39 Republicans joining 173 Democrats in support of the bill. The New York Times

speculated on the bipartisan support: 

Some observers professed to see President Johnson’s influence in the fact that 34 Southern 

Democrats, including seven from Texas, voted for the measure. All eight of the 10 Georgia 

representatives present for the vote supported the bill. 

Another major factor in the measure’s support among Southern and rural members was its 

sponsorship in the Congressional session by Representative Albert Rains, Democrat of 

Alabama. His advocacy made it seem less of a “big city” proposal . . . .

Credit for assembling the bill’s majority also goes to a coalition of national organizations in 

the fields of transportation, housing, planning and urban affairs, which conducted a 

thorough campaign among House members. 

President Johnson congratulated House members of both parties and hailed House approval as “a 

major step forward in cooperation between Federal and state governments on urban problems.” 

[Weaver, Warren, Jr., “$375 Million Transit Bill Passed by House, 212-189,” The New York Times, 

June 26, 1964] 

On June 30, the Senate approved the House version of the Williams bill, 47 to 36. The major new 

feature involved $375 million over 3 years for capital grants on a short- and long-term basis. The 

amount in the original Williams bill had been reduced from $500 million because the White House 

claimed that no more than $375 million could be spent during the 3-year period. No State could 

receive more than $47 million over the 3-year period. The long-term funds could be used for any 

capital project except highway construction. Short-term aid was available to keep troubled transit 

properties in operation while local officials planned a replacement service. The legislation 

continued the demonstration program initiated by the Housing Act of 1961, but expanded it to 

include research, development, and demonstrations initiated by the Housing and Home Finance 
42 

Agency. It also continued the little-used loan program launched in 1961, but it would remain little 

used. [Smerk, p. 92-93] 

On July 9, 1964, President Johnson approved the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 during a 

signing ceremony in the Cabinet Room of the White House. Guests included Senator Williams, 

Representative Rains, Administrator Weaver of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, and other 

Senators, Representatives, Governors, and Mayors. 

President Johnson called the legislation “one of the most profoundly significant domestic measures 

to be enacted by the Congress during the 1960’s.” He put the measure in historical context: 

Our Constitution empowered Congress to provide for post roads. Since that time, 

congressional support of transportation has been a major constructive influence on the 

progress and development of our American society and our American economy. 

In the last century, such support of transcontinental railroads and canals and river navigation 

gave immeasurable impetus to our expansion. Now, in this century, sound congressional 

policies in support of both highways and airways for automobile and airplane travel has [sic] 

given incalculable momentum to American progress. 

This new act that all of you have contributed to passing remains faithful to this tradition of 

vision. 

Not so long ago, he pointed out, 6 out of 10 Americans lived in rural areas, but now 7 out of 10 

lived in urban areas:

The change has come rapidly and has come dramatically, and today urban congestion is an 

unpleasant fact of everyday life for too many millions of Americans. 

All of us recognize that the curses of congestion in commuting cannot be wiped away with 

the single stroke of a pen, or 50 pens that we have here. But we do know that this 

legislation that we are coming to grips with faces the realities of American life and attempts 

to put in motion a movement to do something about it. 

He hoped that this “milestone measure will serve as a beneficial forerunner of many other steps 

forward in meeting the present challenges of metropolitan life in America.” He was, he said, 

“determined that we will provide the vision and the leadership necessary and that they will no 

longer be a stepchild and be neglected by their Government in Washington.” 

New York City Mayor Wagner was in the Cabinet Room for the ceremony. He anticipated using 

the Federal funds to help with “further extension of our subway system in Queens and possibly 

other boroughs” as well as another East River tunnel. He also predicted that the aid would provide 

“much needed assistance” for the New Haven, Long Island, and other rail lines serving New York 

City. At the same time, he recognized that “there won’t be too much for us” in the new legislation. 

The limit of $47 million per State reduced the value to New York City, which would get that full 
43 

amount only if no other city in New York State received any grant funds. He hoped that “in the 

years ahead, the amounts available will be more.” [Weaver, Warren, Jr., “President Signs TransitAid Bill,” The New York Times, July 10, 1964] 

Professor Smerk said of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964: 

The 1964 Act, in any event, is the cornerstone of the federal transit program. Its aim is to 

provide aid for the improvement and development of mass transportation and to encourage 

the planning and establishment of areawide coordinated transport. Along with the planning 

provision of the Highway Act of 1962, the intention was to offer incentives to plan and 

develop a rational and integrated urban transportation system combining both the private 

automobile and mass transportation. [Smerk, p. 91] 

Although the Federal role in transit grew under the 1964 Act, needs far exceeded financial 

resources. Smerk explained:

One serious problem for cities was that the federal funding of the mass transportation 

program was uncertain, making intelligent planning difficult. Long-term capital projects, in 

particular, had a difficult time on the local level because there was no certainty that 

Congress would appropriate funds for capital grants in the future—or that the funds would 

be sufficient in magnitude even if granted. The latter factor was noteworthy, given the small 

sums appropriated for transit up to that time. Consequently, it was very difficult for a city to 

consider a major transit capital project or issue bonds without some certainty that the federal 

portion of the money would be there when it was needed for construction purposes. The 

transit situation was much different from that of the federal highway program: the federal 

Highway Trust Fund provided a steady and relatively predictable source of money. 

Moreover, a number of states also had trust-funded highway programs. Even if the federal 

highway money did not always move with the alacrity that state and local officials might 

wish, it had the beauty of certainty and it was possible to plan for highways in an effective 

and efficient fashion that was impossible for transit. [Smerk, p. 111] 

Diversion to Transit 

For Representative Jonathan B. Bingham (D-NY), who entered the House on January 3, 1965, to 

represent the Bronx in New York City, the authorized amount for mass transit was “totally 

inadequate.” In March 1965, he announced his intention to introduce legislation that would divert 

Highway Trust Fund revenue to transit. He pointed out that the highway program would “pump 

nearly $4 billion annually into highway construction and maintenance,” continuing: 

I am unable to see why the Federal Government should contribute such enormous sums of 

money for the development of an interstate highway system without giving a proportionate 

share of the money to those city dwellers who have to depend on bus and subway 

transportation and for whom such transportation is far more essential and plays a much 

greater part in their lives than the occasional joys of motoring on a super highway. 
44 

I intend shortly to introduce a bill which would give to a city such as New York a choice as 

to whether the enormous funds contemplated for the highway program should be used for 

more superhighways or for the improvement of mass rapid transit, or for some combination 

of the two, as the needs of the community require. [“Diversion of Funds Sought From 

Roads to Mass Transit,” Transport Topics, March 15, 1965] 

Representative Bingham joined with Senator Joseph D. Tydings (D-Md.), a former State legislator 

who was in the first year of his only term in the Senate, on July 18, 1965, to introduce the Mass 

Transportation Financing Act. Their joint statement emphasized that, “We do not oppose the 

construction of highways.” However, they did not believe “that automobiles alone can adequately 

handle the job of moving large numbers of people back and forth from their homes to jobs, schools, 

and marketing.” Their legislation “would give State governments the authority to use Federal 

highway subsidies for either road construction or mass transit in whatever proportions they find 

appropriate to meet their problems.” In this way, the legislation would result in a “balanced urban 

transportation system” that was clearly “the best way to meet our burgeoning transportation needs.” 

They explained that the purpose of their bill was “no less than the survival of our cities as we now 

know them.” For the central core city to survive, “we must develop more flexible means of access 

and egress than we possess today.” They hoped their bill would make downtowns not only more 

accessible, but “more pleasant places to work and live.” In their view:

The ideal urban transportation plan, we are convinced, would combine a rapid transit system 

of high quality with a freeway system adequate to carry the balance of the traffic. 

Paradoxically, however, the nature of present Federal aid has been such as to predetermine 

that every community will best be served by a basic reliance on highways. It is our goal to 

correct this clear imbalance.

They cited several “inescapable” facts:

1. “Our cities are losing commerce and industry because adequate transportation is not 

available.” 

2. “Americans traveled an estimated 687 billion miles by car last year, at a total cost of $70 

billion. Over 85 percent of the daily travel in most urban areas today is by car.” 

3. “The social costs of unchecked freeway development are enormous.” 

4. “Air pollution is another disturbing repercussion of the onslaught of automobiles into our 

cities.”

The Highway Trust Fund had tilted the scales away from transit. The heavy emphasis on highways 

had shifted people away from transit as service declined. “Let there be no doubt that people will 

patronize improved transportation systems,” if they are available:

What must be done in order to provide for an integrated transportation service is to correct 

the gross inequities which exist between the funds available for highways and those 

available for rapid transit.
45 

The joint statement addressed the frequent argument that highway user taxes are the source of 

revenue to the Highway Trust Fund, and that motorists contribute it with the understanding that the 

money will be used for highway construction. They argued that Interstate motorists pay only about 

a third of the costs of Interstate construction, according to a study of the John F. Kennedy 

Expressway (I-94 at the time) in Chicago by Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglass. The 

balance of funding comes from highway users who do not ride on the subsidized highways. The 

study said: 

The balance of the capital, maintenance and operation costs must be met by taxes on fuel 

consumed by vehicles operating over roads and streets already completed, some for decades.

Representative Bingham and Senator Tydings concluded from this analysis and other studies that: 

Against this background, the need for a transit subsidy becomes more understandable. A 

transit system, no matter how popular, how badly needed, or how well planned and 

operated, can hardly be expected to woo commuters off the expressways without a subsidy 

so long as the urban freeways themselves, and the parking at their downtown end, continue 

to be lavishly subsidized. 

Their proposal was “in the interest of every automobile owner in every city and metropolitan suburb 

in the land.” Even if a motorist remains on the roads, the switch to improved mass transit will 

reduce the number of vehicles competing for space, making the remaining motorists’ trips “safer, 

faster, more comfortable, and in every way a more pleasant experience.” [“Highways for Mass 

Transit,” Congressional Record-House, July 28, 1965, p. 18685-18687] 

 

During a news conference, Representative Bingham and Senator Tydings said they knew their bill 

faced an uphill battle. The Senator acknowledged that “a great deal of education” would be 

necessary before their bill would pass. “Hope of passage would depend on the enlightened support 

of people who have been generally associated with the highway lobbies.” Asked if the 

Administration supported the proposal, Senator Tydings grinned and asked Representative 

Bingham, “Did Lyndon call you this morning?” Representative Bingham shook his head no. 

“Potomac Watch” columnist George Lardner, Jr., of The Washington Post said:

They might have to wait a few years to get a White House smile on their idea, too. By then 

it should be just about ripe. [Flor, Lee, “Road Funds Diversion for Transit Proposed,” The 

Evening Star, July 28, 1965; Lardner, George, Jr., “Before Roads and Transit Share Cash 

There’s a Rub That’s Causing Friction,” Potomac Watch, The Washington Post, July 29, 

1965] 

The U.S. Department of Transportation 

The idea of a Federal Department of Transportation has a long history. As early as January 1874, 

Representative Laurin D. Woodworth (R-Oh.) had called, unsuccessfully, for a Federal bureau of 

transportation. In April 1919, dozens of technical societies met in Chicago to discuss organization 

of a public works department that would include the BPR, but their efforts failed as well. Since 
46 

then, proposals for a Department of Transportation or a consolidation of transportation agencies 

within the Commerce Department had been made by government study groups, but without a push 

from the President, the proposals failed. 

Each mode of transportation developed in its own time, subject to its own set of laws, regulations, 

technology, and financing growing out of its unique history. Through the first half of the 20th

century, the modes were seen as operating independently. Efforts to coordinate the modes to 

enhance economic efficiency had begun in the 1920’s, but could not overcome the challenge of 

unifying such disparate enterprises. 

By the 1960’s, with railroads in decline, air travel still expanding, transit deteriorating, and 

waterway travel increasingly uneconomical, the highway component of the transportation network 

seemed dominant – in the Department of Commerce, BPR’s highway program consumed half the 

departmental budget. Moreover, Federal and State highway officials had longstanding relationships 

with the highway authorizing committees in the House and Senate that sometimes overcame 

Departmental goals. 

On May 22, 1964, during a commencement address at the University of Michigan, President 

Johnson unveiled his vision of a Great Society: 

The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is 

to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success 

as a Nation. 

For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called 

upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our 

people. 

The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to 

enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization. 

Your imagination, your initiative, and your indignation will determine whether we build a 

society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new 

visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to 

move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great 

Society.

The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and 

racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the 

beginning. 

The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to 

enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a 

feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man served not only
47 

the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the 

hunger for community. 

It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation 

for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where 

men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods. 

But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a 

finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where 

the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor. 

He would, he said, begin the Great Society in three places—“in our cities, in our countryside, and in 

our classrooms.” Recognizing the population shift to urban areas, he said that “in the next 40 years 

we must rebuild the entire urban United States,” which faced a “catalog of ills,” including “the 

decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs. There is not enough housing for our people 

or transportation for our traffic.” As for the countryside, he said: 

We have always prided ourselves on being not only America the strong and America the 

free, but America the beautiful. Today that beauty is in danger. The water we drink, the 

food we eat, the very air we breathe, are threatened with pollution . . . . A few years ago we 

were greatly concerned about the “Ugly American.” Today we must act to prevent an ugly 

America. 

He established 14 task forces of academics, government officials, and prominent citizens to develop 

policy recommendations. The task forces, which operated in secret, covered such areas as urban 

problems, pollution of the environment, preservation of natural beauty, and transportation. Their 

reports, which were submitted to the White House in November 1965, spanned a wide range of 

ideas, from the practical to the visionary. One aide said, “If we had adopted all their ideas, we 

would have had to come up with a budget of over $300 billion.” For example, one idea was to 

spend $3 billion on a tube-encased, rocket propelled railroad, capable of traveling 200 miles per 

hour, between Washington and Boston. [Woods, Randall B., LBJ: Architect of American 

Ambition, Free Press, 2006, p. 557] 

President Johnson distilled ideas from his Great Society task forces in his State of the Union 

Address on January 4, 1965: 

The Great Society asks not how much, but how good; not only how to create wealth but how 

to use it; not only how fast we are going, but where we are headed. It proposes as the first 

test for a nation: the quality of its people. 

His comments on transportation were limited:

In a country that spans a continent modern transportation is vital to continued growth. 
48 

I will recommend heavier reliance on competition in transportation and a new policy for our 

merchant marine. 

I will ask for funds to study high-speed rail transportation between urban centers. We will 

begin with test projects between Washington and Boston. On high-speed trains, passengers 

could travel this distance in less than 4 hours. 

He also addressed urban revitalization: 

An educated and healthy people require surroundings in harmony with their hopes. In our 

urban areas the central problem today is to protect and restore man's satisfaction in 

belonging to a community where he can find security and significance. 

The first step is to break old patterns--to begin to think and work and plan for the 

development of the entire metropolitan areas. We will take this step with new programs of 

help for the basic community facilities and for neighborhood centers of health and 

recreation. 

He called on Congress to create a Department of Housing and Urban Development that would “be 

needed to spearhead this effort in our cities.” 

President Johnson’s first phase of the Great Society resulted in such legislative successes as the 

Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965, the Elementary 

and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (establishing Head Start among other measures), the Social 

Security Act of 1965 (authorizing Medicare), legislation establishing the National Endowment for 

the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Highway Beautification Act of 

1965. 

As the year went on, he decided to explore financing a supersonic air transport (SST). He asked the 

independent Federal Aviation Agency, as it was called then, for advice, but also called on the 

Defense Department and private banks for their thoughts. This double check prompted Aviation 

Administrator Najeeb Halaby to revive the idea of a U.S. Department of Transportation on July 1, 

1965, his last day in office. Departmental Historian R. Dale Grinder wrote:

Frustrated because he thought the Defense Department had locked the Federal Aviation 

Agency out of the administration’s supersonic transportation decision-making, Halaby 

decided that a Department of Transportation was essential to secure decisive transportation 

policy development. After four and a half years as administrator, he concluded that the 

agency could do a better job as part of an executive department that incorporated other 

government transportation programs. “One looks in vain,” he wrote Johnson, “for a point of 

responsibility below the President capable of taking an evenhanded, comprehensive, 

authoritarian approach to the development of transportation policies or even able to assure 

reasonable coordination and balance among the various transportation programs of the 

government.” [Grinder, R. Dale, “The United States Department of Transportation: A Brief 

History,” http://dotlibrary.dot.gov/Historian/history.htm] 
49 

Halaby recommended that the new Department incorporate the responsibilities then assigned to the 

Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation, and include his own agency as well. 

During the summer and fall of 1965, the President established new task forces to recommend ideas 

for the second phase of the Great Society. The task forces covered pollution control, transportation, 

urban renewal, population control, education, housing, foreign aid, and civil rights. [Woods, p. 

685] On the transportation task force, Charles Schultze, director of the Bureau of the Budget, and 

Joseph A. Califano, Jr., special assistant to the President, agreed with Halaby. President Johnson 

also had made clear as early as July 1965 that he supported the idea. [Woods, p. 684] According to 

presidential historian Robert Dallek:

The role of the federal government in managing the country’s transportation systems was a 

microcosm of Johnson’s views of federal authority . . . In a country as vast as the United 

States, with a mid-sixties population of nearly 190 million people, Johnson, ever the New 

Dealer faithful to the conviction that consolidation of control in the executive assured 

greater economy and efficiency, intended to create a Department of Transportation 

responsible for all phases of national mobility and safety. 

Beginning in 1965, Johnson had made clear to his task force on transportation that he 

wanted a program that would improve conditions “radically, looking not only to next year, 

but to 1980, the year 2000 and beyond.” Johnson saw a transportation department as not 

only a chance to “invigorate” and “modernize” the country’s transit system but also to do 

“major things” without costing much money. [Dallek, Robert, Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait 

of a President, Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 235] 

With this support, Schultze and Califano encouraged Under Secretary of Commerce for 

Transportation Alan S. Boyd, head of the task force, to explore the idea as a possible legislative 

initiative for 1966. The Boyd Task Force reported on October 22, 1965, in support of the proposal. 

 A new task force, headed by Charles Zwick of the Bureau of the Budget and including 

representatives of the agencies to be in the new department, was established to draft legislation. 

In his State of the Union Address on January 12, 1966, President Johnson proposed steps “to 

modernize and streamline the executive branch, to modernize the relations between city and State 

and Nation.” The first step was creation of a Department of Transportation “to bring together our 

transportation activities.” With 35 government agencies spending $5 billion a year on 

transportation, he said, the “present structure makes it almost impossible to serve either the growing 

demands of this great nation or the needs of the industry, or the right of the taxpayer to full 

efficiency and frugality.” (He also endorsed “a program to construct and to flight-test a new

supersonic transport airplane that will fly three times the speed of sound—in excess of 2,000 miles 

per hour.”) 

Recognizing that the proposal involved many groups that were comfortable with current 

arrangements, President Johnson and Califano, Woods said, “spent endless hours with the 

constituencies involved—railroad executives and unions, truckers, auto manufacturers, 

shipbuilders, airline industry executives—getting them on board.” Woods added, “It was a 
50 

gargantuan task that perhaps only a person of Johnson’s energy and drive could have 

accomplished.” Dallek quoted an anecdote by Califano: 

When Califano reported that the head of the American Trucking Association [sic] was an 

enthusiastic supporter, the President brightened and said: “‘Joe, we’re going to get our 

Department of Transportation! You know why?” I had no idea. He gave me a patronizing 

look, and almost whispered, “Because of the truckers. When the truckers deal on the Hill, 

they deal one on one”—Johnson paused for effect and leaned toward me—“and only in 

cash.” He slapped his leg approvingly. [Dallek, p. 235-236] 

On March 2, 1966, President Johnson submitted a special message to Congress on transportation. 

“In a nation that spans a continent,” he said, “transportation is the web of union.” The “tenuous 

skein of rough trails and primitive roads” of the Nation’s early years had become “a powerful 

network on which the prosperity and convenience of our society depend.” He listed the current 

system’s deficiencies, which in the area of highways included “consuming, frustrating, and wasteful 

congestion”; “super-highways for super-charged automobiles – and yet [we] cannot find a way to 

prevent 50,000 highway deaths this year”; a network of “new freeways to serve new cities and 

suburbs” that “carelessly scars the irreplaceable countryside.”

He urged creation of a Department of Transportation “to serve the growing demands of this great 

Nation, to satisfy the needs of our expanding industry and to fulfill the right of our taxpayers to 

maximum efficiency and frugality in Government operations.” 

BPR would be part of the new Department, but the Housing and Home Finance Agency, which 

administered the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, would remain in the Department of 

Housing and Urban Development, its home since September 1965. The President said that after 

creation of the Department of Transportation, he would ask the new Secretary of Transportation to 

work with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to submit proposals on “a unified 

Federal approach to urban problems.” 

The bill received bipartisan support in Congress, with the most difficult issue being whether the 

Maritime Administration (MARAD), then in the Department of Commerce, would be included. 

Dallek explained that, “Shipowners and maritime labor unions supported by a bipartisan majority in 

the House wanted to create an independent Maritime Administration that would give special 

attention to the problems of an ailing industry.” Johnson was concerned that this development 

would undermine the concept of a Department of Transportation: 

If maritime interests could preserve their autonomy, it would boost the case of an 

independent FAA. “Altogether,” Budget Director Charlie Schultze told him, this could 

“begin a wholesale gutting of the Department bill.” To counter such a result, the President 

promised to give a maritime administrator in a transportation department authority to build 

“a modern, efficient merchant marine fleet.” If the maritime industry went its separate way, 

it “would be the only major transportation mode not represented in the new Department” 

and would “not have a voice at the Cabinet table or as a powerful voice in the policymaking councils of Government.” 
51 

Califano tried to work out a compromise, such as inclusion of a maritime subsidy board and “a 

special statutory delegation of authority.” However, labor and industry objections prevailed. 

MARAD was excluded from the bill at the insistence of House members. If the White House had 

not conceded the point, the bill would have failed. [Dallek, p. 235-237] 

Senator John L. McClellan (D-Ar.), who was Chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee that would 

hold hearings on the proposed Department, was another obstacle. He had several objections to the 

proposal, including concerns about shifting the U.S. Coast Guard and the FAA into the Department. 

 His primary objection, as Johnson understood, was that criteria proposed for new navigation 

projects built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would hinder the Kerr-McClellan Navigation 

project transforming the Arkansas River into an inland waterway. 

At first, Johnson proposed to deal with McClellan the old-fashioned way, by leaking a story that he 

was holding up the bill because he wanted to ensure construction of a dam on property he owned. 

When Califano asked the President if the story were true, Johnson explained that wasn’t the point. 

“You just let John McClellan deny it.” [Dallek, p. 236, Woods, p. 689] Instead, Johnson talked 

directly to the Senator to open a dialogue that resulted in a compromise that allowed the bill to 

proceed.

President Johnson signed the Department of Transportation Act on October 15, 1966, before about 

200 guests at the White House. As Woods noted, “LBJ was so mad at the leaders of the maritime 

corporations and unions that he did not invite them to the signing ceremony.” [Woods, p. 690] He 

began with a sweeping overview of America’s transportation history: 

In large measure, America’s history is a history of her transportation. Our early cities were 

located by deep water harbors and inland waterways; they were nurtured by ocean vessels 

and by flatboats. The railroad allowed us to move east and west. A thousand towns and 

more grew up along the railroad’s gleaming rails. The automobile stretched out over cities 

and created suburbia in America. Trucks and modern highways brought bounty to remote 

regions. Airplanes helped knit our Nation together, and knitted it together with other 

nations throughout the world. And today, all Americans are really neighbors.

The transportation system was “the greatest of any country in the world,” he said, but “we must face 

facts.” The system was “no longer adequate.” He explained:

Today we are confronted by traffic jams. Today we are confronted by commuter crises, by 

crowded airports, by crowded air lanes, by screeching airplanes, by archaic equipment, by 

safety abuses, and roads that scar our Nation’s beauty. 

With the population expected to double over the next two decades, the Nation’s future lifeline “is 

tangled.” 

The new Department “will have a mammoth task—to untangle, to coordinate, and to build the 

national transportation system for America that America is deserving of.” With its help, “A day 
52 

will come in America when people and freight will move through this land of ours speedily, 

efficiently, safely, dependably, and cheaply. That will be a good day and a great day in America.” 

The new law brought together 31 agencies and bureaus, including BPR, which had by far the largest 

budget ($4.4 billion) in a Department with a total budget of $6.6 billion. The main elements of the 

new Department (and where they come from) were:

U.S. Coast Guard (from Treasury Department) 

Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (Commerce)

Federal Railroad Administration (Interstate Commerce Commission’s Office of High Speed 

Ground Transportation) 

Federal Highway Administration (Commerce)

Federal Aviation Administration (independent) 

The legislation began with a Declaration of Purpose: 

The Congress hereby declares that the general welfare, the economic growth and stability of 

the Nation and its security require the development of national transportation policies and 

programs conducive to the provision of fast, safe, efficient, and convenient transportation at 

the lowest cost consistent therewith and with other national objectives, including the 

efficient utilization and conservation of the Nation’s resources. 

The Declaration identified the new Department’s purpose: 

The Congress therefore finds that the establishment of a Department of Transportation is 

necessary in the public interest and to assure the coordinated, effective administration of the 

transportation programs of the Federal Government; to facilitate the development and 

improvement of coordinated transportation service, to be provided by private enterprise to 

the maximum extent feasible; to encourage cooperation of Federal, State, and local 

governments, carriers, labor, and other interested parties toward the achievement of national 

transportation objectives; to provide general leadership in the identification and solution of 

transportation problems; and to develop and recommend to the President and the Congress 

for approval national transportation policies and programs to accomplish these objectives 

with full and appropriate consideration of the needs of the public, users, carriers, industry, 

labor, and the national defense. 

Finally, the Declaration stated that the national policy was to make special efforts “to preserve the 

natural beauty of the countryside and public park and recreation lands, wildlife and waterfowl 

refuges, and historic sites.” This policy resulted in one of the Act’s most influential provisions, 

Section 4(f), which read: 

After the effective date of this Act, the Secretary shall not approve any program or project 

which requires the use of any land from a public park, recreation area, wildlife and 

waterfowl refuge, or historic site unless (1) there is no feasible and prudent alternative to the 

use of such land, and (2) such program includes all possible planning to minimize harm to 
53 

such park, recreational area, wildlife and waterfowl refuge, or historic site resulting from 

such use. 

(For a brief history of Section 4(f), see http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/50section4f.cfm and 

http://environment.fhwa.dot.gov/4f/index.asp.) 

To be the first Secretary of Transportation, President Johnson selected Boyd, who had headed the 

task force on creation of the Department. A 44-year old lawyer, Boyd had been general counsel of 

the Florida Turnpike Authority and chairman of the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities 

Commission before President Eisenhower appointed him to the Civil Aeronautics Board. Boyd 

became chairman in 1961 and was appointed Under Secretary of Commerce in 1965. 

President and Mrs. Johnson watched on January 16, 1967, as Boyd took the oath of office in the 

East Room of the White House. The President explained that Boyd would “coordinate a national 

transportation policy for this great land of ours . . . and give the kind of results that the American 

people would like to point to with pride.” 

The U.S. Department of Transportation opened for business on April 1, 1967. On the National 

Mall, Secretary Boyd participated in opening ceremonies that were combined with the Smithsonian 

Institution’s third annual Rite of Spring, titled a “Pageant of Transportation” for the occasion. 

According to an account in The Washington Post, “Everything seemed to be happening at once” on 

a sun-drenched day. As bands played, large crowds enjoyed viewing past, present, and future 

vehicles, including a llama, a 15-passenger horse-drawn omnibus (pulled by mules on this 

occasion) from 1880, antique automobiles dating to 1910, an air-cushion “Hydroskimmer,” and a 

rocket-propelled man. 

After a news conference during which Secretary Boyd introduced Department leaders, he pledged 

that the new Department would work to make transportation more efficient and more socially 

responsible. In a remark that seemed directed at the impacts of the Interstate System, he added, 

“We want an end to the noise, pollution, and general disfigurement transportation has 

unintentionally brought to our cities.”

The opening of the new Department meant changes for BPR. One involved the name “Bureau of 

Public Roads.” It had been the name of the agency during two periods spanning 39 years (July 1, 

1918, to June 30, 1939, and July 1, 1949, to March 31, 1967) with the agency named the Public 

Roads Administration between them. On April 1, 1967, when the Federal Highway Administration 

(FHWA) began operations, it was organized into bureaus headed by Directors. The BPR was 

retained for one of them, along with the Bureau of Motor Carrier Safety (now the Federal Motor 

Carrier Safety Administration) and the National Highway Safety Bureau (now the National 

Highway Traffic Safety Administration). With the additions, the agency increased from about 

4,800 employees at the end of 1966 to 5,360 employees a year later. (In a reorganization that took 

effect on August 10, 1970, the FHWA eliminated its bureau structure, replacing the Directors with 

Associate Administrators, and finally retiring the “Bureau of Public Roads.”) 

Perhaps the most surprising change was that the new Federal Highway Administrator would not be 

an engineer. After Whitton, whose entire career had involved road building, retired at the end of 
54 

1966, President Johnson nominated Lowell K. Bridwell to the post. He was the first head of the 

agency, dating to 1893, who was not, in some way, a road builder. Bridwell had been a journalist, 

most recently as the top writer on highways for the Washington Bureau of Scripps-Howard 

Newspapers, a post he had assumed in 1958. He had joined the Commerce Department in April 

1962 as assistant to Under Secretary for Transportation Clarence Martin, Jr., before being appointed 

Acting Deputy Federal Highway Administrator on January 20, 1964, a post he held until becoming 

Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation (Operations) on July 2, 1964. He would 

take office as Federal Highway Administrator on March 23, 1967, and hold the position until the 

end of the Johnson Administration on January 20, 1969. 

(Under Reorganization Plan 2, adopted July 1, 1968, President Johnson transferred administration 

of the mass transit programs from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to the new 

Department, establishing the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) to carry out those 

functions. The Maritime Administration remained in the Commerce Department until 1981, when 

it moved to the Department of Transportation.) 

The Fiscal Bomb

Pressure on the Highway Trust Fund was increasing. By 1965, BPR was reporting that the 

estimated cost of the Interstate System had increased to $46.8 billion (Federal share: $42 billion). 

The price tag would increase to $56.5 billion by 1968 (Federal share: $50.6 billion), increasing the 

highway industry’s concern about any proposed diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue from the 

main task. 

President Lyndon B. Johnson would pose several threats. One was the threat that Highway Trust 

Fund revenues might be used for the President’s highway beautification program and the 

Appalachian Regional Development Program. Highway interests supported both programs after 

ensuring that the programs would be funded out of the General Treasury. 

The biggest threat came from an unexpected source: the Vietnam War. President Johnson was 

committed to continuing his Great Society initiatives, but the increasingly costly war was straining 

the Nation’s resources, a fiscal conflict usually referred to as “Guns and Butter.” With the economy 

growing and employment steady, inflation was a concern throughout 1966. In August, pollster Lou 

Harris called it “a crisis of major proportions,” while the President’s poll numbers included a 90-

percent unfavorable rating on handling of the economy. [Woods, Randall B., LBJ: Architect of 

American Ambition, Free Press, 2006, p. 687-688] 

Nevertheless, the President continued his Guns and Butter approach, while trying to trim 

government spending to limit its inflationary impact. He called on the Departments of Agriculture, 

Defense, and the Interior, as well as NASA, to trim their budgets. He threatened to veto pork barrel 

spending if Congress tried to trim the Great Society programs. As he explained in a letter to the 

House Committee on Ways and Means on January 19, 1966, he was faced with three choices: 

running a deficit for FY 1967 of $6.5 billion, increasing corporate, personal income, or other taxes, 

or restoring certain excise taxes and adopting graduated withholding of individual income taxes “to 
55 

put the American people on a pay-as-you-go-basis without increasing the total tax bill due.” He 

added: 

I made two decisions. 

First, we could raise revenue or borrow it. I chose to raise the money. 

Second, I chose to raise that money without any increases in personal and corporate income 

tax liabilities, but through changes that affect only the timing of tax payments and the 

temporary restoration of certain excise taxes on telephones and automobiles. 

He was hoping that “our efforts for a peaceful resolution of the Vietnam situation” would be 

successful, but if not, he would not hesitate to ask for additional revenue. Those efforts, which he 

pledged to “continue night and day,” were not successful. The squeeze on revenues continued 

through the year. 

On November 23, 1966, the day before Thanksgiving, President Johnson dropped a bombshell on 

the highway community. With the cost of the war growing and inflation high, the President 

announced that to reduce Federal spending, he would cut back on the Federal-aid highway program 

by limiting State obligations to $3.3 billion instead of $4 billion. (An obligation is a legal 

commitment (or promise) to pay the States for the Federal share of a project’s eligible costs. 

Because the program operates on a reimbursement basis–paying the State the Federal share of State 

expenditures – the obligation is important to the State as it begins incurring costs on a project.)

Engineering News-Record referred to the announcement as a “fiscal bomb” dropped on the highway 

community–which happened to be meeting in Wichita, Kansas, the following week for AASHO’s 

annual meeting:

At Wichita, some shellshocked state officials admitted they would have to go home and do a 

detailed analysis before they would know how hard they had been hit. Others knew 

immediately, particularly those that apparently were hurt the most. 

The meeting went on as scheduled, with Secretary of Transportation-designate Alan S. Boyd telling 

AASHO that the action had been taken only after “a tremendous amount of soul searching.” He 

added: 

There is no blinking at the fact [that the cutback] will create some hardships here and there, 

cause some dislocations and require planning revisions. But this is a response to a national 

need that responsible citizenship demands. 

Officials scrambled to perceive how the cutback would affect their State, but the magazine 

indicated that calm descended:

Behind the scenes, the word was “cool it.” Responsible federal and state leaders seemed to 

agree there was no way to fight the action effectively, at least immediately. Said one, “We 
56 

are looking farther ahead. We must ride this out. We got to accept it and not jeopardize the 

future of the program.” [“Fund Cut Irks Highway Officials,” Engineering News-Record, 

December 8, 1966.] 

After the initial shock, highway interests had no intention of cooling it. Governors, State highway 

officials, highway contractors, and trade organizations flooded the White House and Members of 

Congress with protests. Representative Fallon, now Chairman of the House Committee on Public 

Works, said: 

[T]he cutback and freeze makes it impossible to maintain an orderly highway construction 

program. The failure to do so is not only economically shortsighted but puts us in the highly 

questionable position of acceding to an action that must spell death and injury to the 

thousands of people who will be involved in accidents. 

Congress took up the cutback in a joint hearing on February 27, 1967, of the House and Senate 

Public Works Committees. Secretary Boyd, in an apparent attempt to mitigate the likely abuse he 

would receive during his testimony, announced the release of $175 million in obligation authority, 

with the balance to be released as economic conditions allowed. The President announced the 

decision at the same time, saying at a press conference:

I suggested to the Secretary of Transportation over the weekend—and we have consulted the 

Governors—that we would release $175 million of the $1.1 billion in highway allocations, 

in authorizations, that had been temporarily withheld. This will permit them to do some 

planning, particularly in connection with safety, right of way, bids and things of that nature. 

It will equalize some of the hardships that have taken place. 

During the hearing, Governor John Volpe of Massachusetts, who had built a successful construction 

company and served as the first Federal Highway Administrator (1956-1957), represented the 

National Governors Association. He said the Johnson Administration was “tampering with 

highway monies in a tangled, uncoordinated attempt at fiscal sanity.” He could not, he said, accept 

the “logic that led to this action,” which was “a direct violation of the intent of the Congressional 

action that established the highway trust program.” He called for an immediate reversal, saying: 

For the administration to use gasoline monies for non-highway purposes is as illogical and 

improper as it would be to use social security funds for purposes other than caring for the 

aged. [Gallagher, Thomas C., “Gas Tax Stand Haunts Volpe,” Boston Herald, March 15. 

1967] 

Two weeks later, on March 18, the President assured the Nation’s Governors at an all-day White 

House Conference on Federalism that they would receive the full $4.4 billion in Fiscal Year 1968. 

During a briefing by Secretary Boyd, Governor Volpe spoke up, as recounted by the Chicago 

Tribune: 

During the briefing by Alan S. Boyd, the secretary of the new department of transportation, 

Gov. John Volpe of Massachusetts criticized the President’s deferral of highway funds. He 
57 

said the withholding of the funds ruined one of the main benefits of the highway program—

long range planning. 

The President told Volpe that the states would get all their money “and you’ll get more for 

your dollar than you would if you had it.” 

He was referring to the inflationary effect on highway prices. The President in releasing 791 

million dollars in frozen funds yesterday said the inflationary pressures on the economy 

have subsided. 

Johnson turned to Boyd and said, “You answer him now.” 

The transportation secretary said that in addition to the 350 million dollars in frozen 

highway funds released yesterday, the regularly [sic] quarterly release of 750 million dollars 

would be made in April. On July 1, he said, federal highway-aid funds for the next year, 

totaling 4.4 billion, would be released. [Dombrowski, Louis, “Lyndon Promises Governors 

4.4 Billions in Highway Aid,” Chicago Tribune, March 18, 1967] 

As author and critic A.Q. Mowbray put it: 

For several months, during the summer and early fall of 1967, all was serene on the highway 

front. The battle had been won, and, seemingly, the principle of the untouchableness of the 

Highway Trust Fund established. [Mowbray, A. Q., Road to Ruin, J. B. Lippincott 

Company, 1969, p. 25, footnote] 

However, with the war continuing to absorb Federal revenue and inflation still not under control, 

the budget situation had not improved, as Professor Randall B. Woods explained in his biography 

of President Johnson: 

By 1967 LBJ had become convinced, very reluctantly, that he could not continue to have 

guns and butter without a tax increase. He knew how Americans hated taxes; he knew that 

“higher taxes and federal spending” were the issues that conservatives could always make 

political hay with, but the budget had soared to $126.7 billion for FY 1967 and was 

projected to reach $135 billion for FY 1968. The administration had estimated that around 

$12 billion would be needed for Vietnam; the figure turned out instead to be $21.9 billion. 

The Johnson budget called for only $1.9 billion more for Great Society programs—just 

$280 million over FY 1967 for the War on Poverty—but the president refused to abandon 

other programs he regarded as essential.

During his State of the Union Address on January 10, 1967, he had outlined the budget problem, 

then said: 

I recommend to the Congress a surcharge of 6 percent on both corporate and individual 

income taxes—to last for 2 years or for so long as the unusual expenditures associated with 

our efforts in Vietnam continue. I will promptly recommend an earlier termination date if a 
58 

reduction in these expenditures permits it. This surcharge will raise revenues by some $4.5 

billion in the first year. 

Congress did not embrace the proposal. In fact, as Woods explained, the idea of a surtax “lay dead 

in the water” for 6 months: 

Members of the conservative coalition did not want to give the administration additional 

funds because they opposed most aspects of the Great Society program; liberals did not 

want to give the administration more money because they opposed the war in Vietnam and 

wanted to make LBJ choose between domestic programs and the conflict in Southeast Asia. 

In June, President Johnson received “devastating news,” namely that the cost of the war was 

increasing along with the cost of Medicare, Social Security, and other domestic programs. The 

budget deficit for FY 1968 was projected as high as $28 billion: 

Several days later, he presided over a cabinet meeting. “The country could not tolerate a 

deficit of from $25 to $30 billion,” Johnson said. Either there would be new taxes or 

programs would be cut. Each cabinet officer, each agency head must cultivate every 

representative and senator they could gain access to. While they were applying a thick coat 

of butter to the solons, he would be “tailing em up.” 

The key was Representative Wilbur Mills (D-Ar.), Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, 

where tax measures originated. In a White House meeting on July 26, Mills agreed to help draft a 

tax request message to Congress, but said he would not support it unless it was accompanied by 

dramatic cuts in domestic programs:

On August 3, the president sent his message to congress, asking this time not for a 6 percent 

but for a 10 percent surcharge on personal and corporate income taxes. Congress’s response 

was to threaten virtually every component of the Great Society program, from education to 

Medicare to Social Security to rent supplements to public broadcasting. All right, if they 

want cuts, LBJ responded, we’ll give them cuts. He contemplated telling Congress that if it 

did not enact a tax increase, he would request the House and Senate to cut all appropriations 

by 10 percent. “Including defense,” [Secretary of Defense Robert] McNamara interjected. 

“I’d stick it to Mills,” he said, implying that he was leading a congressional charge that 

would not only undermine existing domestic programs but threaten the war in Vietnam. All 

the while, Johnson continued to lash his cabinet officers, telling them that if they did not 

lobby the hell out of Congress, he would sacrifice their budgets first. [Woods, p. 795-796] 

The issue would reach the highway community on October 8, as Mowbray explained: 

Frustrated in his attempts to get a tax increase, furious at what he felt to be irresponsible 

yammering from Congress about spending cuts, Johnson countered with a right cross to the 

body, a blow that the men on Capitol Hill felt below the belt. They wanted spending cuts? 

All right, he would give them spending cuts. He proceeded to freeze funds for certain lowpriority military construction projects and for the time-honored “pork barrel” construction 
59 

involving rivers and harbors and flood control. Further, he instructed Transportation 

Secretary Boyd to send a telegram to each of the fifty governors warning that massive cuts 

might be necessary in federal-aid for highway construction. The telegram asked the 

governors to give their estimate of the economic effects on their states of a freeze in 

highway funds amounting to as much as $2.2 billion, or half the program for the year. 

The money would not be diverted, but would simply be withheld in the Highway Trust Fund. 

Secretary Boyd informed the Nation’s Governors by telegram that: 

In view of recent congressional discussions on substantial reductions in federal 

expenditures, it may become necessary to impose ceilings on the federal-aid highway 

program in the immediate future.

He proposed quarterly ceilings, effective November 1, 1967, if the highway cuts were necessary. 

Although “observers agreed that the move was an attempt to put pressure on Congress rather than a 

serious effort to cut spending,” the Governors and highway interests were up in arms immediately. 

Governor Ronald Reagan of California (1967-1975) called the plan a “dishonest and a grave 

mistake on the part of the Administration, since under federal law, highways are built with gasoline 

tax funds placed in trust for highway purposes. They cannot legally be diverted or used as a tool for 

fiscal gimmicks.” [Mowbray, p. 26] 

Governor Spiro Agnew of Maryland told Boyd that the proposed highway program cuts would be 

“absolutely devastating” to his State and he “will use all of the influence in my office to prevent any 

cutback whatsoever” in the funds. [Associated Press, “Plan to Cut Highway Aid Irks States,” The 

Baltimore Sun, October 10, 1967] 

AASHO members, holding their 53rd annual meeting the following week, were incensed that their 

program was again being used to make a point in an unrelated dispute between the President and 

Congress. The organization adopted a resolution warning that any cutback would have a “great 

adverse effect upon the program and would not be in the public interest.” The resolution called for 

an end to “the atmosphere of uncertainty that has engulfed the federal-aid highway program” and 

urged that it be allowed to proceed “at the maximum level possible.” [Mowbray, p. 27-28] 

Representative Fallon addressed AASHO on “the puzzle of the cutback”: 

It is very hard for me to understand how we can consider a proposal to reduce the highway 

program by one-half, or even by 25 percent . . . . Last November, you will recall, the 

announcement of the cutback made prominent reference to the war in Vietnam and the 

importance of deferring domestic programs which might detract from our effectiveness 

there. There was also a reference to inflationary pressures in the economy which might be 

reduced by deferring some Federal spending programs . . . . 
60 

Then, at last the Administration’s position emerged. It became evident that the cutback was 

made (and here I quote the statement of the Federal Highway Administrator) “for the 

purpose of reducing inflationary pressures at a time when there was virtually full 

employment, when construction equipment purchase prices were at an all time high and 

rising, when the average number of contractors was decreasing, and finally, at a time when 

the construction price index for highway construction work had increased at an abnormal 

rate for three successive quarters.”

It was related, in other words, to an Administration finding that there has been abnormal 

inflation in the highway construction industry over a nine-month period. The relationship to 

the total economic picture and the military situation in Vietnam was quite indirect.

Regarding the October 8 telegram, he advised the State highway leaders that if they had not 

consulted with their Governor on the impact of a cutback, “you should do so at once.” 

Representative Kluczynski, who had succeeded Representative Fallon as Chairman of the 

Subcommittee on Roads, shared Fallon’s puzzlement: 

We’ve been told this year’s proposed ceiling is to meet the Congressional demands for 

economy, so that the federal deficit will be less. It makes great newspaper copy, but the 

plain fact is that cutting highway construction funds won’t improve the federal deficit 

situation by a single dime.

We are also told, as we were told last year, that this proposed ceiling is to combat inflation. 

I have some doubts about how effective it is likely to be on a short term basis, and I am sure 

that over the long haul, it would be pretty poor business . . . . It is also my personal opinion, 

for whatever it’s worth, that these freezes, ceilings or whatever, are illegal. The law says 

quite clearly that the funds shall be made available to the States. It does not seem 

ambiguous or discretionary to me, and it never has. [American Highways, January 1968] 

President Johnson was reportedly furious with Secretary Boyd for releasing the telegram to the 

press, resulting in an onslaught of criticism. [Mowbray, p. 26] 

Moreover, the President’s efforts to move Mills failed. By the time the 90th Congress adjourned in 

late November, Mills was still insisting on deeper cuts as the price for the tax increases.

As 1968 began, the States and highway interests appeared to have won the fight. The Department 

of Transportation released the usual quarter of Federal-aid highway funding for the first quarter of 

the year–$1.1 billion of the annual $4.4 billion. However, on January 22, Secretary Boyd cut the 

release by $600 million. It was, he explained, a “modest but essential move to combat inflationary 

trends in the economy.” He said the Administration was concerned about inflation in construction 

activity and the “significant impact of Federal and state highway construction activities on these 

price levels.” He expected the cut to be an “important” aid in “checking inflation.” [United Press 

International, “U.S. Takes Ax to Roads Again,” Indianapolis Star, January 23, 1968] 
61 

On April 24, Secretary Boyd reaffirmed the reduction, but modified the formula for distributing the 

cutback among the States. To address inequities in the original plan, he said that State highway 

agencies would be able to obligate funds at their previous level or the reduced level up to the point 

where nationally the cutback had been achieved. About half the States would be able to continue 

their programs at the higher level. [Associated Press, “Road Fund Formula Devised for States,” 

The New York Times, April 25, 1968] 

Highway backers feared that these moves were a harbinger of anti-highway moves during the year 

in which the regular 2-year Federal-aid highway bill would be developed. Pennsylvania’s top 

highway official, Robert G. Bartlett, spoke for many highway officials when he called it “a black 

day for highway construction in Pennsylvania.” He feared it was a step in a plan to divert Highway 

Trust Fund revenues to other purposes, a move he considered illegal. “Congress set up inviolate—

and I underscore inviolate—rights where monies that go into the highway trust fund must be used 

only for highways.” [Mowbray, p. 29] 

The Administration and Congress were still wrestling over the President’s desired income surtax. 

On May 15, Secretary Boyd warned that congressional demands for cutbacks could have a “drastic 

impact” on the highway program. If Congress insisted on $6 billion in cuts in return for the new 

tax, “We’re not going to have the money to build roads, condemn property or for anything else.” 

The highway program would continue at a lower level and highway user tax revenue would 

accumulate in the Highway Trust Fund, but appropriations approved by Congress each year would 

be cut. [Eisen, Jack, “Boyd Warns of Drastic Road Cuts,” The Washington Post, May 16, 1968] 

While the cutback was being debated, Congress was ready to take up the next 2-year reauthorization

legislation. Secretary Boyd released the Administration’s proposal. Which called for extension of 

the Interstate program for 2 years to 1974, along with an additional $8.340 billion for Interstate 

Construction. The proposal also called for the Federal Government to pay 75 percent of the cost of 

fringe parking areas associated with mass transit stations serving cities with populations over 

50,000, as well as a change in the formula for compensating homeowners, farmers, and businesses 

for property purchased for highway construction. 

Under the proposal, States would be able to engage in advance protective acquisition of property to 

prevent commercial development before construction could begin on a planned highway. In 

addition to fair market value, compensation would take into account the cost of moving or 

establishing a new business or farm. The proposal also called for a program to increase the capacity 

of existing roads (TOPICS – Traffic Operations Program to Increase Capacity and Safety). All 

would be funded through the Highway Trust Fund. [Woll, Harry D., “New Highway Programs 

Proposed,” Transport Topics, May 27, 1968] 

The President finally reached agreement with Congress, resulting in the long-sought legislation in 

late June. President Johnson signed the Revenue and Expenditure Control Act of 1968 on June 28. 

In remarks, he acknowledged that just 4 and a half years earlier, he had signed the biggest tax cut in 

the Nation’s history during a time when the economy was dragging; now, after 88 months of 

sustained prosperity, he was signing legislation that would “return to the Treasury about half the tax 

cuts I signed into law in 1964 and 1965.” He said:
62 

This marks the largest shift of the budget toward restraint in the past two decades. Now we 

can attack decisively—at the roots—the threats to our prosperity: accelerating inflation, 

soaring interest rates, deteriorating world trade performance. Now we can mobilize the 

defense of our dollar at home and abroad and fulfill our obligations to world monetary 

stability. Now we are assured that we can continue to rely on free markets, unfettered by 

damaging Government controls. 

The tax bill was the “best insurance policy” to protect prosperity, far better “than the cruel and 

haphazard tax of rising prices and spiraling interest rates.” 

The price for this desired tax increase was the congressional demand that the President reduce 

Federal expenditures by $6 billion in FY 1969. His proposed budget “was lean and tight,” but “I 

have accepted this decision of the Congress because the tax bill is so imperative to the economic 

health of the nation.” He expected Congress to reduce the budget through the appropriations 

process by considerably less than $6 billion, he said, shifting the responsibility to him to make the 

cuts. He considered this “departure from the traditional appropriations process [to be] most 

unwise.” He also objected to the provision rolling back Federal employment to the level of 2 years 

earlier. He would, he said, do his best to carry out these congressional mandates. 

Despite this assurance, the President was going to rely on the nature of Congress, as described by 

Woods: 

. . . LBJ had to agree in principle to a $6 billion spending reduction for the coming fiscal 

year, but he intended not to take the initiative, suspecting that when it came down to it, 

Congress would not have the will to make specific program cuts. He was proved right. 

Congress was unable to cut even $4 billion in pending expenditures. Fiscal year 1969 ended 

with a $3.2 billion surplus and with most of the Great Society program intact. [Woods, p. 

844] 

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 

 

At the same time, Congress was developing the new 2-year authorization for the Federal-aid 

highway program. The Senate approved its version of the bill in July. It continued the Interstate 

program at the usual $3.6 billion a year, and authorized $1.2 billion a year for the Federal-aid 

primary and secondary systems and $549.5 million for roads on Federal lands. It provided 

additional benefits for relocatees, affirmed protections in the Department of Transportation Act for 

parkland, public lands, and historic resources to be taken for highways, and gave the Secretary the 

authority to disapprove projects that do not conform to the “particular economic, social, 

environmental and other needs of the locality in which the project will be built.” 

While the Senate was completing work on its version, the House was debating its bill. On July 3, 

Representative William F. Ryan (D-NY), who had represented Manhattan’s Upper West Side since 

winning election in 1960, offered an amendment on “Use of Certain Funds for Urban Mass 

Transportation Purposes.” It would allow any Governor to use Federal-aid highway funds for urban 

mass transportation purposes. He explained:
63 

What it does is to allow the Governor of each State to decide how he wants to improve the 

transportation system within his own State. In those parts of a State where a Governor finds 

that additional highways are desirable, he will be free to build more highways. But under 

my amendment, in those areas where the Governor sees that the most efficient way to 

strengthen the highway system is to clear the existing arteries of most of the deluge of daily 

commuters, he would then be permitted to use funds under this act for mass transit. 

Representative Fallon insisted on a point of order, noting that Representative Ryan had introduced 

the same amendment in 1966, but it had been ruled out of order because the bill then, as now, was 

about the authorization of highway user tax revenues that could not, by law, be used for mass 

transportation. Ryan acknowledged that he had introduced the amendment on August 11, 1966: 

At that time, it was ruled out of order on the ground that it related to mass transportation and 

not highways, and it was suggested by the chairman of the committee [the Chairman of the 

Committee of the Whole] that this issue should be raised when the mass transportation bill 

was before the House. So on August 16, 1966, I offered it as an amendment to the mass 

transit bill; and it was ruled out of order, on the ground that it related to highways and not to 

mass transportation. 

We cannot have it both ways. It must be in order in one place or another. 

The Chairman, Representative Daniel D. Rostenkowski (D-IL), explained that he had ruled the 

amendment out of order in 1966 because an amendment on urban mass transportation was not 

germane. He followed his own precedent in this case and would not allow a vote on the measure. 

[“Amendment Offered by Mr. Ryan,” Congressional Digest-House, July 3, 1968, p. 19926-19927] 

The approved House bill continued authorizations for the primary and secondary systems at prior 

levels while adding funds for TOPICS. It authorized Interstate funds for the 4 years requested by 

the Secretary instead of the 2 years in the Senate bill. Both bills included the fringe parking and 

relocation provisions requested by the Secretary, although in different form, but the House bill 

virtually killed funding for the highway beautification program approved in 1965. Nan Robertson 

of The New York Times explained this cut: 

A high Government official called the mood of a substantial part of those 211 

Representatives who voted against highway beautification funds one of “absolute revenge” 

against both President Johnson and his wife. 

The desire for revenge stemmed from final passage of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965: 

The ire of certain House members, particularly Republicans, dates back to Oct. 7, 1965. It 

was the night of Mr. Johnson’s “Salute to the 88th Congress” party at the White House—a 

party that the legislators, in tuxedo, on the hill, and their wives, in party finery in the 

galleries, were not able to get to until after midnight.
64 

What most House members believe and constantly hark back to—particularly 

Republicans—is that the President insisted they remain in session until the beauty bill was 

passed, instead of letting them take it up [the] next day.

The bitterness of that long night was a more important factor, Robertson reported, “than the 

powerful billboard lobby.” [Robertson, Nan, “Conferees Agree on Highway Bill,” The New York 

Times, July 25, 1968] 

One of the House’s more controversial provisions would add 3,000 miles to the 41,000-mile 

Interstate System to make adjustments to fill gaps in the System. The Committee on Public Works 

report explained: 

The Interstate System now stands at an authorized 41,000 miles. All of it has been 

designated and less than 15 miles remains for making sorely needed adjustments. There are 

obvious, and serious, gaps in the system which prevents its being the continuous, 

interconnected network the Congress and the Nation envisioned in 1956. 

 

The report listed examples submitted by the States, such as 16 miles to complete the missing 

quadrant of the Ft. Worth circumferential; approximately 300 miles between Shreveport and New 

Orleans; 9 miles for the Crosstown Freeway in Lexington, Kentucky; and 300 miles to link Tampa 

and Miami. It continued: 

The committee believes it would be unwise to authorize extensive construction mileage 

additions to the Interstate System at this time, but it is convinced that the best interest of the 

Nation will be served if enough additional construction mileage is authorized to give the 

States and the Federal Highway Administration some reasonable leeway in programing 

these deficiencies. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, House Report No. 1584 on H.R. 

17134, 90th Congress, 2d Session, June 25, 1968, p. 4] 

The bill did not propose additional funding for the mileage. The States were to decide on the 

priority of their mileage.

The Senate did not include a comparable provision. While House and Senate conferees worked to 

reconcile the two bills, Secretary Boyd joined an unlikely coalition of Federal, State, city, and 

county agencies, including AASHO, in opposing the extension. Their statement explained: 

Any addition of mileage to the 41,000-mile interstate system at this time, without the 

opportunity for adequate planning or funding, could cause serious and extended harm to the 

nation’s highway network. 

They noted that the completion date for the Interstate System, originally the early 1970s, had 

already slipped 2 or 3 years. The extension would push it back further, “perhaps as much as eight 

to ten years” at a time when another provision of the bill called for a comprehensive study of the 

highway network as the basis for allocating future funds. [“Increased Road Plan Under Fire,” The 

Baltimore Sun, July 21, 1968] 
65 

In conference, the House and Senate compromised by agreeing on a 1,500-mile addition. The 

Conference Report explained that when the System was laid out, “no provision was made for 

flexibility . . . to meet the tremendous changes that have taken place in population and development 

in many sections of the Nation.” It continued: 

As a result, there are several cities of more 100,000 population that are not now on the 

Interstate System . . . . By the same token, virtually everyone recognizes that these serious 

missing segments must, in many instances, be built in the very near future if the system’s 

ability to handle its traffic is to be maintained. 

As in the House bill, the 1968 Act did not provide additional funding for the new mileage. The 

Conference Committee made clear that the Secretary was to designate “critical missing link” 

situations, but was not to substitute his judgment for that of the States as to which of all remaining 

designated mileage in a State would be built. “This flexibility is desperately needed now, on an 

interim basis, pending the time when the Congress determines what the long-range future highway 

program will be.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, Conference Report, House Report No. 1799, 

July 25, 1968, pages 29-31] 

The 1968 Act also authorized the Secretary of Transportation to approve Interstate status for routes 

that meet Interstate standards and would be a logical addition or connection to the System, but were 

built without Interstate Construction funds. The new authority was codified as Section 139 of Title 

23, United States Code (in 1998, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century shifted the 

provision as amended to Section 103(c)(4)(A)). 

The legislation included the first mandatory payment program for those who must relocate because 

of a Federal-aid highway project. The goal was to provide every citizen with decent, safe, and 

sanitary housing and to reduce the inequities of a strict application of the fair market value concept 

to right-of-way acquisitions. These changes, plus additional changes in 1970 were influential as 

Congress developed the landmark Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition 

Policies Act of 1970 (Uniform Act), the government-wide law. According to former Deputy Chief 

Counsel Edward V. A. Kussy of FHWA: 

The immediate precursor of the Uniform Act was the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968. 

The relevant relocation provisions of the 1968 Highway Act were so similar to those in the 

Uniform Act that any interpretation of the 1968 Highway Act would be equally applicable to 

the 1970 Uniform Act. [Kussy, Edward V. A., Surface Transportation and Administrative 

Law: Growing Up Together in the 20th Century, Transportation Research Record 1527, 

Transportation Research Board, 1996, p. 10] 

Congress also included a measure responding to the impoundment of authorized funds. Section 15 

declared the sense of Congress that sums authorized to be appropriated for expenditure which have 

been apportioned among the States may not be impounded or withheld from obligation by the 

Executive Branch except when necessary to assure the integrity of the Highway Trust Fund. 

Further, revenue from the Highway Trust Fund could be used for the administrative expenses of 

FHWA, but no other agency may use the funds for administrative expenses unless specifically 
66 

identified in a line-item appropriated or contracted for in accordance with the Economy Act (31 

U.S.C. 686). 

In addition, the legislation reduced highway beautification funding; established a right-of-way 

revolving fund for advance acquisition of property needed for future highway construction; 

approved TOPICS funding; authorized Federal-aid funds for a fringe parking demonstration project 

outside central business districts in cities of more than 50,000 population, with the facility to serve 

public transportation; and extended prevailing wage coverage under the Davis-Bacon Act to all 

Federal-aid projects, not just the Interstate System as the 1956 Act had required. 

Congress completed work on the bill with Senate passage on July 29 and sent it to the White House 

for presidential approval. 

At the “Texas White House” in Austin, President Johnson approved the measure on August 23. He 

considered vetoing the bill but on balance decided to sign it just before midnight on the final day for 

approval. (The bill would have become law if he had neither approved nor vetoed it.) [Dales, Jr., 

Edwin L., “President Signs Bill on Highways,” The New York Times, August 25, 1968] 

In a statement the next morning, he explained that he considered some provisions “unfortunate, illconsidered and a setback to the cause of conservation.” He particularly objected to provisions that 

reduced highway beautification funds and attempted to force the District of Columbia to build its 

portion of the Interstate System. He concluded, however, that, “In many respects this is the most 

important highway authorization bill since the start of the Interstate program over a decade ago.” 

The funds authorized by the bill would help complete the national network, but he was concerned 

that the 1,500-mile extension was adopted “without any serious study of the type of major highway 

program we will need after we complete the present system in 1974. 

(The complex D.C. freeway issue played out legislatively through the Federal-Aid Highway Acts of 

1968 and subsequent highway legislation and appropriations acts. These battles are covered in the 

separate article titled “The D.C. Freeway Revolt and the Coming of Metro,” to be posted on this 

Web site.)

He also commented on the sense of Congress statement about impoundments: 

Earlier this year the Congress directed me to reduce expenditures by $6 billion and new 

obligations by $18 billion. This was not a responsibility I sought. While I appreciate the 

sense of Congress – as expressed in this bill – that Federal moneys not be withheld from the 

highway program, I must still exercise the responsibility to carry out these stringent 

economy measures. All government programs are being scrutinized with care. Highway 

projects will not be immune from this study, and funds will be provided or withheld in 

accordance with the need to comply with the Congressional mandate to cut $6 billion from 

the federal budget.

As a legal matter, a Sense of Congress statement in legislation is considered guidance, not 

enforceable law. The Administration was not bound to comply. 
67 

The long fight over the surtax and the congressional demand for budget cuts had not reduced the 

size of the bill. However, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 was another step in undermining 

the highway community’s efforts to limit Highway Trust Fund revenues to construction of 

highways and bridges. 

In response to FHWA’s request for nominations for inclusion in the Interstate System, the States 

submitted applications totaling more than 10,000 miles. On December 13, 1968, Secretary Boyd 

announced designation of 1,472.5 miles to routes in 28 States at an estimated cost of $2.43 billion. 

The additions included I-27 in Texas (Amarillo to Lubbock), extension of I-75 from St. Petersburg, 

Florida, to Miami; I-43 from Milwaukee to Green Bay, Wisconsin; and I-88 from Binghamton to 

Schenectady, New York. 

John O. Morton, Commissioner of the New Hampshire Department of Public Works and the 

president of AASHO, commented on the bill during the group’s annual meeting in December: 

[R]ecognition of our past accomplishments and the favor in which the highway program is 

held by the American people, are reflected in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968. 

Highway officials applauded the passage of this 1968 act and considered it a progressive 

and outstanding piece of highway legislation. The act preserved the integrity of the highway 

trust fund. It recognized the fallacy and waste created by ill-conceived cutbacks and took a 

positive position in opposition to future cutbacks. 

During the same AASHO annual meeting, FHWA’s Francis C. “Frank” Turner, Director of Public 

Roads, commented on attempts to divert Highway Trust Fund revenues. He addressed AASHO’s 

Subcommittee on Highway Finance on December 4. His topic: “The Highway Trust Fund.” 

Turner had been BPR’s representative to Congress in 1955-1956 as it wrestled with how to fund 

construction of the Interstate System. He discussed its origins and operations. “In summary,” he 

said, “there are many advantages to a Trust Fund operation, and there are some obvious concerns.” 

The advantages were:

On the plus side, programs may be authorized for a period of years in the future, as in the 

case of the Interstate program, with assurance that revenues will be available to liquidate the 

obligations incurred. With contract authority such as we have for the highway program, it is 

possible to incur obligations in advance of revenue collections needed to liquidate the 

obligations, and we continually operate with unliquidated obligations totaling about $6 

billion, with assurance that funds will be available in the Highway Trust Fund to reimburse 

the States when the work is done. 

The trust fund concept raised some concerns: 

On the other hand, it is necessary that the program be carefully controlled to assure that 

obligations do not exceed amounts that can be liquidated from the Trust Fund on a year by 

year basis. And it must be recognized that the program is still subject to such controls as 

may be necessary by reason of inflationary pressures, expenditure reductions, appropriation 

limitations and other factors, notwithstanding the availability of revenues in the Trust Fund. 
68 

These were practical concerns about operation of the program. Turner was concerned about another 

issue as well:

In some quarters there is serious intention to raid the Highway Trust Fund for the benefit of 

other modes of transportation, on the theory that it should be converted into a Transportation 

Trust Fund and its proceeds made available to city mayors and officials for mass transit 

purposes. This is advanced as being necessary in order to give voice to local desires about 

how the transportation problem shall be resolved in each local community. Supposedly, this 

would permit a city governing board to decide to use their highway funds either for street 

improvements or for a subway. This is generally accompanied by the claim that a subway 

will not disrupt the community with dislocations of people or businesses, and that it will 

automatically take all of the traffic load off the city streets. Such statements are close to 

misrepresentations, even if based on nothing more than misunderstanding of what rail mass 

transit can do in solving the traffic load question over the entire metropolitan area. 

He disputed the claim that “is bandied about that one track of rail mass transit can—note the word 

can—carry as much as 20 lanes of freeway.” One lane of freeway, he said, “can do the same and 

more.” He added that “at no point in the world has the theoretical capacity which they claim for 

rails been actually reached; about the highest capacity on record being in the order of 25,000 to 

30,000 persons actually carried and this is a rate reached over only a short period time—5 to 10 

minutes, rather than a full hour—and over a very short section of trackage.” In short, he said: 

So the proposal for diversion of the Highway Trust Fund to “transportation” purposes, 

meaning rail in most cases, would not materially benefit the overall transportation process, 

but would in so doing rob the Highway Trust Fund of monies badly needed for more 

beneficial types of improvements. 

Something more basic was on his mind: 

Aside from the less benefits of such a diversion, it is in my opinion just plain immoral, 

because the Highway Trust Fund was set up, as the word implies, to provide funds in trust 

for a stated and agreed-upon purpose. I do not believe in breaking faith with the American 

people who through their elected representatives in the Congress pledged that taxes levied in 

a certain way would be used only in the manner agreed upon. If funding is to be given to 

these other transportation purposes, then, they should go to the Congress and the people and 

make the needed agreement, just as did the highway people. 

There are likewise proposals regularly made to divert some of the proceeds of the Fund to a 

variety of other purposes, some not even related to highways or transportation. There is 

strong feeling in some government quarters against any earmarking of tax revenues, because 

it prevents “fluidity” of management of income; in other words, diversion to another 

purpose chosen by fiscal managers. 

We cannot operate a program of this magnitude, with its long planning and lead times, with 

its numerous commitments which must be built up over a long time in advance of actual 
69 

construction without the certainty of the Trust Fund and the contractural [sic] authority 

provision of the highway program legislation. We must be alert to prevent actions to do 

away with these vital features.

In these remarks, he was speaking not only for himself and his agency, but for many in the highway 

community. 

Despite the sense of Congress provision in the 1968 Act, Secretary Boyd announced another freeze 

on September 9, this time of $200 million in FY 1969, in line with the cuts required by the Revenue 

and Expenditure Control Act of 1968. He sent telegrams or made telephone calls advising the State 

highway departments not to advertise Federal-aid projects until December 1. After that date, he 

said, projects would be approved at an accelerated rate that would allow most of the postponed 

projects to be approved by July 1969. The postponement “is the most reasonable course available 

to the government to achieve the required reduction of $200 million in federal aid highway 

spending.” [Flor, Lee, “U.S. Fund Freeze Hits Area Highway projects,” The Washington Star, 

September 10, 1968] 

Changing of the Guard 

On November 5, 1968, former Vice President Nixon defeated Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey 

to become the Nation’s 37th President. (Senator Muskie had been Vice President Humphrey’s 

running mate.) During his first months in office, the new President visited government agencies to 

encourage employees. He addressed employees of the Department of Transportation on February 

11, 1969, in the auditorium of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) headquarters on 

Independence Avenue. He assured employees of the importance of their work: 

I think speaking from my vantage point, the vantage point of one who sees the problems of 

the people as a whole, I can very properly bring home to you the immense interest that the 

people of this country generally have in what you are doing . . . . I can assure you from my 

own experience, if there is one subject that people across this country—regardless of what 

station in life they come from—one subject they are interested in, it is transportation and all 

of its aspects.

For the most part, his remarks were generic in praising “what are called career civil servants of the 

Federal Government” and indicating that without their support, the Department’s leadership cannot 

succeed “no matter how imaginative they are, how creative they are, how bold they are in their 

thinking, however many ideas they get.” What was needed was “a new sense of not only dedication 

to our jobs,” but an understanding that every single person in the Department was contributing to 

the “better running of this Department, but also to a better Nation for all of us.” He said: 

I think if there is some way we could get across to all of the people in Government that 

however boring their job may seem to be, the writing of letters, for example, and getting out 

forms or running the mimeograph machine or I guess now you do it through a duplicating 

machine, or whatever the case might be, that all of this matters.
70 

In truth, as Professor Tom Lewis explained, President Nixon was not concerned about the U.S. . 

“No matter who was in charge, so the new president believed, departments like Housing and Urban 

Development, Commerce, and Transportation would just rumble on as they had in the past.” 

Having passed over Governor Volpe for Vice President, President-elect Nixon had one of his aides, 

future Attorney General John N. Mitchell call and offer Volpe the job of Postmaster General. He 

politely refused. Mitchell called back a few days later and asked Volpe to be the new Secretary of 

Transportation. “You’re a manager,” Mitchell said. “That’s what the president thinks we need.” 

After talking with his wife Jennie and several friends, Volpe accepted. 

Volpe met with the President-elect in California in late November. Volpe said, “I hope you realize 

that I’m not a ‘yes’ man, that I like to think things out, and if I feel that you or other people on your 

staff come up with an idea I disagree with, that for your interests and the best interests of the nation, 

I will tell you so.” Nixon replied, “That’s one of the reasons that I want you. Because I know 

you’re not a ‘yes’ man, and I’ll always get your best advice.” [Kilgore, Kathleen, John Volpe: The 

Life of an Immigrant’s Son, Yankee Books, 1987, p. 172-173] 

Lewis pointed out that the offer came because Nixon “owed John Volpe a sop”: 

When he had thought it useful during the primary campaign, he dropped the governor’s 

name as a possible running mate. It had been a fiction, of course. Nixon wanted a vice 

presidential candidate who would be better able to appeal to the South, a tough and 

unpleasant scrapper, who would act as Nixon himself had when he served as vice president, 

so he passed over Volpe in favor of Spiro Agnew, governor of Maryland. Making Volpe 

Secretary of Transportation would assuage his feelings as well as add an Italian-American to 

the cabinet. [Lewis, Tom, Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, 

Transforming American Life, Viking, 1997, p. 206-207 

Volpe’s life has often been compared to a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story. He was born in 

Wakefield, Massachusetts, in 1908, the son of Italian immigrants. Beginning in 1933 with an initial 

capital of $500 ($300 from cashing in an insurance policy and $200 borrowed), he built the multimillion dollar John A. Volpe Construction Company, with offices in Massachusetts, Washington, 

and Rome. It was involved in heavy construction in New England, Florida, and Washington 

(including the privately owned Nassif Building at 400 7th Street, SW., in Washington, D.C., that 

housed the U.S. Department of Transportation from the late 1960’s until June 2007). 

He was widely known and respected within the highway community. In 1953, Massachusetts 

Governor Christian A. Herter appointed Volpe to serve as Commissioner of Public Works. In 

October 1956, Volpe resigned to return to private life but delayed doing so to serve as interim 

Federal Highway Administrator at the request of President Eisenhower while his permanent choice, 

Bertram D. Tallamy, disengaged from his lead role on the New York State Thruway and secured 

Senate confirmation. The President did not want any delay in getting his pet program, the Interstate 

System, underway. 
71 

On October 22, 1956, Volpe became the first Federal Highway Administrator. President 

Eisenhower, who attended the White House ceremony, said he wanted to make certain that the 

highway program got off to a "flying start." He held the Bible while Frank K. Sanderson, White 

House Administrative Officer, administered the oath of office to Volpe, the only Administrator who 

took the oath of office in the presence of a President. Immediately after the oath, the President 

shook Volpe's hand and said, "You're now part of the family here." Volpe would serve until 

Tallamy took office in February 1957. 

Volpe returned to his construction company and served as president of The Associated General 

Contractors of America (AGC) in 1960. He also won an unprecedented four elections for Governor 

of Massachusetts (1961-1963, 1965-1969). 

Officials of AASHO had recommended Volpe for the post as Secretary based on his experience 

with road building as Public Works Commissioner, Federal Highway Administrator, and Governor. 

 What the highway community did not realize is that Volpe “understood that the country could not 

depend on a single form of transportation, that there would have to be highways, rail lines, trolleys, 

and subways in cities, and airplanes for long distances.” [Lewis, p. 217] As a result, Volpe would 

surprise the highway community. 

Secretary Volpe would have to address issues across the full spectrum of transportation, but for the 

highway community, the big issue was his stand on the Federal-aid highway program, and 

especially diversion of funds for transit. On December 26, 1968, he held his first press conference 

as Secretary-designate, but as usual with nominees before confirmation, was vague on many 

subjects. Regarding transit, his opening statement indicated “We have got to do a great deal more 

about . . . bringing about a balanced, coordinated transportation system.” He wanted to bring 

together State, county, and city officials to resolve their own local problem. Then he smiled and 

added, “I am not saying there might not be a need for more money.” [Eisen, Jack, “Volpe’s Transit 

Pledge is Vague as to Money,” The Washington Post, December 27, 1969] 

On January 15, 1969, the Senate Committee on Commerce held a confirmation hearing for 

Secretary-designate Volpe. He was asked, of course, about his life and experience. Senator Norris 

Cotton (R-NH) asked about reports that Volpe’s company had helped build the Massachusetts 

Turnpike. Volpe replied, “My firm has not built one single mile of highway. We have not even 

engaged in highway construction.” [Nominations-1969, Hearing before the Committee on 

Commerce, United States Senate, Serial 91-2, January 15, 1969, p. 29] 

Senator Philip A. Hart (D-Mi.) asked if “based on the bitter experience of recent years,” whether 

Volpe would “attempt to balance and include all the factors affecting the area of any proposed 

construction that merely the traditional bookkeeping judgment alone is not in the best long term 

interest of any of us?” As an example he cited minority groups who regard the Interstate System 

“as an enemy, because they do not generally run the highway through my house or yours . . . .” 

Volpe discussed how as Commissioner of Public Works he had reached out to communities in 

planning highways. He added that, “I can certainly assure you, Senator, that I will do everything 

within my power to be certain that we do take all aspects into consideration—esthetic, 

environmental, and human factors as well.” [Nominations-1969, p. 33] 
72 

Senator John O. Pastore (D-RI) also questioned the Secretary-designate about highway 

controversies. Governor Volpe agreed to reply in writing, which he did on February 19 after taking 

office as Secretary. In response, the Secretary supported locating highways in accord with Federal 

statutes that “call for safe, efficient roadways so located and designed as to be of positive benefit to 

the other goals of the affected communities.” Other factors considered included “preservation of 

historic values and natural beauty.” He strongly supported the statutory changes affecting those 

displaced by highway construction. 

As for the highway controversies in Boston, Secretary Volpe assured the committee that he would 

not be influenced by his earlier statements. He said that his successor, former Lt. Governor 

Governor Francis W. “Frank” Sargent had “asked me to withhold any action on the Inner Belt about 

Boston, I-695, until he has examined the situation. I have assured him that I would do so because 

of the delicacy of the relationships between the state and the affected communities in this matter.” 

Especially in the case of urban transportation, Secretary Volpe explained, his experience had 

convinced him that “each of the methods of transportation has a proper role to play in meeting the 

requirements for transportation in a metropolitan area.” He had used the term “balanced,” by which 

he meant “that the transportation planning should seek to utilize the particular capabilities of each 

mode. ‘Balanced’ means the modes work together as a system in proper relationship to the area it 

serves.” He expected to see greater use of bus and rail transit systems as part of that balance. 

[Nominations-1969, p. 36-37] 

In response to a question from Senator William B. Spong, Jr. (D-Va.), Governor Volpe added: 

I am one of those who believes that if we are going to resolve our problems and woes in 

urban areas, we can neither depend entirely on highways nor depend on rapid transit . . . . It 

has been shown that you can build 12-lane highways and still have congestion. So I am a 

firm believer in a balanced transportation system.” 

Senator Russell B. Long (D-La.) asked how far behind schedule the Interstate System had slipped. 

(He had been the only Senator who voted “no” on final passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1956, primarily because oil interests in Louisiana opposed the gas tax increase.) Volpe thought the 

System was only 2 or 3 years behind and would be completed in 1974, possibly 1975. 

[Nominations-1969, p. 41] 

Senator Long pointed out the need to modernize the Federal-aid primary system as well as the 

Interstate System. Volpe agreed:

I think there is no question that we have to think in terms of both the primary system as well 

as our problems in the rural areas . . . . My thinking would be that we ought to be starting to 

develop the program that we will follow after the completion of the Interstate System 

without waiting for that to happen and really do some long-range planning now for the 

future in both the primary highways as well as the rural highways. [Nominations-1969, p. 

43] 
73 

The committee had invited Senator Jennings Randolph (D-WV), chairman of the Committee on 

Public Works, to participate in the hearing. He asked about the impoundments and pointed out the 

sense of Congress provision in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968. He wanted to know if 

Governor Volpe approved of the action of Congress or would recommend to the President that he 

continue to impound funds from the Highway Trust Fund. Volpe stated that “I would never try to 

trespass the will of the Congress and I certainly would recommend very highly to the President that 

these funds be utilized as the Congress has specified and as the trust fund specifies. [Nominations1969, p. 55] 

On January 17, 1969, Governor Volpe left the State House for the last time and flew to 

Washington. According to his biographer, Volpe went straight to Walter Reed Army Medical 

Center to see former President Eisenhower:

Volpe had planned a visit in November or December, but the former president had had a 

setback and was unable to see him. This time the nurse allowed Volpe only twenty minutes, 

but as he began to tell Eisenhower about his plans for DOT, the president sent the nurse 

away. Volpe found his host thin and wasted, but his mind was unimpaired. Eisenhower 

told him that when he was president, he had wanted to do something about transportation 

from cities to airports so that planes could land farther from urban centers, perhaps 

including a helicopter service or a rapid transit line with baggage capacity. At last, Mamie 

Eisenhower came in and advised her husband to get some rest. They parted, and Volpe 

never saw him again. [Kilgore, p. 175-176] 

(President Eisenhower passed away on March 28, 1969. In August 1970, Secretary Volpe proposed 

to honor his former leader by submitting a bill to Congress to designate the “Dwight D. Eisenhower 

Highway.” It would be signed along I-70 from Washington to Denver; I-25 from Denver to 

Cheyenne, Wyoming; and I-80 from Cheyenne to San Francisco. (At the time, I-70S was 

designated into Washington; the portion that was finally built between Frederick, Maryland, and the 

Capital Beltway is now I-270.) The highway would loosely follow the path of the 1919 U.S. 

Army’s first transcontinental motor convoy, which had proved influential on the future President. 

(Secretary Volpe submitted a bill to Congress on May 10, 1971, embodying the proposal. He said: 

Fifteen years ago President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 

creating the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. In recognition of his 

outstanding service to his country and the world, and of his having launched the program for 

the Interstate Highway System, we felt that it is particularly fitting and appropriate to honor 

the late President by designating certain routes of the Interstate System as a memorial to 

him.) 

Volpe was confirmed by the Senate and was sworn in, along with other Cabinet officers, on January 

22, 1969, just 2 days after President Nixon’s Inauguration. Chief Justice Earl Warren administered 

the oath of office. 
74 

In moving to Washington, Secretary and Mrs. Volpe considered a three-bedroom apartment in 

Rosslyn, Virginia, and had consulted an interior decorator. Then, as The Washington Post

explained, “After crossing the traffic choked Virginia bridges several days at rush hour, however, 

Volpe changed his mind. He and his wife decided to settle closer to the official, in the unofficial 

Nixon enclave of Watergate east.” [Oberdorfer, Don, and Eisen, Jack, “D.C. Gets Volpe Pledge on 

Chronic Road Ills,” The Washington Post, March 9, 1969] His new apartment was a short drive 

from his office in the southwest quadrant of the city. Like all Cabinet Secretaries in that era, he had 

a limousine and driver. 

In an interview with Highway User magazine, the new Secretary supported the Interstate System:

As to the chief good and bad points of the highway program, I don’t believe there are really 

any “bad” points, but there are areas which cause continuing concern. One is rising costs; 

the other, and more important, is the tragic annual toll of traffic deaths and injuries. On the 

positive side, we can point to these undisputed “good” points of the highway program: 

improved transport, safer roads, greater travel comfort, decreased travel time and cost, 

unlimited mobility on a reasonably good road, and so on. 

As for cutbacks by the previous Administration, he said that promising no further cutbacks would 

be unrealistic. “The state of the economy sometimes dictates the necessity, or desirability, of 

curtailing Federal expenditures, regardless of the sources from which revenues are derived or the 

specific purposes for which revenues are collected.” 

The magazine also asked the new Secretary about the integrity of the Highway Trust Fund, namely 

whether funds collected from highway users should be spent exclusively for highways and related 

purposes. He replied: 

I believe that the integrity of the Highway Trust Fund must be preserved without question. 

This was the intent of the Congress and the Chief Executive in framing the Federal-aid 

highway legislation in 1956 and subsequent acts. In my opinion, to divert highway user tax 

revenues to purposes other than the provision of highways would abrogate a long-standing 

moral commitment, as well as a statutory provision. The Trust Fund financing arrangement 

has been one of the essential ingredients in the present successes of the highway program 

and under no presently foreseeable circumstances should it be eliminated or diluted. 

[“Secretary Volpe Tells Where He Stands,” Highway User, February 1969, p. 4-5] 

One of Volpe’s and the Administration’s concerns was urban unrest. President-elect Nixon had 

appointed a transition team to prepare a report on transportation. The report praised the mobility 

offered by highways, but contended that “improvements in personal transportation for a majority of 

individuals have intensified the problems of the large numbers of Americans without personal 

transportation.” The conclusion was that “public mass transportation must be guaranteed.” The 

report also decried the “powerful consequences” of the Interstate System in air, noise, and water 

pollution and recommended White House action that as, Mark Rose observed, “amounted to 

supplanting the leadership of engineers with the leadership of politicians.” 
75 

In recognition of these concerns, Secretary Volpe created the post of Assistant Secretary for Urban 

Systems and the Environment, occupied by former Seattle Mayor James D. Braman. White House 

advisor John Ehrlichman, a real estate attorney who had represented anti-highway groups in Seattle, 

had recommended Braman after observing his political acumen. Volpe explained that the idea 

behind the new position was “to anticipate some of the troublesome areas before they reach that 

point of polarization within a community at which any rational solution is precluded.” [Rose, p. 

108-109, Kilgore, p. 177]] 

Based on Braman’s experience in Seattle, one of his highest priorities was to increase Federal 

funding for mass transit programs throughout the country. As he recalled after leaving office on 

October 1, 1970, “When we first arrived, they said we were just pursuing a will of the wisp—that it 

was totally impossible and that the highway lobby would knock us down.” He added: 

We’ve got to realize that there are values now that we can’t measure in yards of earth 

excavated, or any other measures that are used on the old cost-benefit analysis. When 

they’re planning things today, they’ve got to throw out the old yardstick. They’ve got to put 

in new values, social values. [Loken, Marty, “Braman Tells of Battling Roadbuilders,” The 

Seattle Times, November 20, 1970] 

One of Secretary Volpe’s early presentations was to the National Governors’ Conference at the 

Washington Hilton Hotel on February 27, 1969. As chairman of the conference in 1968, he said he 

was “delighted to be with you” as Secretary of Transportation and “tremendously enthusiastic” 

about his new post. At the Department of Transportation, he said, “Our basic objectives include 

economic efficiency in transportation–the best use of environmental resources–a wide-ranging, allinclusive safety program–ancillary support of other national interests.” 

As for highways, he said: 

I have been asked in several recent interviews whether I’m a “Highway Man” or a “Rapid 

Transit Man.” The answer, of course, is that as of last month, I am a “Transportation man.” 

 I have said before, and I say again, that highways will not do the whole job. I’m a former 

Commissioner of Public Works, I’m a former Federal Highway Administrator, and I’ve cut 

plenty of ribbons to open new stretches of pavement . . . but I’ll say it again, “Highways 

will not do the whole job.” While we cannot neglect our great highway system – either 

from an expansion or a maintenance point of view – we must combine that system with rail, 

air and rapid transit modes. And we must bring to these other modes the same creative 

foresight we gave the Federal Highway Program back in 1957 [sic]. We need the funding to 

develop these other modes of transportation – and that is in the works. I have told the 

President that the Department of Transportation will come up with ideas and proposals to 

bring about the funding and the creation of a true national system. 

We need the knowledge, the expertise, and – in a sense – the audacity to put our crew of 

research and development experts to work to come up with fresh ideas backed with solid 

enthusiasm. 
76 

We are going to stop assuming that what was good for the nation forty years ago in 

transportation is good enough today. 

We are pledged to move this nation with efficiency and safety. We will do this job with 

great spirit and dedication . . . . 

His “greatest concern,” he said, was to “avoid the on-again, off-again policies of past years . . . and 

that we experience no roadblocks in our efforts to construct a coordinated highway network within 

our proposed coordinated transportation system.” [Emphasis in original text]

Volpe’s choice for Federal Highway Administrator was universally applauded within the highway 

community. Francis C. “Frank” Turner, a native of Dallas, Texas, had joined the BPR as a Junior 

Highway Engineer in 1929 immediately after graduating from Texas Agricultural and Mechanical 

College (now Texas A&M). His first assignment was to collect time and motion studies to find 

ways of reducing highway construction costs, a typical assignment for trainees. From 1933 to 1940, 

he was an area engineer in BPR’s office in Little Rock, Arkansas, responsible for Federal-aid 

projects in a portion of the State. While in Little Rock, he wrote his graduate thesis on how the 

maintenance of highways was affected by the type and physical characteristics of base and subgrade 

soil.

His experience proved invaluable when he was assigned in 1943 to expedite completion of the 

Alaska Highway, then being built through northwest Canada as a World War II effort to provide a 

land link from the States to Alaska. In 1942, the Public Roads Administration and the U.S. Army 

Corps of Engineers had opened a pioneer military trail through the wilderness. Now, in 1943, the 

Corps was gone and the PRA's job was to build a permanent highway on sound location to replace 

the pioneer trail. After helping complete the permanent highway that same year, Turner worked 

with Canadian and province officials to organize their forces for the maintenance activities they 

would be responsible for after the war. In 1946, Turner was the last American to leave the 

completed Alaska Highway project.

If the Alaska Highway had been a physical challenge, Turner's next assignment was a personnel 

nightmare. He was placed in charge of a program to restore the war-damaged roads and bridges of 

the Philippines at a time when the engineers he needed were just being discharged from the military 

and had little interest in service outside the United States. Nevertheless, he pulled together 

sufficient staff to launch the program, all the while training Philippines citizens to take over the 

work. 

In 1950, Turner returned to Washington, where he became an assistant to Commissioner of Public 

Roads MacDonald. After the Eisenhower Administration fired MacDonald in March 1953, Turner 

served in a similar capacity with Commissioner Francis V. du Pont. From this post, Turner was a 

logical choice to work with the Clay Committee to develop a financing plan for President 

Eisenhower’s proposed highway program. General Clay, an engineer who had served in the U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers and was presently chairman of the board of the Continental Can 

Company, had no experience building roads, and neither did the commissioners he selected; Turner 

filled this gap. 
77 

During congressional consideration of the failed Federal-Aid Highway Act in 1955 and the 

successful 1956 Act, Turner was the liaison between BPR and the House and Senate public works 

committees. He provided the highway data the committees needed to develop the legislation and 

secure its approval in June 1956. From 1957 to 1969, Turner remained with BPR, serving as 

Deputy Commissioner, Chief Engineer, and then Director of Public Roads. In these positions, he 

played a major role in helping to resolve many project disputes and in keeping the Interstate System 

moving forward. He also worked closely with Volpe during his short tenure as Administrator. 

Secretary Volpe announced Turner’s nomination as Federal Highway Administrator on February 

24, 1969. During Turner’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Public Works on 

March 11, Senator Randolph asked about proposals to establish a trust fund for mass transit. 

Turner replied that those in the highway field had thought about ways of financing mass 

transportation for two reasons: 

A defensive one, first, because there are many proposals by mass transportation interests to 

transfer some of the needed highway moneys over to this other purpose, and, of course, 

because of our great need for those same funds, we must resist that kind of a transfer action. 

But we are also interested in it from the overall transportation standpoint, recognizing that a 

highway transportation mode by itself cannot supply the total needs for transportation in 

many of our urban areas. We must supplement it with other modes. 

In most cases, mass transit was best accomplished by buses, although “in a few of our larger cities, 

we must go beyond that and possibly get into the fixed-rail type of facility.”

Highway proponents had been fortunate “in finding a very satisfactory funding device by the 

highway trust fund,” and such a mechanism for mass transit might be appropriate, but excise taxes 

on transit users would not, at present, produce “sufficient funds to finance the size of the program 

that is being thought of.” He added: 

It may turn out, however, as a result of careful review of these transportation studies, we 

find out that we don’t need as much investment in some of our fixed-rail type facilities as 

we have been thinking of up to this point, and if not, then the highway system that we would 

be building with the present trust fund, in and by itself, supplemented by a bus operation, 

might take care of a great share of this mass transportation need. 

Asked to comment on news reports that Secretary Volpe was considering a Mass Transit Trust 

Fund, Turner replied: 

I participated in some of the discussions that led up to that proposal. It is just that, a 

proposal, and nothing else, at this point. 

Details have not been worked out, and I don’t know that they can be completely worked out 

in a comparable way to the highway trust fund, but the advantages of the highway trust fund 

financing the highway program are so great that certainly it could be a good example for any 
78 

other similar type of financing, or some other equally acceptable method of financing the 

mass transportation programs in our urban areas. 

Aside from the continuing need for road building, Turner said diversion would violate a “compact” 

between Congress and the people of the United States that should not be broken. He admitted that 

critics had sometimes called him a “tool, as a member of the highway lobby, usually in a rather 

derogatory frame of reference.” He continued: 

If there is a highway lobby in this country, and I think there is, it is not the highway lobby 

that is usually being referred to in those remarks. 

I think the highway lobby in this country is 205 million people. I believe it is a fairly 

powerful lobby, and I believe it a lobby that you and I should be responsive to. 

I believe that lobby is telling us they want an improved highway program. They want us to 

build not only more roads but to build better roads and make better utilization of the roads 

we do build. 

 

[Nomination of Francis C. Turner to be Federal Highway Administrator, Committee on Public 

Works, United States Senate, Serial No. 91-3, March 11, 1969, p. 9-12, 23] 

Turner took the oath of office on March 19, becoming the only agency employee to rise from 

trainee to Federal Highway Administrator. In addition to Secretary Volpe, the ceremony was 

observed by congressional leaders, including Chairman Fallon and Chairman Kluczynski of the 

House Committee on Public Works and Chairman Randolph of the Senate Committee on Public 

Works. 

According to Kilgore, Secretary Boyd had offered his successor two pieces of advice: “Get out of 

Washington and see what is going on in the rest of the country, and don’t get involved in the 

Washington, D.C. highway controversy.” She continued: 

Volpe followed his first piece of advice. During the first few months of his administration, 

there was no early warning system in place to give notice that a highway project would 

encounter local opposition from neighborhood activists or environmentalists . . . . Several 

of the projects [Turner and his pro-highway staff] gave Volpe looked good on the map but 

proved disastrous in the field. During his first two months in office, Volpe approved 

projects based on the reports he was given. From his first day in office, he continued his 

practice of reading everything he signed and insisting on forty-eight hours’ notice, no matter 

how tight the deadline. Soon he discovered, however, that the paperwork sometimes 

ignored or glossed over serious political problems . . . . 

When Secretary Volpe and the Department moved to its new headquarters on 7th Street, SW., he 

soon fell into a routine: 
79 

At 7 a.m., he would arrive at the DOT gym and go through his regular exercises, finishing 

off with a whirlpool bath. Then, as he had for sixteen years, he attended Mass, usually the 8 

a.m. service at St. Dominic’s just behind the DOT offices. After hearing about Volpe’s 

physical fitness routine, Nixon joked at a press conference that Volpe was exercising with 

the space team and “might be one of our next astronauts.” The new DOT building featured 

a gym with a weight room and a tiny wooden track on the roof. From the windows on the 

opposite side of the building, DOT employees could watch their boss patiently jogging his 

laps in the humid heat of a Washington summer or bundled in a sweatsuit in January. 

Employees began to use the new facility, too, while a few high-ranking officials even copied 

his hot tea and graham cracker snacks, hoping to get some of the same benefits he seemed to 

derive from his regimen. At home, the Volpes lived quietly, avoiding the Washington party 

circuit and accepting few invitations except those from old friends. [Kilgore, p. 179-180] 

Urban Transit Challenges

As for former Secretary Boyd’s second piece of advice, that proved impossible. The urban freeway

issue in the District of Columbia and similar issues around the country became a theme that ran 

through Volpe’s entire term of office. 

During his first year in office, Secretary Volpe focused on transit. He recognized that improved 

transit was necessary for the car to operate more smoothly on congested city streets. However, as 

transit historian Smerk has pointed out, “An observer in early 1969 would have been accurate in 

stating that mass transit was a really ‘safe’ issue only for a senator from a state with one or more 

major urban centers or for a representative from a congressional district in a large urban area.” 

Since its inception only a few years earlier, the transit program benefitted from traditional 

congressional practices:

Log-rolling had been effective in permitting senators and representatives from transit 

constituencies to gain support from colleagues from electorates where transit seemed 

unimportant, but in the best back-scratching practice of Congress, a senator from a rural, 

agricultural state would back the transit program in return for support from a senator from 

an urban state for an agriculture measure. What was apparently lacking to boost transit was 

grass roots support; the federal mass transit program was seen by many as a program 

beneficial almost exclusively to large cities. Non-urban legislators would simply not give 

overwhelming support to transit legislation and the money it required unless the matter was 

one that promised broad, national benefits. 

The urban transit challenge was worsened by the transformation of transit from a private to a public 

enterprise:

Counteracting the image of mass transit as primarily a big-city concern was the slow but 

steady failures of private mass transit firms in all parts of the U.S. and in cities of all sizes. 

The industry in the aggregate ceased to be profitable in the mid-1960s for a variety of 

reasons. The growing inflation of the late 1960s was a serious blow to an industry that was 

fairly labor intensive. The cost of living was rising, and transit labor costs rose sharply as 
80 

new contracts with transit workers’ unions were hammered out. The cost of equipment and 

supplies also began to go up substantially, likewise due to inflation. If service was to be 

maintained, there was a limit to how much fares could be boosted and service cut. The 

aging fleet of transit vehicles grew inevitably older and more expensive to maintain, and 

there was little or no money in the transit property coffers for new equipment that was less 

costly to maintain. Marginal private operators all over the nation began to go out of 

business. An increasing number of cities—large, medium, and small—found that they 

would have to get into the transit business themselves if service was to continue. [Smerk, p. 

110-111] 

The evolution in transit was paralleled by a change in its trade groups. The American Transit 

Association, which began in 1882 as the American Street Railway Association, mainly represented 

privately owned bus companies. It did not effectively represent rail commuter or rapid transit 

operators who formed the Institute for Rapid Transit in the late 1950s. The association had not 

lobbied for government aid (in 1956, its primary goal was for buses to be exempted from the 

increased gas tax, a goal it achieved), but the institute would do so: 

From the start, the IRT membership understood the need for large sums of public money to 

revitalize and expand their properties. Many rail systems had suffered from decades of 

deferred maintenance; their leaders knew that local and state dollars were limited and that 

expanding the federal program in scope and in dollars appropriated was key to the success 

and survival of a reasonable quality of rail transit service. [Smerk, p. 109] 

The fledgling Federal-aid transit program was subject to congressional funding decisions and 

subsequent appropriations acts, often based on political, economic, or other factors unrelated to 

transit needs. Without guarantees of future funding at levels to support the ambitious plans the 

Nation’s cities were developing, transit interests sought to emulate the success of their highway 

counterparts who could rely on the Highway Trust Fund generating guaranteed revenue and contract 

authority to ensure its availability. 

In early February 1969, Senator Williams and Representative Edward Koch (D-NY) introduced 

bills to establish a Mass Transit Trust Fund to collect revenue from the automobile excise tax. The 

7 percent tax was set to drop to 3 percent in January 1971 and end by 1974, but Senator Williams 

proposed to leave the tax at 3 percent. Over 4 years, the new Mass Transit Trust Fund would 

accumulate $1.8 billion. Representative Koch, in his first term representing New York City in 

Congress, left the 7-percent rate in place to collect $1 billion in FY 1971 and $4 billion in FY 1974. 

 His bill also removed the current cap of 12.5 percent on the amount any urban area could receive 

from total annual transit aid. The change, he said, would “enable the money to go where it is most 

needed—to the metropolitan areas.” 

(A June 1969 Washington Post feature about where new Members of Congress lived said that 

Representative Koch lived in Capital Park Apartments at 800 4th Street, SW, adding that he was “a 

44-year-old bachelor, and the first Democrat elected in 31 years from Manhattan’s Silk Stocking 

district. He walks to work and likes the accessibility of his present apartment, though he’s looking 

for another one.” [Wiegers, Mary, “Home From the Hill,” The Washington Post, June 8, 1969]) 
81 

Smerk explained why the bills and other interests pursuing a Mass Transit Trust Fund targeted the 

automobile excise tax:

The money did not go into the Highway Trust Fund, and utilizing it did not seem likely to 

generate opposition from the highway interests who fiercely guarded the Highway Trust 

Fund against diversion to other than highway purposes. The automobile excise tax was 

attractive to legislators because it would not entail imposing a new tax. Proceeds were 

merely earmarked for a specific purpose rather than letting it go into the general fund of the 

U.S. Treasury. [“Transit Trust Fund Bills Are Introduced,” Engineering News-Record, 

February 27, 1969, p. 12-13; Smerk, p. 111-112] 

Transit interests, as well as highway supporters, looked for signals from the new Secretary of 

Transportation about the direction of the Nixon Administration. 

In the early months, Secretary Volpe reached out to the Department of Transportation’s 

constituents. He gave an interview for Highway User magazine’s February 1969 issue that touched 

on highway and transit issues. The interviewer began by noting the coincidence that as the first 

Federal Highway Administrator, Volpe had launched the Interstate System and as Secretary of 

Transportation he might bring it to a successful conclusion. Volpe replied: 

The coincidence is even more striking than your question indicates since it was Mr. Nixon, 

on behalf of former President Eisenhower, who presented the basic plan for completing the 

Interstate System to the Governors’ Conference in 1954. It certainly will be a source of 

satisfaction to me to work again with the States in pushing the Interstate program to the 

earliest possible completion as required by the law. 

The Interstate program would end soon, but he emphasized that, “the traditional Federal-State 

highway program will never be brought ‘to a successful conclusion.’ It must continue to keep pace 

with the ever-increasing demand for personal mobility.” 

Regarding the Highway Trust Fund, Secretary Volpe said “the integrity . . . must be preserved 

without question,” as was the intent of Congress and President Eisenhower in approving the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956: 

In my opinion, to divert highway use tax revenues to purposes other than the provision of 

highways would abrogate a long-standing moral commitment, as well as a statutory 

provision. The Trust Fund financing arrangement has been one of the essential ingredients 

in the present successes of the highway program and under no presently foreseeable 

circumstances should it be eliminated or diluted.

He also responded to a question about the future of rail rapid transit in large urban areas. Rail 

transit, he said, “certainly has a place” in larger urban areas:

To be realistic, though, it is generally considered that rail rapid transit cannot be justified 

and successfully operated except in areas having at least 1,000,000 inhabitants. That 
82 

severely limits its feasibility. There is a great future, I believe, in bus rapid transit, which is 

more flexible and can take advantage of such modern innovations as exclusive bus lanes on 

city freeways and other arterials. The surface of this possibility has barely been scratched, 

but we intend to promote the idea vigously. [“Secretary Volpe Tells Where He Stands,” 

Highway User, February 1969, p. 4-5] 

In an interview with the Associated Press a month later, he acknowledged that “bold new ideas” 

were needed for the Nation’s cities. “If you get down to a point where automobiles have to travel 

five miles an hour, well, you know how long people are going to use them. They are going to walk 

to work instead of ride.” He added: 

Some type of mass transportation has got . . . to get into operation pretty rapidly or we do 

face the real possibility that either we have to shut off to rubber tires certain limited areas 

within a city or charge a fee to come in there.

Highways simply could not get the job done on their own: 

But, by the same token, you just can’t depend on a highway program to do the job 

completely, because it can’t do the job. This has been proven in New York City . . . where 

over half a century ago—1917, I guess—the pushcart era—the average speed was 11 miles 

an hour. Today it’s 7 miles an hour in New York. So we haven’t made much progress in 

over half a century. So something needs to be done. And it needs to be done in a bold and 

imaginative way . . . . 

The reporter asked about imposing user charges to discourage automobile use in central cities 

during business hours. Secretary Volpe replied that unless a lot more progress was made than in the 

last 5 years or so, “you’re going to have to come to some type of restriction on certain areas within . 

. . the core city on the utilization of the automobile.” He added that, “I would prefer to see the 

alternative of taking some people off the automobile tires if you provide good, swift, safe, 

economical mass transportation.” Highways were going to be needed “as long as there’s a United 

States of America,” but “you are going to need mass transportation a great deal more and it’s got to 

catch up.” Moreover, if the Nation had promoted mass transit beginning in the mid-1950s the way 

it did the Interstate System, “we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today.” 

The reporter asked the Secretary’s view of Senator Harrison Williams’ proposal to create an urban 

transit trust fund to be financed out of automobile excise taxes: 

As far as I’m concerned, I believe the trust fund concept is one way to finance it . . . . It is 

one good way in which to make sure you will be able to finance over a specified period of 

time a specified number of miles of mass transportation that has been spelled out—similar 

to the highway program as it was spelled out in 1956 with a cost factor and a time factor to 

get it simultaneously completed in each state in the union.
83 

He had heard that the highway lobby would oppose the use of automobile excise taxes for such a 

trust fund, but pointed out that “the excise tax funds . . . do not go into the highway trust fund.” He 

did not think it made much difference which tax financed the proposed trust fund: 

As long as you have a specific tax, it’s all going to the same pot right now, the general fund. 

 So whether you take it out of the the automobile tax or you say 10 per cent of the cigarette 

tax, as long as you take a known tax provision now in the law and you say 10 percent of 

that, depending on how much that brings in, or 5 per cent or 15 per cent or 20 per cent of it. 

 In other words, the only way you are going to be guaranteed that you’ll have the money to 

do the job and get it completed over a specific period of time . . . is through that kind of an 

approach. 

He also was asked if central city residents should have veto power over freeway construction in 

their neighborhoods. Secretary Volpe said that public agencies should listen to any responsible 

group. “But in the final analysis it is the elected or appointed officials who have to make some final 

judgments.” He continued: 

Expressways are only one form. I’m convinced that you just don’t stop a highway program 

because, perhaps, a few additional homes will have to be taken. [Hartnett, Ken, “Volpe 

Sees Immediate Need for Mass Transit Systems,” Associated Press, Fargo [ND] Forum, 

March 27, 1969] 

By April 1969, Secretary Volpe was publicly talking about a Mass Transit Trust Fund. On April 2, 

he said that the Subcommittee on Transportation of President Nixon’s Urban Affairs Council had 

achieved a consensus in support of the idea. The source of revenue was undecided, but the 

automobile excise tax and the tax on cigarettes were under consideration. The subcommittee had 

rejected a direct user charge on transit passengers because, he said, “it would defeat the very thing 

we’re trying to accomplish—getting more people to ride transit facilities.” 

Secretary Volpe said he was committed to the trust fund concept. “It’s the only sure way suggested 

so far that over a course of time will really get the job done.” He estimated that Federal 

expenditures between $10 billion and $100 billion would be needed in coming years to overhaul the 

Nation’s transit systems. Only with an assured Federal funding source would local authorities be 

willing to launch the major construction projects that often require up to 10 years for completion. 

However, he opposed using Federal funds to subsidize operating expenses, which he felt would 

involve Washington in the business of running buses or subways. 

Secretary Volpe expected the subcommittee to present a formal proposal to the council in two or 

three weeks and then to the President. He indicated that Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans and 

Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary George Romney favored the idea, but the Bureau of the 

Budget and the Treasury Department opposed the plan based on their general opposition to trust 

funds. [“Transit Trust Fund,” Engineering News-Record, April 17, 1969, p. 30] 

Volpe told the Institute of Rapid Transit in a speech on April 17, 1969, that private transit 

companies “usually” could not make money. No city had a modern public transit system that could 
84 

compete with the advantages of the automobile or adequately serve suburban areas, as well as a 

“ghetto dweller” who wanted to get to a job in the suburbs: 

We ought to rid rid of the idea once and for all that public transportation must make a profit 

at the fare box. I wish it could . . . . My position is that public transit is so important that 

we must look at its financing like most any other public service. We don’t expect the Army 

to make a profit. We don’t exact user charges for police protection. These services are 

considered so important that the entire community must agree to share the burden of 

supporting them. [Eisen, Jack, “Volpe: Transit Must Put Service Before Profit,” The 

Washington Post, April 18, 1969] 

With Volpe supportive, transit interests began to coalesce for action on addressing the growing 

transit problem:

In early 1969, a coalition of interest groups began to form. A truly professional, consistent, 

and strong lobbying for transit had its genesis. The linchpin was the combination of the 

U.S. Conference of Mayors (or USCM, the new name of the American Municipal 

Association) and the National League of Cities (NLC). The Mayors’ Conference and the 

League of Cities began to assemble a new mass transportation coalition, with Fred Burke, a 

highly skilled and effective lobbyist, employed to guide the work on the transit legislative 

program. The initial coalition included the NLC/USCM, the Institute for Rapid Transit, the 

American Transit Association, and the railroads working with IRT and the Association of 

American Railroads. 

This coalition allowed the debate to expand beyond transportation to include urban revitalization 

and help for the urban poor. The coalition also made clear that it would oppose extension of the 

Highway Trust Fund unless highway interests backed the mass transportation program. Highway 

interests, aware of the growing opposition to highways and the Bureau of the Budget’s desire to 

broaden use of the funds, agreed to support transit. “In short, seeing a fight ahead on the extension 

of their trust fund, the highway people felt it wise to support the transit constituency of the 

NLC/USCM.” [Smerk, p. 112-113] 

By mid-year, the American Transit Association had adopted creation of a Mass Transit Trust Fund 

as a major goal. The association’s president for the year, S. A. Caria of the Minneapolis-St. Paulbased Twin City Lines, announced the decision in a speech to the New England Transit Club in 

Boston. He said that transit operators were “being asked not only to move people from ‘A’ to ‘B,’ 

but also to participate in the rescue of the American city.” Operators could make “a major 

contribution but we do not have the resources nor should we be expected to have them.” 

The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, he said, had resulted in a trickle of money, with the 

funds limited until 1968 to publicly-owned systems. Thus far, the legislation had provided 

“uncertain, hit-or-miss kind of assistance at best, not designed to attack the total problem on a broad 

front.” Looking at the Interstate System, Caria said the secret of its success “lies both in the total 

amount of funds available through the trust fund, and in the continuing nature of that fund.” He 

said the association’s goal was supported by industry, the cities, the Executive Branch of 
85 

government, and Congress, but acknowledged that some Members of Congress remained to be won 

over. [“A ‘Trust Fund’ for Transit?” The American City, July 1969, p. 130, emphasis in original] 

(On December 26, 1968, Vice President-elect Agnew announced that Jerome B. Wolff, chairmandirector of the Maryland State Roads Commission, would become his assistant. To ensure an 

orderly transition for the commission, the appointment would be delayed while Maryland held a 

special election to select a new Governor. “Mr. Wolff and I,” Governor Agnew said from the State 

capital of Annapolis, “have agreed that he will make his services available to the new Governor for 

such time as may be required to effect an orderly transfer in the best interests of the State.” Wolff’s 

duties on the Vice President’s staff would be flexible, according to the Governor, but would include 

only top-level assignments. [“Md. Official Named Aide to Agnew,” The Washington Post, 

September 26, 1968] Wolff’s title would be Advisor for Science and Technology.) 

A Program for Urban Mass Transportation 

The Administration seemed in tune with transit supporters about the need for a dedicated funding 

source. On May 9, 1969, Secretary Volpe was in New York talking about the coming Mass Transit 

Trust Fund. He did not specify where the funds would come from, although The New York Times

observed that “in the past, he has indicated he favored the use of part of the current excise tax on 

new automobiles, possibly a new tax on cigarettes, or both.” The report continued: 

The former Massachusetts Governor said proposed legislation calling for establishment of 

the mass-transit trust fund was being reviewed in the Treasury Department and the Budget 

Bureau. He said he expected to have the bill cleared for presentation to President Nixon 

within a week to 10 days. If all goes well, Congress would get the bill within a month . . . . 

Mr. Volpe told a reporter that he expected some resistance to his idea for a “trust fund” to 

help local governments build rapid-transit systems. But, he said with a faint grin: “I’m a 

fighter, and I expect to see this through.” 

Much of the opposition to creation of a new earmarked trust fund, according to 

Adminstration sources, is that there is reluctance to remove what could be a sizable amount 

of Federal spending from the annual budget-drafting process. Since the money—as in the 

case of the $5.5-billion-a-year Highway Construction Trust Fund—is earmarked for a 

specific use, spending options are reduced. 

Mr. Volpe said the proposed legislation would call for a program running 10 to 12 years. 

The Secretary made clear that the bill would call for local sharing of the cost of the subways, 

rail lines and other types of mass transit that he envisioned for the cities. The formula had 

not been worked out yet, he said, but he suggested that the local portion might run in the 

neighborhood of 20 per cent to 40 per cent. 

He expected the program to grow to “about $1-billion in two or three years.” Asked how much 

New York State would receive, Secretary Volpe laughed and replied, “I’m afraid that’s impossible 

to say. I’m sure New York City could itself absorb the $1-billion a year.” He promised, however, 
86 

to help the city get $200-million from the new program to help in financing “the $1.6-billion first 

phase of its massive new subway-construction program.” [Lindsey, Robert, “U.S. Seeks Vast Aid 

for Mass Transit,” The New York Times, May 10, 1969] 

Rose found that, “Early on, Nixon’s senior officials determined that securing additional finances for 

mass transit was their highest legislative priority.” Volpe considered a trust fund for transit funded 

at about $300-$500 million a year by taxes on automobiles, cigarettes, and peak-hour fees for 

motorists on toll roads, but the idea made little headway within the Administration. The President 

was initially enthusiastic until his urban advisor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, pointed out that the 

Bureau of the Budget and the Department of the Treasury were “fiercely opposed” to the trust fund 

concept. Volpe had tentative clearance for his concept by mid-July although an internal memo 

noted that “literally everyone at the White House preferred to finance the program out of general 

revenues.” White House officials believed the trust fund concept worked only when the people 

being taxed would be the beneficiaries. [Rose, p. 110] 

The mass transit trust tund idea “came to grief,” as Smerk put it. The President took the advice of 

conservative economist and presidential senior advisor Arthur F. Burns, who led the fight against 

Secretary Volpe’s proposal. Budget Director Robert P. Mayo and Chairman Paul W. McCracken of 

the Council of Economic Advisors sided with Burns. A bitter, unnamed aide to Secretary Volpe 

told a reporter, “The real stumbling block was that great 19th century economist with the pipe who 

has offices in the White House.” [“Nixon Asks for $10 Billion for Transit,” The Washington Post, 

August 7, 1969] 

(Burns, as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors (1953-1956), had played a key role in 

helping President Eisenhower develop his highway policy leading up to creation of the Highway 

Trust Fund and the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.) 

 

On August 7, 1969, President Nixon proposed an ambitious public transportation program. His 

special message to Congress on Public Transportation began: 

Public transportation has suffered from years of neglect in America. In the last 30 years 

urban transportation systems have experienced a cycle of increasing costs, decreasing funds 

for replacement, cutbacks in service and decrease in passengers.

Since most transit was provided by private companies seeking profit, the President added that: 

Transit industry profits before taxes have declined from $313 million in 1945 to $25 million 

in 1967. In recent years 235 bus and subway companies have gone out of business. The 

remaining transit companies have progressively deteriorated. Today they give their riders 

fewer runs, older cars, and less service.

Local governments, from the biggest cities to small and medium-sized communities, were illequipped to address the problem. For inspiration, the President turned to the Interstate System:
87 

When the Nation realized the importance and need for improved highways in the last 

decade, the Congress responded with the Highway Act of 1956. The result has been a 

magnificent federally-aided highway system. But highways are only one element in a 

national transportation policy. About a quarter of our population lack access to a car. 

Unless public transportation became an attractive alternative to the private car, “we will never be 

able to build highways fast enough to avoid congestion.” Already, the Nation faced “increasing 

congestion of our roads and strangulation of our central cities,” he said, adding that, “we can 

imagine what our plight will be when our urban population adds one hundred million people by the 

year 2000.” 

He outlined his proposal to establish a public transportation program: 

I propose that we provide $10 billion out of the general fund over a 12-year period to help in 

developing and improving public transportation in local communities. To establish this 

program, I am requesting contract authorization totaling $3.1 billion for the first five years 

starting with a first year authorization of $300 million and rising to $1 billion by 1975. 

Furthermore, I am asking for a renewal of this contract authorization every two years so that 

the outstanding contract authorization will never be for a shorter period than three years. 

Over the 12-year period, $9.5 billion is programmed for capital investments and $500 

million for research.

The program which I am recommending would help to replace, improve and expand local 

bus, rail and subway systems. It would help to develop and modernize subway tracks, 

stations, and terminals; it would help to build and improve rail train tracks and stations, new 

bus terminals, and garages.

The program would authorize assistance to private as well as public transit systems so that 

private enterprise can continue to provide public services in urban transportation. It would 

give State governments an opportunity to comment on project applications in order to 

improve intergovernmental coordination. It would require local public hearings before any 

major capital construction is undertaken. And it would permit localities to acquire rights-ofway in advance of system construction in order to reduce future dislocation and costs. 

Under this program, the bus, train, and subway user would have better service. Cars would travel 

on less congested roads. The poor could get to new opportunities for training, rehabilitation, and 

employment, while city centers “would avoid strangulation and the suburbs would have better 

access to urban jobs and shops.” He concluded: 

Most important, we as a Nation would benefit. The Nation which has sent men to the moon 

would demonstrate that it can meet the transportation needs of the city as well.

(Apollo 11 had landed the first men on the moon just a few weeks earlier, on July 20, 1969. The 

landing fulfilled President Kennedy’s pledge on May 25, 1961: “I believe that this nation should 
88 

commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and 

returning him safely to the Earth.”) 

What the proposal did not do was establish a Mass Transit Trust Fund to “Secretary Volpe’s 

apparent surprise, and to the consternation of the transit support coalition,” according to Smerk. 

This decision was urged by the Bureau of the Budget “which resisted trust funds because it felt they 

limited the flexibility of government to react to changing situations, needs, and problems.” [Smerk, 

p. 112] 

In October, the Department of Transportation sent 40 people on a government plane to Montreal for 

the American Transit Association’s annual meeting. On October 6, Under Secretary of 

Transportation James M. Beggs urged the association to support the President’s proposal, adding 

that if they could not support it, he hoped they would at least not oppose it. “Very frankly, if you 

lose this bill, I do not think there will be another one for several years.” He explained that the 

Administration’s financial officials refused to endorse a trust fund financed from the general 

Treasury, while taxing transit passengers would be self-defeating. 

The next speaker was S. A. Caria, the association’s president. He stated flatly that the association 

could not support the proposal. Because it would require annual appropriations, actual funding 

levels were unpredictable and subject to fiscal restraints on government expenditures. The 

association, he said, preferred a trust fund. 

That same afternoon, the association announced that its man-of-the-year award would go to Senator 

Williams because of his support for the trust fund concept. In a press conference, Under Secretary 

Beggs praised Senator Williams as the father of the transit aid program. 

On October 8, Senator Williams told the association that a 5-year program was desirable for longterm planning, especially in cities developing rapid transit networks. However, he criticized the 

President’s proposal as “merely a rehash of the same old program” requiring annual appropriations 

and accused the Administration of misleading rhetoric. What was needed, he said, were 

unquestioned guarantees of long-term Federal funding. He intended to continue promoting the trust 

fund concept with revenue from the automobile excise tax. 

Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro III of Baltimore, representing the National League of Cities and the 

U.S. Conference of Mayors, said the two groups supported the Williams proposal. “There appears 

to be a puzzling lack of clarity and frankness in statements by the national administration about 

what its legislation is intended to do,” he said, “and there appears to be unanimity among local 

government officials that it will not do what it is advertised as doing.” [Eisen, Jack, “Transit Aide 

Pleads for Industry Support,” The Washington Post, October 7, 1969; Eisen, Jack, “Trust Fund on 

Transit Supported,” The Washington Post, October 9, 1969] 

Secretary Volpe missed the annual meeting because he was representing President Nixon on a 

mission in Europe. Later that month, he addressed the Oklahoma Good Roads and Streets 

Association on highway safety and the Administration’s views on mass transit. He described the 
89 

growing demand on roads and airlines brought about by population increases as well as economic 

growth: 

To meet this kind of demand means, in sum, that we must within the next 20 years double 

our transportation capacity. We are not going to achieve this expansion by simply building 

more of everything. We are going to have to develop new techniques–a new systems 

approach to the movement of people and goods. There is nothing on the horizon to indicate 

the American people are ready to curtail their mobility by relinquishing the door-to-door 

convenience of the private automobile. At the same time, it requires only elementary 

mathematics to realize that the staggering increase of about 31⁄2 million vehicles a year 

cannot continue indefinitely. If it does, we shall shortly reach a point in our cities where 

there is no more room to drive. 

According to a report of the speech, Volpe was explaining the Administration’s transit proposal 

when he adlibbed, “Not one dime will come from the highway trust fund.” [Young, Jim, “Volpe 

Quiets Fears of Interstate Road Fund Raid,” Oklahoma City Oklahoman, October 31, 1969] 

The transit coalition worked hard to convince Members of Congress to support Senator Williams’s 

bill. The Senator, with help from Burke, found one key to success by proposing a compromise 

between general funding and a Mass Transit Trust Fund. He proposed to apply “contract 

authority,” a concept central to the Federal-aid highway program since 1922, to transit funding. 

Under contract authority, the Secretary of Transportation could incur obligations on behalf of the 

United States up to the limit of authorized funds. Congress pledged to appropriate the funds 

required to liquidate the obligations. Congress had approved contract authority for the Federal-aid 

highway program to allow State highway agencies to engage in multi-year planning. If the 

Williams amendment were adopted, transit officials would have the authority to make similar longterm commitments of funds. 

In December 1969, the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency introduced its bill. Contract 

authority was included, but not the trust fund concept. One committee member, Senator William 

Proxmire (D-Wi.), objected to the inclusion of contract authority in the bill because it “shields the 

program from the annual appropriations process and reduces the ability of Congress to alter 

program priorities from year to year.” He said the trust fund concept, while absent from the bill, 

was less objectionable because “revenues are specifically related to the program which it finances.” 

 

He also objected to the bill because it did not allocate a portion of the gasoline tax for mass transit:

I believe a particularly good case can be made for financing the mass transit program out of 

gasoline tax revenues which heretofore have been used exclusively for highways. The 

beneficiaries of mass transit expenditures are not only the riders who pay a fare, but also 

auto motorists who benefit from reduced congestion and who pay nothing . . . . Gasoline tax 

revenues are thus a fair and equitable way of financing Federal mass transportation 

investments. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1969, Report of the Committee 

on Banking and Currency, United States Senate, to accompany S. 3154 (Report No. 91-633, 

91st Congress, 1st Session, December 22, 1969, p. 34-35] 
90 

The Senate approved the bill 83 to 4 on February 3, 1970. The House Banking and Currency 

Committee, with jurisdiction over urban transportation, approved the House bill in June. The Rules 

Committee held up consideration until the Senate passed its bill again in September with a Housebacked amendment on secret foreign bank accounts. The Rules Committee released the bill within 

10 days of Senate Action, but members claimed they really did so only after a luncheon meeting 

with President Nixon who said the proposed program had a top priority. [“Mass Transit Act a 

Shoo-In Following House Passage,” Engineering News-Record, October 8, 1970, p. 12] 

The House passed the bill on September 29, 1970, by a vote of 327 to 16. The finished bill 

contained the first long-term commitment of Federal funds for mass transportation, with a 

commitment of at least $10 billion over 12 years, beginning with $3.1 billion in FY 1971. This 

funding commitment, including contract authority, would allow officials greater flexibility in 

planning transit development. In addition, the bill included a strong policy on transportation for 

elderly and handicapped persons and required public hearings on the economic, social, and 

environmental impacts of proposed projects as well as analysis of their environmental impacts. 

Funding was from the general Treasury, with no dedication of user taxes such as the excise tax on 

automobiles. 

President Nixon signed the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970 on October 15. In 

doing so, he noted the bipartisan nature of support for the legislation, Secretary Volpe’s hard work, 

and the leaders of business, transportation, and labor unions who worked to secure passage. He 

said:

This bill . . . provides a very significant financial commitment on the part of the 

Government to mass urban transportation systems. And it will mean that we will find the 

methods whereby in the future we can move into the cities and through the cities of our 

country in a way that will enable life in those cities to be much more attractive than would 

be the case, when the cities are jammed with traffic, when the air is polluted because of 

what comes from the automobiles that is directly related to this, and where people, 

therefore, find cities becoming basically unattractive due in great part to the very fact that 

going from home to work is just too much of a chore. 

In praising Secretary Volpe, the President noted that in assessing the record of his Cabinet, “my 

guess is that the highest batting average will be that of Secretary Volpe. I don’t want him to get 

puffed up about it, because . . . it happens that transportation is one area where there is no 

partisanship.” He added that, “I understand there are several other pieces of legislation in the 

transportation field that are on the way to the White House.” One of them was the regular 2-year 

reauthorization of the Federal-aid highway program, due in 1970. 

Public Attitudes Toward Highways

By the time President Nixon took office on January 20, 1969, public attitudes toward highways had 

changed since the day in July 1954 when he announced President Eisenhower’s Grand Plan for 

highway development. 
91 

Following enactment of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, highway builders began 

construction of the Interstate System. The public, which relied on motor vehicles in ever increasing 

numbers, looked forward to the new superhighways. Once construction began in cities, however, 

the mood changed as projects removed homes, businesses, and neighborhoods. When homeowners 

and business owners protested, local officials had to confront a controversy no one had seen 

coming. Urban critics cited the Interstate System as one of the most destabilizing influences on the 

city, while local elected officials struggled to respond to their citizens’ unexpected complaints. 

The highway community, stunned by the response, thought that it could address the issue through 

public relations (PR). Perhaps, highway builders reasoned, they hadn’t expressed clearly enough 

the benefits the public would receive from the new highways. Surely relief of congestion, 

revitalization of central cities, replacement of dilapidated housing, and improved safety were 

compensation enough for the disruption and displacement. They launched what today would be 

called a media blitz, including annual presidential declarations of National Highway Week. During 

the week, State highway agencies would hold open houses, issue press releases, stage highway 

opening ceremonies, and publish ads and articles in newspapers and magazines emphasizing the 

benefits of the new highways. (President John F. Kennedy declared the first National Highway 

Week for May 21-27, 1961, “in recognition of the vital role of highway transportation in our way of 

life.”)

The environmental movement that coalesced during the 1960’s raised new doubts about the impacts 

of the program on cities and our natural, historic, and other resources. Urban planners and critics, 

who had been skeptical of the Interstate program from the start, pointed out that the urban 

destruction they had predicted was coming true. During the same period, the Civil Rights 

Movement empowered African-Americans to question the routing of the new highways through 

their neighborhoods (sometimes stated in protests as “white men’s roads through black men’s 

homes”). The growing controversy over the Vietnam War increased public doubts about the 

wisdom and honesty of their elected leaders—and all authority. 

Despite the highway community’s public relations efforts, the public could see that the promised 

urban benefits of the new highways were increasingly in doubt. Congestion was not relieved. 

Suburbanization was not reversed; suburbs expanded as the new highways opened farms to 

development, leaving behind lower income residents who needed high levels of city services from a 

declining tax base. Far from being revitalized by the new highways, cities lost their tax base while 

incurring increased costs from riots that marred the urban landscape and psyche in the 1960s. 

By the end of the decade, highway builders seemed increasingly like highway dinosaurs determined 

to build their roads no matter what the public wanted, no matter how many neighborhoods they 

destroyed, and regardless of opposition from Mayors and City Councils. A frequent image was that 

they were “paving over America.” In 1970, Joni Mitchell sang:

Don't it always seem to go,

That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. 

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot. 
92 

The sentiment was shared not just by rock fans and hippies. A broad spectrum of academics, 

commentators, officials, planners, citizens, and especially protestors included highway builders 

among the “they” who were paving over paradise. [Mitchell, Joni, “Big Yellow Taxi,” Ladies of 

the Canyon, Reprise Records, April 1970] 

Gradually, builders realized the PR would not be enough. They became more responsive to the 

environment and sensitive to those displaced by highway construction, especially as the highway 

business was transformed by laws such as the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, the National 

Historic Preservation Act of 1966, Section 4(f) the Department of Transportation Act of 1966, the 

National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, and the Uniform 

Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act of 1970. 

By 1970, the estimated cost of the Interstate System had increased to $69.87 billion for the 

expanded 42,500-mile Interstate System (Federal share: $62.5 billion). As of December 31, 1969, 

almost 29,640 miles had been opened to traffic (70 percent of the mileage), with 3,144 miles of this 

total able to handle current traffic but needing additional improvement to meet the ultimate 

standards. Construction was underway on 4,782 Interstate miles. 

As the cost increased and the public protested, urban officials facing angry protestors clamored to 

eliminate Interstates but somehow keep the money their construction would bring to their city. No 

method existed to accomplish their purpose. 

Critics pilloried the program in books, magazines, newspapers, and television programs. Members 

of Congress became increasingly impatient. With the 2-year program authorizations from the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 for FYs 1970 and 1971 coming to an end, an article in the March 

2, 1970, issue of U.S. News and World Report summarized the crossroad facing the highway 

community:

Big decisions—and a hot battle—involving the nation’s multibillion dollar highway 

program are shaping up in Washington. 

The State highway agencies, working through AASHO, were asking for more – a spending boost 

from $11 billion a year to $21 billion through 1985 for a grant total of $320 billion: 

With that money, the States say they would build 53,000 miles of new freeways through the 

country, improve tens of thousands of miles of roads of less-than-freeway dimensions, 

correct 180,000 unprotected railroad crossings, replace 89,000 bridges that are deemed to be 

unsafe or inadequate, and develop a vast new system of expressways in the metropolitan 

areas. About 29 billions of the total would go to complete the 42,500-mile interstate 

highway system that was begun in 1956. 

Securing the funds would not be easy: 

The States’ dreams of a vast new building boom run headlong into mounting opposition, 

both private and official. 
93 

Some federal experts say the U.S. already spends too much money on highways, and that 

some of these funds should be diverted to improve public transportation, especially rapid 

transit. 

The article listed some of the problems facing the highway community:

• In the cities . . . there is stiff resistance to building more freeways through settled 

neighborhoods, where houses have to be torn down, and where residents worry about noise, 

fumes, and the traffic that tends to spill into adjoining areas. 

• Outside the cities, conservationists criticize the impact of new highways on woodlands, 

wildlife and drainage. 

• Increasingly, there is concern that the process of building superhighways may have no end. 

More roads seem to generate more traffic, which in turn requires more roads. 

The article concluded:

All this needs to be done, the State engineers say, in the interest of safety and better 

movement of people and products. The huge road-building boom they urge would also 

provide tens of thousands of jobs and absorb vast amounts of cement, steel, and construction 

equipment. 

Thus, the stakes are high as the battle over the future highway program begins. [“320 Billion 

Dollars More for Future Highways?” U.S. News and World Report, March 2, 1970, p. 8] 

During the early years of the program, television, newspapers, and magazines had featured reports 

of waste, fraud, and abuse. These reports of what was sometimes called “The Great Highway 

Robbery” prompted calls to halt the program so it could be corrected. Urban critics joined in the 

calls for a moratorium. Ultimately, congressional investigators determined that the problems were 

isolated and could be corrected through the enhanced oversight being provided by BPR. The battle, 

by then, had shifted to the cities. 

As the 1970s began, the media was again taking on the entrenched highway lobby. Mowbray’s 

1969 Road to Ruin was an example, as was the October 10, 1969, issue of the popular photo-essay 

magazine Life. Under the heading “Threatened America,” Life published Paul O’Neil’s article “Kill 

the Hill! Pave that Grass!” Adopting a reverse-psychology approach, O’Neil began: 

Fulminating segments of our citizenry lately made it fashionable to protest the construction 

of new, multilane superhighways, even when they are not being asked—and this may startle 

you a bit—to surrender their own houses to concrete and the common good . . . . Most of 

the malcontents are just as involved with cars as the rest of us, need new superhighways 

(known only a few years ago as “good roads”) to run them on, and wouldn’t go near a tree 

or a beach if they couldn’t drive to it. There are a few hikers and deep breathers among 

them, true, and a few nuts who don’t own automobiles, but these fine folks need new paving 

as much as we do; they, too, are subject to the car-truck-tire highway economy in which we 

all exist today.
94 

As for parks, clean air, trout streams, grass, and secluded neighborhoods, “We’ll all be better off . . . 

when we face up to the fact that they are rapidly being outmoded, and when we get it through our 

heads that the rights, needs and importance of automobiles have superseded the rights, needs and 

importance of humans in many areas of our culture.” We would be a lot better off, O’Neil assured 

readers, if we would all just accept that “our children will adjust nicely to the noise, glare, exhaustladen air and increasingly sterile landscapes of the future.” 

He added that the highway network is a marvel: 

American highway engineers have long since accomplished the world’s greatest feat of 

construction: there are 3,600,000 square miles of land in the U.S. and they have built 

3,600,000 miles of road across it—an accomplishment which makes the men who raised the 

pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China seem like dilettantes . . . . The engineers 

have been thoughtful in the use of this power, too—they have tried their best to put their 

roads not only through unused wilderness areas (thus “opening them up” to motels and 

motorists) but through city parks—thereby saving the taxpayer’s money and displacing 

hardly more than 100,000 people a year from their homes. 

Sure, he said, we would be “subject to deafening waves of dissent as we press on with the task of 

making our great highway system even greater.” And sure, superhighways “do cut towns in half, 

ruin the countryside, and make night hideous for those who live near them,” so some might be a 

little sore about them:

But a lot of us have already gotten sore—our new 41,000-mile Interstate highway system is 

presently gobbling up more right-of-way than is contained in the state of Rhode Island—and 

all the frayed tempers, cries of despair, letters to legislators and public meetings have not 

inhibited the advance of the road crews by a hundred yards. 

Nor will those fruitless protests become more effective:

There’s a reason: the Highway Trust Fund—a pork barrel of such magnitude that no 

congressman, senator, governor or state highway official can possibly ignore it. The Fund 

sucks tax money out of the sale of spare parts and tires, and takes four cents from the price 

of every gallon of gasoline solid in the U.S. It puts all this treasure back into 

superhighways. Since every mile of road increases tire and gas consumption the Fund gets 

bigger—and spawns yet more roads—every year. It will go on doing so: a congressman 

risks political suicide if he does not bring home ready-for-the-asking federal funds, and a 

governor would be considered mad if he rejected such gravy. 

President Johnson offered a cautionary tale for those who tried to interrupt the flow of money. 

When he tried to hold up the funds for fiscal reasons, he gave in after 6 months of being “filleted 

and fried by all the good old boys who didn’t want their country deprived of a mile of paving it 

deserved.” When he thought about it the next year, “the governors raised such hell (‘Complete 

farce,’ cried Pennsylvania’s Raymond P. Shafer; ‘Dishonest,’ said California’s Ronald Reagan) that 
95 

he hastily lopped foreign aid, poverty funds and other such unimportant areas of fiscal endeavor 

instead.” O’Neil added:

“Any cutback in the highway program,” as Maryland’s Congressman George H. Fallon 

intoned, “would [have amounted] to breaking faith with . . . motorists.” [O’Neil, Paul, “Kill 

the Hill! Pave that Grass!” Life, October 10, 1969, p. 126-134] 

This article was in addition to a cover article in the May 30, 1969, issue of Life about “Our 

Deadliest Highways.” For example, “Of the old deathraps, none is worse than two-lane U.S. 20, a 

coast-to-coast route that was built 49 years ago. In the western Illinois hills, the road is a winding 

ribbon—only 18 feet wide with no shoulders . . . .” A road signed warned motorists: 

DANGER

ENTERING 55 MILES OF TREACHEROUS

HIWAY 20

[“The Highways as a Killer,” Crane, Ralph, photographer, Life, May 30, 1969, p. 24D] 

Helen Leavitt’s 1970 book, Superhighway-Superhoax (Doubleday and Company, 1970) was a 

denunciation of every aspect of the highway program. She was a free-lance writer in Washington, 

D.C., who had become interested in highways when the city was planning a freeway that would take 

her townhouse. The book jacket assured readers that “we are strangling in a concrete straitjacket 

that pollutes the environment and makes driving a nightmare.” Leavitt attacked the urban 

Interstates, the highway lobby, and the Highway Trust Fund. The “never ending flow of Highway 

Trust Fund money,” she said, had created “the vast imbalance in our transportation situation.” As a 

result, “the highway program is simply not subject to the same competitive pressures as other 

programs.” The Highway Trust Fund and its State counterparts “must be eliminated as an exclusive 

conduit of money for highways.” [Leavitt, p. 277-278] 

One of her central ideas was that transportation “planning” was “guided by funding, not the other 

way around,” since “there was no money available for alternatives.” She considered the “strong 

sentiment” for a separate mass transportation trust fund unfortunate: 

As tempting a prospect as this seems, it would only create a new boondoggle. Trust funds 

are bad policy. However purely motivated their sponsors, such aggregations of money take 

on a life of their own. Should such a mass transportation trust fund be established, by 

whatever means, it is quite likely that every one of our urban areas would soon be covered 

with a complex of subway stations, whether they made any transportation sense or not . . . . 

Not surprisingly, Secretary of Transportation Volpe, a highway enthusiast and champion of 

the Highway Trust Fund, has endorsed the creation of a special trust fund for mass transit. 

He believes this will fend off enemies of the Highway Trust Fund. [Leavitt, p. 279] 

She added that President Nixon’s proposal of a 10-year mass transit program had sidetracked 

Secretary Volpe’s trust fund concept, but it had also been “rejected by the fifty governors.” They 

preferred the proposal to dedicate revenue from the automobile excise tax to a Mass Transit Trust 
96 

Fund that would guarantee funding outside the competitive congressional appropriations process. 

[Leavitt, p. 280] 

Leavitt supported continued taxation of highway user products. The use of that revenue was her 

concern:

[At] both state and federal levels, the money should go into general funds so that highway 

boosters will, for the first time since 1956, have to compete for priorities, instead of being 

automatically funded. [Leavitt, p. 277] 

An editorial in Better Roads magazine called the book a “slam-bang attack,” but acknowledged that 

“Helen Leavitt is not some Johnny-come-lately reporter who stumbled on a controversial subject 

and wrote a book about it.” Her “rather single-minded point of view” was nurtured “in the fight to 

stop freeway construction in the District of Columbia.” The editorial continued: 

The author has been diligent in her research. Her book is a considerable catalog of 

highway-department bad guesses, poor judgments and assorted idiocies. The unfortunate 

fact, of couse, is that such things did happen. In retrospect they look terrible. The fact also 

remains that in too many instances too many highway departments were insensitive to what 

later became hard-core public opinion. Where they have sowed the wind, they have been 

reaping the whirlwind. And once such an uproar has begun it seldom goes completely 

away. Mrs. Leavitt’s book is a case in point. 

Being single-minded, she saw mass transit as “the be-all and end-all for cities.” Some of her 

suggestions “have merit,” but “we doubt that highways—even urban highways—will ever get as 

low on the priority scale as she seems to think they should.” [“Another Critic Views Urban 

Freeways,” An Editorial Viewpoint, Better Roads, June 1970, p. 4, 7] 

The Road Gang, which began in 1942 as an informal luncheon forum for the exchange of ideas by 

public and private executives whose interests were broadly related to highway transportation, 

invited Leavitt in 1970 to defend her book. It was a contentious event, as described in Road Gang 

Goes for the Gold, published in 1992 to celebrate the group’s 50th anniversary:

Another “first” was a woman guest speaker, Helen Leavitt, who not only drew a large 

attendance but sparked some of the liveliest, if not the loudest, discussion in Road Gang 

experience. In the words of Chairman [Charles W. “Bill”] Day, who even used his horn to 

help sustain order, the debate was “brisk.” 

Others remember the meeting as loud, maybe even a bit raucous.

Leavitt came to the Road Gang to defend her controversial new book, “Superhighway, 

Superhoax,” a strongly-worded, put-down of the nation’s highway program, which she said 

amounted to a “concrete straightjacket that pollutes the environment and makes driving a 

nightmare, the most destructive and inefficient transportation system available.”
97 

The recollection concluded by pointing out that the Road Gang “has grown and prospered” since 

then. Meanwhile, Leavitt’s book “has since gone out of print.” [Knight, Don, editor, Road Gang 

Goes for the Gold, A Special Commemorative Newsletter Tribute to the Road Gang, June 25, 1992, 

p. 5] 

(In 1996, the New York Public Library included Leavitt’s book among the Books of the Century. 

“The book’s argument and central paradox, that most superhighways bring increased traffic 

congestion rather than less, has never been effectively countered.” The citation noted some of her 

criticisms, “most notably, she demonstrates environmental degradation, strangled cities, and ruined 

public transportation systems.” [Diefendorf, Elizabeth, Editor, The New York Public Library’s 

Books of the Century, Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 147]) 

Around the same time, David Hapgood, senior editor of Washington Monthly magazine, criticized 

the Highway Trust Fund in an expose of “The Highwaymen.” His indictment was similar to that of 

other critics, including Mowbray and Leavitt. He told readers that, “Nothing generates more 

financial return, legal or otherwise, to those in office than highway construction.” The 1956 plan 

for financing the Interstate program “was a classic raid on the Treasury.” He continued: 

In the annals of lobbying, the highwaymen who executed this coup deserve to be listed 

alongside those Chinese contractors who convinced the Ch’in emperors to build the Great 

Wall of China. There are certain similarities between the two operations.

The Great Wall was supposed to keep out Mongol invaders. The highway lobby’s trump 

card was the claim that what it got Congress to call the “National System of Interstate and 

Defense Highways” would serve to move military units in case of war—making opposition 

to it seem somehow unpatriotic . . . . The Great Wall did not keep the Mongols out, but the 

Chinese kept building it over the centuries. Similarly, the interstate highways would be of 

no use in a 24-hour nuclear war, but, in 1968, Congress added on another 1,500 miles to the 

system. Doubtless the Great Wall lobby in its time, like its American counterpart now, 

argued that the economy would go into a tailspin if the local contractors were deprived of 

work. 

The arrangement by which money would be made available to finance the highwaymen’s 

mandate was the lobby’s greatest accomplishment. This arrangement, which cynics call the 

Ever-Normal Trough, requires that all revenues from the federal gasoline tax—now 4 cents 

a gallon—and other highway-related taxes (tires, spare parts) be set aside for highway 

construction alone. Instead of having to engage every year in the kind of undignified 

scramble for federal money that takes place over the Rivers and Harbors Appropriations bill, 

the highway lobby draws its sustenance from a trough that is refilled automatically every 

year without legislative appropriation . . . . 

In a moment of inspiration, Congress named this device the “Highway Trust Fund.” The 

idea is that the taxes are paid by people who use the highways and must be held in sacred 

trust for more highways. To use the money for any other purpose, the argument goes, would 

be to violate that sacred trust. Representative Jonathan Bingham (D-N.Y.), one of the small 
98 

band of guerrillas who resist the highwaymen, asked not long ago what would happen if the 

principle of the Highway Trust Fund were to be applied to the federal tax on alcoholic 

beverages. Would the alcohol tax be spent only on building bars? 

Referring to efforts by Representative Ryan and others to divert some of the funds to mass transit 

(the measure the highway lobby “hates most”), Hapgood said that such efforts are supported only 

“by about a dozen other members of House.” He quoted one of those supporters, Representative 

Richard (Max) McCarty (D-NY), as saying his colleagues treated the idea as being the equivalent of 

“burning the flag!”

Hapgood summarized the Administration’s urban mass transportation proposal, which at the time 

Congress was still considering. “Of course, Congress would have to appropriate the money, and the 

Nixon-Volpe team opposes a mass-transit trust fund as much as they favor the highways’ EverNormal Trough.” 

Still, “the odds against those who oppose urban highways today are somewhat less than they were” 

just a few years earlier. And the highway lobby was facing a reckoning:

A large battle over the future of the entire Interstate Highway Program is shaping up for the 

early 1970s, and the lobby has already begun preparing for that fight. The precipitating 

factor is the expiration date of the “trust fund.” Created in 1956, the trust fund was 

originally due to expire in 1972; it has already been extended to 1974. No one can expect 

the highwaymen to give up $5 billion a year without a fight. 

That lobby, Hapgood explained, was “paid and professional,” in contrast to highway opponents 

who tended to focus only on the project affecting their homes or livelihoods. “City antihighway 

groups usually disappear as organizations after their own battles are lost or won.” The individual 

dissidents—such as residents, business owners, conservationists, planners, and environmental 

scientists—had not coalesced into a national pressure group. However, he saw them as part of a 

larger adjustments as the country reacted to the economic, social, and political changes of the 

1960s: 

The highway revolt is against the tyranny of the machine—the highway bulldozer and the 

political machine that drives it. Being helpless before the highway lobby is just one form of 

the powerlessness that Americans increasingly resent. Seen from this perspective, the battle 

between city people and the highway establishment is one front in the developing struggle 

between those who want to redefine America and those who want to keep it the way it was. 

[Hapgood, David, “The Highwaymen,” Inside the System: A Washington Monthly Reader, Peters, 

Charles, and Adams, Timothy J, editors, Praeger Publishers, 1970, p. 141-142, 154-155] 

These images—the unstoppable “highway bulldozer,” the ever-flowing Highway Trust Fund, and 

the unrelenting “highway lobby” battling desperate homeowners and far-sighted critics—had come 

to dominate public perception as Congress began work on the next Federal-aid authorization 

legislation.
99 

 The Highway Lobby Fights Back 

Federal Highway Administrator Frank Turner did not appreciate such criticism. As he told AASHO 

during its annual meeting in October 1969, a “current day mythology” had arisen of “myths that 

have no relationship to reality, but nevertheless are being talked and written about to attract the 

attention of some of the public who would rather believe in fancy than facts.” He cited some 

examples:

• Highway lobby? It consists of “our 101 million motor vehicles” and “includes most of the 

rest of our 200 million people.” 

• Paving over America? The mileage of roads had increased “less than 1⁄4 to a total of 3.7 

million miles,” compared with 3 million when the Federal-aid highway program began in 

1916 – “while population has doubled but vehicles have increased thirty-fold.” 

• Traffic moving slower today than in the horse-and buggy days? “This is always good 

for a chuckle or a ‘horse laugh’ but it too is without factual substance.” 

• Rail transit can substitute for highway transportation? In larger cities, rail transit might 

supplement highways, but elsewhere, mass transit meant buses. “To talk about rail transit as 

the single, simple panacea for all the nation’s transportation problems in every urban area 

simply does not jibe with reality.” That is one of the reasons he supported the 

Administration’s urban mass transportation bill. “Please note that the bill would permit 

both-or-either rail and bus types of mass public transit.” 

He added:

In dealing with the real world of today we must base our actions on sound basic information 

and constantly apply the trained professional expertise and experience which we have 

learned. We cannot be motivated by simple hunches and emotions. 

The danger facing the highway community from the widespread criticism, myths and otherwise, 

was not lost on the members of AASHO. Its president, Ross G. Stapp of the Wyoming Highway 

Department, told members: 

Because of the attacks from every quarter on the highway program and because of the 

jeopardy the Highway Trust Fund has been placed in, it is evident there is a deepening crisis 

in the highway program. Our mission in AASHO and in the highway community is not just 

to live with the crisis, but to exert every effort toward reversing the trends considered not to 

be in the best public interest. 

Some progress had been made through such initiatives as National Highway Week. Stapp was 

certain that highways were supported “by a silent majority of the people in the country,” but unless 

they spoke up, “certain interests could so slow down the highway improvement program to a degree 

which could result in an inadequate highway system for an ever increasing demand within a few 

years.”

The challenges were obvious: 
100 

Diversion of Highway Trust Fund monies is one of the most pressing current and long-range 

problems that AASHO and the highway industry faces. AASHO must devote its resources 

to maintain the integrity of the Highway Trust Fund . . . . It is distressingly simple but 

alarmingly catastrophic that if these raids on the Trust Fund, this highway robbery, is 

allowed to succeed we simply cannot have any long-range programs.

He acknowledged that other needs existed, such as urban mass transportation, but “the Highway 

Trust Fund must be utilized exclusively for solving highway problems.” 

Protecting the Highway Trust Fund “will be no mean task,” but one step would be to “do everything 

within our power to dispel the image we have, unfortunately and inadvertently, assumed in the eyes 

of some of the public.” They would have to convince the public of the falseness of the “image of 

the autocratic highway builder who builds with little or no concern for the urban dweller, for the 

suburban dweller or the rancher or the farmer or whomever is affected by our highways . . . .” 

A feature of the 1969 annual meeting was a roundtable discussion among Stapp, AASHO’s 

incoming president Douglas Fugate of the Virginia Department of Highways, and several Members 

of Congress, including Representative’s Fallon, Kluczynski, and William R. Harsha of Ohio, the 

ranking Republican on the Committee on Public Works. Harsha warned AASHO that in view of 

the widespread criticism, “1970 is going to be a highly critical year for the future of the highway 

program.” He continued: 

In fact, it may be one of the most important years for that program since the inception of 

federal aid highway construction . . . . [You] can no longer afford to sit idly by and say that 

things will take care of themselves. The opposition is not sitting idly by and it is articulate 

and persuasive, and your role as highway officials and department heads in the states should 

reflect the needs and the public attitudes in all of the states. You will be called upon to play 

a major role in the formation of any legislation next year. Your role in meeting this 

responsibility will be a most important one, and let me caution you that you must meet this 

challenge aggressively, effectively, and thoroughly. If you fail or shirk in exercising this 

responsibility, others will accept it and you may not be happy with those results. 

I sincerely believe the future of the highway program as you conceive it hangs in the 

balance, so again let me urge you to play the role that is yours in meeting these challenges 

which confront the Congress next year. 

On March 2, 1970, Secretary Volpe reassured participants in ARBA’s annual meeting that 

“highways are here to stay” and that “despite what some people say we must keep our highway 

program.” Highways “will never solve all of our future transportation challenges,” which meant the 

country needed a strong mass transportation program. He told a press conference, however, that he 

did not favor the use of highway funds for mass transportation. He preferred separate accounts for 

rail, highway, air, and public transit. [Goldsand, Alan, “Volpe Assures Builders on Federal Road 

Funds,” Journal of Commerce, March 3, 1970] 
101 

Despite these assurances, cracks were evident in the foundation of the Highway Trust Fund. In 

May, Engineering News-Record ran an article headlined “Highway Trust Fund Isn’t Sacred 

Anymore.” It began: 

As Congress warms up to consider future federal-aid highway program, the sanctity of the 

Highway Trust Fund is coming under increasingly strong attack. 

The article said that Senator Proxmire, during a subcommittee hearing of the Senate-House Joint 

Economic Committee, had suggested that the Department of Transportation propose extension of 

the Highway Trust Fund only long enough to complete existing authorized systems. That would 

carry it only to 1974: 

Proxmire favors a broader approach to financing federal transportation programs, as does 

Transportation Secretary John Volpe, who says he will recommend a national transportation 

trust fund before the end of the year. The political climate is not right just now, he feels. 

“We have a great deal of education ahead of us if we are to convince industry and 

Congress.” 

As part of that education process, Volpe had participated the previous weekend in the spring 

meeting of the Business Council, telling the “blue-chip company chiefs” that, “I doubt very 

seriously whether you can get a change in thinking that will allow a diversion of the Highway Trust 

Fund to nonhighway uses.” In the near term, he saw the possibility of using Highway Trust Fund 

revenue for highway safety, national forest roads, and other matters directly related to highways. 

However, he said that he would be working for a flexible general fund. He advocated four 

designated accounts (highways, aviation, urban transportation, and one not specified), but with the 

States being able to transfer funds among the accounts 

Appearing before the Proxmire subcommittee, Peter S. Craig, former Assistant General Counsel for 

Litigation under Secretary Alan Boyd and a leading opponent of freeway plans in the District of 

Columbia, had said that assigning highway user tax revenue to highways “makes about as much 

sense as earmarking all federal estate taxes for use of the deceased only.” He thought that “the time 

is overdue . . . to turn to other options providing democratic, local responsibility for public 

transportation expenditures.” 

Urban needs were of particular concern, in part because of the transformation of transit from a 

private to public enterprise. Harvard Professor of Economics John F. Kain had told the Proxmire 

panel that linking highways and mass transit construction would result in “revolutionary 

improvement in the quality and quantity of urban transportation services . . . in every U.S. 

metropolitan area in a relatively short period.” 

Highway advocates disagreed. Yule Fisher of the Highway Users Federation for Safety and 

Mobility (HUFSAM) had defended the Highway Trust Fund during testimony before the House 

Subcommittee on Roads. For at least 15 years, highway needs “will require all the funds in sight.” 

He added, “It is imperative that the Highway Trust Fund be extended and dedicated exclusively to 

highway purposes.” Speaking on behalf of AASHO, Douglas Fugate “joined a long line of 

witnesses who proposed extending the trust fund, some through 1985.” 
102 

Clearly, the article summarized, “the highway program is not the darling of Congress that it once 

was.” [“Highway Trust Fund Isn’t Sacred Anymore,” Engineering News-Record, May 14, 1970] 

National Transportation Trust Fund 

On February 13, 1970, the Proxmire subcommittee issued a report on “Economic Analysis and the 

Efficiency of Government.” It recommended abolishing the Highway Trust Fund and other trust 

funds (excluding the Social Security Trust Fund) because “the trust fund mode throws the budget 

out of control and effectively insulates programs from the effective congressional scrutiny which 

efficiency demands.” Trust funds also channeled benefits to higher income classes and regions, 

with the benefits “free of charge.” They “foster serious overspending on some programs and [have] 

created undue pressure for increased public support by those subsidized.” 

Senator Proxmire, the chairman, said the subcommittee opposed trust funds because they left 

Congress “operating in the dark” in analyzing the value of potential Federal expenditures. Congress 

should scrutinize needs annually and approve appropriations to meet proven needs in the normal 

way. (In his comments on the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act, he had raised similar 

objections to contract authority and suggested that a Mass Transit Trust Fund would obviate the 

objections, but his comments here were outside the context of the contrast with contract authority.) 

The report also recommended that authorizing committees scrutinize the objectives, effectiveness, 

cost, and benefits of each program under its jurisdiction. This periodic review “would eliminate the 

possibility that inefficiencies and inequities would become buried in the past and remain undetected 

for years.” Further, Congress should automatically review each Federal program every 5 years 

“from the ground up” to determine if they remained useful. 

One member of the committee, Senator Charles H. Percy (R-Il.), disagreed with the conclusion on 

trust funds. He said that, “in a theoretical and fiscal sense, such a recommendation has considerable 

merit.” However, it “lacks practicality in the real world in which we live.” Trust funds were not an 

“economic panacea,” but “facing political and social realities, the concept when properly used may 

provide the most effective means to allocate governmental financial resources.” As for the 

Highway Trust Fund, he did not support its termination, but rather “its conversion into a 

transportation fund” to support a balanced transportation system. [Cohn, Lee M., “Congress Unit 

Asks End of Highway Trust Fund,” The Evening Star, February 14, 1970, “Abolition of Trust Fund 

Sought in Joint Congressional Report, Transport Topics, February 23, 1970]] 

In August 1970, the Joint Economic Committee issued a report on Federal Transportation 

Expenditure that repeated many of the concerns about the Highway Trust Fund. It recommended:

• A unified approach to decisionmaking on transportation funding, including full review of 

alternative ways of meeting a need and the priority relative to other possible uses; 

• Congress should incorporate comprehensive analysis of social costs and benefits into its 

funding decisions, particularly regarding the remaining segments of the Interstate System;

• Transportation expenditures should be subject to budgetary review, with the Highway Trust 

Fund phased out; 
103 

• Highway programs should contain incentives for developing efficient road pricing, 

including tolls, to reduce urban road congestion and obtain efficient allocation of resources; 

and 

• States and localities should be able to use Federal aid in the most efficient way possible 

instead of being restricted by funding source, as was the case with Highway Trust Fund 

revenue. [Federal Transportation Expenditure, Report of the Subcommittee on Economy in 

Government of the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Joint 

Committee Print No. 9, 91st Congress, 2nd Session, August 17, 1970] 

(Senator Proxmire would raise his concerns again in his 1972 book Uncle Sam—the Last of the 

Bigtime Spenders (Simon and Schuster). He said of the Highway Trust Fund: 

The highway trust fund effectively insulates the highway program from policy planning, 

economic analysis, and Congressional scrutiny. It does this not only because funds are 

allocated by formula instead of on the basis of demand, benefits, and cost; it does it also 

because the formula is based on the past use of highways rather than on the prospective 

demand which should be efficiently met. 

(In a section with the subhead “The Highway Trust Fund Frustrates Intelligent Action,” he said, 

“One could hardly devise a system better designed to frustrate and thwart intelligent attempts to 

make choices or properly order priorities.” [Proxmire, p. 270] He added that in the Department of 

Transportation Act of 1966, Congress had prohibited the new Department from considering cost 

versus benefits: 

The act reads: “The Secretary . . . shall develop and . . . revise standards and criteria . . . for 

the formulation and economic evaluation of all proposals for the investment of Federal 

funds in transportation facilities or equipment, except such proposals as are concerned with . 

. . (6) grant-in-aid program authorized by law.” 

The key “grant-in-aid programs authorized by law” is the highway program. No economic 

evaluation of the investment of funds in highways can be made. This was the price the 

highway lobby extracted for its support to establish the new department, out of fear that 

such studies would lead to more funds for mass transit and less for highways. [Proxmire, p. 

33-34]) 

On February 26, 1970, the Senate Committee on Commerce had opened hearings on the Rail 

Passenger Service Act (S. 924) and the National Transportation Act (S. 2425). Chairman Warren 

G. Magnuson explained that, “The economic and social conditions of every nation are shaped, to a 

large extent, by its transportation system,” but given the “economic, social and environmental costs 

of our present transportation network,” the need for a “fresh look at transportation in America 

becomes more imperative.” The National Transportation Act required the establishment of regional 

transportation commissions charged with the planning and construction of integrated transportation 

systems taking into consideration such factors as environmental quality, land-use planning, and the 

location of pipelines and power transmission facilities. The hearings, Chairman Magnuson said, 

were intended to examine the accuracy of common assumptions: 
104 

The first assumption is that our present transportation system is not really a system at all, 

but rather a combination of various sub-systems that bear little or no relation to one another. 

 Second, we assume that this “non-system” is costly to America, for social and 

environmental reasons as well as for the more obvious reason that traffic congestion in all 

modes of transportation has reached the crisis point. Third, we assume that technological 

solutions to our urban and interurban transportation problems have been or can be 

developed. Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, we assume that rational implementation 

of such solutions requires an appropriate political framework within which transportation 

policy can be made, and that such a framework does not now exist. [National 

Transportation Act, Hearings before the Committee on Commerce, U.S. Senate, 91st

Congress, 2nd Session, Serial 01-69, p. 1-2, 50] 

On April 14, Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Ma.) testified before the committee in support of 

regional commissions. The National Transportation Act, he said, “gives us the opportunity to do 

what we should have done 30 years ago—an opportunity to plan, develop, and execute rational 

regional transportation systems that are linked coherently to a comprehensive national 

transportation policy.” To achieve “a more balanced and coordinated system,” regional 

commissions would be able to “determine the most effective use of the new technologies already 

available . . . in light of the overall transportation needs of the corridor—not independently by 

individual Federal agencies, States or cities.” 

Senator Kennedy took the opportunity to ask the committee to consider creation of a national 

transportation trust fund “to replace existing funds and to provide the financing needed for the 

development of a balanced, intermodal transportation system for the seventies.” At present, 

supporters of each mode “tend to compete with each other for funding under our present laws.” He 

said:

Without congressional action to establish such a fund, I fear that the programs authorized 

under this legislation and the goal it sets for the achievement of a transportation policy are 

doomed to failure, We must recognize the fact that separate trust funds, almost necessarily, 

are self-perpetuating. They continue long after they have fulfilled the purpose for which 

they were established. [National Transportation Act, p. 225-226] 

Secretary Volpe testified the following day. He was supportive of comprehensive planning, but 

identified several problems with the regional concept, such as establishing boundaries. During 

questioning, Senator Vance Hartke (D-In.), chairman of the committee’s Surface Transportation 

Subcommittee, asked if Secretary Volpe thought the bill should be amended to include a national 

transportation trust fund. The Secretary said he supported the overall concept, but added: 

Mr. Chairman, I would be very frank to state I do not think the climate at the present 

moment is such that you would be able to get the kind of support and have as well thought 

out an arrangement for a total transportation trust fund which I believe is absolutely 

essential to its success.
105 

Such a fund would have “many ramifications” and “hopefully [we] can identify the many problems 

and come up with some suggestions for solutions . . . . But they are not easy of fulfillment.” He 

hoped to have a proposal on the concept by the end of the year. What he had in mind, he said, was 

something similar to how the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 established the Highway Trust 

Fund to complete the Interstate System simultaneously in all the States within a specified time 

frame. “What we have to achieve is something along the same line that would provide for this total 

transportation concept and do the total job on an intermodal basis.” [National Transportation Act, 

p. 256-257] 

Representative Koch introduced H.R. 18319 on July 7, 1970, to create a unified transportation trust 

fund. In extended remarks printed in the Congressional Record, he said: 

My bill is designed to cut across the rigid modal patterns that today restrict the development 

of a balanced transportation system and which result in inefficient and distorted uses of our 

transportation resources. 

Title I of the bill required the Secretary of Transportation to develop a comprehensive plan for the 

use of the Nation’s transportation resources to implement national transportation policy. Title II 

created a single transportation trust fund from the existing trust funds for expenditures in 

accordance with the comprehensive plan. “It will unify and coordinate the way we spend our 

money on transportation and lead to more effective utilization of our resources.” Title III was 

essentially the mass transit bill he and Senator Williams had introduced in February 1969 to 

establish a Mass Transportation Trust Fund, with revenue from the 7-percent Federal excise tax on 

new automobiles, to provide “increased revenues for, and expand the effectiveness of our programs 

for dealing with our most urgent national transportation problem—the movement of people in our 

crowded cities.” 

Representative Koch understood that “the reorientation of our Nation’s transportation system that 

my bill calls for cannot be accomplished overnight.” Therefore, his bill outlined steps: 

Effective July 1, 1971, the bill would create a single transportation trust fund consisting of 

first, the present highway trust fund; second, the airport and airway fund adopted by the 

Congress this year; and third, a new mass transportation fund based on the automobile 

excise tax. In 1972 all highway trust fund moneys would be included in the single 

transportation trust fund. This new unified trust fund would be the source of all 

transportation expenditures for the decade of the 1970’s. 

He held off proposing major changes in the transportation programs until the Secretary of 

Transportation submitted his comprehensive plan: 

In that plan, the Secretary would outline the expenditures required during the next decade in 

order to achieve a balanced transportation system in accordance with the national 

transportation policy. He would also recommend to the Congress how the transportation 

functions within the Government should be reorganized in order to assure effective 

coordinated policy management cutting across rigid modal lines. 
106 

He concluded: 

New approaches to America’s transportation problems are already long overdue. If we are 

to prevent strangulation of this Nation’s transportation life line, we must act now. [Koch, 

Edward I., “A Bill to Create a Single Transportation Trust Fund,” Congressional RecordHouse, July 7, 1970, p. 23088-23089] 

The bill, which is thought to be the first introduced calling for a Transportation Trust Fund, was 

referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, which took no action on the measure. [Davis, 

Jeff, “The ‘Transportation Trust Fund Idea, 40 Years On ...,” Transportation Weekly, April 29, 

2011, p. 1, 6] 

In July, Senator Randolph, who would play a key role in developing the highway legislation, felt 

compelled to respond to an editorial in The Washington Post criticizing the Highway Trust Fund. 

His committee’s 15 days of hearings on the needed 2-year reauthorization had revealed “some 

sentiment” for broadening the purposes of the Fund. He did not advocate an indefinite continuation 

of the Highway Trust Fund as now constituted, but it had not yet completed its primary purpose of 

financing construction of the Interstate System: 

What will happen several years in the future I cannot predict, but I feel it is necessary to 

retain the trust fund in essentially its present form until current Interstate and Defense 

Highway system commitments are met.

He acknowledged that some urban segments were controversial and might never be built: 

Because of this, I have asked Transportation Secretary Volpe to explore with the appropriate 

state and local officials the feasibility of considering these controversial segments for 

removal from the Interstate system at a possible saving of $4 billion. 

Further, he supported some expansion in the use of highway user tax revenues. In December 1969, 

he had introduced a bill that would allow cities to use the funds for public transportation systems, 

mainly buses on highways, and expanded the uses to include highways on public lands and a bridge 

replacement program. 

 

He thought the Interstate System could be completed in 7 years, after which “I have been repeatedly 

advocating establishment of a single formula for allocating federal funds, perhaps on the order of 

70-30, with the states having wide latitude in determining where this money should be spent.” 

[Randolph, Jennings, “Senator Randolph and the Highway Fund,” The Washington Post, July 29, 

1970] 

Randolph, a longtime highway supporter, had served in the House of Representatives from March 

4, 1933, to January 3, 1947. As a ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Roads, he played 

a role in passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which authorized designation of a 

National System of Interstate Highways. He also played a role in early airport legislation. 
107 

In the Republican mid-term election sweep of 1946, Randolph lost his bid for reelection. He took a 

position as an assistant to the president of Capital Airlines and, in January 1948, was elected vice 

president of ARBA’s Airport Division (later the Municipal and Airport Division). He would serve 

ARBA as treasurer for 10 years before resigning to run in a special election to replace the late

Senator Matthew M. Neely (D-WV). On November 5, 1958, he won the election and was reelected 

every 6 years until he chose not to seek reelection in 1984. He became Chairman of the Public 

Works Committee in January 1965. [“Jennings Randolph Elected to Senate,” American Road 

Builder, December 1958, p. 21] 

Even as Congress, the Administration, and transportation interests debated the shape of 1970 

legislation, the use of the Highway Trust Fund as an anti-inflation tool remained alive, as National 

Journal discussed in July. After taking office on July 1, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) 

Director George P. Shultz had proposed cutting funds for highways by $1.3 billion to $3.6 billion in 

FY 1971. (The Bureau of the Budget was reorganized by Executive Order 11541, July 1, 1970, to 

become OMB.) The intent was to curb inflation by reducing Federal spending and make nonpublic 

funds available to the Treasury to reduce its borrowing in the private market.

On July 9, when OMB had not reversed its position, Volpe cut short his vacation in the Virgin 

Islands and flew back to Washington to intervene personally. Between July 9 and July 13, Volpe 

attended numerous meetings in the Executive Office Building, sometimes accompanied by 

Administrator Turner. The National Journal summarized Volpe’s argument: 

One department official said Volpe argued for restoration because he believed the 

Administration had “made a commitment—a moral commitment—and it must be responsive 

to that commitment so the states could proceed with their programs.”

The “moral commitment,” the official said, was made in September 1969 when President 

Nixon asked governors to cut federally aided highway construction by 75 per cent to help 

curb inflation. Twenty-four states deferred highway programs totaling $945.6 million with 

the understanding that the funds would be made available in fiscal 1971 on a priority basis. 

Volpe also feared the cutback would jeopardize his proposal to expand the Highway Trust Fund to 

cover highway beautification and safety programs. In the end, Volpe engineered a compromise: 

Presidential budget specialists, after five days of hard bargaining early this month with 

Transportation Secretary John A. Volpe, have reluctantly agreed to release about half of 

$1.3 billion highway funds they had planned to freeze during fiscal 1971. 

The highway interests had aided Volpe once word of the proposed cutback leaked. As Alfred E. 

Johnson, AASHO’s executive director, told the magazine:

The state highway departments are generally getting fed up on this indecision and delay 

every year by congress. They wonder why, when the funds are there, and the authorizations 

are there, why they can’t get their jobs finished. 
108 

A spokesman for the National Governors’ Conference said that, “Though the governors have not 

yet indicated that they are hopping mad about the current cutback, they certainly don’t like it.” 

ARBA director of public relations Randolph Russell said, “This particular one seems very 

unrealistic because only 15 states will have to bear the brunt of the cutback.” He was referring to 

those States that had used their FY 1970 apportionment and had no carryover balance. Russell 

added, “If they feel it necessary to cut the program, at least let them do it so we can see what the 

hell is happening.” 

Senator Randolph sent a telegram to the President on July 8, reading in part: 

We continue to hear rumors of an impending cutback in the obligation of funds from the 

Highway Trust Fund in the magnitude of 20 to 25 per cent. This is personally and officially 

alarming to me for three reasons beyond those that have been advanced in former instances 

of executive impoundment of highway funds. 

1. It is a breach of faith with the American tax-paying public. 

2. With the present sag in the economy and increasing unemployment this is a most imprudent 

time to aggravate the problem by cutting back on highway construction, and

3. It is a clear violation of the intent of Section 15 of Public Law 90-495, Federal Highway Act 

of 1968 . . . .“ 

The latter point was a reference to the sense-of-Congress provision included in the 1968 Act. 

President Johnson and now President Nixon recognized that it was not a mandatory prohibition. As 

the article explained, the 1968 Act originally contained an amendment rather than a sense-ofCongress provision. “But it was watered down to a resolution because the Administration was so 

opposed,” according to a House Public Works Committee staffer. Now, with the 1970 Act pending, 

committee leaders in the House and Senate were thinking about including a prohibition. 

[“Congress and White House Moving Toward Showdown on Highway Funds,” National Journal, 

July 25, 1970] 

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 

In August, Senator Randolph released his version of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970. The 

trucking industry newspaper Transport Topics began its coverage of the bill by going to the heart of 

the measure:

The gathering drive to substitute “Transit” for “Trust” in the Highway Trust Fund gained 

new momentum last week with the introduction of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970, 

which authorizes use of the Trust Fund for several projects not directly connected with 

highway construction. 

The bill . . . would allow Trust Fund money to be used for such things as replacement 

housing for people displaced by highway projects, highway beautification projects and 

support of bus—but not rail—public transportation systems . . . . 
109 

His bill was introduced one week after the nation’s governors voted to ask Congress for 

authorization to spend part of the Trust Fund money on other transportation systems. 

Senator Tydings and Representative Bingham had introduced legislation that would have permitted 

the States to spend a portion of their funds on other transportation systems, as the Governors had 

proposed, but Representative Fallon was not supportive. He said, “I think it would be a rough road 

to transfer money from a fund created by highway users who are paying for highways they haven’t 

even gotten yet.” [Merrell, Jesse H., “New Federal Highway Bill Would Divert Trust Funds,” 

Transport Topics, August 24, 1970] 

The Randolph bill provided additional funds for the Interstate System through FY 1977, but also 

demonstrated a growing impatience for its completion. To get the States moving, the bill provided 

that segments not ready for construction by 1975 would remain on the System but would lose their 

eligibility for 90-10 Federal-State funding. The 90-percent Federal share would come to an end 

after the end of the program in 1977. Meeting that target would be easier because of expected 

savings from “some highly controversial and expensive sections of Interstate highways in urban 

areas” that would not be built. 

The bill authorized $450 million a year to assist bus transit because “highways are not the exclusive 

domain for cars.” Buses could help reduce congestion and the need for additional highway 

construction. Funding also could be used for construction of exclusive or preferential bus lanes and 

bus passenger loading areas and facilities.

Funding for replacement housing where it would not otherwise be available was necessary “to 

facilitate the start of work on highway segments so important that they can’t wait for housing 

shortages to be corrected through normal channels.” The Highway Trust Fund revenue also would 

support public lands and forest highway projects that previously were financed out of the general 

Treasury, highway traffic control devices, equal opportunity training and skill improvement 

programs, and reimbursement of additional costs resulting from implementation of environmental 

legislation. 

In addition, the Randolph bill proposed to formalize urban highway spending by creating a Federalaid urban system in urban areas of more than 50,000 population to supplement existing funding 

categories for extensions of the Federal-aid primary and secondary systems in urban areas. Further, 

Governors, on the recommendation of officials of urban areas with 50,000 population, could ask the 

Secretary to approve the use of highway funds for the operation of public transportation facilities, 

including purchase of equipment, reducing losses to facilitate service expansion, and continuation 

of service that would otherwise by reduced or abandoned. The funds could be used for private 

transit operations only if the funds would be administered by a political entity. 

 

Highway beautification (control of outdoor advertising and junkyards) and safety programs were 

“closely related to safe, efficient highway operations,” but had been underfunded by past bills. 

Under the new bill, Senator Randolph said, “both of these programs will have a reasonable 

assurance of continued financing that can produce results.” 
110 

Randolph also proposed a revitalized planning process to consider not only all public works, but 

their social and environmental impacts. 

The bill did not include a measure prohibiting Presidents from imposing cutbacks. 

In introducing the bill on the Senate floor on August 18, Senator Randolph acknowledged that some 

of its provisions would be controversial. The resulting legislation, he said, would be “of more than 

routine importance.” Over the course of 14 years of focusing on the Interstate System, “there have 

been many changes in public attitudes and in transportation requirements that must be given 

considerable weight in formulating national policy and writing highway legislation.” He cited

growing urban problems, a renewed emphasis on public transit, and concern about environmental 

quality. 

While Congress was “morally committed” to completing the Interstate System, he said that “it is 

imperative that we begin now to lay the groundwork for highway programs for the post interstate 

period.” 

As for the Highway Trust Fund, he acknowledged testimony, as well as public commentary, on its 

future:

I also detect a growing and unfortunate polarization between holders of differing viewpoints 

that could complicate the process of arriving at an equitable solution. There are those who 

accuse the so-called highway lobby of wanting to pave the country over with concrete. The 

other side maintains that their opponents are aiming for a complete halt in all highway 

construction. 

I have listened carefully and I have read carefully, and I am convinced that neither of these 

assessments is correct. Those individuals and organizations involved in roadbuilding 

recognize the need for support of other forms of transportation, and even the most ardent 

supporter of mass transit sees the necessity to continue improving highway facilities.

Some modes of transportation had been neglected, an issue Congress was addressing in several 

ways, including enactment of the Airport and Airways Trust Fund and development of urban mass 

transportation assistance legislation, then still pending in Congress. Development of a national 

passenger railroad system, also pending congressional action, was another possible need. “The 

highway trust fund is undoubtedly an attractive and appealing potential source of revenue to meet 

those needs.” In response, his bill addressed highway-related transit activities that fit the purposes 

of the Highway Trust Fund. [“Introduction of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970,” 

Congressional Record, August 18, 1970, p. 29392-29393] 

On September 2, Secretary Volpe announced a major new emphasis on moving people, rather than 

vehicles, on streets and freeways in urban areas. The FHWA, he said, was instructing its engineers 

in the 50 States to “encourage the greatest use of buses in preference to individual automobiles.” 

The goal was to improve the productivity of urban highway systems as an example of expanded 

flexibility in the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues. 
111 

Administrator Turner’s memorandum to field staff explained: 

It will not be financially possible—and even if it were, certainly not socially desirable—to 

provide all the highway facilities that would be needed in order to satisfy the peak period 

demands, especially in our larger urban areas, for all of the people who want to drive 

automobiles. 

He cited an example of how counting people rather than vehicles would work: 

A vivid illustration of this occurred not too long ago. In evaluating the possibility of 

reserving a freeway lane for buses during the peak periods, the evaluator found that during 

the peak hour 67 percent of the vehicles were automobiles and less than 15 percent were 

buses. But when existing vehicle occupancy figures were introduced to enable the 

evaluation to be made on a people rather than vehicle moving basis, it was shown that 

during the peak hour only 15 percent of the people were in automobiles and over 82 percent 

of the people were in buses. 

These figures reflected the fact that during peak periods, automobile occupancy was about 1.5 

people per vehicles and that 70 percent of vehicles carried only the driver. “We can see that there 

certainly is a great deal of inefficiency from the automobile use side of the picture.”

FHWA field staff were asked to encourage the State highway agencies to explore several methods 

of providing special treatment for buses as described in the announcement: 

Exclusive Bus Highway – an entire highway facility reserved at all times solely for the use 

of buses. (This category could be expanded to also include other vehicles such as car pools, 

FHWA noted.) 

Exclusive Bus Lanes – one or more lanes of a highway facility reserved solely for the use of 

buses, usually during peak periods. (This might also be expanded to include car pools.) 

Preferential Bus Treatment – making special allowance for bus movement within the 

general stream of mixed highway traffic, usually during peak periods (e.g., metering vehicle 

access to freeways with bypasses for buses, bus-actuated traffic signals, etc.).

FHWA also told its field staff that: 

. . . additional attention should be given to the movement of people as well as the movement 

of vehicles in future studies for the general determination of the number of lanes on highvolume radial highways, including freeways. Whenever there is reasonable expectation that 

there could be state-city-local coordination to establish special bus utilization of urban 

highways, detailed analyses should be made of exclusive bus lanes or preferential bus 

treatment alternates in the preliminary plans.

At the same time, bus companies must be willing to cooperate by providing additional buses: 
112 

The decision by a State to implement any major urban highway improvements which 

include special bus usage will invariably involve decisions by others to upgrade the transit 

service elements to handle the additional ridership. The state should take the initiative in

contacting local transit authority or operator [sic] and in jointly developing project plans for 

reserved bus forms of highway improvements on the basis that the transit authority or 

operator will undertake the associated service improvements.

Testifying before Senator Randolph’s committee on September 9, Secretary Volpe praised 

numerous provisions of the Senator’s bill, but indicated that the department was working on studies 

that would help it develop proposals in 1972 to address the changing urban transportation 

landscape. He expected to recommend what to do with controversial urban Interstate segments, the 

possibility of a single Transportation Trust Fund, and how to reshape the urban transportation 

planning process. He preferred that Congress, instead of adopting Randolph’s innovations, simply 

extend the current program to allow the Administration to develop its proposals. He specifically 

opposed the use of revenue to subsidize transit operations. It was, he said, “the most costly and 

probably least effective way of curing the patient.” 

An editorial in the September 1970 issue of Better Roads said of Randolph’s bill: 

It seems evident from the actions taken so far and from the mood of congress itself that 

things will not remain as they have been. If you want to bet on a sure thing, bet on that. 

After summarizing the proposed new use of highway revenues, the editorial said: 

This broadened concept is not destined to be immediately and universally popular among all 

the dwellers in the halls of AASHO, but it would seem that in such areas as these that are so 

directly tied to highways and highway construction, there is small cause for outrage and 

outcry. 

The use of highway funds for mass transportation was another matter: 

It stands out like a boil on a beauty queen’s chin. If the concept of Highway Trust Fund 

financing is that it be used for highway purposes, it is difficult to see how some of the 

senator’s proposals can be made to fit that definition . . . . If the federal-aid highway 

program were oversupplied with funds these proposals might be more readily acceptable. 

But the highway program is not over-funded and administration cutbacks in recent years 

have succeeded in stretching the program out and making it, in the end, considerably more 

costly . . . . Public transportation should have a healthy, viable program of its own. It 

should not have to lean, all orphaned and crippled, on the federal-aid highway program. 

The editorial urged readers “not to get too hung up trying to keep things as they are.” Change was 

inevitable, and extension of the program for a few more years would give “the deep thinkers on 

highway matters” time to develop “new and viable means of highway financing.” One thing was 

clear:
113 

For in truth the Highway Trust Fund has become a symbol of all that is bad in the highway 

program as far as highway critics are concerned. It will continue to be the target of their 

barbs; its demise will continue to be the goal of their concerted and growing effort . . . . The 

urgent need is for new thinking, for innovation. [“Highway Financing May Need Some 

New Ideas,” Better Roads, September 1970, p. 8-9] 

On Friday, October 2, the Senate approved the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 after rejecting the 

provision for subsidizing public transit operations. As an alternative, the Senate approved an 

amendment calling on the Secretary of Transportation to study how to fund other forms of 

transportation. The final vote on the bill was 51 to 0, with other Senators not present or voting. 

The Senate bill authorized $12 billion for Interstate Construction through FY 1976. In addition to 

$1.050 billion a year for the Federal-aid primary and secondary systems and their urban extensions, 

the bill created and funded the Federal-aid urban system ($375 million for FY 1972, $450 million 

for FY 1973). It authorized $450 million for the bridge replacement program as well as funding for 

safety, highway beautification, and roads on public lands out of the Highway Trust Fund. The 

Senate did not include tax measures, which under the Constitution had to originate in the House. 

The bill changed the statutory definition of “construction” to cover “economic, social, 

environmental and other impacts,” thus making impact mitigation eligible for Federal-aid funds. It 

also strengthened public hearing requirements and required the Secretary to issue guidelines for 

avoiding, minimizing, or overcoming possible adverse impacts. The definition of “construction” 

also was expanded to include exclusive or preferential bus lanes, highway traffic control devices, 

bus passenger loading areas and facilities, such as shelters, bus terminals, bus storage, and parking 

areas and facilities. The Senate also required an analysis of the relationship of highway 

construction and funding to transportation services using the highway. 

On October 8, 1970, Senator Kennedy introduced S. 4451, a bill to establish a National 

Transportation Trust Fund that would terminate the Highway Trust Fund and the Airports and 

Airways Trust Fund and absorb the revenue, along with revenue from the excise tax on the sale of 

new automobiles, in a “more comprehensive fund.” The state of transportation today, he said in 

prepared remarks, “is an absolute mess.” The “essential problem” was that “programs have 

developed separately for the different modes of transportation.” This “outmoded Federal policy of 

categorical programs has denied the badly needed flexibility in transportation policy.” As a result, 

“a disproportionate amount of resources” went to highways and “not enough” to mass transit: 

States and cities often face the possibility of either obtaining money for highway 

construction or getting no money at all. So they are building highways when their needs 

may really be for other transportation facilities.

Senator Kennedy said he had been working with Representative Koch who had introduced a similar 

bill in July. The National Transportation Trust Fund would go into effect on July 1, 1972, the same 

day the existing funds would be terminated. 
114 

Senator Kennedy recognized that the Office of the Budget and Department of Transportation 

objected to the trust fund concept because it took funding decisions away from the Administration 

and the Congress. His bill addressed this objection by “preserving to the President and Congress in 

the annual budget process the determination of the total amounts to be budgeted for expenditure 

from the trust fund.” It also required a Presidential review of expenditures every 3 to 5 years and 

directed that a surplus over a certain amount would be returned to the general Treasury. 

He said that the bill’s most important provision was one that encouraged regions, States, and 

metropolitan areas with populations of 50,000 or more “to prepare and maintain comprehensive 

transportation plans.” No State would receive funds “unless it has in existence a comprehensive 

State transportation plan which has been approved by the Governor and by the State legislature and 

which includes comprehensive plans for transportation in each metropolitan area of 50,000 or 

more.” 

He knew that at this late date in the congressional session, “there will not be time for hearings or 

action this year.” He hoped, however, that introducing the bill now would “set the stage for prompt 

action next session.” For now, the bill was referred to the Committee on Banking and Currency, 

which took no action on it. [S. 4451—Introduction of a Bill to Establish a National Transportation 

Trust Fund, Congressional Record-Senate, October 8, 1970, p. 35744-35745] 

Action in the House

Action shifted to the House, which did not yet have a bill ready for floor consideration. Chairmen 

Fallon and Kluczynski had introduced an initial bill on April 7, 1970. H.R. 16788 was a stripped 

down bill covering mainly the basics for extending the Federal-aid highway program. 

On April 21, the first day of hearings by the Subcommittee on Roads, Representative Ryan was one 

of the witnesses. His focus was on urban transportation: 

In an age when man can travel to the moon, he has difficulty getting from one place to 

another here on earth—especially within a metropolitan area. Traffic creeps at a snail’s 

pace, or the transportation is so severely inadequate that it just cannot move commuters. 

He favored “a balanced transportation policy.” As the number of vehicles increased, they were 

“making our Interstate Highway System virtually interstate parking lots.” At the same time, 

“Highways are useless to those who cannot or do not own a car.” The poor, the elderly, and the 

handicapped who could not afford a taxi “have no access to transportation systems.” In “our urban 

ghetto, where transportation is usually worse,” those without a car could not get to jobs. 

In response, he said, he had introduced H.R. 628 to require at least 30 days notice “before any 

public hearing is held involving plans for a Federal-aid or State section of an interstate highway 

project.” The hearing would have to be held within 1 year of the date when the plans would be 

submitted to the Secretary for approval. The State highway agency would have to certify that it had 

considered the economic and social effects of the proposal and submit a report on its economic and 

social effects, including the effects on tenants and owners of all property to be acquired. 
115 

He added:

Since Congress has in no way illustrated its commitment to mass transit programs by 

appropriating adequate levels of funds, I have been introducing legislation for many years 

which would allow a State to elect to use its highway construction allocation for mass 

transit. 

Since the highway trust funds are allocated to the States, H.R. 48 gives the Governors the 

power to decide whether or not highway trust fund money should be used for mass transit . . 

. . 

Congress has refused, in the past, to debate my proposal to use highway funds for mass 

transit. Each year, since 1966, I have offered this proposal in amendment form to pertinent 

legislation on the floor. 

He recited the paradox of the amendment not being germane to highway or transit bills, then 

continued: 

Certainly, Members of Congress cannot continue to ignore our national transportation crisis 

through parliamentary maneuvering. I think, if nothing else, we owe our constituents a 

debate on the issue. Even more than debate, we owe them action. 

Chairman Kluczynski responded that while he supported Federal assistance for mass transit, “I do 

not believe it should be funded from the highway trust fund,” but a trust fund of its own. He had 

been disappointed that the Administration did not support a Mass Transit Trust Fund, but “I hope 

you will be able to urge full debate, a separate trust fund, when the mass transit [bill] comes up 

before the House.” 

He added, “There is an old saying in this committee called where is the money coming from?” 

Under Chairman Fallon, “who is the father of the Interstate Highway System,” the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1956 provided the funds for a 41,000-mile network at a cost of $27 billion. Now, 

the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 added 1,500 miles making “it 42,500 at a cost of over $65 

billion.” He continued: 

We have to complete this system. We thought the target date was 1972, and we are up as 

far as 1974 or 1975 now. We all agree with you, and I would like to help you in your fight 

on mass transit, because we need it in big cities like Chicago and other big cities, but the 

thing is can you get your own trust fund? Where is the money going to come from? 

Can we tax the people any more? They are taxed up to their ears now, and we do not even 

want to increase the gasoline tax, if possible.

He called on Chairman Fallon to address the jurisdiction issue. He said: 
116 

As the gentleman knows, the legislation for mass transit comes under a different committee 

than this committee. We have nothing to do with mass transit. The only mass transit that 

we might have anything to do with would be related to the highways, and that would 

probably be highways for buses. But the point I want to bring out is when you are talking 

about using the trust fund money for other purposes, it is stated in the law it cannot be used 

for any other purpose except for the construction and building of highways. 

He summarized how the Clay Committee’s proposal for issuing bonds to pay for the Interstate 

System had failed in 1955. Chairman Fallon explained that his pay-as-you-go plan also failed in 

1955, but with the addition of the Highway Trust Fund, it succeeded in 1956: 

We have committed the users of the highways that they are paying for it, we are going to 

build the highways for them with this money. Other people, ever since the trust fund got a 

little bit healthy one time, people started looking at it to finance other projects. And this 

committee cannot, I can say in good conscience, devote any money other than for highway 

purposes because the people using them are being charged for them. If they had been built 

by a bond issue where everybody paid by contribution [as the Eisenhower Administration 

had proposed], then you would be open for most any other suggestion for this money to be 

used for other purposes. But not under the conditions which were accepted by the Congress 

and people of this country can we change the law at this time. 

Representative Ryan suggested that since the Highway Trust Fund would expire after 1972, the 

terms of the commitment with contributors could change. Representative Fallon responded: 

You have to get the users who pay the taxes to agree that they will be used for other 

purposes than what he is paying for now. I doubt very much if you would be able to get 

that, because we had a pretty tough time getting it through when we were going to spend 

every dime on the roads to build highways for users. We have had a tough time getting it 

through because it was defeated at one time, and we came back the second time because 

they realized this job was a necessary job, had to be done, and the articles that appeared 

when the bill was killed on the floor—the articles that appeared in the obituary column, if 

we had had those before the bill went to the floor, we would have passed it the first time.

He was referring to the defeat of his initial pay-as-you-go bill in August 1955, killed by highway 

interests, particularly truckers, who did not want to pay additional taxes for the Interstate System. 

With the addition of the Highway Trust Fund concept and agreement with the interests on tax 

increases that would benefit them many times over, Representatives Fallon and Boggs, along with 

Senator Gore, secured passage in 1956. 

Representative Ryan said, “I am sure the distinguished chairman is so persuasive that if he went on 

the floor and argued for this bill, it would pass.” Chairman Fallon replied, “I am not so sure about 

that.” Chairman Kluczynski thanked Representative Ryan for appearing before the committee and 

assured him that, “there is no member on this committee who would not be for mass transit if we 

can have a separate trust fund.”
117 

Ryan concluded that, “we must recognize that the problem is not simply rapid transit; the problem 

is not simply airways; what we need is a balanced transportation policy in this country, and what we 

need is to have the ability to finance all stages of it.” Instead of compartmentalizing modes, “we 

should have one overall way to finance transportation.” In addition to H.R. 48, he was a cosponsor, 

although with Chairman Kluczynski, of a bill to establish a Mass Transit Trust Fund. He was not 

sure that was the solution, but in view of the jurisdiction issue, he also had sponsored a bill to create 

an Urban Affairs Committee in the House. [Federal-Aid Highway Act-1970, Hearings Before the 

Subcommittee on Roads of the Committee on Public Works, House of Representatives, 91st

Congress, 2nd Session, U.S. Government Printing Office (91-35), p. 17-26] 

On May 7, Helen Leavitt, author of Superhighway-Superhoax, testified. Although suffering from 

the flu and a slightly high temperature, she said “I would like to address myself to the philosophy of 

your most sacred cow, the highway trust fund.” As for what the subcommittee called “the world’s 

largest public works project,” she pointed out what the country had received in return for its $46.1 

billion investment: 

First of all, we now have a totally auto-dominant transportation system. 

Second, we have acres and acres of urban blight where super-highways have been 

constructed in metropolitan areas. 

Third, we have the foulest air, the major cause of which is the automobile. 

Fourth, we have prosperous oil, rubber, automobile, insurance, and construction industries. 

And why not? They receive a huge subsidy from the very existence of the trust fund. 

But most of all, what we have received from the trust fund is a clear demonstration of the 

need for a transportation system that works when we need it. 

That we do not have now and the transportation system created and perpetuated by the 

highway trust fund will never provide it. 

The Highway Trust Fund “provides the relief to the auto highway construction industry much as 

heroin relieves the addict, whose insatiable need reappears when the effects of his ‘fix’ are 

expended, to demand ever more of the same in a never ending quest for–what? In this case, more 

tax dollars for more highways.” It was “an eternal light” bringing us “auto congestion, smog, 

deaths, blight, General Motors, Ford Motor Co., U.S. Rubber and others, in perpetuity.” 

Instead of extending the Highway Trust Fund, the subcommittee should “abolish it in its present 

form.” She opposed a Mass Transit Trust Fund because with the exception of the Social Security 

Trust Fund, trust funds were “bad government.” She added, “We no more need a proliferation of 

mole-like holes leading to subways in our cities than we need superhighways in the urban skyline.” 

When Leavitt finished her brief statement, Chairman Kluczynski’s thanked her and added, “I assure 

you a closed mouth catches no flies.” Only Representative Harsha had questions for her. He noted 

that in her book, she had mentioned his law firm, but got the name wrong. Also, he objected to her 

characterization of the firm as representing Greyhound Bus Lines, since it represented the company 

only in one case. She promised to check and makes corrections in subsequent editions if needed. 
118 

He asked if she drove an automobile. “Yes, occasionally,” she answered. He replied, “Then you 

contribute to all this pollution you are complaining about.” She said she drove it as “little as 

possible.” 

Representative Harsha also questioned her objection to trust funds, including one for mass transit. 

She said she favored mass transportation, but “I have found that planning follows funding and my 

fear is with mass transportation funds, we are going to have a proliferation of mass transit systems 

which might not be justified at all . . . .” 

He also wanted to know who supported her study of highways. At first, she was confused by the 

question, responding only that her husband supported it. When he clarified that he meant 

foundations or other organized groups, she replied that the only financial support she had received 

was an advance of $2,000 from her publisher. She had worked on the book for 2 and a half years: 

Mr. Harsha. No other funds went into this study? 

Mrs. Leavitt. Absolutely not. 

After a brief exchange about highway deaths, Harsha asked, “Well, taking your suggestion to 

maybe the ridiculous point, if we did away with all highways, we would not have any accidents?” 

After Leavitt agreed that “we would not have any automobile accidents,” Harsha told the chairman, 

“Okay, that is all I have.” 

Chairman Kluczynski admitted he didn’t have a copy of her book, but planned to get a copy and 

“read part of it anyway.” In the transcript, his concluding comments, like his earlier brief 

comments, had a patronizing tone. He said he admired her “courage, fighting spirit,” and thanked 

her for appearing. [Federal-Aid Highway Act-1970, p. 411-416] 

On June 9, Secretary Volpe appeared before the subcommittee. He began by pointing out that 

calling the Interstate System the “greatest public works project in the history of mankind” did not 

indicate whether it was good or bad. He had no doubt that the program “has been highly beneficial 

and a very good thing for the American people.” He listed the benefits to economic development, 

accommodating growth in the number of automobiles, and safety. 

He also acknowledged that automobiles worsened air pollution and that highways raised other 

environmental concerns while the urban segments were disruptive. At the same time, he noted that 

the urban segments were “a very small percentage” of the Interstate System and as for the 

environmental objections, “much of the scientific knowledge on which it is based is relatively 

new.” 

With that background, the problem of balanced transportation could be summed up as “not how 

much we have spent on highways in the past, but how very little we have spent on public 

transportation.” Only recently had the public realized how much transit was needed, a problem the 

Administration’s $10 billion program was intended to address. He hoped the House would approve 

the measure soon. 
119 

“The administration,” he said, “is firmly committed to finishing the Interstate System,” but he 

added the qualification “virtually.” Some small segments might not be completed but the rest of the 

System would be finished in 7 to 8 years. The proposal by the Administration, which he was 

releasing, recommended some scaling down in authorizations, but a slight increase for the Interstate 

System. The decreases were intended to “maintain a steady progress in meeting our transportation 

needs within the framework of a sound national budget.”

Under the Administration’s proposal, all highway and highway-related programs would be funded 

from the Highway Trust Fund. These included highway beautification, public lands highways, and 

safety programs and research. “Each of these programs is for the direct benefit of the highway user 

and, therefore, we believe properly fundable from the Trust Fund.” 

Secretary Volpe added that the Administration bill “represents a careful attempt to improve the 

administration of certain existing programs consistent with orderly planning and construction, total 

transportation needs, and national budgetary priorities.” The Department was working on the 1972 

Highway Needs Study, which would be a “transportation” needs study, not just a highway needs

study. It would provide the basis for a statement of national transportation policy that he would 

present to Congress in 1972 “for the development of a truly intermodal transportation program.” 

[Federal-Aid Highway Act-1970, p. 946-954] 

Writer John Burby, who had been an assistant to Secretary Boyd, wrote that Volpe had “delivered 

an endorsement of the Trust Fund so weak as to be virtually no endorsement at all.” Much of his 

presentation had been devoted to safety and beautification, as well as support for mass transit 

funding. He had even questioned whether the entire Interstate System would be built, indicated the 

Department wanted to scale down the funding for Interstate Construction, and asked Congress to 

extend the Highway Trust Fund only for 5 years: 

What Secretary Volpe did not tell the committee was that he had been forced to spend 

weeks arguing with Presidential budget specialists to get approval of as much as a five-year 

extension. The White House staff originally wanted to go for no more than a two-year 

extension and even that extension was meant chiefly to buy them time for deciding whether 

to make a run for abolition of the Trust Fund. [Burby, John, The Great American Motion 

Sickness or Why You Can’t Get There from Here, Little, Brown and Company, 1971, p. 312-

313] 

The final witness, testifying on June 11, was Terrence Wendell on behalf of Citizens for Sensible 

Transportation, an ad hoc Maryland group formed in 1970 to fight the “threat posed to their 

neighborhoods and parks by urban freeways.” The group opposed the District’s North Central 

Freeway (I-70S) and its extensions into Maryland and favored alternatives such as exclusive bus 

lanes, fringe parking, and rail commuter lines pending construction of the Metro subway. 

FHWA’s recommendations for increased urban road construction were based “on nebulous 

grounds” and showed “singular short-sightedness and lack of imagination.” Perhaps, he suggested, 

FHWA could be forgiven for these assumptions since they are based on continuation of the 

Highway Trust Fund as the exclusive preserve of highway interests. He endorsed Representative
120 

Ryan’s proposal and asked the subcommittee to “give careful consideration to extending the 

limitations on highway trust fund expenditures to allow application to any transportation purpose, at 

least in metropolitan areas . . . where transportation problems are especially difficult and freeways 

are not necessarily the best solution.” 

During Wendell’s testimony, Representative William Jennings Bryan Dorn (D-SC) was chairing the 

hearing. He asked the only other subcommittee member on the panel, “Any questions?” 

Representative Robert E. McEwen (R-NY) had none. Dorn said, “I want to thank you, Mr. 

Wendell.” Wendell thanked the acting chairman for allowing him to speak. Dorn replied, “I just 

regret it had to be so late, but thank you very much.” The subcommittee adjourned at 5:15 p.m. 

after compiling 1,126 pages of testimony and another 60 pages of papers and documents. [FederalAid Highway Act-1970, p. 1123-1126] 

The Subcommittee completed work on its bill in mid-September. By the end of the month, the 

Committee on Public Works had approved its bill and added language provided by Chairman Mills 

of the Ways and Means Committee extending the Highway Trust Fund through FY 1978. The final 

committee bill authorized $4 billion a year for Interstate Construction through FY 1977, plus $3.5 

billion for the final year. It authorized $1.1 billion a year for FYs 1972 and 1973 for the Federal-aid 

primary and secondary systems and their urban extensions, as well as $200 million a year for the 

new urban system. Funding for public lands highways would continue to come from the general 

Treasury, not the Highway Trust Fund. The Federal-State matching share for non-Interstate 

projects would be 50-50 until FY 1974, when the Federal share for non-Interstate projects would 

increase to 70 percent. 

Looking to the post-Interstate era, the bill directed the Secretary of Transportation to submit 

recommendations by January 1972 for the functional realignment of the Federal-aid systems, 

including the new Federal-aid urban system. (Functional realignment is an assessment to determine 

the function of each public road. Those whose function met the criteria for the Federal-aid primary, 

secondary, and urban systems would be included. Periodic realignment allowed for changes in the 

systems as road functions evolved.) 

The House bill permitted Federal-aid for exclusive or preferential bus lanes, highway traffic control 

devices, and bus passenger loading areas and facilities, including shelters and fringe and 

transportation corridor parking facilities. Eligibility would be dependent on a finding by the 

Secretary that the project would avoid construction of a highway project that would increase 

automobile traffic capacity, provide equal capacity to what would have been provided by the 

highway project, will not exceed the Federal share, and that no feasible or prudent highway project 

would provide the needed capacity. 

The bill included the sense of Congress provision opposing impoundment of Federal-aid funds. It 

also prohibited the expenditure of Highway Trust Fund revenues for any Federal Department, 

agency, or instrumentality other than FHWA. In its report, the committee explained: 

Cutbacks and freezes on the availability of highway trust fund money have been invoked by 

the executive branch on various occasions during the past few years, allegedly as an anti-
121 

inflationary measure, even though funds were and are available in the trust fund to meet 

expenditures resulting from the obligation of such funds. This curb-against-inflation 

argument is without merit. The resulting delays in construction inevitably mean that the 

costs will be greater. This stop-start manipulation of the highway program, with the 

uncertain position into which contractors, laborers, and State highway programmers are put, 

cannot but help to boost the ultimate cost of the program . . . . 

The withholding of highway trust funds as an anti-inflationary measure is a clear violation 

of the intent of the Congress as expressed in section 15 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1968. We again wish to emphasize the clear legislative intent that funds apportioned shall 

not be impounded or withheld from obligation . . . . 

Other provisions included: 

• Allowed the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues to replace homes demolished for roads if 

no replacement housing was available.

• Authorized the Secretary, on December 31, 1973, to remove from designation any segment 

of the Interstate System that did not have a construction schedule within the period of fund 

availability and with respect to which the State had not provided assurances to the Secretary 

that such a schedule will be met. 

• Authorized funding for control of outdoor advertising and junkyards, but established a 13-

member bipartisan commission to make recommendations to Congress on billboards and 

junkyards. 

• Required the States to use no less than 5 percent, nor more than 10 percent, of their 

apportionments to rebuild or replace obsolete bridges that cross waterways on the Federalaid primary and secondary systems if the existing bridge is unsafe because of structural 

deficiency, physical deterioration, or functional obsolescence. 

• Authorized funds for high-hazard locations, elimination of railroad-highway grade hazards,

and for highways to aid development of “economic growth centers” in rural areas. 

• Recognized the administrative reorganization of FHWA, which occurred on March 22, 

1970, and provided the statutory authority to convert FHWA’s National Highway Safety 

Bureau into the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). 

On November 25, the House considered the bill under a decision by the House Rules Committee 

that allowed unlimited amendments to the highway portion of the bill, but no amendments to the 

tax portion of the bill drafted by the Ways and Means Committee. Nevertheless, when Chairman 

Mills presented his committee’s portion of the bill, he had to address several amendments involving 

the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues. 

After Mills explained the need to extend the Highway Trust Fund to September 30, 1977, 

Representative Bingham rose to question the need for such a lengthy extension. He pointed out that 

the fund had grown from $1.4 billion in 1956 to $5.2 billion now, with continued growth likely. 

Was it wise, he asked, “to lock up, so to speak, this source of very substantial revenue for many 

years ahead without regard to the consideration of other needs that might in these years be more 
122 

urgent than the need for additional highway construction?” He had in mind the needs of the 

Nation’s mass transit systems.

Representative Mills explained that the Highway Trust Fund was not taking in enough money to 

complete the Interstate System and address other road needs. The revenue will be needed for this 

one purpose, he said, adding that he understood the mass transit problem and had spoken with 

Secretary Volpe many times about how to develop a funding program for it: 

I know the legislation presently on the books calls for it to be financed from the general 

funds of the Treasury. However, I am not an advocate, and I want my friend to understand 

that completely, of using highway user tax funds for some other purpose than the 

construction of highways. I do not mean to say to my friend that there may not be some 

other way to set up a trust fund that could be used for the purpose of answering the problems 

of mass transportation, but I cannot see the relationship between taxing a person for 

highway use and the construction with his dollars of something other than a road. 

He asked Bingham “if there is any relationship whatsoever between taxing a person who owns an 

automobile and who will gladly pay the tax for Federal roads, also of the development of mass 

transportation which he may never see? [sic]” Bingham replied that “improved mass transit can 

make life much better for the motorist on the highways, rather than having constantly increased 

congestion on the highways.” 

Representative Koch, who was blocked by the Rules Committee decision from introducing an 

amendment containing his bill to create a transportation trust fund, took up Representative Mills’ 

challenge by pointing out that “transportation is an integrated matter, that the user of an automobile 

is at some time during the day a pedestrian” and may be “delighted when public transportation is 

available.” Mills responded, “Then, assess a tax on them for mass transportation.” 

Koch responded, “I believe that the user of a motor vehicle would be willing to pay for the 

integrated system if you would give him a chance to do so.” Mills told him, “I am sure you can 

almost sell me without any difficulty, but do not continue to ask us to tax for one purpose all of our 

people and then say, ‘No, no. We are going to use it for some entirely different purpose.’ Let us 

tax them on the basis of that which we want to improve.” The dialogue continued: 

Mr. Koch. What we need is a single transportation trust fund, from which localities can 

choose that kind of transportation most needed and suitable in their area. It is wrong to 

impose highways on the city of New York where they need mass transit. 

Mr. Mills. I am perfectly willing to consider the entire problem, but I am not willing to 

finance the entire problem out of the users of one segment of the problem. That is all I’m 

saying.

Mr. Koch. We say put all of these special taxes into one fund. 

Mr. Mills. That is what I am telling you. I will be glad to hear you at any time you want to 

be heard after the 1st of January. You develop a program of user taxes that is related to the 

use of mass transportation and I will be glad to hear you. 
123 

Mr. Koch. I will be down to talk to you. [Congressional Digest—House, November 25, 

1970, p. 38955-38957] 

During a later discussion, Representative Bingham said that based on the House bill, the 

inescapable conclusion was that “this Nation is—and for the indefinite future will be—fiddling 

with freeways while our cities burn.” He asked, “is there to be no pause, no review, no 

reevaluation” of the 1956 commitment?” The Nation could “no longer tolerate this squandering” of 

the funds, and for those who spoke of the commitment made in 1956, he said surely that promise 

had been fulfilled. 

He said he would offer amendments at the appropriate time to limit the extension of the Highway 

Trust Fund to 1976 and to establish a Transportation Trust Fund. “If my amendments are defeated, 

as I fear they will be, I shall vote against this bill and urge others to do likewise.” [Congressional 

Digest—House, November 25, 1970, p. 38961] 

Near the end of a parliamentary dispute about a provision concerning freeway construction in the 

District of Columbia, Representative Bingham introduced his amendment to open the Highway 

Trust Fund to mass transit projects. When the dispute ended, the clerk read his amendment into the 

record. Representative Fallon tried to raise a point of order, but he was informed that he was too 

late. Allowed to proceed, Representative Bingham explained that his amendment would simply 

expand the provision in the bill that extended Federal-aid to highway-related mass transit:

It has been suggested that using highway fund moneys for mass transit is not proper use of 

the excise taxes involved but if it is proper for bus mass transit, why not for rail mass 

transit?

He pointed out that the purpose of the excise taxes was to improve highway transportation. “The 

needs of our highways in New York would be vastly better met by improving our mass transit 

facilities in New York.” He continued: 

This would not be in any sense a departure from a commitment we have made to any 

taxpayers, because this is a new bill creating the extension of a tax. It is not dependent on 

any commitment made in 1956. It is a new bill. It is a new era. It is an era when we should 

have a balanced transportation system, and this amendment would make it possible for us to 

have a balanced transportation system.

Representative Kluczynski briefly stated that he opposed the amendment. Representative Fallon 

pointed out that the same amendment had been introduced in 1968 and ruled out of order. 

However, Representative Harsha provided a longer rebuttal. The clear purpose of the amendment, 

he said, was “to open up the trust fund to the construction of mass transportation, rail 

transportation, and even water and air transportation.” This would be “contrary to the 1956 

Highway Revenue Act and will delete [sic] the trust fund so that we will not be able to complete 

any of the highway systems that are needed in this country.” Opening the Highway Trust Fund to 

any form of mass transportation would mean “we certainly will never be able to conclude a viable 

and effective highway program.” 
124 

Representative Koch admitted that those offering such amendments did not “expect to win on any 

of the proposals.” All they were trying to do “in a rational way” was to alert the Members to “the 

real need for a comprehensive approach to our transportation requirements, as well as the need for 

more money for mass transit.” He continued: 

We recognize there is a need for highways. We are not the enemies of highways, although 

there are particular highways to which we object.

What we are saying is: You have an interest in the total transportation picture . . . . 

Members of this House are not acting against the interests of their automobile-driving 

constituents when they attempt to appropriate sums for mass transit. They are helping these 

constituents. 

Is there anything wrong with saying that where a highway is appropriate we would build a 

highway and where a mass transit facility—a subway, a bus, or an elevated structure—is 

appropriate, that is what we would build? 

If a Governor decides that mass transit would be more efficient than a proposed highway, “why 

should the Federal Government refuse to fund anything other than a highway?” He continued: 

This is why I have proposed that we establish a single transportation trust fund combining 

the mass transit, highway, railroad, and airport programs. If all transportation funds were 

dispensed from a single source, we would then be in a position to effect the rational, 

integrated approach desired and weigh the priorities and efficiency of one form of 

transportation against another. [Congressional Digest—House, November 25, 1970, p. 

38990-38992] 

After a few other Representatives spoke briefly in support of the Bingham amendment, 

Representative Kluczynski moved to cut off debate. Moments later, the amendment was rejected 

by voice vote. 

Later that day, the House approved the $22 billion bill by voice vote after 3 hours of debate. The 

House and Senate bills had many similarities, but differences would have to be reconciled by a 

Conference Committee. 

The committee completed its work on December 17. The House took up the measure on Friday, 

December 18. It was basically routine business by this point, but Representative Bingham took the 

opportunity to note that the final version of the bill extended authorizations for the Interstate 

System only through FY 1976, as he had proposed. The House approved the bill, 319 to 11, the 

same day. The Senate approved the bill on December 19. 

President Nixon signed the bill on December 31, 1970, without formal comment. Secretary Volpe 

agreed with many observers who considered it the most significant highway legislation since the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. He praised its extension of the Highway Trust Fund, the 

assurance it provided that the 42,500-mile Interstate System would be completed within the decade, 
125 

and extension of the Highway Trust Fund revenue to “the very important areas of highway safety 

and access roads to national forests and public lands.” He added, “It gives the Department of 

Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration many of the tools we need to tackle the 

growing social challenges of our nation, especially in our urban centers.” 

Some provisions of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 were: 

• Adopted the Senate extension of the time for Interstate completion through FY 1976, with 

authorization levels for the purpose. 

• Accepted the House authorization levels, including for the new urban system, with some 

exceptions, including specifying that the source of authorizations for Forest Highways and 

Public Lands Highways would be the Highway Trust Fund, but restricted the funds to 

segments on a Federal-aid system. 

• Retained the sense of Congress provision on expenditures by agencies other than FHWA if 

such expenditures are specified by statute, but expanded it to add that the expenditures also 

had to be authorized to be appropriated from the Highway Trust Fund by Federal-aid 

highway legislation.

• Increased the Federal share to 70 percent beginning in FY 1974 for non-Interstate projects.

• Accepted the House provision on urban highway mass transportation with minor changes 

related to fringe and corridor parking facilities.

• Included the House provision on construction of replacement housing as a project expense 

when no replacement housing is available and cannot otherwise be made available. 

• Called for a highway needs study to be submitted in January 1972, including functional 

realignment.

• Authorized the Secretary to remove from designation any segment of the Interstate System 

for which the State had not established a construction schedule by July 1, 1973, or 

assurances that construction will be completed within the period of availability of funds for 

the purpose. If the State has not submitted plans, specifications, and estimates (the bidding 

documents) for approval by July 1, 1975, the Secretary was to remove Interstate designation.

 Alternative segments could be designated in the same urban areas.

• To a large extent, the bill reflected the Senate provisions on public hearings and economic, 

social, environmental, and other impacts. 

• The States could ask the Secretary to designate as future parts of the Interstate System any 

Federal-aid primary highway if it meets the definition of an Interstate highway or the State 

agrees to upgrade it to full standards in 12 years. These routes would not be eligible for 

Interstate Construction funding. 

• Established a Commission on Highway Beautification to study existing requirements on 

outdoor advertising and junkyards, review Federal and State administrative policies and 

practices, compile data necessary to understand requirements that may or are likely to exist 

for control, study problems involved in outdoor advertising, review methods of financing to 

carry out the beautification program, and recommend changes in laws, regulations, policies, 

practices, and demonstration programs to “achieve a workable and effective highway 

beautification program and best serve the public interest.” 
126 

• Adopted the Senate provision on funding for replacement of bridges over waterways, 

limiting the funds to bridges that are unsafe because of structural deficiencies, physical 

deterioration, or functional obsolescence. It also required FHWA to develop a national 

priority inventory to be based on serviceability, safety, and essentiality for public use. 

• Provided statutory authority for the March 1970 creation of NHTSA. 

That same day, President Nixon approved another bill that would have a major impact on future 

debates about the Federal-aid highway program, the use of motor vehicles, and diversion of 

Highway Trust Fund revenues to alternative transportation modes. 

Cleaning the Air

Concern about the quality of air over America’s cities had been developing throughout the 20th

century. The concern focused on the smoke-belching factories that were the economic backbone of 

the country’s large cities. Initially, the smoke clouding the sky was viewed as an aesthetic problem 

to be dealt with city-by-city, not as a health issue of statewide or national concern. However, 

attitudes began to change when smog over Los Angeles in the 1940’s limited visibility and caused 

medical problems such as nausea and respiratory difficulties. California became the first State to 

enact an air pollution law in 1947. 

A series of incidents focused attention on the health implications of air pollution, especially during 

a temperature inversion (an increase in temperature at higher levels trapping smog at the lower 

levels). In October 1948, a temperature inversion occurred over Donora, Pennsylvania, trapping 

high concentrations of sulfur dioxide released by the American Steel and Wire plant and Donora 

Zinc Works, leading to 20 deaths and respiratory and other complaints from many residents. A 

1950 incident in Poza Rica, Mexico, in which 22 people died and over 300 were hospitalized was 

followed by the “London Fog” in December 1952, when a 5-day temperature inversion beginning 

December 5 trapped acid aerosols in the atmosphere, killing 4,000 and disrupting life throughout 

the area. 

The Federal Government became involved with enactment of the Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 

(P.L. 84-159) on July 14, 1955. The Act, and extensions in 1960 and 1962, authorized funds for the 

Public Health Service to research and provide technical assistance on the health and welfare effects 

of air pollution. The 1962 extension called on the U.S. Surgeon General to determine the health 

implications of motor vehicle emissions. 

The Clean Air Act of 1963 (P.L. 88-206) authorized a 3-year funding program under the 

Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to help State and local governments research and 

combat air pollution. The Act also encouraged development of emissions standards for motor 

vehicles and stationary sources, such as factories. The Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act of 

1965 (P.L. 89-272) called on the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to establish emission 

standards on light-duty motor vehicles (reduction of hydrocarbons (72 percent), carbon monoxide 

(56 percent), and crankcase hydrocarbons (100 percent)). It also established the National Air 

Pollution Control Administration (NAPCA) in the Department to take responsibility for future 

pollution control efforts. 
127 

The national standards, modeled after California’s 1966 standards, went into effect for all 1968 

models. California had been using economic power based on the number of vehicles its residents 

purchased to force the auto industry to include emissions control devices on new cars sold in the 

State, but the results were of limited value. 

In February 1970, President Nixon had called for action by Congress to strengthen clean air 

legislation. The result was the Clean Air Amendments (CAA) of 1970, which the President signed 

on December 31, 1970. He held a signing ceremony in the White House’s Roosevelt Room, which 

he considered appropriate because, although the room was named for Presidents Theodore 

Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first President Roosevelt had been “the man most 

remembered in American history for his interest in conservation, his interest in the environment.” 

He recalled his statement a year earlier when he signed NEPA on January 1, 1970: 

I said that this would be the year of the environment, that it was now or never if we were to 

clean up the air and clean up the water in major parts of the United States and to provide the 

open spaces that are so important for the future generations in the country. 

A year later, he said, he was about to sign “the most important piece of legislation, in my opinion, 

dealing with the problem of clean air that we have this year and the most important in our history.” 

He credited a bipartisan effort in Congress for completing the legislation. 

President Nixon considered 1970 the year “in which we really began to move on the problems of 

clean air and clean water and open spaces for the future generations of America. If completely 

enforced, he said, the legislation would result in a 90-percent reduction of polluting emissions from 

automobiles in 4 years: 

And the problem of automobile pollution, as we know, is one that not only now plagues my 

native area of southern California but all the great cities of this Nation, particularly those 

which have heavy automobile traffic, and most of the great cities of the world have similar 

problems. 

He concluded: 

And if, as we sign this bill in this room, we can look back and say, in the Roosevelt Room 

on the last day of 1970, we signed a historic piece of legislation that put us far down the 

road toward a goal that Theodore Roosevelt, 70 years ago, spoke eloquently about: a goal of 

clean air, clean water, and open spaces for the future generations of America.

More a rewrite than an amendment of previous legislation, the 1970 CAA was intended “to protect 

and enhance the quality of the Nation’s air resources so as to promote public health and welfare and 

the productive capacity of its population.” 

(The White House had not initially planned to invite lawmakers to the ceremony, which was to take 

place before only reporters and cameras. When Senator Randolph heard about the plan, he 
128 

suggested the White House share the credit. As a result several Members of Congress participated 

in the ceremony with only 2 hours notice. Senator Edmund S. Muskie (D-Me.) was not invited 

even though he was the chief sponsor of the legislation and had significantly strengthened the 

Administration’s proposal. Despite speculation that he had not been invited because he was a 

leading contender for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1972 (his staff called the 

incident “small town politics”), the White House maintained his exclusion was simply normal 

business since he was not the chairman of a committee, but only of a subcommittee. [Oberdorfer, 

Don, “Muskie Not Invited to Air Law Signing,” The Washington Post, January 1, 1971] 

Just a few weeks before President Nixon approved the 1970 CAA, the Environmental Protection 

Agency (EPA) had opened for business on December 2, 1970. It combined agencies, including 

NAPCA, and responsibilities from other Departments into an independent agency. Creation of 

EPA reflected the growing understanding of the relationship between human activities and the 

environment that had been spurred by publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in September 

1962. The book, which explained how chemicals were altering nature, helped build public 

awareness of the effects of human activities on the environment. Prior to Silent Spring, 

conservationists sought to preserve as much of nature as they could. After Silent Spring, the 

“conservation” movement quickly became the “environmental” movement to minimize harm by 

human actions. 

In a press release on December 16, the first EPA Administrator, William D. Ruckelshaus, said: 

EPA is an independent agency. It has no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; 

only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment. It does not have a 

narrow charter to deal with only one aspect of a deteriorating environment; rather it has a 

broad responsibility for research, standard-setting, monitoring and enforcement with regard 

to five environmental hazards; air and water pollution, solid waste disposal, radiation, and 

pesticides. EPA represents a coordinated approach to each of these problems, guaranteeing 

that as we deal with one difficulty we do not aggravate others. 

 According to a summary on EPA’s Web site: 

The enactment of the Clean Air Act of 1970 (1970 CAA) resulted in a major shift in the 

federal government's role in air pollution control. This legislation authorized the 

development of comprehensive federal and state regulations to limit emissions from both 

stationary (industrial) sources and mobile sources. Four major regulatory programs 

affecting stationary sources were initiated: the National Ambient Air Quality Standards 

(NAAQS, pronounced "knacks"), State Implementation Plans (SIPs), New Source 

Performance Standards (NSPS), and National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air 

Pollutants (NESHAPs). Furthermore, the enforcement authority was substantially 

expanded. [http://www.epa.gov/air/caa/caa_history.html#caa70] 

For the auto industry, the 1970 CAA appeared to be a disaster. It called for a 90-percent reduction 

in hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide levels by 1975 and a 90-percent reduction in nitrogen oxides 

by 1976. The industry claimed it would be unable to meet the new standards and would have to 
129 

shut down after the 1974 model year, which ended with introduction of the 1975 models in 

September 1974. As writer Tim Palucka put it: 

With the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, Congress threw down a gauntlet similar in 

spirit to President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 challenge to put a man on the moon before the 

end of the decade. Both were bold strokes that placed a burden squarely on the shoulders of 

the nation’s scientists and engineers. And both looked impossible . . . . 

In the race to clean up the air, no one knew if the goal, a 90 percent reduction in automobile 

emissions from pre-1968 levels by the 1975 model year, was even remotely possible. 

Moreover, Americans loved their thirsty automobiles; the petroleum industry depended on 

toxic lead in gasoline to increase octane; and automakers didn’t want to add another costly 

device, especially one that would interfere with the cars’ performance. [Palucka, Tim, 

“Doing the Impossible,” Invention and Technology, Winter 2004, p. 23] 

Although the manufacturers responded to the 1970 CAA "with a chorus of complaints,” the 

government held firm, as Palucka pointed out. “It was 1975 or bust.” 

Impoundment Goes to Court

Despite continuing economic struggles, the government experienced a surplus in 1969, Nixon’s 

first year in office but largely the result of President Johnson’s budget proposals. It would be the 

last budget surplus until the 1990s. Economic historian John Steele Gordon summarized the 

situation facing the new President: 

Nixon was, as he said, a Keynesian. But as a Keynesian he knew that in times of high 

inflation and low unemployment, such as he faced when he entered office, it was time to 

tighten, not increase federal spending . . . . Thereafter, congressional appropriations, despite 

the good times, continued to rise, and Nixon impounded more and more money. [Gordon, 

John Steele, “The Federal Debt,” American Heritage, November 1995, p. 90] 

On August 14, 1970, the State of Missouri filed a class action suit on behalf of all State highway 

agencies against Secretary Volpe and OMB Director Shultz alleging that the Secretary had 

impounded funds apportioned to the State under the Federal-aid highway program for FY 1971. As 

reflected in an editorial in the October 1970 issue of AASHO’s American Highways magazine, 

Missouri’s suit was of interest to all States. The editorial noted that the Governors’ Conference had 

recently adopted a resolution reading: 

Funds from the Highway Trust Fund should not be suspended or withheld; and we hereby 

request the Executive Committee to take the necessary steps to provide that court action be 

undertaken to challenge the authority of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to 

withhold distribution of Highway Trust Funds. 

Missouri argued that Secretary Volpe’s decision to withhold the right of the State to obligate $26.2 

million was wholly without authority. It also was wholly absent the one circumstance where he had 

the right to withhold obligation authority, namely advice from the Secretary of the Treasury that 
130 

funds were not and would not be available to make reimbursements at the full amount of the 

apportionments. The stated basis for the withholding, according to the suit, was a desire for a 

“cooling of the economy” at a time when Missouri’s economy was experiencing unemployment at a 

record high, bankruptcies occurring at a highly accelerated rate, and all other indications that the 

State’s economy was definitely well “cooled.” 

Initially, the Justice Department maintained that the District Court did not have jurisdiction because 

the government cannot be sued without its permission. In December, Judge William H. Becker 

overruled the government’s motion to dismiss the suit. He ordered Secretary Volpe and Director 

Shultz to justify the withholding. 

Before Judge Becker could rule on the merits of the case, the Department of Transportation 

announced that the States would be allowed to obligate all funds originally apportioned to them. 

Judge Becker dismissed the suit as moot, but ruled that the State could submit an amended 

complaint if it wished to do so for FY 1972. 

On June 30, 1971, the State filed suit against Secretary Volpe and new OMB Director Casper W. 

Weinberger. The suit stated that the Secretary had apportioned $115.7 million in Federal-aid 

highway funds to Missouri for FY 1972, but imposed contract controls on $21.9 million. 

A group of Democratic Senators filed a brief supporting Missouri’s right to receive its full funding 

on the schedule established by Congress rather than by an Executive Branch decision. The group 

included 14 of the Democratic chairmen of the Senate’s 17 committees, with Chairman Samuel J. 

Ervin, Jr., of the Committee on Government Operations leading the way. 

President Nixon planned to hold the budget to $250 billion as an inflationary measure even though 

doing so would require him to impound $7 to $10 billion. The President’s practice, the brief 

argued, was “contemptuous of the role of Congress in our tripartite system . . . . The power of the 

purse belongs exclusively to Congress under the Constitution.” 

In discussing the friend-of-the-court plea, Senator Ervin said Congress should adopt a general antiimpoundment law. As Chairman of a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, he had introduced 

legislation in the 92nd Congress that would have given Congress the authority to override 

presidential impoundments. [Milius, Peter, and Braestrup, Peter, “17 Senators Join Suit to Free 

U.S. Funds,” The Washington Post, January 3, 1973] Senator Ervin convened hearings and 

developed legislation on the subject, as did the House, but the legislation was not approved. 

On August 7, 1972, the District Court ruled in Missouri’s favor. The impoundment “caused great 

and incalculable injury to Missouri because of continuing inflation of highway costs and 

interruption of efficient obligations” of Federal-aid highway funds. The court found that the 

Secretary did not have the discretionary authority to defer obligation of highway funds previously 

apportioned to the State. The ruling enjoined further withholdings in FY 1973. 
131 

The Justice Department appealed the ruling, arguing that (1) there is no subject matter jurisdiction, 

(2) there is no justiciable issue since the case involves only a political question, and (3) that the 

Secretary possesses discretion under the statute to withhold funds for the stated reasons. 
132 

Part 2: 

On Shaky Ground

A Highway Advocate Leaves the Scene

With the Federal-Aid Highway Act off 1970 enacted, Congress would not have to consider 

reauthorization of the Federal-aid highway program until 1972. The battle over the Highway Trust 

Fund would continue during the interim, but a familiar figure, Representative George H. Fallon, 

would not be around to enforce the trust built into the concept. 

Following the first Earth Day in April 1970, environmentalists compiled a list of “The Dirty 

Dozen” Members of Congress. They were chosen because of what Environmental Action and the 

League of Conservation Voters said were their abysmal environmental records. Another criteria 

was that the Members of Congress had to be in tight races in districts with major environmental 

issues that voters cared about. 

Representative Fallon’s was the most prominent name on the list. He had been Chairman since 

January 1965 of the Public Works Committee, which the environmentalists referred to as the Pork 

Committee. His hometown of Baltimore had long-running controversies over its Interstate routes, 

including I-70 through Leakin Park and a stable minority community and a planned I-95 bridge 

across the Patapsco River overlooking historic Fort McHenry. The environmentalists cited his 

opposition to the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit as one example of why he 

was a “tool of the highway lobby.” 

In the Democratic primary, State Delegate Paul S. Sarbanes attacked Fallon for his age and health, 

remoteness from his constituents, close ties with the highway and transportation lobbies, and his 

support for the Vietnam War. Despite Fallon’s support from highway interests, Sarbanes won the 

primary election on September 15, 1970, and went on to win the general election in November. “I 

used to be complimented,” Fallon said, “on the great job I was doing for the highway program. 

Now that is the thing that is used against me.” 

Six others of the Dirty Dozen also lost their reelection bids, but Fallon’s defeat in 1970 was the 

environmental community’s greatest triumph. As Fortune magazine pointed out: 

Flushed with their success at knocking off the powerful Fallon, environmentalists have gone 

on to organize the Highway Action Coalition at the national level to eliminate the federal 

highway trust fund or stretch the uses to which it can be put. [Cameron, Juan, “How the 

Interstate Changed the Face of the Nation,” Fortune, July 1971, p. 31] 

As a result, one of the strongest protectors of the Highway Trust Fund would no longer be in 

Congress when the biggest challenge to what critics thought of as a pork barrel came about. 

Another author of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, Senator Gore, also was defeated for 

reelection in 1970. The Nixon Administration had targeted Senator Gore, who was vulnerable in 
133 

his southern State for his opposition to the Vietnam War, support for civil rights legislation, and 

opposition to President Nixon’s unsuccessful Supreme Court nominees, Clement F. Haynesworth, 

Jr., and Harrold Carswell. Vice President Agnew, campaigning for Representative Bill Brock, 

referred to Senator Gore as the “Southern Regional chairman of the eastern establishment” and a 

“radic-lib.” Journalist and author David Halberstam, who had been a reporter with the Nashville 

Tennessean for 4 years in the late 1950s and had covered the Civil Rights Movement for The New 

York Times in the 1960s, described the Brock campaign in the January 1971 issue of Harper’s 

Magazine: 

. . . this is in fact the most disreputable and scurrilous race I have ever covered in Tennessee . 

. . . And while I have covered shabby racist campaigns in the past, there is something about 

this one which is distinctive. This is the first time that a campaign like this has been tied to 

the President, the Vice-President, and the Attorney General of the United States. 

The loss of Senator Gore was less critical to highway supporters than Fallon’s defeat. Gore left the 

highway-oriented activities of the Committee on Public Works in 1959 and joined the Committee 

on Foreign Affairs, where his interests took him away from the highway battles. [Gore, Albert, Let 

the Glory Out: My South and Its Politics, The Viking Press, 1972, p. 262, 275] 

A New Direction

Completion of work on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 marked only a temporary high point 

for the highway community. They thought they would have at least a year free of legislative battles 

and could focus on reversing the continuing deterioration of their image and the growing threat to 

the Highway Trust Fund. 

Instead, the highway community was under attack from all sides, including the Nixon 

Administration.

After two Democratic Presidents, Kennedy and Johnson, who believed in an expansive Federal 

Government, President Nixon revived the debate that had begun under President Eisenhower over 

the balance between the Federal and State governments. Like President Eisenhower, Nixon thought 

that many Federal programs infringed on State rights, and adopted policies to reverse the flow of 

power. 

General Revenue Sharing was the most direct result of this view. In President Nixon’s message to 

Congress on August 13, 1969, he began: 

If there is a single phenomenon that has marked the recent history of nations, large and 

small, democratic and dictatorial, it has been the rise of the central government. 

He traced the acceleration to the Depression “when economic life in America stagnated, and an 

energetic national government seemed the sole instrument of national revival.” For more than 30 

years, “whenever a great social change was needed, a new national program was the automatic and 
134 

inevitable response.” Now, he said, “a majority of Americans no longer supports the continued 

extension of federal services.” He outlined his proposal: 

This week, I am sending to Congress for its approval for Fiscal Year 1971, legislation 

asking that a set amount of Federal revenues be returned annually to the States to be used as 

the States and their local governments see fit—without Federal strings.

Because of budget stringencies, the initial fund set aside to start the program will not be 

great—$500 million. The role of the Federal government will be redefined and re-directed . 

. . . Ultimately, it is our hope to use this mechanism to so strengthen State and local 

government that by the end of the coming decade, the political landscape of America will be 

visibly altered, and States and cities will have a far greater share of power and responsibility 

for solving their own problems. The role of the Federal Government will be re-defined and 

re-directed toward those functions where it proves itself the only or the most suitable 

instrument.

The proposal was not an easy sell in Congress. As journalist Elizabeth Drew explained: 

What proponents were up against were the bureaucracies that administered the programs, 

the interest groups that benefits from them, and the congressional committees that had 

jurisdiction over them . . . .The idea was to reduce paperwork and the size of the federal 

bureaucracy and get the decision making “closer to the people.” But many liberals, 

suspicious that the states wouldn’t observe the standards and rules set by the federal 

government, and concerned that they would spend the money on programs other than for the 

poor, opposed the block-grant program vigorously. [Drew, Elizabeth, Richard M. Nixon, 

Times Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2007, p. 57] 

President Nixon followed his General Revenue Sharing proposal with related proposals calling for 

consolidation of specific Federal activities, namely law enforcement, urban development, 

education, training, and rural development. On March 18, 1971, Nixon proposed a similar concept 

for the Department of Transportation. During the early days, he said, “a man’s mobility was 

dependent upon his strong legs and the sharp axe with which he cleared his path.” Even then, 

“Americans quickly came to realize that good roads and docks and bridges were community 

concerns.” He continued: 

Over the years, government has become increasingly involved in improving the Nation’s 

transportation systems, from the building of post roads and canals in the early periods of our 

history, to the construction of airports and superhighways in recent years. The question we 

face today, therefore, is not whether government should participate in transportation matters, 

but how government should participate—and which levels of government should undertake 

which responsibilities. These are the central questions I am addressing in this message as I 

outline a new Special Revenue Sharing Program for Transportation. 

He called the airplane and automobile “mechanized masterpieces,” but also “dramatic evidence of 

both the successes and the failures of American transportation.” He said of highways: 
135 

Highways that speed motorists between cities can become long and narrow parking lots 

where cars are stalled for hours within urban areas. It often takes longer to move by 

“horseless carriage” across our major cities today than it did by horse-drawn carriage a 

century ago. Efforts to improve this situation by building new highways often have the 

effect of destroying neighborhoods and disrupting lives. It is estimated, moreover, that 

automobiles are responsible for almost half of our air pollution—a growing problem that is 

slowly choking our central cities. 

And there is another serious problem, as well. For with our heavy investment in 

automobiles and air transportation has come a sharp decline in rail passenger service and in 

public mass transit systems . . . . Public transportation has been caught up in a vicious cycle 

of increasing costs, rising fares, shrinking profits, decreasing quality, and declining 

ridership. Ironically, this decline in mass transit has come at the same time that the need for 

fast, convenient, economical public transportation has become greater than ever before. 

The “established relationships among Federal, State and local governments are unsuitable for 

achieving the goals we pursue,” which he called “balanced transportation”: 

A balanced transportation system is essentially one that provides adequate transportation not 

just for some of the people in a community but for all the people in a community. A 

balanced system also recognizes that an individual can have different transportation needs at 

different times. Such a system treats speed as only one of the factors in the transportation 

equation and does not ignore the importance of other qualities such as comfort, safety, and 

reliability.

Despite our technological capacity, we do not enjoy a fully balanced transportation system 

in modern America, particularly in our larger cities. We have relied too much on cars and 

on highways; we have given too little attention to other modes of travel. Approximately 94 

percent of all travel in urbanized areas is by automobile, yet about 25 percent of our 

people—especially the old, the very young, the poor and the handicapped—do not drive a 

car. They have been poorly served by our transportation strategy.

Federal decisions on funding levels and matching shares had distorted the efforts by State and local 

officials to address the problems they saw: 

The Federal Government now pays 90 percent of the costs for a new interstate expressway, 

for example, but only 67 percent of the costs for a new mass transit system and only 50 

percent of the costs of building an airport. It is little wonder that State and local planners 

encouraged to cover the landscape with ribbons of concrete. Such distortions of local 

priorities are among the major problems that this administration is seeking to correct . . . .

The hard fact is that the best mixture of transportation modes is not something that remote 

officials in Washington can determine in advance for all cities, of all sizes and descriptions, 

in all parts of the country. Nor do the Federal officials who grant money for specific 
136 

projects understand local needs well enough to justify their strong influence over how local 

projects should be planned and run. 

His proposal, initially funded at $2.566 billion beginning January 1, 1972, was designed “to focus 

Federal resources on major public problems and at the same time maximize flexibility of choice at 

the State and local level. 

Elizabeth Parker, a former Department of Transportation policy official writing in Transportation 

Quarterly, said the 1971 Transportation Revenue Sharing proposal would abolish almost every 

funding category within the Department of Transportation except the Interstate program. It 

proposed a “general transportation element” that the States could use to fund any transportation 

project they chose, highway, transit, or aviation. A second category would be available only for bus 

or rail mass transit projects in cities, including private companies providing transit service, while a 

third category was available for the Secretary of Transportation’s discretionary use to encourage 

planning, research and demonstration projects, and other activities related to national transportation 

objectives. [Parker, Elizabeth, “Major Proposals to Restructure the Highway Program,” 

Transportation Quarterly, January 1991, p. 56 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/restructure.cfm] 

As Parker noted, the Interstate System would be excluded from revenue sharing. The President 

explained that with 74 percent of the 42,500-mile System open and completion expected in 1978, 

“it would not be in the national interest to alter the basic funding mechanism for the construction of 

this system at this time.” 

Revenue would come from the Highway Trust Fund, the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, and 

general tax revenues on a changing schedule that the President described:

In the first year of operation, Special Revenue Sharing money would be drawn from the two 

trust funds and from general revenues in the same proportion as under the existing 

categorical grant system, though it could be spent as the localities see fit. After that, 

however, the portion of the Special Revenue Sharing Program for Transportation derived 

from the trust funds in any year would equal the portion of the program that was used for 

highways and for aviation-related purposes in the preceding year. Thus the money in the 

trust funds would still go to achieve the general purposes for which the funds were 

established. General funds would pay for all other transportation activities. 

The President acknowledged the need for improved highway safety and the growing sensitivity to 

environmental concerns:

There is no reason why growing sensitivity on matters such as safety and environmental 

quality should not continue to grow under this new Special Revenue Sharing program. State 

and local governments, after all, have often been particularly responsive to citizen pressure 

in these areas and they have frequently acted as bold pioneers in meeting these concerns. I 

am confident that as more responsibility is given to governments closer to the people, the 
137 

true and abiding interests of the people will be even better reflected in public policy 

decisions. 

In a press conference on the day of the President’s message to Congress, Secretary Volpe 

acknowledged that freeing the Highway Trust Fund revenue for use at each State’s discretion “isn’t 

going to be easy.” As The Wall Street Journal discussed in its article about the proposal, Volpe had 

advocated a transportation trust fund that would allow communities to use highway funds for transit 

or aviation needs. Just 2 months earlier he had said of the idea “it is going to require a 

tremendously energetic education campaign” to convince Congress and the highway interests to 

support the idea. [“Three Transportation Funds Recommended in Nixon’s Fifth Revenue-Sharing 

Message,” The Wall Street Journal, March 19, 1971] 

The New York Times reported that State and local officials quickly embraced the proposal:

The very element of the program that has attracted mayors and governors, however, may 

ultimately doom it in Congress, where the highway lobby is expected to strongly oppose the 

idea that local communities should be given freedom to spend $1.5 billion in highway funds 

on other projects. Accordingly, most observers give the transportation proposal no greater 

chance of passage than Mr. Nixon’s other “special” revenue-sharing programs . . . . 

Each program submitted so far has evoked strong opposition from congressmen reluctant to 

abandon programs they helped devise, and from those who do not believe that states and 

cities are any better equipped than the federal government to spend the money. [Semple, Jr., 

Robert B., “President Urges Mass Transit Aid,” The New York Times, March 19, 1971] 

Highway boosters were not persuaded. Representative Boggs, having assumed the position of 

Majority Leader on January 3, 1971, called the proposal “a fraud . . . the biggest demagoguery I 

have ever heard of.” Representative John. A. Blatnik (D-Mn.) told ARBA that the proposal was a 

little “late.” He explained:

For 55 years we have considered Federal-aid for Highways to be revenue sharing. Any 

drastic change in program concept or funding, such as that being proposed, must be given 

thoughtful consideration and adopted only after there is unquestionable proof that it is both 

necessary and desirable.

He did not believe that roads and bridges should suffer so that the quality of other modes of 

transportation can be improved. [“Boggs Attacks Sharing Plans,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, 

March 24, 1971; “Blatnik: Beware Revenue Sharing,” Better Roads, April 1971, p. 10] 

Traffic World summarized reaction to the proposal: 

The President’s proposals involving these trust funds left some doubt in the minds of many 

motor carrier and airline officials. Several told Traffic World that they were unclear as to 

just what would happen to trust fund money under the Presidential plan. Some felt their 

industries would be adversely affected . . . . The phrase that most upset motor carrier and 
138 

airline officials . . . is that giving local governments power to spend trust fund money “as 

they see fit.” Several industry officials interpret this as permitting local governments to 

spend airport/airway trust fund money on projects unrelated to air or truck transport. 

[“Revenue Sharing Plan for Transportation Would Give Local Governments $2.5 billion,” 

Traffic World, March 22, 1971] 

Aviation Week & Space Technology reported that Chairman Mills of the House Ways and Means 

Committee was “strongly opposed” and his view was “widely shared in both House and Senate.” 

The magazine continued: 

[The] concept of a unified transportation fund, even without the revenue-sharing feature, has 

consistently met powerful opposition from committee chairman [sic] unwilling to surrender 

jurisdiction over their particular areas of transportation funding. 

The jurisdictional issue was reflected in the fact that Senate leaders distributed the Nixon proposal 

to five committees for study (Commerce, Public Works, Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and 

Finance). 

Even as these committees began their review, another proposal was introduced: 

Sen. Charles H. Percy (R-Ill.) submitted a series of bills last week which would establish a 

unified transportation trust fund comprising all current trust funds and grants-in-aid 

programs. The Percy legislation would involve up to $7 billion the first year, compared 

with the Nixon Administration’s proposal which would involve $2.6 billion. 

Sen. Percy left unclear the means of distribution of the trust fund monies, in an effort to 

sidestep the volatile revenue-sharing controversy. One of Sen. Percy’s measures would 

permit diversion of highway trust fund money “for any legitimate transportation purpose,” 

including mass transit. [Winston, Donald C., “Nixon Transportation Trust Fund Idea Hit,” 

Aviation Week & Space Technology, March 29, 1971] 

An editorial in Engineering News-Record, which had advocated such a plan, said the “greatest 

single advantage” was that it “would give states and municipalities flexibility in using funds to meet 

their highest priority needs.” It continued: 

But giving state and local officials more freedom of action would test highway proponents’ 

constant assertions that the public desires their product above all, without diverting any 

portion of their trust fund . . . . The plan would also test our assertion that highway 

spending will not drop in the long run because highway needs continue to increase at least 

as fast as needs for other forms of transportation. Though commitments for public 

transportation might jump in the initial years of the program, they would probably ease 

thereafter.
139 

If highway proponents really believe their own promotion material, let them put it to the test 

while preserving their trust fund. [“Revenue Sharing—Transportation Style,” Engineering 

News-Record, March 25, 1971] 

For transit interests, the Nixon proposal provided new hope even beyond the authorizations 

supporting the Urban Mass Transportation Act. Boston’s transit authority, for example, had “mixed 

emotions” about it. The idea of not having to match Federal funds was appealing, but under the 

complicated apportionment formula, the city might receive less than at present. [Plotkin A. S., 

“Reaction ‘Mixed’ For Transit Plan,” The Boston Globe, March 19, 1971] 

An editorial in the New Orleans Times-Picayune endorsed the concept of balanced transportation 

that the proposal reflected:

If Congress goes along, hard-pressed national policymakers and local urban managers may, 

at long last, be placed in a position to put it all together right. [“Strike the ‘Balance’ in 

Transportation,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 23, 1971] 

The President had placed his proposal in the context of a balanced transportation system. On May 

20, 1971, Administrator Turner addressed the topic in a National Transportation Week speech titled 

“Balanced Transportation – What Is It?” before the National Capital Section of the American 

Society of Civil Engineers:

So, at the outset, let us get into focus what balanced transportation really means. 

First of all, it does not mean the expenditure of equal amounts of dollars on each of several 

particular transportation modes. In fact, to do so would insure the very imbalance in our 

transportation system which everyone is deploring. 

What balanced transportation does mean is that each mode is utilized and supported in such 

amount as to achieve an over-all integrated system in which all modes are complementary–

not duplicative, nor competitive. 

A balanced transportation system must be designed to meet the total transportation needs of 

the urban area. It should do so in a way that will provide the most effective, acceptable, and 

economic service attainable that meets the total needs of the community, both as individuals 

and collectively. 

If it is to serve the total transportation needs, a balanced system must permit infinite 

flexibility of travel from any place to any other place. A balanced system must be designed 

not just for morning and evening rush hour travel demand, but for 24-hour usage every day. 

 It must be designed not just for those trips when citizens are commuters, but for all the 

other times as well as when the same citizens and their neighbors are making their non-work 

trips, which trips far outnumber the work trips. It must also provide for the movement of 

the goods and service vehicles that are vital to all residents of any urban area whether they 
140 

be commuters or stay-at-homes, or are totally dependent shut-ins, who don’t even own or 

operate their own automobile. 

He cautioned against the common misconception about rail rapid transit systems such as the Metro 

system then under construction in the Washington area: 

Unfortunately, though, there are some people who believe that with the advent of a rail rapid 

transit system there will then be no need for highways. Nothing could be further from the 

truth, and if this concept should prevail, the consequences for this metropolitan area will be 

nothing less than catastrophic . . . . 

I know that there are some people who for one reason or another say that they hate both 

highways and automobiles, and wish that they would just go away, to be replaced by some 

undefined form of Utopia where there would be no traffic problems. But there will be no 

disappearance of the traffic problem unless people also disappear – our urgent task is to 

develop the best way to live with the auto, and quit wasting our time simplistically wishing 

it would go away, just by putting all of our chips on another mode. We need more – not less 

transportation capability – and to achieve it we need both more highway and more mass 

transit capability – not less of either . . . . 

Let us not be deluded – nor deceived – into thinking that [mass transit facilities] will 

eliminate the urgent need for new and improved highways, or that they can provide the 

services, and movement of goods that highways must do. 

And let us not make the mistake of taking vitally needed funds from the highway mode to 

help finance any other mode unless a real total improvement in transportation results 

therefrom. Such fiscal legerdemain would merely be like all magic tricks: only an illusion 

accomplished by an instantaneous distracting movement of the hands and mouth, followed 

by immediate disappearance of the illusion. 

If more funds are needed for mass transportation purposes, and certainly they are, by all 

means let us try to find them – but not by robbing the highway program with its equal or 

even more compelling needs . . . . 

Because we know what happens when something loses its balance. 

It falls. 

Secretary Volpe promoted transportation revenue sharing, as well as balance, in his appearances. In 

Watertown, New York, he said, “A greater realization is needed on the part of the American people 

of the need for more balance with the transportation system.” Convincing people of the need for 

balance was one of his greatest problems. Too much emphasis had been placed on highways and 

airways; he stressed “the need to work in harmony with the environment.” He cited bus and rail 

service as needed alternatives to relieve congestion and pollution, and identified the new passenger 
141 

rail service Amtrak as having “a good future over the car.” [Jackson, Wendy B., “Balanced 

Transportation Setup Stressed as Vital by Volpe,” Watertown Daily Times, July 22, 1971] 

Congress approved the President’s General Revenue Sharing proposal in the fall of 1972. The State 

and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972 authorized $30.2 billion for State and local governments 

over 5 years. States, which received one-third of the funds, could use their share in any way they 

chose. Local governments were required to use their funds to attack broadly defined “priority” 

areas: public safety, environmental protection, public transportation, health, recreation, libraries, 

and social services for the poor and aged. The legislation specified that public transportation 

included transit systems, streets, and roads. The funds could be used for capital expenditures or 

“ordinary and necessary maintenance and operating expenses,” including for transit systems. In 

addition, the funds could be used for such activities as rail-highway grade crossing projects, parking 

and storage facilities serving public transportation, and even snow and ice control. 

On October 20, 1972, President Nixon signed the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972 in 

Independence Square in Philadelphia, site of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The 

legislation was, he said, the start of a new American revolution. He explained that, “the most 

important point is this: In each case it will be local officials responding to local conditions and 

local constituencies who will decide what should happen, and not some distant bureaucrat in 

Washington, D.C.” (General Revenue Sharing continued until the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation 

Act of 1985 brought it to an end.) 

The transportation revenue sharing proposal met a different fate. As Elizabeth Parker summarized, 

the concept was in line with Nixon’s philosophy and States’ longstanding interest in taking over the 

bulk of the Federal-aid highway program, but was contrary to “virtually all of the interests 

involved” in transportation. Highway interests feared that highway user tax revenues would be 

diverted to other modal projects, while transit interests feared the mighty highway lobby would 

divert the limited Federal funding for transit. [Parker, p. 56] 

Without support from the modal interests, the proposal went nowhere in Congress. In September 

1971, President Nixon postponed the effective date of Special Revenue Sharing for Transportation 

from January 1, 1972, to January 1, 1973. As Railway Age put it:

The postponement confirms what everyone always knew: a transportation revenue sharing 

plan, in a Presidential election-year with Congress besieged by demands for transportation 

funding of one kind or another, had about as much chance as the proverbial snowball. 

[“Revenue Sharing: The Plan That Was Isn’t,” Railway Age, September 26, 1971] 

Terms of Battle

On December 16, 1970, the Buffalo Evening News published a portion of an interview with 

Secretary Volpe. Asked if he bought the argument that Highway Trust Fund revenues should be 

used for other forms of transportation, the Secretary replied: 
142 

I don’t buy the argument that funds can be used only for the design and construction of 

highways. I sincerely believe that any item which is highway related can and should come 

out of the highway trust fund. For instance, we have an alcohol counter-measures program 

and our safety programs. We wouldn’t need these programs if we didn’t have highways and 

automobiles. 

So far as I am concerned, it is highway related and should come out of the highway trust 

fund. 

He felt the same way about the highway beautification program and forest roads, but did not believe 

the funds should be used for general purposes such as welfare or education “because it was raised 

for a particular purpose.” [Warren, Lucian, “Volpe Sees Many Uses for U.S. Highway Funds,” 

Buffalo Evening News, December 16, 1970] 

Congress, in developing the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970, had expanded the use of highway 

user tax revenue beyond the original intent of design and construction of highways, even to the 

point of paying for some transit activities. The legislation was consistent with Secretary Volpe’s 

view that in going beyond design and construction, additional costs should be highway-related, as 

in the case of buses. However, pressures to expand the idea of “highway-related” would continue 

through 1971, with supporters of transit pushing for access to revenue from the Highway Trust 

Fund in a year when Congress would not consider Federal-aid highway legislation.

In early January, Tom Wicker wrote in his syndicated New York Times column of the “magnificent 

American interstate system” now “nearing completion”:

On any rational timetable, this is about 10 years behind time, since these great highways 

essentially were the transportation system most required for the Forties and Fifties. 

Consequently, the nation also is running 10 or more years behind in developing the modern 

urban transit and rapid intercity transit systems that are the next necessary stage in American 

transportation. 

Standing against this evolution was “a political juggernaut” that had formed during the Interstate 

years. [Wicker, Tom, “The Highway Juggernaut is Not Easily Halted,” The New York Times, 

January 10, 1971] 

Frustration with traffic congestion was prompting cities to adopt traffic bans, as discussed in a 

canvass of such plans published in The New York Times on April 25: 

America’s love affair with the automobile, a torrid romance for decades, appears to be 

cooling off in a number of cities. While divorce isn’t imminent, some trial separations are 

already under way.

Encouraged in part [by] experiments like the one here this week along Madison Avenue, the 

cities are shutting down some of their prime downtown streets to traffic, banning on-street 

parking and turning the areas over to pedestrians. 
143 

Typically, people on the streets appreciated the relief from the traffic while merchants opposed the 

bans even when the predicted slump in commerce did not occur. Even a year earlier, a check of 

major cities revealed “little but apathy toward the idea,” but now the movement “is clearly growing 

around the country.” In Philadelphia, for example, officials planned to close a seven-block area to 

traffic in the mid-city shopping district as part of a “Take a Walk” initiative. San Francisco had 

gradually prohibited parking along 30 city blocks and converted others to one-way traffic, with the 

effect of sharply reducing traffic. Chicago was studying a traffic ban despite strong opposition from 

merchants. Boston planned to ban traffic on a one-day basis in May along four blocks of a 

downtown street to give the feel of a suburban shopping center. Washington had experimented the 

previous fall with a traffic ban every Thursday evening over a seven-block area, again in an attempt 

to revitalize shopping. 

Some cities were resisting the movement. For example, Burt Lieper of the Los Angeles Traffic 

Department said the city had no plans for traffic bans. “We want the traffic to flow if it can, and the 

pedestrians to walk if they can.” Detroit also had no plans for bans, although other Michigan cities, 

including Lansing and Kalamazoo, had limited downtown traffic or created pedestrian malls. 

[King, Wayne, “Cities Showing Interest in Traffic Bans,” The New York Times, April 25] 

A few weeks later, the Times reported on “the swelling army of [adult] Americans on two wheels 

who have discovered nature, freedom, forgotten muscles, deep breathing, new friends, new 

enemies—even romance—on bicycles.” The bicycle was emerging from the era when it was 

primarily a means of conveyance for children until they were old enough to get a driver’s license. 

Bike sales, especially to adults, had risen in the past 10 years from 3.7 million to almost 7 million:

Today, to start National Transportation Week, Secretary of Transportation John Volpe led a 

fleet of 300 bicycle enthusiasts on a six-mile ride from the Watergate apartments where he 

lives past the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial on the banks of the 

Potomac River. The Secretary told his fellow travelers that his department would make 

“every effort” to establish exclusive bicycle lanes in the nation’s cities and along the 

freeways and turnpikes between cities.

Since this event was D.C. Bicycle Day, Mayor Walter E. Washington and City Council Chairman 

Gilbert Hahn, Jr., were among those accompanying the Secretary. Ideas for the District of 

Columbia included color-code streets for cyclists, cycle-only lanes, installation of bike racks at 

Federal installations, and creation of concessions to rent bicycles to tourists interested in seeing the 

city. 

Signs along the route proclaimed “All Persons Have Equal Rights When Driving Cars or Riding 

Bikes.” It was, the article explained, “a civil right with which most city motorists would violently 

disagree.” (Secretary Volpe, a bicycling and fitness enthusiast, owned a fold-up bike and a 

lightweight, multi-speed racer.)

A few days earlier, on May 6, Members of Congress participated in the first “bikecology” tour of 

Capitol Hill on a rainy day, with Capitol Hill police clearing a path through traffic for the 13-block 

ride. Representative Seymour Halpern (R-NY), who had met his wife while bicycling in Central 
144 

Park, sponsored the tour partly to demonstrate how to reduce air pollution and partly for fun. 

Thirty-five Members had signed up for the tour and another 11 said they might participate, but only 

26 participated. They could choose from 60 bicycles borrowed for the occasion. Senator Claiborne 

Pell (D-RI), the only Senator on the tour, indicated he had not ridden a bicycle since 1965 but on 

that occasion had won a race around the Ellipse. 

Bicyclists were finding they could get to work on their vehicle, and many even sold their cars. Dr. 

Ralph Galan, an orthodontist and president of the League of American Wheelmen, cycled from his 

home in Lexington, Massachusetts, to his office in Cambridge: 

“That’s nothing,” he said, boasting that he can cover more than 100 miles a day. 

Even in Los Angeles, “a center of smog and freeways,” bicycle licenses were rising sharply. 

Charles Johnson of the Los Angeles Police Department’s bike detail said: 

One of these days, you are going to see an awful lot of bikes on the streets—bikes by the 

hundreds. With traffic getting so heavy, they will have to change to something. Because of 

the traffic, because of the smog, because of the price of gas, you are going to have hundreds 

and hundreds of bikes on the streets. It will look just like a town in Europe. [Robertson, 

Nan, “Adults Swing to Bicycles,” The New York Times, May 19, 1971; Dobbin, Muriel, 

“‘Bikecology’ Gets Ride at the Capitol,” The Baltimore Sun, May 7, 1971; Kneece, Jack, 

“Transportation Week to Star Cycling Volpe,” The Washington Star, May 16, 1971]] 

The Times returned to the subject in August with “Bicycle Business is Booming.” The subhead 

was: 

Big Adult Market is Bringing Euphoria to Industry 

The article said that “for the first time in a century,” the American bicycle industry “is pinning its 

rosy expectations on an unlimited adult market instead of a static youth one.” The article listed 

several factors behind the boom: 

• Physical fitness consciousness. Fifteen years ago, Dr. Paul Dudley White, President 

Eisenhower’s physician, endorsed the bicycle as a weapon against heart attacks . . . .

• The newer ecology interest. The bicycle, as the president of the Columbia Manufacturing 

Company has pointed out, is the only form of transportation – including the horse – that 

doesn’t pollute. 

• Encouragement for bicycle riding from municipal, state, and Federal Government programs. 

 The Bicycle Institute of America says that 6,300 miles of bicycle paths have been laid out 

in 200 cities. The institute has pushed for legislation such as a law recently enacted in 

Oregon that permits revenues to be set aside from gasoline and road use revenues for 

bicycle paths. Representative Edward Koch, Democrat of New York, has introduced a bill 

that would permit states to use Federal highway money for paths. 
145 

• Trend-setters like Jacqueline Onassis and Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York help the 

fashion-status of cycling while bicycle championships and races such as the eight-day Tour 

of California also kindle consumer interest. 

These factors were overshadowed by a more significant reason: 

The introduction of the lightweight, 10-speed bicycle by Schwinn in 1958 was as significant 

for the bicycle industry as the development of stereo components was for recordings. 

Schwinn’s Ray Caparros said, “If we were still pedaling on those 15-pound tires and foot brakes, no 

adults would be on bikes today.” 

Another factor was suggested by Eugene Sloane, whose The Complete Book of Bicycling had 

become a bestseller since its publication in October 1970: 

He attributes the bike boom to the fact that “people got sick and tired of jogging—that’s got 

to be the most boring thing.” [Bender, Marylin, “Bicycle Business is Booming,” The New 

York Times, August 15, 1971; Sloane’s bestselling book was published by Trident Press] 

In June, former Secretary Boyd (then president of the Illinois Central Railroad) participated in a 2-

day conference in Washington to explore the idea of developing a free public transit system in the 

United States. Over 40 national organizations sponsored the conference, including the 

Conservation Foundation, National Urban Coalition, and many environmental and labor groups. 

An article about the conference summarized Boyd’s keynote address: 

It is time, Boyd said, that Americans consider the over-all cost of transportation, get rid of 

the myth that busses [sic] can be paid for out of the fare box and consider that free 

transportation might involve the least cost. Boyd said in a keynote address that the public 

was subsidizing a private transit system in which the public used automobiles to reach 

downtown areas. Urban areas, he said, cannot tolerate an unlimited influx of motor 

vehicles.

Under Secretary of Transportation Beggs told the conference that 94 percent of all urban travel was 

in an automobile. Mass transit use was only a fourth of what it was after World War II, and was 

still declining:

This overdependence on the automobile as the solution to people’s transportation needs has 

reached the point in our country where we now have almost as many vehicles as we do 

people. We have one car for every 50 yards of highway. 

He called attention to the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act and the highway transit 

provisions of the Federal-Aid Highway Act, although he also warned about overemphasis on rail 

rapid transit. Rail might be feasible in the 10 largest cities, but elsewhere, the answer was bus 

transit.
146 

Theodore W. Kheel co-chaired the meeting. A lawyer, and labor mediator from New York City, 

Kheel had helped settle many strikes in New York City and elsewhere. In 1964, President Johnson 

had asked Kheel to help mediate the negotiations to prevent a nationwide rail walkout. 

Transportation, however, was one of his many interests. 

Kheel pointed out the trend since World War II to abandon mass transit in favor of the automobile. 

The resulting war between mass and private transportation had resulted in incalculable injury. 

“Those who have switched to personal from mass transportation now suffer from traffic congestion 

and air pollution just as riders of mass transportation suffer from poor service and dilapidated 

facilities.” He urged the Department of Justice to force General Motors out of the business of 

manufacturing buses. “General Motors, the largest maker of private cars, is likewise the largest 

maker of buses. These two methods of transportation are in deadly competition with each other. 

[Wyant, Jr., William K., “Free Public Transit Called Urban Solution,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 

June 2, 1971] 

In 1971, Kheel became advisory committee chairman of the Highway Action Coalition, which 

environmentalists had formed in the wake of the defeat of Representative Fallon and other “Dirty 

Dozen” Members of Congress. The coalition held its first press conference in Washington on 

September 23. Professor Tom Lewis described the group: 

Claiming to represent 750,000 people across America, Highway Action Coalition was 

actually a loose alliance of those who supported environmental causes like the Sierra Club, 

Environmental Action, Friends of the Earth, and Zero Population Growth. A year earlier 

they had joined together with the common goal of persuading Congress to ground the 

supersonic transport plane, a project that Volpe and the Department of Transportation had 

long championed. Fresh from that victory [Congress ended funding for the project in March 

1971], they reconstituted themselves as an anti-highway coalition with the single goal of 

“busting the trust.” [Lewis, p. 225] 

(The House voted 215-204 to end funding for development of the SST on March 18, 1971, but the 

Nixon Administration hoped to revive the project in the Senate. On March 24, the Senate voted 51-

46 to bring SST development funding to a halt. The President called the vote a “severe blow” to 

the aerospace industry, leaving the SST to Europe. The following day, a spokesperson for the 

Office of SST Development in the Department of Transportation said, “We’re out of business.” A 

consortium of Air France and British Airways continued development of the Concorde SST, which 

began commercial service in 1976 and continued until a decline in business ended the flights in 

2003. 

(Volpe had backed the SST, even meeting with the President during March to bolster his flagging 

support. “How would you like,” Volpe told the President, “to go out to Dulles Airport and see an 

SST with the words ‘Made in the USSR’ on it?” Despite the defeat in the Congress, Volpe kept a 

model of the SST on his desk for the remainder of his term in office. [Kilgore, p. 189]) 

Kheel said of the coalition: 
147 

We are determined to take on the most powerful lobby this country has created—the 

automobile industry; insurance and real estate companies; the road builders and construction 

industry; the oil companies and all their cohorts at the Federal Highway Administration—

and start demanding that this Administration and the ones that follow it put a stop to this 

carnage on our roads and in our cities. 

The Highway Trust Fund is going to be “busted open.” We must begin to use this fantastic 

resource in cities and states for the kind of transportation that serves people, not machines. 

The Interstate System, he said, “has wreaked havoc in our countryside and in urban areas; it must be 

declared completed and halted now.” He wanted to open the Highway Trust Fund to public 

suggestions on the best use of its revenue. He advocated a moratorium on urban highway 

construction “until we can begin to re-dress the past imbalance and provide public transportation 

that is cheap, pollution-free, efficient and available to all who need it.” 

In a press conference in Washington on September 23, he expressed special concern for the 

disadvantaged: 

The poor are walled in by concrete monsters we call superhighways; he cannot afford the 

luxury of an automobile to travel to outlying suburbs where the jobs are. The handicapped 

[are] forced to live a restricted life because adequate public transportation is either not 

available or so expensive as to make it unacceptable. The young are denied mobility except 

through media demands that they fulfill their sex life through the roaring, gadget-filled 

automobile. [“Kheel: Block Road $,” The New York Post, September 23, 1971] 

The coalition was focused on the legislation that would be needed in 1972 to reauthorize the 

Federal-aid highway program. For the highway community, The Christian Science Monitor noted, 

“its road may be rougher than ever before.” It said: 

Strong forces are gathering for another bid to divert some of the more than $5.6 billion a 

year that pours into the trust fund to support other transportation projects, especially 

building new mass-transit systems. In the past, highway interests have been able to turn 

back decisively efforts to spend the money generated by highway-user taxes for anything but 

roads. But this time they may have to make some tactical concessions. 

The coalition saw positive signs, including the presidential election in 1972. “Voter enchantment 

with highway building has been fading ever since interstate-system construction stopped 

concentrating on long-haul expressways and began pushing through urban neighborhood.” The 

newspaper predicted that, “Democratic presidential hopefuls will rival each other with plans for 

tapping trust fund revenues to build balanced transportation systems.” [McKinsey, Philip W., 

“Environmentalists Challenge Highway Lobby Over Funds,” The Christian Science Monitor, 

December 23, 1971] 

The contrast between the Highway Action Coalition and the highway lobbyists who frequented

Capitol Hill was stark, as Lewis pointed out:
148 

To some, the coalition’s staff looked like sixties flower children who had gone to seed. Tiedyed shirts, jeans, and sandals seemed to be the uniform for the staff of four. Mangy 

furniture, guitars, and grime were the most prominent features of their shabby seventh-floor 

offices on Dupont Circle [in Washington]. The contrast with their more established and 

wealthy adversaries could not have been more striking. Officials of the American 

Association of State Highway Officials and the American Road Builders Association 

generally dressed in dark suits and conservative ties. The road builders had built their 

quarters close to the new Department of Transportation building, while the highway 

officials preferred a gleaming building on North Capitol Street, close to the offices of the 

senators and representatives whom they so ardently courted. 

John D. Kramer, the executive director of the coalition, took home a weekly salary of $75, which 

was lower than the lobbyists’ daily expensive accounts: 

Yet Kramer had been brash enough to suggest in December 1971 that “in maybe just two 

years, we can open up the Highway Trust Fund to broader purposes, like mass transit.” The 

executive director made up for the coalition’s lack of funds by tapping the growing reservoir 

of resentment about urban Interstates. [Lewis, p. 225-226] 

As of late October 1971, the coalition had raised only about $500 to run its Washington office. 

Barbara J. Reid, a codirector of the coalition and legislative director of Environmental Action, told 

National Journal that her group was “no match in terms of resources for the all-powerful highway 

lobby.” They could not duplicate the lobby’s tactics: 

We don’t buy votes. We don’t buy politicians. We are trying to educate people to turn their 

politics around so that their thinking will have an impact in Washington. 

The coalition would not endorse pending bills, all of which were considered inadequate. Instead, 

National Journal listed what Miss Reid called the main elements of the sound, balanced 

transportation plan the coalition advocated: 

• a transportation trust fund in place of the Highway Trust Fund. 

• a system in which highway-user taxes from urban areas are devoted to transportation 

expenditures in urban areas. 

• a government declaration that the interstate system is complete “so that the 80 per cent of 

federal ground transportation funds which annually go to construct the system” can be used 

for other kinds of transportation. 

• more citizen participation at all levels and federal grants to assist citizens’ groups in 

collecting technical data and formulating planning concepts. 

• increased taxes on trucks to pay for their wear and tear of highways.

• no more new rights of way for urban freeways.

• payments from the new transportation trust fund for all social, environmental and economic 

costs of transportation, including traffic control systems, safety programs, maintenance of 

present transportation systems, capital expenditures and operating costs of public 
149 

transportation, beautification, air and noise pollution programs, relocation costs and the 

upgrading of commuter railroads. 

As mentioned earlier, legislative proposals had been introduced during the year that would shake up 

the status quo. Senators Kennedy and Representative Koch had introduced a bill in January that 

would combine revenue credited to the Highway Trust Fund and the Airport and Airways Trust 

Fund into one trust fund for all transportation. The automobile excise tax would be transferred 

from the general Treasury to the new Transportation Trust Fund. Senator Percy also had introduced 

a transportation trust fund bill. In addition, Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-Wi.) had introduced a bill 

that would allow States to use Highway Trust Fund revenues for urban mass transportation 

proposals, while Representative Ryan had introduced a comparable bill. 

The Governor’s Conference also had adopted a new policy on the Highway Trust Fund. In 1969, 

the Governors had proposed that the Department of Transportation study transportation policy, but 

rejected inclusion of consideration of a Transportation Trust Fund. In 1970, the Governors had 

strongly endorsed the Highway Trust Fund, but also a Mass Transit Trust Fund and limited 

flexibility for Governors to transfer funds among the Trust Funds. The new position, adopted in 

September 1971, said: 

We call for the creation of a unified transportation trust fund incorporating existing 

transportation revenues earmarked for use within a specific mode of transportation or by 

beginning a phased program of percentage transfers from the highway and aviation trust 

funds and other funds made available for transportation into the proposed unified national 

transportation trust fund. 

Conference special assistant H. Michael Dye told the National Journal that the Governors wanted 

to reassert their decisionmaking authority in the face of efforts by State highway officials in the 

State legislatures.

The magazine interviewed Under Secretary Beggs about the issue:

Beggs said the transportation trust fund, long favored by Transportation Secretary Volpe, 

has been shelved temporarily in favor of the President’s special transportation revenuesharing plan sent to Congress on March 17. 

Volpe on several occasions has outlined a plan to convert the Highway Trust Fund to a 

transportation trust fund with designated accounts for air, rail and ground systems. Under 

the plan, each mode would have its own source of revenue from user taxes, with some 

spillover allowed from one account to another. 

“I am sure that Secretary Volpe would push the transportation trust fund idea again if 

transportation revenue sharing were not enacted.” 

Even ARBA, which only the year before had wanted to extend the Highway Trust Fund through FY 

1985, was at least considering the idea of a Transportation Trust Fund. An advisory group had 
150 

recommended that ARBA’s board of directors support creation of a Transportation Trust Fund. 

Director of Public Relations T. Randolph Russell explained that the advisors knew that OMB 

opposed the Highway Trust Fund. “We feel it is in the cards that some modifications of the trust 

fund are coming up. Consequently we felt that we ought to take the lead in supporting a 

transportation trust fund.” The board, however, rejected the idea because it “scared some people 

right away.” 

Another factor was the change in congressional leadership. In the House, Representative Blatnik 

was the new Chairman of the Committee on Public Works. Senator Birch Bayh (D-In.) would be 

chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Roads, a position that Senator Randolph had held in 

addition to his role as Chairman of the Public Works Committee. Observers considered 

Representative Blatnik and Senator Bayh to be “open-minded” on expanding the Highway Trust 

Fund, although Blatnik thought such proposals were premature. [Hirschberg, Vera, “Transportation 

Report/Mass-Transit Proponents Gather Support for Attack on Highway Trust Fund,” National 

Journal, October 30, 1971, p. 21-28] 

In an interview with the Highway User Federation’s magazine, Blatnik said he thought the public, 

overall, supported the highway program, especially the Interstate System:

It has taken a long time to build this new system, 15 years so far, and during the course of its 

construction some people have lost sight of the overall benefits and others, unfortunately, 

have had their lives adversely affected by it. We cannot ignore or blame either group for not 

being more enthusiastic. We can and should do more to keep the public better informed as 

to the need for improvement of highways and the benefits to be derived from their use. 

Asked if he expected pressure for new uses of the Highway Trust Fund, including highway 

beautification and other modes of transportation, the new chairman said: 

There have always been pressures for expanded uses for the Trust Fund, from its inception 

in the 1956 Act, and you are quite correct that the 91st Congress widened the application of 

the fund somewhat in enacting the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970. I can’t envision these 

pressures diminishing in the immediate future, and, in fact, the trend seems to be the other 

way. There is even a movement underway to replace the Highway Trust Fund entirely and 

set up in its place a national Transportation Trust Fund . . . . While I try to keep my own 

mind open to change, I do feel that any drastic change in that direction ought to be brought 

about only after there has been developed a case strong enough to justify it. 

He thought that “some valid and thought-provoking arguments” could be made in support of 

allowing States to transfer a certain percentage of Highway Trust Fund revenue among modes as 

the National Governors’ Conference had proposed in 1970 or a transportation trust fund as 

suggested by Secretary Volpe. He did not think Congress should “be blind” to the arguments for 

such an approach, but said that, “Our overriding concern must be what is best for the nation.” 

Although he thought the facts would support the “continuing need for funding highway programs 

pretty much as we have and possibly more . . . we must keep an open mind to all features, including 

the methods of financing.” 
151 

The public, Blatnik thought, supported the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for highway-related 

activities, such as replacement housing, but might initially object to the use of the revenue for 

nonhighway modes. He reserved judgment in the absence of a specific proposal. [O’Toole, 

Stephen E., “. . . a forward look . . .” Highway User, February 1971, p. 8-10] 

During 1971, several anti-highway books were published, including: 

• Burby, John, The Great American Motion Sickness: or Why You Can’t Get There From 

Here, Little, Brown. 

• Kelley, Ben, The Pavers and the Paved: The Real Cost of America’s Highway Program, 

Donald W. Brown, Inc. 

• Robinson, John, Highways and Our Environment, McGraw-Hill Book Company. 

• Schneider, Kenneth R., Autokind vs. Mankind: An Analysis of Tyranny, a Proposal for 

Rebellion, a Plan for Reconstruction, W. W. Norton. 

• Stone, Tabor R., Beyond the Automobile: Reshaping the Transportation Environment, 

Prentice-Hall.

• Williams, Jr., Ernest W., Editor, The Future of American Transportation, Prentice-Hall.

 

Burby, whose book was cited earlier, covered the range of transportation modes, but Thomas R. 

Reid III summarized the book’s viewpoint in a review in The Washington Post: 

In fact, as John Burby’s book makes clear, the Department of Transportation’s greatest 

failing has been its propensity to spend too much money promoting the wrong modes of 

transportation. In doing so, the department is carrying out the wishes of its political masters 

in Congress, who generally seem to be more concerned about the business interests of the 

transportation industry than about the needs of the public. [Reid III, Thomas R., “The 

Unregulated Transportation Mess,” The Washington Post, August 3, 1971] 

Mainstream magazines entered the debate. Fortune covered the debate in its July 1971 issue, 

quoted earlier. Juan Cameron acknowledged the scope and significance of the Interstate System, 

quoting Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then known as a former White House advisor, as saying future 

generations would “almost certainly judge [the Interstate System] to have had more influence on the 

shape and development of American cities and employment than any initiative of the middle third 

of the twentieth century.” He added, “If anyone had realized the sheer magnitude of the interests 

affected by this road system, it is impossible to imagine that it would ever have been built.” 

Fierce opposition was now threatening the remaining mileage, as Cameron explained: 

The great irony of the Interstate is that opposition evoked by the changes it had brought now 

threatens to prevent completion of the System . . . . [The] mid-1960’s saw the emergence of 

what has become a virtual highway rebellion. Today it is almost impossible to get a major 

Interstate project approved in most U.S. cities. 

Cameron quoted Administrator Turner as downplaying the opposition as the “carping of a few 

dedicated critics” who “are blinded by their desire to discredit” the Interstate program. 
152 

Noting that the Highway Trust Fund had been called “a guaranteed annual wage for the highway 

industry,” Cameron discussed the States’ $320 billion worth of post-Interstate needs. James 

Dingwall, chief engineer of the Texas Highway Department, explained why these needs should be 

met. “In Texas the automobile is a way of life . . . . Until someone overcomes gravity our people 

are going to be on rubber tires.” Cameron also quoted Alfred E. “Alf” Johnson, AASHO’s 

executive director, as sniping at “policy makers” in Washington and other urban centers who 

“haven’t any idea of what transportation is in the rest of the country”: 

Among the policy makers he has in mind are the transportation planners on Secretary 

Volpe’s staff and the influential John Ehrlichman, a White House assistant who formulated 

President Nixon’s recent proposal to tap the highway trust fund for other kinds of 

transportation projects that governors might decide were needed. Johnson fumes, too, at the 

diversion of federal trust-funded monies away from construction as a result of legislative 

changes in recent years. Environmental and social aids, he notes, now absorb a substantial 

portion of federal highway money. “The relocation assistance, your double hearings, your 

environment, your conservation, your urban designs, your equal opportunity—those are all 

things that cost money. And a lot of these costs are for cosmetics, whose value is dubious.” 

What seemed clear was that a reordering of transportation priorities was on the horizon, possibly 

sooner than later. “The challenge is to cope with increased flows of people and goods without 

building more of the same—to make more efficient use of existing highways and to strengthen 

public transportation.” [Cameron, p. 28-33] 

Business Week profiled the Highway Action Coalition in the issue of December 11, 1971. “The 

militancy of the critics and the broadening base of public involvement in mass-transit issues will 

force the government to make a substantially better effort.” Although some observers” thought the 

coalition could make better use of its energies boosting UMTA, the group’s spokesman, John 

Kramer, thought the time was right for a frontal assault. “We know such funds can be abused, as 

uses are thought up to keep them going. But we like the guarantee of massive funds in the initial 

stages of a capital-intensive program like mass transit.” [“Ecologists Attack the Highway Trust 

Fund,” Business Week, December 11, 1971, p. 8-10] 

Jack Anderson, the widely read muckraking columnist, wrote in January of a “blistering” study by 

the Urban Law Institute about the clash between the Federal-aid highway program and the Federal 

model cities program. The column began: 

The federal government has let two of its most promising projects strangle each other like “a 

brainless octopus ignorant of the activity of its own arms.” This “foolish and wasteful” 

conflict between the multi-billion dollar federal highway system and the model cities 

program is costing the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Charles Sevilla, author of the report, declared:

The poor . . . pay with their homes and community so that the suburban commuter can make 

his daily sojourn in and out of the city. Highways are choking inner-city streets with traffic, 
153 

enticing transit riders into their automobiles . . . and thus killing transit companies, and 

consuming billions of dollars each year that might be more efficiently used for mass 

transportation. 

Anderson said that the loser in these conflicts was usually the Model City program, “despite federal 

laws that the state must guarantee adequate housing to displaced inner-city residents.” The report 

described the problem: 

There appears to be a nationwide trend by state highway departments to falsify certifications 

to the federal highways officials of the existence of adequate housing. The collusion of 

federal officials in this process is a sorry commentary on the vigor of our national 

commitment to right the wrongs the highway program has inflicted on the poor. 

At the heart of the problem was the requirement that Highway Trust Fund dollars must be spent on 

highways. Sevilla suggested the solution would be to let inner-city residents decide when they need 

urban highways. Anderson wrote: 

Some federal officials have refused even to sit down with inner-city leaders and discuss the 

highway plans. 

The study concludes that the city’s highways, “its circulatory system,” is “proving 

cancerous” through traffic jams, auto pollution and deafening noise. [Anderson, Jack, “Poor 

are Paying for U.S. Highways,” The Washington Merry-Go-Round, The Washington Post, 

date unknown, early January 1971] 

Anderson returned in September with a leaked document revealing a plot inside the Transportation 

Department “to block the construction of new rail systems to relieve the traffic in our congested, 

car-clogged cities.” The highway lobby had instigated the opposition because it “wants the 

government instead to build more freeways.” 

The subject of the leak was Administrator Turner, “who always jumps when the highway lobby 

honks.” He was “eager to entangle America in freeways and to pave over anything that gets in the 

way.” Turner had frequently spoken about the value of mass transit in the form of buses, and had 

often criticized rail transit plans. Now, during a flight from Atlanta on “the Secretary’s sleek Coast 

Guard jet,” Turner had taken advantage of the opportunity “to fill Volpe’s ear with arguments 

against subways.” Arriving in Washington, Turner thought he had the Secretary’s approval to draft 

a policy statement ending new subway starts – “all he needed was the routine acquiescence of 

Urban Mass Transportation czar C. C. Villarreal.” 

Turner, Anderson wrote, drafted a five-page memorandum for Volpe’s signature agreeing to 

“discourage construction of entirely new rail-transit systems in cities that presently do not have any 

existing or under construction.” Villarreal returned the draft to Turner “with a sharp note saying 

Turner’s views were inconsistent with his own.” Reached by Anderson or a member of his staff, 

Turner acknowledged the draft was one of his internal documents. His staff wrote numerous 

memoranda, he said, but that one “bears my name, and I have to take the responsibility for it.” He 
154 

was trying to resolve the differences with Villarreal. [Anderson, Jack, “Anti-Subway Plot,” The 

Washington Post, September 11, 1971] 

To counter criticism from across the broad spectrum of the media, the highway interests had 

merged three of their lobbying organizations. Beginning in January 1970, the Automobile Safety 

Foundation, the National Highway Users Conference, and the Auto Industry Safety Committee 

became the Highway Users Federation for Safety and Mobility (HUFSAM). The stated purpose of 

the consolidation was to create a strong organization to lead in the “development of adequate 

highways and the advancement of highway safety.” The new group was headed by D. Grant 

Mickle, who had been with the Automotive Safety foundation since 1943. He also had been the 

first Deputy Federal Highway Administrator, taking the oath of office for the new position on 

October 17, 1961, and serving into 1963. 

Burby wrote: 

With a name like Highway Users Federation for Safety and Mobility, from the outset the 

new group had to waste a great deal of its energy denying it was a new umbrella group put 

together to lead the highway lobby’s fight to save the Trust Fund. The denials sounded 

rather feeble after the federation’s first piece of literature appeared on June 1, urging civic 

groups, politicians, writers and others on a mailing list of thousands to “. . . Act Now! The 

Highway Trust Fund should be continued on a permanent basis for highways – with none of 

its money diverted. Now is the time to say, loud and clear, I want the money I pay for 

highways used for highways.” [Burby, p. 311-312; “”Consolidation,” Better Roads, 

December 1969, p. 10] 

Two weeks later, Anderson reported on another leak, this time regarding a plan by the highway 

lobby to dispatch “truth squads” to conduct a “name-calling” campaign against the 

environmentalists:

The lobby will use a false front, ironically, to spread its version of the “truth.” A phony 

“Speakers’ Bureau” will send out highway spokesmen, disguised as legitimate lecturers, to 

attack the ecology movement. Their speeches will be carefully written for them by the 

lobby. Its chief propagandist, John Gibbons, estimated in a confidential memo that “at least 

half a dozen ‘different’ speeches” would have to be written. These canned speeches are 

supposed to provide a “hard-hitting, name calling refutation of the current highway myths.” 

The reason for naming adversaries, Gibbons explained, is to attract attention. “Only this 

invitation to controversy,” he wrote, “can be expected to get the attention of the media 

which is desired.” 

The HUFSAM campaign would focus on cities “where conservationists have been most effective at 

stopping the encroachment of highways and freeways,” according to Anderson. He quoted Gibbons 

as saying:

Forces are building up both inside the federation and outside, which demand we do 

something big and now to counteract the constant bombardment of highway critics. 
155 

The lobbyists would focus on name-calling environmentalists who talked about “air pollution; land 

use; destroying urban life; the evil highway lobby . . . housing dislocation; and assorted ecological 

(subjects) involving parks, wildlife, natural resources, etc.” [Anderson, Jack, “Road Lobby to 

Assail Ecologists,” The Washington Post, September 25, 1971] 

One of the surprising new factors working against highways, both in project development and as a 

subject for media debate, was the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), signed by 

President Nixon on January 1, 1970. At the time of passage, Congress, the President, and most 

observers thought its main provision was creation of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). 

 Instead of waiting for environmental disasters and then reacting to them, CEQ was intended to plan 

how to avoid problems before they occurred or turned into catastrophes. Little notice, even during 

debate in the House and Senate, was paid to the “action-forcing mechanism” that would soon be 

known as the environmental impact statement. By requiring a review for each major Federal action, 

NEPA provided an opening for opponents to take State highway agencies and FHWA to court to 

block projects under the Administrative Practices Act. 

Opponents had been using environmental laws in the courts to block highway projects, but NEPA 

transformed the opposition. Environmental groups with attorneys took over project opposition 

from property owners who had led the battles of the 1960s. FHWA’s Kussy recalled the transition: 

The evolution of NEPA from a short, seemingly innocuous charge to generally consider the 

environmental consequences of federal actions, to the procedurally precise, overarching 

requirement that it has become is one of the major events in environmental law. 

To underscore how unexpected the development of NEPA really has been, it does well to 

consider that at the time of its enactment, congress estimated that the cost of NEPA, 

including the amount of staff time needed to implement the act governmentwide, would be 

$1 million/year. When I began my legal career with the Pennsylvania Department of 

Transportation in 1971, major environmental litigation under NEPA was just starting, and 

the department’s initial way of improving its NEPA documents was to hire a science writer. 

 The environmental staffs that soon became the norm were only beginning to be set up. 

NEPA became effective on January 1, 1970. However, by administrative action, FHWA 

sought to delay its effective date for 1 year. This resulted in a lawsuit that was settled by 

requiring literally hundreds of documents to be prepared to make up for the delay. 

At the time of Kussy’s presentation, approximately 6,000 cases had been filed under NEPA, with 

roughly 10 percent of them involving the Federal-aid highway program. [Kussy, p. 12] 

(For the origins of NEPA and how FHWA and the State highway agencies implemented it, see 

“Addressing the Quiet Crisis: Origins of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969” at 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/nepa/index.cfm.) 

To bolster its case, HUFSAM published a 40-page brochure by Peter G. Koltnow called Successful 

Cities citing Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, Phoenix, San Diego, Tulsa, and Winston-Salem for the way 
156 

they addressed their transportation problems. A brief review of the pamphlet in the November 1971 

issue of The American City said of the cities:

All apparently have a vigorous state freeway program, a traffic engineering [sic] that is 

considered good, control over operation of the arterial street systems and a stable and 

competent staff. Mass transit is not a prime consideration in these success stories—

unfortunately. [Book Reviews and Report, The American City, November 1971, p. 58-59] 

Two AASHO panels, held a year apart at annual meetings, illustrate how highway supporters 

viewed the shifting ground. During AASHO’s November 1970 annual meeting, one of the featured 

events was a panel discussion with Members of Congress, including Representatives Fallon and 

Kluczynski. Virginia’s Douglas Fugate, AASHO’s outgoing president, moderated the discussion. 

He asked several questions about the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970, then pending in Congress. 

 More broadly, he asked: 

In your opinion, is there any probability that Congress will yield to the anti-highway 

pressure and start cutting back on the program with highway revenues being diverted to 

finance other modes of transportation, and if there is to be a total transportation fund, will 

revenue sources from other transportation modes, in pro rata amounts of the respective 

needs, go into such a trust fund? 

Representative Kluczynski reassured AASHO:

I do not believe that Congress will yield to anti-highway pressures . . . . Down the road we 

may have a so-called total transportation fund. If such develops, however, I would believe 

that the programs placed in it . . . will retain their separate identities and that the Highway 

Trust Fund would continue to exist as a separate entity in a total transportation fund. 

[American Highways, January 1971] 

A year later, on the eve of consideration of the next 2-year reauthorization legislation for the 

Federal-aid highway program, the highway community knew its foes had become stronger. On 

December 6, 1971, AASHO held a similar panel during its annual meeting. In an opening 

statement, Representative Harsha pointed out that “highway critics seem to be growing not only in 

intensity and volume and activity but they are also developing rather ingenious methods with which 

to invade the Highway Trust Fund.” In part because of the media’s focus, 1972 would be “a very 

crucial year for the Federal-aid highway program.” The anti-highway attacks were having their 

effect, he said, and Members of Congress “who have not been aligned heretofore with the antihighway coalition, now seem to be aligned with it.” 

In his view, 1972 would be “a year of reckoning insofar as a so-called ‘after ’75 highway program’ 

is concerned.” He added:

As I say, if we do not do it next year it may be two or more years before the legislation can 

be considered, and this gives the opponents of the highway program an opportunity to 

enhance their ranks and to increase their arguments. [American Highways, January 1972] 
157 

The Highway Action Coalition agreed, as Kheel explained:

At long last, Americans are becoming aware of a new version of crime in the streets: The 

pollution of our cities and carnage on our highways. I mean the distorted governmental 

preference for the auto and the dominance of highways in federal transportation policy. 

[“Ecologists Attack the Highway Trust Fund,” Business Week, December 11, 1971, p. 8] 

Thwarting the Will of Congress 

Even as President Nixon sent the transportation revenue sharing proposal to Congress, he revived 

the hard feelings about impoundment. Appearing before the House Appropriations Committee in 

late February, OMB Director Shultz released a preliminary estimate that the Administration would 

impound $8 billion, mostly in domestic funds. While Members of Congress and interests affected 

by the likely freeze criticized the action, Senator Ervin’s Subcommittee on Separation of 

Governmental Powers held hearings on the issue. 

On March 23, 1971, former Secretary of the Interior Steward L. Udall appeared before the 

subcommittee to urge Congress to force “a confrontation with the President” on the practice. 

Chairman Ervin agreed the practice was objectionable, whether the President was Republican or 

Democratic. He said that $12.2 billion in appropriated funds were being held up. [“Nixon Asks $8 

billion Added Funds,” The Washington Post, March 24, 1971] 

The Senator’s total included $5.5 billion in highway funds. When Federal Highway Administrator 

Turner appeared before the subcommittee that same day, he described previous actions, including 

the most recent:

On September 4, 1969, President Nixon directed a 75 percent reduction in new construction 

by the Federal Government. Also, the President urged the States and local governments to 

follow the example of the Federal Government by cutting back temporarily on their own 

construction plans. 

After pointing out that the States initiated Federal-aid projects, Turner continued: 

No further steps were taken to prescribe a specific curtailment of the Federal-aid highway 

program, pending developments in connection with the voluntary action of the States in 

complying with the President’s request. 

He explained how FHWA implemented impoundments: 

The control step that we take within FHWA is to defer the letter authorizing the State 

highway department to advertise for bids. We set maximum limits on the total amount of 

new obligations which the State would be permitted to enter into within a given period of 

time–usually on a quarterly basis . . . . I would like to emphasize that no limitation has 

lasted long enough to affect any lapsing of funds . . . . 
158 

Turner mentioned the Missouri lawsuit and pointed out that the authority for impoundment of 

Federal-aid highway funds had been addressed in two major legal opinions in recent years: 

The first was by the Comptroller General. Senator Randolph and Representative Fallon, 

former Chairman of the House Public Works Committee, asked the Comptroller General 

[Elmer B. Staats] for his opinion of the legality of the 1967 limitation. The Comptroller 

General replied on February 24, 1967, in opinion B-160891. He emphasized that the 

opinion was advisory only and was binding on no one. The Comptroller General advised 

that he found the limitation to be legal as a proper exercise of executive authority [and] so 

long as the executive did not reduce already outstanding Federal obligations (which no 

limitation has done), it had no duty to spend all that Congress appropriates or authorizes to 

be obligated. 

The other opinion on this matter was issued by the Attorney General [Ramsey Clark] on 

February 25, 1967, in answer to the Secretary of Transportation’s request for a clarification 

of the legal issues involved. The Attorney General upheld the legality of the limitation as 

applied to the Federal-aid highway program, at least insofar as the limitation did not affect 

Federal obligations already outstanding. 

On March 24, OMB Deputy Director Weinberger appeared before the subcommittee to defend the 

President’s right to impound funds. He described congressional appropriations as “a direction to be 

followed whenever it’s possible to do so” and said that impoundments were “not a means by which 

the President attempts to thwart the will of Congress.” The President could not be expected to 

automatically spend every appropriation; he “has to be more than a rubber stamp or a messenger 

boy running over to the Treasury.” The goal was not to thwart Congress but to keep spending and 

borrowing within limits to economize or fight inflation. In some cases, the constitutional 

requirement that the President “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” might require him to 

impound funds, but it was not a responsibility, Weinberger said, “to be taken lightly, nor do we take 

it lightly.” [“Fund Impounding by Nixon Backed,” The New York Times, March 25, 1971] 

The impoundment that Director Shultz had discussed in February turned out to involve $12 billion, 

including funds for urban construction, dams, water projects, and highways. Citing the President’s 

war powers, his general authority under the Constitution, and specific language of the 1951 AntiDeficiency Act as justification, the Administration said it was taking action to combat inflation, 

particularly in the construction industry, and stay within congressional limits on the size of the 

public debt and on Federal outlays for the current year. In addition, according to an OMB source, 

about $10 billion was being withheld as a matter of policy because the Administration opposed the 

spending at this time. 

A Washington Post article about reaction to the impoundment reported: 

But the withholding has brought angry criticism from men like House Speaker Carl Albert 

(D-Okla.), Senate Appropriations Chairman Allen J. Ellender (D-La.), Chairman Joe L. 

Evins (D-Tenn.) of the House Public Works Appropriations subcommittee, and Sens. Sam 
159 

J. Ervin Jr. (D-N.C.) and John J. Sparkman (D-Ala.). In comparison with [previous] 

freezes, they complain, the amounts being withheld by Mr. Nixon are unprecedented. 

Senator Ervin considered the action “an unconstitutional assertion of the right of an item veto.” 

Critics suspected the freeze was bait for enactment of revenue sharing or a slush fund to be released 

in 1972 to pump up the economy and the President’s reelection hopes. Senator Ervin was planning 

legislation to require the president to report any proposed impoundment to Congress and giving 

Congress 60 days to veto any such presidential proposal. (As noted earlier, a version of the 

legislation would be enacted in 1974.) 

On August 31, 1971, Secretary Volpe announced three steps, including release of $400 million in 

impounded highway funds, “to increase highway safety and stimulate jobs in areas of high 

unemployment.” He also released the regular FY 1972 second quarter Federal-aid highway funds, 

totaling $1.145 billion, and authorized the FY 1973 apportionments to the States early to allow 

States that had used their FY 1972 funds to get an early start on FY 1973 aid. 

Troubled Transit

As 1971 began, AASHO President and Wisconsin State Highway Engineer W. J. Burmeister had a 

message for the highway community: 

One can’t help wondering “what should be the position of AASHO toward solving our 

future transportation problems, particularly in these urban areas.” 

Obviously, AASHO can’t solve the problem alone, but can help show the way through 

cooperation with organizations involved in complementary transportation systems, through 

an informed Congress and State Legislatures, and through an earnest effort on the part of the 

member departments to fully inform the public of the need for a completely integrated 

transportation system. Highways certainly will play a vital role in whatever form our future 

transportation needs dictate . . . . 

Speaking for AASHO, I would urge everyone involved in highway development, and 

especially the member departments, to be cognizant of our responsibility to recognize the 

social and economic impact of highway development, to continue to give due recognition to 

ecological and environmental features, and to keep the public fully informed of the need for 

continuing highway development in both the urban and rural areas to complement total 

transportation. By so doing, we can gain the public acceptance so vitally necessary to 

permit completion of the 42,500-mile Interstate System, to improve the most vital sections 

of the Primary and Secondary Systems, and to develop an Urban System to provide the 

traffic circulation so essentially necessary to the urban areas. [Burmeister, W. J., “Looking 

to 1971,” Better Roads, January 1971, p. 37-38] 

Even as the highway community tried to regain public support, State and local officials around the 

country were desperately seeking ways to pay for urban mass transportation systems that could not 
160 

pay their way through farebox collections. New York City, the Nation’s leader in mass transit, 

illustrated the problem, as The New York Times reported in March: 

The 2.5 million people who ride the subways, buses and commuter railroads to and through 

New York City each weekday will pay $150-million less this year than it costs to run the 

transit systems.

Next year, transit officials estimate the deficit, attributed to rising costs and declining 

patronage, will increase by at least 40 per cent. For now, the officials say they do not know 

where they will get the money except by increasing fares sharply.

Virtually all of metropolitan New York’s major mass transportation lines are in financial 

straits. The Transit Authority faced a 1971 operating deficit of at least $100-million. 

Before Jan. 1 it will enter tough negotiations with transit workers that could drastically 

increase this deficit in 1972. 

The city transit fare—which rose from 20 cents to 30 cents just 14 months ago—seems 

certain to climb to 40 cents or more Jan. 1 unless the Transit Authority can find 

approximately $150-million in new subsidies beyond the more than $125-million that it now 

receives in indirect subsidies from the city and the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. 

 [Lindsey, Robert, “Transit: Ink Gets Redder,” The New York Times, March 8, 1971] 

Metropolitan areas around the country faced variations of the problem, with all seeking ways to pay 

operating expenses, preferably without raising fares or taxes. One option the States considered was 

bond issues, but they came with a price, as a Times editorial pointed out: 

New Yorkers will be given a Hobson’s choice later in the year in the form of a 

transportation referendum without alternatives. If they want to approve a bond issue, they 

will have to sanction a split that apportions $1.35 billion for mass transit but $1.15 billion 

for highways. A voter may feel that the former is a dire necessity and the latter a largely 

wasteful blight on the land, but he will have to take both or neither. 

The price of highway funding was extracted by legislators representing upstate districts outside the 

metropolitan area. The editorial lamented the choice: 

A procedure that can give the people of this state the mass transit they need only if they 

resign themselves to more of what they don’t need—destruction of the countryside, air 

pollution and waste of natural resources—is a procedure in need of drastic re-examination. 

[“What Price Transit?” The New York Times, July 16, 1971] 

As the November 2 vote approached, Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Mayor John Lindsay, both 

liberal Republicans but often at odds with each other, launched a last-minute all-out drive to save 

the referendum, which polls indicated was doomed. Thomas Kheel led the opposition. He 

contended that the State was already $7 billion in debt and could not afford the additional burden. 

In response, Governor Rockefeller called Kheel a “political exhibitionist.” 
161 

The voters defeated the bond issue by a wide margin, with upstate opposition combined with 

surprising defeats in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens. The 

Governor said, “There’s going to be a lot of suffering in the state because of this,” with transit 

upgrading and highway projects threatened. The defeat also left Governor Rockefeller’s plan to 

build a bridge across Long Island Sound from Oyster Bay to Rye without a source of funds. [All 

from The New York Times: Lynn, Frank, “Fate of Bonds Shaky in Tomorrow’s Vote,” November 

1, 1971; “State Bond Plan the Major Issue for Voters Today,” November 2, 1971; “State Transit 

Bond Issue is Voted Down Despite Rockefeller-Lindsay Campaign”; and Prial, Frank J., 

“Rockefeller and Lindsay Differ on Ways of Saving Transit Fare; Bond Loss Deepens Fiscal 

Crisis,” November 4, 1971] 

On January 5, 1972, the city increased the subway fare from 30 cents to 35 cents. 

Transit systems in other big cities were facing similar problems. Chicago Mayor Daley discussed 

the issue in a speech before the 3-day Fifth International Conference on Urban Transportation in 

Pittsburgh in September 1971: 

I know [I speak for] all mayors in not questioning the need for building highways, but we do 

question the priorities they have received and more important, what they continue to receive. 

The preferential treatment for highways should be ended, especially since it appears that the 

future of the expressway system is rather dim without the use of an efficient mass transit 

system . . . . 

I believe that before considering expansion of the interstate highway system we should give 

realistic federal aid to mass transit systems, including the development of correlatory [sic] 

facilities, such as parking lots, park-and-ride facilities, new rolling stock for busses [sic], 

improved terminal facilities, and the improvement of our arterial streets.

He criticized Federal funding levels for transit as well as the view that the “users of mass transit 

should assume the whole burden of paying for it, and if mass transit could not compete with the 

automobile, that was just too bad.” He regretted that the President and OMB had not approved 

Secretary Volpe’s full recommendation for transit ($900 million instead of OMB’s $600 million) 

and said that “federal financing is not only too little but it fails to provide one of the basic elements 

we need, the contract authority essential for realistic planning and construction.” 

James M. McConnon, chairman of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority 

(SEPTA), criticized President Nixon’s decision to eliminate the automobile excise tax, arguing it 

would put more cars on the road. As reported in The Journal of Commerce, he recommended equal 

matching shares for Federal transportation dollars: 

“There can be no defensible basis,” he said, “for federal insistence upon one-third local 

matching funds for public transportation at the same time only 10 per cent local financing is 

required for interstate highway construction . . . .” 
162 

Mr. McConnon said that states and cities should utilize their regulatory powers to control 

and limit urban traffic and promote public transportation. He suggested restricting selected 

streets and areas for public transport, improving and enforcing parking ordinances, 

provision of selected bus lanes in multiple lane roads in suburban regions, assessment of 

special fees for private traffic in some urban areas, and rigid control of through traffic on 

city center streets. He also asked for an end to federal prohibition against local community 

collection of tolls on federal roads. 

UMTA Administrator Carlos C. Villareal told the conference he expected the Federal Government 

to obligate $1 billion for mass transit between January 1, 1971 and June 1972. This was possible, 

because OMB had increased the obligation level to $900 million as Secretary Volpe had 

recommended. [Creedy, Judith, “Mass Transit Financing Draws Sharp Criticism,” The Journal of 

Commerce, September 13, 1971] 

Vice President Agnew addressed the conference on September 8 to discuss balanced transportation 

policy with emphasis on “attractive alternatives” to what he called “do-it-youself commuting”: 

I believe we have now learned in this country that transportation is not a matter of either 

good highways or a good urban transit system. We need both, one tying in with the other, if 

it is to be an effective system and really move people. And moving people is what it is all 

about . . . . We should concentrate on the individual and how to best get him from his home 

to school or to work or to the store or to the sports stadium or theater—at a price he can 

afford and without taking all day—whether he drives his own car or rides a bus or train. 

For too long we thought in terms of having either rapid transit or automobiles and trucks as 

the backbone of a city’s transportation. We now know, as our friends overseas have 

accepted all along, that it is a combination of both. We cannot eliminate the motor vehicle. 

But we can reduce the dependence on it by enhancing the attractiveness of other forms of 

transportation. 

The Vice President suggested the cities seeking relief consider Sweden’s progress in building new 

towns in connection with improved mass transit systems: 

What a wonderful opportunity this exciting concept offers for solving the problems of 

overcrowding people as well as automobiles in our own American cities. The creation of 

new towns and satellite cities is our best hope for planned urban expansion and relief of 

many of the problems we now face in the impacted areas of our cities.

He explained that Stockholm had 18 satellite cities, each with a population between 10,000 and 

50,000. These were planned cities with a transit line providing easy access to downtown. Sweden, 

he said, had the highest per capita ownership of automobiles outside the United States, but 90 

percent of its inhabitants reached downtown Stockholm by the transit system.

He reported that the Nixon Administration had doubled mass transit expenditures to $435 million in 

1970, and that figure would reach $900 million in 1971. He pledged the Administration’s 
163 

continued support of urban mass transit systems, which he said could play an important role in 

developing “new towns and satellite cities.”

This emphasis on mass transit did not mean the Administration was going to ignore highways. 

Mass transit systems were needed in urban areas, but highways remained vital. “The automobile is 

still man’s best method of personalized transportation and it can continue to serve that purpose for 

many years to come if we lick the pollution problem and if we keep our highways and streets open.” 

Earlier that day in Pittsburgh, Secretary Volpe had announced a $60 million UMTA grant to the 

Allegheny County Port Authority for Skybus. It was an innovative transit concept developed by 

Westinghouse Electric Corporation of Pittsburgh. The plan involved a fleet of driverless, rubbertired electric transit cars operating under remote control on a 101⁄2 mile roadway, most of it elevated,

between Pittsburgh and South Hill Village. The project included two exclusive roadways totaling 

121⁄2 miles for commuter buses and improvements to two streetcar lines. The grant, Secretary 

Volpe, was the largest ever made to a local mass transit system, and he pledged up to $155 million 

in total grants for the $228-million project. [United Press International, “Agnew Says Transit Can 

Save Cities,” Youngstown Vindicator, September 9, 1971; “The Vice President on Transportation,” 

The Washington Post, September 12, 1971; Lindsey, Robert, “Pittsburgh Given Federal Grant for 

Automated Transit Project,” The New York Times, September 9, 1971] 

(As news coverage of the Volpe announcement made clear, Skybus was controversial. The Port 

Authority board supported Skybus but was divided on the plan, as was the County Commission. 

Mayor Peter F. Flaherty opposed the project. Opponents argued that available funds should be used 

to improve existing railroad lines, not on an untested concept. In 1975, with the estimated cost of 

the initial project up to $400 million, Governor Milton J. Shapp withdrew his support and the 

Skybus plan came to an end. Although local officials hoped to use the Federal funds for other 

transit projects, UMTA withdrew the $60 million awarded in September 1971. 

(The Stockholm model cited by Vice President Agnew was a well-known urban planning concept 

that contrasted with the model adopted by BPR in its reports to Congress on Toll Roads and Free 

Roads (1939, which included the first attempt to describe what became the Interstate System) and 

especially in Interregional Highways (1944, which refined the masterplan described in 1939). The 

BPR model involved a series of circumferentials, including one around the central business district, 

and radials linking the circumferentials as part of a plan to relieve congestion and revive city 

fortunes. Sven Markelius’s General Plan of 1945-52 for Stockholm proposed a balanced 

transportation system that included a high-capacity circumferential supplemented by a new subway 

system built in radials outward from downtown. The city had been buying unoccupied land as early 

as 1904 and, by the time of the Markelius plan, owned virtually all such land within the city limits. 

That land was the ideal location to solve the city’s severe housing shortage. Professor Peter Hall 

described the result:

During 1945-57 the first Tunnelbana [subway] line was built and, based on it, the first 

satellite grouping at Vällingby was completed. It took the form that was to be repeated in 

every subsequent case: a central high-level shopping and service centre . . . serving 80,000-

100,000 people, was supplemented by local district centres; all were connected by the 
164 

subway; residential densities were highest around the major centre, high around the local 

centres, progressively lower away from the centres, so as to bring the maximum number of 

people within walking distance of shops and services, implying that nearly everyone would 

be housed in apartment blocks. This standard prescription varied only slightly through the 

1950s and 1960s, reflecting changes in fashion and the fruits of experience: very high highrises around an open pedestrian mall at Farsta, with three times the car-parking that had 

been provided at Vällingby; a tighter, more enclosed pedestrian mall and low-rise highdensity apartments at Skärholmen, with a further expansion of parking into a vast multistorey [sic] garage for 3,000 cars, the biggest in Scandinavia; an enclosed mall, with direct 

access into the subway station, at Mörby. 

(Urban planners who came from the United States and other countries to see this concept in practice 

were impressed:

And, a visiting sociologist found, in the classic early satellite of Vällingby most people 

seemed well content: as compared with American suburbanites in Levittown the men had 

more time with their children, the women and teenagers found it easier to get around 

without a car, the children had better-planned open space and special services. Even then, 

polled, most said that they would prefer a house to an apartment: a conclusion that the 

sociologist, clearly moonstruck by the quality of Stockholm life, felt must reflect a fault in 

the poll. [Hall, Peter, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and 

Design in the Twentieth Century, Basil Blackwell, 1988, p. 310-311; the visiting sociologist 

was David Popenoe (Suburban Environment: Sweden and the United States, University of 

Chicago Press, 1977, p. 177-201, 236)] 

(These concepts were influential in the United States, but that poll was not flawed. As car 

ownership increased, it affected the willingness to continue expanding based on the Markelius plan: 

In Sweden, single-family homes zoomed from 32 per cent of new housing construction in 

1970 to 55 per cent in 1974 and to over 70 per cent by the late 1970s, responding to 

individual preferences that showed as many as 90 per cent of Swedes preferring houses to 

flats [apartments] . . . . So the car in Europe, as in its first homeland, was an agency of 

suburbanization. [Hall, p. 315]) 

The issue of a transportation trust fund reached the President during a question-and-answer session 

before the Economic Club of Detroit on September 23, 1971. Robert F. Hasting, the head of 

architect/engineering firm Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls Associates (now SmithGroup), asked: 

Mr. President, the American Institute of Architects is preparing recommendations for [a] 

national urbanization policy which we believe is compatible with your national growth 

policy. Central to our recommendations is the use of a national transportation [trust fund] to 

implement such a policy. Would you, Mr. President, feel disposed to support a proposal 

that the Highway Trust Fund expand into a general transportation fund in order to build such 

a national transportation system? 
165 

The President replied:

Mr. Hastings, as you are probably quite aware, you have hit upon about [sic] one of the most 

sensitive political issues we have in this country. I just met with a group of Governors, 

incidentally, enlisting their support, and we have their support in support of the wage price 

freeze. 

If there is one sensitive issue, Governor [William G.] Milliken [of Michigan] will tell you in 

his State it is: "What are you going to do about that Highway Trust Fund?" The same is 

true with regard to the Congress. 

On the other hand, looking toward the future, looking toward a comprehensive 

transportation policy for the country, I believe that we cannot be rigid with regard to the 

Highway Trust Fund. I believe that if the only effective way of solving our mass transit 

problems, our problems of congestion and the rest, is through some approach which would 

use some of these funds in other directions, I think we have to consider it. 

I don't have a specific proposal before me and until I have one, I, of course, will not approve 

it. But I don't think we should enter this problem with a closed mind. 

Although the President was noncommittal, his references to not being rigid about the Highway 

Trust Fund or approaching the issue with a closed mind were encouraging for diversion supporters. 

Efforts to crack open the Highway Trust Fund were intensifying. On behalf of the Highway Action 

Coalition, Kheel observed during National Highway Week in September that his organization was 

determined to “bust the highway trust fund”: 

We are determined to take on the most powerful lobby the country has created—the 

automobile industry, insurance and real estate companies, the road builders and construction 

industry, the oil companies and all of their cohorts at the Federal Highway Administration.

The group had only about $500 to work with, but said in a statement: 

The greater our distorted commitment to the private auto, the greater the inconvenience and 

discrimination experienced by the vast numbers of Americans who either cannot or will not 

drive. There are more than 110 million wage earning heads of households who have 

incomes under $4,000 a year. A fifth of all American families do not own a car and over 

100 million Americans do not have drivers’ licenses. 

The coalition wanted a moratorium on urban freeway construction as well as “the interstate system 

be declared completed and stopped now.” Speaking of the Highway Trust Fund, Kheel said, “We 

must begin to use this fantastic resource in cities and states for the kind of transportation that serves 

people, not machines.” [“Kheel: Block Road $,” The New York Post, September 23, 1971; Kole, 

John W., Milwaukee Journal, September 26, 1971] 

On September 23, the Senate Committee on Commerce held a hearing on three transportation bills. 

 Chairman Magnuson introduced the first bill, which authorized the Secretary of Transportation to 
166 

provide for comprehensive regional planning and development of transportation (S. 2279). Second 

was Senator Kennedy’s bill from the previous Congress to establish a national transportation trust 

fund, now numbered S. 295. The third, S. 1344, would establish a national transportation trust 

fund, but also call on the Secretary of Transportation to formulate a national transportation 

development plan that considered the views of representative public organizations and included a 

formula for allocating funds among the modes. 

Senator Kennedy, the first witness, urged the committee to combine the best features of the three 

bills: a national transportation trust fund; comprehensive multimodal regional planning; and “a 

system that insures an allocation of Federal funds in proportion to the critical transportation 

requirements of this Nation in this decade, with the first priority being adequate funding to the 

transportation needs of the urban areas.” Under the present “hydraheaded system,” the “signs of 

major illness within our transportation system are not hard to discover.” The signs included the fact 

that the Federal Government “spent $3.3 billion on interstate highways last year, yet nearly every 

major public transit system lost millions of dollars and their pleas for Federal assistance to cover 

right-of-way maintenance went unheeded.” No State or region could develop a comprehensive plan 

for allocating resources:

The Federal Government, through law and practice, has prompted a rigid misallocation of 

resources as a side effect of its attempt to stimulate the construction of an Interstate 

Highway System and long-distance air travel.

It is to end this distortion and to permit a flexible response to changing conditions that I 

strongly urge creation of a national transportation trust fund. 

He acknowledged that the benefits of the Nation’s highways were “enormous,” but cities could “no 

longer afford to give up two-thirds of the land to the accessories of the automobile, to the highways, 

to the roads, to the parking facilities.” 

He summarized the sources of revenue for his proposal, namely the existing trust funds and the 7-

percent excise tax on the purchase of new automobiles, for an annual total of about $8 billion. To 

receive funds from the new trust fund, each State must have a single transportation agency that 

designs comprehensive, multimodal, statewide transportation plans that cover urban areas over 

50,000 population. He suggested that the final bill “spell out in detail the requirement that the passthrough mechanism assure adequate funding within the State to urban areas, permitting them block 

grants to carry out their comprehensive transportation plan.” Through this same pass-through 

mechanism, urban areas should receive funds for comprehensive transportation planning. 

The goal was to rectify the fundamental problem of the past 15 years: 

[The] States and cities have a simple choice foisted upon them by . . . Federal legislation: 

build highways or build nothing. They are lured by the availability of 10-cent Federal 

dollars, if they build highways. And so they build highways and the Nation’s changing 

transportation needs go unmet. 
167 

He concluded his statement to the committee by saying:

Mr. Chairman, we have seen the failures of separate transportation planning and single 

mode financing in the past, and the time is long overdue for a coherent national 

transportation policy which will remedy these failures. I believe the enactment of legislation

incorporating comprehensive, multimodal planning at regional, State, and local levels and 

the creation of a national transportation trust fund would place this Nation on the path to 

resolving its transportation needs in the coming decade. 

Senator Howard W. Cannon (D-Co.), who chaired the hearing in Chairman Magnuson’s absence, 

said that he had helped create the Airport and Airways Trust Fund and recalled “the battles that we 

had [in order] to get as far as we did.” As an example, he said:

One of the concessions we had to make was the elimination of airport access roads as being 

eligible under the Airport-Airways Act. We had to concede on that to try to get something, 

and we have even yet not enough funds to keep up with the development of the airports and 

airways themselves.

He recalled this struggle as a preface to this comment to Senator Kennedy: 

So I think we would have a very difficult time in trying to combine everything into one trust 

fund, the so-called users’ trust fund, to make this type of a broad pool, let’s say, to solve all 

the needs out of one budget. I think we would have a very difficult time legislative wise.

He asked if Senator Kennedy “as a practical matter” thought he “could actually sell to people” the 

idea that they should pay for one mode of transportation but the revenue should be used for other 

modes. 

Senator Kennedy suggested that consumers paying into the Airport and Airways Trust Fund might 

be convinced that “the most difficult part of flying from Boston to Washington is in getting from 

his home to Logan Airport.” If the consumer could be convinced of the value of using mass transit 

to get to and from the airport, “then I think they would be willing to have airport taxes go to mass 

transit.” Another argument might be to point out that “those that live in the urban areas wonder 

why only $1 out of every $2 in highway user taxes collected from them comes back to the cities.” 

By pointing out such inequities, he thought public support might grow for a single transportation 

trust fund. [National Transportation Act of 1971, Hearing before the Committee on Commerce, 

United States Senate, 92nd Congress, 1st Session, September 23, 1971, Serial No. 92-87, p. 67-73] 

Senator Kennedy based some of his comments on transportation in Boston. Governor Sargent, who 

appeared before the committee later that day, reinforced Senator Kennedy’s observations. He 

explained that the National Governors’ Conference had adopted policy positions during a meeting 

in Puerto Rico a week earlier. He emphasized two of the positions. “States should continue to 

establish departments of transportation to provide for consolidated and coordinated transportation 

policy.” In addition, Congress should create a single unified transportation trust fund “to give the 
168 

Governors the authority to transfer funds among various programs to meet their States [sic] 

transportation needs in addition to special revenue sharing for transportation.” 

The National Governors’ Conference had supported a unified trust fund for several years because it 

would allow give each Governor the “option of spending their transportation allocations in areas of 

vital need, be it mass transit, airports, or highways.” 

The National Governors’ Conference opposed S. 2279 “as it permits the creation of regional 

authorities that could in effect supersede the Governor in defining each State’s transportation 

priorities.” Governor Sargent explained: 

The State role in transportation planning and implementation is of major importance, both 

technically and financially, as States attempt to develop comprehensive programs to meet 

the current needs of society . . . . The States’ awareness of the complex issues in the 

transportation field is evidenced by the growing number of State Departments of 

Transportation . . . . Because of the comprehensive approach needed, the Governor and the 

State must play a very active role in meeting these responsibilities. To shackle him with a 

veto by the local units of government will not provide him with the capability to respond to 

the needs of a more than small geographic area.

Everyone understood “the difficult problem and the challenge that we face” in trying to “keep our 

Nation’s transportation system not only the envy of other nations, but also totally responsive to our 

needs.” Those needs varied from State to State. “I ask you today to give us the ability and the 

assistance that is vital in solving our transportation problems.” [National Transportation Act of 

1971, p. 86-88] 

Theodore Kheel appeared before the committee on behalf of the Highway Action Coalition. He 

introduced a lengthy prepared statement for the record, but spent much of his initial comments on 

the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The discussion illustrated how the proposed 

regional authorities could not be confined within State boundaries or even a grouping of States. 

Distinctions had to be made, Kheel said, between the transportation of people and goods as well as 

between short-haul and long-haul transportation: 

The airplane is not in competition with the subway. But the automobile is in competition 

with the subway and the bus and commuter railroad. Our major crisis is the crisis of cities 

created by the inability of people to get from their homes to their jobs and back to their 

homes again.

And when we talk about a balance in coordinated systems of transportation, it is that balance 

that we have to have because in the last 21 years, since the end of World War II, which 

really marks the beginning of the automobile age in a big way, and 1949 is really the key 

year, because it took 3 years for the automobile companies to tool up and get the cars out 

after the war had ended . . . we have gone on an automobile binge since that time. 
169 

His prepared statement indicated that “the crisis in mass transportation must rank at the top of the 

most serious problems this nation faces.” He recognized “the understandable affection for the 

automobile,” but this affection had been “played upon by the promotional skills of the highway 

lobby.” Meanwhile, the Nation neglected “the form of transportation still indispensable to enable 

most people to get to and from work.” The result was that “we face the twin and related problems 

of congested and polluted streets and deteriorated and deficient mass transportation.” 

He said the “most dangerous consequence of imbalance in transportation policy is the decline of 

public transportation systems.” While transit companies went out of business and public lines 

operated at a loss, the Nation was “subsidizing the automobile commuter by an amount at least ten 

times as great as the subsidies occasionally provided the users of mass transportation.” The 

situation was not only unfair but “self-destructive.” He continued: 

At long last, however, Americans are becoming more aware of a new version of “crime in 

the streets”: the carnage on our highways, the pollution of our cities, the destruction of our 

parks and open spaces, the disruption of neighborhoods and another item on the list of 

discriminations against the poor, the young, the old and the minorities. I refer to the 

distorted government preference for the automobile in American life and the dominance of 

highway building within federal transportation policy. 

In the Interstate era, the Nation forgot about social costs. “We have covered our land with concrete 

ribbons designed to transport vehicles from one point to another.” The rural segments of the 

Interstate System were “important to facilitate movement from one part of the country to another.” 

However, the result in the cities was “a strangling congestion that threatens the well being of all 

urban residents.” Further, he said: 

In all of this road building and planning we have forgotten that the objective of a 

transportation policy is to move people and goods, to provide a healthy environment in our 

cities, to enable the development of communities and their economic base with the least 

disruption, to assure people the means of getting to work. 

Now, nearly 20 years later, “we have paid a high price.” Kheel outlined the costs. We had created 

a society dependent on the automobile. The superhighway and the automobile had helped create 

“sprawl city.” We have overlooked those without a car, including the young, the disabled, and the 

elderly. And far from “paying for themselves” as the highway lobby always claimed, roads 

imposed great costs on the States and especially the cities for such services as maintenance, traffic 

police, courts, and ambulance services. 

The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1970 was intended to rectify the imbalance, but “the 

response by the Administration has been to talk it up in public and cut the budget in private.” Last 

year, he said, OMB had allocated only $400 million of the $600 million the legislation authorized. 

And while the Administration and Congress ignored the promise of a 5-year, $3.1-billion program, 

the Highway Trust Fund had grown from $1.482 billion in 1957 to a “whopping total of $5.469 

billion in 1970.” 
170 

Instead of commenting on the three bills under consideration, Kheel’s statement summarized the 

Highway Action Coalition’s plan for balanced transportation. Item #1 was that Highway Trust 

Fund revenues “must be made available for any valid ground transportation use” and “should be 

expanded into a Transportation Trust Fund.” Since 50 percent of the revenue comes from cities, a 

comparable amount must be made available to cities. In addition, the Interstate System “must be 

declared completed and stopped now.” 

Transportation must be democratized by encouraging citizen participation. The resulting 

metropolitan and statewide plans muct be approved by the appropriate political officials at the local 

or State level. In addition, transportation planning should consider not only transportation options 

but their environmental, social, and economic costs; the new Transportation Trust Fund must pay 

these costs, including operating costs. Parks and wilderness areas must be protected, with the 

“burden of proof in this land use debate . . . shifted from the citizen to the would-be highway 

builder.” Further, “Citizens must have the right to go to court and enforce the new law.” 

Cities should be able to levy tolls and taxes on highway use as well as parking facilities. Taxation 

of trucks must be increased to pay their fair share and no changes in truck size and weight limits 

should be approved. [National Transportation Act of 1971, p. 96-106] 

(The committee would hold additional hearings in 1972 on March 16, April 10, and May 5.) 

The Boston Revolt 

The 1939 and 1944 reports to Congress on the Interstate System described the needed interregional 

express highway network, but also the urban expressways that would address urban problems such 

as congestion, suburbanization, and deterioration of housing stock around the city core. A series of 

circumferential highways, beginning with an inner belt around the central business district, and 

arterial links among them were the key. Urban planners in the 1940s and 1950s developed plans for 

such a network for cities around the country. 

The officials who conceived the Interstate System recognized that the urban segments could not, by 

themselves, relieve congestion. In October 1947, AASHO held its annual meeting in New York 

City where Commissioner of Public Roads MacDonald discussed progress on the Interstate System. 

 Just 2 months earlier, on August 2, the Federal Works Agency and the Public Roads 

Administration had designated the rural mileage: 

This network, comprising 37,681 miles of the 40,000-mile eventual extent of the entire 

system, includes 2,892 miles in cities, forming the principal extensions into and through the 

connected cities. The remainder of 2,319 miles has been reserved to permit addition in the 

larger cities of distribution and circumferential routes, essential as terminal connections of 

the system; designation of this further mileage in cities, now under way, requires the close 

cooperation of city, State, and Federal authorities. 

Although highway transportation would remain “the common denominator in the over-all 

transportation field,” MacDonald encouraged the State highway officials to “invite the active 
171 

participation of the other transportation industries in the formulation of plans for future 

development” to establish “an efficient transportation system adequate for its commerce and the 

national defense.” 

Except during World War II, MacDonald said, transit volumes had been declining since the 1920s: 

In a large and unfortunately increasing measure, the great tidal movements are inefficiently 

accomplished in private motor cars. In large but undesirably decreasing part, they are 

served by mass transit facilities . . . . As we approach the problem of arterial improvement 

in the cities, we cannot fail to recognize the vastly larger element of mass transit [compared 

with rural roads] in the urban passenger movement. We shall have to learn to think of mass 

transit as highway traffic, and as a form of highway traffic especially in need of 

improvement. Whatever we can do to promote the patronage of mass transit and reverse the 

past trend toward the preferential use of private automobiles will be a contribution of great 

benefit in the solution of urban traffic problems. Unless this reversal can be accomplished, 

indeed, the traffic problems of the larger cities may become well nigh insoluble. We will 

make this highly desirable contribution only if, in the planning of our urban arterial 

improvements, we incorporate the special provisions that are needed for the service of 

express mass transit in its several appropriate forms.

This discussion reflected the data MacDonald’s agency, in cooperation with State and local officials 

had accumulated. Beginning in 1945, the Public Roads Administration worked with State and local 

officials to develop urban expressway networks in accordance with the concepts described in the 

1944 report, Interregional Highways. They used origin-and-destination surveys and sampling polls 

to determine need, then developed networks to meet it. 

According to a 1963 report by the Mass Transportation Commission of Massachusetts, “the most 

extensive field study made to date” began for the Boston area in 1945. Using techniques created by 

the Public Roads Administration and the Census Bureau for sampling in major cities, the traffic 

survey use “home interviews within the study area bounded by Route 128 as it exists today, and 

driver interviews for vehicles at the cordon lines.” These techniques were “standard for the 

period.” 

Because the field study began in the autumn of 1945, just after wartime gasoline rationing had come 

to an end, the results overestimated future mass transit use:

There were 979,000 mass transportation trips in the study area as compared to only 812,000 

vehicle trips. The shortage of gasoline and tires as well as the cessation of private 

automobile production during the war accounted for this transitory pattern.

The Master Highway Plan approved in 1948 formed the “basis for the Boston area expressway 

system.” The 1963 report added: 

In the tradition of highway studies the Master Highway Plan contained a section on public 

transportation entitled “Coordination With Transit Improvements.” Among the items 

touched upon was the possible use of express buses on the expressways system, particularly 
172 

over the Mystic River Bridge and the Southeast Expressway. All intercity buses were 

expected to use the Central Artery. Several bus terminals were planned for the downtown 

area. The report suggested use of consolidated right-of-way for both highway and rail 

facilities although it made no specific recommendation. Although none of these 

recommendations were adopted, there has been recent interest in permitting bus service on 

expressways and in providing joint rights-of-way for highway and rail facilities . . . . 

Unfortunately, this report . . . failed to foresee the approaching decline in mass 

transportation patronage. Traffic volumes were underestimated and mass transit 

overestimated because no consideration was given to shifts in mode of transportation. 

With post-war estimates in hand, the planners believed “that the recommended expressway system 

would be inadequate to handle future traffic volumes unless these transit improvements were 

made.” [The Boston Region, The Boston Regional Survey for the Mass Transportation 

Commission, April 1963, p. 90-92] 

(Federal highway officials worked with State and local officials around the country on similar 

studies before announcing urban segments of the then-40,000-mile Interstate System in September 

1955. For information on these surveys, see “Designating the Urban Interstates” at 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/fairbank.cfm.) 

With additional study over the years, key elements of Boston’s Interstate and non-Interstate 

expressway system were refined:

Outer Circumferential Highway – The outer ring, designated I-495, was built in segments 

from 1959 to 1982. 

Circumferential Highway – This second ring, designated State Route 128, was completed 

in 1959. (It was originally called the Circumferential Highway, then renamed the Yankee 

Division Highway after World War II to honor the 26th Infantry Division of the 

Massachusetts Army National Guard.) 

Southeast Expressway – Included in the 1948 master plan as a link between downtown 

Boston and the South Shore/Cape Cod, the 11.8-mile expressway traversed heavily 

populated sections of the metropolitan area. Construction of the six-lane expressway 

designated State Route 3 between State Route 128 and Massachusetts Avenue began in 

1954 and was completed in June 1959. In November 1975, the expressway was designated

as an extension of I-93 in the November 1975. 

Southwest Expressway -- Designated I-95, the expressway linked State Route 128 south of 

Boston with the Inner Belt. Turning east, I-95 formed the last section of the Inner Belt 

before crossing Boston Harbor via the planned Third Harbor Tunnel into East Boston. 

Across the harbor, I-95 continued north out of the Boston area, eventually crossing the 

Circumferential and Outer Circumferential Highways. 

Inner Belt – This route, designated I-695, connected the Southeast Expressway, Southwest 

Expressway, I-90 (Massachusetts Turnpike) from the west, and I-93, which entered 

downtown from the northwest on the 1950’s era elevated Central Artery. The Central 
173 

Artery provided the northern end of the Inner Belt while the southern end was to be a short 

segment of I-95. 

A 1962 study of the network within State Route 128 reviewed the physical effects and project costs 

of the routes still to be built:

The report has aroused wide interest in the Boston area for at least three reasons. (1) 

Construction of the recommended expressways would involve traversing the most densely 

populated portions of the region and would create substantial dislocation. (2) Construction 

of the projects recommended will require an expenditure of $325 million over a proposed 

10-year construction period. (3) Tremendous benefits to the Boston area would result from 

the completion of the expressway system. [The Boston Region, p. 94] 

The two most controversial segments would prove to be the I-695 Inner Belt and I-95 in the city. 

By the early 1960s, problems had begun to surface, as the 1963 regional report acknowledged. It 

said of I-95: 

Between Route 128 and the Inner Belt, I-95 will probably be completed toward the end of 

the Interstate program. Several alternate locations have been studied but a number of 

problems remain unsolved. The large scale land taking involved in construction of the 

recommended route has already resulted in strong opposition from residents and 

neighborhood groups. In addition, the precise linkages with Boston urban renewal areas and 

the possible combination of rights of way for rapid transit and railroad and highway 

facilities have not been resolved. [The Boston Region, p. 113] 

As for the Inner Belt, it had “been the subject of a great deal of controversy” and “progress has been 

slow.” Only a half-mile section was under design and another 1.3-mile section was in the surveying 

and mapping stage: 

In 1960 the State legislature passed a bill giving certain communities a veto power over the 

location of the route within their jurisdictions. These communities include Cambridge, 

Somerville, Brookline, and Boston, the four to be traversed by the Inner Belt. While Boston 

initially agreed to a tentative location in Charlestown and Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge 

and Somerville have objected to the proposed route because of the anticipated disruptive 

effects on established neighborhoods and have effectively used the veto power to block 

construction. Cambridge and Somerville officials have protested that in its recommended 

location the route would require extensive land takings which would remove substantial 

amounts of taxable property and dislocate about 4,000 families. 

It can be assumed that eventually a workable solution will be found to the Inner Belt 

location problem. However, as a result of delays it will probably not be completed until the 

1970-1975 period, although some segments, particularly those in Boston, may be completed 

sooner. [The Boston Region, p. 114] 

By the time of the 1971 book Rites of Way: The Politics of Transportation in Boston and the U.S. 

City, the authors described the routes in starker terms. The Inner Belt “had been academic” for 8 
174 

years since its inclusion in the 1948 Master Highway Plan because the State and city did not have 

the funds to build it. However, when it was included along with the I-95 Southwest Expressway as 

part of the Interstate System to be built with 90-percent Federal “cost to complete” funds under the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, planning began on the Inner Belt: 

Once the federal money was assured, the Belt was subjected to years of squabbling, at first 

between road-building agencies and later among planners, residents, politicians, and agency 

heads. But most people were really fighting over how and where the road should be built. 

Very few at first were questioning the need for the road. 

As for I-95: 

It would run through the predominantly white working- and middle-class communities of 

Hyde Park, Roslindale, and Jamaica Plain and would join with the Inner Belt in the black 

district of Lower Roxbury in a five-story interchange . . . . 

The authors continued: 

About 43 percent of the families directly affected by those two roads were financially 

eligible for public housing, but no public housing was being built for families . . . . 

I-95 would connect with the Inner Belt in an eight-lane interchange, taking up thirty-five 

acres in the shadow of two public housing projects, three planned low-income 

developments, and a campus high school in Roxbury. Ultimately, an estimated 160,000 cars 

a day would use that interchange, and no studies existed to indicate what the effect would be 

on the health and well-being of the residents and school children. [Lupo, Alan; Colcord, 

Frank; and Fowler, Edmund P., Rites of Way: The Politics of Transportation in Boston and 

the U.S. City, Little, Brown and Company, 1971, p. 13-14, 26] 

Author Dan McNichol, writing many years later, explained the plan: 

[A] stretch of new highway, I-95, was again slated to run straight through the heart of the 

city. Its beltway, I-695, would create an iron ring around the city’s downtown. The new 

highway would be a partially elevated structure about 10 miles long, nearly four stories 

high, with 13 interchanges plowing through 18 heavily populated neighborhoods. In 

concept it was a miniature beltway encircling the business district, a noose around the neck

of Boston . . . . Along the path of I-95, hundreds of homes had already been taken and 

demolished in a working-class Irish neighborhood called Jamaica Plain and in a 

predominantly black neighborhood known as Roxbury. [McNichol, Dan, The Roads That 

Built America: The Incredible Story of the U.S. Interstate System, Barnes and Noble, 2003, 

p. 147, 150] 

As Commissioner of Public Works and Governor, Volpe had supported the plan. After Governor 

Volpe became Secretary of Transportation in 1969, Lt. Governor Francis W. “Frank” Sargent

became Governor to complete Volpe’s term. Governor Endicott Peabody (1963-1965) had 
175 

appointed Sargent one of five Commissioners of Public Works, in charge of the Division of 

Waterways, in 1964. Governor Volpe elevated Sargent in 1965 to be chairman. When Governor 

Volpe proposed a major reorganization of the department, Sargent opposed it. As Kilgore 

explained, the reorganization “would be too risky at a time when he [Sargent] needed all the 

support of his department to get the Inner Belt and Southwest Expressway completed on schedule.” 

 The Governor was strongly committed to the reorganization but he had to balance priorities: 

Unlike the modern highway departments of California and Texas, the Massachusetts DPW 

still lacked enough highly skilled personnel to do its own design work and relied heavily on 

expensive consultants. Faced with a choice between concentrating on the visionary goal of 

revamping the department and the very real possibility of completing the Inner Belt, 

however, Volpe chose to push on with highway construction. 

The way seemed to brighten in July 1965 when Sargent secured passage of a law abolishing the 

local veto of Federal-aid highway projects. At the time, he said:

I don’t see how, realistically, the New Boston and several communities can afford not to 

have these two roads. Without the Southwest Expressway, in four, five, or even ten years 

time it will be unbelievable—jammed with traffic that will take hours to straighten out. The 

city will be strangled. [Kilgore, p. 141-142] 

As Chairman, Lt. Governor, and now Governor, Sargent had supported the planned highway 

network. Mayor Kevin White had supported it as well. 

Initially, residents in the path of the I-95 and I-695 segments of the Inner Belt were fatalistic as 

homes were taken and demolished in white Jamaica Plain and black Roxbury. However, beginning 

around 1967, a coalition began to seek changes—a coalition of home owners, community activists, 

professors from Harvard and M.I.T., lawyers from the predominantly Jewish suburb of Brookline, 

and others. First they tried to change the path of the highway. When the DPW refused to move the 

highway, the coalition began to protest the highway itself, with Mayor White eventually joining the 

protestors. 

By the time Governor Sargent took office on January 23, 1969, Mayor White had reached a 

decision. He asked the new Governor to withdraw the Inner Belt and Southwest Expressway plans. 

 

On January 25, 1969, just 2 days after taking office, Governor Sargent saw the face of the 

protestors. The newly formed Greater Boston Committee on the Transportation Crisis (GBC), with 

the support of the Cambridge and Boston City Councils, organized “People Before Highways Day” 

on the Boston Common. Lupo described the event: 

There was a ballgame atmosphere to the parade and the rally. The Peace and Freedom 

Party, ever trying to cement an alliance with the workingman, passed out pamphlets 

attacking city officials, among others, thereby immediately causing arguments with the 

working-class protestors. Cambridge Model Cities residents carried a coffin to symbolize 
176 

the death of that program if the Inner Belt were to slice through East Cambridge. One man 

walked his dog, which wore a banner proclaiming, “I need a belt, but Cambridge doesn’t.” 

Fire Chief William Cremmins, leading a contingent of fifty off-duty Cambridge firemen, 

said, “Some of the men live in the area. Some of us grew up in those neighborhoods. It’s 

one of the few integrated neighborhoods in America.” 

Mayor Walter Sullivan flew in a helicopter from Cambridge onto the Boston Common to 

symbolize the poor traffic situation, which, he argued, would worsen with an Inner Belt. A 

Democratic state representative from Somerville joined the parade and said her mayor was 

wrong to support the Belt. A sixty-year-old workingman who forty years before had left 

County Limerick for America rationalized, “This is a reasonable thing to do. I live too close 

for comfort to the route. It’s all for the outside of Cambridge. Let them wait for a few 

minutes longer in the traffic.”

A young girl carried a sign reading, “Pave Volpe’s Bedroom, Not Mine.” 

Governor Sargent emerged from the State House to address the protestors. He was greeted with 

boos, but the protestors quieted when he began to speak, as Lupo described: 

At the Common, the rally went on for about an hour before Sargent, tall and tanned, 

surrounded by aides, emerged to address the throng . . . . He said he too was concerned 

about “the problems that bring you here today.” He said he had called Secretary Volpe—a 

name greeted by a few boos—and asked that no federal action be taken until he could meet 

with the protestors . . . . The speech received light applause until Sargent declared, “Never, 

never will this administration make decisions that place people below concrete.” Then they 

cheered.

He met with community representatives in the State House:

Through it all, the Governor sat, sometimes fiddling with his fingers, but always 

concentrating on each speaker. Occasionally, he would ask a question or make a small joke. 

At one point, he said: 

“I don’t want you to feel when you leave here that all highway construction is ending now, 

because that isn’t the case.” Translated into specifics, this meant that the Governor was not 

about to declare a moratorium on highway projects. Demolition in Roxbury and Jamaica 

Plain would continue as would work on the Charlestown segment of the Inner Belt. 

Sargent closed the meeting at 2 P.M., an hour after it had begun. “Thank you very much,” 

he said, “I’ve learned a lot. I assure you I’ll look into every one of these matters.” 

Much work remained to be done by the protestors and the Governor: 
177 

But the “People Before Highways Day” had accomplished a number of things. It had 

brought together diverse groups of people to create a more permanent alliance. It had 

dramatically demonstrated that the transportation issue was regional and political as well as 

emotional and technical. It attracted publicity for the cause. It forged links between the 

protestors and the Governor’s office. 

(Lupo indicated that, “Unknown to the press and most protestors,” Governor Sargent and his staff 

had been aware of plans for the protest. The GBC had talked with aides to the Governor, who 

agreed to receive the petitions and listen to the protestors’ arguments. [Lupo, p. 42-49] 

On February 11, 1970, Governor Sargent appeared on local television for a 10-minute address. Just 

4 years ago when he was DPW Commissioner, he said, “Nearly everyone was sure highways were 

the only answer to transportation problems for years to come.” He added, “But we were wrong.” 

He was going to “reverse the transportation policy of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” He 

ordered a freeze on property taking along the Southwest Expressway, and called for a study, not just 

of “where and how to build expressways,” but whether to build them. The Southwest Expressway 

and Inner Belt were among the proposed expressways covered by the new study. [Lupo, p. 106-

107] 

Kilgore said of Secretary Volpe’s reaction:

Volpe was furious. The land had already been taken, people relocated, and homes 

destroyed, and Volpe felt the highway and rapid transit line that would have used the same 

right of way were badly needed to ease Boston’s traffic problems. But Volpe could do 

nothing except remember [State Commissioner of Public Works William] Callahan’s

prediction that the Inner Belt would never be completed in their lifetimes. Volpe did not 

speak to Sargent for six months after the moratorium. At last, with Sargent’s election 

campaign imminent, the Massachusetts governor sought Volpe’s support. The two men met 

in Boston and made their peace, but Sargent’s reversal on one of Volpe’s dearest projects 

bothered Volpe long after the highway was forgotten. [Kilgore, p. 183] 

Sargent was, he would later say, surprised by Secretary Volpe’s eventual reaction to the decision: 

I expected more of a screech and a holler than I got. He’s certainly changed his thinking 

about building highways through cities. [“We Need Balanced Funding for a Balanced 

Transportation System,” Railway Age, April 13, 1970] 

Governor Sargent proposed a change in Federal law that would allow Highway Trust Fund revenues 

to pay 90 percent of the cost of any kind of transportation facility a State decided it needed. He 

called the new proposal “balanced funding for balanced transportation,” adding that, “if 90-10 

money had been available for other modes, I think we’d have a very different transportation 

system.” Among the Nation’s Governors, he had found considerable support for the idea, 

particularly among Governors from States with large cities. 
178 

He supported the Nixon Administration’s proposed urban mass transportation bill, but preferred a 

much expanded bill. It was a turning point, he thought, but the Nation must start investing in shorthaul and long-haul rail passenger service. 

The Governor had met with the State’s congressional delegation and found them supportive. 

Senator Kennedy was notably enthusiastic. Still, Sargent recognized the challenge he faced. 

“Some steps could be taken this very year,” he said, “but to change the whole system would take 

several years.” [“’We Need Balanced Funding for a Balanced Transportation System,’” Railway 

Age, April 13, 1970] 

In August 1970, the Governor’s Conference considered adopting a resolution embodying Governor 

Sargent’s idea, but decided against it. Engineering News-Record explained why: 

Reportedly, governors from rural states overpowered their colleagues from urban states by a 

tally of 23 to 12 (more showed up later). Also, there was strong pressure from 

representatives of automotive industries and associations. When the proposal was 

recommitted to the transportation committees, it’s [sic] chairman, Washington’s Gov. Dan 

Evans (R), remarked that the governors “don’t need the help of special interest groups” to 

reach decisions.”

Instead, the Governors adopted a resolution saying each State should be able “to transfer, on a 

limited basis, funds among the various federal transportation trust funds and grant programs to meet 

his own state’s priority transportation needs.” They also endorsed “a national public transportation 

trust fund as part of a flexible transportation fund.” This support provided limited backing for 

Secretary Volpe whose address to the conference had mentioned his concept of a unified trust fund: 

If I don’t have the governors with me, I might not be able to tackle it. I might not go to 

Congress. It will take a lot of persuasion. 

He expected to formally propose a unified trust fund later that year. [“Governors Seek Some 

Discretion in Transportation,” Engineering News-Record, August 27, 1970] 

Two years later, The New York Times referred to the efforts in Boston “as a textbook case for 

similar efforts around the country.” It had been a 14-year struggle:

What began as a handful of concerned citizens in Cambridge grew into an organization that 

drew ghetto blacks, blue collar ethnics and upper class suburbanites into a coalition and 

persuaded a Governor who, in 1965 had lobbied against a community veto of highway 

projects, to privately tell his highway commissioner in 1969: “The old highway building 

game is over.” 

The process had been gradual, with politics at the heart. With Governor Volpe moving to 

Washington, Governor Sargent needed to establish his own political image for the gubernatorial 

election in 1970, while Mayor White campaigned for the job. The area’s academics were 

influential in gathering information to support the anti-highway forces. While a “community of 
179 

interest” was forming within the city, the State’s decision to route a highway through a wildlife 

sanctuary in the suburbs brought in conservationists and environmentalists—“the middle and upper 

class suburbanites who had in existence a powerful lobby at the State Capitol,” according to the 

Reverend Thomas Corrigan, an anti-highway leader. Inside Mayor White’s office, his top assistant, 

Barney Frank, was working with other officials to coordinate relations between the anti-highway 

lobby and the Mayor. 

Professor Alan Altshuler of M.I.T., who participated in the Governor’s task force to study area 

transportation and became the State’s Secretary of Transportation (1971-1975), saw the Governor’s

February speech as “part of a developing commitment on the part of the Governor . . . and, he has 

slowly come to see the commitment to a balance between the demands of transportation, the 

demands of the community and the environment as a theme and image for his administration.” 

The Times found that: 

Governor Sargent has now committed himself and his administration to work at all levels—

with community groups and local governments, petitions and proposals to the Federal 

Government, and lobbying with other Governors and state organizations—for the 

development of a system of transportation that uses highway, rail and air systems in a more 

efficient balance and to examine alternatives to all these.

“The big question now is: can we meet the real needs of a community for transportation and 

a decent environment?” asks an aide to the Governor. “We’re committed to finding the 

answer and focusing national attention on the problem.” [Kovach, Bill, “Drive in Boston 

May Bring a New Urban Transit Mix,” The New York Times, July 25, 1971] 

Based on the Boston Transportation Planning Review, Governor Sargent announced on November 

30, 1972, that his moratorium on construction of the Inner Belt (I-95 and I-695) would be 

permanent. He would route I-95 around the city on the existing circumferential, Route 128, while I695 would be scrapped. Describing the Boston expressways as chains imprisoning the city, he said 

in a statewide television address that 40 years of reliance on highways had “defeated our own 

purpose, and we have been caught in a vicious cycle—drasticmore cars meant more highways, 

which meant more traffic jams, more traffic jams meant the need for more highways . . . .” Worst 

of all, he said, it hadn’t solved the problem that started it all, namely “how best to get from one 

place to another.” [Kovach, Bill, “Mass Transit Plan for Massachusetts,” The New York Times, 

December 1, 1972] 

To replace the Interstates while addressing area congestion, he preferred a series of measures, as 

summarized in The Washington Post: 

He would upgrade some existing arterials (notably U.S. Rte. 1 to the north), build a 

circumferential transit line that bypasses downtown, expand and modernize the rapid transit 

network and rejuvenate the commuter railroad network, perhaps linking the city’s two rail 

terminals.
180 

He would have the Port Authority build a two-lane tunnel beneath Boston harbor to let 

taxicabs, buses, limousines and trucks reach Logan Airport, the region’s only civilian jet 

facility. And he would develop a network of satellite airport limousine terminals around the 

region. 

To reduce the incentive for auto travel, he would bar new parking facilities downtown and at 

the airport . . . . 

Massachusetts . . . is proposing to undertake as a deliberate long-range policy the 

subsidizing of transit deficits. Sargent has proposed to pay half the system’s losses, $70 

million this year . . . . [Eisen, Jack, “The Boston Freeway Halt,” The Washington Post, 

December 24, 1972] 

An editorial in Engineering News-Record called Governor Sargent’s decision “a triumph not only 

for those who resisted the roads but for the transportation planning process that took into account 

their views.” The decision reinforced “the need for flexible funding for transportation.” The 

editorial concluded: 

As we’ve said before, a single transportation trust fund will allow each state to determine its 

own transportation priorities and move ahead with the job of providing better transportation. 

[“A Victory for People,” Engineering News-Record, December 7, 1972] 

 

Public Enemy No. 1 

Governor Sargent was not alone in abandoning expressways—and the money that came with them. 

Interstates in urban areas had generated so much controversy that mayors, city councils, and other 

local officials wanted to reject the highways, but did not want to lose the millions in Federal and 

State dollars that went along with highway construction. 

In Hawaii, for example, opponents of Interstate H-3 through Moanalua Valley as well as local 

officials were seeking a way to transfer the Interstate funds (then an estimated $250 million) to 

other transportation purposes. Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hi.), who first won election to the Senate 

in 1962, favored a more balanced transportation system. He was, he said, “prepared to introduce 

legislation” that would exempt Hawaii from the restrictions on the use of Highway Trust Fund 

revenues. He recalled that the Nixon Administration had given “serious consideration” to the idea 

of a unified transportation trust fund, but “The idea was shunted aside . . . in favor of a revenue 

sharing agreement.” He continued:

It is apparent that revenue sharing has very tough sledding ahead of it, and it may be that 

general legislation to permit the use of highway trust funds for other transportation 

purposes, which now has considerably [sic] support, may gain even more in the future. 

Certainly, state flexibility in the use of these funds would appear to be prudent and 

desirable, and I shall support that principle. 
181 

He was thinking of introducing legislation, but recognized the realities: 

I am informed that similar legislation has been introduced by a large number of members of 

Congress relative to the trust fund use in their state. To date none of this legislation has 

received favorable consideration. I am convinced, however, that Hawaii has unique 

justification for an exception from the present limits of the highway trust fund uses. 

[“Inouye Backs Protests on Road Fund Limitation,” Honolulu Star Bulletin, July 28, 1971] 

As reflected in the battle over the New York bond issue, officials around the country were searching 

for ways to pay for the transit facilities they had taken over from the private sector. The universal 

reality was that transit could not pay its way at the farebox. Raising fares to equal costs would 

discourage use, especially by the lower income riders most in need of the service. Doing so also 

would create reelection issues for State and local officials who wanted to go before voters without 

having to explain fare increases. 

A survey by The New York Times in late 1971 and early 1972 found that cities around the country 

were wrestling with the same problem as New York City, although on a different scale:

Cities around the nation are turning increasingly to special property, sales and gasoline taxes 

to subsidize soaring deficits on their mass transit systems. With local variations, the same 

kind of fiscal squeeze facing New York this week, as state and city leaders haggle over ways 

to keep down transit fares in the face of a mounting deficit, is occurring in communities 

from Boston to San Diego . . . . The growing losses are prompting lawmakers around the 

country to turn more and more to the general taxpayer to make up the difference—even 

though, on the average, less than 10 per cent of the public uses the transit service in most 

cities.

In Minnesota, the legislature gave the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Transit Commission the 

authority to levy a transit property tax that was expected to raise $5 million to pay operating costs. 

The Florida legislature allowed Miami’s bus system to subsidize operations with State gasoline 

taxes that had been restricted to highway construction. California approved a 5-percent sales tax on 

gasoline, which was previously exempt from the tax, to go into effect on July 1, 1972, to pay for 

transit construction and operation. A new Missouri law permitted Kansas City to levy a half-cent 

sales tax for mass transit. In Atlanta, voters had approved a 1-cent increase in the sales tax (from 3 

cents to 4 cents) in two counties to pay for transit, while in Dayton, Ohio, voters approved a 1-mill 

property tax increase to pay for acquisition of a private bus company and subsidize its operation as 

a public system. 

(The 1971 vote to increase the Atlanta sales tax would be cited many times in coming years. Voters 

in DeKalb and Fulton Counties approved the increase by a margin of 400 votes, with around 

700,000 voters--only about 50 percent of those eligible—casting votes. Voters had turned down the 

increase in 1968.) 

As the Times survey found, some efforts had failed. Michigan had shelved a proposed gasoline tax 

to subsidize transit. In Massachusetts, Boston Mayor White was working with other communities 
182 

to divert State gasoline tax revenue to meet transit deficits, but highway interests were blocking the 

effort.

Part of the problem was that it was such a new issue that had grown before officials realized the 

scope of the deficits: 

Cities and states have subsidized transit for a decade or more, but in that period the number 

of cities doing so and the amount of money they have been asked to furnish has soared. In 

1961, transit systems in only 21 cities received direct public aid; currently, more than 80 do 

so. 

Until recently, subsidies were relatively modest. But within the last three years or so, the 

dual pressures of soaring labor costs and a falling number of passengers have vastly 

increased the demand for public aid . . . . 

There is some question as to whether massive doses of public assistance in most cities can 

make economically viable an industry that typically reduces service, raises fares and loses 

riders when costs go up, that each year loses more and more riders to the automobile, and 

that must operate increasingly in sprawling, horizontal cities with long, thinly populated 

routes. 

The growing deficits were putting pressure on Congress to provide subsidies: 

However, this move has raised questions from its opponents as to why the Government 

should subsidize local transit deficits any more than it subsidizes other municipal services 

such as police, fire and sanitation. The Nixon Administration believes the Government 

should help cities buy buses, build subways and meet other capital costs, and it sponsored a 

$3.1 billion mass transit aid program that was enacted last year. But it opposes Federal 

subsidies for operating losses other than as part of its proposed omnibus revenue sharing 

program. [Lindsey, Robert, “Cities Levy Extra Taxes For Subsidizing Transit,” The New 

York Times, January 5, 1972] 

While searching for funds, cities were expanding their transit networks. Atlanta was developing a 

subway and express busway system. In December 1971, the Southern California Rapid Transit 

District (RTD) unveiled plans for a 14-mile elevated subway line to connect downtown Los 

Angeles with the African-American “ghetto” of Watts, the first leg of a planned system. (It was 

hoping to use the revenue from the new sales tax for the line after voters had rejected a bond issue 

in 1968 that would have supported a $2.5-billion rapid transit system.) The Bay Area Rapid Transit 

would open its first leg on September 11, 1972, while Metrorail was under construction in 

Washington, D.C. (the first 4.6-mile segment of the Red Line would open on March 27, 1976). 

Transit systems were under development in Baltimore, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Honolulu, St. 

Louis, and other cities. 

Many of the urban areas developing rail rapid transit lines were counting on UMTA to pay twothirds of construction costs. However, as the Times found, the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 
183 

1970, with its $3.1 billion in Federal matching funds, could not keep up with the explosion of 

transit expansion: 

In some cases, Administration officials have suggested the use of buses on reserved express 

lanes on highways instead, because they would cost less. This is an argument that rail 

transit interests say has been fostered by highway lobbyists. 

The Administration had drafted and circulated a proposed list of criteria—including certain 

minimum passenger volumes that would have to be served by a proposed system—that it 

said it planned to use in deciding whether a city qualified for grants for building subways or 

above-ground rail lines. The proposal has drawn blistering protests from the transit industry 

and big-city lobbyists. As a result, the draft was withdrawn and is now being revised. It has 

not yet been published in its final form. 

“We are against attempts to impose any criteria,” said Dr. William J. Ronan, chairman of 

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who is president of the Institute for 

Rapid Transit, the principal lobbying group for pro-rail transit interests. “Why should there 

be criteria for rapid transit systems where that are none for [Federal funding of] highways, 

none for airways or waterways?” Dr. Ronan asked. He asserted that rail transit systems 

were by far the most efficient way to move large numbers of people.

Under Secretary Beggs argued that, “There has to be an analysis of the economics of what has been 

proposed, some indication of what percentage of the public will ride a system.” An unnamed 

Transportation Department official put the dispute this way: 

The problem is that rapid transit has become too much like motherhood. You can’t discuss 

it rationally, at least in public. If you say, “Well, maybe some cities don’t need rapid transit 

and are better off simply to rely on the automobile,” you’re called a tool of the highway 

lobby. 

One critic of rail expansion was Economics Professor George W. Hilton, a transportation specialist 

at the University of California at Los Angeles who had been a chairman of President Johnson’s 

Task Force on Transportation Policy, a consultant to the World Bank on Transportation, and Acting 

Curator of Rail Transportation for the Smithsonian Institution. He called plans for a rail system in 

the low density Los Angeles area “a fiasco.” He said, “There is just no market for it. It’s just 

wishful thinking that you can go back into the past when the central business district served the 

whole area and people didn’t have cars. All the forces in cities today are for diffusion.” 

He also was critical of plans in other areas, such as Atlanta and Baltimore, that were planning rail 

systems:

What they’re doing is making a huge investment in a declining market. Every place you 

look, the number of trips into the central business district is the most rapidly declining 

segment of urban transportation. [Lindsey, Robert, “Dozen Cities Planning or Building 

Transit Lines,” The New York Times, January 30, 1972] 
184 

One option that was at least discussed was providing free mass transit, an option that advocates 

justified by transit’s many benefits. Urban consultant Robert A. Aleshire made the case for free 

service in Nation’s Cities, the magazine of the League of Cities:

The automobile is choking the city and destroying its air. Cars cannot be stored, disposed 

of, parked, or given a place to drive. There must be a radical conversion in transportation 

modes from cars to mass transit. Sanctions such as barring cars from downtown areas are 

incomplete solutions and somewhat politically infeasible. An incentive approach which 

recognizes the true social costs of the car by making mass transit free is the most direct way 

to encourage rapid conversion. 

Displacement of cars by buses would double highway capacity. Other benefits of a major modal 

conversion included reduction of the amount of land and money, as well as facilities and businesses 

dislocated, needed to build roads; air pollution, traffic noise, and the waste of time in traffic 

congestion would decline; land would be freed for open space or housing; barriers to inner city poor 

workers seeking jobs in the suburbs should be lowered. In short: 

Free mass transit would provide unlimited access by all citizens, rich and poor, young and 

old, minority and majority, to the full range of public services, recreation, jobs, and housing. 

Aleshire acknowledged that cost “would seem the main argument against free transit.” That was a 

narrow way of looking at the idea: 

[All] the factors must be put in the public cost equation. The costs of air pollution; auto 

deaths; land and resources for highways; leisure and productive time; people’s houses, lives, 

and communities; unemployment; and racial polarization must all be charged against the 

present system. When all the factors are in the equation, the benefits of free mass transit far 

exceed the cost. [Aleshire, Robert A., “Why Not Free Mass Transit?” Excerpted in The 

Washington Post, November 7, 1971] 

A new book, James C. Nelson’s The Future of American Transportation (Prentice-Hall), took up 

the issue of social costs. Nelson, a Washington State University economist, found that present 

pricing policies were irrational and defeated competition among the modes. Like Aleshire, Nelson 

thought that highway user fees should cover the true cost of highway use, including air and noise 

pollution, displacement of homes and businesses, and disruption of other modes of travel without 

adequate subsidies. If transportation were priced honestly, he said, “the shippers and travelers 

could rationally choose between or among the modes, with the result that socially efficient divisions 

of traffic would result, more efficient investments among the modes would come about, and 

transport costs and rates could be lowered for the shippers and the general public.” [“Pricing 

Transportation,” The Wall Street Journal, November 8, 1971] 

Bicycle Revival 

The automobile had become the enemy, with transit and bicycles the favored alternative. U.S. News 

& World Report confirmed the trend in December 1971 when it reported that bicycle sales were 
185 

“skyrocketing” with “no signs of slacking off” despite “a host of problems.” Americans bought 

about 8.5 million bicycles in 1971 compared with 3.7 million in 1960, with nearly 80 million 

bicycle riders, twice as many as a decade earlier. Months-long delays in delivering bicycles after 

purchase were common. This growing phenomenon left the manufacturers, bicyclists, and 

government officials “in the same boat.” They aren’t quite sure how to cope with the nation’s 

‘pedal power’ craze.” Planning of facilities to accommodate the surge was being combined with 

the search for ways to increase bicycling safety. Many cities—Boston, Chicago, Miami, New York, 

Omaha, and San Francisco among them—were designating bike routes. [“Bike Boom: A Way Out 

for Commuters?” U.S. News & World Report, December 6, 1971] 

The boom would continue in 1972 and 1973. The downside of the boom was a boom in deaths and 

injuries, as The Wall Street Journal reported in August 1972: 

According to the National Safety Council, about 880 bicycle riders are likely to be killed 

this year in bike-auto accidents. Such fatalities have risen steadily in recent years, from 490 

in 1961 to 850 last year. The National Transportation Safety Board estimates that about 130 

additional bike-related deaths will occur. 

Nonfatal injuries also are soaring. Local police departments and hospitals say the problem 

has become acute. 

The article mentioned introduction of the Bicycle Transportation Act of 1971 in both Houses of 

Congress that “would permit states and communities to use federal highway funds to develop 

bicycle commuter systems.” [Brecher, John S., “The Boom in Bicycling Brings With It a Surge In 

Accidents and Deaths,” The Wall Street Journal, August 15, 1972] 

Covering the boom, The Washington Post recalled the original bicycle boom from about 1880 to 

1910: 

Huge cyclist clubs were the first to lobby successfully for decent roads. Soaring bicycle 

sales brought mechanical improvements which helped spark new tools and machines for the 

development of the newborn auto. And when Henry Ford began mass producing his little 

Model-T, the bicycle went into a 60-year decline. Now it has come back and cyclists again 

want their share of the road . . . . 

Much of the back-to-the-bicycle movement is generated by environmentalists who claim 

those gas-eating monsters jamming the highways are doing everything from poisoning the 

atmosphere to rapidly diminishing the earth’s natural resources. 

In addition to reporting on safety concerns, the article discussed an increase in bicycle thefts:

The bike boom also has generated a rise in thiefs. Although there are no national figures 

available, bicycle thievery amounts to millions of dollars. In California alone, police 

estimate the 1971 value of bikes stolen at $22.3 million. 
186 

With the resale value of a good multispeed bicycle figured at $70 and up, theft rings are 

growing, police say . . . . Bicycle thefts are so prevalent in New York City that some youths 

have resorted to assembling “trash bikes”—old, beat up machines with water pipe 

handlebars and rusty frames. “Who’d want to steal one of these?” said the owner of one. 

[Mullen, Donald E., “The Bicycle Boom: From Executives to Junior Hell’s Angels,” The 

Washington Post, September 3, 1972] 

A Statement on National Transportation Policy 

Section 3(a) of the Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970, signed by President Nixon on 

May 21, 1970, called for formulation of policy: 

Within one year after the date of enactment of this title, the Secretary of Transportation shall 

formulate and recommend to the Congress for approval a national transportation policy. In 

the formulation of such policy, the Secretary shall take into consideration, among other 

things— 

(1) the coordinated development and improvement of all modes of transportation, 

together with the priority which shall be assigned to the development and 

improvement of each mode of transportation; and 

(2) the coordination of recommendations made under this title relating to airport and 

airway development with all other recommendations to the Congress for the 

development and improvement of our national transportation system. 

Section 3(b) called for an annual report to Congress on implementation of the national 

transportation policy called for in 3(a). The annual report was to include the Secretary’s specific 

actions “with respect to (1) the coordination of the development and improvement of all modes of 

transportation, (2) the establishment of priorities with respect to the development and improvement 

of each mode of transportation, and (3) the coordination of recommendations under this title 

relating to airport and airway development with all other recommendations to the Congress for the 

development and improvement of our transportation system.” 

On September 8, 1971, Secretary Volpe submitted A Statement on National Transportation Policy

to Congress as required by Section 3(a). His transmittal letter stated that some elements of 

prevailing government policy “are not appropriate to transportation as it presently exists.” He 

continued: 

On the whole, the transportation policy which has evolved, both consciously and 

unconsciously, represents an uneven fabric ill-suited to today’s needs, and is, itself, a major 

contributor to the problems facing transportation today. 

He saw three 1970 laws as each representing a “unique landmark in transportation policy”: the 

Airport Act, the Urban Mass Transportation Act, and the Rail Passenger Service Act (creating 

Amtrak):
187 

For the future, the revenue sharing program for transportation will endow State and local 

governments with a great capability to cope directly with important transportation problems 

in ways most consistent with their own philosophies and requirements . . . . 

The report identified the transportation system’s symptomatic problems, which included “urban 

highway congestion, the severe deterioration of local public passenger services, airport and air 

traffic congestion, hazards to safety, environmental degradation, and the financial distress of 

important segments of the transportation industry.” [p. 9] Underlying these symptoms were four 

fundamental systemic problems: the unevenness and inconsistency of transportation plans, 

programs and developments; the poor distribution of transportation services and facilities; the state 

of transportation labor relations; and the transportation regulatory structure. [p. 17] 

Multi-modal transportation planning had been lacking. “Each mode’s overriding preoccupation 

with the promotion of its own improvement and growth has dominated the growth of the 

transportation system.” The result was maldistribution of services and facilities based on the funds 

each mode could command rather than planning of modal choices to serve needs. For highways, 

cost-benefit analysis revealed that rural areas received more in roads than rural residents paid for in 

user charges – a net loss to urban areas: 

[The] real question is not whether the apparent “overinvestment” in rural roads should be 

reallocated to roads in urban areas, but whether such overinvestment in fact exists and, if it 

does, whether it should be spent on urban transport facilities other than roads. 

Transportation revenue sharing is designed to let State and local governments come to grips 

with this fundamental issue.

For intercity freight, diversion of certain kinds of traffic from truck to rail could result in significant 

economic and social cost savings. The competition between truck and rail was distorted by Federal 

investment in roads: 

The overall policy and program implications of the poor distribution of transportation 

services and facilities are substantial for the economy and for society at large. Highway 

investment levels may well be too high, implying that some of that investment might better 

be used elsewhere in the transportation system . . . . Rationalization of the freight system 

would change the relationships of the rail, waterway and trucking modes, the chief question 

being how best to allocate, spread and finance the transitional costs equitably and in such a 

way as to minimize the dislocations to those involved. [p. 22] 

The result of these and the other fundamental problems was that “the old ways of doing things are 

inadequate and unresponsive to society.” The need to rethink the system was dictated by reality: 

This would not be so if there were fewer people, if they were less affluent, if they had not 

increasingly clustered in large urban complexes, and if they were willing to put up with the 

noise and smoke of an earlier era. [p. 27] 
188 

In this world that does not exist, the present system would be sufficient, but for the next three 

decades in the real world, “all indicators point to more people, more affluence, more urbanization 

and a rapidly escalating intolerance for poor system performance and for the generation of 

undesirable environmental side effects.” Solutions of transportation’s problems can be categorized 

as major capital investments in plant, equipment, or technology and noncapital-intensive policy 

changes. Technological advances offered solutions to many problems, but are often “prohibitively 

expensive, and have frequently generated problems more severe than those they were designed to 

solve.” 

Further, the price of transportation’s unpleasant side effects, such as noise, air pollution, 

congestion, and crashes, is not included in its market price. The private sector had little or no 

incentive to invest in remedial technologies, leaving government to pick up the cost. “The failure 

of the market to recognize and reflect these costs is the major justification for government 

intervention and public investment in the development of new transportation technologies.” Much 

of the increased funding for research and development (R&D) had gone to the air mode in recent 

years, but air transport and highways had traditionally “been accorded primacy.” Transit R&D was 

6.4 percent of Federal R&D outlays in 1970, up from virtually nothing in 1965, while rail R&D 

outlays totaled 3.5 percent. Policy changes were needed “to reorder the transportation system’s 

performance by changing or rearranging the rules under which it operates, including those 

governing investment.” [p. 27-29, emphasis in original] 

To address these problems, the Federal Government must embrace two major themes: 

governmental reform and balanced, equitable economic growth. In the State of the Union Address 

on January 22, 1971, President Nixon had proposed reorganizing the Executive Branch. Four 

Departments would remain as is: State, Defense, Justice, and the Treasury. The other Departments 

would be merged into four “Super-Cabinet” positions: Economic Affairs, Human Resources, 

Natural Resources, and Community Development. The Department of Community Development 

would absorb FHWA and UMTA programs. Department Secretaries would be Counselors to the 

President working out of the White House, thus giving the President greater control of the 

Executive power structure: 

By organizing departments along mission-oriented lines, such as national economic 

development or local community development, their previous narrow preoccupation with 

function or constituency can be broadened to deal with the increasingly complex and 

interrelated issues confronting modern society. The close interrelationship between urban 

transportation and urban development is obvious, but today the responsibility is lodged in 

separate departments.

The transportation revenue sharing proposal, the report said, was “a long overdue admission that the 

Federal government is not able to provide answers to all the problems and that much decision 

making should be shifted to governmental levels closer to the people and the problems.” The plan 

would result in transportation policy shifts as local governments determine policy, such as whether 

to use Federal funds for transit operating subsidies, formerly set at the Federal level. Together, 

government reorganization and transportation revenue sharing would stimulate greater productivity, 

formulation of national growth policy, major health and welfare reforms, consumer protection, 
189 

coherent land use, environmental protection, integration of technology, and reclamation of cities. 

[p. 33-34] 

Despite the emphasis on local determination, national objectives remained. In the past, they had 

been defined as: economic efficiency, environmental quality, safety, and support of other national 

interests, including national defense, economic growth, social development, and scientific research 

Now, a fifth objective must be added: facilitating local determination by decentralizing 

decisionmaking and fostering citizen participation. [p. 35-36] 

To address present problems, “the need for a major policy reformation is readily apparent.” [p. 37] 

The executive reorganization proposal and transportation revenue sharing were among the 

initiatives leading to “more effective approaches to the problems confronting us as a Nation . . . .” 

Restructuring or economic regulation of the transportation industry was another initiative that 

would bring “market forces to bear on competitive transportation industries . . . .” [p. 39-40] 

The historic function of transportation, the report concluded, had been “to tie this vast country 

together.” That function was essentially complete. “Society’s new task, as a mature industrial 

economy, is of a somewhat different nature—providing service to the millions who want to use the 

transportation system.” 

The traditional “infrastructure-oriented approach of government” was not to be forgotten, but “the 

era of indiscriminate, massive, open-ended construction programs is largely coming to a close as 

the realization grows that there are wide variations in local, state and regional needs.” Today’s 

approach would have to be “redirected to accord with the times” as explained in the statement’s 

final words: 

The Administration’s approach to these challenges is rooted firmly in a deep awareness that 

the needs of our people in the final third of this century will require vastly different 

solutions than those appropriate in past decades, and its proposals are designed to guide and 

nurture a fruitful and productive Federal transportation policy in the future. [p. 40-41, 

emphasis in original] 

The plan was not well received. It was, as The New York Times put it, “long delayed” because of 

differences within the Nixon Administration and “the opposition of the trucking industry.” (Under 

the Airport Act, the report had been due in May 1971.) Business Week agreed about the delay:

On taking office, the Nixon Administration had put such a policy statement at the top of its 

priority list. Yet Volpe’s department missed one deadline after another, apparently because 

of the difficulty of getting diverse transportation interests to agree to policy proposals. 

Transportation watchers, whether or not they were sympathetic to the Administration, had 

been anticipating a bold and sweeping approach to transportation philosophy. What they 

finally got was a major disappointment—an overly generalized and relatively vapid 

“nonstatement,” as one industry lobbyist characterized it. 
190 

Policy planners had found that “industry lobbyists who wanted to preserve the status quo carried 

more weight at the White House, as well as on Capitol Hill.” The result was that the policy was 

released with little fanfare. Secretary Volpe was in Pittsburgh for the 5th International Conference 

on Urban Transportation. He was announcing the $60 million grant to the Allegheny County Port 

Authority for a controversial transit system while Assistant Secretary Charles D. Baker conducted a 

hastily convened press conference about the new statement of transportation policy. 

Chairman Hartke of the Senate Commerce Committee’s Surface Transportation Subcommittee, was 

among those underwhelmed by the report: 

Ever since this administration took office, it has held out an illusion that soon it would 

present the Congress and the nation with a transportation policy . . . . I hope this does not 

represent the final effort of this Administration because, if it does, we are in worse shape 

than I had thought. 

He added that transportation revenue sharing was a “joke” while the reorganization plan was 

viewed on Capitol Hill as an “illusion” designed to make the Administration “look like it is doing 

something when it is not.” [Lydon, Christopher, “Transportation Agency Backs Easing of 

Regulation,” The New York Times, September 9, 1971; “A Weak National Plan Chugs in Behind 

Schedule,” Business Week, September 18, 1971] 

Engineering News-Record described the statement as, “Long on generalizations and short on 

specifics.” The article added:

As revealed in the statement, the Administration is chiefly concerned with regulatory reform 

that would restore greater market competition, and efficiency, among different modes. It is 

also concerned with creating or reestablishing balance between different types of 

transportation and the role the federal government can play. 

It quoted Baker as saying that, “the considerable absence of cost-based pricing makes it impossible 

for the various modes of transportation to operate at their most efficient levels.” 

The magazine reported finding little support within the transportation community. An ARBA 

spokesman said the statement had not “adequately responded to the mandate of Congress for some 

direction on policy as spelled out in the airport act requirement.” AASHO Executive Director 

Alfred Johnson challenged the contention that the highway system is overbuilt. The one 

sympathetic comment was anonymous, noting that the Administration’s policies had preempted 

Secretary Volpe’s goal of a general transportation trust fund. [“Transportation Policy Makes a 

Sketchy Debut,” Engineering News-Record, September 16, 1971, p. 71] 

(As noted earlier, the transportation revenue sharing plan would be cast aside by Congress. 

Reorganization of the Executive Branch received some consideration, but also would fail to secure 

enough votes in Congress. Neither plan had a constituency willing to fight for it; the interests 

preferred the status quo. That was also true initially for deregulation, but Presidents Nixon, Gerald 

R. Ford, and Jimmy Carter would make considerable progress in deregulating the rail, airline, and 
191 

trucking industries. Mark Rose, Bruce Seely, and Paul Barrett tell this story in The Best 

Transportation System in the World (Ohio State University Press, 2006). The title of their book 

comes from the constant refrain through the 20th century of those with a vested interest who 

opposed deregulation. With the current regulatory structure, they pointed out, the country had the 

best transportation system in the world—why risk deregulation?) 

A Question of Proper Mix

Throughout 1971, the mighty roadbuilders, the feared “road lobby,” was running scared. Their 

public relations outreach was being overwhelmed by the forces arrayed against them. Opponents 

blocked much-needed Interstate highways. Organizations such as the Sierra Club were joining the 

battle. The courts were proving receptive to the anti-highway forces. Local officials were bending 

to citizen complaints about highways. Governors and Mayors were desperate for Federal money to 

pay for transit. Academics were siding with transit advocates. Newspaper reports seemed to favor 

the opponents. The forces chipping away at the Highway Trust Fund in support of transit, 

especially rail transit, were getting the upper hand.

Through the 1960s, highway officials had been convinced that all their problems could be solved if 

only they could find the right combination of PR moves that would get the public to understand 

how beneficial the highways network, when completed in its entirety, would be. 

AASHO’s Johnson never abandoned that idea. He was a career highway man who had been Chief 

Engineer of the Arkansas State Highway Department where he became friends with Frank Turner. 

He had been president of AASHO before becoming its executive director and had worked in the 

mid-1950s with the Governors’ Conference to gain support for President Eisenhower’s highway 

program. He had represented AASHO before countless Capitol Hill hearings and in meetings with 

Members of Congress. Now, in 1971, he saw peril for his beloved program from forces that were 

weakening it, blocking the projects that would prove its worth, and undermining public support for 

highways. He tried to put the situation in context during a speech to AASHO’s regional Mississippi 

Valley Association on March 12, 1971: 

In order for the [highway] administrator to properly carry out his official responsibility as a 

public servant, he must keep the public completely informed as to highway needs, the 

condition of the system, financial requirements, etc., so that the public can make the 

necessary decisions regarding the program. Therein lies a void at this time! 

He urged his colleagues to put their present problems in historical context: 

It is the history of all public works programs, that when a basic need is so overwhelmingly 

evident in the beginning, you have strong public support and activity. However, long before 

the program completely satisfied its primary and basic function, a number of years pass and 

during that time a level of tolerable service is usually achieved and another generation or 

two have come upon the scene, and they begin to take the great accomplishments of the 

program as a matter of fact and the public support lags and becomes apathetic. 
192 

In addition . . . others want to get into the act, sophistication and appendages are added to 

the program ostensibly to improve it or better it for various reasons most of which are rather 

expensive and time-consuming, but sometimes of questionable value. 

After the public becomes apathetic and turns into a tacit force, the critics, motivated by 

various reasons, then are able to establish their identity because they are articulate, 

aggressive forces and, in time, they gather supporters and it can become a fad to oppose the 

program and disenchant the public with it. 

This is the spot we are in right at this moment.

Usually, the cycle is completed by the level of service of the program becoming so 

inadequate that public interest is rejuvenated, and the pendulum swings again. This could 

take a long time with effort on your part. 

Much of the situation that we face today is a direct product of highway officials not 

adequately educating and informing the public that they serve. 

He dismissed the criticism of city officials, saying “it is because the highway program has been so 

successful and cities underfinanced.” He was “shocked at the headway that the anti-highway 

movement is making.” The new environmental requirements could “well be the straw that breaks 

the camel’s back in stalling the highway program.” He continued: 

We have college professors all over the country analyzing the itemized checklist in the 

environmental requirements of the highway program and developing instructions for 

bringing litigation and stalling highway projects with injunctions.

From April to June 1971, Better Roads ran a reader forum on “How Do the States Fight AntiHighway Propaganda.” Highway officials from around the country responded to the following 

situation:

Recent anti-highway comments by groups and individuals have been leading the public to 

believe that all highway funds come from general tax revenues.

The Questions: 

As a highway official and engineer, have you found it necessary to rebut this 

misinformation?

What means have been available to you for presenting the real facts concerning the 

highway financing? 

Which method have you found to be the most effective? 

Each issue featured responses. In the April 1971 issue, for example, New Hampshire’s Reuel W. 

Webb said he used “real facts” in appearances before the State legislature and during speaking 

engagements to argue against a constitutional amendment that would allow the State to use some of 

its highway user tax revenue “for purposes other than highway reconstruction, construction and 
193 

maintenance,” as had been the case since the State adopted a 1938 constitutional Good Roads 

Amendment. 

D. M. Faircloth of the North Carolina State Highway Commission had spent more time justifying 

the 2-cent State gas tax increase in 1969 than the Federal Highway Trust Fund, but had spent 

considerable time defending non-diversion at the Federal level. The State had a speaker’s pool to 

refute false claims. “The most effective method so far defending our true position regarding 

funding, both federal and state, has been a combination of facts taken from the fact sheet by the 

media and used in feature form, and our speaker’s pool. 

George H. Andrews, Washington State’s director of highways, said anti-highway forces in his State 

were well aware of the sources of highway funding, and were not spreading misinformation but 

arguing that highways should be funded out of general tax revenue so they were subject to 

continuing legislative priority decisions. Most people “have no idea at all how the funds are raised” 

for highways or anything else. Editorially, most of the State’s newspapers favored diversion. As 

for countering negative press, Andrews said: 

We have found no method really effective in getting information to the public. The minute 

you start dealing in figures, the public mind turns off and switches to the sports pages.

Other respondents discussed public hearings and publications containing “true facts,” employee 

speeches, tours of legislative districts, effective use of publicity units, reports to legislators, meeting 

people, pro-highway film production, cultivating cooperative press, and outreach to good roads 

organizations. 

In Frank Turner, the highway community had a leader who understood the need to reach out to the 

public. In June 1970, he released a report on Benefits of Interstate Highways, which he converted

into numerous press releases. “Interstate and other highways influence the growth of the economy 

by improving mobility for economic and social activities.” User benefits from the Interstate 

System, estimated to be $107 billion, would more than pay for its estimated cost of $70 billion. 

These benefits included reductions in travel time, operating costs, and accidents. General economic 

and community benefits included enhanced land use and increased land value; industrial and 

commercial advances; opportunities for community change (“displacement for highway right of 

way is being used as an opportunity to upgrade housing and community services”); diversion of 

traffic from residential areas; reduction of air and noise pollution, and encouragement of growth 

centers and new towns. 

Turner also released a series of news releases about the environmental measures incorporated into 

Interstate and other highways. For example, work on a four-lane I-65 bridge across the Tennessee 

River near Decatur, Alabama, had been halted for several months because 65,000 ducks and geese 

from the northland had settled at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge (press release, December 16, 

1969). Another press release reported that Beverley’s Mill in Thoroughfare Gap, Virginia, dating to 

George Washington’s time, had been in the path of I-66 until the right-of-way was shifted to 

preserve the historic building (May 24, 1970). 
194 

Turner compiled all the information into an internal 500-page looseleaf Resource Book on the 

Federal-Aid Highway Program (September 1971) that FHWA officials could adapt for speeches, 

letters, interviews, and other occasions to rebut criticism. 

He also addressed highway groups throughout his tenure, often in “preaching to the choir” vein. On 

September 23, 1971, for example, he was in Arlington, Virginia, to address the northern Virginia 

Chapter of the Virginia Motor Vehicle Conference. He shared the stage with Senator Harry F. 

Byrd, Jr., who had been appointed to take his influential father’s seat in November 1965 and won 

reelection to serve through January 3, 1983. Byrd told the group that “public transportation has an 

important role to play,” but “despite the need for better mass transit, improved highways are still 

essential.” He said that “we cannot afford to ignore highway construction requirements,” and if we 

did so, the “only results of that kind of policy would be bigger traffic jams . . . and bigger potholes.” 

 

Turner’s speech, called “The Road Ahead,” began with the observation that 1956 “would have to be 

regarded as ‘a very good year’” because it was when “the most gigantic public works program the 

world has ever known” was launched. Although only 75 percent of the network was open, it was 

already “paying untold benefits to this Nation . . . .” Improvement of other roads had received less 

attention but he explained, “No apology is needed for this past emphasis on Interstate System 

construction, for I am convinced that it was a wise and correct decision.” 

Even as the final mileage was completed in the next few years, “we must be readying ourselves to 

move into two known areas of great need – the cities and the primary routes between them . . . . 

There must be no lag, no delay, no indecision, for the time to move is now.” To address these 

needs, “there must be no appreciable drop in the overall level of highway funding . . . .” The 

funding being spent on the Interstates—about $4 billion a year—will be needed for road 

improvements to address these two great needs. “The record is clear” that the Federal-aid primary 

highways had to be brought up to “acceptable standards of safety and efficiency.” In cities, 

“highways and streets are their very lifelines.” This was “obvious to anyone whose eyes and mind 

are open to the facts.”

For cities, highway upgrades and better use of existing facilities were essential as were adapting the 

network for buses, including busways such as the restricted lanes on the Henry G. Shirley Memorial 

Highway near the Marriott Twin Bridges Motel where the conference was being held (the Shirley 

Highway was designated I-95 at the time, but the portion inside the Capital Beltway is now part of 

I-395). FHWA, Turner said, had been working with the States and UMTA on several bus transit 

programs around the country. “More are on the way.”

For the primary highways, he thought a “Junior Interstates” program was needed to “upgrade or 

replace them with something more than a two lane road.” Although they would not meet Interstate 

control-of-access standards, the Junior Interstates “will be divided highways, and as such they will 

be immensely safer than the existing two-lane roads they will replace.” (Emphasis in original.) 

[Curry, William Nye, “Rapid Transit Use of U.S. Funds Scored,” The Washington Post, September 

24, 1971] 
195 

Highway groups provided information to their advocates to rebut what the November 1971 issue of 

HUFSAM’s Highway Users magazine called a “Web of Myths.” The article rebutted the following 

myths with “a Dash of Truth Serum,” in summary: 

• Highways are Paving Over the Country—Streets and roads in the U.S. occupy less than 1 

percent of the land area. In urban areas the average is 25 to 30 percent, about the same as 

before the automobile. 

• Highways are Ruining the Cities—Urban freeways presently planned will require less than 3 

percent of land in the cities.

• Highways are Destroying the Environment—In 1969, over a half-billion dollars was spent 

on Federal-aid highway projects for elements of direct benefit to the environment. 

• Highways Erode the Tax Rolls—Highways such as I-80 in Pennsylvania, Route 128 circling 

Boston, and U.S. 81 in Yankton, South Dakota, were economic boons. 

• Highways are Unsafe—FHWA estimates that the original 41,000 miles of Interstate 

highways would save 7,500 lives, and prevent 347,000 injuries, 823,000 accidents, and 

$250 million in property damage. 

• Highway Interests are Against Mass Transit—Highway engineers recognize the value of 

buses and encourage their use; FHWA urged its engineers in the 50 States to “encourage the 

greatest use of buses in preference to individual automobiles.” 

• Americans are Being Taxed Unfairly for Highways—Highways are paid for by the people 

who use them in proportion to the miles they travel over them.

• Highways Destroy Houses and Businesses—Changes in Federal law had expanded 

relocation assistance benefits.

The industry had been rebutting these myths for years, but now had a “script” based to a large 

extent on information compiled by FHWA.

When officials saw an article or editorial they did not like, they responded. For example, an 

editorial in the November 13, 1971, issue of The New York Times (“One for the Road”) objected to 

the Senate Finance Committee’s decision, without public hearing or discussion, to amend the 

Administration’s tax bill by diverting the 7 percent of the Federal excise tax on whiskey to the 

“already swollen” Highway Trust Fund. The shift was compensation for the bill’s repeal of the 10-

percent excise tax on light trucks:

This transfer makes no budgetary or transportation or legislative sense. It is yet another 

greedy power play by the voracious highway lobby, engineered by Senator Randolph of 

West Virginia and Long of Louisiana. 

The Highway Trust Fund had “an accumulated surplus of $3.6 billion” and would add $786 million 

in 1971: 

With the Conference of Mayors clamoring for $350 million in emergency funds for mass 

transit, does it make any transportation sense to transfer exactly that amount to the already 

swollen highway fund? 
196 

The pending tax bill is a revenue measure, not a transportation bill. Does it make any 

legislative sense to make what is in effect a critical transportation policy decision in this 

covert and circuitous fashion? 

Members of both parties, including Republican Senator Percy, planned to oppose the amendment 

on the Senate floor, but if it survived, the House members of the conference committee might not 

object to it:

Are these shenanigans democratic?

The highway lobby and their political allies have become drunk with power. Only they 

could have dreamed of characterizing a tax on alcohol as a “highway-user tax.” It is time 

for the Senate to sober them up. 

In a letter printed on December 8 with the heading “Transportation: A Question of Proper Mix,” 

Senator Randolph said the editorial “reveals the same kind of shortsighted refusal to face facts that 

you attribute to me as a so-called political ally of the ‘voracious highway lobby.’” The alleged 

surplus was “artificial,” the result of “administrative withholding of funds obligated to the states” 

the past 4 years. Their release was essential “to redeem the pledge made by Congress in 1956 to 

build a modern highway system.” The diversion of whiskey tax revenue was simply “compensatory 

revenue” needed because the House of Representatives had proposed to repeal of the excise tax on 

light trucks. In fact, he said, the Highway Trust Fund “could easily be faced with a deficit in the 

very near future” without compensation for lost revenue. 

As for the proper mix, he wrote: 

In many minds, the issue became one of highways versus mass transit, as if taking money 

from the Highway Trust Fund would make it available to help meet the many critical masstransit needs of the cities. Resolving all of our country’s transportation problems is not a 

matter of choosing between highways, subways, buses, trains or airplanes. It is instead a 

matter of determining and providing the proper mix of all these through what is called a 

balanced transportation program. I am an ardent supporter of such an approach and 

continue to work for elimination of the financial inequities that exist among the various 

transportation programs . . . . 

Dissipating the Highway Trust Fund does not solve the problems of mass transit, and in fact 

impairs effective mass-transit operations in the many cities where they are carried out by 

buses . . . . America depends heavily on motor vehicles. There continue to be widespread 

demands for better roads over which to move the people and products of this nation. It is 

unfortunate that The Times cannot see the country for the skyscrapers.

Even as highway officials searched for hopeful signs amid the gloom, transit interests were finding 

their expectations unrealized. The funds authorized by the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance 

Act of 1970, subject to appropriation, were not flowing according to authorization levels. Secretary 

Volpe and UMTA Administrator Villareal were supportive but the White House and OMB were 

seeking only partial appropriations for FYs 1971 and 1972. The Administration claimed that transit 
197 

systems were not ready for the money, in part because they did not have the matching funds. An 

unnamed Administration policy official described the transit proposals coming in for funding as 

lacking “any merit at all” in terms of planning. The few plans ready for big sums, such as those for 

New York City, would take so much funding that nothing would be left for other cities and towns. 

To these rationales, one transit authority official griped, “If you don’t want to spend the kind of 

money Congress has approved you can come up with all kinds of reasons why nobody’s ready for 

it.”

Most funding, thus far, had gone to saving or improving bus systems, many in smaller towns. 

When a big city transit system requested funding for rail improvements, UMTA suggested that the 

system request bus money instead. It wanted to fund activities that would become a reality quickly, 

not long-term rail improvements that wouldn’t be completed for years.

Then there was the political calculation as summarized by The Wall Street Journal: 

Some key administration officials have been saying in their own councils and in talks with 

transit leaders that they see little political value for Republicans in pouring money into 

transit systems of traditionally Democratic big cities. “The cities aren’t going to vote for 

Richard Nixon in 1972 no matter what we do,” says one transportation official. [Karr, 

Albert R., “Transit Boosters Complain That Administration is Holding Back Funds Already 

Okayed by Congress,” The Wall Street Journal, December 27, 1971] 

Although funding for capital improvements was important, local officials were just as concerned 

about the growing burden of operation costs. As the House Committee on Banking and Currency 

put it in its report on the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970: 

The committee received a great deal of testimony concerning the need for a new program of 

Federal grants to assist States and local public bodies to defray operating deficits incurred by 

public or private mass transportation companies in providing commuter service . . . . Many 

communities . . . are faced with the need to provide public subsidies to cover operating 

deficits in order to preserve adequate transit service at reasonable fares.

The report discussed the “considerable” dangers of Federal subsidies: 

First, there is a danger that such subsidies would reduce the incentive of cities to make 

capital improvements in their systems, and, second, there is little doubt that such subsidies 

would require close Federal scrutiny of operating details and practices of transportation 

companies. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970, House of Representatives 

91st Congress, 2d Session, Report No. 91-1264, p. 9] 

To address the issue, Section 9 of the 1970 transit legislation called on the Secretary of 

Transportation to study the feasibility of Federal assistance to help defray the operating costs of 

mass transportation companies in urban areas. The study also was to cover any changes in the 
198 

Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1964, as amended, that would be necessary to 

provide such assistance. 

Secretary Volpe submitted Feasibility of Federal Assistance for Urban Mass Transportation 

Operating Costs to Congress on November 22, 1971. “No one can dispute,” the report stated, “that 

there has been a serious decline in urban mass transit over the past decade or that the industry is 

currently in a critical financial state, a state approaching crisis in many localities.” The decline was 

reflected in ridership, which had dropped from 23 billion revenue passengers in 1945 (the last year 

of World War II rationing that reduced automobile usage) to 11 billion riders in 1955 and 7.3 

billion in 1970. Other problems included curtailment of services, increased costs, growing deficits, 

and the failure of transit companies. Public acquisition to prevent the abandonment of transit 

service shifted the burden from private owners who had been unable to turn a profit to public 

agencies. [Feasibility, p. 10] 

More broadly, the report found that “the present condition of transit has also been significantly 

affected over the longer run by trends in urban development and related public policies.” The postwar boom spurred the acquisition of increasing numbers of automobiles and a shift to suburban 

living: 

The explosion of American population into suburbia was accelerated and reinforced by 

Federal housing policies that made mortgage money relatively more available, by Federal 

income tax deductability of mortgage interest, by increasing auto ownership, and by the 

development of extensive systems of express highways. This system of highways 

accelerated the dispersal of residences, business and industry. [Feasibility, p. 26] 

The decline in public transportation mirrored the rise of the automobile: 

The increased ownership and utilization of the automobile have reshaped communities so as 

to greatly reduce the usefulness of conventional mass transit (fixed routes on fixed 

schedules, typically oriented to the CBD). While public transit once had a major influence 

on the distribution of population, jobs, and commercial activity, this is no longer so. Cities 

and their suburbs have sprawled in such a way as to preclude the relatively high densities 

required for the economic operation of conventional transit, and new forms of public transit 

compatible with these changed circumstances have not yet emerged. 

The “under-pricing of the auto mode relative to transit” was another factor in the decline of transit. 

Counting direct and indirect costs of urban expressway construction, economists agree that “user 

charges (primarily gas taxes) incurred by peak period users of such facilities do not, in fact, cover 

the increase in costs associated with providing the extra lanes needed for peak loads. Land 

acquisition and construction costs may be covered, but “the intangible costs of disrupting 

established communities and living patterns can be enormous, not to mention the impact of noise on 

residents and activities that are not relocated.” The cost of air pollution (“largely from 

automobiles”) is another incalculable cost generated by the automobile. [Feasibility, p. 27, 

emphasis in original] 
199 

The report discussed the shift from private to public ownership: 

Generally, the motive for public acquisition has been the same as the motive for local 

subsidization – i.e., transit is a needed public service and should be maintained and publicly 

supported . . . . But public ownership does not in itself change the basic economics of rising 

costs and declining ridership; it may provide some financial relief due to reduced tax 

liabilities, but these reliefs could also be offered to private carriers. 

The report acknowledged that the privately owned transit companies often were perceived as 

seeking profits over service: 

Public transportation in urban areas was caught up in the reform movement that brought 

public service and public utility industries under direct governmental regulation. These 

industries were considered to be natural monopolies from which the public needed 

protection against watered securities and the extraction of monopoly profits. 

The regulatory mindset was “basically passive,” dealing “only with market entry, routes, fares and 

service levels,” rather than the adequacy of services for all users or the possibility of differential 

pricing techniques. 

Now, as transit shifted to public ownership, traditional regulation had been “overshadowed by other 

governmental entities whose policies have substantially affected transit.” Government intervention 

in the form of such activities as safety and pollution standards, insurance requirements, labor 

practices and wages had affected operating costs, often as a result of agencies and authorities 

without responsibility for mass transportation. These agencies and authorities included parking 

authorities, traffic engineers, zoning appeals boards, and of course highway planners. [Feasibility, 

p. 30-31] 

Only 17 States had programs to subsidize transit operating costs. Most had been enacted as 

emergency measures after private transit systems went out of business. Only New Jersey and 

Pennsylvania had significant subsidy programs. [Feasibility, p. 36] From 1961 to 1971, “the 

number of municipalities that provide operating assistance to transit systems has increased nearly 

300 percent (from 21 to 81).” Like the State subsidy programs, the local programs “are relief 

measures designed to preserve existing transit service, with little or no attempt to achieve any 

additional substantive policy objectives through financial assistance.” [Feasibility, p. 44] 

Whether the Federal Government should help with operating subsidies depended on the answer to 

several major issues as well as a choice among mechanisms for aid. First, what are the objectives? 

How do they correlate “with the primary goals of the community and . . . the process of 

comprehensive development planning directed toward implementation of those goals”? Beyond 

this, was a long list of possible objectives, such as mobility for urban populations, including nondrivers, the poor, the old, and the disabled; stabilization or reduction of fares; stimulation of 

ridership; reduction of the deficit; offsetting subsidies for the automobile; and relieving the 

financial burden on cities and States. 
200 

Government intervention carried risks. The private operator provides only the service that users are 

willing to pay for. Public owners discard the market mechanism in determining service and fare, 

leaving government to decide what is needed and what is reasonable. Following government 

acquisition, a major issue is “preserving or creating incentives for management and labor to provide 

efficient and responsive service.” With government paying the bills, “it may be difficult to ensure 

that transit managers would operate henceforth in a prudent and reasonable manner.” At the same 

time, the subsidizer must decide the extent of control to be exercised to comply with existing or 

new standards. In short, if Federal subsidies are to be provided, what requirements should be 

applied in return for the funds? [Feasibility, p. 52-55] 

Further, if Federal operating subsidies were to be approved, officials would have to decide on the 

appropriate mechanism for doing so. Based on field work by the National League of Cities/U.S. 

Conference of Mayors, the report identified several methods of subsidy: 

• Deficit Subsidies – Addressing the gap between a system’s total costs and total revenues 

leaves open questions about what costs and revenue are to be counted (for example, return 

on capital, depreciation, overhead, specific services?)

• Input Subsidies – Funds would cover an absolute amount or percentage of total costs or 

some particular element of cost. Explicit standards would be needed to ensure the 

additional funds result in improved service rather than “a mere windfall.” The effect on 

service would be hard to predict and could distort service based on which elements of cost 

are subsidized. 

• Output Subsidies – These payments would be based on system outputs such as ridership or 

transit service offered. Identifying the outputs to be rewarded would be difficult, and output 

subsidies “are not really an effective means of eliminating deficits.” [Feasibility, p. 56-62] 

Further decisions would have to be made about the recipient of the subsidy. Should it go to the 

transit operator and if so what factors could be considered in deciding the amount of the subsidy? 

Should it go to consumers in hopes of increasing ridership? As an alternative to either option, 

should the current capital assistance program for mass transportation be modified, for example by 

increasing the Federal share, to reduce financial burdens on operators. Shifting aid from existing 

categorical programs to the Administration’s revenue sharing proposals also should be considered 

as an alternative to subsidies since State and local officials could then decide whether to use Federal 

revenue for subsidies or other purposes. [Feasibility, p. 62-66] 

In a three-page section, the report considered service and policy innovations to improve mass transit 

and overcome the obstacles in its path. What was needed were “changes which may be so 

fundamental and so comprehensive as to involve the operations of an entire system rather than 

modifying service in only part of a system.” Time would be needed to pull together resources from 

all levels of government to allow sufficient scope “to ensure inclusion of potential variables, to 

obtain reliable information, and to induce transit managers and local officials to experiment with 

innovative changes.” 

Tests were needed on the “regulatory, pricing, tax and other measures and incentives that would be 

employed” to identify the best ways to improve service and ridership. Innovations might include: 
201 

• Preferential treatment for buses, demand responsive services, improved off-peak use of 

labor and equipment, differential pricing by zone or time of day, provision of fringe parking; 

• Increased parking rates for automobiles in the central business district (CBD), increasing or 

introducing tolls for autos entering the CBD, banning autos altogether in the CBD at all or 

selected times, metering autos onto freeways and streets, preferential treatment for carpools; 

• Staggered work hours, special services for the “transportation disadvantaged,” and greater 

integration of transportation and land use planning; 

• Subsidies could be tested in different forms, such as a subsidy based on ridership or based 

on miles traveled and/or services provided, a stamp program so the “transportation 

disadvantaged” can travel at a discount, or a per capita grant. 

The Department would continue evaluating such programs before deciding whether to make 

necessary recommendations to the Congress. [Feasibility, p. 67-69, innovations summarized] 

The report concluded that, “Little has been done to determine whether transit can compete with the 

automobile under present conditions”: 

Fundamentally, the revenue/expense squeeze in which transit is caught results from its lack 

of success in adapting to new patterns of urban development, responding to changes in 

public preference and expectations, and competing effectively with the private automobile. 

Faced with increasing dispersal of residential, employment and shopping centers in 

metropolitan areas and the personalized conveniences of the automobile, transit has held to 

its concept of fixed, line haul service into dense central core areas – even though the 

financial viability of that type of service seems to be rapidly diminishing. [Feasibility, p. 2] 

State and local subsidies “have not reversed the decline in ridership or prevented increased 

operating deficits, although the decline in riders is substantially less than the national average.” The 

subsidies kept some service from being eliminated, but “ it is a debatable question” whether they 

improved service for those dependent on public transportation, prevented fare increases, stimulated 

innovation or experimentation, or increased awareness of commitment among those involved in 

solving transit’s problems. [Feasibility, p. 2-3] 

The Federal Government had taken steps to strengthen urban mass transportation, including 

“assistance for capital investment in right-of-way, structures and vehicles, provided through both 

the UMTA capital grant program and, with respect to rights-of-way, through the Federal-Aid 

Highway Program.” Transit operators also had been exempted from certain fuel and vehicle excise 

taxes imposed on other highway users: 

Available experience and analysis suggests that further extension of Federal support in the 

form of operating subsidies in and of itself would not contribute to the significant alleviation 

of the underlying difficulties of which the transit deficit is symptomatic. [Feasibility, p. 3] 

In the end, “there is not enough reliable or behaviorally validated information available at present 

for anyone to advocate with confidence a definitive solution to the problem of urban transit or to 

gauge accurately the long-range effect of a Federal subsidy program.” Further exploration was 

needed to support urban transportation policy decisions. 
202 

Therefore, the report contained two recommendations. First, Congress should enact the President’s 

Transportation Special Revenue Sharing proposal along with his General Revenue Sharing plan. 

The President’s proposal to eliminate separate categorical aid programs would allow States and 

metropolitan areas to use Federal funds “in accordance with local concepts of need and priority.” 

The funds could be used for transit operating subsidies if State and local officials concluded that 

doing so would address “a pressing need.” 

Second, the report indicated the Department of Transportation would “continue to evaluate the 

desirability and practicality of service and policy innovations . . . and to study the important 

questions relative to operating subsidies . . . .” The results of this continuing study would determine 

if the Department submits legislative recommendations to Congress. [Feasibility, p. 4-5] 

The report did not address the source of revenue for operating subsidies. Under revenue sharing, it 

would come from existing programs. Beyond that, the report did not discuss the longstanding 

issues of funding from the general Treasury or diversion from the Highway Trust Fund. It also did 

not discuss creation of a Transportation Trust Fund or a separate Mass Transit Trust Fund. 

AASHO’s annual meeting in December 1971 in Miami Beach featured another congressional panel. 

Representative Harsha summarized what everyone on the panel and in the audience knew: 

I think that the year 1972 is going to be a very crucial year for the Federal-aid highway 

program. I say this not only because of [media attacks] but because of the various attacks on 

the highway program that are coming from other segments of our society; because members 

of congress who have not been aligned heretofore with the anti-highway coalition, now 

seem to be aligned with it for various and sundry reasons; and because of some of the 

recommendations of my own administration in Washington. 

This has led me to believe that the year 1972 is to be the year of reckoning insofar as a socalled “after” ’75 highway program is concerned.

He was worried that the Department of Transportation, OMB, and the White House would ignore 

FHWA’s recommendations. He did not see a need for the President’s Executive Branch 

reorganization plan, under which FHWA would end up in a new Department of Community 

Development. 

Highway critics, he said, “seem to be growing not only in intensity and volume and activity but they 

are also developing rather ingenious methods with which to invade the Highway Trust Fund. He 

mentioned the Bicycle Transportation Act of 1971 as an example of the ingenious plans. [American

Highways, January 1972] 

Secretary Volpe also addressed AASHO on December 6. He struck a warning tone in saying that 

the Interstate System must be completed as rapidly as possible “except in those instances where 

local or State officials decide they just do not want them.” He added, “I do not think we are going 

to force it down their throats.” He endorsed the President’s special revenue sharing plan for 
203 

transportation (“the greatest good for the greatest number”) and the Executive Branch 

reorganization (“wholeheartedly”). 

Like highway officials the past few years, he had been thinking about how to counter the criticism 

they faced. If they wanted to improve their image and create a better transportation system, they 

must:

• Present facts to the public to disprove the stereotype that highways are built without regard 

for environment or displaced families. 

• Develop an efficient mass transit system that people will want to use. This system would 

increase the use of existing facilities.

• Develop an integrated system of roads and interstate highways that will effectively link 

section of the country without hurting the environment. 

Highway officials “must always stress that protection of the environment is a goal, not a 

constraint.” 

He summarized, “We must do a better job of proving that highway construction can be compatible 

with environmental values. The facts are our strongest defense.” [Payton, Sheila, “Volpe: 3 

Challenges Face Road Builders,” Miami Herald, December 7, 1971] 
204 

Part 3

The Year of Reckoning

Planning for Reelection

From the start of the Nixon presidency, the economy had been deteriorating from the effects of 

Kennedy and Johnson Administration policies and congressional inaction or ineffective action. 

Professor James MacGregor Burns described the situation facing President Nixon as he began 

planning his reelection campaign for 1972: 

Inflation was running at about 5 percent a year when Nixon took office. In accord with 

sound Republican doctrine, the new Administration must throttle down the social spending 

and the budget deficits for which they had castigated Humphrey and his fellow Democrats in 

the 1968 election campaign. But Nixon was wary. He still felt the scars of his defeat by 

Kennedy in 1960, when he had been beaten in part by the Eisenhower recession, or so he 

believed . . . . 

For over two years Nixon teetered between his two fears, tried to fine-tune the economy 

with a mix of monetary and budgetary policies, along with exhortation from the White 

House. It was hard going every inch of the way. Fine-tuning would have been difficult 

even for a united government. The President had to share economic policy-making with the 

very independent Federal Reserve Board under its imperious chairman [William 

McChesney Martin, Jr., who had served as chairman since the Truman Administration, and 

would leave office on February 1, 1970, replaced by Arthur F. Burns] and with the 

Democratic-controlled Congress. By spring 1970 both prices and unemployment were 

rising sharply—a remarkable combination. The federal deficit was soaring, interest rates 

climbed, and then the stock market took its steepest plunge since depression days. In June 

1970 came the collapse of the Penn Central Railroad, called by [business columnist and 

Times editorial writer] Leonard Silk the greatest business failure in history. 

As the situation continued to decline on the international front as well, the President held a series of 

secret meetings at Camp David. He faced “a painful dilemma,” especially since the best options 

went against the President’s conservative views:

He would have to move on both the domestic and the global front, in particular because the 

convertibility of paper into gold and allowing the dollar to depreciate would stimulate price 

rises at home as the dollar price of imports mounted. Hence it would be necessary to 

establish mandatory price and wage controls. But if there was any man who had, year in and 

year out, vociferously denounced controls, it was Richard Nixon. His aversion was based in 

part on conventional Republican doctrine but even more on his brief working experience 

with price controls in the Office of Price Administration during World War II. 

On August 15, 1971, he emerged from Camp David to announce his New Economic Policy: 
205 

[The] President bit both bullets—indeed, several bullets. He imposed a ninety-day freeze on 

prices, wages, and rents, suspended the convertibility of dollars into gold, and placed a 10-

percent surcharge on imports. He asked Congress to repeal the 7 percent excise tax on cars, 

to speed up personal income-tax exemptions, to put off welfare reform for a year, to 

postpone revenue-sharing programs with the states for three months, to pass a 10 percent 

“job development credit”—a tax credit to business for investment in new plants and 

equipment—that would drop to 5 percent after one year. [Burns, James MacGregor, The 

Crosswinds of Freedom, Vintage Books, 1990, p. 555-556] 

The President’s speech on August 15, 1971, announcing his New Economic Policy was called “The 

Challenge of Peace.” In view of the “progress” made toward ending the Vietnam War, he said, it 

was “an appropriate time for us to turn our attention to the challenges of peace.” He explained: 

Prosperity without war requires action on three fronts: We must create more and better 

jobs; we must stop the rise in the cost of living; we must protect the dollar from attacks of 

international money speculators. 

The 90-day freeze on all wages, rents, and prices was phase 1 of the plan. Phase 2, beginning in 

December, was a less stringent but mandatory system of price and wage controls, but with latitude 

for increases upon Administration approval. 

President Nixon pointed out that Congress “has already delayed action on two of the great 

initiatives of this Administration.” He now asked Congress to delay his proposals for 3 months in 

the case of General Revenue Sharing and 1 year for welfare reform.

As Burns mentioned, the President proposed to repeal the 7-percent excise tax on automobiles, 

effective August 15: 

This will mean a reduction in price of about $200 per car. I shall insist that the American 

auto industry pass this tax reduction on to the nearly 8 million customers who are buying 

automobiles this year. Lower prices will mean that more people will be able to afford new 

cars, and every additional 100,000 cars sold means 25,000 new jobs. 

Congress did not complete work on the legislation until late in the year. President Nixon signed the 

Revenue Act of 1971 on December 10. It repealed the 7-percent automobile excise tax retroactive 

to August 15, the 10-percent excise tax on light-duty trucks (those weighing 10,000 pounds or less 

gross vehicle weight used primarily for personal transportation), and the manufacturers’ tax on 

urban transit buses. In signing the bill, he said: 

[Just] to give an example, over 3 million automobiles have been sold since the 

announcement on August 15 was made. That means that an average of $200 per 3 million 

people will be rebated as a result of the action of Congress. We can see that approximately 

$600 going to those who purchased automobiles around this Christmas season will be a 

good shot in the arm for the economy.
206 

The new law required auto manufacturers to refund the automobile excise tax to customers and then 

claim reimbursement from the Department of the Treasury. Revenue from the excise tax, which 

previously went to the general Treasury, had been coveted by highway and mass transit advocates 

but was no longer available for these or any other purpose. 

Revenue from the excise tax on light-duty trucks and buses had been credited to the Highway Trust 

Fund. Elimination of the tax on light-duty trucks was expected to cost $280 million in FY 1972 

and $360 million in FY 1973. In addition, repeal of the excise tax on trailers with a gross weight of 

10,000 pounds or less used with light-duty trucks would cost the Highway Trust Fund about $3 

million. The only offset, about $25 million a year, would come from extension of the tire tax to 

imported vehicles (bicycles excepted). [General Explanation of the Revenue Act of 1971, Public 

Law 92-178, Prepared by the Staff of the Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation, 92d 

Congress, 2nd Session, December 15, 1972, p. 84-85] 

The Senate amendment transferring a portion of the alcohol tax to the Highway Trust Fund to 

compensate for the loss of light-truck tax revenue was not in the final bill. 

(As for the implication that peace was just around the corner, the Paris Peace Accords on ending the 

war were signed on January 27, 1973, officially ending U.S. military involvement in the war later 

that year. The Vietnam War would end in April 1975 with the collapse of South Vietnam.) 

Cracks in the Lobby

Throughout 1971, the unified highway lobby was showing cracks in an unlikely place. In Detroit, 

Michigan, the Ford Motor Company was gradually breaking away from the unified opposition to 

diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenues. On April 6, Ford vice president Allen W. Merrell had 

written to Michigan Governor Milliken in response to his proposal to increase the gasoline tax by 2 

cents, with a half cent of the increase for mass transit in Michigan’s cities: 

While we agree that a portion of the highway funds for urban areas should be available to 

improve public transportation service we believe that the proposed creation of a special 

urban transportation discretionary fund separately financed by a one-half cent increase in 

gasoline taxes would further complicate an already complex financing system.

We believe that the definition should now be broadened to permit limited use of these funds 

as a supplement to other local, state and federal funds to encourage more intensive use of 

streets and highways for public transportation including building of shelters, loading 

platforms, special ramps and lanes for buses, and parking facilities. 

We also support use of such funds to aid in purchase of buses. 

The company opposed the use of State highway user tax revenue for rail rapid transit, but where it 

is needed in densely populated urban areas, “we believe that rail transit would be more logically 

supported by general state or local revenues than by taxes on highway users.”
207 

In September, after President Nixon’s comment about the Highway Trust Fund during his 

appearance before the Economic Club of Detroit, Henry Ford II, company chairman, had said that, 

“slowly and surely you are going to see some of this money used for other purposes.” He did not 

“know whether we’re yet ready to suggest that mass transit get money out of the highway trust fund 

. . . .” However, James M. Roche, chairman of General Motors, said he could see the possibility of 

highway user tax revenue for transit where “some overlap” of interests existed between motorists 

and riders of mass transit. Lynn A. Townsend, chairman of Chrysler, also said he thought some 

special cases might justify diversion, but said after the President’s remarks that “a general release of 

the money for mass transit would be a misuse of these funds.” 

Now, in the first week of January 1972, Ford brought the subject up again. On January 6, he said 

during a news conference in a new Ford plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, that he thought some 

Highway Trust Fund revenue should be diverted toward mass transit. Appearing with company 

president Lee A. Iacocca, Ford said he did not have a specific amount in mind: 

I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to sell our ideas . . . . We’re in favor of mass 

transit but it’s got be a viable system and can’t cost the general public a fortune. We’ve got 

to start slowly and take some of the highway trust fund money and use it for research and 

experimentation . . . maybe build one system if it is a new type to see whether it works 

before you say you want to earmark X-dollars from the highway fund. [Irvin, Robert W., 

“Ford Nudges Industry on Tax Use for Buses,” Washington Evening Star, January 16, 1972] 

In a surprise move on January 25, the Big Four auto companies (General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, 

and American Motors) came out in support of Governor Milliken’s gas tax proposal. The 

companies changed their position for three reasons, as summarized in The New York Times: 

[R]ealization that better mass transportation system [sic] was needed if downtown Detroit 

was to be revitalized; plans by the auto concerns to develop mass transit systems that they 

eventually hope to manufacture and sell to urban areas, and the rising opposition to cars in 

downtown areas expressed through street closings and redevelopment plans that exclude 

automobile traffic. [Salpukas, Agis, “Auto Makers Back Gas Tax for Transit,” The New 

York Times, January 26, 1972] 

These changes of attitude on the part of traditional highway allies were seen as significant for the 

pending battle in Congress over the future of the Highway Trust Fund. In a Times op-ed (“In Goes 

Money, Out Comes Concrete”), free lance writer Wade Greene put it this way before the auto 

companies changed their position on the Michigan gas tax increase: 

Besieged from without by a growing body of urbanists and environmentalists who are bent 

on stemming what they regard as the reckless graying of America through excessive 

highway building, the trust fund’s supporters now find their own ranks eroding . . . . If 

Ford’s defection is the most dramatic in the highway lobby’s defenses, it has not been the 

only one. Mobil Oil, in an ad in this newspaper, considered the possibility that “special 

earmarked funds are no longer the best approach” to the country’s transportation problems. 

At its gathering last year, the National Governors’ Conference, once a pillar of support for 
208 

the trust fund, voted for incorporating it into an over-all transportation fund, to be used as 

the states saw fit. And in a direct parallel to the national situation, at least two States, 

California and Maryland, recently saw fit to permit highway-oriented state taxes to go to 

nonhighway uses; similar moves are now being debated in other states. 

The defeat of Representative Fallon in 1970 and his replacement by Representative Blatnik as 

chairman of the Committee on Public Works was seen as a hopeful sign for anti-highway forces 

because Blatnik was viewed as having “a good deal more flexibility about the fund” than his 

predecessor. Similarly, the defeat of Senator Randolph’s proposal to shift alcohol tax revenue to 

the Highway Trust Fund to make up for loss of revenue from taxes on light trucks was seen as 

another sign that the sacrosanct Highway Trust Fund no longer had as solid support as in the past. 

These signs did not, however, guarantee a change in the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues: 

While opponents of the trust no longer face a monolithic antagonist, they are far from 

dismissing the persuasiveness of those who are still intent on keeping the fund as it is. “One 

thing that’s fairly obvious,” says H.A.C. director John Kramer, “is that these people have an 

awful lot of money available and this is a campaign year and candidates do need an awful 

lot of money.” [Greene, Wade, “In Goes Money, Out Comes Concrete,” The New York 

Times, January 16, 1972] 

In February 1972, The Wall Street Journal wrote about the highway industry’s counter-offensive. 

In “The Highway Lobby Aims to Prove There is No Highway Lobby,” the newspaper described “an 

intensifying counterattack” aimed at “environmentalists and other critics who contend that 

highways gobble up land, besmirch the landscape, stimulate traffic congestion and pollution, rip up 

neighborhoods and soak up taxes.” The “new drive and urgency” was inspired by the importance of 

1972 as a highway reauthorization year with the question of opening up the Highway Trust Fund to 

mass transit to be decided. HUFSAM, the article stated, had decided to “take off the kid gloves” to 

ensure the American people “hear the truth about highway transportation”: 

So federal officials are on the attack, seeking to sway the public with prepared speeches, 

news releases, “fact sheets,” brochures and bumper stickers, and singling out certain critics 

by name. Among them are Helen Leavitt, author of the book “Superhighway-Superhoax” 

and journalists and columnists whose work has appeared in such publications as the 

Reader’s Digest, Saturday Review, Field & Stream, The New York Times, and The Wall 

Street Journal.

HUFSAM staff and 17 regional representatives had delivered 140 speeches since the campaign 

began in the fall of 1971: 

They have debunked, among other things, the superhighway “myth” of the “bulldozer 

invasion,” the “urban-strangulation” myth, the “paving-over-America” myth and even the 

“myth of the highway lobby.” (“If you call those who benefit from highways ‘the highway 

lobby,’ then it is the entire American public.”) 
209 

The industry also had formed TRIP (The Road Information Program) to release radio and 

newspaper advertisements. TRIP had raised $250,000 in late 1971, but was hoping to raise $1 

million in 1972. The Journal described one TRIP radio ad: 

In one TRIP radio spot, a woman’s voice says: “I almost went off the road today—at that 

blind curve where the old highway meets Ridge Road.” She tells her husband she read 

about 200,000 miles of primary highways with “blind curves, narrow lanes, things like 

that!” She says she plans to write the TRIP people and highway officials about fixing the 

curve, whereupon the announcer chimes in: “. . . Your highways. You’ve got a lot riding 

on them.” 

The article described the origins of FHWA’s Resource Book: 

The Federal Highway Administration, meanwhile, has launched a lower-key campaign of its 

own. About a dozen FHWA officials recently had some meetings to discuss their critics and 

the criticism itself, then compiled a manual of handy rebuttals . . . . “We didn’t want a 

negative document—we wanted to put together a group of factors to support a highway 

program,” says Steiner M. Silence, an FHWA officials who helped develop the book. 

HUFSAM cited a public opinion poll that found that about 80 percent of Americans had a “very or 

fairly favorable” attitude toward highways. D. Grant Mickle, HUFSAM’s president, said the survey 

“proves so-called public animosity towards highway transportation to be a fiction.” 

The Highway Action Coalition took exception to that survey, as the article noted. Ben Kelley, the 

former FHWA public affairs officials, spoke on behalf of the coalition (he was “regarded as a 

turncoat in highway circles ever since he wrote an antihighway book, ‘The Pavers and the Paved’”): 

[Using] other figures from the federation’s survey, he says results show only 23% of those 

interviewed were “very favorable” to highways, while 57% “took the noncommittal middle 

course of choosing ‘fairly favorable.’” 

Kelley, the article said, was “a particular bugaboo” for HUFSAM. After he appeared on NBC’s 

Today show to criticize highways, a HUFSAM regional official sent a memo to headquarters:

He complained that the show would get “a hell of a lot of people—especially nincompoop 

housewives . . . all hot and bothered about the pollution, misuse of their taxes – blah, blah, 

blah.” [Karr, Albert R., “The Highway Lobby Aims to Prove There is No Highway Lobby,” 

The Wall Street Journal, February 17, 1972] 

Just as the pro-highway forces were preparing for what they knew would be a major battle for 

Federal-aid highway reauthorization in the presidential election year of 1972, the pro-diversion 

forces were planning their lines of attack. The Highway Action Coalition was ready. An article in 

Washington’s Evening Star described the state of readiness:
210 

Ecological groups, flexing their muscles after helping to down the supersonic transport 

plane this year, are getting set for a new battle in 1972, this time over highways. Highways, 

they contend, are slowly strangling the nation. Their theme runs like this: 

Highways grab off more than their share of the federal transportation dollar, seal off 

urban slums, pollute the air we breathe, contribute to the growing shortage of fuel for 

heat and light – and breed more highways. 

Environmental Action and the Sierra Club, the article stated, were the principal forces behind the 

Highway Action Coalition, but they were joined by: Americans for Indian Opportunity, Committee 

for Humane Legislation, Friends of the Earth, Mexican-American Youth Organization, Natural 

Resources Defense Council, Washington Planning and Housing Association, Wilderness Society, 

and Zero Population Growth. 

Their goal: To chop off what they call “the monster’s head” – the highway trust fund. 

Their immediate target: To break loose for other forms of transportation the unused billions 

of dollars in the trust fund as Congress considers new highway legislation this year. 

An article in the coalition’s newsletter, The Concrete Opposition, stated, “It’s a self-perpetuating 

thing. The more you drive, the more gas you use and the more money flows into the Trust Fund, 

and more roads are built which encourages you to drive more.” 

The coalition wanted to open the Highway Trust Fund to all forms of ground transportation in ways, 

such as the same Federal share, that made the alternatives as attractive as highways:

The coalition notes that since 1963 more than 100 transit systems have folded. Last year, 

they say, mass transit nationwide suffered a deficit of $332 million, and the trend is 

continuing. 

As 1972 began, the coalition was “optimistic that public pressure [and] growing official awareness 

of the problem will come together in 1972 to shift priorities.” Members were encouraged by signs 

of progress. For example, the Senate plan to divert 7 percent of Federal alcohol tax dollars to the 

Highway Trust Fund in the 1971 tax bill had been killed in conference with the House. “Coalition 

co-director John Cramer [sic] hailed this as a first defeat for the highway lobby and claimed it 

showed a growing disenchantment on Capitol Hill with the direction of the highway program.” As 

further evidence, Kramer cited the Proxmire Joint Economic Committee’s support in 1970 for 

abolishing the Highway Trust Fund and the bills introduced in recent years to make Highway Trust 

Fund revenues available for transit.

One thing was clear. The coalition promised a major legislative initiative in January to keep the 

momentum going. Kramer said, “Once a sufficiently large, informed and determined constituency 

is formed and effectively directed toward changing national transportation priorities, our task will 

be close to completion.” The coalition would “bolster local efforts by pooling strength” because the 

job would not be easy: 
211 

Fighting freeways is not unlike battling with an octopus. One by one you can struggle with 

and cut off all eight of its arms. But as long as the head is left, the arms are capable of 

quickly regenerating themselves. [Elder, Shirley, “Ecologists Load Guns for Fight Against 

Highways,” Washington Evening Star, December 26, 1971] 

The media continued to take aim at the automobile and highway, with early 1972 seeing publication 

of more critical books: 

Jerome, John, The Death of the Automobile: The Fatal Effect of the Golden Era, 1955-

1970, W. W. Norton & Company, 1972. 

Buel, Ronald A., Dead End: The Automobile in Mass Transportation, Prentice-Hall, 1972. 

Jerome, whose book was published in January, had been editor of Sports Car Digest and Car and 

Driver magazines “in what we self-importantly called automotive journalism.” He said he quit “not 

out of pique or any cold-eyed rational rejection, but because my ardor had simply cooled.” After 

leaving the magazines, he had initially abandoned ownership of a car but purchased one after 

moving to New Hampshire. Now that he was in the country, he had no choice. He added, however, 

that “Car ownership nowadays is too difficult, too expensive. Too hard on the conscience.” In 

short, “The premise of this book is that the automobile must go.” [Jerome, p. 18-19] 

He offered no hope for those who thought the automobile could be improved to eliminate its 

negative side effects:

Technology isn’t evil, but the uses of technology often are. The car is a bad machine—and 

the solution is not to build a better bad machine, but rather not to build bad machines. Yet 

this huge, wealthy nation is trapped with what is virtually a single transportation system, and 

to suggest simply abandoning that system is to suggest paralyzing the nation. We have 

become addicted to automobiles; they have become literally a necessity for sustaining life. 

[p. 21-22] 

In his chapter on “The Road,” Jerome discussed the role of roads in history, symbolism, and 

literature. “America is a road epic; we have even developed a body of road art, Huck Finn to The 

Grapes of Wrath to Easy Rider, cutting loose to pursue the dream.” Now, however, road building 

had “accelerated to the point of self-parody.” He continued: 

With no place else worth opening up, we began building roads to get to roads, roads on top 

of roads. We ceased to build in service to the noble motivations of interchange and 

communication. We stopped building roads to places. We began building roads for

automobiles. 

It is no coincidence that the initiation of what the Bureau of Public Roads is fond of calling 

“the largest single public-works project in the history of the world” occurred just as the 

golden era of the automobile industry was getting under way. 
212 

In the mid-1950s, “we seemed capable of coping by conventional methods,” but “nobody could 

misread the production figures emanating from Detroit.” The Interstate legislation failed in 1955 

“by a whisker” in Congress: 

In 1956—aided, no doubt, by the pressure from 10 million more vehicles—imaginations 

were a little more fertile. The Interstate Highway System was launched, backed to the hilt 

by a generous and clever device called the Highway Trust Fund, which decreed that all 

federal taxes collected on motor vehicles, gasoline, and ancillary equipment would go to 

build a varicose network of “superhighways,” for now and forever, amen, or until 

completion of the System. [p. 104-105, emphasis in original]

As the “press releases rolled,” State highway officials began building the Interstates. By 1971, he 

said, 32,000 miles were open, but lawsuits had blocked construction in cities around the country. 

“It had become virtually impossible to gain acceptance for a new Interstate in any major urban area, 

and many rural segments of the plan—particularly those aimed like concrete daggers at the heart of 

any scenic or historic spot—were in trouble.” [p. 105-106] The Interstate System was not the only 

road building concept “that has gone awry” in America: 

But it is the most visible, and generates the most criticism. As the biggest, most expensive, 

most disruptive, and undoubtedly the most graft-ridden roadway project in history, this 

fifteen-year exercise in conspicuous tax consumption is as eloquently symbolic of what 

went wrong with road-building as the 1970 Impala is symbolic of what went wrong with 

car-building. [p. 109] 

The highway lobby was behind the whole scheme. AASHO, for example, was “one of the visible 

tips of the highway-lobby iceberg,” but it was joined by car manufacturers, oil companies, steel 

makers, tire makers, truckers, and ARBA and AGC, plus lobbying groups such as HUFSAM. “One 

might expect such a congruence of economic, political, military, and public support to provide a 

sufficient momentum to pave the entire nation, and for a decade and a half there seemed little 

likelihood of any other fate. We had to pave, of course, for the cars.” [Jerome, p. 113-115] In 

bullet-points, he summarized the result: 

• Highway projects systematically devastate ghettos, historical regions, and park [sic].

• Highways kill inner-city retail activity.

• The automobile commuter is the specific disaster that is killing the cities. Freeways make 

him possible. 

• Highways remove property from the tax rolls at the very time when the cities are starving 

for revenue. 

• Multilane, limited-access roads concentrate high-speed traffic at dangerous levels.

• Highway programs tend to turn into a Big Casino for land speculators . . . . Watch the 

freeway go in, see the Big Rich get richer.

• Growing public demand for local control has no place in the road-making mechanism.

• Highways are planned on the basis of highway use, rather than as adjuncts to a community. 

• Roads make community designers out of land speculators. 
213 

• Roads, tend, at worst, to increase our population imbalance at current marginally operable 

levels; at best, they freeze the imbalance at current marginally operable levels.

• Road construction in the developed portion of the nation destroys housing (usually the lowcost variety, of course) at a time when there is a critical shortage of that commodity, a 

vitally more important basic requirement than mobility.

• The Interstate System and similar long-haul roadways subsidize commercial users at the 

expense of private users.

• Road-building programs militate against development of workable public transit systems.

• While at the urban end roads cause congestion, tax depletion, urban flight, and a host of 

environmental disasters, at the rural end they simply cost too much. 

• Highways increase congestion.

• Highways are aimed at providing convenient routes between more and more distant points, 

at reduced traffic levels.

• Besides, nobody knows how to make highways work. For automobiles, yes; for the nation, 

for the public that pays for them, that is dislocated by them, not yet. Very likely never. [p. 

116-121, bullet points abbreviated] 

In concluding his chapter on “The Road,” Jerome asked, “If we could not solve the problem with 

100 million vehicles, how can we hope to with 200 or 300 million?” He continued: 

It isn’t going to get any better as long as we have automobiles as the sole basis of our 

transportation system, and twenty-five years of experience has pushed us to no cleverer 

solution than to build more roads to hold the more cars that we’ve built and bought. But 

twenty-five years have kept the pressure on; maybe with another twenty-five under our belts,

we will begin to think of new ways to go. Or maybe we won’t go at all. On examination, 

the latter course seems much more probable. The question seems to be whether we will 

choose that course or be forced into it. [p. 124] 

Buel, a former reporter with The Wall Street Journal, said that his book, released in March, “aims 

to take a small but important part of America—its transportation system, and even more 

specifically, its urban transportation network—and to put this small piece in the political and social 

context of what ails us as a people.” [Buel, p. 1] The automobile had “become the very symbol, 

the epitome of our leisure culture, our consumerism, our unnecessary affluence.” [p. 7] It left 

behind “a large minority of poverty-stricken people” who were not served by our “automobilehighway system.” [p. 9] 

As for freeways, they are “in a very important way, inherently destructive of the landscape through 

which they pass, be it urban or rural.” Moreover, “no unusual artistic perception” was required “to 

see that our freeways are ugly things,” especially compared to the “fine highways built in the past,” 

such as the Columbia Gorge Highway in Oregon and the Wilson River Highway connecting 

Portland with Tillamook, Oregon. [p. 78] 

Despite the problems caused by highways, “you must be careful not to identify the highway 

engineer as too much the evil villain.” He explained: 
214 

He may often be a pedestrian bureaucrat who does his job and no more, but we must not 

fault him too much for his failure to have a larger vision. For he is not encouraged or 

trained to have a larger vision. And the rewards of taking pains with highways, of doing 

more than is asked for, are totally negative. [p. 85] 

For freeway design, as closely as one can tell, is in the control of people with uniformly 

narrow vision and aesthetic sensitivity, from the top man in the Bureau of Public Roads to 

the lowest of the lowly highway bureaucrats . . . . Our freeway system is the world’s most 

gigantic construction project, yet we have executed it totally without regard to the simplest 

of design principles—principles that can be understood and observed by any layman, 

principles that the American public would pay for if their highway experts and politicians 

would only ask, principles that, if followed, could have lightened the burden of living in this 

difficult time. [p. 93] 

Buel had several suggestions: 

• First, planning goals ought not to be uniform throughout the nation. 

• Second, it is not practically possible to completely divorce decisions about major public 

expenditures, such as freeways, from the political process. 

• Third, another important principle is that freeway planning must start from its gross effects 

on land use and traffic patterns. 

• Fourth, a flexible and just method of financing freeways must be found. [p. 97-100] 

Buel conceded that “deciding with any degree of finality whether or not more freeways are needed 

is not possible, in the abstract.” The question, after all, was not whether freeway A or freeway B 

was needed:

My opinion is that if we start making that decision in a large enough context, and we 

consider alternative ways the funds might be spent to fill transportation needs, we would 

build far fewer urban freeways in the next decade than we are likely to under present 

circumstances. For this reason, a politician who called for a total moratorium on freeway 

building would probably be more right than wrong. For once the freeway is built it is not 

likely to be torn down, and once it is built it is likely to stimulate demand for more of the 

same. I say let’s have a moratorium on urban freeways. [p. 112, emphasis in original] 

In a chapter on “Alternatives to the Automobile,” Buel said that just because someone uses 

highways does not mean “he wants to be taxed to make that highway system grow.” Buel, for 

example, would rather see his highway user taxes go to mass transit projects such as BART and 

other new rapid rail systems. On a smaller scale he praised the 14.5-mile Lindenwold rail line 

linking Camden, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, the high-speed Metroliner service linking New 

York City and Washington, urban cable car service, bicycles and walking, moving sidewalks, buses, 

jitneys, carpools, and experimental subscription bus services in Peoria, Illinois, and Flint, Michigan 

(although he conceded the Flint service was a failure). Because each city was unique, the blend of 

alternatives would vary around the country. “What is important is that we force the political system 
215 

to narrow the options, and not allow the technicians to continue to do the narrowing for the 

politicians.” [p. 163, 174-210] 

In response to such pressure, the highway lobbyists would try to maintain the status quo. “Their 

representatives are full-time at the legislature. They can ‘stay with’ the things that they care about, 

get to know the legislators, follow the bills closely, ingratiate themselves with dinners, drinks, 

favors, and one suspects, a smidgeon of cold cash from time to time.” [p. 224] In 1968, for 

example, ARBA organized a $50-a-plate dinner for Representative Fallon, raising $13,000. “This 

included $1,000 each from two Pennsylvania contractors, $500 from a California cement lobbyist, 

and $850 from thirteen South Dakota road builders.” Former Administrator Bridwell had said in an 

interview in the February 1968 issue of Architectural Forum that, “Every time I say no to a 

highway, you can bet there will be a governor, a senator, and some representative on the phone in 

45 minutes.” What was needed, Buel thought, was a new breed of politicians who were “not 

looking for fast results, but willing to build the sort of political involvement and participation by all 

groups and types of people that insures that, at least at the local level, government will have to 

respond to people’s needs and be financed at a level commensurate with the task.” [p. 228, 230-

231] 

A review in The New York Times said that, “Like a modern Don Quixote, Mr. Buel flails out in 

many directions,” but added that “if books like this speed the nation’s trip toward more reliance on 

mass transportation, then Mr. Buel has performed a service.” [Fowler, Elizabeth M., “Love Affair 

Ended?” The New York Times, March 5, 1972] 

Despite the continued negative publicity, HUFSAM, as evidenced by its campaign motto of “Let’s 

Keep the Trust,” and other highway boosters intended to fight hard in Congress in 1972. 

Bottomless Pits

On January 20, 1972, President Nixon delivered his State of the Union Address. After discussing 

his foreign policy goals, including peace in Vietnam, he turned to domestic affairs. His General 

Revenue Sharing plan, still pending in Congress, was a priority as was his proposed reorganization 

of the Executive Branch. He mentioned the transportation successes of recent years, including the 

Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970 and creation of the Airport and Airway Trust 

fund. Building on these successes, he hoped the 92nd Congress would approve Special Revenue 

Sharing for Transportation “so that cities and States can make better long-range plans with greater 

freedom to achieve their own proper balance among the many modes of transportation.” He added: 

Highway building has been our first priority—and our greatest success story—in the past 

two decades. Now we must write a similar success story for mass transportation in the 

1970's. 

He said his budget would propose a 65-percent increase, to $1 billion (up from $600 million in FY 

1972), for mass transportation. The funding would help cities buy buses, build subways, and meet 

other capital costs in FY 1973. 
216 

Senator Harrison Williams, chairman of the Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee, decided to 

take on the issue of operating subsidies without waiting for Administration support. He held a 

hearing on January 31, 1972, on his bill to provide $150 million in subsidies as a stopgap for transit 

systems around the country. Carmack Cochran, president of the American Transit Association, said 

his privately owned transit company in Nashville, Tennessee, “could not exist out of the fare box if 

we were given the unlimited power to raise fares.” The transit industry, he said, cannot provide an 

efficient and cheap alternative to the private care. “To the contrary, the peculiar economics of 

transit mean that if the present trends continue, it will provide less service to few [sic] people at 

higher cost.” He and Dr. Ronan of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) 

estimated a national need of $400 million a year in subsidies. 

As Cochran’s comments indicated, many cities were still in transition from privately owned transit 

services, such as his company, to public ownership. On February 1, Mayor Thomas A. Luken of 

Cincinnati, Ohio, told the subcommittee that Cincinnati Transit, Inc., “is dying a slow death, and 

there seems to be precious little time left.” The city did not have the money to rescue the company 

or take over its service. Saying he rode the bus to work, he blamed highway investment: 

We cannot continue to build countless miles of highway and expressway and to crowd them 

with innumerable vehicles, as we have been doing. From an environmental standpoint, if 

nothing else, we must have a mass transportation system . . . and we cannot . . . unless there 

is comprehensive federal assistance forthcoming.

Secretary Volpe declined an invitation to testify, saying his testimony would “serve no useful 

purpose.” The Department of Transportation had recommended further study of subsidies in its 

November 1971 report to Congress and indicated that they were not necessarily as appealing as 

other measures, such as expanded use of reserved bus lanes, to aid the industry by making the 

service more attractive. As for Secretary Volpe’s decision not to testify, Senator Williams said, 

“Only one conclusion can be drawn. Despite presidential pronouncements, the administration is 

really indifferent to the commuter’s plight.” [Eisen, Jack, “Transit Leaders Plead for Subsidy at 

Senate Hearing,” February 1, 1972, and “City Transit Dying, Hill Told,” The Washington Post, 

February 2, 1972] 

While Senator Williams was holding a second day of hearings on February 1, Administrator 

Villarreal revealed in an interview that the Department was considering subsidies. He and other 

Department officials had met in January with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National 

Governors’ Conference, the National League of Cities, representatives of the transit industry, and 

others to “identify alternatives for implementing a program of transit assistance based on 

incentives.” With a smile, he emphasized that, “We don’t call them ‘operating subsidies.’” The 

New York Times reported his comments: 

“The big question,” he said, “is will operating subsidies really improve public 

transportation?” 

He noted that Mr. Volpe’s past opposition to the subsidies had been influenced by his 

experience as Governor of Massachusetts, where a local subsidy to the Massachusetts Bay 
217 

Transportation Authority “started at $4-million a year two decades ago and is now more 

than $60-million.

“For a government subsidy to really improve transit, it has to be implemented in such a way 

that it improved service,” Mr. Villarreal said, and that is why the Administration is seeking 

to devise a plan that would tie the Federal aid to improvements of service and emphasis on 

efficient operations.

An anonymous source in the Department told the Times: 

One thing we’re very concerned with is the transit unions. We don’t want to set up Federal 

subsidies that they can use as a blank check, coming back year after year for more because 

they think subsidies are unlimited. It’s one of the biggest problems, and tat’s [sic] why we 

want to have incentives for efficiency. [Lindsey, Robert, “U.S. is Considering Mass-Transit 

Aid,” The New York Times, February 2, 1972] 

The Nixon Administration, like Republicans generally, was suspicious of unions, which tended to 

support Democratic candidates. Across the transportation spectrum, the Administration and 

especially Secretary Volpe had been confronted with union demands, strikes, and threats of strikes 

to stop rail, air, and shipping service. (In early 1972, 13,000 dock workers were on strike on the 

West Coast.) The Administration had proposed legislation that would, as the Secretary told the 

National Transportation Institute on February 2, “amend our hopelessly antiquated transportation 

labor relations legislation.” He was referring to the proposed Transportation Regulatory 

Modernization Act of 1971 and the Transportation Assistance Act of 1971. Such changes were 

needed because the transportation modes could not solve the problems alone. He cited transit as an 

example:

This is a challenge the transit industry cannot solve by itself. This alone is a persuasive 

argument for President Nixon’s proposed department of community development to be 

created under his executive reorganization program. 

Urban mass transit systems would collapse in chaos, he said, unless “we take prompt and decisive 

action.” Federal mass transit had helped stabilize bus transit systems in 60 U.S. cities and helped 

purchase 7,900 buses and 1,100 rapid transit rail cars, but the real answer was for urban transit 

planners and city planners to produce systems that “combine transportation, housing, shopping, 

schools, jobs, and all the rest into total communities.” [Rokeach, Morey, “Volpe Urges Transport 

Labor Laws,” The Journal of Commerce, February 3, 1972; and Associated Press, “Volpe Urges 

Action Now on Urban Transit,” The Washington Post, February 3, 1972] 

On February 17, the Senate Banking and Urban Affairs Subcommittee approved operating subsidies 

for urban transit systems as part of the Housing bill. Senator Williams had prepared the final 

version, which would let the Department of Transportation dip into $3.1 billion in authorized 

capital-outlay funds to provide the subsidies. Private companies could receive subsidies if the 

application were submitted by a public agency willing to pay one-third of the company’s losses. 
218 

The approved bill also increased the Federal share to 90 percent, from two-thirds, for transit 

construction and equipment purchases.

When the bill reached the Senate floor, Senator Jacob K. Javits (R-NY) introduced an amendment 

that changed the subsidy measure by taking $400 million a year from the general Treasury for FYs 

1973 and 1974. He argued that the Department of Transportation capital grant fund was already 

running short of needs. Senator Gordon Allott (R-Co.), a transit supporter, tried to strip the bill of 

the subsidy provision; he introduced a letter from Secretary Volpe saying the Administration did 

not support operating subsidies. Allott’s effort failed, 53 to 26. The Senate approved the Housing 

bill, 80 to 1, on March 2. With Senate passage, the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1972 

would await House action. [Herbers, John, “Senate Approves Housing Program Aiding Big 

Cities,” The New York Times, March 3, 1972; “Senate Okays Transit Funds,” The Journal of 

Commerce, March 7, 1972] 

Transit interests and local officials were optimistic. The Wall Street Journal headlined a May 9 

article: 

City Transit Systems At Long Last Likely to Get Federal Aid 

The subheads read: 

Advocates Sat It Can Revive Deteriorating Local Lines;

Critics See Bottomless Pit

Hemorrhaging in New Jersey

The $800 million provision in the Senate housing bill offered the relief cities were seeking “to stave 

off bankruptcy or shutdown.” Burke, the transit lobbyist, “figures that with 250 Representatives 

hailing from districts with locally subsidized transit systems, there’s a solid base of support in the 

435-member House.” It was clear, the article said, that “the chamber’s attitude toward operating 

subsidies, glacial only two years ago, has warmed up greatly.” Representative Joel Broyhill, 

described as a conservative Republican from northern Virginia, was cited as an example. “Subsidy 

has always been obnoxious to me,” he said, “but in local transit there ain’t no other way.” 

The article reported some movement within the Administration:

Transportation Secretary John A. Volpe, who had viewed such assistance as pouring money 

into “bottomless pits,” is said to have swung around to the view that the administration 

should offer a subsidy plan. “You just can’t let service blow away because the problem is 

so complex,” a Transportation Department official says. Besides, he adds, “they’re getting 

impatient on Capitol Hill, and the Secretary is quite sensitive to it.”

As the Secretary’s comment about “bottomless pits” suggested, the article said, critics feared that 

operating subsidies “would become a massive, ever-expanding boondoggle, enmeshing the 

government in the maddening day-to-day affairs of transit operations.” That fear had prompted 
219 

Senator Allot to try to block the subsidy provision despite his support for public transportation. He 

saw it as subsidizing “the worst systems, the worst management, the worst operation, the worst 

overloading of personnel—everything that is bad about the operation of any system.” He added, “I 

can only liken it to welfare in its potential for spending money with little benefit.” [Karr, Albert R., 

“City Transit System At Long Last Likely to Get Federal Aid,” The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 

1972] 

While mass transit advocates were following the subsidy measure in the House and Senate housing 

bills, advocates also were pursuing their biggest challenge: diverting revenue from the Highway 

Trust Fund to transit. 

An Efficient and Balanced System

On December 30, 1971, Secretary Volpe issued a statement in advance of a press conference to say 

“the Department of Transportation has reached a turning point in its drive to establish a foundation 

for an efficient and balanced transportation system.” Through intermodal planning and enactment 

of legislation since the Department’s creation 3 years earlier, the Department was on its way to 

curing the country’s current transportation problems even as a system was being shaped for 

addressing future needs: 

We have made very important progress in putting together the transportation plans and 

programs which will unclog our streets, facilitate air traffic, reduce fatal accidents, revive 

and revitalize railroad and public transportation and, in general, create a balanced system 

which will adequately serve the public and enhance the quality of American life. We can 

now look forward to completing our mission, fully mindful of the Presidential admonition to 

increase transportation capacity without damaging our land, our environment or our social 

fabric.

Recent legislation had established programs to meet the most pressing needs. For example, the 

Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970, which committed $10 billion over 12 years, 

made possible “a significant start toward checking the decline in urban mass transit systems and 

rebuilding them to a point where they can provide the necessary service.” By July 1972, the 

Department will have allocated about a billion dollars to improve public transportation. In a joint 

intermodal effort, financing was being provided for express lanes for buses in five cities thus far, 

with FHWA funding the lanes while UMTA funded new, modern buses. 

After discussing rail and air needs, the St. Lawrence Seaway, and the United States Coast Guard (all 

within the Department’s jurisdiction), he turned to highway safety. Great strides had been made, he 

said, thanks to the efforts of FHWA and NHTSA. The rate of highway traffic fatalities had 

continued to decline during 1971. (The fatality rate declined from 4.85 deaths per 100 million 

miles traveled in 1970 to 4.57 deaths in 1971.) Unfortunately, “a similar decline in total deaths on 

the highways may not be achieved this year because of the greatly increased number of miles 

traveled by American motorists.” (The number of fatalities rose slightly, from 53,816 deaths in 

1970 to 53,907 deaths in 1971.) Still, he expected a “sharp reduction” when “the full impact” of 

the safety measures put into effect by the Department is felt.
220 

He also discussed the positive effects of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970. In addition to 

continuing construction of the Interstate System, the 1970 Act provided for “more liberal use of 

highway trust funds” for safety, highway beautification, replacement housing, roadside parks, 

bicycle trails, and other environmental improvements. The Act also allowed the use of the funds 

“for augmenting the urban mass transportation program.” In these ways, the legislation 

“contributed to the overall goals of the Department.” 

In addition, by authorizing the use of Highway Trust funds for roadside parks, bicycle trails, and 

other environmental improvements, the 1970 Act was “contributing substantially to the ecological 

program to which all agencies of the Department are committed.” Further, the Department had 

“been able to mount an effective program for removal of non-conforming outdoor advertising signs 

along the Interstate and primary road system” thanks to the new provisions and funding of the 1970 

Act. He said that 40 States and other jurisdictions were in compliance with billboard removal 

requirements of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. 

The Secretary’s statement also mentioned the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue to provide 

replacement housing that he said “helped to minimize hardship suffered by those whose homes lie 

in the path of transportation projects.” The Department “adheres rigidly to its policy that safe, 

sanitary and suitable housing much be available before any family is displaced.” 

For anti-highway forces, the surplus in the Highway Trust Fund had become an increasingly 

appealing target in the search for revenue—seeming to be a large amount of unneeded highway 

money that could be shifted to transit. When an editorial in The New York Times (“Priorities in 

Transit”) on January 10, 1972, stated that the Highway Trust Fund “will . . . have an accumulated 

surplus of over $4 billion at the end of the fiscal year 1972,” HUFSAM’s J. C. Martin wrote to 

inform the editors that, “This is simply not true.” Published on January 22 under the heading “A 

Surplus That Isn’t,” Martin’s letter explained: 

The “surplus” you refer to is nothing more than a cash balance in the trust fund, similar to 

the balance any one of us might have in a checking account. Although the money appears to 

be available, it is already obligated to certain expenses—in the case of the Highway Trust 

Fund, to highway projects now being constructed by the State.

In fact, although the cash balance in the trust fund is now about $3.6-billion, the fund’s 

liability is more than twice as much, about $7.5 billion. 

His explanation and use of the checking account analogy were correct, but repeated explanations of 

the balance had little impact on the debates. The problem arises because the Federal-aid highway 

program operates on a reimbursement basis. It obligates funds for a project, but those funds remain 

in the Highway Trust Fund account until the State incurs expenditures and submits vouchers for 

progress payments during completion of the project. Larger projects take more than 1 year to 

complete, so funds obligated for them will remain in the account for months, even years despite 

being committed to that project. 

(FHWA still addresses the issue, for example in its publication Financing Federal-Aid Highways: 
221 

The balance of the HTF has long been a point of controversy. Because of the nature of a 

reimbursable program like the FAHP, there may be cash in the fund that is not needed for 

immediate use. It is important to understand that this is not necessarily excess cash but will 

be needed to reimburse the States as vouchers are submitted.

Perhaps a comparison of the HTF operation to a personal financial situation can help clarify 

this point. If a person has a checking account balance of $500, that amount cannot be 

considered in excess if he or she has at the same time outstanding monthly bills of $1,000, 

but neither is the account in a deficit situation if he or she will receive $1,200 in a paycheck 

at the end of the month. 

The HTF operates in the same manner. [Financing Federal-Aid Highways, FHWA, 2007, 

p. 35, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/reports/financingfederalaid/])

As work began in 1972 on Federal-aid legislation, congressional leaders were convinced that as 

Chairman Kluczynski put it at the start of the Subcommittee on Roads hearing, the pending 

legislation “could be the most far-reaching and important piece of legislation to be produced in the 

highway field since the passage of the 1956 act creating and funding the Interstate Highway 

System.” Because of the elections in November 1972, the schedule for approving the legislation 

would be tight. He would delay hearings on the Federal-aid highway program until he received the 

Highway Needs Report, which was then being held in OMB, or if not the report, the Department of 

Transportation’s recommendations. [1972 Highway Legislation, Hearings before the 

Subcommittee on Roads of the Committee on Public Works, House of Representatives, 92nd

Session 2nd Session, Committee Print 92-32, p. 1] 

Instead, the initial stage of the Subcommittee’s hearings, which began on February 17, was devoted 

to highway safety. While hearings continued on that important topic through February 24, the 

Subcommittee on Housing of the Committee on Banking and Currency held a 1-day hearing on 

February 23 on Urban Mass Transportation. In introductory comments, Chairman William A. 

Barrett (D-Pa) said:

The subcommittee has before it at this time over 100 bills to authorize the Federal 

Government to provide financial assistance for the operating expenses of urban mass 

transportation systems. I have serious questions regarding this proposal since I believe it 

commits the Federal government to subsidize the operations of transit companies without 

the establishment of any criteria for good management techniques. But, I approach this 

hearing with an open mind and I am willing to consider all of the arguments. 

During the course of the day, every witness rejected the recommendation in the Department of 

Transportation’s November 1971 report that further study of the issue is needed. Mayor Daley of 

Chicago, representing the U.S. Conference of Mayors/National League of Cities, said the 

organizations agreed with the report’s findings “but we can’t understand how the Department’s 

report reached its conclusions.” Instead of recommending action, the report recommended further 

study that “would cause at least a 3-year delay in facing a problem which the Department of 

Transportation admits is ‘severe.’” He said, “We are satisfied that enough study has been done and 
222 

enough information exists on which to make the basic policy decision.” [Urban Mass 

Transportation, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Housing, Committee on banking and 

Currency, U.S. House of Representatives, 92nd Congress, 2nd Session, February 23, 1972, p. 6, 15] 

Representative Rostenkowski, accompanying Mayor Daley, said:

We have been promised action by the administration, but we were cautioned to wait until all 

the findings were reported. Mr. Chairman, we in the Congress waited until the 

administration submitted its report of the problem. Unfortunately, many of us cannot agree 

with the observations in this report. Many of our larger cities can not wait for “more study” 

. . . they need help, and need it now. [Urban, p. 31] 

Representative Koch referred to the opening line in the report about the “severe problems” facing 

transit operators and communities. “Unfortunately, the Department still seems to be bound by a 

policy of ‘go slow on mass transit’ that has reduced by 1/3 the mass transit capital program 

authorized by Congress for 1972—just as it was reduced by 1/3 in FY 1971.” As for the 

Department’s call for more study, Koch said: 

My own position is—and I make this plea to the Committee—that while we admittedly 

don’t have all the answers, we do have the answer to the fundamental question of whether 

we can afford to ignore the problems of our transit systems. The answer is an unequivocal, 

NO. Furthermore we know that the states and localities alone cannot meet the need; federal 

assistance must be provided in meeting operating costs. [Urban, p. 42-43] 

Several witnesses discussed the fear that subsidies would turn into a “bottomless pit.” Dr. Ronan 

stated that the $400 million requested for subsidizing operation and maintenance costs “would not 

be a ‘bottomless pit’ into which public moneys would be poured.” He said that a “very specific 

auditable element would be involved,” such as the “maintenance-of-way type of expenditure.” A 

formula “designed to equate to the productivity of the system in carrying passengers” would avoid 

the “bottomless pit” argument “by equating the Federal payment to the service performed in 

carrying passengers; it avoids any measure of the extent of deficit incurred or relative efficiencies of 

operations” [Urban, p. 52, 55] 

All the witnesses favored Federal operating subsidies; parity in the Federal-State matching ratio for 

the capital grants program and the highway program; adoption of contract authority for the funding 

under the 1970 Urban Mass Transportation Act; and separate funding for the metropolitan planning 

process. They opposed the reduction of authorized funds through the appropriations process. 

The Subcommittee on Roads turned to the highway phase of hearings on March 1. With the 

Interstate System nearing completion, Kluczynski mentioned that its construction had taken priority 

over the regular rural and urban highway networks. “We must now turn to these neglected needs 

and move ahead with a program of highway improvements which will gradually transit from the 

Interstate emphasis to one which will reach into the undeveloped areas of the country, increase the 

safety and efficiency of our primary and secondary systems, and upgrade the long neglected street 

system in the urban areas.” He did not mention mass transit. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 289] 
223 

Ranking Republican Harsha agreed that the concentration on the Interstates had “created a 

tremendous backlog” of unmet highway needs: 

Our transportation needs are great. Our resources are limited. But I firmly believe that we 

will be able to provide the legislative blueprint for building a balanced, integrated, 

transportation network suited to the Nation’s highway needs through the 1990’s. [1972 

Highway Legislation, p. 289-290] 

On March 2, Kheel and Kramer of the Highway Action Coalition, appeared as witnesses. In a 

prepared statement, Kheel explained that in the absence of the Highway Needs Report or an 

Administration proposal, he would focus on AASHO’s recommendations, because over the years, 

they often have been influential in establishing Federal-aid legislation. Under AASHO’s proposal, 

Interstate authorizations would drop while the Federal share of projects on the “ABCD” systems 

would increase from 50 to 70 percent. (“ABCD” was highway jargon for the Federal-aid primary, 

secondary, urban extensions, and urban systems.) AASHO wanted to increase the authority of the 

States to shift funds among the ABCD systems from 20 percent to 50 percent. It also asked 

Congress to authorize funds on a 4-year instead of a 2-year basis.

Kheel said that in the coalition’s view, “there are simply far more pressing priorities and needs than 

constructing still more highways.” Since establishment of the Interstate program in 1956, “the 

transportation needs and priorities of the country have changed considerably.” Despite the 

investment in Interstates, he said:

[T]hey don’t even serve the real needs of the highway user: year after year billions of man 

hours are needlessly lost as people and goods are stalled in endless traffic jams—thus 

defeating the original purpose of the highway program, namely the efficient, safe movement 

of people and goods. 

While highways were failing to meet the needs they were intended to address, “we have allowed 

many of our other surface transportation systems to wither and die.” More than 100 private transit 

systems had disappeared while mass transit “suffered a collective deficit of $332 million dollars” in 

1971. Projections indicated an additional $28 million would be added in 1972 to the “sea of red 

ink.” The coalition supported a single Federal Surface Transportation Trust Fund that would 

incorporate the Highway Trust Fund and be available for “any valid ground transportation use 

without prejudice to mode.” This change would allow local officials to “look at the total 

transportation needs of a given area” on a needs basis. “It is within such a framework that the 

nation could achieve what it lacks now and so desperately requires: namely, a balanced, fully 

coordinated transportation system.” Such a network was essential, especially for the poor who 

could not afford to buy automobiles. 

He cited recent developments among the Big 4 automakers, including Henry Ford II’s support for 

diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenues for mass transit. He also referred to Mobil Oil 

Corporation’s full-page advertisement in The New York Times on January 21, 1972, headlined: 
224 

America Has the World’s Best Highways 

And the World’s Worst Mass Transit 

It said:

Indefinite continuation of the Highway Trust Fund could deter construction of more urgently 

needed non-highway transportation facilities . . . . Highways are important to us obviously. 

Highway travel builds sales for Mobil. But traffic jams, and a glut of cars using too much 

gasoline to haul too few passengers, waste many resources, including oil. 

After quoting the Mobil add, Kheel concluded his prepared statement: 

Gentlemen, the need for change is apparent and pressing. Momentum is beginning to build 

for a thorough reordering of transportation priorities. I hope this Subcommittee will play a 

leading role in bringing about the necessary changes. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 317-

322, the complete Mobil ad is reprinted on p. 323-324; a January 20 Mobil ad titled “Let’s 

Get Moving With a National Master Transportation Program,” is on p.324-325] 

In a brief oral statement, Kheel said:

In a country that emphasizes its fairness, that relies upon freedom of choice, we have gone 

out of our way to subsidize one form of transportation. The moneys that we spend for the 

people that use their automobile are totally disproportionate to the moneys we spend for 

mass transportation. 

There was a time when the general belief in this country was that there should be no 

subsidies of any sort for any purpose. We have come a long way from there. We now 

subsidize highways up to a 90-10 matching ratio that encourages the States to divert funds 

from other pressing needs to get those 10-cent dollars from the Federal Government. 

It is a form of addiction similar to the pusher in the schools of our Nation who tries to get 

the kids on dope so that they will have to go out and get more money. 

This statement aggravated the subcommittee members. Representative Schwengel referred to the 

74 days of testimony leading up to the 1956 Act. “We were launching a pay as you go plan . . . . 

But to compare this to a pusher is a pretty extreme statement. I just have to tell you that I resent 

that as a Member of Congress, that kind of an analogy.” 

Kheel said “I apologize if I have offended you . . . but I do believe first of all that this is a subsidy 

program because the tax moneys would otherwise go into the general treasury.” He was going to 

continue, but Representative Cleveland interrupted. “I just don’t understand what you are saying.” 

The highway user taxes were user fees, he said, not subsidies. 

Kheel responded that “if we applied this user principle to all forms of taxation . . . there would not 

be any moneys available to pay your salaries.” He began to elaborate on this theme but Cleveland 
225 

interrupted him again. “I don’t think we have a meeting of the minds at all,” adding “I think you 

weaken your case when you speak of this as being a subsidy. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 327] 

Trying to divert attention from the subsidy issue, Kramer said that while user taxes paid for the 

Federal-aid highway program, “we simply cannot accept the proposition that these taxes pay the 

entire cost of the roads program.” Trying to clean air pollution, largely caused by motor vehicles 

especially in urban areas, is just one of the external costs that are not funded by highway users. He 

started to talk about the effects of motor vehicles on agriculture but was interrupted by 

Representatives Schwengel and Cleveland, who said that when Kramer said the Federal 

Government was subsidizing highways, “I just don’t think you are using the English language the 

way I do.” [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 328] 

Representative Schwengel pointed out that if the finite amount of Highway Trust Fund revenues 

could be used for mass transit, when they were divided among the 50 States, “you would not have a 

drop in the bucket compared to the total need.” That, Kheel replied, “would be no reason we 

should not start.” The implication, Kneel said, was that if enough money is not available for all 

needs, “none of it should be made available.” Schwengel said, “we should look at the total problem 

and have a total plan to finance it.” Kheel replied, “precisely.” [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 330] 

Representative James J. Howard (D-NJ) turned to the issue of congressional committee jurisdiction, 

acknowledging that a single transportation committee might be desirable. “I introduced a resolution 

in this Congress, it was so popular that it got no cosponsors, that would create a new committee in 

the Congress . . . that would have the jurisdiction over land, sea, and air, people and goods, for the 

entire country.” Since that bill went nowhere, when the Department of Transportation wanted to 

discuss a balanced transportation system, “they have to come down here and talk to the Public 

Works Committee about this highway need.” 

Kheel agreed “emphatically” that a single transportation committee would be preferable. But 

Kramer said:

I submit that the Congress must begin now—notwithstanding the present confusion over 

committee jurisdictions—to address the problem of transportation as a whole and authorize 

appropriations on the basis of need rather than of mode. And this in turn brings me back to 

our original problem of enormous pools of money being available for one mode and not for 

others . . . . 

We know that not all of the transportation needs of the country can be met overnight, but we 

do think if there is a single fund, the most pressing needs, whether they are highway needs—

and I am thinking particularly in the safety areas such as bridge replacements and so on—or 

whether they be public transportation needs—such as operating subsidies for existing 

systems—the relative urgency of each of these needs can be meaningfully evaluated and 

money can be authorized and appropriated accordingly. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 330-

332] 
226 

Representative Schwengel asked how to pay for the total solution. Since, as Kheel said, enough 

money would never be available for all highway and mass transportation needs, he thought the best 

idea was to focus money on which option is needed rather than directing the bulk of the available 

funds to highways. The Representative suggested he might support a separate trust fund for mass 

transit, but did not like the idea of saying, “We are going to open up the trust fund and give you a 

little money there.” 

Kheel favored opening the Highway Trust Fund to pay for a balanced transportation program: 

You have given them [highways] 16 years of the exclusive dedication of the taxes that I pay 

. . . . You have also disregarded, as Mr. Kramer pointed out, the incidental costs to the 

community of air pollution and of traffic congestion. 

As for those costs, Schwengel pointed out that they had to be balanced against the savings resulting 

from the Interstate System. Truckers, for example, can get their product to its destination faster. 

Kheel replied, “They come to the urban communities, and they go 50 percent slower today.” 

The Representative blamed that problem on urban communities that did not take “full advantage of 

the laws to build their highways.” Kheel did not agree: 

One thing has become patently clear. That is that the more highways you build in urban 

areas, the more traffic congestion you get. It is self-defeating. [1972 Highway Legislation, 

p. 334-335] 

Representative Harsha asked Kheel and Kramer how to get people to use mass transit, which was 

failing financially because of the lack of sufficient riders. Kheel said that, “People are influenced 

by the cost, and if they are given a good ride at a good price, they will use mass transportation.” 

Transit could not be self-supporting, “but it will save us moneys.” He added: 

This has to be done, but it has to be done by bringing down the price, or not letting it go 

higher, and improving the quality, and that is why we need a balanced approach.

Representative Howard saw a contradiction in Kheel’s reply: 

I understand all that, but your argument seems to me to be self-defeating. If you are going to 

make these highways so attractive, and so enjoyable to ride on by reducing the number of 

people on it, you are going again to encourage the use of the highways by the car operators. 

This is an age of convenience, and the automobile is a much more convenient mode of 

transportation than mass transportation. 

When Kheel replied that automobile travel was more costly, Representative Harsha said, “That 

depends on which end of the carrot you are looking at as to what the costs are.” Despite all the 

environmental harms Kheel and Kramer cited, “you still can’t get people to use mass transit 

systems.” He pointed out that localities have to subsidize fares Kheel said, “Competition is a great 
227 

thing in our society, and I am all for it, but we can’t have the competition in transportation.” [1972 

Highway Legislation, p. 337-339] 

In closing, Kheel said: 

I believe your committee can make a major contribution toward a balanced system, toward 

an overall approach, toward opening up the Highway Trust Fund, not abolishing it, toward 

opening it up and using the moneys not just to hand out willy nilly, but with planning and 

intelligence to achieve an objective.

I would like to see, of course, a restructuring of the Congress for this purpose, but in the 

meantime, there is this committee, a most important committee, that gave birth to the 

Highway Trust Fund, and think you have a great opportunity. The time has come, as 

reflected by the statements of Mr. Ford, the Auto Makers, and the Mobil Oil Corp. all of 

which have been the primary beneficiaries of the Highway Trust Fund. 

They are sometimes referred to as the highway lobby. I do not use that term. I do say that 

these are people who realize that their own interests depend on the public interest, and that 

the time has come when such an approach is indicated and that that is the appropriate 

committee to take that action. 

Representative Howard thanked Kheel “for your courage this morning.” [1972 Highway 

Legislation, p. 342] 

On March 9, the subcommittee heard from ARBA. President Edward H. Holt, vice president of 

construction equipment manufacturer Barber-Greene Company, said that the “highway mode of 

transport has the adaptability and flexibility to supply the major portion of the total transportation 

requirements for our great country.” To take full advantage of “the highways we have and provide 

the additional highway facilities,” the new legislation must:

No. 1, insure the continuity of adequate funding on a sustained, forward planning basis. 

No. 2, we must harmonize transportation and environmental goals with a full consideration 

of the cost and aesthetic factors involved. 

No. 3, we must take care to protect the Federal interest in the administration of the Federalaid highway program; but, at the same time, to eliminate those Federal controls and 

procedures which produce more delay and confusion than they do beneficial results. 

Regarding the second point, Holt stated that ARBA believed in “giving full consideration to 

environmental factors” in highway development: 

But we are concerned, however, with the increment of unnecessary delay and unreasonable 

cost imposed upon the taxpayer resulting from the obstructionist tactics of some groups. 

These people have overreacted to environment problems [sic] and have encouraged illogical 

restraints upon progress. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 349] 
228 

Gene Johnson, president of The Asphalt Institute and chairman of ARBA’s highway advisory 

council, presented the organization’s eight statements of position. The group recommended 

continuing the Interstate program to completion as soon as practicable at an annual rate of $4 

billion, with an additional $2 billion for the other Federal-aid systems. The 1970 Act provision 

requiring the States to submit a construction schedule for all remaining Interstates by July 1, 1973, 

and commitments to PS&E for those segments by July 1, 1975, should be amended to substitute 

“1978” for “1975.” Although ARBA supported eliminating routes that could not meet a specified 

deadline, the original date was “unrealistic in view of the many procedural requirements which 

must be satisfied” prior to PS&E. 

(At this point, the hearing transcript notes that former Representative Fallon entered the room and 

received a standing ovation. Chairman Kluczynski welcomed him and said, “We miss you 

tremendously, but wish you well in your leisure and retirement years.” Representative Harsha also 

wished him well and added, “George, we miss you.” The transcript notes that Fallon replied, 

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [Applause.]”) 

Continuing, Johnson said that ARBA believed that “Federal aid for highways has been 

overregulated to a point where the hands of State highway officials are tied unnecessarily.” Instead 

of having to adjust State priorities to “fit the compartments” of Federal-aid, ARBA believed “that 

the State highway departments should have complete freedom to transfer Federal-aid funds from 

one category to another.” This would be “a positive step in the direction of revenue sharing,” while 

maintaining the “structure and integrity” of the Federal-aid highway program. 

ARBA favored a 70-30 Federal-State matching share “to compensate for the costs of inflation, the 

additional cost of community impact features and higher construction standards.” 

Johnson explained why ARBA opposed impoundment of Federal-aid funds. “In our judgment, this 

represents a serious breach of trust with the highway users who are paying ‘special’ taxes with the 

understanding that these taxes will be used for specific purposes.” Impoundment was “completely 

incompatible with a sound programming procedure at the State and local levels.” He elaborated on 

this point: 

During the first three-quarters of the current fiscal year, three different sums of money have 

been allotted under three different sets of rules. The procedures for the fourth quarter, 

which begins April 1, have not yet been revealed. It would be difficult to devise a more 

confusing system. 

ARBA endorsed the highway-oriented public transportation funding authorized by the 1970 Act, 

while advocating a separate trust fund for urban mass transportation: 

As members of this committee know, the Highway Trust Fund was established to meet 

certain well-defined highway needs. It was determined many years ago that these needs 

could not be adequately met by the financing available from the general funds of the 

Treasury.
229 

We supported the principle, at that time, that special taxes should be levied on the direct 

beneficiaries of the program being proposed. 

We still believe that this is the soundest method of financing transportation development 

projects. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 356-360] 

In response to a question from Representative Harsha, Johnson clarified that while ARBA 

supported the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues for highway-oriented transit facilities, it did not 

support the use of the revenues for rail rolling stock. When Harsha asked how to finance a trust 

fund for mass transit, Johnson suggested that the metropolitan areas in need of rail transit could tax 

their citizens as a fair way to accomplish it. He did not offer a suggestion regarding financing of a 

Federal trust fund for transit. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 367-368] 

Johnson gave way to Robert Hajzyk, president of ARBA’s County Division, as well as director of 

public works for Cecil County, Maryland. He explained that the Federal-aid highway program was 

“overburdened with ‘red tape.’” Red tape, he said, is an “established fact” that he did not need to 

discuss in detail. “Nobody wants it and nobody likes it.” Some is necessary as a matter of 

accountability, but carried to an extreme, it is burdensome. 

As a result, ARBA called for extension of the simplified Federal-aid procedures under the 

Secondary Road Plan for all Federal-aid systems except the Interstate System. The Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1954 had authorized the Secretary of Commerce (whose Department included 

BPR) to enter into agreements with any State for Federal-aid secondary projects to “discharge his 

responsibility relative to the plans, specifications, estimates, surveys, contract awards, design, 

inspection, and construction of such secondary road projects by his receiving and approving a 

certified statement by the State highway department setting forth that the plans, design, and 

construction for such projects are in accord with the standards and procedures of such State 

applicable to projects in this category approved by him.” The Secondary Road Plan had 

subsequently been codified as Section 117 of Title 23, United States Code. 

Hajzyk said that the Secondary Road Plan had been justified because many Federal-aid secondary 

road projects were relatively small. Now, with the State highway agencies suitably equipped and 

organized, extension of the concept to all non-Interstate projects, while not a complete solution to 

the problem of red tape, was a “step in the right direction” because it would eliminate Federal 

supervision on a project-by-project basis, which he called “costly, unnecessary and wasteful.”

ARBA recommended that up to 20 percent of non-Interstate Federal-aid funds should be available 

for critical safety needs off the Federal-aid systems. For example, two-thirds of the 88,900 

critically deficient bridges and 165,000 rail-highway grade crossings were on non-Federal-aid 

roads, as were many high hazard locations: 

Without financial assistance on the non-Federal system, much needed improvements will be 

needlessly delayed and in all probability never completed. As a result, the reoccurring 

slaughter on the highways will continue at a never ending pace. 
230 

He concluded his prepared statement by pointing out that the county roads engineers are “at the end 

of the Federal-aid chain.” He knew where work needs to be done, how to do it, and how to prevent 

accidents. “It is a sad commentary, indeed, when urgently needed projects are not accomplished 

because of the difficulties in getting paperwork and other approvals done from the Federal 

Government.” [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 360-363] 

The final ARBA witness was J. L. Cone, Jr., vice president of the Contractors Division and 

president of the Florida-based Cone Brothers Contracting Company. His topic was “the everincreasing federalization of the Federal-aid highway program which is resulting in inflationary 

pressures on construction costs, discrimination against smaller contracting firms, and a general 

slowdown or actual stoppage of construction.” The adversities facing contractors, he said, “largely 

result from inordinate delays and stop and go procedures associated with excessive bureaucratic 

controls and sporadic funding.” He favored less red tape and more delegation of authority to the 

State highway agencies.

The increase in safety and environmental requirements was creating “tremendous inflation in the 

cost of highway construction and discrimination which could result in the elimination of some 

small, but good, contracting firms.” He cited a requirement of the Occupational Safety and Health 

Administration calling for expensive rollover protective devices for retrofitting construction 

machinery as an example of excessive safety regulations. Appeals to the Department of Labor 

“have gone unheeded” and so ARBA turned to the committee “with the hope that through the 

legislative process some relief might be obtained.” 

The industry can “point with pride” to its environmental initiatives, but was “now confronted with a 

situation which not only involves harassment of contractors, but places substantial increased costs 

upon the taxpayer.” He was referring “to the increasing number of frivolous suits brought by 

irresponsible environmental advocates.” Some suits were justified, but “far too many suits are 

being entertained without justification.” They were causing delays, sometimes substantial delays of 

“such duration as to cause severe economic loss.” He urged the subcommittee to adopt procedures 

that would shorten the decisionmaking process for environmental requirements. He added that 

those seeking injunctive relief should be required to post a bond that would be forfeited when their 

claims were dismissed as being without cause. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 364-366] 

Members of the subcommittee had a few questions on details, but ARBA’s testimony ended after 

about a 2-hour session. 

Secretary Volpe was scheduled to testify on March 16. In anticipation of his testimony, the 

Washington Evening Star published an article by Helen Leavitt, author of Superhighway-Superhoax

and co-publisher of the Rational Transportation newsletter. It began with a reference to President 

Nixon’s groundbreaking trip to the People’s Republic of China, February 21-28, 1972, where he 

met with Premier Chou En-lai (now spelled Zhou Enlai): 

If Chou En-lai ever visits the United States, surely the President, now that he has seen the 

Great Wall, will want to show the Chinese leader the greatest public works project in the 

world, our national highway system—from a helicopter, of course, to avoid the congestion. 
231 

He will want to explain that a mere 17 years ago and $217 billion dollars ago we were told a 

massive highway program would solve [sic] our traffic problem by 1972. We now have 

another 18 years and $600 billion more to go. At least that’s what the experts are estimating 

now, the same experts who predicted in 1956 that the cost of the Interstate Highway System 

alone would be $27 billion. 

These same experts, she said, “will be swarming to Capitol Hill all this month and next” to protect 

the Highway Trust Fund. 

Since 1956, the Federal program had spent $53 billion in Highway Trust Fund revenue, while 

spending $29 billion in general revenue on all other forms of transportation. “As the billions flow 

into the Trust Fund, Secretary of Transportation John Volpe parcels out millions from separate 

funds for want [sic] his Urban Mass Transportation Administration calls ‘mass transit.’” Much of 

the transit funding is used “to prop up sagging bus companies in cities where heavy emphasis on 

superhighways . . . has deprived local bus companies of passengers in sufficient number to make it 

hard for them to meet the payroll, let alone make a profit.” 

The dedication of highway user tax revenue to highway construction meant that the Highway Trust 

Fund would provide $5.7 billion for that purpose in 1972 – at a time when total Federal 

expenditures for education totaled $4.46 billion and former Vice President and presidential hopeful 

Hubert H. Humphrey was stating that massive financial aid was needed to provide quality education 

to all children.

She summarized the long-running decline of urban mass transportation and the failure of highways 

to deliver on the promises made by their supporters. “As you might have guessed by now, more 

than a few people have become disenchanted with highway building.” She mentioned Mayor 

Daley’s recent testimony, the support of Representatives Koch and Bingham for the use of Highway 

Trust Fund revenues for public transit, and Senator Kennedy’s legislation to create a Transportation 

Trust Fund. “Naturally, it is officials from our most densely populated areas who seem most 

interested in ending the preferential treatment that has been accorded highways for the past 16 

years.” 

On the other side were the many interests that preferred the status quo, including highway 

engineers, automobile manufacturers, and the petroleum industry. “Rubber tire manufacturers, auto 

insurers, car dealers, gasoline station operators, parking lot operators, and the trucking industry, 

which has doubled since 1956, all depend on highway programs to further their interests.” She did 

not expect Secretary Volpe, testifying on behalf of the Nixon Administration just 8 months before 

the presidential election, or Chairman Mills of the House Ways and Means Committee to 

antagonize these groups. 

She referred to a statement by Administrator Turner that he would submit proposals that she 

described as: “reduce the number of passenger cars coming into our downtown areas and replace 

them with either better bus or subway systems.” He had made the statement on February 14, 1972, 

during a hearing on “Wider Buses and the Interstate Highway System” before the Senate 

Subcommittee on Roads. The House had passed legislation on July 21, 1971, to allow buses 102 
232 

inches wide to operate on the Interstate System (compared with 96 inches at the time). While 

Turner was before the panel on wider buses, Chairman Birch Bayh (D-In.) asked about proposals to 

substitute buses for automobile in cities. Turner replied that “there is no subject in the highway 

field at least that is getting any more attention than the one you are talking about.” The following 

exchange took place:

Senator Bayh. It involves pressures relative to other, more-comprehensive legislation upon 

which I am sure you will be here to testify later.

Mr. Turner. I am aware of the circumstances that you describe and I assure you that there 

are not a few experiments but many, many, and a great deal of effort being effected in the 

direction you just described. Now, we will bring to you in hearings later this year, this 

session, some proposals to further the objective that you describe, which is ours too, to 

reduce the number of passenger cars crowding into our congested downtown urban areas, 

and replace those with mass transit type vehicles. In the Washington, D.C. case and 

hopefully in other metropolitan areas we would like to accomplish the same thing. Also, we 

are considering proposals that will make better utilization of vehicles by increasing the 

number of occupants of those vehicles, which is aimed in the direction you described. You 

will be hearing more of this from not only Department witnesses but others in the next few 

months. 

Senator Bayh. I am anxious to get those ideas and those statistics. It seems to me that 

reasonable development and use of a workable mass transit system is indispensible to our 

well-being . . . . One reason there has not been sufficient private investment and Federal 

resources is that so much of our mass transit program, at least from a public standpoint, has 

been directed at only a few localities. There has been little publicity or activity about what 

could be done to help people get back and forth to work and other pursuits in the average 

hometown throughout the country. Any system that doesn’t do that, we are not going to be 

able to sell.

Mr. Turner. I have been preaching that gospel rather loudly at every opportunity. 

Senator Bayh. Permit me to say amen. 

At that point, Turner had to leave the hearing because he was due at a ceremony in 13 minutes to 

dedicate 20 new buses for the Shirley Highway exclusive bus lane. 

(As the lead Department witness during Turner’s testimony, Assistant Secretary Benjamin O. 

Davis, Jr., advised the subcommittee that the Administration opposed the measure and 

recommended that the subcommittee postpone action until current studies on the safety of wider 

buses were completed. According to an article about the hearing, “Subcommittee sources said 

wider buses could be seen ‘as a foot in the door’ for truckers to seek increases in the size limits on 

their vehicles. Therefore, these sources said action was unlikely this year.” Congress did not adopt 

the wider bus legislation under consideration. [Steif, William, “Fat-Bus Bill Skids,” ScrippsHoward, Washington News, February 18, 1972]) 

Leavitt was skeptical about what Turner would present. She was sure that he did not mean freeing 

Highway Trust Fund revenues, but allowing transit funds for what she described as “exclusive bus 
233 

lanes, car pools, and anything else that will get people to double up in their autos—while 

simultaneously building more highways.” 

She concluded by summarizing her views: 

The great lesson we have learned from the Highway Trust Fund is that planning follows 

funding rather than vice-versa. All those federal dollars, soon to total $6 billion annually, 

should be returned to the general treasury, where they would now be if the Congress had 

used its collective head in 1956. By removing this federal incentive to channel billions of 

state and local matching dollars into highway building, we can free our tax dollars for other 

programs like getting our kids educated. We already have all the highways we need to bus 

them to school. [Leavitt, Helen, “The Move to Shake Loose Some of that Road Money,” 

Washington Evening Star, March 5, 1972; Bayh/Turner colloquy: Wider Buses and the 

Interstate Highway System, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Roads, Committee on 

Public Works, United States Senate, 92nd Congress, 1st and 2nd Sessions, Serial No. 92-H29, 

p. 286-287] 

Turner would explain his ideas for congestion relief in an article appearing in the May 1972 issue of 

Traffic Safety. Of course, bus mass transit was at the top of his list. “We have learned that bus 

mass transit can be both truly rapid and successful.” He cited the express bus lanes on Shirley 

Highway as an example that “can be duplicated in practically any large urban area in the country.” 

A few other things could help relieve congestion. One was staggered work hours, a practice 

employed by the Agencies housed in the Department of Transportation headquarters. He cited his 

own commute as an illustration. When he moved to Washington in the 1950s, he lived in Virginia, 

a little over 3 miles away from his office, then in northwest Washington, and his commute by bus 

took an hour. Now, he lived 7 miles away in Virginia, but his commute by bus to southwest 

Washington had been cut to about 35 minutes. “So three decades later, I can commute twice as far 

in half the time, as can four times as many new commuters as 30 years ago.” He attributed this 

progress partly to staggered work hours. 

Another technique involved staggered work days instead of the traditional Monday-through-Friday 

work week. Shifting some workers to Saturday might be necessary, while a 4-day week for 

workers, also staggered, “can reduce peak central business district travel by 17 percent, with a still 

further reduction if spread over six days instead of five.

He also endorsed car pools. He cited the example of a Federal building in downtown Washington 

where cars using the garage space had an occupancy rate of 3.6. “If this condition were universal, 

there would be no problem of congestion because of the 50 percent reduction in the number of 

autos in use.” Allowing carpools in exclusive bus lanes could add to the attractiveness of 

carpooling. 

In speaking of transit, he was referring to radial lines linking the suburbs and central business 

districts, as used by workers on their daily commutes. These lines were beneficial for commuters, 
234 

but severely limited in helping “the aged, the poor, the infirm, and the young” who are often cited 

by pro-transit organizations:

Transit systems are often suggested as the means of providing for their needs—but studies 

of the actual transportation requirements of such persons indicate that transit as we presently 

think of it generally is poorly suited to their needs. 

The problems for these individuals included getting to and from the transit service without an 

automobile. “Even when they get there, their difficulties are not over.” They had to wait at the 

transit stop, often have to stand while on the bus, and may have to repeat the process for transfers, 

all of which “are real problems for the elderly and the handicapped.” Their needs–“to shop where 

prices are competitive, to get to health, welfare, and educational services, to visit friends and 

relations, and to go to work places that frequently are outside the central business district”—are not 

well served by radial transit lines on a fixed schedule. Public policies that would serve these 

individuals “would seem to be in the public interest as a part of the public transportation network of 

a city.”

 

Highway travel in private automobiles “can provide the flexibility to accommodate the almost 

infinite number of travel patterns that are required in our metropolitan areas today.” No transit 

system, bus or rail, “could possibly begin to supply the multitude of complex routings that are 

required to meet these needs.” He concluded:

Our transportation needs are very real and very urgent—and nothing short of coordinated 

action will do the job. We must have adequate mass transit systems for our cities, but let no 

one delude himself that we can afford to neglect or abandon our highway system. [Turner, 

Francis C., “What We Can Do NOW to Cut Urban Rush-House Congestion,” Traffic Safety, 

May 1972, p. 4-5] 

The Single Urban Fund

In late January 1972, the Department of Transportation submitted the new Interstate Cost Estimate 

to Congress. It estimated that the total cost of the 42,500-mile Interstate System would be $76.3 

billion (Federal share: $68.2 billion). This estimate included expenditures incurred in opening 76 

percent of the Interstate System (32,988 miles) and completing stages of work on the remaining 

mileage, as well as remaining costs to complete the Interstate System to full standards.

The new estimate was $6.4 billion over the 1970 estimate, as explained in a news release dated 

January 29, 1972: 

The report attributes the increase to several factors. Inflation accounts for $3,825 million of 

the increase. New legislation and policies which give increased emphasis to social, 

economic and environmental impact considerations, increased relocation assistance 

payments and additional assistance to mass transit account for $730 million of the additional 

cost.
235 

Additional construction items to improve traffic safety and service such as upgraded 

roadway design and safety features, added interchanges, grade separations and lanes, add 

$1,300 million to the total, while higher preliminary engineering and right-of-way costs add 

$285 million. 

At the same time, adjustments in the system resulted in a net reduction of $235 million, so 

that the overall increase due to the foregoing factors is $5,905 million. 

According to a quarterly status report issued on March 6, 1972, the States opened 1,445 miles of 

Interstate freeways in 1971. Only 4 percent of the designated mileage had not progressed beyond 

preliminary engineering:

Of the Interstate mileage now in use, 27,903 miles are completely adequate for future traffic 

demands, and 2,780 miles, while fully capable of handling present needs, will have to be 

improved to meet ultimate standards. The additional 2,305 miles that are in operation are 

toll roads, bridges and tunnels which were incorporated into the System as provided by law . 

. . . 

In addition to the sections open to traffic, 3,862 miles were under construction as of 

December 31, and engineering or right-of-way acquisition was in progress on another 4,098 

miles. Thus, some form of work was underway or completed on 40,948 miles of the 

42,500-mile System – about 96 percent of the total . . . . 

Work completed since July 1, 1956, has cost $34.18 billion, of which $28.32 billion was for 

construction and $5.86 billion for engineering and right-of-way acquisition. As of 

December 31, 1971, work estimated to cost $13.01 billion was underway or authorized, 

including $9.02 billion of construction, and $3.99 billion of engineering and right-of-way 

acquisition. 

That same month, Federal Highway Administrator Turner and Urban Mass Transportation 

Administrator Villareal were the keynote speakers at the 51st annual meeting of the Highway 

Research Board, held in Washington in the Sheraton-Park Hotel on January 17-21. They spoke 

during the annual chairman’s luncheon. The theme of the luncheon was “Urban Transportation in 

the ‘70s.” 

Turner said that each urban area must find its own carefully balanced prescription for relieving 

congestion. Spending equally on highways and transit was not necessarily the answer: 

Ready made prepackaged, home-cure, self treatments for complex urban transportation ills 

are no more likely to cure the urban transportation problem for us than such methods can be 

accepted as good medical practice. 

Each urban area must decide on the combination of transportation operations that could best 

provide needed service for the elderly, handicapped, poor, and younger members of society; weigh 

the views of environmental organizations; apply the always insufficient funding to buy the largest 
236 

amount of needed service; and provide the best mix of transportation options for service all day in 

all regions, not just for rush hour.

Villareal, like Turner a Texas native and graduate of Texas A&M University, had been appointed to 

the U.S. Naval Academy in 1948. After 4 years in the Navy, he worked for General Electric in 

Cincinnati and for Marquardt, a California aerospace research firm, before his appointment as 

Administrator. In announcing the selection of Villareal for UMTA Administrator, Secretary Volpe 

had explained, “He’s not a transit man, and that was deliberate. I wanted someone who wasn’t 

wedded to old concepts but who could think fresh and was familiar with technological research.” 

[Kilgore, p. 186] 

The UMTA Administrator told the luncheon guests: 

I am not here to suggest that national and local highway programs must be overturned in 

favor of public transit construction programs, although there are those who infer that 

highway and public transit programs cannot co-exist. Not only can they exist together, but a 

partnership of modes is absolutely essential if we are to provide the transportation capacity 

we need and attain the environmental objectives we all consider important. [“HighwayMass Transit Programs Must Co-Exist for Effective Urban Transport,” Traffic World, 

January 23, 1972] 

The sacrosanct Highway Trust Fund would face challenges from friend and foe, starting with the 

New Technology Task Force, a presidential advisory team headed by William M. Magruder, special 

technology counsel to President Nixon. The task force had conducted a 4-month review of 

technologies for relieving urban congestion and pollution caused primarily by automobiles. In 

interviews in early February, Magruder revealed that Department of Transportation lawyers had 

informed him that using Highway Trust Fund revenue for non-highway purposes such as subway 

construction was “legitimate.” Magruder told reporters, “We were told it would be legal to do it. 

The next thing is for us to screw up the courage and do it.” Although the task force had run out of 

time before making a recommendation on the Highway Trust Fund, Magruder said that the 

members would continue seeking new uses for the revenue. “We’re dedicated to a change of 

priorities.” [Bernstein, Peter J., “Trust Fund Finding Bolsters Highway Foes,” Washington Evening 

Star, February 9, 1972] 

 

(Magruder, an engineer and test pilot, had headed the Administration’s efforts to secure funding for 

the SST, first at the Department of Transportation before moving to the White House.) 

That same month, an editorial in Better Roads warned that the “highway profession sometimes 

seems to be its own worst enemy in the running battle to keep the Highway Trust Fund from being 

raided for ‘worthy’ causes such as education, welfare, and mass transportation programs.” The 

specific concern was the proposal to add revenue from excise taxes on liquor sales to the Highway 

Trust Fund. With “mass transit lobbyists battering at the trust fund gates,” the addition of revenue 

from nonhighway taxes would leave the Highway Trust Fund “open to the charge that it is not a 

unique tax haven and in reality is general fund money susceptible to diversion as any other tax 

income.” The editorial warned supporters: 
237 

Certainly with the Interstate system well behind original and even revised schedules, this is 

no time to weaken the presently hard-pressed defenses of the trust fund. Let’s keep a tight 

rein on the highway-user/highway-use concept for the Highway Trust Fund. Otherwise we 

may end up without the fund and still be faced with the need for more, better, and safer

highways. 

The future of the Highway Trust Fund is precarious enough without giving its opponents 

free ammunition! [“Let’s Not Weaken the Highway Trust Fund,” Better Roads, February 

1972, p. 6] 

As noted earlier, the proposal by Senator Randolph to add tax revenue from liquor sales to the 

Highway Trust Fund ultimately failed.

The Administration launched the next assault on the Highway Trust Fund in the form of part 1 of 

The 1972 National Highway Needs Report, sent to Congress on March 15, 1972, in response to 

Section 121 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970. The section, titled “Future Federal-Aid 

Highway Program,” directed the Secretary to include his recommendations for a continuing 

Federal-aid highway program for the period 1976 to 1990. 

The report recommended “fundamental changes” to the Federal programs for highways and urban 

mass transportation by establishment of a Single Urban Fund for these purposes: 

This fund would consolidate all existing urban highway and mass transit programs with the 

exception of the Interstate highway program and the Urban Mass Transportation Research 

and Development, and Demonstration Program. Similarly, all rural highway programs 

would be consolidated into a Rural Federal-Aid System and a Rural General Transportation 

Fund. The existing Interstate highway program would be continued as a separate category 

to insure completion of that system.

The purpose of these changes was to: 

1. Provide increased resources to deal with the problems of transportation in our major 

metropolitan areas;

2. Provide increased flexibility to State and local governments to decide their transportation 

priorities by abolishing narrow categorical grant programs; and, 

3. Provide an assured pattern of program growth by funding both highway and mass transit 

projects from the highway trust fund. 

[Summary of Recommendations, The 1972 National Highway Needs Report, Part 1, 

Communication from the Secretary of Transportation, 92nd Congress, 2d Session, House Document 

No. 92-266, p. vii] 

The report also discussed accumulated highway needs at present and through 1990: 
238 

The construction needs were estimated for all roads and streets over the 1970-90 period, 

including the cost of completing the Interstate System. Nearly $302 billion is for arterials, 

including completion of the Interstate System, $107 billion is for collectors, and the 

remaining $183 billion is for local systems. About 43 percent of the total needs are on the 

Federal-aid systems as they existed in 1970. 

The backlog needs are a significant proportion of the total needs for all systems. For 

arterials, the backlog represents about 68 percent of the total in rural areas and 50 percent in 

urbanized areas. For collectors, 85 percent of the needs are backlog in rural areas and 62 

percent in urbanized areas. Backlog is a greater proportion of the total for lower functional 

classes. [Needs Report, p. 11] 

The Single Urban Fund grew out of the “widely acknowledged” fact “that among the most urgent of 

our transportation problems are those confronted by our urban citizens as they travel about the 

metropolitan areas where they live; for work, for business, for services, for shopping and for 

pleasure.” Adding to the unpleasantness were “congestion, air pollution, and sub-optimal land use 

patterns.” The report continued: 

As great as the magnitude of its severity, however, is its complexity and the great variance 

in its nature and in the desirability of various solutions among different metropolitan areas. 

Not only do conditions vary, but so do local values and priorities. From the national 

viewpoint, using gross aggregate estimates, it is virtually impossible to plan a program that 

will meet the needs of each metropolitan area. The only viable solution lies in expanding 

the flexibility of State and local officials to determine how these funds are to be used in 

metropolitan areas. However, it is also important that the States retain an active role in 

dealing with urban transportation problems. 

Accordingly, the Single Urban Fund has been developed to encompass all of the 

Department’s urban transportation grant authority, both highway and transit, in a single 

program financed out of the Highway Trust Fund and focused on intra-urban transportation 

in metropolitan areas. Grants from the Single Urban Fund could be used by State or local 

officials for investments in facilities (including land acquisition) or rolling stock, regardless 

of mode, for surface transportation in metropolitan areas. Thus, officials close to the real 

problems could find the best ways to move people in our urban areas. 

The fund would become effective with a $1 billion authorization as part of the FY 1974 highway 

program. In FY 1975, when the mass transit authorization will have expired, the Single Urban 

Fund would be increased to $1.850 billion. FHWA and UMTA would continue to administer their 

usual activities. [Highway Needs, p. 22-23] 

(According to Elizabeth Parker: 

Secretary Volpe’s initial proposal for a Single Urban Fund provided flexibility in the use of 

highway funds for highway and transit investments, but did not incorporate the UMTA 

program. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), however, required that DOT 
239 

propose merging the UMTA capital grant program with the Urban System fund. [Parker, p. 

56-57]) 

With the Interstate System perceived as nearing completion in 1979, annual authorization levels for 

Interstate construction ($4 billion for FY 1976) could be reduced due to “the normal tapering down 

of the program.” A moderate reduction in funding “would enable an orderly completion of the 

Interstate System and a smooth transition in a post-Interstate program.” The report cited the 

mandate in the 1970 Act requiring removal from designation of an Interstate segment if the State 

had not submitted a schedule for completion by July 1, 1973 or plans, specifications, and estimates 

by July 1, 1975: 

[D]elays in remaining uncompleted segments have resulted in some cases, particularly in 

urban areas, of substantial local controversy over the proposed segments. The time 

constraints imposed by the 1970 Act are sufficiently strict so that it will become 

increasingly difficult to thoroughly restudy the remaining uncompleted segments, 

accomplish major design modifications to the segments to ameliorate their social and 

environmental impacts, or look at alternatives to the segment. Pressure is building for a 

locality to accept a presently planned segment which may not be totally acceptable to its 

needs, or lose all Federal funds which would otherwise come into the area. This is a 

difficult situation for such areas. 

With calls to modify the deadlines imposed by the 1970 Act, the report offered several 

recommendations: 

Reduce Interstate authorizations to $3.25 billion for fiscal years 1974 and 1975, and to $3.0 

billion for fiscal years 1976 – 1979. 

Retain the general provision of the 1970 Act mandating removal of Interstate segments from 

the system for which a schedule for completion has not been submitted by July 1, 1973, but 

modify it as follows:

Remove the July 1, 1975, date limitation for plans, specifications and estimates 

(PS&E).

Require States to notify the Secretary of Transportation if the State intends to build 

the particular segments.

Authorize the Secretary of Transportation to allow the State one full year to submit a 

schedule and completion date on an alternative segment of Interstate Highway within 

existing limits. [Highway Needs, 40-42] 

The report gave less attention to rural needs, but did acknowledge “critical surface transportation 

requirements in our rural areas, in modes other than highways or on highways off the Federal-aid 

system.” [Highway Needs, p. 42] 
240 

It recommended two rural programs: 

The Rural Federal-Aid System

Funds would be available for capital investments on a newly designated Rural Federal-Aid 

System. The new rural system will primarily consist of arterials and major collectors in 

rural areas and will equal approximately 20% of total rural road mileage.

The system would be further divided into a “select” portion consisting of arterials and a 

“supplemental” portion consisting of major collectors. At least 60% but not more than 90% 

of the funds must be spent on the “select” portion of the system in each State. 

The Rural Federal-Aid System would have to be established effective July 1, 1973, and the 

funds would be apportioned to States with mileage on the new system in accordance with 

the following formula: 

1/3 based upon State population. 

1/3 based upon the square root of State land area. 

1/3 based upon system mileage. 

Rural General Transportation Fund 

This new program would go into effect July 1, 1973, and funds would be apportioned to the 

States in proportion to their population outside of metropolitan areas (SMSA’s [Standard 

Metropolitan Statistical Areas]). These funds could be used for any capital investments 

relating to surface transportation and would be available for highway investments not on the 

Rural Federal-Aid System. [Highway Needs, p. x-xi]

(Secretary Volpe transmitted part 2 of the 1972 National Highway Needs Report to Congress on 

May 30, 1972. It concerned the designation and cost of the new Federal-aid urban system.) 

The Single Urban Fund was the boldest proposal for restructuring surface transportation programs 

since President Dwight D. Eisenhower had proposed his Grand Plan in July 1954. Just as President 

Eisenhower’s proposal was met with mixed reaction, so would Secretary Volpe’s proposal. (See 

“Ike’s Grand Plan” at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/50grandplan.cfm and “Address of 

Vice President Richard Nixon to the Governors Conference” at 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/rw96m.cfm.) 

At a press conference on March 14, Secretary Volpe said that President Nixon was actively backing 

the proposal, which replaced earlier proposals for a single trust fund and Special Revenue Sharing 

for Transportation. He acknowledged, however, that the Single Urban Fund would probably 

encounter stiff resistance from the trade groups representing the modes. “It is a bold move, but I 

am ready to stand up and argue the case with anyone, whether he is a trucker or a highway 

contractor.” He considered the likely opposition “scattered” rather than “concentrated”:
241 

There are considerable differences between us and some of the industry, but we all 

recognize that we aren’t solving the problems now. We aren’t eliminating the trust fund, 

only giving it the flexibility that it needs. We can’t solve the problems alone without 

coordination. 

An article about the press conference summarized Secretary Volpe’s comments on coordination: 

Sec. Volpe said state and local areas would be encouraged to develop regional bodies to 

plan for transportation projects, and these groups would be depended upon to make the 

decisions of need for an area. However, he said their role would be somewhat advisory, and 

would not amount to another layer of government. 

The regional bodies would have the right to use all the funds for highway projects if they so 

choose, Sec. Volpe said, or to select another mode which needed funding. 

All depended on congressional reaction: 

Sec. Volpe said the proposal would have to go before at least six congressional committees. 

 If funding for airline equipment for commuter operations was included, it would mean four 

more committees would have to be consulted, the DOT official said. “We don’t want to go 

before any more committees than necessary,” he said. “Congress wouldn’t consider it this 

year,” he explained. [Martin, William A., “Volpe Calls for Bustup of Highway Trust Fund,” 

The Journal of Commerce, March 15, 1972] 

Reporters canvassed the transportation interests for immediate reaction. Kramer of the Highway 

Action Coalition called the proposal a “bold and progressive move which we support 

wholeheartedly.” His only reservations were completion of the Interstate System and the need to 

extend the operating subsidies for bus and commuter rail lines. Senator Kennedy also praised the 

plan as “a bold step in this effort to produce a balanced transportation system,” but urged its 

expansion to offset operation losses. 

Senator Williams was concerned that local officials might subordinate transit needs in favor of the 

much larger highway program (a concern Secretary Volpe denied during his press conference). The 

National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors praised the Volpe plan, but 

questioned whether the Highway Trust Fund was large enough for highways and transit. [Eisen, 

Jack, “Volpe Urges Use of Road Fund for Improving Mass Transport,” The Washington Post, 

March 15, 1972; Barnes, Fred, “Bid to Divert Highway Fund Faces Fight,” The Baltimore Sun, 

March 15, 1972; and “Kennedy Asks Modification of Volpe Transit-Aid Plan,” Washington 

Evening Star, March 17, 1972] 

An editorial in The Journal of Commerce recalled the story of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice in calling 

Volpe “the Senior Sorcerer.” Calling the proposal “very modest in scope” but “eminently sound,” 

the editorial said, “Mr. Volpe has been secretary of transportation long enough to know the hornets 

in the nest he now wants to perforate. We wish him well, but fear he is in for a painful stinging.” 

Regarding the Senior Sorcerer’s description of the plan as “bold,” the editorial agreed, “It is bold in 
242 

the sense that it is bound to detonate a monumental clash with interests dedicated exclusively to 

more and better highways . . . .” [“Return of the Sorcerer,” The Journal of Commerce, March 17, 

1972] 

An editorial in The New York Times declared that Secretary Volpe’s recommendation “that 

politically sacrosanct highway trust funds be spent for mass transit projects is refreshing.” The 

editorial identified some objections:

In light of the country’s vast overindulgence of its highway builders, the Secretary’s 

proposal falls short of the drastic shift that is required. 

Highways would continue to receive “a disproportionate share of the funds” through the end of the 

decade. “And, finally, the full sum for mass transit would go to capital outlay; none for operating 

costs, which in city after city have sent fares skyrocketing.”

The editorial board’s objections “are modest compared with the opposition to be expected from 

those who have up to now fought the slightest effort to use highway trust funds for anything but 

building more highways—even for safety research.” It quoted Chairman Kluczynski as calling the 

recommendation “a complete departure from the existing Federal aid-to-highways program” and 

said that most of his colleagues felt the same way. The editorial continued: 

Of course it is a departure and that is precisely what is good about it. Mr. Volpe deserves 

credit and support for rejecting the sacred canon that concrete is the answer to all of 

America’s transportation problems. [“Highway Trust-Buster,” The New York Times, March 

18, 1972] 

A Baltimore Sun editorial said, “It is about time.” For years, everyone agreed that metropolitan 

areas needed a “balanced” transportation system, but little agreement on how to pay for it. “Mass 

transit advocates have looked longingly at the Highway Trust Fund . . . [but] highway builders have 

defended the fund, arguing it should be for the exclusive use of highway users.” The logic of that 

argument “is no longer valid.” Those who contribute to the Highway Trust Fund would benefit by 

having buses available to reduce costs of congestion, while those who stay in their cars would find 

“less highway and street auto congestion.” After all, “The Highway Trust Fund is not all that 

traditional.” It dated only to the 1950s, before which gas tax revenue went into the general 

Treasury:

Mr. Volpe is no enemy of cars or highways . . . . But he recognizes the pressing need for 

accelerated mass transit activity, and he recognizes that if there is to be a trust fund in this 

area it should not be a narrow one but one aiding all transportation, which is the approach 

this state already is taking. [“A Trust Fund for Transit,” The Baltimore Sun, March 20, 

1972] 

As some of these comments suggest, transit interests questioned the Single Urban Fund as a 

solution to their concerns, which grew in coming days. One troubling issue was the fact that the 

proposal would replace separate funding for urban transit by placing $1 billion of Highway Trust 
243 

Fund revenues in the Single Urban Fund. Forbes magazine explained the transit interests’ 

concerns:

The Single Urban Fund money would go to the cities and states for all forms of 

transportation—highways and subways. The subway people would be indeed fortunate to 

get their hands on half of it. Even then the Volpe plan would disburse the money broadly to 

communities on the basis of population. While this sounds reasonable in theory, in practice 

it would prevent the kind of concentrated funding allowed presently under UMTA. [The] 

Volpe plan would give less money to almost every major metropolitan area that is engaged 

either in building, modernizing or planning a rapid rail transit system. In short, the Volpe 

plan would give too little money to make the choice between rapid rail and highway transit 

any but a make-believe choice.

Mayor Sam Massell of Atlanta, Georgia, said, “This limited amount of funds would not allow the 

urgent and pressing needs of Atlanta and similar cities to be fulfilled.” 

Putting the dispute in perspective, Forbes said:

Before 1970, funds for urban transit ran at a token level while the highways spun out across 

the landscape. New Jersey’s Senator Harrison Williams was a voice crying in the 

wilderness for mass transit. He remembers when urban transit got $60 million from the 

Congress in 1965, a year when highways received $4 billion. 

The $10-billion, 10-year commitment to urban mass transportation approved in 1970 was faltering, 

and the new proposal would not help: 

Williams feels that Volpe’s plan would make urban transit, specifically rail transit, a 

permanently poor second cousin. It would also, in the niceties of Washington maneuvering, 

remove Williams’ Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee from consideration 

of funds for transit. 

Under Secretary Beggs responded to such concerns by saying, “Our program provides a continuous 

source of financing for transit. Opening up the trust fund relates to long-term financing. We’re 

addressing a continuous source of financing.” His frustration was clear when he added, “Look, 

we’ve been told for years this is the thing to do, open up that trust fund. Now we’re doing it and 

they say it’s not enough.” Although some cities, such as Atlanta, San Francisco, and Washington, 

were committed to new rail systems, Beggs said, “The only places subways are needed are in the 

big cities on the coasts. Between the Appalachians and the Rockies there are cities that are well 

served by their highway transport.” [“Gift Horse,” Forbes, April 15, 1972] 

Taking the Case to the Hill 

On March 16, Secretary Volpe appeared before the House Subcommittee on Roads accompanied by 

UMTA Administrator Villarreal, Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Ralph Bartlesmeyer, and

other Department officials. (Turner could not appear; he was testifying before the Appropriations 
244 

Committee.) “We are happy,” Secretary Volpe said, “to testify concerning the 1972 National 

Highway Needs Report.” 

He was proud of the Interstate System. “I might just add that though we have had detractors, those 

who have cast aspersions upon this program, I for one am satisfied that it was an investment that 

was extremely worthwhile.” With the Interstate System well on its way to completion, “the need 

for strong Federal control has decreased.” He continued: 

Now is the time for those nearest the problem to take the initiative in meeting their 

transportation needs. Now is the time to break away from the established pattern of separate 

highway and mass transit programs. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 486] 

The Single Urban Fund was designed to “achieve our goal of flexibility for the future” because 

State and local governments “must have the responsibility of setting the priorities for the use of 

Federal funds for transportation projects.” [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 486] 

He also described the proposal for a Rural General Transportation Fund: 

In order to insure that the States will have sufficient flexibility to satisfy transportation 

requirements in rural areas, we propose a new program that would make moneys available 

for any surface transportation investment outside of our urban centers. Such a program 

would provide funds for capital investments in intercity rail services, rural bus systems, and 

highway projects not on the new rural Federal-aid systems. 

The Single Urban Fund and the Rural General Transportation Fund would, he said, have several 

features in common. The Federal share for projects under both programs would not exceed 70 

percent. No State would receive less than one-third of 1 percent of the total funds apportioned to 

the States. All procedural requirements would continue to be applicable, including those relating to 

civil rights, public hearings, environmental considerations, and engineering standards. [1972 

Highway Legislation, p. 490] 

American industry and auto interests were coming around to recognizing that this step must be 

taken. Truckers, for example, realized that they could travel at posted speeds on Interstates in his 

home State of Massachusetts, but when “they get within approximately 10 miles of Boston . . . it 

takes them an hour or more to go that additional small distance because of the congestion.” He 

said, “This is why industry is starting to realize that action is necessary now”:

Our proposals will do no violence to the Highway Trust fund. As a matter of fact, it will 

enable us to see that true benefits accrue to the traveler, be he a trucker, a pleasure driver, a 

commuter, or a bus or rail commuter. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 491] 

He indicated that the Administration would send transit legislation to Congress soon to implement 

the proposals he had outlined, adding: 
245 

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I realize that what we are presenting to you today 

is a major departure from past programs. It is, however, a departure from the past which is 

essential if we are to meet the demands of the present and the challenges of the future. The 

American people realize that this step must be taken . . . . The enactment this year of 

legislation implementing the 1972 Highway Needs Report will, I believe, be as visionary 

and as important to the American people as that 1956 legislation. [1972 Highway 

Legislation, p. 490-491] 

During the question period, Representative Harsha said that in view of the discussion of the balance 

in the Highway Trust Fund, he wanted to know the Secretary’s view on whether the Administration 

would continue to impound funds. Volpe replied that to the best of his knowledge, “the amount of 

the money which I have underlined as authorizations will be fully obligated.” 

Harsha asked, “What about the revenue sharing proposals that the administration sends up every so 

often?” Volpe replied: 

I am not saying that revenue sharing is dead, but I think we would be less than frank if you 

and I did not agree that, at least as far as we can see at the present time, there certainly does 

not appear to be any indication that the Congress will pass special revenue sharing, at this 

session of Congress. 

In trying to understand how the new program would combine with existing programs, Harsha asked 

the Secretary to confirm that the mass transportation program would be financed entirely out of the 

Highway Trust Fund. Volpe confirmed his understanding. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 497-503] 

Representative Harsha submitted questions for the Secretary to answer for the record. In response, 

Volpe agreed that highway use would increase in future years. As for meeting those needs if the 

road building program is curtailed, Secretary Volpe said that resources will be limited in 

comparison to need in any case. “Given that such resource limitations are constraints that will be 

with us for some time, we have tried to look at the complete range of alternatives at our disposal, 

and not just more highway construction. In this way we hope to get the most from our 

transportation dollar.” 

Asked if the proposal “is a substitute for transportation revenue sharing,” the Secretary replied that 

it was not. While he hoped Congress would approve Special Revenue Sharing for Transportation, 

his proposals were designed “to meet some of the pressing needs” of the present, especially in urban 

areas. If Congress also enacted Special Revenue Sharing, it “could quite easily be built upon the 

program we are advancing now.” 

Representative Harsha told the Secretary that the “anti-highway lobby” argued “that whenever we 

build highways, we attract cars to them like a magnet,” thus creating instead of curing congestion. 

If the Single Urban Fund concentrates funds in urban areas, would that not by analogy also attract 

traffic and produce more congestion? The Secretary agreed that new highway capacity “frequently 

has the effect of generating additional automobile travel.” He explained:
246 

However, the essence of our proposed new urban transportation program is that State and 

local officials are able to judge for themselves whether a highway investment in a particular 

area would have such consequences and can, instead, use the funds that would have gone for 

a highway project for investment in some other facility more likely to meet their needs 

effectively.

Representative Harsha stated that “the principal reason the Highway Trust Fund is being looked to 

as a means for financing mass transit facilities for cities is because the cities themselves cannot 

afford to construct them.” Will they be able to pay for operation? Volpe pointed out that, “The 

financial status of any transit operation—i.e., whether it experiences a deficit or not—represents to 

a large degree the results of policy choices made by an operator or community concerning the level 

of service provided and the fares that are charged.” Deciding against raising fares despite the 

current inflationary spiral of wages and operating costs, State and local governments have to 

subsidize services. He did not say whether he thought costs could ever be paid through the farebox. 

In that case, Representative Harsha asked, did the proposal contemplate using Highway Trust Funds 

to maintain such systems? “Our proposal does not contemplate the use of Highway Trust Funds, or 

any other Federal monies, for maintenance or operation of transit systems.” [1972 Highway 

Legislation, p. 504-506] 

When Representative Schwengel’s time for questions came, he noted that, “You will have to admit, 

Mr. Secretary, that the committee has been quite wise from time to time in not taking 

recommendations from the White House as they come down.” He cited the example of the 

committee’s rejection of President Eisenhower’s proposal for funding the Interstate System by 

issuing bonds and dedicating gas tax revenue to retiring the debt. “One of the things we did that I 

am proud of—it was hard to do—was to create a trust fund and to provide a plan that paid as we 

go.” The key element of the “trust” was “a commitment to the users.” In view of that, “I want to 

put it real squarely and state to you, why does the user now, the automobile user, have the 

obligation to pay for the mass transit system?”

Secretary Volpe replied:

Well, I will answer that in two parts, if I may, Congressman.

First of all, long before the creation of the 1956 Federal Highway Act, there were user taxes 

that were not going into a trust fund. They were going into general revenues, and the 

Congress in its judgment appropriated on an annual basis such sums as they saw fit to 

appropriate to fund the highway program.

The Congress very wisely, in my judgment, with the administration, worked out a plan that 

would provide for a trust fund into which those taxes that were already being collected 

would pour, plus some additional taxes that would be required to pay for the system that 

was envisioned. 
247 

I personally do not believe we are in any way breaching our faith with the public insofar as 

the proposals we have made. As a matter of fact, those users have paid for a pretty 

expensive system, a doggone good system, the envy of the world. 

But the fact is that they are not able to utilize that system in and around the cities to the 

degree they ought to because of the congestion that is there. So if we are able to reduce that 

congestion, the reduction in the amount of gasoline that he uses will, I think, equal the 

amount of money that might be expended for mass transit. 

Representative Schwengel said, “That sounds very good, Mr. Secretary,” but offered as an 

alternative that every bus rider should pay an extra penny to finance mass transit. Volpe responded: 

I will give you my answer to that.

Purely because 20 to 22 percent of the American people do not own an automobile. Most of 

those are the poor, the disadvantaged, the elderly, and the handicapped; and I as one 

American citizen feel we ought to try to do something to give them an opportunity to get to 

a health clinic, to get to a hospital, to get to a university, to get to all these other facilities 

that today they are unable to because they cannot afford it. 

Schwengel agreed but asked, “when 90 percent of the people do not fit in that category, why should 

they [the transit-disadvantaged] not pay their share?” Volpe said: 

Congressman, if you keep increasing the fares, which has generally been the case, all you do 

is drive them away from the bus, and generally the bus routes do not go, in some cases, 

within five or six blocks of the homes in these ghetto areas. 

Schwengel concluded his question time by saying: 

But what I am saying to you, is what I believe from the depth of my heart, that when you get 

those figures [on the impact of mass transit on Highway Trust Fund revenues] you are going 

to see how woefully inadequate this trust fund money is if you give it all to developing the 

mass transit system. That is the point I want to make . . . . As I said, if I can use any 

influence, I will on this, and I think this committee is determined also to support me on this. 

 I may be wrong. I do not know. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 522-526] 

When the question period concluded, Secretary Volpe asked if he could make a concluding 

statement. Chairman Kluczynski agreed. Volpe said: 

I say to you very, very sincerely that it would have been very easy for me not to bite the 

bullet. It would have been much simpler for me to come before this committee, knowing 

generally what the feeling is, and just say well, let us repeat more or less the 1970 act, 

maybe add a little here, or subtract there, and so forth. 
248 

But, frankly, I have seen with my own eyes as I have traveled across this country and 

overseas, that no matter how many highways we build, and doggone good highways that 

have been really the lifestream of our economy, we nevertheless have continued congestion 

in many, many parts of our country. 

So the only reason that I bit the bullet as I did is that I want to create the opportunity, as I 

think somebody well put it . . . for this exchange of ideas. If this bold move, if you want to 

call it that, on my part creates the opportunity and a climate where all of us can really look at 

this thing in a manner that will provide an answer which will solve the problem, that is all I 

am looking for. 

None of us are looking for glory here. There is plenty of glory to go around. It is purely a 

case of solving the problem, whether it be in the urban areas or the rural areas, and we 

cannot place one ahead of the other. 

We naturally have to think in terms of the fact, whether or not we like it, and some of us do 

not, that 80 percent of our people live on 2 percent of the land. 

So naturally that is where a good deal of our investment goes. 

On the other hand, we just cannot neglect the rural areas. So I hope this exchange we have 

had will help us. It has certainly helped me and my colleagues. I hope it will help you as 

you continue these hearings and hear many other witnesses, and then go into executive 

session [to draft a bill]. I hope you will realize that whatever we have put forward was not 

something we just dreamed up last week. 

Rather, it is something we have been thinking about for many, many months. I trust that 

this committee, with which I have had such a fine relationship going back a quarter of a 

century or more, can continue the most favorable climate that we have enjoyed between 

each other and the Department, and that you will proceed to develop answers that will solve 

the problems because this is what we are all trying to do. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 

528-529] 

After viewing the testimony, reporter David E. Rosenbaum of The New York Times said that 

Secretary Volpe’s plan to use some Federal-aid funds for mass transit “received a cool reception 

today from the first Congressional committee to get a crack at it.” They “were not hostile,” but 

“indicated in their questions that they were not persuaded that money from the Highway Trust Fund 

should be spent for anything but highways.” [Rosenbaum, David E., “Volpe is Opposed on Transit 

Plan,” The New York Times, March 17, 1972] 

When testimony resumed on March 21, the subcommittee heard from a Massachusetts delegation, 

beginning with Representative Silvio O. Conte, a Republican from a district in the western part of 

the State who served on the Transportation Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. 

He said:
249 

I am here today to support the Massachusetts proposal for a dollar-for-dollar transfer of 

Interstate highway funds within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts . . . . We are not 

asking for any extra funding for Massachusetts, but rather a reallocation of funds . . . . This 

simple language change could be a paragraph in the 1972 Federal-Aid Highway Act 

permitting dollar-for-dollar transfer of funds based on the latest cost estimates of Interstate 

moneys intended for a given State. Or, it could be done by changing one word in Public 

Law 90-238 (the so-called Cramer-Howard amendment of January 1968—90th Congress, 

which was H.R. 13933). [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 531-533] 

Under Public Law 90-238, enacted January 2, 1968, if a State and the Secretary agreed that a 

portion of an Interstate route was not essential to a unified and connected system and would not be 

constructed, the Secretary could redesignate the withdrawn mileage to other Interstate routes or 

route portions. The law provided 200 miles so sufficient additional mileage would be available 

where needed for the adjustment. 

Representative Conte was asking to shift the Interstate funding from Boston, which did not want it, 

to western Massachusetts, which was in need of it. He was referring to realignment of State Routes 

2, 7, and 8. 

The Reverend Robert F. Drinan, a Democrat Representative from a central Massachusetts district, 

endorsed the dollar-for-dollar exchange to fund upgrading of State Route 52 to Interstate standards. 

 As he put it: 

Tragically, Federal money is available for our inner belt, which the people opposed and 

which is intended to serve Greater Boston traffic primarily, and very little Federal money is 

available for Route 52, which everyone supports and which would be a major transportation 

link between Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New York City. 

The solution was, he said, obvious, namely “changing one statutory provision,” to permit the dollarfor-dollar exchange. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 535] 

During the question period, The Reverend Drinan commented, “I hope that this distinguished 

committee will report out the amendment to the bill that we recommend before anything happens 

with respect to the breaking open of the Highway Trust Fund.” This comment prompted 

Representative James C. Cleveland (R-NH) to lament “the movement to raid the trust fund” and 

that thanks to that movement, even if such an amendment were adopted, “there might not be any 

money left in the trust fund to accomplish it. He referred to the “illusory surplus” of $3.7 billion 

created by “delays imposed on the States by either the highway people in Washington or the OMB.” 

 He continued in one long sentence: 

$3.7 billion is sitting there, and that is a target that all these people say is unused, unneeded 

by the highways, let us go and dip in there for mass transit—let us be frank about it—so 

they want to go and dip in there, but they ignore the fact—and this is the type of thing that 

everybody complains about—the credibility gap, no matter what side you argue on, but 
250 

already obligated for approved projects under construction are more than $7 billion. This 

gives you an idea of the magnitude of the problem that this committee faces. 

Just in case anyone was in doubt, he continued: 

And what is happening is the $3.7 billion is piling up because OMB is holding back. 

Johnson’s administration did it, and President Nixon’s administration is doing it. They have 

both been doing it. It is really a mirage. The $3.7 billion unexpended in the trust fund has 

obligations against it, actual highways have been approved and are under construction of 

more than $7 billion. And in this mass transit discussion, I just want to be sure that . . . you 

are aware of the pressures for mass transit, and so is this committee. We have written into 

our law bus lanes, and we intend to expand on our interest in mass transit, but we just want 

to be sure that the public and all the members of Congress have the facts. And the facts are 

that there is no surplus in the trust fund, and, in fact, the unfilled highway needs in this 

country far exceed what the trust fund can produce. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 538-

540] 

When the question period ended, The Reverend Drinan introduced the next member of the panel, 

Secretary of Transportation and Construction Alan A. Altshuler of Massachusetts. Altshuler stated 

that his primary purpose in testifying was to urge “a very specific provision” be included in the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. It was included in AASHO’s recommendations that he said 

would be presented by AASHO the following day:

The language of the AASHO recommendation in which we are so urgently interested 

provided that, where it is determined that previously approved Interstate links cannot be 

constructed, the responsible officials at all levels of government should be authorized: 

To negotiate a compromise solution, satisfactory to the Secretary, that will satisfy 

the intent of Congress of completing a connected system and, furthermore, that in 

arriving at a compromise and negotiated solution, the amount of funds included in 

the present cost estimate for the section of interstate highway involved, and not the 

mileage, should be the controlling factor. 

This change, endorsed by State highway administrators by a vote of 42-4, would “require no more 

than the alteration of two numbers in the so-called Cramer-Howard amendment of 1968.” The 

change would be to increase the additional 200 miles under the law, now almost all designated, to 

400 miles. He explained that the State had decided not to build the Inner Belt (I-695) that would 

have cost $307 million and displaced more than 2,000 families, and that whatever they build in its 

place would be ineligible for Interstate funding. “We may, in other words, end up with projects that 

absorb large portions of our Federal non-Interstate aid in future years.” Given needs statewide, 

“such a program would be extremely difficult to implement unless the interstate money that had 

been assigned to the Inner Belt was reassigned to other needed expressway projects.” He indicated 

that the State also wanted to eliminate its 19-mile segment of I-895, the circumferential around 

Providence that Rhode Island had decided not to build. They wanted to substitute the routes 

discussed by Representatives Conte and Drinan: 
251 

These two [cancelled] facilities involved a total of 23.6 miles and $358.9 million. Our 

proposed substitute segments would reduce this estimated cost by about $6 million, but 

would add 75 miles to the system, for a total of 98.6 miles and $353 million. 

He justified the shift by saying:

We would emphasize that the authorization we seek would not add to the currently 

estimated completion cost of the Interstate System. Nor would it compromise any of the 

system’s statutory or administrative guidelines. It would only take account of the fact that 

the major stalled segments at the present time are in densely settled urban areas, where the 

cost per mile is extremely high, and that the most likely substitute segments are in open 

country between cities, where both cost and traffic volumes per mile tend to be much lower, 

but where the traffic service that can be purchased per dollar of investment is often greater.

He added that Governor Sargent “asked me personally” to convey his appreciation for the rapid 

progress Congress made “in recent years toward an appropriate balance in the structure of funding 

for transportation improvements.” The Governor and Secretary Altshuler applauded the way the 

Committee on Public Works had “moved Federal highway policy in recent years along a path of 

evolution that has gone far toward keeping it in turn with changing national priorities, and with 

developing insights into the methods by which transportation needs may be satisfied in ways 

optimally compatible with other environmental and urban needs.” 

Since change was inevitable, he said he supported all the AASHO recommendations except one: 

Our only dissent from the AASHO program is with regard to the frequency with which 

Congress should review the Federal Aid Highway program. Though AASHO recommends 

a review only once every 4 years, we believe that the current pattern of more frequent 

review and authorization has proven invaluable as a means of keeping the program in tune 

with the times as new priorities and understandings have emerged over the years. [1972 

Highway Legislation, p. 541-546] 

Committee counsel, Lloyd A. Rivard, informed Altshuler that I-895, having been designated in 

response to the 1,500-mile addition authorized by the 1968 Act, was not eligible for the HowardCramer substitution. Altshuler said: 

I think the critical thing so far as Congress is concerned may not be the evaluation of 

whether each of our proposals is eligible. It may be that you enact general language and 

then leave it to the Federal Highway Administration to determine which of our specific 

proposals to approve. 

He said that he had met with Administrator Turner on two occasions and that he was receptive to 

mile-for-mile trades. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 546-548] 

Following the Massachusetts delegation, the subcommittee heard from D. Grant Mickle, president 

of HUFSAM, Peter Koltnow, vice president for professional affairs, and James Granum, manager 
252 

for transportation development. Mickle said that over the past year and a half, the organization had 

analyzed data put together by State and local agencies for the highway functional classification and 

needs study required by the 1970 Act. Based on that information, HUFSAM Chairman Roy D. 

Chapin, Jr. (chairman of the board, American Motors Corporation) had put together a draft for a 

continuing highway program. 

HUFSAM’s seven recommendations included authorization of the Federal-aid highway program for 

at least 2 more years and designation of the realigned Federal-aid systems based on the functional 

classification exercise. The group also recommended extending the deadline for Interstate 

completion through FY 1979, with funding tapering off after FY 1976. It also wanted the 

Department of Transportation to work with State and local agencies “to undertake development of 

performance standards for each new Federal-aid systems [sic].” The Department also should 

launch a research and development program “looking toward new solutions to urban transportation 

problems” and “develop new guidelines for assuring citizen participation in decisionmaking, and 

for encouraging minority groups economic benefits [sic] from highway development, and providing 

manpower training for them.” 

Perhaps HUFSAM’s most surprising recommendation was a proposal to use $300 million annually 

from the Highway Trust Fund to improve public transportation. The group’s analysis showed that 

in all urbanized areas, only 7 percent of trips were on public mass transportation, with two-thirds of 

those trips by bus and the rest by rail. Estimated capital needs for all urban public transportation 

totaled $65 billion, with buses and related facilities accounting for $10 billion of that total. 

Whatever the mix, cities were faced with congestion. HUFSAM supported increased funding for 

urban arterials to increase safety as well as capacity, but Mickle continued:

Still, other opportunities to improve traffic flow and meet our total transportation needs 

must be utilized. Potential lies in upgrading the quality of our public transportation services 

as extensively as possible around the country. 

At the same time, we do not believe that the answer, in any appreciable terms, lies in 

returning to transportation methods which fit the land use patterns at the turn of the century. 

 Even a mix of such methods with automotive transportation offers limited hope. 

New solutions were needed, he said. “We believe that highway users do have a direct stake in 

finding modern transportation solutions to problems posed by today’s and tomorrow’s metropolitan 

trends.” 

Improvement of bus mass transportation service would contribute to the overall relief of congestion 

and benefit truck and private car operators. “On this basis, we proposed that an annual average sum 

of $300 million be made available from the trust fund for 10 years, matching at a 70 Federal-30 

local ratio to meet over 40 percent of the long term capital needs of urban bus transportation, 

including purchase of buses, terminals, and storage yards.” Projects would be contingent on finding 

that the capital improvements would measurably upgrade transit service and that local authorities 

“are capable of continuing such services.” This program would “supplement and not replace the 
253 

current funding,” while Federal-aid highway funds would remain available for special bus lanes and 

fringe and corridor parking as at present. 

HUFSAM opposed the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues for transit operating expenses: 

To subsidize operating expenses could underwrite bad operation. Furthermore, operating 

buses is a private and public business for which there are no Federal controls, no Federal 

standards nor criteria. We would consider it a breach of trust to use trust fund moneys under 

these circumstances and for this purpose. 

Asked by Congressman Mike McCormack (D-Wa.) about the Interstate segments “where there are 

hang-ups of one sort or another,” Mickle and Koltnow responded: 

Mr. Mickle. We would not necessarily expect that those sections that are hopelessly 

deadlocked and no chance whatsoever of getting an agreement will be completed. Perhaps 

some alternative would be provided, if it is a city section, a bypass, or something of that 

kind. 

Mr. Koltnow. The extension of the deadline for completion is required because it is 

certainly going to take time to build even those roads that are agreed upon and not points of 

contention. We do call for an extension of perhaps 2 years in the filing of schedules for 

completion, and I think after that point in time if there are segments on which there is 

simply no agreement, they would disappear from the Federal-aid system as currently set 

forth in the law. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 574, 576] 

On March 22, the subcommittee heard from AASHO. J. C. Dingwall, president of AASHO and 

State Highway Engineer of the Texas State Highway Department, took the lead. He had little good 

to say about the Administration’s proposals: 

In some ways, this is an unusual hearing since we are not testifying on a bill, and since the 

administration’s revenue sharing proposal, reflecting certain political implications, has been 

resubmitted masqueraded as the 1972 Highway Needs Report. 

He explained that AASHO had adopted 22 recommendations during a meeting of the “After 75 

Committee” in Chicago on March 14, 1972. They did so under difficult circumstances: 

Also, just before the meeting discussions were concluded, and after we had reviewed the 

outline of the administration’s so-called Needs report, obtained through a DOT briefing in 

Washington and given to us by phone by AASHO staff, Federal Highway Administrator F. 

C. Turner, arrived and read a prepared statement, and handed out copies of the 1972 

Highway Needs Report, after which we proceeded with our balloting on the 22 

recommendations to you. 

With little time to review the report, AASHO had to adopt its recommendations despite not having 

time to contact its constituent groups about the new Administration proposals. 
254 

One of AASHO’s recommendations was to authorize $1 billion a year for the relief of urban 

congestion by utilizing highway-type measures emerging from an objective transportation planning 

process consistent with the continuing, comprehensive, and cooperative (3C) process required by 

the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962 . This recommendation emerged from discussion with the 

National League of Cities:

We still believe this is a sound recommendation, one that is very much in the public interest, 

and does not violate the intent or purpose of the Federal Highway Trust Fund . . . . We 

definitely do not view it as immoral, illegal, nor contributing to an unfair advantage of 

motor vehicle transport over other modes, but we do believe it should be used for its 

intended purpose, and it is inadequate to even satisfy those needs, and it is the case of the 

user paying for his own facilities. 

AASHO did not object to any other mode of transportation, or establishing a trust fund for its 

development, “but we do object to the Highway Trust Fund being raided for the purpose.” 

As his initial comments made clear, he did not trust the 1972 Highway Needs Report. It was, he 

said, “really the transportation revenue sharing program taking certain liberties with the Highway 

Trust Fund.” He had asked to see FHWA data and the original draft “because in our opinion [the 

final report] is truly not a highway needs report in its released form.” Dingwall, speaking for 

AASHO, objected to the data in the report, how it was interpreted, and the conclusions drawn. He 

wanted to know “to what extent recognized competent highway expertise” was involved in 

preparing the final report. 

By proposing to “fragment the Highway Trust Fund into five separate accounts,” the proposal 

would delay completion of the Interstate System to the mid-1980’s, “which is too far in the future.” 

He said AASHO had “grave reservations” about Single Urban Fund revenues “bypassing State 

government and going directly to creatures of State government—the SMSA’s, and some concern 

about funding and programming decisions being made by elected officials at those levels, unless 

based on objective and factual 3C total transportation planning.” He explained: 

The State highway departments having the responsibility to build, maintain, and operate a 

statewide highway system, do not want to lose highway extensions in urban areas through 

Federal legislation.

To fragment jurisdiction over the various segments of the official State highway system 

between State and urban officials could only deteriorate the State highway system.

Based on the latest Interstate Cost Estimate, completion at the rate of $3 billion a year would take at 

least another 13 years. At $4 billion a year, completion could be achieved in 10 years. “This is in 

itself a long time to wait for the completion of an essential transport system that was begun in 1956, 

and thought could be completed by 1969, then 1972, then 1976, then 1977, and now, according to 

the Administration’s proposal, 1979.” The Nation must “strive for a connected system that will 

allow through travel in all sections without undue delay, due to local traffic congestion.” 
255 

He commented on the remaining segments: 

We firmly believe that within the time frame that will necessarily be involved in completing 

the Interstate, that practically all controversial gaps can be resolved through a compromise 

of location and adequate design, and if there are any gaps that will not be built, they will 

undoubtedly be a few city projects where it might be necessary to construct bypass routes, or 

expand the capacity on existing ones in order to serve the traveling public and provide a 

connected system.

In closing his remarks, he said:

In summary, we wish to state that the highway program is not overfinanced, nor are we 

anything close to the final “inning” of the Interstate program. The percentage of completion 

of the Interstate is based on mileage, and not on money, and it means that we have built, 

generally, the simplest and cheapest sections to date. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 588-

600] 

David Stevens presented AASHO’s 22 recommendations. He was chairman of the Maine State 

Highway Commission and was slated to become the first commissioner of the Maine Department of 

Transportation when it began operations on July 1, 1972. 

(After creation of the U.S. Department of Transportation, the States began organizing similar 

departments. In 1967, New Jersey became the first to establish a State department of 

Transportation, with New York’s department opening later that year. With the U.S. Department 

aggressively promoting conversion by the States, 20 States and Puerto Rico had followed the 

example by 1973. On November 13, 1973, AASHO’s Policy Committee approved a new name for 

the organization, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and a 

broadened mission and membership to include all forms of transportation. [AASHTO 1914-1989: 

Moving America Into The Future, American Association of State Highway and Transportation 

Officials, 1990, p. 14]) 

AASHO recommended retaining the 70-30 match included in the 1970 Act “because, quite frankly, 

we have heard some disturbing rumors to the effect that there might be some desire on the part of 

the Administration not to match Federal funds on a 70-percent basis.” Stevens explained 

AASHO’s recommendation, cited earlier by ARBA, that the reauthorization cycle be changed from 

2 years to 4 years. This would be helpful because “we are having more and more difficulty within 

the present time frame of about 6 years or more, bringing our projects to the contract stage.” The 4-

year reauthorization pace would ensure continuity and stability over the longer project development 

time frame.

The recommendation of $4 billion a year for Interstate completion was essential to avoid stretching 

the time line out any more than necessary. This total would require preserving the Highway Trust 

Fund and being sure “that we have no diversion from our trust fund to other modes of 

transportation.” 
256 

The proposal that $1 billion be provided for highway or highway-related improvements to relieve 

congestion was “one of our most important recommendations.” Projects such as fringe parking or 

extra bus lanes, would be selected by State highway officials “with the advice of appropriate local 

officials.” 

Asked about the source of the additional funds, Stevens said he thought they could come from 

revenue in the Highway Trust Fund for the next few years and that after that, “excess revenues 

would take care of these particular authorizations we are suggesting.” These comments prompted 

Congressman Cleveland to emphasize the nature of the Highway Trust Fund balance, currently at 

$3.8 billion with projects under construction for $7.8 billion. He told Stevens: 

In other words, the money that has been actually earmarked is actually twice that surplus, if 

my figures are correct. But I do not think you are getting that point across to the public. I 

do not think you are getting it across even to the Congress. We know what has happened, 

thanks to these cut-backs and hold-backs. There is this apparent cash balance in the trust 

fund. It is getting bigger every year. The bigger it gets, the more inviting it gets. Correct? 

But I do not think you are getting that point across to the public and that is why we are in 

trouble . . . . There is a big question whether there is enough money in the trust fund to do 

the things we have to do to build safe highways, save lives and just do what we must do. 

We are fighting a losing battle here in Congress.

Do I make myself clear?

When Dingwall said he understood, Representative Cleveland told him, “I just think you have got 

to be much more tough and hard-hitting on these facts.” He added, “Let us face it, it is my 

[Republican] administration, but my administration is deliberately misleading the American people 

on this connection.” 

Stevens went on to discuss the recommendation that the current law allowing exchange of funding 

among categories should be increased from 20 percent to 50 percent. This would allow the States 

the flexibility to determine their individual needs. He also explained that 20 percent of funds for 

the Federal-aid systems should be available for expenditure on non-system roads. The funds could 

be used to correct hazardous locations and construct other safety projects, with local governments 

sometimes providing the matching funds. 

AASHO endorsed equitable reimbursement to the States for the toll and toll-free Interstate roads 

built with State funding prior to adoption of the 1956 Act and incorporated into the System. This 

subject had been a point of contention during development of the 1956 legislation, with States that 

had built Interstate segments, whether toll or free, arguing that if they were not reimbursed under 

the new program, they would be treated unfairly in comparison with other States that had not taken 

the initiative. The 1956 Act called for a study of the routes involved, but Congress had not acted on 

reimbursement. (Congress would not do so until the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency 

Act of 1991 authorized partial compensation to the States.) 
257 

AASHO also wanted Congress to enact legislation to address the problem of Interstates that were 

not being constructed. The legislation would allow “these State highway departments to make an 

attempt to negotiate for some kind of compromise in these areas in order to provide for a 

continuous Interstate System, but not necessarily on the same location, as was originally intended.” 

In response to a question from committee counsel Rivard, Stevens elaborated on the 

recommendation: 

Our intent here, Mr. Rivard, is to require or provide them with tools, I should say, for 

negotiation within the vicinity of the original location, still with the objective of providing a 

continuous network of Interstate routes. Our suggestion does not provide for abandoning 

entirely the continuous and connecting routes at that location, and moving the money dollarfor-dollar into a distant part of the State on highways which perhaps were not even part of 

the State highway system at one point.

As for these stalled routes, Stevens said AASHO wanted to extend the deadline, contained in 

Section 124 of the 1970 Act, for the start of construction of each segment, while retaining the 

deadline of 1973 for finalizing PS&E. Congress should allow the Secretary “to establish a more 

realistic date than 1975, where there is difficulty getting the project underway.” 

Rivard asked about the 1973 deadline that Secretary Volpe had proposed to extend by 1 year. 

AASHO’s executive director, A. E. Johnson, responded that AASHO might want to consider an 

extension of the 1973 deadline. The 1975 date had been selected for construction because it was 2 

years before “the so-called completion date of 1977” for the Interstate program as provided for in 

the 1970 Act: 

We all knew that 1977 was not going to be the completion date. But if we can make a 

negotiated compromise solution of a project in 1973, and it takes 6 years to get PS&E, the 

1975 date is no good, it has to be extended, and the program time frame by necessity will 

extend to 1980 or later, so the 1975 date is not reasonable nor essential. 

The delays were in some cases caused by legal actions throughout the country. Congress could 

address this problem by “requiring appropriate bond be established for those bringing action which 

would result in delaying the project.” Stevens realized that objections had been raised to this 

suggestion because “there would not be an opportunity for poor persons to have an adequate day in 

court.” He said:

We have deep confidence in our judicial system to look after the welfare of the poor, but we 

are thinking about the frivolous suits which are being brought which, in turn do hold up 

projects with a very minimum amount of bond, which could result in considerable cost to 

the taxpayers and the State Highway Commission and the Federal Government. 

When Stevens completed his presentation, Chairman Kluczynski took the opportunity to 

acknowledge the presence of “one of the great men in the country, and man who has built America 

[sic]—the father of the Interstate Highway Act of 1956, our former chairman, George Fallon. The 
258 

transcript notes: [Applause.] Referring to the 1955-1956 period, he said, “You did a marvelous 

job, George. You are one of the fellows who has built America. We are going to continue building 

America.” [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 611-624] 

Other pro-highway groups testified during the hearings. AGC, testifying on March 23, reported that 

it had adopted resolutions concerning reauthorization. L. P. Gilvin, a contractor serving as 

chairman of AGC’s legislative committee, presented the recommendations, which included support 

for a Mass Transit Trust Fund with “sources of revenue other than those presently supporting the 

Airport and Highway Trust Funds.” The organization opposed impoundment, but favored receipt 

of “adequate financial security to indemnify and protect” States when filing suit to block projects, a 

4-year reauthorization cycle, a 70-30 Federal-State matching ratio, and extension of the deadline for 

PS&E on Interstate projects, among other proposals. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 663-667] 

The American Automobile Association (AAA) also testified on March 23. J. B. Creal, executive 

vice president, began by referring to the Secretary’s proposals:

Mr. Chairman, events of the past week make it apparent that perhaps the most important 

issue facing this subcommittee at this time is the matter of a possible breach of faith with 

the highway user, the man who pays the money which makes the trust fund a reality . . . . 

The AAA was extremely disappointed by the administration’s recommendations last week 

that the Highway Trust Fund be raided for nonhighway purposes. 

The 1972 Highway Needs Report documented “that vast sums will be required to meet highway 

needs through 1990” but “the administration has decided to discount these needs.” Moreover, the 

report did not attempt to “truly justify why the users of the highways should shoulder the burden of 

financing mass transit facilities.” General funding for mass transit was “the most equitable means 

of financing the program,” which AAA had supported in 1970. If highway user taxes were not 

going to be used for their intended purpose, they should be repealed, Creal said. 

AAA had opposed the Federal gas tax for many years before 1956, and as Creal acknowledged, had 

opposed earmarking of highway user revenues to build the Interstate System. Since the Interstate 

System would benefit the entire country, not just motorists, AAA had favored the use of general 

Treasury revenue for its construction: 

AAA had severe reservations about the fairness of user charges underwriting the entire cost 

of this program. AAA still has such reservations and retains its position that an equitable 

tax base for both highway users and nonhighway user beneficiaries be enacted. 

Now, the program’s success was “causing its detractors to cast covetous eyes on the financing 

arrangement—the very rudiment of the system.” 

Creal also disputed that transit had suffered because of the focus on highway development. New 

York City, which had been leading the charge for diversion of highway revenue, was unique and 

hardly typical of the urban problems in other large cities. In most cities, “provision of appropriate 

transportation facilities is inseparable from land use decisions.” Decentralization of population, 
259 

retail facilities, and industry favored the automobile and buses, not the type of rail transportation 

possible in New York City. 

In summary, he said AAA’s position was that the 1972 Highway Needs Report revealed needs so 

great that the Highway Trust Fund must be kept intact; highway user taxes should be used 

exclusively for highway programs; and public transportation where needed should be financed with 

general revenues. In closing, Creal quoted Secretary Volpe’s March 1970 testimony before the 

House Banking and Currency Subcommittee on Housing: 

The establishment of a trust fund was very thoroughly considered by the administration. 

The essence of the trust fund concept as it exists for highways and as it is proposed for 

airports and airways . . . is the contribution of revenues into the fund from those who will 

use the facilities created by expenditures from the fund. As the term indicates, these are 

revenues held in “trust” by the Government in [sic] behalf of the special taxpayers . . . .

The administration’s final decision to fund the public transportation program from general 

revenues flows from the inevitable conclusion that public transportation is really a public 

responsibility. This responsibility should be met by all of the taxpayers and not by a select 

group of them. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 689-698] 

The American Trucking Associations (ATA) testified on March 29. William A. Bresnahan, ATA’s 

president, began by expressing the organization’s strong support for the Interstate System. “We still

have left the bold, and highly justifiable, program laid out in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1956.” Its members were willing to pay their fair share for the program’s completion, but “we feel 

just as strongly that if the highway program is stopped, our special highway taxes should be 

stopped.” ATA considered its members’ contributions to the Highway Trust Fund to be “special 

taxes levied for a special purpose and related to a specific Government program.” If the program 

were curtailed rather than stopped, the special taxes should be curtailed in the same amount. 

The calls to “siphon away trust fund revenues” come mainly from mass transit advocates who do 

not acknowledge that for much of the country “the only feasible form of mass transit now and in the 

foreseeable future, is the motor bus operation on highways provided by highway taxes.” Secretary 

Volpe’s suggestion that the trucking industry should welcome diversion of highway taxes, possibly 

for some form of rail transit, “is completely off the mark.” The trucking industry needed 

completion of the Interstate System and improved roads and streets in urban areas to relieve the 

burden of congestion. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 879-881] 

The recommendations by these highway-oriented groups were to some extent predictable. As 

reflected in the testimony of the Highway Action Committee, the subcommittee also heard from 

groups and individuals with a different perspective. 

On March 15, Representative Koch testified in support of his bill to establish a transportation trust 

fund and his bill authorizing construction of exclusive or preferential bike lanes. He endorsed 

Secretary Volpe’s proposal:
260 

On the whole, I believe that the 1972 Highway Needs Report’s recommendations represent 

a recognition that there are critical transportation problems in our urban areas that can be 

met only if states and localities are given flexibility to direct our transportation resources 

into those facilities that can provide the fastest and most convenient means of transportation 

possible. 

He was concerned that under the proposal, too much funding would go to Interstate construction 

and not enough to the Single Urban Fund. “I believe that our urban transportation needs greatly 

exceed the Secretary’s funding recommendations.” He understood the subcommittee’s position in 

this debate:

I realize that there is considerable pressure on the Committee to continue the single purpose 

of the Highway Trust Fund: highway construction and safety. But I would submit that to 

continue to provide an isolated funding program just for highways inhibits our ability to 

provide a balanced transportation system and optimum mobility for our people. 

Furthermore, setting aside for highways such an enormous share of our transportation 

resources will only contribute to the further deterioration of our public transportation system 

and the escalation of the mobility crisis that now stagnates many of our urban areas. 

The bicycle was part of the solution to the urban crisis: 

Last year the country was swept by a tidal wave of bicycling enthusiasm and I predict that 

with the arrival of spring, we will find millions of adults riding their bikes daily to and from 

work. 

In addition to being “mechanically very simple,” the bicycle “emits no pollution, makes little if any 

noise, takes up little room and even has physical and mental benefits for the rider.” However, 

danger occurred when cyclists “are forced to compete with cars and buses in heavily congested 

streets.” Congress must, he said, do its share in providing localities with financial assistance to 

develop the needed lanes, build bicycle shelters and provide bicycle traffic control devices.” [1972 

Highway Legislation, p. 439-441] 

Representative Schwengel commented that if Congress directed all Highway Trust Fund revenues 

to New York City for 10 years, that “still will not solve your mass transit problem.” He advised 

Koch to “come to us with an estimate of the cost and the way to pay for it.” Koch said that what 

distressed him was that Congress only in 1970 began authorizing significant funding for mass 

transit, but only a portion of that funding had been made available, most recently $600 million for 

mass transit while another $4.5 billion was made available for highways. “I do not think that was 

fair.” He estimated that applications from the cities on file at UMTA as of 1971 totaled $17 billion, 

with New York City seeking $2 billion for the Second Avenue subway project, a 14-mile line from 

Whitehall Street at the southern end of Manhattan to East 180th Street in the Bronx. 

Why, Representative Schwengel asked, should not the people who use mass transit pay for it? 

Koch replied, “Let me point out why they cannot. One is there is a limit as to what someone can 

afford to pay for an essential service.” Most observers had come to the conclusion that “the fare 
261 

box cannot bear the entire cost.” Moreover, he asked, why should transit passengers pay full cost 

when one considers the subsidy provided to the automobile, including street maintenance, pothole 

repairs, special offices, traffic signals, and the cost of pollution. 

Representative Schwengel was receptive to the bicycle idea because he had observed in his home 

State that at the University of Iowa, “the university said no more automobiles, bicycles only, and 

they got bicycles by the thousands.” Chairman Kluczynski also was interested, saying of his 

hometown of Chicago, “Mayor Daley also rode a bicycle a month ago and now you cannot buy a 

bike in Chicago.” Koch assured them that, “I intend to keep lobbying with you over the dinner 

table.” [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 458-466] 

Later that day, John Auerbach, executive director of the Bicycle Institute of America, Inc., testified. 

 The group, a trade association representing the domestic bicycle industry, had seen “bicycle 

popularity grow enormously in both dimension and character.” Saying that history repeats itself, he 

reminded the subcommittee about the role of bicycles in the 1880s and 1890s in promoting good 

roads. “And bicycle enthusiasts know today, as did their forebears almost 100 years ago, that riding 

space is the basic essential for bicycle expansion.” He continued:

This basic essential has never been more obvious and more pressing than it is today. The 

bicycle has come of age, and millions of American cyclists from all walks of life and from 

all age groups, are once again pressing State, Federal, and local legislators—not for more 

roads for cars, but for more bikeways, paths, and trails for bikes. 

This has become one of the most powerful grass roots movements that has ever been 

associated with any industry. It is truly an amazing phenomenon. 

Already the movement had prompted some States to open their highway trust funds to bicycle 

facilities. Now, Federal funds must be made available:

The argument has been presented that bicyclists don’t pay any highway use taxes, so why 

should they share in Highway Trust Fund revenues. I respectfully submit that this argument 

is fallacious. Bicyclists and their families already own at least one and in many cases two 

automobiles that more than pay their own way. The bicycle is not supplanting the 

automobile . . . . Rather, motorists are also buying bikes to be used along with, not instead 

of their cars.

But even if this were not true, the argument would still be invalid. If it were not, the 

childless family should not be taxed to support a school system it does not use, the man who 

has neither committed a crime nor been the victim of one should not have to support the 

police department . . . . Obviously, the betterment of society as a whole is the issue; the 

promotion of the general welfare, if you will, and no group of citizens is exempt from either 

the benefits or responsibilities of that time honored doctrine. 

In short, the institute supported Representative Koch’s Bicycle Transportation Act. [1972 Highway 

Legislation, p. 475-481] 
262 

Representative Bella Abzug (D-NY) appeared before the subcommittee on March 23. Following 

her election to the House in 1970, she had been assigned to the Committee on Public Works but not 

to the Subcommittee on Roads. She told her colleagues that the “transportation situation in our 

urban areas is at a crisis level,” with transit facilities unable to keep up with demand while 

continuing to deteriorate from lack of maintenance, and fares were increasing to levels that riders 

could not afford. Meanwhile, in crowded urban areas, “autos are extremely inefficient.” She said, 

“Purely and simply, the reason for this is money.” She contrasted funding for the Interstate System 

and mass transit:

The message of this comparison cannot be lost on anyone, and is certainly clear to State and 

local officials: Build more highways, especially superhighways, and we in Washington will 

pay almost the entire bill; build mass transit facilities and you are on your own.

She summarized her point. “What I am trying to say is that we must stop looking upon the 

Highway Trust Fund as a sacred cow and start being realistic as to our transportation needs.” She 

added: 

I think that what we are talking about is the dire need for a Federal transit operating and 

maintenance subsidy; to get a 90-10 contribution from the Federal to the local, in the same 

way we have it in the highway system. The question of travel involves both highways and 

urban mass transit, and we have to find the ways in which we can fund them from common 

resources. I believe that those resources exist in the Highway Trust Fund. 

Representative Schwengel told the Congresswoman that he questioned why the committee should 

use “some of the cash we collect from the users of the highways to pay for those who do not use the 

highways.” Why, he wanted to know, should not the users of mass transit facilities “pay a little bit 

extra for improved services and reduced costs?” 

Representative Abzug replied that, “I think there is a fallacy in all of these arguments and I really 

think it is about time we really came to grips with it.” She said that, “It is not a local problem that I 

am discussing, but a national problem.” 

It is unfair to take the position that only one aspect of travel in this country should be taken 

care of and all other aspects suffer as a result. We pay a price. Every city pays a price for 

having a trust fund being built up which is used only for highways. Highways prevent cities 

from getting other revenues. I am not going to go through the arguments—the property tax 

losses from land taken for highways and so forth. 

What I want to bring to the attention of this committee is that we are talking of a broad 

range of transportation services and there has to be some way to coordinate and correlate 

them and the way in which we raise the funds to maintain them. They are not isolated any 

longer. Cities have sprawled out. Urban transit relates to the highway fund, and there 

should be some correlation in terms of financing.
263 

New York City, like other cities, faced “crisis after crisis” in raising funds for needed services, 

including its transit system. She pointed out that more tax revenue came from New York City to 

the Federal Government than was returned. “We are in constant crisis, and I think it is time for this 

committee to utilize its great creativity and its enormous intelligence and to create the concept of a 

trust fund that can be spread to more people than the automobile users.” 

Representative John H. Terry (R-NY), whose district was in the Syracuse area, mentioned the 1971 

transportation bond issue that the people of New York, including the people of New York City, had 

rejected. He thought they rejected it because of “the tremendous acceleration in operation costs,” 

such as salaries for transit workers. Abzug disagreed, arguing that the people of New York City 

“opposed it because they felt that too large a part of that bond issue was to be allocated to building 

more highways.” 

They then discussed a possible source of revenue for a Mass Transit Trust Fund. She suggested the 

balance in the Highway Trust Fund as a possible source (Terry explained that the surplus was not 

really a surplus), but an additional tax on gasoline to fund a separate mass transit account was worth 

considering. She said that her purpose was to make clear “that we are responding very favorably to 

the proposal that has come forward from Mr. Volpe that there be some commitment of highway 

trust funds to mass transit.” [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 649-661] 

(Representative Abzug, who would be a strong advocate for transit over the next few years, was 

said to have been “born yelling.” She was a lawyer, feminist, and social and antiwar activist who 

became a celebrity and frequent television guest known for her big hats, sarcastic humor, and what 

the author Norman Mailer described as a voice that “could boil the fat off a taxicab driver’s neck.” 

Author Vincent J. Cannato described her as “perpetually dissatisfied” and quoted an aide, Sid 

Davidoff, who said, “Bella was truly a bull in the China shop. When Bella calls you, as you’re 

picking up the phone she’s already yelling at you. She hasn’t identified herself. You don’t know 

what the issue is, but you’re hearing her voice on the other end yelling at you.” In 1976, she gave 

up her House seat to run for the Senate, but lost in the primary to Daniel Patrick Moynihan. 

[Cannato, Vincent J., The Ungovernable City: John Lindsay and His Struggle to Save New York, 

Basic Books, 2001, p. 422, 502]) 

Representative Ryan testified on March 29 that the reason for “our desperate predicament is that, 

while we have spent dollar after dollar on producing larger and more extensive highway systems, 

we have kept mass transportation on a starvation diet.” The notion that the automobile was the only 

feasible mode of urban transportation could not be “further from the truth.” He explained, “Inner 

city bumper-to-bumper traffic, accidents, smog—all call for applying the brakes to the automobile 

commuter age.” The Nation needed “effective and efficient mass transportation systems.”

He had again introduced the bill he had first unveiled in 1966 to allow the States to decide whether 

to use Highway Trust Fund revenue for highways or mass transit. He recalled the arguments in 

previous years over whether his bill was germane as an amendment to Federal-aid highway or 

transit bills. “We can no longer allow such parliamentary maneuvering to impede the development 

of urban mass transit.” Secretary Volpe’s proposal to open the Highway Trust Fund to urban 
264 

transportation needs “was most welcome.” He urged the subcommittee “to seize this opportunity to 

take affirmative action on my proposal.” The importance of his proposal was not in doubt: 

The fate of our mass transit system is the fate of our cities. It is a must . . . . It is essential to 

build a balanced transit system. We must not misinterpret a spiderweb of highways as a 

modern mode of urban transportation. [1972 Highway Legislation, p. 851-853] 

Chairman Kluczynski anticipated that he and other members of the subcommittee had many 

questions for Representative Ryan, but because of their tight schedule on the day before the Easter 

recess, they would send them to him to reply in writing. He agreed, but the hearing transcript 

included neither the questions nor his replies. 

The hearings concluded on April 12, 1972. 

The Administration Bill

On April 21, Secretary Volpe submitted the Department’s legislative proposal, the Federal-Aid 

Highway and Mass Transportation Act of 1972, to Congress implementing the plan outlined in the 

1972 Highway Needs Report as well as a stepped up safety program. Senator John Sherman 

Cooper of Kentucky, ranking Republican on the Committee on Public Works and the 

Subcommittee on Roads, introduced the bill as S. 3590 as a courtesy to the Administration while 

Congressmen Blatnik and Harsha introduced the bill in the House, also as a courtesy, as H.R. 

14759. Senator Cooper had represented Kentucky in the Senate since 1946 (interrupted by a stint as 

Ambassador to India in 1955-1956).- 

The legislative proposal incorporated the innovative Single Urban Fund and the Rural General 

Transportation Program, while continuing to fund the highway beautification and junkyard control 

programs established in 1965. 

Under the Single Urban Fund, 40 percent of the funds would be distributed to the Nation’s SMSAs 

according to each SMSA’s share of the total SMSA population. Another 40 percent would be 

allocated to the States based on urban population while 20 percent would be reserved for 

discretionary use by the Secretary on urban mass transportation projects. The Federal-State 

matching ratio for all projects would be 70-30. 

The news release announcing the proposal explained the metropolitan project selection process:

It is proposed that each SMSA form a consortium of the local governments within its area to 

carry out the local urban transportation programs. It would be required that each consortium 

provide for representation by the highest elected official in each local government in the 

area; that it have a planning authority for all transportation modes and that no program could 

be initiated which was not in conformance with that planning; that it require proportional 

voting within the consortium, be authorized to prepare long-range planning and possess the 

authority to designate agencies to administer programs.
265 

Also, the consortium would be required to develop a multi-year comprehensive 

transportation plan for each program to be financed through the Single Urban Fund. All 

SUF programs would be subject to the same Federal review and approval procedures as 

those now in force for such projects. 

In the event that an SMSA did not choose to form a consortium, the funds allotted to it 

would be retained for management by the State. Local officials within the area would then 

develop plans in cooperation with the State for programs to be financed through the Fund, 

subject to Federal approval. 

The idea of a metropolitan planning consortium was a step forward for the transportation planning 

process. In the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962, Section 9 (“Transportation Planning in Certain 

Urban Areas”) had prohibited the Secretary of Commerce from approving any program of projects 

after July 1, 1965, in urban areas of more than 50,000 “unless he finds that such projects are based 

on a continuing, comprehensive, and cooperative transportation planning process carried on 

cooperatively by States and local communities . . . .” How State and local officials were to carry 

out the 3C planning process was left to them and in many cases, the State highway agency conduct 

or oversaw the process. Now, under Secretary Volpe’s proposal, local officials would be 

encouraged to establish a consortium that would select projects through the 3C process. 

In discussing the proposed legislation, the Secretary explained:

We have reached the point where the localities must be given more flexibility in structuring 

their own urban transportation programs. The interstate system is well on its way to 

completion. Therefore, while our national commitment to an efficient transportation system 

is no less, the need for strong federal control has decreased. 

Now is the time for those nearest the problems to take the initiative in meeting their 

transportation challenges. Now is the time to break away from the established pattern of 

separate highway and mass transit programs. 

For rural areas, the proposal would establish a Rural General Transportation Program, with $200 

million a year for FYs 1974 and 1975. States could use the funds for surface transportation systems 

and facilities outside of metropolitan areas, including highways on or off the Federal-aid systems, 

bus and rail transit facilities, and rolling stock.

The Administration bill also funded the Federal-aid primary and secondary systems:

The legislation would implement the recommendation of the Highway Needs Report that the 

present primary and secondary federal-aid systems be restructured to more accurately reflect 

the current and anticipated future functional uses of these highways. This program would be 

funded at a level of $800 million in fiscal years 1974 and 1975. 
266 

Under the terms of the bill, the primary system would provide a system of connected main 

roads important to Interstate, statewide, and regional travel consisting of rural arterial routes 

and their extensions into or through urban areas of under 50,000 population. 

The secondary system would consist of rural major collector routes and arterial routes in 

urban areas of under 50,000 population. 

The bill did not propose changes in the Interstate program, but did phase down funding levels from 

the current $4 billion a year to $3.25 billion a year in FYs 1974 and 1975; $3 billion for FYs 1976 

through 1979; and $1.257 billion in FY 1980. Secretary Volpe said, “These authorization levels 

will then more accurately reflect the estimated levels of construction during these years.” 

The Federal share would remain 90 percent for Interstate construction, but the Federal share for all 

other projects, including mass transit, would be 70 percent. 

Secretary Volpe also submitted a legislative proposal to amend the Highway Safety Act of 1966. 

Since then, Secretary Volpe said, the “combined Federal-State effort is beginning to show benefits.” 

Still, 300,000 people had been killed in highway crashes since 1966, including 55,000 people in 

1971. Much work, he said, remains to be done. Secretary Volpe explained that, “The purpose of 

this legislation is to amend the Act to improve the Department’s effectiveness in preventing 

highway accidents and deaths and injuries resulting therefrom.” (For information on the 1966 

legislation, see “Epilogue: The Changing Federal Role” in President Dwight D. Eisenhower and 

the Federal Role in Highway Safety at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/safetypr.cfm.) 

The proposal would increase Highway Trust Fund revenue for State highway safety programs, 

require States to incorporate in their comprehensive and annual works programs all national 

emphasis programs designated by the Secretary of Transportation, provide incentive grants to 

encourage States to increase their funding commitment to highway safety, give the Secretary more 

flexibility than in the 1966 Act to penalize States not implementing an approved safety program, 

and clarify the Secretary’s authority to promulgate a standard on planning, administration, and 

evaluation of comprehensive State safety programs.

Observers gave the highway/transit plan little chance of adoption. The May 4 issue of Engineering 

News-Record headlined an item in its Washington Observer column: “Volpe’s Transit Fund Plan 

Bogs Down Early.” It began: 

There’s not much chance that Transportation Secretary John A. Volpe’s plan for highway 

and mass transit funding will get very far this year . . . . Legislation to implement a plan that 

includes the controversial single urban fund concept just went to Capitol Hill last week, only 

to be met with indifference by the House Public Works Committee. 

The Subcommittee on Roads, the column said, “was well on its way to working up a draft bill when 

Volpe’s plan arrived.” The subcommittee’s bill was expected to reflect “its plan for developing a 

program for the transition period between the completion of the Interstate network and upgrading 

other systems.” Volpe’s plan “seems to satisfy no one.” Transit groups “are opposed because they 
267 

fear it will end hopes for a larger, separate mass-transit kitty.” Highway interests opposed any 

diversion of highway user tax revenue. Although Volpe had asserted before a meeting of ARBA 

that his proposal was just an opening move in negotiations, the prospects were dim. [“Volpe 

Transit Fund Plan Bogs Down Early,” Washington Observer, Engineering News-Record, May 4, 

1972, p. 7] 

An editorial in The Journal of Commerce agreed that Secretary Volpe’s plan was “running into 

heavy weather,” saying: 

[It] is clear that there is still powerful opposition to any and all plans to put any of [the new 

equipment and technology] to the test unless it can be fitted into the highway program—

especially if it involves a limited release of highway trust fund revenues for urban transit 

purposes. 

It is “perhaps natural” the proposals to divert highway funds to mass transit “should be considered 

shocking by those convinced that the Interstate Highway Program has been endowed with some 

heaven-sent priority over all other transportation needs.” Why, the editorial asked, should “the 

special tax funds levied on virtually the entire population . . . be sequestered indefinitely in 

sacrosanct vaults and distributed in such a lop sided fashion.” [“The Highwaymen,” The Journal of 

Commerce, May 24, 1972] 

On June 8, the Washington Observer column reported that the House Public Works Committee had 

nearly completed its bill, although work on the water pollution control bill was delaying release of 

the legislation. It was expected to continue the Federal-aid highway program as in the past, with 

increased funding for highway-oriented mass transit facilities. [“Biennial Highway Act Shaping 

Up,” Washington Observer, Engineering News-Record, June 8, 1972, p. 7] 

In a 1972 interview with Government Executive magazine, Under Secretary Beggs discussed the 

origins of the Single Urban Fund proposal. The article began: 

In the case of the current Administration’s highway program, and Urban Mass Transit, 

genesis began with conversations several years ago “with almost everyone in the domestic 

side of the White House and the Office of Management and Budget,” according to Under 

Secretary of the Department of Transportation James M. Beggs.

“There were many discussions on the subject of opening the Highway Trust Fund,” he said. 

“They started with framing of the Urban Mass Transit Act back in the early days of the 

Administration, and the desire there to get a more consistent form of financing for the 

program.” 

Out of this and other discussions came revenue sharing proposals, giving local and state 

jurisdictions more flexibility, which finally culminated in the 1972 Highway Needs study. 

In this, said Beggs, “we highlighted the fact that it appeared to us that the highway program 

was moving off in new directions.” The interstate highways [sic] system was nearing 
268 

completion and the Nation was developing an urban character. The urban program was 

more troublesome, “in terms of defining routes, in terms of getting the clearances to build 

the new capacity that was needed, and in terms of permitting the local jurisdictions 

sufficient flexibility to operate.” 

Out of that study came a counterproposal from OMB and the White House which suggested 

now was the time to open the Highway Trust Fund so that local officials could opt between 

public transportation and the highways. 

More discussions between Begg’s [sic] office and OMB followed, which culminated in a 

proposal given to Volpe, which he was willing to support earlier this year. 

“This was a major decision on his part,” said Beggs. “It meant, in effect, that he was going 

to tell the highway constituency” of this decision. A position paper to that effect was 

submitted to the House Public Works Committee, which held hearings in February and 

March. Last month, the subcommittee reported to the full committee and at press time, 

outlook for a favorable House decision was not very good but in the Senate, it looks more 

encouraging. 

“Like everything else in the Federal Government,” said Beggs, “most of the legislative 

initiatives have a very long history. This one goes back well into the Alan Boyd regime in 

the Department . . . . Many studies were made then. Alan himself has strong views on this 

subject. They were passed on to this Administration, and then after a lot of discussions and 

a lot of policy papers, a number of position papers were put together over the past several 

years.” [MacDonald, Scot, “The Hassle of Being Under Secretary,” Government Executive, 

October 1972] 

In truth, the Single Urban Fund and the other radical elements of Secretary Volpe’s proposal were 

dead. Elizabeth Parker summarized the problem: 

This treatment of the transit program was viewed as a serious threat by the transit lobby and 

urban interests, largely because the transit program was so new and because it was felt that a 

combined program would result in all or more of the money being devoted to highways. At 

the same time, highway interests did not want any of “their money” to be used for transit. 

The Urban System program had only been in existence since 1970, so supporters of this 

program also felt threatened. Deprived of the support of transit groups and facing strong 

opposition from highway interests, the Nixon administration was unable to make any 

significant headway in its efforts to increase flexibility in the use of federal highway and 

transit money. [Parker, p. 57] 

In the Senate

The Senate Subcommittee on Roads began hearings on proposed 1972 highway legislation on May 

10 and would continue with hearings on seven additional dates through June 15. Many of the 
269 

witnesses who had testified before the House Subcommittee on Roads appeared before the Senate 

Subcommittee to repeat their views. However, some new voices were heard.

Senator Bayh, the new chairman, opened the hearing at 10 a.m. After serving in the Indiana House 

of Representatives (1954-1962), he had won election to the United States Senate in 1962. A wellknown liberal, he had been influential in passing Title IX of the Higher Education Act relating to 

women’s equal opportunities in public education. As chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on 

Constitutional Amendments, Senator Bayh had helped secure adoption of two constitutional 

amendments, the 25th (1967, on presidential succession and disability) and the 26th (1971, lowering 

the voting age to 18). He also sponsored the Equal Rights Amendments, which Congress approved 

in 1972 but it failed to secure ratification by the States. (He would lose his reelection bid in 1980 to 

State Representative Dan Quayle.) 

He opened the hearings by saying that the 1972 legislation “could have major impact on the 

Nation’s entire ground transportation system for decades to come.” This was because: 

Serious questions have been raised about the future of our highway program and its role in a 

coordinated transportation system. These questions need satisfactory answers. 

Earlier assumptions about the role, scope and financing of the Federal-aid highway program 

have been called into question recently. 

Everything was on the table, including the role of the automobile, preferential financing for 

highways through a dedicated trust fund, and how to address the environmental impacts of 

transportation. 

Highways remained the lifelines of the economy and personal mobility. “Over 98 percent of the 

trips taken by individuals are on highways.” The 1972 Highway Needs Report had documented a 

“huge backlog” of needs that could not be ignored. 

While many issues remained open, he had drawn a few fundamental conclusions: 

First, it would be unwise not to complete the Interstate System according to its basic original 

concept as a national network of interconnected, limited-access highways, with possible 

exceptions for certain densely populated metropolitan areas. 

Second, we should upgrade and in some cases reconstruct many miles of the old primary 

system which unavoidably has been neglected while the major share of available funds was 

invested in the interstate.

Third, urban and secondary roads have failed likewise to keep pace with the tremendous 

increase in vehicle miles traveled and must be improved and modernized. 

Fourth, while it may not be in the direct province of this subcommittee, it is essential that 

much more be done to improve mass transit facilities throughout the country. 
270 

Fifth, as disclosed by a survey conducted last year, there is a critical need for replacing 

thousands of dangerous, below standard bridges; more than 24,000 such deficient structures 

are located on Federal-aid systems alone.

Sixth, sizeable additional funds should be committed to expanding and implementing 

various highway and vehicle safety programs.

Seventh, whatever answers are provided to the many questions posed as we ponder new 

highway legislation, those answers must include adequate safeguards for protection of the 

environment in all areas from metropolitan air quality standards, the preservation of park 

land, and the protection of national resources. 

Eighth, the practice by the last two administrations of withholding from the States sizeable 

funds authorized, appropriated, and apportioned for highway purposes should be ended. 

Ninth and finally, the excessive amount of time and money consumed by administrative 

delays, paperwork and other “red tape” should be reduced. [Proposed 1972 Highway 

Legislation, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Roads of the Committee on Public 

Works, United States Senate, 92nd Congress, 2nd Session, Serial 92-H37, p. 1-4] 

Secretary Volpe was the first witness, accompanied by Under Secretary Beggs, Administrator 

Villarreal, and Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Bartlesmeyer. The Secretary thanked 

Senator Cooper for introducing the Administration’s bill, which “would provide us a mechanism to 

better meet the pressing problems of urban transportation and achieve sufficient urban mobility 

through balanced transportation.” 

He acknowledged the vital role that highways played, but their improvement has “not been carried 

out without detrimental side effects, primarily in our large metropolitan areas.” Part of the problem 

was that until very recently, “State and local officials had no choice” on urban transportation since 

funding for mass transit capital improvements was not available. Without investment choice, local 

officials “have been unable to develop effective multimodal planning capabilities.” Review of 

these problems “leads to one simple conclusion,” which he explained: 

We must develop more efficient transportation in our urban areas. At stake is the vitality 

and quality of life of our urban areas. Now is the time to begin this urgent task. 

His “firm belief” was that, “We, in Washington should not make their decisions for the localities, 

nor should we arbitrarily control their decisions.” The local officials who were most familiar with 

the problems of their localities must have the ability to make those decisions. The Administration’s 

proposals grew from these ideas. 

After summarizing the proposals, he said, “I realized that I would not receive unanimous approval 

for this new approach.” He wanted to address some of the concerns, even misinterpretations of the 

proposal. He said that the first question he is always asked was “how can we propose using 

Highway Trust Fund moneys for public mass transportation purposes when our highway needs are 

so great.” The 1972 Highway Needs Report should be kept in perspective. It documents the cost of 
271 

bringing the highway network up to a set standard, not whether doing so would be “worthwhile in 

an economic or social sense.” The standards “might be extremely difficult to implement” on many 

of the roads, particularly local roads and streets that constituted one-third of the total highway 

needs.

Another criticism was that “we would be taxing American motorists for uses that are not beneficial 

to them.” He responded that, “Highway investments alone cannot cope with the pressing and 

severe problem of congestion that is so harmful to the effective functioning of our urban areas. 

Improvement of highways and mass transit would benefit the users of both. For example, many 

people who drive their cars in urban areas would prefer to use efficient public transportation service 

but “it simply does not exist.” He said that “it seems to me that the case is very clear that good 

urban transit investments are strongly and directly beneficial to auto owners and highway users, and 

that it is in the best interests of all concerned to permit the use of some Highway Trust Fund 

revenues for these purposes.” 

Recognizing that his proposal was a “a departure from the past,” he was heartened by recent 

indications that “industries closely associated with highway use and the private automobile are 

recognizing that our proposals are, indeed, in the best interests of highway users.” He said: 

The Mobil Oil Corp. and the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey are on public record 

supporting the concept of using Highway Trust Fund money for urban transit investments, 

and the National Automobile Dealers Association . . . has adopted a resolution explicitly 

endorsing the Single Urban Fund proposal. 

In closing, he said: 

The opportunity which is before you and the committee, Mr. Chairman, to make a 

permanent and lasting contribution to efficient transportation in this Nation is enormous. 

The opportunity to represent the best interests of the American people is equally enormous. 

I recommend the administration’s Federal-Aid Highway and Mass Transportation Act of 

1972 for your most serious consideration. Knowing this committee, as I indicated earlier, I 

am sure it will receive a fair hearing. [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 128-137] 

Senator Bayh’s first question was about the target date for completing the Interstate System. The 

Secretary indicated that the target was the end of the decade and that the funds proposed for 

authorization during that period would accomplish that schedule. Bayh did not question the 

schedule, but asked “what assurance does this committee have that funds it authorized will actually 

be released and expended?” 

The Secretary replied, “I would not be here today, in making the proposal I have made if I had not 

received assurance that the funds that we are suggesting for authorization will be expended . . . .” 

Senator Bayh was skeptical. “I am sure you are as convinced of that as anything, because you are a 

very honest man.” The Secretary had been similarly certain when he testified before the 

subcommittee about the 1970 reauthorization, but the record of the last 2 years put such assurances 

in doubt. Volpe replied that “I have assurances, not just Secretary Volpe’s best assurance, but 
272 

assurance from the Office of Management and Budget, [that the Interstate funds] will be expended,” 

an assurance he did not have 2 years earlier. 

Secretary Volpe, in response to the Senator’s question about project delays, said that, “I would say 

to you sincerely that even if we were to make more funds available than we have suggested in the 

authorizations today, I doubt seriously the Interstate System would be completed much before the 

end of the decade.” Some routes had proven controversial, were tied up in court, and could not be 

completed before the end of the decade regardless of the money available for their construction. 

Senator Bayh asked why the Administration was proposing to take “all mass transit funds . . . from 

the highway trust fund.” The Secretary agreed that would be the case after FY 1974, except for 

research and development and demonstration programs. He continued: 

I tried in the first instance to get a mass transit trust fund, and we looked very hard and long 

at the sources of funding for mass transit. Unless you want to tap some other sources, the 

user charge philosophy just does not work in this situation, because I think you and I 

recognize that the bulk of the patrons today cannot afford such a tax . . . . The Highway 

Trust Fund however, [sic] is contributed to by the auto user for whom we are trying to 

reduce this congestion. [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 137-142] 

Senator Howard H. Baker, Jr. (R-Tn.), who considered mass transit subsidies a “bottomless pit,” 

said “the concept of comity between systems, the concept of compatibility of urban mass transit and 

the highway system . . . has been made so thoroughly and patently desirable, that you completely 

shifted the burden, that one system is interrelated with the other.” However, if transit was going to 

be funded out of the Highway Trust Fund, he thought transit users should make some contribution 

to it “in deference to the concept.” Secretary Volpe said he would not only consider it “but we will 

give it very strong consideration.” [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 147-152] 

Senator Randolph asked about the delays in project completion as a result of the “important steps 

[taken in recent years] to protect the environment as it relates to highway development.” He said:

I believe there must be a better way. There must be a coordinated effort, there has got to be 

some better plan. Otherwise what you should do in 1 or 2 years, takes 5 or 6 years, and this 

is not right.

It is not right for the environmentalists, it is not right for the highway which needs to be 

constructed to serve the people. 

He asked Secretary Volpe for suggestions.

New projects, Secretary Volpe said, were being “slowed down to some extent, but the delay is not 

inordinate” when all parties work together to meet NEPA requirements. With help from the new 

Assistant Secretary for Environment and Urban Systems, project development time “for clearance 

of those environmental impact statements has gone from as long as 14, 15 months or more, to 30, 

45 days in some cases.” The biggest problem was for projects that had been underway for some 

years. As a result of the retroactive aspect of NEPA, “we have very severe delays because we had 
273 

to go practically all the way back and start from scratch.” He said that they continuously 

encouraged the State highway departments to follow the requirements and not to try to avoid steps, 

such as public involvement. 

Senator Randolph said that in view of the red tape associated with the Federal-aid highway 

program, “I wonder if it is not time when the departments themselves at the State level can be 

granted the authority, once, of course, the Secretary of Transportation determines that the State 

meets the Federal guidelines, to do this job on their own.” Volpe replied that FHWA had “given 

some latitude to the State highway departments.” 

Administrator Turner had established a joint AASHO-FHWA Red Tape Committee to try to 

minimize delays, the results of which were described in a later submission to the subcommittee. 

Among its accomplishments were establishment of a Directives Clearinghouse to coordinate, 

review, and clear significant or revised program directives; issuance of the FHWA Index of 

Applicable Directives in November 1970 (updated in February 1972) to simplify, clarify, and 

consolidate the program directives system; reduced headquarters review of PS&Es; and release of 

streamlined procedures in Policy and Procedure Memorandum 80-5.2 on “Highway Beautification: 

 Outdoor Advertising.” 

In response to Senator Randolph’s idea of devolution to the States, Secretary Volpe said, “We will, 

of course, give consideration to the suggestion that you have made, at least as they relate to minor 

projects which are not controversial. [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 155-158, 

information on Red Tape Committee, p. 139-140] 

After a discussion of highway safety initiatives, Secretary Volpe concluded his testimony. On June 

27, he submitted responses to questions submitted to him for written response. Some of the 

questions-and-answers follow: 

Does the Administration oppose funding mass transit capital improvements at least in part from 

general fund revenue? 

As a matter of principle, the Administration does not oppose the use of general funds for 

financing mass transit capital improvements. The issue here is really, program level, rather 

than source of funds. It is the Administration’s position that a program level approximately 

equal to that which can be sustained by the Highway Trust Fund is enough to meet those 

highway and transit requirements that are truly pressing. 

It there anything improper or illegal about the U.S. Government using a portion of the more than 

$6 billion now impounded or not released from the Highway Trust Fund for purposes other than 

those related to Federal-aid highways?

The question assumes a hypothetical situation which, in reality, will not occur and which 

will not actually present a problem with respect to the proposal that amounts in the Trust 

Fund shall be available for mass transit purposes. 
274 

In reality, obligations are incurred under contract authority in advance of the collection of 

revenues credited to the Trust Fund. The lag between obligations and expenditures can be 

from one to three years . . . . Thus, unpaid obligations incurred against existing 

authorizations (1973 and prior years) will substantially exceed the cash balance of the Trust 

Fund on July 1, 1973, the effective date of the 1972 Act (Administration Bill, S. 3590). 

Under the recommended program, does it seem likely that any one metropolitan area could receive 

Federal funding for mass transit at a level comparable to that which is possible now under current 

UMTA authorizations?

Yes. We are convinced that, through the use of the special [discretionary] 20 percent fund 

for mass transit and the portion of the urban transportation funds allocated to the State, 

metropolitan areas will be able to meet their mass transit requirements as they may be 

defined in the future. 

Since it is generally agreed that the Interstate System should be completed as soon as possible for 

highway safety reasons, does not the recommended change in Interstate funding represent a 

reduced commitment on the part of the Administration to the cause of highway safety?

No, it does not. As you know, the safety program of the Department comprises many 

elements, only one of which relates to the completion of the Interstate System, and we have 

requested increased funding for our activities under both the Highway Safety Act and the 

National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act. Our request for funding for completion of 

the Interstate System represents a level approximately equal to the obligation level currently 

experienced and, therefore, indicates no reduced commitment in that area . . . . 

In view of the provision for time extensions until 1980 for completion of the Interstate System and 

until 1974 for notification of intent to build alternate segments, why is no similar extension 

proposed for the 1975 deadline for submission of plans, specifications and estimates?

Our bill would delete the 1975 PS&E deadline. We recommend this approach specifically 

because in extending the Interstate completion schedule, PS&E would be required under 

present legislation more than 5 years in advance of construction for some segments. We 

believe that it is not realistic to expect that valid plans, specifications and estimates can be 

developed that far in advance of construction. 

In the interest of reducing red tape and speeding up Federal-aid procedures, would it be desirable 

to simplify existing environmental requirements that must be met before highway projects proceed? 

 Could this be accomplished without regressing from the present national commitment to 

environmental protection?

The simplification of environmental requirements administratively is an ongoing effort of 

the department. The major problem has arisen with projects for which planning had begun 

before the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act. As you know, a recent study 

by the General Accounting Office determined that environmental requirements for new 
275 

projects can be taken into account at the beginning of the planning process with minimal 

delay to highway projects. Legislation to simplify these requirements, therefore, is not 

needed at this time. [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 161-167] 

Senator Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. (R-Ct.) appeared before the subcommittee on May 11. A former 

member of the subcommittee, Senator Weicker had submitted a bill on January 19, 1972 (S. 3037), 

that he wanted to discuss. In a statement submitted for the record, he described the bill: 

If there can be a single phrase to describe S. 3037, it is “planned flexibility.” As you well 

know, DOT administers an incredible mish-mash of Congressionally created transportation 

programs, making local inter-model [sic] planning and coordination virtually impossible . . . 

. Mr. Chairman, what I propose is that we mandate completion of the Interstate Highway 

System, albeit over a somewhat longer period to take into account the environmental, legal 

and technical problems encountered by several important Interstate sections. I then propose 

that State and local governments be permitted to spend their remaining highway dollars on 

public transportation, in accordance with the Urban Mass Transit Act. Note that I said 

“permitted.” Nowhere do I require anyone to spend one dime on mass transit unless the 

responsible, elected State and/or local officials decide it is best for them. 

Before introducing his statement, Senator Weicker had said:

Somebody in the press asked me the question earlier today, “Is this the year we are going to 

break the back of the highway lobby?” 

I answer that the purpose of my legislation and legislation akin to it is not to break the back 

of any particular segment of our transportation industry or system here in the United States. 

What it does is bring about a balance; I realize that we are not going to be able to impose a 

Connecticut solution to transportation problems on Montana or any other State. What I 

have tried to do is give the tools or create the tools whereby we can have a balanced system.

Senator Bayh said that when he asked Secretary Volpe why the Administration’s proposal did not 

include a commitment of general fund revenues, “I am not too sure we received an answer to it.” 

He asked Senator Weicker about the intentions of his bill regarding the source of funding for mass 

transit. Weicker said that his bill assumed continued authorization of general revenue for UMTA 

outside of the Highway Trust Fund. “I think we have to have that kind of commitment, not just a 

limited trust fund, but a separate commitment by the Congress to mass transit.” [Proposed 1972 

Highway Legislation, p. 171-173, emphasis in the original.] 

On May 18, the subcommittee heard from several environmental organizations. Robert Waldrop, 

assistant to the Washington representative of the Sierra Club and consultant to Friends of the Earth, 

said that his statement would “focus on the relationship between our emphasis on automobile 

transportation and the national energy situation.” Over the years, he said, the automobile had 

replaced more energy efficient modes of transportation, such as buses, despite “our dwindling 

energy reserves.” According to one study, the increasing demand for petroleum would “deplete all 

possible world reserves in 40 years.” 
276 

His two organizations believed that “we should begin to change course now while there are still 

sufficient reserves to permit a less abrupt change.” The focus should be on discouraging private 

automobile use “while promoting more energy-efficient means of transportation, such as buses and 

trains, [which offer] the best hope and least painful method of conserving the Nation’s rapidly 

diminishing petroleum resources.” Bicycling and walking as part of the transportation system also 

were helpful.

The Volpe proposal was “the important first step.” Additional steps were needed to “stimulate 

increased use of public transit and a reduction in the reliance on the automobile where a more 

appropriate mode will suffice. Such a shift would reduce air pollution, the destruction of 

neighborhoods and parklands, urban disintegration, the death and injury toll on the roads, and the 

mobility problems of the poor, handicapped, elderly and young. 

Waldrop’s organizations “feel that the once necessary Federal assistance program for highway 

construction has fulfilled, to a large extent, its purpose.” Now, he said, “Similar emphasis should 

be given to public transportation.” They did not advocate termination of all highway programs, 

since needs in some areas “are still great.” However, “in urban areas especially, a concerted 

program is needed to help establish an adequate public transportation system.” [Proposed 1972 

Highway Legislation, p. 490-492] 

Concluding his statement, Waldrop introduced Richard O. Baumbach, Jr., of New Orleans. He and 

William E. Borah were preparing a book on the controversy over the proposed construction of the 

Vieux Carré Riverfront Expressway (I-310) along the French Quarter. Baumbach discussed the 

history of the expressway until Secretary Volpe cancelled it in July 1969, as well as the ongoing 

efforts to block “construction of a bridge in the highly stable, residential area of uptown New 

Orleans.” Based on his experience and his work, with Borah, representing the Environmental 

Defense Fund in the effort, he had concluded that for New Orleans, Federal-aid urban highways had 

not “relieved traffic congestion in our city.” In fact, he said, “evidence indicates it has encouraged 

the suburbanization of both commerce and people.” 

New Orleans, he said, “had one of the best transit systems in the United States.” It ranked second 

behind New York City in the percentage of people using public transit to get to and from work. It 

was the only major city to show an increase in ridership since 1940. “Despite the quality of service, 

the volume of ridership, and a 15-cents fare—lowest in the country—the percentage of people using 

transit in New Orleans has declined from 63.2 percent in 1957, to 39.5 percent in 1967.” The result 

was that the city’s private transit company lost over $8 million in 1969. The company was now 

seeking a 5 cent fare increase “which evidence elsewhere indicates will cause a decline in ridership 

and service and a greater reliance on automobiles, highways, and parking lots, thereby 

compounding center city congestion rather than alleviating it.”

In closing, he added: 

Without a balanced approach to transportation planning, without Federal funds made 

available for alternative forms of mass transit, the central business district will decline, 

deteriorate and decay, causing irreparable harm and damage to the entire metropolitan area.
277 

In conclusion, Mr. Borah and I respectfully request that this subcommittee support the use 

of Highway Trust Funds for alternative forms of mass transportation to preserve the strength 

and stability of the New Orleans metropolitan area. [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, 

p. 492-496] 

(The book Baumbach and Borah were working on would become: Baumbach, Richard O., Jr., and 

Borah, William E., The Second Battle of New Orleans: A History of the Vieux Carré RiverfrontExpressway Controversy, The University of Alabama Press, 1981. For more information on the 

highway struggles in New Orleans, see “The Battles of New Orleans - Vieux Carré Riverfront 

Expressway (I-310)” at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/neworleans.cfm.) 

Finally, Waldrop introduced Steve Bossi of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference to discuss 

the rural implications of S. 3590, the Administration’s bill. He spoke of the increasing sense of 

isolation in rural areas because of the “continuing outmigration of rural people with the consequent 

closing of small town businesses and service agencies [that] have been responsible for leaving our 

remaining rural residents farther away than ever from jobs, friends, goods and services.” Rural 

transportation problems also affected rural health, income, employment, and housing options. 

For these reasons, Bossi said, his conference was “very enthusiastic” about the Rural General 

Transportation Program, which would allow funds to be used for highways, railroad facilities and 

rolling stock, and mass transportation facilities and equipment. He favored public transportation 

systems that would draw rural people together and that would be “more responsive to the real 

transportation needs and desires of community people.” However, many rural groups “have been 

able to obtain the necessary equipment and facilities but have failed to survive as a system because 

of an inability to meet the high continuing costs of operation.” The costs of management, 

bookkeeping, maintenance and promotion exhausted resources. “I would suggest, therefore, that 

the purpose of the proposed rural general transportation program be broadened to provide grant and 

loan assistance for a variety of purposes related to establishing and maintaining a successful 

system.” 

He concluded: 

It is encouraging to witness in this bill the acknowledgement that transportation is as vital to 

rural communities as it is to our urban centers. The many struggling attempts being made 

across the country, most of them dependent on second-hand busses [sic] and volunteer 

drivers, testify to the desperation with which people are attempting to meet this need on 

their own. We in “Catholic Rural Life” feel that they have a right to look to their 

Government for assistance in this area and urge you to demonstrate to them your concern.” 

[Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 496-499] 

Senator Bayh was puzzled by Baumbach’s comments about the public transit system losing money 

despite increases in ridership. “That seems to be a tough set of circumstances to try to combat.” 

Baumbach replied that the transit company, called New Orleans Public Service, was confined to 

Orleans Parish and might have increased usage if it could extend its facilities. 
278 

The Senator asked if Baumbach meant that “whenever the government builds highways, 

automatically the use of public transportation falls off.” Baumbach said he felt that “if the regional 

area had committed itself or would commit itself to mass transportation, that commitment would 

automatically mean the funds would be available to perpetuate this service,” but without subsidies, 

the service, already losing $8 million a year, would run the risk of even bigger losses. He thought 

that expansion to a regional system accompanied by a decision not to build urban highways along 

with construction of fringe parking would strengthen the system and enhance the already strong 

central business district. 

In response to a later question from Senator Cooper about how to reduce reliance on the 

automobile, Baumbach said that New Orleans, following the lead of European cities, had converted 

two of its streets in the French Quarter to pedestrian malls, “and it has been a tremendous success, 

so that many of the businessmen who were fearful that it would lead to a decline in the activities in 

the central business district have been pleasantly surprised.” [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, 

p. 499-505] 

Senator Alan Cranston (D-Ca.) appeared on May 25 in support of the Bicycle Transportation Act 

that he and Representative Koch had introduced. He recounted the history of the bicycle, including 

its fading popularity after the turn of the century:

Today, after several decades of declining popularity, we are witnessing renewed interest in 

and enthusiasm for the bicycle. Young and old alike are pedaling for pleasure, entering 

bicycle races, joining bike clubs, and biking to and from work, school and shopping centers. 

Bicycle manufacturers report dramatic increases in sales, and Government officials have 

discovered a new citizens’ lobby—the bicycle enthusiasts who are demanding bicycle use 

facilities for safe and pleasant recreation and transportation. 

He had been “pleasantly surprised by the enthusiastic, nationwide interest in my bill.” He had 

secured 14 Senate cosponsors, while Representative Koch had lined up 51 House cosponsors. The 

Department of Transportation had offered favorable views to the subcommittee in a letter dated 

February 23, 1972, with Secretary Volpe stating that the Department was “excited about bicycles” 

and was instituting an innovative program to encourage it. Senator Cranston said he agreed with 

the Department’s concern about ensuring safety by emphasizing construction of bicycle lanes, 

paths, and trails that are separated from automobile lanes. He also had no objection to the 

Department’s recommendation to expand the bill to include trails for hiking and equestrian use and 

that funds for bicycles be allocated only when an overall plan has been developed for safety and 

contiguous routes. 

Senator Cranston also submitted a statement in support of the Administration bill, saying, “The bill 

to permit the highway trust fund to be used to construct mass transit systems, I think that is a very, 

very fine approach to getting mass transit going in our country.” [Proposed 1972 Highway 

Legislation, p. 515-519] 
279 

Governor Daniel J. Evans, Republican of Washington State, testified next as a representative of the 

National Governors’ Conference. He began by reading a policy statement on the role of each 

Governor in administering the States’ transportation programs: 

He should have the ability to transfer funds among the various programs to meet his State’s 

own priority transportation needs . . . . We call for the creation of a single unified 

Transportation Trust Fund incorporating existing transportation revenues earmarked for use 

within a specific mode of transportation or by beginning a phased program of percentage 

transfers from the highway and aviation trust funds and other funds made available for 

transportation, into the proposed unified National Transportation Trust Fund. Further, since 

the Governor is best able to determine the transportation needs and priorities of his State, 

the distribution of the National Transportation Trust Fund should be allocated through the 

Governor. 

The National Governors’ Conference had approved this policy 2 years in a row, but had not yet had 

a chance to vote on the Administration’s proposal. 

Governor Evans was supportive of the flexibility provided by Secretary Volpe’s recommendations, 

but had some concerns. First, he was concerned that the plan did not contemplate continuing 

general Treasury funding for mass transit as at present. Without additional revenue, “we are not 

likely in my view to have sufficient money to really carry out the concept of flexible transportation 

funding, and adequately handle the problems of both highway needs and mass transportation 

needs.” 

Second, he did not believe that the States were being given a strong enough role in the urban 

planning process envisioned by the proposal. Its planning requirements represented “a serious 

erosion of adequate planning coordination” by weakening the State role. “Seldom do the needs of 

transportation, mass transportation, or highway transportation confine themselves to our urban 

centers.” The State could best provide the broader perspective. 

Finally, he recommended action on impoundments and cutbacks that were causing “serious 

difficulty in planning highway construction.” He said: 

The problems of planning on a long-range basis, to provide a steady allocation of 

construction projects, simply cannot be done with the traditional methods we have used. 

Cutbacks from the highway trust fund, carried on by several Administrations now over the 

past 10 years, cannot continue without seriously affecting proper planning. 

We at the State level for many, many years have distributed money from our State raised 

gasoline tax to local communities.

We distribute to counties, we distribute to cities. We do it without an appropriations 

process at the State level.

We do it on a formula basis. 
280 

The local communities know on a year to year basis what they can depend upon, and it is 

essentially their money, even though it is raised at the State level, through State taxes, and 

any changes in those levels must be assumed by the legislative body at the State level.

I frankly cannot understand why Congress and the national administration have been 

unwilling to assume the same responsibility insofar as our present highway transportation 

fund is concerned, or . . . any future flexible transportation fund. 

His solution, made “in the strongest words possible,” was to make funds available to the States or 

even local communities “without the necessity of appropriation.” In this respect, he was favoring 

contract authority for the funds. 

Senator Robert T. Stafford (R-Vt.), who was conducting the hearing, asked Governor Evans 

whether the Highway Trust Fund could meet highway and mass transit needs. The Governor said

he was certain that needs exceeded the amounts available from the Highway Trust Fund and simply 

broadening it for other transportation purposes “just aggravates that situation.” The National 

Governor’s Conference supported its expansion to a Transportation Trust Fund even if additional 

funds were not available. 

“Are you,” Senator Stafford asked, “proposing a type of revenue sharing . . . for transportation on a 

regular basis?” Governor Evans replied, “Yes, indeed I am.” He was an “enthusiastic supporter of 

revenue sharing in general,” which was practiced in many States, including Washington, where the 

State made funds available to local governments. “It is only in the relationship between the Federal 

Government and the States, that in no area, of which I am aware, has the Federal Government been 

really willing to share on a formula basis, without yearly appropriations, any major source of 

revenue.” [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 524-528] 

Later on May 25, John W. Vardaman, an attorney with the prestigious Washington law firm of 

Williams, Connolly, and California, appeared before the committee to address the recommendation 

of groups such as AASHO and ARBA that project opponents seeking injunctions to halt projects 

should be required to post bond to protect the government from frivolous lawsuits: 

The bond proposal is not only unnecessary and unwise, but I believe that a realistic 

examination disclosed that its true purpose is to discourage, if not defeat, the use of 

injunctive proceedings by private parties to enforce compliance with Federal statutes which 

implement the national policy of protecting the environment. 

Vardaman represented citizen groups in two of the most contentious highway conflicts in the 

country, both involving construction of an expressway through a public park. One involved 

construction of I-40 through Overton Park in Memphis and the other called for construction of the 

U.S. 281 expressway through Brackenridge-Olmos Basin Parklands in San Antonio. Highway 

officials often selected park locations for their projects to minimize disruption to homes and 

businesses. Section 4(f) of the 1966 Department of Transportation Act had raised barriers to this 

concept by imposing barriers to the use of parkland. Senator Ralph Yarborough (D-Tx.) had 

introduced this provision in response to the State’s plan for U.S. 281 in San Antonio. He initially 
281 

tried to include it in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1966, but it had been watered down as new 

Section 138 of Title 23, United States Code, to call for “cooperation” and “consideration” rather 

than the prohibition he sought. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968 incorporated the stronger 

Section 4(f) language into Section 138. 

Vardaman put his two cases into perspective: 

The disputes in Memphis and San Antonio brought into sharp focus the conflict between the 

value and importance of parks and the importance of urban freeways. They also brought 

into play the implementation and enforcement of Federal laws specifically designed to 

protect the environment and to require that highway planners take into account the 

intangible social values represented by parks, recreation areas, and open space.

The “recent success of citizen lawsuits” had brought sharp criticism from the highway agencies and 

builders and prompted their complaints about “frivolous suits brought by irresponsible 

environmental advocates,” as Vardaman said ARBA had put it. He summarized the Memphis and 

San Antonio cases “to illustrate the types of areas that form the heart of the citizens lawsuits.” He 

questioned the characterization of such lawsuits as frivolous and the plaintiffs as irresponsible: 

I have found 25 reported cases in which citizens groups have attempted to enjoin 

construction of Federal-aid highways on the basis of environmental laws. The plaintiffs 

were successful in 14 of those. Thus the initial point to make is that the plaintiffs have 

proved to be right more often than not: hardly an indication that the suits are frivolous. 

In the 11 cases that the plaintiffs lost, in no case did the court characterize the suit as 

frivolous or the plaintiffs irresponsible. 

Moreover, in none of those cases was there an injunction granted and later dissolved. Thus 

in those suits which were not meritorious there was no delay of the highway occasioned by 

the litigation . . . . Thus any delay has not been the result of an order in a frivolous case, but 

instead in a case in which the court determined that the plaintiffs were right.

In response to a question from Senator Bayh, Vardaman stated that he knew of no case where an 

injunction had been issued to stop construction “and later dissolved either by the court granting the 

injunction or by an appellate court.” Again in response to a question, he said that he did not know 

of any case where the plaintiffs were using the environmental statutes to pursue purely private 

business interests.

Vardaman said “it is inappropriate” to suggest that citizens filing lawsuits were responsible for 

delaying highway construction: 

Where there is a delay, it is as a result of a Federal judge having heard the evidence from 

both sides and found either that the plaintiffs are likely to prevail, in the case of a 

preliminary injunction, or, in the case of a permanent injunction, that there has been a 

violation of Federal law . . . . If the blame for the delay of the highway construction is to be 
282 

laid to one of the parties to the law suit, then it seems to me more appropriately laid at the 

feet of those who have been found not to have complied with federal law rather than those 

who have brought the law suits to seek compliance. 

As a result, a new law requiring the posting of a bond was not necessary. Further, the Federal Rules 

of Civil Procedure allow a judge the discretion to impose a bond whenever a preliminary injunction 

is issued by a district court. A court of appeals also may require a bond. “It would be unwise to 

interfere with the operation of the rule adopted by the courts with the approval of the Congress that 

leaves to the discretion of the court the amount of the bond.” 

Vardaman also was concerned about the effect of a bond requirement on potential plaintiffs: 

Moreover, if the law required a bond which in any way approximated the dollar amount of 

the highway project at issue, the plaintiffs would in almost every case be without a remedy, 

even though the court might be satisfied that they had proved a violation of Federal law. 

He also questioned AASHO’s assertion that a bond was necessary to show the plaintiffs’ sincerity 

of purpose and responsibility of action. “The undertaking of litigation against a Federal-aid 

highway requires substantial financial burdens which are wholly sufficient in and of themselves to 

deter any person or organization that is not serious.” 

In exchanges with Senator Bayh, Vardaman said that while he thought Section 4(f) could be 

broadened to protect other resources, “it might be a mistake” to make any drastic changes until the 

courts had a chance to rule on the current law. In 2 years, “if there is substantial uncertainty over 

the meaning of some of these statutes,” legislative changes might be appropriate. Regarding the 

routing of highways through parks or homes, he said that each case had been looked at individually, 

keeping in mind that relocation benefits were not available for the homeowners but “Congress 

cannot . . . enact a statute which recreates the forest in the Memphis park or in any other park which 

would be taken away by a highway.” He concluded his testimony on this point: 

Ultimately it is a question of balancing values, but I think once the decision has been made 

to put a highway through an urban area, which you must recognize is an extraordinary [sic] 

disruptive influence, in the cases I have seen, I think that the public interest would be served 

by not going through the park, but taking an alternative even though it results in some 

additional housing dislocation. [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 596-607] 

(The Memphis and San Antonio cases that Vardaman discussed were significant milestones in 

application of Federal environmental requirements. Section 4(f), which was introduced in response 

to the San Antonio case, remains a strong protection for publicly owned land in parks, recreation 

areas, and wildlife and waterfowl refuges, as well as historic sites of national, State or local 

significance. Ruling in the Memphis case on March 3, 1971, the Supreme Court found Section 4(f) 

to be “a plain and explicit bar to the use of federal funds for construction of highways through 

parks—only the most unusual situations are exempted.” The ruling returned the case to the District 

Court where a settlement was reached that protected Overton Park by rerouting I-40 along the 
283 

northern Memphis beltline. This ruling proved to be a landmark in application of Section 4(f) to 

Federal-aid projects to this day. 

The Highway Action Coalition appeared before the subcommittee on May 26. Kramer was joined 

by Stewart L. Udall, Secretary of the Interior throughout the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, 

who was a codirector of the coalition, and John Winder of the National Air Resources Commission, 

Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases Association. Secretary Udall had a longstanding reputation 

for environmental concerns. Traveling around the country, he had seen that “the environmental 

revolution is real, values are changing.” As part of this evolution, he had observed “a revolt against 

the automobile.” He said: 

I sense a growing awareness of the fact that the automobile is the most destructive single 

force in this country. The automobile’s impact on human health, air and land pollution, and 

the slicing up of the cities are leading to highway disputes in almost every major city of this 

country. 

Roadbuilding, which 30 years ago was a universally applauded activity, is now being 

questioned. I am confident that opposition to continued highway construction is building 

up; it will not go away.

He recalled being in the U.S. House of Representatives (D-Az.) in 1956 and voting for the FederalAid Highway Act that launched the Interstate construction program. “I have had a lot of second 

thoughts since then.” He concluded that “what we needed in 1956 was a national, balanced 

transportation policy.” He continued: 

Instead, we opted in a very single-minded way for the automobile. We are now paying a 

price; just as we opted for housing programs, instead of programs to build communities; just 

as we opted for conservation programs, instead of total environmental programs. 

As a result of that decision, we let the railroads go down the drain, unlike Canada and many 

European countries. 

We allowed our public transportation systems to die a slow death. We saturated our cities 

with automobiles. We have been pursuing the twisted logic of more automobiles and more 

and more roads. 

He said he had written an article for a national magazine about the relationship between 

transportation and the national energy crisis: 

We are very close, in my judgment, to a crunch. That is where I get off, in terms of these 

20-year projections for both automobile and oil consumption. 

Many planners tell us that we are going to have to have two interstate highway systems, that 

we are going to have to spend three, four, five times as much on automobile transportation. 
284 

This country was going to “have to unhook” from the automobile. He saw an energy crisis on the 

horizon. Already, oil production in the United States had peaked about 18 months earlier and 

would continue to decline even as “we are going to have twice as many automobiles in the next 20 

years, and two interstate systems on a curve like that.” The United States would have to import 60 

percent of our oil by 1982, much of it from the Middle East. Although, he said, the “Arab countries 

are moving very aggressively toward nationalizing oil as recent events in Iraq demonstrate only too 

clearly.” The price of oil was “going to accelerate very rapidly” and the country was “moving into a 

whole new ball game.”

Udall told the subcommittee that reviving public transportation systems was vital, whether it meant 

new subways, buses, even the return of the trolley. Putting the bicycle back to work was more 

important than building “some of these freeways that are being fought all over the country.” His 

proposals did not mean the country had to “shutdown or throttle back an industry.” Mass transit 

systems and the vehicles on them would have to be built. “If you build air cushion trains, for 

example, from Washington to Boston, you have a lot of construction activity.” 

He concluded his remarks by saying that, “The automobile-highway complex is perhaps the most 

important environmental problem before us.” The time, he said, “for dramatic change in this 

important area is upon us. We have no alternative.” [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 701-

704] 

(The article by former Secretary Udall was “The Last Traffic Jam,” which appeared in the October 

1972 issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It elaborated on Secretary Udall’s concerns about the pending 

energy crisis at a time when increased consumption by America’s automobiles was predicted. “A 

limit on the automobile population of the United States would be the best of news for our cities.” 

What was needed was a “necessary shift in public policy toward effective mass transit systems” and 

a commitment by Detroit to “developing external combustion engines (like the steam engine)” that 

would deliver travel twice as far on smaller horsepower and less gasoline. The choice, the article 

stated, was not between growth and stagnation, “but between short-term growth and long-term 

disaster.”) 

Kramer then addressed the subcommittee. His views, of course, were similar to those he expressed 

before the House Subcommittee on Roads, but he now had the chance to react to Secretary Volpe’s 

proposal. He said that the coalition wholeheartedly endorsed the “central notion” behind S. 3590, 

namely “the use of highway trust revenues for public transportation on a local option basis.” He 

added: 

We are, however, dismayed by the fact that S. 3590 would still earmark more than twice as 

much money for highway programs as for local option programs under the proposed “single 

urban fund.” We are also uncomfortable with the implication that the highway trust fund 

will be extended into the 1980’s. 

The Single Urban Fund also was underfunded, and might result in some of the largest cities 

receiving less money for transit than under existing programs. The coalition recommended “either 
285 

that more money be added to the single urban fund (perhaps out of general revenues) or that the 

urban mass transportation program be continued as anticipated by the original act.” 

He was concerned, too, that S. 3590 “specifically rules out Federal assistance to help cover transit 

operating costs.” With at least 20 transit systems near bankruptcy and 18 more considering fare 

increases, “this stipulation is very unwise.” 

As for the Interstate System, it should be thoroughly reviewed and, if so determined, substantial 

segments should be eliminated. He said segments in at least 20 major cities were targets for 

elimination and cited the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco as “surely a monument to the 

futility of urban freeway building.” He explained that, “We believe that many of these undesirable 

projects would never have been advanced were it not for the ready availability of the Interstate 

System’s ’10-cent dollars.’” He recommended that cities be given the option of using their 90-10 

Interstate funds for transit “if upon close examination, it turns out that the city’s public 

transportation needs are more pressing than its interstate highway needs.” 

Since no program “impinges more on the quality of our natural and social environment than does 

the highway program,” Kramer strongly endorsed the environmental safeguards of Section 4(f) and 

NEPA. The recommendation that citizens should be required “to place multimillion dollar bonds 

before they can bring suit” should be rejected in favor of a requirement that attorney’s fees and 

court costs should be paid if citizens successfully block highway projects. [Proposed 1972 Highway 

Legislation, p. 704-709] 

Senator Bayh asked if the subcommittee should put a general transportation policy “high up the 

list?” Secretary Udall replied, “I think you are putting your finger on the big issue that is all-tofrequently [sic] tabled.” Piecemeal policy changes were not going to address the larger questions 

before Congress. He preferred what he called “the most radical proposal, and the most creative that 

this coalition is putting forward,” which was giving cities the option of using money to build and 

operate public transportation systems instead of Interstate highways. “This step alone would go a 

long way toward reducing the number of automobiles, reducing the cost of transportation and 

reducing air, noise, and land pollution.” Congress must, he said, face “the big problem: The need 

for a single, comprehensive, national transportation policy.” 

As for addressing congestion, Kramer said that “we have come to the conclusion that new 

highways, particularly in urban areas, will only generate new traffic and make congestion problems 

yet more serious.” Today’s highway users would be better served by investing in other modes, 

although the mix would vary from region to region. 

Senator Bayh asked what could be done to change the habits and life style of people regarding 

transportation. Secretary Udall said that was “another very big and very basic question.” He 

thought that “the present juggernaut under which we are operating conspires against new life 

styles.” People wanted a new, simpler life, but “the system we have now conspires against it.” 

As with other witnesses, Senator Bayh asked whether the Highway Trust Fund revenues were 

sufficient to meet transportation needs as proposed by the Administration. The question, Kramer 
286 

replied, of whether to use Highway Trust Fund revenues for other modes is a red herring. True, 

highway user taxes paid for highways, “yet most of the external social, economic, and a lot of the 

environmental costs are borne elsewhere.” No matter the source of revenue, “transportation is a 

single entity.” Clearly, highway user revenue is not enough; other revenue from general sources is 

needed. [Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 710-715] 

On June 6, Administrator Turner appeared before the subcommittee. His prepared statement was 

primarily a summary of FHWA’s May 1972 Stewardship Report on implementation of the 1970 

Act, which he said had “called for many fundamental modifications to the basic set of Federal-aid 

highway laws, the need for which had been demonstrated by changing national transportation 

demands and public expectations.” The ability to make such adjustments had “historically been a 

hallmark of the Federal aid highway program, and one of the basic reasons for its success over the 

years.” He said that it would be difficult to imagine “operating under the details of 1921’s 

legislative directives,” and in that spirit of recognizing the need for change and increased flexibility, 

the Administration had submitted the Federal Aid Highway and Mass Transportation Act of 1972. 

Among his updates, Turner said that on April 11, 1972, FHWA had approved the Federal-aid urban 

system, totaling nearly 11,000 miles in 218 urbanized areas. Although the 1970 Act focused 

attention on bus transit road improvement projects in urbanized areas, “the position of public transit 

in 1972 is still deteriorating.” Several successful exclusive or preferential bus highway projects had 

been implemented, but “even greater emphasis on bus transit improvements as an integral element 

of the Federal-aid highway program will be needed to achieve measurable improvements in the 

overall health of our transit industry.” Turner said that, “Acting alone, neither industry will do an 

adequate job.” 

In cooperation with other Modal Administrations in the Department of Transportation, FHWA had 

“moved administratively to strengthen the [transportation planning] process through a more 

effective certification process, intermodal work program requirements, and improved coordination 

of field and headquarters planning staff.” Increased funding for planning remained a critical need. 

Turner did not comment on several other aspects of the Stewardship Report, including Section 124 

of the 1970 Act on “Elimination of Segments of Interstate System Not to be Constructed.” The 

report stated:

It is anticipated that on July 1, 1973, the highway departments will have underway, on a 

schedule to match fund availability, the plans, specifications, and estimates for all remaining 

segments of the System, and that the intent of the Congress will be met if on July 1, 1975, 

the highway departments will have submitted PS&E for projects which will utilize all funds

released for obligation through that date. 

A significant number of projects has been delayed because of litigation proceedings and 

location problems, many of which have to do with environmental considerations. At the 

present time, it appears that some 28 route segments totaling approximately 190 miles are in 

a questionable status regarding the legislative deadlines. Some States are considering 

substitutions on segments either on a one-for-one basis or by use of the balance of the 200 
287 

miles authorized under the Howard-Cramer Act. [Stewardship Report on Administration of 

the Federal-Aid Highway Program 1972, Federal Highway Administration, May 1972, p. 

19-20] 

The Stewardship Report also commented on Section 144 of the 1970 Act calling for a study of the 

relationship of highway construction to transportation services. FHWA took the lead in this study 

but worked with UMTA, the Office of the Secretary, and several urban transportation planning 

consultants, as well as the American Transit Association, AASHO, and OMB. The Secretary 

transmitted the report to Congress in April 1972. The key finding was: 

The transit study indicated that during the next 20 years there would be approximately $6 

billion in highway related public transportation needs in urban areas of over 50,000 

population. This figure reflects the assumption that planned new rail systems in 7 cities 

(Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, and Pittsburg [sic]) would 

be constructed. Approximately 60 percent of the total estimated costs were for busway-type 

facilities, with 30 percent for fringe parking and terminal facilities, and 10 percent for 

operation or traffic engineering needs. Approximately 55 percent of all needs are located in 

urbanized areas over 2 million population, 44 percent for areas between 500,000 and 2 

million population, and the remaining 1 percent in those areas between 50,000 and 500,000 

population. These projects are expected to eliminate the requirement for approximately 670 

miles of new highways at an overall cost of about $6.5 billion. 

The study also pointed out the problem of funding projects not on specific Federal-aid 

systems, and the need for additional financial assistance to cover operating costs of the 

improved level of transit necessary to realize [sic] the full benefits of the highway 

improvement. [Stewardship Report, 1972, p. 40-41] 

When Turner completed his summary, Senator Bayh asked about the impact of environmental 

requirements on the program. “One of the major criticisms that has been directed at the highway 

program is its impact on the environment.” He asked how “to crank the public opinion of those 

who are going to be most directly affected by the highways into the planning at an earlier stage?” 

Turner agreed about the importance of public involvement. “To the extent that it can be done 

profitably, I think that we have the means, and are following not only the instructions, but the 

objective and intent of getting citizen participation.” Much of the criticism about citizen 

involvement occurs when officials gather all the facts and listen to all the views but “the final 

decision may not be the one that the critic wanted. In other words, he disagrees with the umpire’s 

decision.” 

To what extent, Senator Bayh asked, would Turner characterize the resulting lawsuits as nuisances 

rather than legitimate suits? Turner replied that out of about 60 suits filed thus far, “I would say not 

more than eight or 10 . . . are in the category of just plain nuisance suits.” He continued: 

Some of these I suspect from the looks of them, are classroom exercises. The filing of a suit 

is taken on as sort of a classroom exercise, and I think it has no more merit than that. In fact 
288 

in those cases, the suit has been dismissed when it got to the judge, or we have won the 

case, [so] I think it is a pretty clear indication it was a harassment.

The other suits generally challenged the procedures followed. Lawsuits attempting to block a 

project are typically filed under the provisions of the Administrative Practices Act claiming that 

State and Federal officials did not follow the requirements of NEPA: 

They complain about the lack of consideration for environment, failure to hold public 

hearings, a breakdown in the planning process, inadequate consideration or attention to 

relocation provisions, and things of that nature, and in most of the cases, they are the same. 

They look as though they have been filed from a mimeograph checkoff sheet and just fill in 

the blanks, because they generally charge failure of everything in the basic legislation in the 

hopes that perhaps you will hit on one if you cannot hit on another one . . . . 

Insofar as suits are concerned, there so far have been no suits with a decision that says a 

project was environmentally damaging, and, therefore, the project should not be cancelled 

for that reason. Most of the decisions so far have been procedural, rather than on the merits 

of the case.

Should those filing suits be required to post a bond, Senator Bayh asked. Turner believed that a 

person or group delaying a project “should be made to bear some responsibility for his actions,” but 

he wasn’t sure how to do so. 

Senator Bayh observed that, “it is conceivable that one of good faith could be just as responsible for 

wanting the highway stopped for a good reason as the ones wanting to build it.” Turner conceded 

the point: 

What I believe is that there are some of these that are not really in that category. I think 

there are cases that are put up purely for the purpose of harassment and delay, and, again, 

the individual is not satisfied with the decision, so he wants to appeal and delay it in order to 

try to force an acceptance of their particular point of view, but after all, somebody has to 

decide, somebody has to be the referee, and somebody has to be the fall guy that makes the 

decision. 

Admittedly, he said, State and Federal officials “do make some mistakes,” but “there has to be 

some presumption that the Highway Department and the Federal Highway Administration are 

acting responsibly and in the public interest.” 

For the record, Turner submitted a commentary on “Highway Delays Caused by Litigation.” He 

identified: 

Location cases to enjoin construction filed on environmental and social grounds, 84; open 

cases, 60; closed cases, 24. Projects enjoined, 16; injunctions denied, 30. 

District Court action: Suits dismissed, 35; judgment for plaintiff, 7.
289 

Appellate action on suits dismissed in District Court: Appeals 29; affirmed, 12; pending 10; 

reversed, 7. 

The earliest litigation listed was D.C. Federal Civic Association v. Thomas F. Airis, filed in 

December 1966 alleging violation of the D.C. Code in development of the Three Sisters Bridge, 

part of I-266 across the Potomac River between Virginia and the District of Columbia. In all, 14 

lawsuits had been filed from 1966 to 1970. The bulk of suits had been filed beginning in 1970, the 

most recent being Chavez v. Volpe filed June 1, 1972, involving I-40 in New Mexico. 

 

Some of the more substantial delays involved the Three Sisters Bridge on I-266 in Washington (5 

years), the North Expressway in San Antonio (5 years), and I-40 through Overton Park (2 1⁄2 years). 

 The statement indicated that the “prime example of a ‘phony’ environmental suit” involved I-95 

around Fayetteville, North Carolina:

The action to block the construction of I-95 around Fayetteville was filed in June 1968 by a 

small group of businessmen who now enjoy a competitive advantage because of a break in 

I-95. Because of this break, traffic must leave I-95 and proceed down U.S. 301 past the 

plaintiffs’ businesses in Fayetteville. The suit has preserved this competitive advantage 

since 1968. Although the U.S. District Court dismissed the suit in September 1971, finding 

no violations of social, environmental or other laws, plaintiffs have appealed this suit to the 

Court of Appeals in order to preserve their competitive advantage as long as possible. 

He cited several other suits that he said also were using complaints about social or environmental 

violations to protect personal or business interests. 

Turning to mass transit, Senator Bayh wondered if the proposed Single Urban Fund provided 

enough funding to meet needs. “It seems to me we are liable to end up with two undernourished 

children.” Turner agreed that the proposal did not provide “adequate funding in total for either of 

the programs.” He added: 

The basic question is how much of our resources can we apply to this set of immediate 

problems, and at the same time stretch them over a thousand other needs nationally, and 

these are the amounts the administration has decided to assign to a combination of transit 

and highway needs. 

I do not think there is any indication that this is supposed to be all that is needed. 

Senator Bayh suggested that revenue from some other source might be added so that highways or 

transit would not be approved at the expense of the other. Turner explained that, “You would have 

to have a substantial increase in both of the funds, and the combined amount that is available here is 

nowhere near enough.” Whether the Highway Trust Fund covered one or both or whether 

additional revenue comes from another source “would be a policy question.” The Administration 

proposal was never intended to cover every need. 

He said needs only on the Federal-aid highway systems totaled $360 billion over 18 years (plus 

needs of $240 to $250 billion off the systems). “These are not wish lists. They are actually 
290 

carefully determined needs.” In addition, he pointed out that mass transit needs were around $60 to 

$65 billion. The Highway Trust Fund clearly could not cover all needs, nor did the Administration 

think that its proposal would do so. “Whether or not there are resources available to double that 

amount that is being proposed here is another question. The administration has said there is not that 

amount of money.” 

Senator Bayh and Turner concluded the testimony with a discussion of highway safety. However, 

Turner subsequently submitted written responses to a set of questions. One question was whether 

FHWA review procedures caused undue delay on State highway projects. Turner pointed out that 

most procedural requirements were added because of legislative requirements. “Of the 23 major 

actions required by a State highway department to construct a Federal-aid highway project, only 

four of these requirements have been administratively imposed, and these four actions are tied 

directly to legislative requirements.” The principal delays were caused “by having to comment, 

argue, and justify actions or proposals to some agency or group outside the highway program area.” 

Another question was how much reduction in review time could be achieved if procedures similar 

to those under the Secondary Road Plan were extended to other Federal-aid projects. Turner 

explained that the Secondary Road Plan made the State highway agency the agent of the Secretary 

of Transportation in carrying out Federal requirements. The change eliminated FHWA reviews, but 

the States still had to comply with all requirements. Since Federal-aid secondary projects usually 

were relatively minor, this procedure saved time since major delays were unlikely in any event. For 

larger projects, he said, “extending these procedures to other programs, could do no more than 

reduce the FHWA review time by a few days. The major time requirements would still remain.” 

[Proposed 1972 Highway Legislation, p. 897-914] 

While Turner was on Capitol Hill on June 6, Secretary Volpe was in Salt Lake City for a speech to 

the Western Association of State Highway Officials (WASHO), a regional division of AASHO. He 

assured his audience of his “allegiance to highway transportation and my deep respect for State 

highway officials.” He added, “I have unshakable faith in this industry’s ability to be just as 

competent, just as responsive, and just as devoted, in meeting the future transportation needs of this 

Nation.” 

At the same time, he said, those needs were unquestionably changing: 

And I submit that as we live in times of change, we must be the architects of that change or 

we will most certainly be its victims.

Volpe often used this line in his speeches. Here, it led him to this admission: 

Now I’ll admit that in recent months I’ve had highway contractors, and even a State 

highway director or two, come up to me and say “Are you the same John Volpe who used to 

be President of the AGC?” or “Are you the same fellow who was in on the start of the 

Interstate System back in ’56?”
291 

The answer, of course, has to be a double one. I’m the same guy insofar as I know that 

America needs mobility – the best brand of mobility it can imagine and afford. 

But on the other hand, having sat where I’ve been sitting for the past three years – getting 

the overview – I’ve changed in that I know that no one mode of transportation alone will 

ever solve all our transportation problems. Urbanization, environmental protection, safety, 

and other social concerns have introduced a new era – a new set of challenges – for the 

highway builder. And I know that you are up to meeting those challenges . . . . 

I am occasionally asked just what our national highway policy is. And my answer is brief: 

we don’t have one. What we have is a National Transportation Policy. 

He discussed highway-related transit solutions and described the Administration’s transportation 

proposal: 

The primary goal of this legislation is flexibility – the ability to have money follow the 

priorities rather than vice versa . . . . Let me emphasize this point as heavily as I can: If a 

State – or urban area – wants to spend every last nickel of its money from the Urban Fund 

for highways – well, you go right ahead and do it! If you want to set aside five percent, or 

10 percent to solve a particular congestion problem in a metropolitan area – go right ahead 

and do that! The decision won’t be made for you in Washington! 

This is not a program to promote mass transit, or railroads, or Tracked Air Cushion Vehicles 

[that could ride on compressed air over tracks at 350 miles an hour], or highways. It is a 

program to promote the very best transportation possible. 

He concluded by asking WASHO members to apply their “efficiency and talent” to provide “a new 

measure of mobility to all Americans.” 

End of an Era—A Legend Steps Down 

Administrator Frank Turner, throughout his tenure, had been moderate in his response to critics, 

always focusing on the value of buses, downplaying rail transit, and emphasizing the environmental 

and social benefits of highway development. This approach was reflected in his comments on June 

6 before Senator Bayh’s Subcommittee on Roads, a familiar forum he had appeared in many times 

since his arrival in Washington in the 1950s. 

However, on May 31, 1972, he had taken a more personal approach, using a friendly forum to lash 

out at the critics. Speaking to HUFSAM at the Sheraton Hilton in Washington, Turner gave a 

speech titled “Solutions Must be Based on Facts.” The best way to approach transportation, he 

said, is to “first clearly define the problem, and then bring to bear in its solution all of the factual 

information available about it, to be analyzed objectively in reaching a conclusion.” That, he said, 

“is the method we must always use.” He continued: 

However, today, there are many who, although they do not have the needed essential 

training in transportation, are trying, nevertheless, to advance solutions to our transportation 
292 

problem – developed from hunch, emotion, or incorrect facts arranged to fit pre-conceived 

conclusions. These include some sincere, misinformed persons, along with the zealots and 

dilettantes who regularly are opposed to anything for any reason, or even no reason at all. 

He cited some of the statements HUFSAM and FHWA had classified as myths, and then provided 

the responses the organizations had been promoting for the past year: 

• Ban the automobile from the city? “The fact is, if we ban the automobile from all of 

downtown, then downtown is going to be dead.” 

• Highways and the automobile cause urban sprawl? “The fact is that the automobile didn’t 

cause people to move from the center city . . . it enabled them to.” 

• Stop building urban freeways? “The fact is that . . . highways will continue for as far as we 

can see into the future to serve as the principal or sole means of transportation . . . .” 

• Cities enmeshed in hopeless traffic jams? “The fact is that, generally speaking, except for 

the morning and afternoon rush hour there is no real problem . . . .” 

• Paving over our cities? “The fact is that as much area was used in cities for horses and 

wagons and buggies in pre-automobile days as is being used today.” 

• Consuming too much land? “The fact is that a 300-foot highway right of way stretching 225 

miles between Washington and New York City . . . would require about 9,000 acres. Dulles 

Airport contains about this same acreage.”

And so on. As these examples demonstrated, without facts, “we would find ourselves in a hopeless 

maze, with no way of finding the solid solutions that are needed to our transportation problems.” 

He admonished his listeners “to be as insistent on using only the facts as we would have the 

opponents do.” If they do so, “the conclusion – whatever it may turn out to be – will be a sound 

and valid one.” 

Turner had often offered similar views and his audience probably was familiar with them, but on 

this occasion, he knew something his listeners did not. He planned to retire at the end of June. 

Turner, 63 years old, informed President Nixon and Secretary Volpe of the decision in letters dated 

June 21. He told the President that, “I desire to avail myself of the provisions of the Civil Service 

Retirement Act, with its special benefits available to June 30.” He took pride in his long service. 

“It is with regret that I now take leave of the finest organization and most dedicated group of 

coworkers in Government, but with the knowledge that each member of the Federal Highway 

Administration family will continue to render loyal and able service through the Department of 

Transportation to their fellow citizens.”

He told Secretary Volpe that the decision was not an easy one. “It is only that continuing trouble 

with diminishing vision in my right eye and medical advice relative to that condition causes me to 

now make this difficult decision.” He did not say so, but another factor was his wife Mable’s 

deteriorating mental condition, characterized by confusion and anxiety, that would require an 

increasing amount of his time. He felt he could no longer leave her alone in their home in 

Arlington, Virginia, when his job called for him to travel out of the Washington area. [Swift, Earl, 

The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the 

American Superhighways, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, p. 304-305] 
293 

The President accepted Turner’s resignation in a letter dated July 1, 1972. He said: 

A career of public service that spans more than forty-three years is, in itself, a remarkable 

accomplishment. But your career has spanned more than years; it has helped bring to this 

nation an incomparable interstate highway system that continues to play a vital role in our 

development and prosperity. 

As an architect of the interstate system, you should feel a very special sense of pride in the 

fact that this, the largest public works program in world history, has been administered with 

uncompromising integrity and steadfast dedication to public trust. 

Turner, in closing his career, addressed a letter to his FHWA family. Trying to find the words to 

say goodbye after 43 years “has been a most difficult task.” While many government agencies are 

“impersonal machines,” he always thought of his FHWA colleagues “as individuals who were 

dedicated to doing a piece of the public business more as a service to your friends and neighbors 

than merely as a source of employment.” He could not respond to all the letters and notes he’d 

received, but his letter was his way of saying “my thanks to all of you for your letters, your gifts, 

your expressions of good wishes, and many other nice things: but most of all for the fine 

performance you have turned in day by day as members of the FHWA team.” [“Mr. Turner Bids 

Farewell,” FHWA News, October 27, 1972, p. 1-2] 

Secretary Volpe designated Deputy Federal Highway Administrator Ralph R. Bartelsmeyer to serve 

as Acting Administrator. Born in 1909 in Hoyleton, Illinois, Bartelsmeyer received his civil 

engineering degree in 1932 from the University of Illinois at Urbana. He began in 1931 as a 

Highway Engineer with the Illinois Division of Highways, remaining with the division until 1963 

except for a brief period with the Marquette Cement Manufacturing Company (1946-1948). 

Returning to public service, he worked his way up to Chief Engineer of the Illinois Division of 

Highways in 1953 and remained in that position until 1963. He served as president of AASHO in 

1959 and ARBA in 1961-1962. 

After leaving State service, he became vice president of the engineering firm H. W. Lochner, Inc., 

in Chicago before being appointed Director of the BPR in May 1969. When BPR was eliminated as 

an administrative office within FHWA, he became Deputy Administrator in August 1970. 

On June 6, 1972, when Turner was testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Roads and 

Secretary Volpe was delivering his speech to WASHO, Bartelsmeyer also was in Salt Lake City for 

the WASHO meeting. His speech was titled “There is No Turning Back!” He addressed two 

important topics, the first being a summary of the proposed Federal-Aid Highway and Mass 

Transportation Act of 1972. After describing its provisions, he told the western highway officials 

that “I want to emphasize to you more forcefully that there is no intention to deemphasize the 

highway transportation program.” The country would continue to need highways “as far into the 

future as anyone now can foresee—good highways—both expanded existing highways and new 

highways.” 

The other important topic was consideration of environmental issues: 
294 

Let’s be candid—and honest with ourselves—environmental impact statements are now a 

way of life for State highway departments—and they are here to stay . . . . And there are 

compelling reasons why we should do a good job in this area. For one thing, we can avoid a 

lot of litigation, and the resulting headaches if we do. 

He characterized highway opponents as falling into three categories: those who have valid reasons 

for opposing a project, those who are “sincerely motivated but who are misinformed or misguided,” 

and “the zealots or dilettantes who would blindly oppose highways on any grounds, and so choose 

the environment as a handy battleground.” He said:

Let’s not make things easier for the zealots and the dilettantes by not doing our homework 

on environmental impact statements—by failing to file them or by doing them carelessly. 

We can save ourselves a lot of trouble, and time, by preparing them thoroughly and properly 

to begin with. 

He estimated that in 1972, FHWA would process approximately 800 final environmental impact 

statements and 150 Section 4(f) statements. Those numbers were “vastly more than any other 

individual agency of the Federal Government.” He told the audience: “Committed? You bet we’re 

committed!”

Although the States were doing a good job, Bartelsmeyer identified several areas of weakness:

These include noise and air pollution and the alternatives to the proposed action. In 

particular, all alternatives must be discussed in the environmental impact statement in 

sufficient detail to identify the probable beneficial and adverse effects. In addition, greater 

attention must be given to considering all reasonable alternatives to the proposed highway 

improvements. 

He urged early consultation with State and local agencies such as departments of natural resources, 

parks, and health. 

His comments reflected the evolving attitude of highway officials since enactment of NEPA. Many 

State highway officials saw critics as “zealots and dilettantes” who simply did not understand the 

benefits the community would receive from its highways. Their complaints could best be addressed 

by improved public relations initiatives to get the public on the side of highway development. 

Environmental reviews under NEPA, which highway officials considered unnecessary, could be 

done just well enough to meet requirements in minimal time. 

Frank Turner and other FHWA officials, who may have shared the States’ views, frequently made 

clear that as Bartelsmeyer put it, “Concern with environmental protection is here to stay.” FHWA 

was committed to working with State highway officials to ensure the NEPA reviews were in full 

compliance with the law. He recognized that State highway officials experienced “a sense of 

frustration” and “an occasional wish that we could return to ‘the good old days.’” Bartelsmeyer 

told WASHO:
295 

But there is no turning back for any of us—and I truly don’t believe that any of us would 

really prefer the old days to the inspiring challenge of the dynamic Federal-State highway 

program we all are a part of now . . . . 

The die is cast. It is not a case of either/or. We will meet our commitment to providing the 

modern system of highways so essential to this Nation’s well-being—while at the same time 

we will preserve the environment and protect the ecology. 

And we will do so not only because it is the law of the land—we will do so because it is 

right!

Bartelsmeyer would serve as Acting Federal Highway Administrator until June 1, 1973, making his 

tenure as Acting Administrator the longest in FHWA history. 

Party Platforms 

With the presidential campaigns underway, the Democratic and Republican parties held their 

national conventions that summer. Although the Vietnam War and the economy were among the 

most important issues, both parties adopted positions on many issues that would not be part of the 

ongoing election debate. 

On July 10, 1972, the Democrats adopted a platform that said the automobile “has made a major 

contribution to economic growth and prosperity in this century,” but the time had come for “better 

balanced transportation—more of it public.” The fact that “15 times as much federal aid goes to 

highways as to mass transit . . . must change.” The need for improved rural transportation must not 

be forgotten. The Democratic Party pledged: 

To create a single Transportation Trust Fund, to replace the Highway Trust Fund, with such 

additional funds as necessary to meet our transportation crisis substantially from federal 

resources. This fund will allocate monies for capital projects on a regional basis, permitting 

each region to determine its own needs under guidelines that will ensure a balanced 

transportation system and adequate funding of mass transit facilities. 

Moreover, we will: 

Assist local transit systems to meet their capital operating needs; 

End the deterioration of rail and rural transportation and promote a flexible rural 

transportation system based on local, state and regional needs; 

Take steps to meet the particular transportation problems of the elderly, the handicapped and 

others with special needs; and 

Assist development of airport terminals, facilities and access to them, with due regard to 

impact on environment and community 
296 

The Democrats nominated Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, the anti-war candidate, and 

his running mate, Senator Thomas F. Eagleton of Missouri. On August 1, Senator McGovern 

replaced Senator Eagleton on the Democratic ticket following revelations that he had been treated 

for physical and nervous exhaustion on several occasions and suffered from depression. In his 

place, Senator McGovern chose a brother-in-law of President Kennedy, Sargent Shriver, who had 

served in posts during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. 

The Republican Party platform, adopted on August 21, 1972, reflected the views and 

accomplishments of the President and was dominated by international affairs, especially the goal of 

ending the Vietnam War. On the domestic front, the platform supported the President’s General 

Revenue Sharing initiative: 

We hold that government planners should be guided by the people through their locally 

elected representatives. We believe that real solutions require the full participation of the 

private sector. 

To help ease the fiscal crises of State, county and municipal governments, we pledge 

increased Federal assistance—assistance we have more than doubled in the past four years. 

And . . . we remain committed to General Revenue Sharing, which could reduce the 

oppressive property tax. 

Our proposals for Special Revenue Sharing for Urban Development, transportation, 

manpower and law enforcement—all still bottled up by the opposition Congress—are 

designed to make our towns and cities places where Americans can once again live and 

work without physical or environmental hazard. Urban areas are already benefiting from 

major funding increases which we fought for in the Law Enforcement Assistance 

Administration programs and in our $10 billion mass transit program. 

As for transportation, the platform stated that when President Nixon took office in 1969, “a crisis in 

transportation was imminent,” based on “declining mass transportation service, mounting highway 

deaths, congested urban streets, long delays at airports and airport terminals, deterioration of 

passenger train service, and a dwindling Merchant Marine.” He had addressed the crisis by 

enacting laws to enhance the transportation network, including the Urban Mass Transportation 

Assistance Act of 1970, the Airport and Airway Development Act of 1970, the Rail Passenger 

Service Act of 1970, and the Merchant Marine Act of 1970. 

It described other accomplishments and initiatives:

To reduce traffic and highway deaths, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 

has been reorganized and expanded, with dramatic results. In 1971, the number of traffic 

deaths per hundred million miles driven was the lowest in history. 

To help restore decision-making to the people, we have proposed a new Single Urban Fund 

providing almost $2 billion a year by 1975 to State and metropolitan areas to assist local 

authorities in solving their own transportation problems in their own way. 
297 

Our proposal for Special Revenue Sharing for Transportation would also help governments 

close to the people meet local needs and provide greater freedom to achieve a proper 

balance among the Nation's major transportation modes. 

To revitalize the surface freight transportation industry, we have recommended measures to 

modernize railway equipment and operations and to update regulatory practices. These 

measures, on which Congress still dawdles, would help curb inflation by saving the public 

billions of dollars a year in freight costs. Their enactment would also expand employment 

and improve our balance of trade. 

The Nation's transportation needs are expected to double in the next 20 years. Our Party 

will continue to pursue policies and programs that will meet these needs and keep the 

country well ahead of rapidly changing transportation demands. 

The platform’s transportation plank concluded: 

The Nation's transportation needs are expected to double in the next 20 years. Our Party will 

continue to pursue policies and programs that will meet these needs and keep the country well 

ahead of rapidly changing transportation demands. 

Addressing the Urban Crisis

During the weekend of June 10-11, 1972, about 100 residents of cities facing freeway battles 

gathered in Washington for a national conference organized by the National Coalition on the 

Transportation Crisis. The conference had been organized by Sammie A. Abbott and Angela 

Rooney, local anti-freeway activists. In 1964, they had formed the Emergency Committee on the 

Transportation Crisis (slogan: “White Men’s Roads Through Black Men’s Homes”), a coalition of 

African-Americans from northeast Washington and white opponents from the suburb of Takoma 

Park, Maryland. The immediate goal of the local committee was to block construction of the North 

Central Freeway (I-95/I-70S), but the group had taken in anti-freeway activists from around the 

country who came to Washington to lobby Members of the Congress or BPR/FHWA. While in the 

city, they often stayed with local highway critics to keep costs down. 

During the pre-NEPA era, highway protests were usually improvised local affairs by homeowners 

trying to protect their homes and neighborhoods from planned freeways. The coalition sponsored 

national conferences in 1968 and 1969 as a forum to exchange information and ideas, but according 

to Abbott, the conferences were not held for 2 years because “we didn’t have the money and we 

didn’t have the forces.” The 1972 conference was hastily arranged after Abbott collected $200 for a 

speech and $500 from a foundation. “With the $700, we had the option of preparing for a big 

conference in the fall after the election or having one now. We decided to do something in a short 

time so we could hope to have some effect on the election.” 

Participants appeared less interested in the election than in learning effective techniques for 

blocking highways. An article about the meeting concluded: 
298 

However, it was law suits and air pollution that appeared to be the foremost interest of the 

freeway fighters who gathered for the conference, held at Catholic University. At one point, 

Emilia Govan, a leader in the fight to block construction of Interstate Route 66 inside the 

Capital Beltway in Virginia, asked how many people were involved in law suits against 

proposed freeways. About 20 people raised their hands. 

“And how many are contemplating litigation,” she asked. Most of the remainder of the 

people raised their hands. 

To this, Mrs. Govan responded: “Good stuff.” [Barnes, Fred, “Freeway Foes Meet to Plan 

Election Role,” Washington Evening Star, June 13, 1972] 

(Mrs. Govan and her husband James became leaders in the battle to block I-66 after attending a 

public hearing the Virginia Department of Highways held on September 29, 1970, in the 

Washington and Lee High School auditorium. Over 700 people reacted to the State’s presentation 

with what the Fairfax Sentinel called “a great roar of righteous indignation.” The Govans, who 

lived three blocks from the projected path of I-66, had hoped for information on the location of 

interchanges, the type of overhead lighting, and whether noise walls would be included. Instead, as 

James recalled years later:

There was no information available for the public to look at . . . . There were no politicians 

or elected officials present. The highway officials were condescending and cut citizens off 

with curt responses. People couldn’t get answers to basic questions. People were very 

upset when the hearing was over and simply started exchanging phone numbers. 

(Emilia added that when the State revealed that I-66 would be 14 lanes wide in Rosslyn, “the whole 

thing crystallized for us.” In October 1970, the Govans were among about 20 founders of Arlington 

Coalition on Transportation (ACT). In a history of the fight to kill I-66, Leland J. White described

ACT: 

With a peak membership of approximately 1,500, ACT was predominantly composed of 

middle-class whites, many of whom worked for the federal government. Some lower 

income and elderly apartment residents along the proposed I-66 path also got involved. 

Because the highway’s route did not include any areas with sizable racial or ethnic 

minorities, these were little represented. The group was fairly evenly split along gender 

lines, although women were more active in the day-to-day activities since many did not 

work outside the home and had more time to devote to the cause. With the Govans serving 

as co-chairs, ACT was loosely organized and operated on a shoestring, charging dues of two 

dollars per member. [White, Leland J., “Dividing Highway: Citizen Activism and 

Interstate 66 in Arlington, Virginia,” Washington History, Spring/Summer 2001, p. 58-59] 

While the conference was underway, The New York Times reported that, “The Urban Mass 

Transportation Administration has moved out of its organization days and into full operation.” The 

Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 had assigned administration of transit funding to the 

Housing and Home Finance Agency in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. When 
299 

the transit function was shifted to the Department of Transportation in 1968, the transit component 

became UMTA. Now, with a pending $1 billion budget for FY 1973, Administrator Villarreal said, 

“For the first time we have a meaningful program to improve public transportation.” 

The article stated:

UMTA’s mix of programs has lifted the mass-transit industry out of a lethargy that has 

lasted since the end of World War II. Profits for mass-transit systems began a steady 

decline then and last year such systems ran nearly $300-million in the red. During that 

period there was virtually no technological advance as Americans looked to the automobiles 

and the growing highway systems to provide them with transportation. 

But now Mr. Villarreal hopes to reverse that trend. “The transportation problem isn’t 

limited to big cities,” he said. “We have to realize that public transportation must 

complement the automobile. We have to offer an alternative.” 

UMTA was providing funds for subways and buses, but also for innovative facilities such as a 3-

mile people-mover system built by Boeing in Morgantown, West Virginia, and the tracked aircushion vehicle that Secretary Volpe had mentioned in his WASHO speech the week before. The 

article concluded:

City and state officials and those in the transit industry are pleased with UMTA’s work so 

far but hope for still more Federal funds, including operating subsidies, in the future. “The 

money is a very impressive figure, but it’s still not enough,” said Jack J. Hargett of the 

Institute of Rapid Transit. “It should have been a billion dollars annually long ago.” 

[“Mass-Transit Agency Moves into Full Operation,” The New York Times, June 11, 1972] 

The Department of Transportation issued new metropolitan transportation planning requirements in 

mid-July 1972 calling on all areas with a population above 1 million to submit unified work plans 

to the Department to qualify for assistance. All SMSAs must have approved plans by mid-1974. 

Richard Bouchard, the Department’s Director of Transportation Planning Assistance, explained that 

the new requirements resulted from a view that comprehensive planning for urban areas was not 

working: 

For 30 years those in urban transportation have said problems must be dealt with on a 

metropolitan basis, yet there is no effective decision making mechanism in government 

today to accomplish this. As a substitute we have established ad hoc arrangements. Some 

argue that this process has met with some success, and I would agree. But I would add 

progress has not been commensurate with the need.

Bouchard explained the key change: 

In the past, comprehensive plans concentrated on the traffic and economic consequences of 

building large regional facilities with little emphasis on balance between modes or 

consideration of social and environmental impacts.
300 

Projects often were approved because they lacked negative impacts rather than because they 

contributed to a positive, integrated plan: 

From now on, DOT will be asking such questions as: Who will do the planning; how will 

each responsible agency carry out its mission; how much money will be needed; and what 

will the chain of command be for implementation?

One consequence was that a single metropolitan policy body would have to be designated to 

prepare the work program. Some areas had established informal groups to carry out the 

metropolitan transportation planning requirements of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962, but the 

Department did not find that the resulting plans were satisfactory.

Under the new plan, the unified work program would serve as a baseline; only projects in the 

program would be eligible for Federal-aid highway, transit, or airport funding. The new body 

would prepare a long-term plan as well as an annual update. This was critical, Bouchard said, 

because “a major consequence will be staging decisions throughout the study process rather than 

leaving them open until the adoption of a master plan at the end of a long-term study.” Changes 

could be made throughout development in a flexible and dynamic process. 

 

Although obtaining Federal-aid might be harder, Bouchard said:

It will help enable cities to make a single comprehensive grant application. Our office isn’t 

designed to walk mayors through the process and show them how to fill out a federal form. 

But with a policy like this we can make it easier for them to integrate their grant 

applications. What we are hoping to do here is to provide help to mayors and other elected 

officials. The highway, airport, and transit people have their own units at the federal level. 

The elected officials don’t and what we are trying to do is help them. 

An analysis in Engineering News-Record said that, “DOT is in a sense substituting itself for the 

missing local mechanisms that have failed to develop truly comprehensive and complementary 

plans.” It added: 

In a sense, the policy Bouchard outlines reinforces Transportation Secretary John Volpe’s 

proposal for a Single Urban Fund (SUF), changing the present balance of highway, airport 

and transit spending. He would permit metropolitan areas to shift money between accounts, 

with 40% of the earmarked SUF allotments going directly to urban areas. But they would 

have to establish means to handle areawide problems or lose control to programming and 

spending to state governments. 

Even if Congress does not approve Volpe’s SUF plan as part of the biennial highway act, 

and chances are that it will not, the unified work program will accomplish his aim of 

establishing strong metropolitan agencies and making them work. 

“It seems to me that a work program put together as we describe it both from an institutional 

and a technical point of view sets the stage in any metropolitan area for that city to be in a 
301 

position to respond fully to both enacted and proposed legislation,” says Bouchard. 

[“Metropolitan Areas Must Draft Unified Transportation Programs,” Engineering NewsRecord, July 13, 1972, p. 10] 

The Senate’s Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 

Mobil Oil Corporation published another in its full page ads in The New York Times on July 20, 

1972: 

LET’S GET MOVING

WITH A NATIONAL MASTER

TRANSPORTATION PROGRAM

Anyone who uses mass transit “knows our mass transit is pitiable.” The benefits of improving mass 

transit included easing traffic jams, reducing air pollution, and conserving energy fuel. It also 

would “make moving around a lot more civilized.” Rather than thinking about each mode 

separately, “we should approach them as part of an overall transportation plan.” The ad explained: 

To carry out that plan, Congress should enact a National Master Transportation Program. 

The money should come from direct Congressional appropriation, based on clear and 

rational priorities. In the process, the Congress should review all special earmarked funds, 

including the Highway Trust Fund. 

Mobil supported the Highway Trust Fund when it was enacted in 1956, as a logical way to 

raise and husband the money needed to build the Interstate Highway system. Now we 

believe a new look is needed at the whole question of transportation and transportation 

funding. 

Continuing the Highway Trust Fund indefinitely “could deter construction of more-urgently needed 

non-highway transportation facilities.” It also could “encourage expansion of the fund’s goals at a 

time when they ought to be cut back.” Further, some urban sections of the Interstate System in, for 

example, lower Manhattan and south Philadelphia should be reviewed. “It is not at all certain that 

the benefits from these sections would justify the outlay.” 

Highways were important to Mobil since highway travel builds gasoline sales. “But traffic jams, 

and a glut of cars using too much gasoline to haul too few passengers, waste many resources, 

including oil.” Mobil wanted its products to “help more people get where they want to go, with 

greater ease and less waste than is now possible.” 

While the Department was pursuing its balanced, flexible approach to transportation, the Senate 

Committee on Public Works was completing work on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. The 

Subcommittee on Roads approved a bill that adhered to traditional highway funding categories 

while limiting the rights of citizen to file suits against highway projects. It also authorized a new 

plan for toll roads and scenic and recreational highways. A rival bill introduced by Senators 

Kennedy and Weicker would authorize $3 billion a year for completion of the Interstate System, but 
302 

free all remaining Highway Trust Fund revenue for use by States and cities for any transportation 

purpose. This bill was given little chance of approval. 

On August 17, the Senator Public Works Committee approved its bill, but only after considerable 

internal controversy over transit issues. A Washington Post editorial on August 8 reacted to a draft 

committee bill by saying, “In short, this is still very much a highway bill.” It “steers away from any 

politically uncomfortable challenge to the oft-invoked sanctity of the highway trust fund.” The 

draft bill, according to the editorial, included at least $300 million a year “to encourage the 

development, improvement, and use” of highway-oriented bus facilities and, for the first time, the 

purchase of buses, but not for operating subsidies or rail transit. It included the new scenic roads 

program as well as a major effort to build bicycle lanes and trails. It authorized creation of 

metropolitan regional transportation agencies, but without the ability to mix transportation modes. 

The editorial added that the draft chipped away at the environmental safeguards that kept “highway 

bulldozers from demolishing other public values.” It did this by proposing “an entirely new 

alternative planning process which might enable states to wiggle out from under the detailed 

requirements of federal law.” The editorial also regretted the measure introduced by Senators Lloyd 

Bentsen (D-Tx.) and John Tower (R-Tx) that would de-federalize the U.S. 281 expressway through 

Brackenridge-Olmos Basin Parklands in San Antonio so the project could advance with State funds, 

free of Federal restrictions. Overall, the Kennedy-Weicker bill was “a route toward sensible, 

comprehensive transportation planning which certainly should be explored.” [“Better 

Transportation or Just More Highways?” The Washington Post, August 8, 1972] 

On August 9, the committee considered an amendment introduced by Senator Muskie that would 

make available all urban Interstate highway construction funds for alternative public transportation 

systems in urban areas if the Governor determined that such systems are necessary to implement air 

quality standards or for other public purposes. Senator Cooper offered an alternative that would 

make all Federal-aid urban system funds available for public transportation facilities, including 

fixed rail, with local officials responsible for deciding on funding use. Senator Muskie joined in the 

motion and the committee voted 8 to 7 to adopt Senator Cooper’s substitute. 

One of those voting for the Cooper-Muskie amendment was Senator Stafford of Vermont. 

Overnight, he changed his mind. On August 10, he requested reconsideration of the previous day’s 

vote. Efforts to table the motion, led by Senator John V. Tunney (D-Ca.) failed (8 to 7), and the 

committee then rejected the Cooper substitute, 7 to 8. Senator Muskie offered his original 

amendment for consideration, but it, too, failed, 7 to 8. 

Senator Stafford said in an interview that he had decided to vote for the measure the day before 

after talking with Secretary Volpe. “Overnight, on reflection, I realized that my original view was 

right. I come from a rural state, you know.” Senators Cooper and Muskie planned to introduce 

their amendments when the bill was under consideration on the Senator floor, but acknowledged 

that prospects were not good without committee approval. [Rosenbaum, David E., “Senate Panel 

Bars Road Funds to Aid Mass Transit,” The New York Times, August 11, 1972; “Rollcall Votes 

During Committee Consideration,” The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, Report of the 
303 

Committee on Public Works, United States Senate, 92nd Congress, 2d Session, Report No. 92-1081, 

 p. 47] 

The August 10 vote ended prospects for rail transit funding in the committee bill, but the measure 

to allow the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues for bus purchases was in S. 3939 as approved on 

August 17—buses for urban areas, and a separate $50 million for buses in rural areas. Senator 

Randolph, speaking of the restriction on rail transit, emphasized that the committee intended to 

supplement UMTA funding for rail, not to serve as an excuse for weakening Federal financing for 

rail systems. [Eisen, Jack, “Road Funds Voted for Bus Purchase,” The Washington Post, August 

18, 1972] 

Key provisions of S. 3939 included: 

• Interstate construction authorizations would be reduced from the present level of $4 billion a 

year to $3.25 billion through FY 1979, with the completion date extended to June 30, 1980. 

 This reduction, according to the committee report, was needed “to make more funds 

available for other vital programs such as highway safety, urban transportation, and 

upgrading the long-neglected Federal-aid primary and secondary systems.” 

• To facilitate resolution of controversies over urban Interstates, the bill would allow States to 

substitute alternative segments with the consent of local governments. “Dollar for dollar” 

substitution would be permitted rather than “mile-for-mile” substitution under the HowardCramer provision as in the past. If an alternative was not necessary for a connected system 

or the cost of the alternative was less than the cost of the original, the remaining funds could 

be used in the same urban area for projects on the Federal-aid urban system, including 

projects for public transportation purposes. 

• In a “major departure,” the bill recommended that “properly constituted metropolitan 

transportation agencies” would have direct control of Federal-aid urban funds. They would 

be “passed through” the State to the agency to “increase the ability of local elected officials 

to determine how these funds are to be used.” The agency “must have sufficient authority to 

develop and implement a plan for the expenditure of funds allocated to it for the urban 

system including highway public transportation.” 

• The bill created a “small urban system” in urban areas of 5,000 to 50,000. 

• The committee emphasized highway-oriented bus transit to supplement UMTA funds. It 

expanded eligibility to include the purchase of passenger equipment other than rolling stock 

for fixed rail at a Federal share of 100 percent. Of the $950 million authorized for the urban 

system, $300 million must be spent for carrying out highway public transportation 

measures. The report stated that, “The Committee believes that costs of rail transit systems, 

especially subways, are so high that the Highway Trust Fund would not be able to bear any 

substantial share without seriously impairing its ability to meet the highway needs of the 

Nation.” 

• Section 121 modified the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 to loosen restrictions on 

outdoor advertising. The 660-foot limit on the control of signs along the Interstate and 

Federal-aid primary systems would be eliminated, as would the penalty for States that do not 

remove signs beyond 660 feet that are visible from the main traveled way. With the limit 

removed, the authority to erect approved signs in areas zoned industrial and commercial that 
304 

were now valid within 660 would be extended beyond that distance. Signs that were not in 

conformity with State law would have to be removed within 5 years after they became 

nonconforming. Just compensation would be paid for the removal of all outdoor advertising 

signs that were lawfully erected. Further, the measure imposed a 2-year moratorium on the 

Secretary’s authority to require States to remove any directional signs (“giving specific 

information in the interest of the traveling public,” such as the location of motels, 

restaurants, and roadside attractions) lawfully in existence on June 1, 1972. 

• To address red tape, the bill provided an alternative procedure to turn over to the State 

highway agencies the day-to-day execution of the Federal-aid highway program, consistent 

with guidelines issued by the Secretary and subject to continuous audit by the Secretary. 

“This procedure when implemented would prevent the withholding of apportioned highway 

funds.” 

• After receiving its final Interstate funding, a State may use Federal-aid primary funds for 

new toll roads or improvement of existing toll roads. The Federal share would be up to 70 

percent, not including the cost of toll collection and service areas. “This financing 

arrangement would enable States lacking adequate resources to construct desperately needed 

roads to do so in a relatively short order.” Further, any existing toll road included in the 

Interstate System as of June 30, 1968, that became toll free prior to July 1, 1976, would be 

eligible for improvement with Interstate funds. Finally, if construction of a toll road has 

seriously impaired the capacity of three or more Interstate routes interchanging with the toll 

road, Interstate funds could be used to improve interchange capacity. 

• All Federal-aid highway funds could be used for construction of separate or preferential 

bicycle lanes, paths, or related facilities and equipment. In addition, the bill authorized $10 

million a year for FYs 1974 and 1975 for bicycle projects in connection with new or 

completed Federal-aid projects, while the earlier eligibility change would apply only to new 

projects.

• The bill also made funds available for construction of separate walkways, including 

overpasses and underpasses, and equestrian trails in connection with new Federal-aid 

highway projects. 

• Among numerous highway safety measures, addressed in Title II (Highway Safety Act of 

1972), the committee included grants to the States to support highway safety programs, 

including programs administered by NHTSA. Funding was made available for a new 

program to eliminate roadway dangers on existing roads, including railroad grade crossings. 

The bill included $20 million in grants to States that demonstrated special efforts to comply 

with safety standards. [“Major Provisions, Highway Act of 1972, p. 5-27] 

On August 18, Secretary Volpe sent a letter to Senator Randolph expressing the department’s views 

on the approved bill. The Secretary appreciated the extension of eligible Highway Trust Fund 

expenditures to the purchase of mass transit buses, although he thought it should have gone further 

to include rail transit. He also supported providing funds directly to metropolitan transportation 

agencies as well as the need to direct resources to other priorities now that the Interstate System was 

nearing completion. 

He objected to several provisions, including the alternative procedures that “would eliminate the 

ability of the Executive Branch to effectively establish program priorities and overall funding 
305 

levels” and “disrupt the cooperative Federal/State relationship that has existed for better than 50 

years. While the Administration has been trying to reduce the number of categorical grant-in-aid 

programs, the bill “would do just the reverse” by including a “proliferation of still more grant 

programs,” such as small urban, Interstate transfer, highway public transportation, toll road, and 

bicycle/walkway/equestrian trails. 

The 100-percent funding for bus purchases was objectionable because the increased Federal share 

favored one mode over another; the Federal share should be 70 percent. Secretary Volpe also stated 

that the “overall funding level contained in this bill is far in excess of the level we recommend and 

well beyond the level which is fiscally responsible” at a time when “we are finally reducing 

inflation” and fiscal restraint is more important than ever. 

In addition, Secretary Volpe objected to the 2-year moratorium on removal of outdoor advertising 

with directional messages. The “very broad language” of the provision would prevent “the removal 

of this visual blight from our nation’s highways” and not only disrupt the program but bring it “to a 

complete standstill.” He urged deletion of this provision. 

The committee report reprinted Secretary Volpe’s letter and the views of Senators Muskie and 

Tunney. They objected to the bill’s failure to support a greater range of locally developed 

transportation alternatives:

Today the Federal-aid highway program, supported by the Highway Trust Fund, is the 

subject of widespread citizen dissatisfaction in all areas—urban, suburban, and rural—

where Federal funds are used to build highways. Trust fund monies are readily available to 

construct highway solutions . . . . On the other hand, Federal support for non-highway 

solutions to transportation problems such as mass transit—is in short supply . . . . 

They objected to the self-perpetuating nature of the Highway Trust Fund as well as the continuation 

of policies favoring the use of motor vehicles that waste nonrenewable resources. “The Highway 

Trust Fund must be utilized to support a broader, more economical and more efficient 

transportation system.” They promised to offer amendments on the Senate floor that will 

“recognize the differences between rural and urban America.” Their amendments would “provide 

the means of assuring that, within metropolitan areas, all available transportation alternatives are 

considered and the most appropriate systems are constructed.” [“Individual and Supplemental 

Views of Mr. Muskie and Mr. Tunney,” Highway Act of 1972, p. 53-55] 

Senator Cooper also offered views, although he was mostly supportive of the bill. On the subject of 

urban mass transportation, he had hoped to remove the restriction on rail transit. He said he had 

joined with Senator Weicker as a sponsor of S. 3037, which would have eliminated the restriction. 

He also praised the Administration for its Single Urban Fund proposal, but it “failed to attract 

widespread support primarily because it proposed to transfer financing of the Urban Mass 

Transportation Act from general fund appropriations to the Trust Fund . . . .” He did not believe 

that the Highway Trust Fund “can or should be the sole source of financing for both mass transit 

and highways,” but “the time has come to resolve this issue, and to enable cities to better manage 

their capital expenditures for those closely related transportation modes.” He intended to offer the 
306 

Cooper-Muskie amendment during Senate debate on the bill. [“Individual and Supplemental Views 

of Mr. Cooper, Urban Mass Transportation,” Highway Act of 1972, p. 60-61] 

Congress began its August recess on August 18 and would not return until September 6. By the end 

of the recess, the Nixon Administration was ready to concede that the Single Urban Fund would not 

be approved. It was looking for a way to get as close as possible to its goals as it could in the 

period leading up to the election. 

1972 National Transportation Report 

The Department of Transportation Act of 1966 directed the new department to “develop and 

recommend to the President and the Congress for approval national transportation policies and 

programs . . . with full and appropriate consideration of the needs of the public, users, carriers, 

industry, labor, and the national defense . . . .” To carry out this mission, the Department needed to 

gather information. 

On September 25, 1970, Secretary Volpe had announced what a press release called “the first 

positive Federal action ever taken to determine national priorities in the establishment of a balanced 

transportation system.” The objective was to develop a transportation plan by 1972. He began by 

sending letters and questionnaires to the Governors of the 50 States and Mayors of cities over 

50,000 population, as well as leaders of the transportation industry. He explained: 

This survey is designed to define the areas in which public and private funds are needed 

through 1990 to finance highways, public transit systems, airports and other terminals, 

railroads, waterways and pipelines. Once the needs and anticipated costs are submitted to 

us, Department of Transportation specialists will analyze the material and develop a national 

transportation plan. 

The planning process, although new to the total transportation system, has been utilized by 

the Department in planning and construction of the interstate highway system. [It] will not 

be a one-shot effort but will function on a continuing basis. It is apparent to those of us 

concerned with national transportation policy that there has been little balance or 

consistency in transportation planning and programming. On occasion, this has resulted in 

modal interests competing in the political forums and private money markets for available 

investment resources. Frequently there is insufficient regard for national objectives and too 

little concern for the ramifications of the interaction between the public and private sectors. 

The report would supplement reports the Department already was required by statute to prepare on 

individual modes: 

• The National Highway Needs Report

• The National Airport System Plan

After analyzing the data submitted by the Governors, Mayors, and industry leaders, the Department 

planned to analyze alternative based on national objectives such as economic efficiency in 
307 

transportation, protection of the environment, the improvement of safety, and the support of other 

national objectives. 

Secretary Volpe transmitted the July 1972 report, 1972 National Transportation Report: Present 

Status – Future Alternatives, to Congress on August 3, 1972. It was, he said, the first in a series of 

reports “on the state of the nation’s transportation system and the planning alternatives of Federal, 

State and local governments for improving the system over the longer range future.” The report 

provided: 

• A comprehensive picture and future outlook of transportation; 

• Estimates of investment needs and program priorities as seen by States, local governments, 

and the private sector;

• Analyses of selected issues in urban and intercity transportation; and 

• Guidelines for future action by Federal, State and local governments and the private sector. 

The concept of “transportation needs” caused some confusion, the report stated, because different 

modes and the private sector defined their needs differently. Highway and airport needs could be 

measured against approved standards for measuring deficiencies, but urban public transportation 

needs were based “generally on the costs of implementing existing plans prepared by the 

comprehensive transportation studies in the larger urban areas.” Private sector needs stemmed from 

“projected streams of investment” based on past trends or using “estimates of the ratio of capital 

stock to future projected demand.” 

In short, “the reported needs from both the State and private sector are thus not necessarily justified 

economically or socially.” The report, therefore, went “beyond the use of needs as a criterion for 

the efficient allocation of Federal funds.” The Department asked each State to develop and report 

alternative capital improvement programs based on realistic Federal fund levels and flexibility; 

forecast travel and freight flow by mode; surveyed most transportation facilities and services at the 

State level to determine the types of improvements likely to be more profitable and of value to 

society; and surveyed the private sector to obtain estimates of future capital investment 

requirements. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 4-5] 

In an overview, the National Transportation Report stated:

The Nation’s transportation system has undergone significant changes over the last decade. 

Freight expenditures have increased more rapidly in trucking than in rail; air cargo, although 

still small in volume, has increased dramatically. Intercity as well as urban passenger 

movement has occurred primarily by private automobile. In urban transportation the 

comparatively mild increase in cost of private automobile transportation is partly response 

for a massive shift in its favor. Urban transit expenditures have declined severely. Airlines 

have captured most of the remaining intercity travel expenditures. [1972 National 

Transportation Report, p. 13] 

The Nation’s expenditures on transportation, including government and private activities, amounted 

to over $181 billion in 1970: 
308 

Highway-oriented expenditures accounted for about 82 percent of the total. Rail and air 

each accounted for about 7 percent and 5 percent, respectively. While highways are 

important carriers of both passengers and freight, the rail expenditures were mostly for 

freight movement and air expenditures were for passenger movement . . . . The dominance 

of highway-oriented modes becomes even more evident when it is realized that in 1970 

expenditures on intercity freight moved by truck ($20.4 billion) were greater than the 

combined total for the rail, air, water, and pipeline modes. In addition, $19.9 billion was 

spent on local truck freight and $33.2 billion on primarily nonfreight trucking in the employ 

of services and utilities.

Highways also dominated passenger travel:

Highway passenger travel accounted for 42 percent of the Nation’s transportation 

expenditures with $73.2 billion spent on automobiles and taxicabs as compared with $3.0 

billion on all buses, i.e., transit, intercity, and school. The automobile dominated local and 

intercity transportation. In local public transportation, expenditures for taxicab 

transportation ($1.9 billion) exceed those on transit buses ($1.2 billion). [1972 National 

Transportation Report, p. 14] 

These figures paralleled government expenditures. From 1957 to 1970, the Federal Government 

spent more than $66 billion for domestic transportation, with about 71 percent ($47 billion) going 

for highway programs, mostly for the Interstate System ($31 billion). Only about 1 percent was 

spent on public transportation during those 14 years, although expenditures had increased to more 

than 2 percent in recent years. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 25] 

Recent trends favored highways in urban areas: 

Most increases in urban transportation facilities have occurred in highways rather than rail. 

Municipal road mileage increased 28 percent from 1960 to 1970; this figure is conservative 

in that it does not directly reflect increases in road width that have occurred in many 

municipalities . . . .

Federal Government transportation expenditures in urban areas have been particularly 

highway oriented. Over the period 1957-70, about $21 billion has been spent on urban 

highways as against about $703 million for public transit. [1972 National Transportation 

Report, p. 42] 

The difference in expenditures is reflected in public preferences. Metropolitan areas had grown 

over the past decade, but virtually all of the increase was outside central cities, resulting in more 

cars per capita and per household: 

This has important consequences for public transit, for one or more of the cars of a multicar 

family is usually used by the wage earners for transportation to work and back. These auto 

trips are impinging on a key revenue-generating source of public transit . . . . 
309 

Thus, it appears that the public transit industry is not providing an acceptable alternative to 

the automobile, especially in suburban areas. Moreover . . . the problem has been 

compounded by increasing fares and (to a lesser extent) reduced service. Accordingly, an 

unfortunate cycle has developed that, unless checked, will lead to the demise of many transit 

systems.

One result was the decline in private ownership of bus, rail, and trolley systems: 

According to the American Transit Association, there were 146 fewer systems on December 

31, 1970, than on that date in 1959; however, there were 235 fewer private systems because 

many of the private systems were taken over by local municipalities. The result was a net 

increase of 89 publicly owned systems. 

All modes of public transportation except taxicabs experienced declining revenue from 1960 to 

1970: 

The greatest declines were in surface rail and trolley coach, but these were not offset by a 

shift to subway and elevated rail or motor bus. Rather, the shift has been either to private 

automobiles or to taxicabs and other personalized transportation, such as automobile rentals. 

Faced with declining patronage and increasing costs, transit companies have increased fares 

and, to a lesser extent, cut back service, especially in non-peak hour operations. [1972 

National Transportation Report, p. 45-50] 

The key point, the report concluded, was that “demand deficiency, especially for bus transit, is the 

main cause of the economic difficulties of urban public transit.” The report explained: 

Costs have increased more rapidly than revenues in spite of large fare increases, but this is 

primarily because service levels have not declined as drastically as passenger levels. The 

industry is simply not filling buses and rail passenger cars the way it must to maintain a 

healthy economic posture. 

Consumer preference for the private automobile is undoubtedly the main cause of the 

demand deficiency in public transit. The industry has not yet found a way to change this 

preference at an acceptable economic cost. How to do this is, of course, the main issue that 

needs to be resolved. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 59] 

Looking to the future, the most important factor “for assessing transportation investment needs [is] 

the growth of traffic on the transport system.” Growth would undoubtedly continue, but predicting 

how much could not be done simply by extrapolating from past growth patterns. The best approach 

is to “comprehend the forces that generate traffic and project traffic on the basis of expected trends 

in these forces.” [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 85-86] Those factors included: 

• Population: projected to be 227 million people in 1980 and 255 million in 1990; 
310 

• Income: Gross National Product (GNP) was expected to increase at a rate of 4.7 percent per 

year through 1980, rising from $936 billion in 1970 to $1,481 billion in 1980 and at the rate 

of 3.5 percent per year from 1980 to 1990, with GNP reaching $2,096 billion; 

• Location patterns: western migration of population was expected to continue as was the 

shift to the suburbs; 

• Price trends: “price movements have given an impetus to traffic growth on some modes and 

have impeded traffic growth on other modes,” with air traffic benefiting from reduced fares, 

transit use declining because of increased fares, and the cost of operating an automobile 

likely to increase; and 

• Quality of transportation: measured based on “swiftness, reliability, convenience, 

accessibility, and comfort,” with service improvements since World War II occurring 

unequally—the Interstate System giving highways a “tremendous boost” and airlines 

gaining because of such factors as reduced fares and use of jet engines, while local public 

transit was “the only major form of transportation on which the quality of service has 

deteriorated and retarded traffic growth.” [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 87-92] 

Based on these projections, extrapolation from historical trends, and other factors, the report 

estimated growth patterns:

Annual per capita travel on commercial modes will increase from roughly 1,000 passengermiles in 1970 to 1,800 passenger-miles in 1980 and to 3,000 passenger-miles in 1990. 

Passenger travel in private motor vehicles will climb from 5,000 vehicle-miles per person 

per year in 1970 to 6,500 vehicle-miles in 1980 and 8,000 vehicle-miles in 1990. 

Commercial passenger travel was expected to increase more rapidly than private transportation, 

primarily because of growth in aviation. The report forecast that local transit would grow at 2.0 

percent per year “despite the fact that transit revenues have declined about 2.2 percent per year 

during the past 5 years.” The reason for this paradox was: 

Public policies aimed at solving a number of urban problems are expected to produce this 

turnaround in transit use. Policies aimed at producing a more rational land use will include 

revitalized mass transit. Solution of the congestion and pollution problems plaguing cities 

will suggest greater reliance on mass transit. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 93-

94] 

In assessing modal needs, the report stated that “they may be considered as representing an upper 

limit to the improvement projects that might be candidates for funding.” [1972 National 

Transportation Report, p. 122] 

The estimate of highway needs was based on “the most extensive effort to date to obtain an 

estimate of the cost of bringing the Nation’s highways up to a uniform set of standards.” The States 

were able to develop an inventory of existing facilities and assess needs within the short time frame 

available only “because of the research funds of the Federal Highway Trust Fund, and because of 

the long history of experience and professional development of the State highway agencies.” For 

the period through 1990, the report found: 
311 

The total needs estimate for the Highways category resulting from the Study came to $593 

billion, including $32 billion for completing the Interstate System. Slightly under one-third 

of this amount was for local roads, and about one half of it was for arterial facilities. The 

remaining one-sixth was for collectors. Forty percent of the non-Interstate-Highway needs 

estimate was reported for urbanized areas based on 1990 population and boundaries, about 7 

percent was reported in the small urban areas with populations between 5,000 and 50,000, 

and the remaining 53 percent in the rural areas.

An estimate of funds available for highways over that period indicated that highway needs were 

“roughly double the future funds available for that program.” [1972 National Transportation 

Report, p. 124-125] 

The lack of uniform standards was a problem in assessing urban public transportation needs. 

Because planning is a local responsibility, setting national transit standards for level of service and 

performance would not be “in consonance with the goals and objectives of every metropolitan 

area.” The report estimated urban public transportation needs through 1990 to be $63.4 billion. 

[1972 National Transportation Report, p. xi, 126-127] 

Urban transportation was “the most important segment of the Nation’s transportation system 

because of the concentration of population in urban areas.” About 74 percent of the Nation’s 

population lived in cities and their suburbs, with that figure expected to increase to 82 percent by 

1990: 

The development of land at urban densities occurred at a pace that was not, and probably 

could not be, matched with the provision of adequate physical facilities—in this instance, 

transportation facilities.

The population shift, coupled with the growing affluence of the populace, “created a real challenge 

in providing urban transportation service.” Urban transportation systems “operate reasonably well” 

in moving large numbers of people and quantities of goods, but they have several problems. First 

was congestion, which generally reduced mobility during peak periods. Providing sufficient 

capacity for those peak periods was “generally too costly and inefficient.” However, to some 

extent, “congestion results from peak-hour travelers not paying the full cost of providing additional 

peak capacity as well as from the failure to develop and apply more innovative solutions, both 

physical and institutional to deal with congestion.” 

Second, modal choice was too limited. For those with an automobile, it provided full access to the 

area, but for those who cannot afford one or do not want one, transit provided “a generally poor 

level of service and does not provide service to a large portion of travelers in an urban area.” 

Third, urban transportation had undesirable environmental effects. “These include air pollution, 

noise, accidents resulting from the operation of the system, disruptions and dislocations of homes, 

businesses, and communities, and the taking of scarce urban land for construction of the system.” 

The consequences were ignored for many years because they “were not understood,” but now the 
312 

social and environmental costs of transportation decisions were factoring into planning 

transportation systems.

Finally, urban transportation facilities too often have been provided without taking full advantage of 

the opportunity to use them to foster desirable development patterns. In the past, transportation 

followed development and had “not been used to encourage development patterns that an urban 

area seeks as desirable.” 

These problems must be addressed as part of the solution to urban transportation problems. We 

have the ability to implement improvements that would address these problems, but it is “only 

through a process that identifies and fully analyzes a wide range of alternatives that intelligent

decisions can be made.” [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 186-188] 

Typically, congestion results in pressure for increased highway capacity. “However, a wide variety 

of techniques can be employed to improve urban transportation systems.” For example, instead of 

adding capacity, a more “complementary approach is to improve the productivity of existing urban 

transportation systems through means requiring relatively little capital investment.” These 

alternatives include increasing the occupancy of vehicles and the flow of vehicles on the system: 

The first approach has focused on priority schemes for high-occupancy highway vehicles; 

that is, buses and car pools, and general improvements to public transportation systems. 

The second approach has been directed at highway improvements requiring minimum 

capital cost and short leadtimes, such as traffic operations improvements, freeway metering, 

congestion pricing, etc. The latter approach can also affect vehicle occupancy. [1972 

National Transportation Report, p. 197-198] 

The report paid special attention to congestion pricing. “Underpricing of transportation can lead to 

overconsumption of travel.” In three ways, urban automobile transportation appears to have been 

“underpriced with respect to the cost of providing it and in relation to urban mass transportation.” 

Those three ways were cost of travel in peak hours, cost of environmental and social impacts, and 

cost of operating and maintaining urban highways. Increasing the cost of automobile use during 

peak periods would reduce the number of motor vehicle trips, shift some travel to public 

transportation and carpools, reduce highway and parking facility requirements, reduce undesirable 

environmental and social effects, and shift some trips to off-peak hours. 

Two major arguments had been offered against congestion pricing: 

First, the travelers that would be most affected by pricing would be the poor travelers . . . . 

Second, the nature of changes in travel patterns as a result of congestion pricing is unclear. 

A number of techniques had been proposed for pricing: 

They range from simple techniques, such as increasing downtown parking charges, to 

complex approaches that would automatically monitor all vehicles through a central 
313 

computer and bill users on monthly terms. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 206-

207] 

Vehicle restrictions offered another alternative for reducing congestion. Increased attention was 

being paid to schemes for reducing traffic in downtown areas, including creation of pedestrian 

malls on certain streets and prohibiting all vehicles in certain areas. In short, “an improved 

environment for living and working can be achieved by restricting vehicle movements in crowded 

portions of a city,” such as the central business district.

Improving public transportation systems to entice people out of their personal automobiles was 

another option. Increased service and ridership could result from improved travel time, lower cost, 

and greater convenience by better vehicle characteristics such as air conditioning, comfortable seats, 

and adequate lighting as well as operational changes such as well-kept schedules, restricted bus 

routes to better serve demand, and “shopper specials.” [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 

208] 

Alternatives such as these had the advantage of minimal cost, especially compared with 

construction alternatives, but the difficulties of implementation could not be overlooked. 

“Institutional rigidity, established public attitude and habits, and the interests of special groups must 

all be dealt with.” To make these changes a reality would “require a major effort to encourage, 

promote, and implement them. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 208-211] 

The key was greater flexibility. Urban area officials “should have considerable latitude in the 

assessment of their particular problems and solutions.” Also needed was “an organization at the 

urban level with the ability to plan and implement transportation improvements effectively, and that 

is responsive to the democratic decisionmaking process.” [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 

253] 

The report stressed that in considering highway needs, an economic analysis was essential. The 

Department estimated needs to determine how such investments would affect road-user travel and

operating and accident costs:

The following significant results were obtained: First, substantially less than one-half of the 

highway needs reported by the States were found to be justified on the basis of direct user 

benefits exceeding project costs. Second, the average user benefits-to-investment-costs ratio

tended to be higher for improvements on highways of higher functional class. Finally, the 

proportion of improvements that result in measurable road-user savings exceeding added 

investment costs appears much greater in urban areas, particularly urbanized areas. 

Subjecting the data to economic models to assess economic justification, the report concluded that: 

The analysis of the 22-year economically justifiable investment indicated that some $38.8 

billion in 1969 dollars could be expended nationwide on major new construction or 

reconstruction on the rural and intercity arterial highway system, including the completion 

of the Interstate Highway System.
314 

An additional analysis indicated that “only $640 million would be required nationwide for the 22-

year period for investment in rural and intercity arterial highways . . . to maintain, on the average, 

today’s user costs per mile of travel.” 

In short, reported highway needs were considerably higher than those that could be economically 

justified. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 274-278] 

In reviewing conclusions and guidelines for future action, the report stated that the Federal 

Government “may in many cases not be the most appropriate agent for taking actions that are most 

effective.” The idea, therefore, was to seek “ways of increasing the options available for State and 

local government action by lessening the restrictions imposed by Federal aid programs.” 

If restrictions limiting funds to a specific mode were lifted, “the States and urban areas would take 

advantage of the added flexibility individually by State or urbanized area.” Some of the largest 

urban areas indicated they would increase mass transit funding by at least 10 percent. However, 

“when viewed nationwide there would not be a radical shift into or out of any one modal area of 

investment if program restrictions were reduced.” The biggest area, 15 percent, would be for mass 

transit. In the largest urbanized areas, rail would be the main component: 

Rail was reported to account for 71 percent of total future Urban Public Transportation 

investment; 81 percent in urbanized areas of over 2 million, and 41 percent in areas from 1 

to 2 million population. 

If modal barriers were removed, however, only 3 of the 10 largest areas (Boston-Providence, New 

York, and San Francisco) projected large shifts of funding from highways to mass transit. The 

shifts could be substantial, including nearly $2 billion in New York. [1972 National 

Transportation Report, p. 319-320] 

In considering such shifts in the use of Federal funds, Federal officials needed to consider the State 

and local roles in transportation planning. State officials were concerned about “the possible 

fragmentation of metropolitan transportation system development” if funds were allocated directly 

to individual jurisdictions. “This would suggest that any Federal program of this nature should 

provide that a local recipient body have sufficient metropolitanwide scope to insure system 

connectivity.” 

These considerations led the Department to recommend a single urban fund for urban highway and 

mass transit projects, as reflected in the proposed Federal-Aid Highway and Mass Transportation 

Act of 1972. The Interstate Highway Program would continue as a separate category, but a rural 

general transportation fund would be established for highways on and off the Federal-aid systems:

The creation of a flexible fund would result in transportation expenditures more in line with 

the goals and objectives of States and local governments. There is no evidence from the 

NTS that a Federal interest would be compromised by introducing extensive funding 

flexibility. Indeed, the evidence indicates there would be very little change, in the 

aggregate, in the funding of any component of the Nation’s transportation system. 
315 

The 3C transportation planning process initiated by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962 required 

the full participation of local and State governments. For the results to reflect State and local needs, 

“these governments need to have access to funds to finance transportation improvements.” The 

report recommended “that a single urban fund be established, with appropriate intermodal 

flexibility . . . and that 40 percent of that fund be passed through to the control of local 

governments.” 

In view of State concerns about the ability of local governments to plan systemwide facilities 

interconnecting with State and national systems, the Department proposed “to allow the funds to be 

controlled by local entities only if they create a consortium of governments formed by units of 

general purpose government located within a metropolitan area.” It continued: 

The consortium would also have to have certain other characteristics, including membership 

of high-level elected officials, planning authority for all modes of surface transportation, and 

authority to develop an annual program of transportation projects to be undertaken in the 

metropolitan area. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 321-322] 

The report emphasized the value of urban alternatives involving little or no capital investment. 

These included devices for giving priority to high-occupancy vehicles, increased regulation of 

automobile use in downtown areas, the removal of market-entry barriers for taxicabs and jitneys, 

and marketing to encourage use of public transportation. Another alternative was: 

A peak-period pricing system, in which each user is required to pay for the added congestion 

and external consequences imposed on others, would be an effective device for rationing 

urban highway capacity more efficiently for those users most willing to pay. This system, 

however, may be technically difficult to implement and would probably meet resistance 

from private auto users. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 324] 

Many State and local governments favored Federal operating subsidies. Some suggested increased 

flexibility in the use of Federal-aid funding, while others preferred a separate subsidy program. 

“Many of the comments regarding an operating subsidy program undoubtedly were motivated by 

fiscal crises at the local government level.” The Department supported making funds available for 

general public purposes or general transportation purposes, including operating subsidies. “Such 

provisions are contained in the Administration’s proposals for General Revenue Sharing and 

Transportation Revenue Sharing.” The premise here was flexibility for local choice. At the same 

time, the Department was opposed “to another categorized grant program that would make funds 

available exclusively for public transit operating subsidies.” The report continued: 

The key point here is that such a new categorical grant program for operating subsidies 

would in effect result in an even more decisive role for the Federal Government in setting 

local funding priorities among modes and, no matter how well conceived, would require 

Federal intervention and control in local transit policy and managerial decisions and 

continue to compartmentalize local program choices rather than encourage freedom of 

action responsive to local priorities. [1972 National Transportation Report, p. 325-326] 
316 

In summary, the national transportation policy recognized “a need and an opportunity to continue to 

improve the responsiveness of Federal aid transportation programs to the needs of State and local 

governments.” As Secretary Volpe put it in his August 3 transmittal letter, the information in the 

report “reaffirms this Administration’s commitment to provide more flexibility in Federal Aid 

programs, as contained in the proposed Federal Aid Highway and Mass Transportation Act of 1972, 

introduced as HR 14759 and S. 3590.” [1972 National Transportation Report, p. xxii, transmittal 

letter]

Commission on Highway Beautification Interim Report

Section 123 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 had established a Commission on Highway 

Beautification to study implementation of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. The 

Commission, which began operation in late 1971, was to submit recommendations on 

implementation of the law and the preservation and enhancement of natural beauty along America’s 

highways that may not have been dealt with fully in the 1965 Act. The Commission also was to 

review current policies and practices; compile data on the extent of control of outdoor advertising; 

study problems related to on-premise outdoor advertising signs, promotional signs, directional 

signs, and signs providing information essential to the motoring public; and consider financing 

options, including the Highway Trust Fund, for carrying out a highway beautification program. 

The 11 Commission members included Senators James L. Buckley (Conservative Party, NY), Mike 

Gravel (D-Ak.), Jennings Randolph (D-WV), and Robert T. Stafford (R-Vt.) and Representatives 

Don H. Clausen (R-Ca.), Kenneth J. Gray (D-Il.), Wilmer D. Mizell (R-NC), and Jim Wright (DTx.), who served as chairman. (Senators Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. (R-Ct.), and Birch Bayh (D-In.), 

both of whom moved on to other matters during the life of the Commission, and Representatives Ed 

Edmondson (D-Ok.), who did not seek reelection in 1972) and Fred Schwengel (R-Ia.), who lost his 

reelection bid in 1972, were former members of the Commission.) 

In 1972, the Highway Beautification Commission held public hearings in Atlanta, Los Angeles, St. 

Louis, Meriden (Connecticut), Syracuse, Washington, and Iowa City; commissioned two 

nationwide public opinion polls; and held public seminars in 1973. 

The Commission issued an interim report in August 1972 with the following recommendations: 

• The Commission therefore recommends that Congress consider the advisability of 

extending the control of outdoor advertising along Interstate and Federal-aid Primary 

highways to those additional signs which are visible from the controlled highway and 

erected with the purpose of their message being read from the controlled roadway. 

• The Commission believes that the question of how to get [traveler-service] information to 

motorists in a most efficient manner consistent with highway beautification deserves more 

study before it makes any long-range recommendations. In the interim it is recommending 

that States be allowed, and encouraged, to remove first those nonconforming billboards 

which have no traveler-service orientation and to defer removal of nonconforming signs 

giving directional information to motorists. At the same time, States are reminded of the 

importance of their responsibility to provide information to motorists on Interstate and 
317 

Primary highways, and it is recommended that States make greater use of the authority 

provided in their laws to carry out developmental work in the expansion and improvement 

of information systems which might be used in lieu of nonconforming outdoor advertising 

signs.

• It appears Congress could direct the Department of Transportation to review standards 

regarding businesses eligible to use such signs; content, size and placement of signs, criteria 

for public service signs, and other matters. Congress could also consider the language in 

section 131(f) which now gives specific permission for signs giving information in the 

interest of the traveling public only within the right-of-way of Interstate highways.

• The Commission believes that Congress should reconsider the hiatus which exists, perhaps 

unintentionally, in the prescribed dates of erection of [lawfully erected] billboards for 

purposes of Federal participation in the payment of just compensation. The Commission 

believes that Federal matching funds should be available wherever Federal law requires the 

payment of just compensation. The Commission further finds that it is State, not Federal 

law which renders any signs unlawful, and believes that the term “lawfully erected” clearly 

applies to any sign which was erected in conformity with applicable State law at the time of 

its erection.

• In order to carry out its responsibility to the States under Title 1 of the Highway 

Beautification Act, it is recommended that Congress provide steady funding for removal of 

nonconforming outdoor advertising signs within a reasonable time, without impairing 

progress under other parts of Federal or State laws relating to highway beautification. When 

more complete information is available about the cost of the sign removal program, it is also 

recommended that funding be scheduled to complete the program within a specified time. 

• The Commission is not prepared at this time to recommend any Federal standards [on 

location, design, construction, and maintenance of on-premise signs (those advertising 

activities conducted on the property on which the sign is located)] but urges units of State 

and local government to address themselves to the development of appropriate local 

standards for the governance of on-premise signs.

• The Commission does not recommend any change in Federal law at this time [regarding the 

right of States to zone areas for commercial and industrial purposes, a practice sometimes 

used solely to allow erection of outdoor advertisements] but believes that Congress and the 

Department of Transportation should resolve the position of the Federal government 

regarding the rights of States to zone roadside lands, and resolve any uncertainties about the 

Federal acceptance of State action.

 [The Priority of Quality, Commission on Highway Beautification, December 31, 1973, p. ii, 3, 10-

14] 

Rebellion Against the Concrete Ethos

After approving the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, the Committee on Public Works forwarded 

the bill at the request of Senator Williams to the Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs. The 

idea was to give the committee with jurisdiction over transit the opportunity to consider the 

provisions in the bill relating to urban mass transportation. The Public Works Committee requested 

a report by September 8. 
318 

With little time after the recess, the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee held a hearing 

on September 7. Senator Williams, who opened the hearing, supported efforts to open up the 

Highway Trust Fund: 

With almost $4 billion in pending applications for urban mass transit grants and only $1 

billion available under the urban mass transit act for the coming fiscal year, additional 

monies are urgently needed and, in my opinion, the more money that we make available, the 

better off our nation’s citizens will be. The imbalance between highway monies and transit 

monies still exists. We are still spending over $5 for highways for every $1 we spend for 

urban mass transportation; and with our ever-increasing mass transit needs, such an 

imbalance can no longer be tolerated. 

They had three major proposals to consider. The first was the provision in S. 3939 that would 

allow the use of $300 million of Highway Trust Fund money for highway-related mass transit, 

including purchase of buses. Second, the Cooper-Muskie amendment would allow the use of $800 

million in Federal-aid urban system funding for highways or mass transit, including rail mass transit 

systems. Finally, the Kennedy-Weicker amendment would allow a wider range of funds, namely 

$2.4 billion in non-Interstate Federal-aid funds, for all types of urban mass transportation at the 

discretion of the cities and States. 

Whatever the committee or the Congress decided, Senator Williams wanted to ensure that it would 

be in addition to, not a substitute for, funding under the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act. 

 He hoped that Secretary Volpe would make such a pledge. “If this pledge is not forthcoming, it 

seems to me we would be simply robbing Peter to pay Paul and all the proposals before us become 

a cruel hoax and paper promises to our Nation’s citizens.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, 

Hearing before the Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs, Committee on Housing and 

Urban Affairs, on S. 3939, 92nd Congress, 2d Session, September 7, 1972, p. 3] 

Senators Kennedy, Weicker, and Cooper testified in support of their amendments. Senator 

Kennedy explained that the Kennedy-Weicker amendment “would be a step toward rationalizing 

the Nation’s transportation system.” It would provide, he said, at least $2.3 billion for nonInterstate purposes that “could be used for the construction of public mass transportation systems 

and the acquisition of mass transit facilities, including rail transit.” It would not affect funding for 

the Interstate System or from the Urban Mass Transportation Act. The funding under the 

amendment was “supplementary to and not in substitution of funds under UMTA.” 

The greatest flaw of the Public Works Committee bill was that “it still tells cities and States that 

highways remain the single preferred answer to the transportation crisis.” In contrast, “we are in the 

midst of a national rebellion against the concrete ethos,” with some 32 cities trying to block 

construction of urban Interstates that they believe “would produce more harm than good.” The 

greatest burden “always falls on the poor and the elderly.” Their homes are the ones that are torn 

down for the Interstates. “Those who most need mobility—the poor, the handicapped, the old and 

the young—are made to suffer in a society which unwisely allocates its resources away from public 

mass transportation.” 
319 

For too long, “we have condemned the Nation to a distorted transportation system by having 

separate funding sources for separate modes of transportation and placing the most money with the 

largest Federal share in the pot marked highways.” No wonder, Senator Kennedy said, cities and 

States had “succumbed to the Federal temptation to pour concrete over the land and pray that the 

transportation crisis will be resolved.” The Kennedy-Weicker amendment was intended to “halt 

that situation” by providing flexibility to State and local officials.

He hoped that, at last, the highway lobby “would become sensitive to the needs of many of us who 

live in urban cities” and the surrounding suburbs: 

The highway lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in the Congress, comprised of the 

oil and gas groups, the contractors, the roadbuilders, and the truckers. For years, they have 

been insensitive, unyielding, and unbending to the needs of the great majority of Americans 

. . . . I would hope that they would be willing to permit those local entities and State 

governments who understand their transportation needs the most to have the opportunity to 

vote how best to use their allocation in meeting the critical transportation crisis. [FederalAid Highway Act of 1972, September 7, 1972, p. 7-9] 

Senator Weicker began by stating that “what is more important than a highway trust fund is the 

legislative trust of the U.S. Senate.” In recent years, however, the Congress had “managed to avoid 

fulfilling that trust in transportation matters by deferring its powers of creativity to the supposed 

proprieties of an artificiality known as the highway trust fund.” Highways were needed in 1956 and 

would be needed in the future. “What is clear now, however, is that highways alone or in 

overwhelming proportions are a mobility, environmental, and safety disaster.” In view of 

congestion and the loss of 55,000 lives on the roads each year, he said, “We have become a Nation 

of automotive lemmings.” 

The Kennedy-Weicker amendment was designed to restore balance. “That in diversity rather than 

sameness lies . . . the answer to mobility.” He and Senator Kennedy wanted “no part of the arrogant 

claim made on our behalf that the taxes we pay when purchasing gasoline should go to highways.” 

Sometimes, people move by car, but others by train, bus, and plane. “And yet the Congress has said 

that moving by car is 10 times more important than moving by train or three times more important 

that moving by plane.” He concluded: 

Gentlemen, please end the trance. This is illogical madness and all because of a 20-year old 

transportation irrelevancy. Whether it is Cooper-Muskie, Kennedy-Weicker, or the 

initiative of your own committee, please let the Nation know that the automatic pilot turned 

on 16 years ago as to national transportation has been turned off and humans are again 

making policy. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, September 7, 1972, p. 10-11] 

Senator Cooper, who was not running for reelection in 1972, said that he had been on the Public 

Works Committee for 18 of his 20 years in the Senate. He briefly described the evolution of the 

committee’s work to provide openings for highway mass transportation. He acknowledged 

Secretary Volpe’s Single Urban Fund proposal “but it became evident that it did not have 

widespread support.” 
320 

He described the Cooper-Muskie amendment, actually Senator Cooper’s substitute for Senator 

Muskie’s proposal, that would give the Governors or State highway commissions the flexibility 

they needed. He wanted to respond to some of the arguments used against the proposal “by those 

who consider that the highway trust fund should not be touched or tapped in any way.” He 

expected the Highway Trust Fund to be around for many years. He thought that if Cooper-Muskie 

became law, “there would still be ample funds for the construction of the necessary roads 

throughout the vast rural sections of our country.” While the amendment did not offer as much 

funding as the Kennedy-Weicker amendment, he said that Cooper-Muskie “does remove, I believe, 

the possibility of a conflict between the urban areas and the more rural areas in our country.” 

He did not think that the Highway Trust Fund should be the sole source of financing for highways 

and mass transit. Especially in the case of subways, “the funds made available by this and future 

Highway Acts cannot possibly provide the primary Federal financing for them.” The time had 

come, however, “to enable cities to better manage their capital expenditures for these closely related 

transportation modes.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, September 7, 1972, p. 11-15] 

Secretary Volpe, the next witness, said he was “pleased” that S. 3939 incorporated several 

Administration recommendations. However, he did not believe that the bill as presently drafted 

“meets the critical need to achieve efficient urban mobility through balanced transportation brought 

about by real flexibility of modal choice.” He appreciated the efforts of the Public Works 

Committee to broaden eligibility to bus purchases under Section 142 (“Public Transportation”) of 

Title 23, but he thought the provision should be “broadened further if we are to provide meaningful 

alternatives to our local officials.” Therefore, he endorsed the Cooper-Muskie amendment that 

would amend Section 142 to allow Highway Trust Fund revenue to be used for rail transit projects 

and equalize the Federal share of non-Interstate highway and transit projects at 70 percent.

He objected to the provision of S. 3939 that allowed 100-percent Federal-aid financing of bus 

purchases. “The lack of some degree of local contribution detracts from the responsibility and 

accountability which ordinarily is applied to investments of local revenues.” Senator Cooper, 

Volpe said, intended to offer an amendment to change the Federal share to 70 percent. 

Volpe also recommended amending the Urban Mass Transportation Act to authorize $3 billion in 

additional contract authority to sustain the transit program from general revenues through FY 1977. 

Given that the Senate had acted earlier in the year on the legislation and the House was still 

considering it, Secretary Volpe explained that the recommendation was coming late in the process 

because the Administration had been awaiting congressional action on the Single Urban Fund. 

“Now that we have an indication—and maybe it is more than indication—of the apparent 

unwillingness of the Congress to adopt our single urban fund in total,” he was recommending the 

additional $3 billion. “We feel that this funding will satisfy our objective of assuring the continued 

progress and the guaranty of financing for the urban mass transportation program.” The UMTA 

program was funded through FY 1974, but the addition of this funding now would ensure local 

officials and the transit industry of the continuity of the program. 
321 

Senator Williams did not seek the pledge he mentioned that the funding under consideration would 

be in addition to, not a substitute for, the UMTA funding. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, 

September 7, 1972, p. 16-19, 26] 

During the question period, Senator Robert Packwood (R-Or.) asked if Secretary Volpe would 

oppose the Kennedy-Weicker amendment when it came up for a vote on the Senate floor: 

Secretary Volpe. Let me put it this way, Senator Packwood. I am being—I will just use a 

mild term—slightly slammed because I have dared suggest an opening of the highway trust 

fund for a purpose which some people feel—some people feel—was not a part of its original 

intent. It just so happens that some of the members of this committee will remember back 

in 1955. I was serving as Commissioner of Public Works [in Massachusetts] when General 

Clay made his report to General Eisenhower. Legislation was adopted that year, but in 1956 

it was enacted, and President Eisenhower saw fit to appoint me as the first Federal Highway 

Administrator. I was quite aware of the tremendous and gigantic program ahead of us. We 

set a course for ourselves, and I am very proud of what has happened under that program. 

By the end of this month, 80 percent of that program will be completed. Although there has 

been some criticism of it—I dare say that there would be someone who would find fault 

with the way I poured water of that pitcher into that glass—the fact remains that overall it 

has been a tremendously successful program. I say this especially in terms of the lack of 

corruption and the lack of any impropriety. Naturally, there may be some instances that 

might be found at levels 3,000 men down the line, but considering that this is the largest 

public works program in the history of the world, I think we can be proud of the record. The 

Federal/State partnership that has evolved in this program has been greatly responsible for 

that record.

Today I frequently have to reply to highway contractors, for instance, who have criticized 

me for the step I have proposed. I have asked them what they have been doing the last 31⁄2 

years and they say, “Well, we are building highways.” I said, “Fine.” I said, “I have been 

sitting on a chair in Washington. I am not making quite as much money as you are making 

right now. I used to make the same kind of money or more than you made a few years ago; 

but the fact is, I have had an opportunity to sit in a seat where I can see what is happening, 

and I know that we are not solving the total transportation problem. Furthermore, unless we 

do something about it[,] all we will do is build more highways which are built and designed 

for 70 miles per hour at the very, very expensive costs but which at certain times of the day, 

and in some cities nearly all day long, they are utilized at 5 to 8 miles per hour. In my 

opinion, that’s a tremendous waste of money. 

Senator Packwood. Do they agree with you? 

Secretary Volpe. When I talk to them individually, Senator Packwood, strangely enough, 

yes, they seem to finally say, “Well, gee, I hadn’t thought of it that way.” When I talk to 

them as a group, they never do. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, September 7, 1972, p. 

22-23] 
322 

Senator Proxmire, during his question period, wondered why Secretary Volpe opposed the 

Kennedy-Weicker amendment. “It seems to me this amendment fits into the revenue sharing 

philosophy of the administration.” Decisions on mass transit versus highways would “be made at 

the grass roots level by those who are closest to the problem within their State and know best.” 

Secretary Volpe responded by comparing the amendment to the Cooper-Muskie amendment: 

I like to feel I am pragmatic in my approach to problems, and I can only say to you that I 

believe in this year of our Lord, 1972, that if we are able to open up the highway trust fund 

to include the kinds of things that the Cooper-Muskie amendment provide for, in addition to 

what the Senate Public Works Committee has already provided, we will have gone a giant 

step toward getting our job done. 

I think the Kennedy-Weicker proposal is one which I just do not think is in the cards to get 

passed this year. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, September 7, 1972, p. 27] 

Allan Pritchard, representing the National League of Cities, discussed the focus of Federal and State 

funding on highways. “Compounding the inequitable allocation of funds to urban areas has been 

the inability of cities to use highway trust fund moneys to respond to local priorities unless those 

priorities call for more major highways and expressways.” He added:

More highways and expressways are not the answers to urban congestion in most of our 

cities. The restrictions against using full discretion in the application of the trust fund to 

finance comprehensive transportation systems in urban areas places rail transportation, 

particularly, and urban areas generally, at a disadvantage, as they compare to the highway 

system . . . . 

The question in our minds is not freeways versus rail transit, but how much of each as 

determined by the elected local decisionmakers. 

The league, Pritchard said, supported the additional $3 billion in contract authority and an increase 

in Federal shares for transit projects (he estimated 80 percent rather than the Secretary’s 70 

percent). [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, September 7, 1972, p. 30] 

Carmack Cochran accompanied Pritchard on behalf of the American Transit Association. He said 

the association favored the Cooper-Muskie amendment over the Weicker-Kennedy amendment. 

Senators Proxmire and Cooper were surprised by the opposition to Weicker-Kennedy: 

Senator Proxmire. You are telling us then, from your standpoint, that the Cooper-Muskie 

approach would be better because it would assure a certain, specific amount and you think 

that is better than to leave it to the discretion of the State legislatures; is that right?

Mr. Cochran. I do, sir. 

Senator Proxmire. Do all you gentlemen share that view?

Mr. Pritchard. Yes. 

Senator Proxmire. Speaking for the cities? 
323 

Mr. Pritchard. Yes. Well, theoretically, the Kennedy-Weicker proposal sounds as though it 

give a lot more discretion and potentially more use of funds in the urban areas for mass 

transit. We are afraid that the record of the State transportation operations, which are 

basically highway oriented as they deal with urban areas, have not been particularly good. 

Second, it is quite obvious that what we would end up with would be a project by project 

approval process from the State to local—to urban areas. The advantage of the CooperMuskie proposal is that there is a continuous flow of money to the urban area and it is 

possible for the urban planning process to develop a comprehensive plan, lay out its 

priorities, work program, and know that there is a fixed amount of money against which it 

can plan its total transportation program. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, September 7, 

1972, p. 33-34] 

Another witness, the American Trucking Associations’ Edward V. Kiley, said:

We share the obvious concern for urban mass transportation problems, and have no 

objection to any program to improve public transportation of any type. But we believe that 

to the extent these problems are not being solved through highway programs, there should 

be other, supplemental, programs. 

He said the trucking industry “cannot accept the proposition that in addition to our recognized 

responsibility for the highway program, that we also have a special [tax] responsibility for other 

programs.” The proposition, he said, “violates basic elements of equity and justice.” 

Charles A. Webb, president of the National Association of Motor Bus Owners, told the committee 

that it was “unfair for publicly-owned and subsidized enterprises to provide transportation at rates 

which sharply undercut those of their privately-owned competitors.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1972, September 7, 1972, p. 54-55] 

John Kramer of the Highway Advisory Coalition also testified. He began by explaining what the 

coalition was. “Our two main areas of activity are promoting legislation similar to the two 

amendments before you and assisting local citizen groups engaged in transportation controversies.” 

Senator Proxmire interrupted to say he appreciated the explanation because he assumed the 

Highway Advisory Coalition was part of the highway lobby. “No, sir,” Kramer replied, “we are 

counter-highway lobby, as it were.” 

He picked up on the prior discussion with Kiley, stating: 

Now, looking at the trucking industry alone, we don’t have any good national studies as to 

what the real costs of congestion are, but we do know that in the New York metropolitan 

area alone, increased delivery costs due to congestion amount of at least $100 million a year. 

Those costs aren’t paid by the industry, I might add, rather they are paid by the people who 

purchase the goods that the industry delivers. 
324 

As for the suggestion that building more urban highways would relieve congestion, Kramer said, “I 

think the experience of the last 6 or 7 years in the highway program demonstrates that such an 

approach is neither practical nor desirable.” He pointed out that in “at least 12 big cities, 60 percent 

of the land area is already given over to the movement and storage of the automobile.” He 

continued: 

In 73 cities, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, we are going to have to 

limit the number of automobiles coming into the city if they are going to meet the standards 

of the 1970 Clean Air Act. And here we are talking about building still more highways, 

bringing more cars and trucks into the city. I just don’t see how anyone can seriously 

believe that that is the answer to the problem. It is just beyond me, frankly. 

Kramer wanted to address the pass-through issue in the Kennedy-Weicker amendment raised by 

Pritchard and Cochran in their testimony: 

I think there was a certain amount of misinformation with respect to the pass-through 

provisions of the bill as reported out of the Public Works committee. The two amendments 

don’t affect the cities’ control of the $800 million urban system authorization. That is the 

same with both bills.

The only difference . . . was that the States could use most of the money authorized for 

programs of the Interstate System if, in their judgment, such an approach would best meet 

their particular transportation needs . . . . 

Another way of explaining it is that the Kennedy-Weicker amendment simply strikes out in 

each place it appears in section 142 of the bill the words “other than rail.” Right now as the 

bill stands, States and cities can elect to use highway trust money for buses. What the 

Cooper-Muskie amendment does is allow cities to use the urban system funds for rail as 

well. All the Kennedy-Weicker amendment is doing is opening up the other programs as 

well. There is no change. They both have that guaranteed floor. 

He also pointed out that Kennedy-Weicker would not touch the Interstate System, “the program 

they are particularly concerned about.” Kennedy-Weicker and Cooper-Muskie “exclude the 

Interstate System from those programs in which local option for rail is provided.” 

Senator Proxmire wondered if at the end of the Interstate program, the Federal gasoline tax might 

not be lowered so the States that wished to do so could pick up the revenue and use it as they saw 

fit. Kramer said, “I think with increasing energy shortages over the years we will probably be in a 

situation where we will want to raise that tax rather than lower it.” He thought, however, that the 

concept of user taxes was “a bit unreal.” He explained:

I mean if we are willing to accept the notion that particular industries or individuals have to 

get a direct return on every dollar that they pay in taxes in the precise area that they are 

paying tax— 
325 

Senator Proxmire picked up on the idea of the highway user taxes being used for any purpose. 

“When we talk like that I think we really generate tremendous opposition. I do not know if we do 

our cause much good.” Kramer said the idea of user taxes was “ludicrous to me,” using the analogy 

of taxes on alcohol. “Why can’t we earmark all of the sales taxes that we pay on alcohol for 

saloons.” 

In a prepared statement, Kramer said that if S. 3939 were amended to include rail as well as bus 

transit, it “would go a long way toward correcting the longstanding balance between highways and 

public transportation.” He summarized the debate between the two amendments under 

consideration: 

[E]ither one can pursue the approach of the Kennedy-Weicker amendment and open up all 

the non-Interstate authorizations of the bill for rail as well as for buses and highways on a 

local option basis or one can follow the line of the Cooper-Muskie amendment and just 

open the urban system authorization for rail transit as well as for buses. 

The Highway Action Coalition favored the Kennedy-Weicker approach.

Kramer, in the statement, expressed concerns about the “Alternative Federal-Aid Procedures” 

provision of the Public Works Committee’s bill. The coalition’s concern was that by transferring 

“project by project approval” from the U.S. Department of Transportation to the State highway 

departments, the provision would “undermine those sections of the bill which give local elected 

officials greater leverage viz-a-viz the state highway departments in making local transportation 

decisions.” He also thought it “might weaken the effect of important existing environmental, civil 

rights and housing relocation safeguards.” It also would set a precedent for thwarting 

environmental requirements on other projects. Kramer also objected to the provision permitting 

construction of the San Antonio North Expressway “despite a ruling to the contrary by the Fifth 

Circuit Court of Appeals.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, September 7, 1972, p. 60-64] 

In keeping with the timetable specified by the Public Works Committee, the Committee on 

Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs submitted its report on September 8, 1972. The committee

had voted for a two-part recommendation. The first part was to add an urban transit title, Title III, 

to S. 3939 to provide operating subsidies for mass transportation systems, as contained in the 

omnibus act, and an additional $3 billion in contract authority, as recommended by Secretary Volpe 

during his testimony. The committee’s report explained that past Federal-aid for mass 

transportation had not done anything to “alleviate the financial distress of the transit industries and 

the increasing number of municipalities which own and operate transit systems.” With this distress 

likely to increase in the absence of Federal subsidies, “cities and municipalities will continue to be 

forced to carry the burden of transit’s financial decline.” The report added: 

The major purpose is to assist in revitalizing the Nation’s mass transportation systems by 

allowing States and localities to determine which systems in their jurisdiction are in need of 

operating assistance and, on this basis, to submit to the Secretary of Transportation a 

comprehensive mass transportation service improvement program to improve such service 

and to place mass transportation operations on a sound financial basis. 
326 

Williams proposed this measure in case the similar measure in the omnibus housing and urban 

development bill did not become law. Despite Administration opposition to the measure, it 

survived by a narrow vote, 9 to 5. 

The additional $3 billion, as recommended by Volpe and put into amendment language by Senator 

Williams, “should satisfy the objective of assuring the continued progress and the guaranty of 

capital financing for the urban mass transportation program.” 

The second part of the committee’s recommendations was in narrative form. The committee 

appreciated the Public Works Committee’s provision making Highway Trust Fund revenues 

available for use within urban areas and certain rural areas for highway public transportation 

projects:

The Committee feels, however, that it is most important that this proposal be further 

broadened to assure that viable and meaningful alternatives are provided local officials as 

they seek to best satisfy the transportation needs of their communities. 

The committee recommended that the Public Works Committee modify Section 142 (“Public 

Transportation”) of Title 23 to incorporate the Cooper-Muskie amendment to “provide that funds 

authorized for the Federal-aid urban system be available for the acquisition and construction of rail 

transit facilities and equipment, as well as the highway public transportation projects currently 

contained in S. 3939.” Whether local officials decided to use the funds for highways or mass 

transit, “The option, in whatever case, would rest with the community, where the problems and 

needs are best known.” 

Finally, the committee stated that in view of the critical condition of mass transportation systems, it 

opposed impoundment of funds authorized and appropriated for the capital grant program: 

The Committee asked during public hearings for assurances from Secretary Volpe that if the 

Congress authorizes the $3 billion contained in Title III of the bill and the appropriations 

follow that the funds would not be impounded. Secretary Volpe replied: “I did not start this 

fight until I was given assurance that every dollar that the Congress authorized and 

appropriated would be spent, because the needs are there, and I have that assurance.” The 

Committee would expect this assurance to prove valid should the Congress approve the 

increased authorization. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, Report of the Committee on 

Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs to Accompany S. 3939, 92d Congress, 2d session, 

Report No. 92-1103, September 8, 1972] 

Following committee action, Title III containing operating subsidies and $3 billion in additional 

transit funding from the general Treasury was added to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. 

However, the Cooper-Muskie amendment would have to be considered on the Senate floor. The 

parliamentary maneuvering employed to shift the bill out of the Public Works Committee to a 

committee that would be less friendly to highways clouded the prospects for its recommendations. 
327 

Floor Action 

As Congress convened for its final pre-election session before adjourning on October 18, 

transportation interests recognized that, as a headline in The Journal of Commerce put it on 

September 8, “Highway Trust Fund Under Sharp Attack.” [Xbilanow, Ale, “Highway Trust Fund 

Under Sharp Attack,” The Journal of Commerce, September 8, 1972] 

On September 11, 1972, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) opened the first leg of its planned 75-mile 

system. It stretched 30 miles from Oakland to suburban Fremont. The opening made BART the 

first new rapid transit system to begin operation in the United States in decades. It contained many 

of the features that would be common among the new generation of subway systems, including 

automated operation via a computerized electronic network and fail-safe safety features. As The 

Washington Post put it, “Despite a decade of financial woes, political sniping, delays and bugs that 

plagued the system right up to opening day, the ultra-modern, fully automated BART complex 

represents a triumph of space-age technology and perseverance.” [Aarons, Leroy R., “S.F. Subway 

to Open Today,” The Washington Post, September 11, 1972] 

On September 27, President Nixon was in California for campaign fund raisers and, as The New 

York Times explained, “visual” public events “for the benefit of television cameras . . . giving the 

impression he was mingling with many people.” One event was a trip with his wife Pat on 2-week 

old BART. They boarded the train at the San Leandro station and chatted with General Manager B. 

R. Stokes on the short trip to the Lake Merritt station where they visited the BART operations 

control center on the west side of the station. After seeing the electrified route displays on the wall 

of the control room, President Nixon said, “You know, it does look like NASA.” 

At the San Leandro station, the President released a statement on BART that began:

Though the Bay Area Rapid Transit system has been in operation only a matter of days, it 

already appears that the San Francisco Bay area may become as widely renowned in the 

future for the space-age efficiency of BART as it has been in the past for the romance of the 

cable car.

BART, he said, set an example for the Nation, with bipartisan support from Republican and 

Democratic administrations at the Federal level, as well as State, local, and private sector 

involvement. Through 1972, UMTA had authorized $181 million for BART, about 13 percent of 

overall costs and he was pleased to announce an additional Federal capital grant of $38.1 million 

for BART. 

The President said:

Not only here in California but all across the Nation, the urban transportation picture is 

brightening as we move into the 1970s. Not only are some cities, such as Washington, 

following San Francisco in the installation of fixed rail systems, but others are meeting their 

transportation needs through innovations such as exclusive-use rights-of-way for buses. 
328 

He stressed that he had proposed the $10 billion authorized by the Urban Mass Transportation 

Assistance Act of 1970, adding that the “better transportation balance which we are striving for is 

indicated by the fact that in fiscal year 1973, for the first time, Federal funds for urban mass transit 

will surpass spending on urban highways.” He explained that the General Revenue Sharing 

legislation and the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 that he hoped to sign soon would increase 

funds that local officials could use for transit: 

I was most gratified—as were city officials across the country, and the millions of citizens 

they serve—when in passing this bill the Senate accepted my Administration’s proposal that 

the Highway Trust Fund be opened up to permit urban areas to use monies from the fund for 

public transportation if they so choose. This provision would not in itself take a cent away 

from highway needs[;] in fact, it scrupulously plays no favorites among the various 

alternative answers to urban transportation problems. What it would do is to give the people 

at the local level—the people who know best—a freer hand than they have had before in 

choosing that combination of answers which best suits their own particular needs. 

I hope that this sensible provision, together with the Administration’s proposal to provide 

funds directly to metropolitan transportation agencies for the first time, will remain in the 

bill which both Houses finally approve. Certain other features of the present Senate and 

House bills are much less desirable, but I hope that these can be eliminated, the strong 

features retained, and a sound bill sent to my desk for signature before the Congress 

adjourns. 

Now that BART is demonstrating how pleasant and convenient movement within our urban 

centers can be, we should be less disposed than ever to be patient with how congested and 

difficult it all too often is. The speedy resolution of America’s chronic and worsening 

traffic jams is far too urgent a matter to be stalled any longer by legislative or bureaucratic 

logjams, and I will continue my own determined efforts to keep it moving ahead. 

(A week later, on October 2, the computer-controlled brakes on one of BART’s trains 

malfunctioned, resulting in the train passing the end of the tracks and plunging down an 

embankment. The incident injured five people and raised concerns about the computerized controls 

intended to keep the trains and their passengers safe on the BART system and the other new rapid 

rail lines under construction in other areas. [Turner, Wallace, “5 on Bay Area Train Hurt as 

Automated Brakes Fail,” The New York Times, October 3, 1972; Hartlaub, Peter, San Francisco 

Chroncle, http://blog.sfgate.com/thebigevent/2012/08/16/rail-to-the-chief-when-nixon-rode-bart/.]) 

On September 14, 1972, The New York Times contained the latest in Mobil Oil’s advertisements on 

transportation issues. The headline on this one was unusually blunt coming from an element of the 

“highway lobby”: 

LET’S END THE HIGHWAY TRUST FUND
329 

“While America has developed a superb highway system through Highway Trust Fund revenues,” 

the ad began, “our mass transit has slipped sadly.” Mobil had been urging Congress to develop 

ways of improving mass transit and “re-examine the desirability of the Highway Trust Fund”: 

We doubt whether such special earmarked funds represent sound public policy. Experts in 

public finance have historically opposed trust-fund financing because this mechanism 

mandates decisionmaking and priority-setting by a bureaucracy with its own direction and 

momentum, without the proper annual review of proposed expenditures. 

We could not afford to simply divert Highway Trust Fund revenues to mass transit: 

Robbing Peter to pay Paul by diverting revenues from the Fund will give us the worst of 

both worlds—poor highways and poor mass transit. We cannot afford either. 

Under the current system, the ad pointed out, “highway-building has dominated federal 

transportation policy,” in part because of the disparity in matching share. “From the states’ 

viewpoint, it’s just plain cheaper to ignore mass transit and simply build highways.” 

Transportation decisionmaking should not be “an either/or situation.” By phasing out the Highway 

Trust Fund, Congress could “make appropriations at the federal level for an adequate, integrated 

transportation system.” Simply doing “what we have had for the past 50 years” was not the answer: 

We must innovate, and we must look ahead as far as advanced technology can take us in 

meeting both present and future transportation needs. 

The ad concluded: 

We are convinced that this can be achieved only through a National Master Transportation 

Program, financed both by existing gasoline taxes that would go into the general coffers and 

by annual appropriations large enough to do the job. A sound first step would be to end the 

Highway Trust Fund. 

Not all highway interests shared Mobil Oil’s sentiments. Robert W. Furtick, chairman of the board 

of the American Trucking Associations told a conference of the National Association of ShipperMotor Carriers that the effort to siphon $800 million from the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit 

was being channeled through the Highway Action Coalition: 

I believe that this antihighway sentiment and this fervor to latch onto highway taxes is a 

much more serious threat than has been generally recognized within the highway 

community.

Chairman Hartke of the Senate Commerce Committee’s Surface Transportation Subcommittee 

agreed the Federal-aid highway program was “under attack,” with transit interests thinking they had 

better uses for “the idle funds” in the Highway Trust Fund. He vowed to “work to block” the 

diversion, saying, “we need to complete the job that has been planned and worked on for so long. 
330 

[“Highway Trust Fund Diversion Fight Continues,” The Journal of Commerce, September 15, 

1972] 

The Senate began considering the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 on September 13, including 

Title III (“Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964”) as approved by the Committee on Banking, 

Housing and Urban Affairs. When the bill was entered into the record, Senator Robert C. Byrd (DWV) asked unanimous consent that after disposing of all amendments to S. 3939 that were called 

up on this date, further debate would be delayed until the next week, with amendments then limited 

to the Cooper-Muskie and Kennedy-Weicker amendments. Senator Byrd said he had cleared his 

request with all Senators involved in the matter. The request was adopted. [Congressional RecordSenate, September 13, 1972, p. 30480] 

Much of the bill’s time on the Senate floor consisted of going through each of its provisions as 

approved by the Committee on Public Works. When Section 121 amending the Highway 

Beautification Act came up, Senator Cooper offered an amendment to remove the 2-year 

moratorium that Secretary Volpe had cited in his August 18 letter. Cooper recalled that Congress 

had been wrestling with control of outdoor advertising since 1958, when the Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1958 provided a Federal-aid funding bonus to States that entered into an agreement to 

control the erection and maintenance of outdoor advertising signs, displays, and devices in areas 

adjacent to the Interstate System. The 1965 Highway Beautification Act, he said, had been 

“ineffective because the States were slow to enact the necessary legislation and Congress . . . failed 

to provide funds to the States for the payment of the just compensation required by that act” for 

removal of signs erected legally under State law. 

Now, S. 3939 was proposing a moratorium on removing directional signs: 

The argument is made that certain “directional” signs, such as those which point out 

restaurants, hotels, and motels, service stations, and similar facilities are of interest to the 

traveling public. 

The idea was that the moratorium “will help small roadside businesses, small tourist motels, and 

small gasoline stations,” but Senator Cooper said it would have the opposite result. “It will work to 

the advantage of the largest businesses, franchised chains, oil companies, and the large sign 

companies which have great capital resources.” He pointed out that the Federal-Aid Highway Act 

of 1970 had established a Commission on Highway Beautification that had not yet submitted its 

findings; action on control of outdoor advertising should be postponed until the commission 

completed its work. 

Senator Buckley of New York said he and Senator Baker of Tennessee had introduced the measure: 

Its purpose is not to delay progress on the removal of the signs, but rather to provide the 

time within which the Commission on Highway Beautification can complete its hearings 

and make final report to the Congress to carry out the final policy on sign removal. 
331 

I might add that this provision which would be stricken by the amendment of the Senator 

from Kentucky was introduced at the specific recommendation of the Commission on 

Highway Beautification, of which I am a member, following some extensive hearings in 

which it was determined that to carry through on the removal of all signs which are 

addressed to tourists and travelers on our highways would be a disservice to those same 

travelers.

Before all such signs were removed, he said, “we should have the full benefit of these extensive 

hearings.” 

After further debate, the Senate rejected Senator Cooper’s amendment, 31 to 44. [Congressional 

Record-Senate, September 13, 1972, p. 30491-30495] 

One of the longest debates concerned Section 147 freeing the U.S. 281/North Expressway from any 

Federal restrictions. Senator Buckley introduced an amendment to strike the provision: 

This section would be the first step in involving the Congress in an endless round of specific 

adjudications over whether this highway or that dam or this canal should be exempted from 

compliance with Federal environmental statutes. It would thrust the Congress into the realm 

of the courts [and] into the adjudication of sharply contested specific disputes. 

We would be faced, as we are here, with serious factual questions raised by the parties to the 

dispute but with no satisfactory means to resolve them . . . . It would be the beginning of a 

whittling away of the strong and important safeguards incorporated into statutes such as 

NEPA.

Senator Bentsen opposed Senator Buckley’s amendment. “The question is whether we are going to 

give equity to the people of San Antonio who have made a very major investment of their money in 

this project.” They had, he said, $15 million at stake. This was not an environmental issue: 

We have 323 acres involved . . . . We are talking about a road that cuts across 4 acres of a 

golf course at the corner of Brackenridge Park. And across 5 acres that were already 

isolated on the golf course. 

It was a $20 million project with only $1.8 million coming from the Federal-aid highway program. 

The State simply wanted to return the Federal funds so it could proceed without Federal restrictions 

such as Section 4(f) that had been enacted after work on the project had begun. 

As for the concern about precedence, “I went back and redrafted this amendment to be sure that it 

was localized and applied only to San Antonio.” The provision would not establish a precedent for 

projects begun after NEPA and Section 4(f): 

So let the people of San Antonio exercise their will. Let them pay their way. Let them use 

self-determination. They love their parks; they are concerned about the beauty of their city. 
332 

Senator Nelson, one of the Senate’s leading environmentalists, was unconvinced. “What concerns 

me is that there is an attempt by all kinds of agencies to avoid the requirements of the 

Environmental Protection Act.” Senator Randolph countered that, “I feel that we in no way do 

violence to the environmental program of this country in reference to the project which is 

incorporated in this legislation.” 

The Senate voted against Senator Buckley’s amendment, 24 to 49. [Congressional Record-Senate, 

September 13, 1972, p. 30496-30503] 

As provided for in Senator Byrd’s unanimous consent request, the mass transit issues were 

postponed to the following week. 

The day before the Senate was to debate the transit provision, an editorial in The Washington Post

endorsed the Cooper-Muskie amendment: 

Measured against the massive transportation snarls of urban areas and the mammoth prohighway bias of past federal policies, the Cooper-Muskie amendment is a very modest 

advance. Permitting cities to use the highway trust fund to build rails as well as roads is not 

an improper diversion of the funds, much less a perversion of any sacred trust. To the 

contrary, truly balanced transportation systems benefit highway users as much as bus riders 

and subway strap-hangers. Indeed, those who must use the roads . . . have an especially 

direct interest in curbing highway congestion by offering people other ways to get from 

place to place.

The editorial favored a mix of roads, rails, bike paths, and pedestrian ways that each community 

could select to meet its own needs. The Cooper-Muskie amendment, “while limited, is an 

important and attainable beginning toward that end.” [“Roads and Rails for the Cities,” The 

Washington Post, September 18, 1972. Emphasis in original] 

On Tuesday, September 19, the Senate resumed debate on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. 

Senator Weicker began by introducing an amendment to modify State planning. This was not, he 

said, a funding measure since Section 104(g) of Title 23, United States Code, already allocated onehalf of 1 percent of Federal-aid funding to the States for planning: 

This amendment would simply mandate the pass through of one-half of these funds to urban 

areas while the remaining funds would remain with State transportation planning agencies . . 

. . Local officials would definitely be consulted by State planners and local plans, created 

locally would be carefully plugged into broader State programs. The kind of coordination 

this amendment requires is absolutely essential . . . . 

He explained:

Mr. President, this amendment is very simple. It says that any highway construction project 

funded with Federal money must be part of an overall transportation plan rather than simply 
333 

a highway plan. It also says that the Governor has ultimate responsibility for such planning 

and not just State highway officials.

This amendment is important because it recognizes that highways, while a vitally important 

part of any balanced transportation system, should not be planned in isolation from mass, 

intercity rail or air transportation facilities. All should tie in with each other. All should 

recognize the varying environmental, social, and economic impact of alternate modes of 

transportation in all areas—rural as well as urban.

Without further discussion, Senators Randolph and Cooper indicated they supported Senator 

Weicker’s amendment and it was adopted without a recorded vote. [Congressional Record-Senate, 

September 19, 1972, p. 31238-31329] 

Senator Kennedy then introduced amendment no. 1482, otherwise known as the Kennedy-Weicker 

amendment, that would allow States to use $2.3 billion of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass 

transit. After mentioning that the Public Works Committee had rejected the amendment, Senator 

Kennedy put it in context: 

A satellite photo of the United States traces narrow black ribbons that criss-cross over 

mountains, around valleys, and through cities. The neat lines seem to represent a carefully 

designed orderly arrangement attesting to human intelligence and ingenuity. 

Unfortunately, up close the rationality of the photo is distorted. For up close, we are aware 

that our transportation system is in crisis, we are aware that 55,000 homes are displaced by 

freeways each year. We are aware that two-thirds of our urban land area has been given 

over to the auto and its alleys, highways, and parking lots. 

He quoted from DOT’s national transportation policy statement, which he said “was not 

pollyannish in the remotest sense”: 

On the whole, the transportation which has evolved, both consciously and unconsciously, 

represents an uneven fabric ill suited to today’s needs, and is, itself, a major contributor to 

the problems facing transportation today. 

He summarized the purpose of the amendment to correct these deficiencies:

It does authorize cities and States to use noninterstate funds, specifically the primary system 

allocation, the secondary system allocation, the urban system allocation, for the acquisition 

and construction of rail facilities and equipment in addition to the other uses authorized by 

the committee. This would open some $2.3 billion to the trust fund for this purpose if States 

so desire.

Thus, it would permit States and localities to find their own answers to the transportation 

puzzle in their communities and to develop a transportation plan to meet those problems, 

free from the lure of easy trust fund dollars if they pick highways. 
334 

Given that mass transit received only one-tenth as much as highways through Federal programs, “it 

is about time,” he said. 

Having said what the amendment would do, Senator Kennedy explained what it would not do. It 

did not affect the Interstate System. It did not alter the amount of Federal-aid highway funds any 

State would receive. It would not mandate a single dollar for urban rail mass transit. Finally, it did 

not diminish the amount available under the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970: 

The amendment we propose merely seeks to offer to States and cities an option in resolving 

their transportation problems that they do not now have. 

Senator Weicker took to the floor to discuss the environmental impacts of highways. It took a 

while, he said, for “the man on the street” to realize that the soot in his eye, the murkiness of rivers 

and streams, and such abominations as smog, litter, heat inversions, oil spills, wildlife slaughter, 

and shattering noises fell under the broad term “environment.” The times had changed “because 

today the environment is everything.” He continued: 

For too long I had hoped to see a similar awakening with respect to the Nation’s 

transportation problems. Sad to say it has not happened. Why? 

Because it has been creeping rather than instantaneous catastrophe.

Transportation, he said, is a city losing a park to an expressway, an old man dying of respiratory 

disease, 55,000 people dying in their cars, a business being torn down, and the poor without cars 

being unable to get to work. “So, when we realize what transportation is, we understand that the 

fight for an intelligent, balanced transportation policy is a fight . . . all about life.” 

He concluded: 

The choice, as I see it, is between moving America on for 2 more years—since this is a 

biennial review—or getting killed by fumes, or cars, or just waiting. 

I am reminded of the parable of how not to “cook a frog.” If we were to boil a pot of water 

and drop the frog in, his reflexes would cause him to jump out of the pot, thus saving him 

from being cooked. On the other hand, put him in a pot of cold water, heat it slowly, and he 

would eventually be cooked. 

In terms of transportation in this Nation, we are the frog—and we had better jump. 

Although Senator Bayh had moved from Public Works to the Senate Appropriations Committee, 

Senator Randolph asked him to talk about the Subcommittee on Roads’ hearings. Senator Bayh

opposed the Kennedy-Weicker amendment for several reasons. First, he said: 

I think a grave legal question can be raised as long as we presently have that Federal 

highway commitment under the Revenue Act of 1956 as to whether we can suddenly take 
335 

funds that are paid in gasoline taxes pursuant to the 1956 act—to be used for programs 

related to highways—and use it in the rail system that the Senators would make possible 

under their amendment. 

Second, given the Nation’s mass transit needs, he was concerned that if Highway Trust Fund 

revenues were used as proposed, some of their congressional colleagues might decide that mass 

transit no longer needed general revenue. 

He thought the approach taken by the subcommittee in allowing $800 million in funds that could be 

used at State option for bus-related transit was appropriate. Any Federal-aid highway funding used 

for bus-related transit “frees that much money from the urban mass transit program—taken from the 

general fund—which can go into the type of rail system which the two Senators are desirous of 

funding out of the highway fund.” 

Senator Cooper, noting that his Cooper-Muskie amendment was pending, said he believed “we 

should limit the highway trust funds available for rail mass transit to those funds which are 

allocated to the urban system as defined in the Highway Act[,] that is, to systems in areas of 50,000 

or more population.” If Congress thought more funds were needed, Congress should increase 

funding for the Federal-aid urban system. 

Senator Randolph began his remarks by quoting from a letter that he and Senator Cooper had 

received from Secretary Volpe:

The Kennedy-Weicker proposal would make every noninterstate highway program, primary 

and secondary as well as urban, eligible for financing rail rapid transit. Such a step could in 

some States lead to the diversion of primary-secondary highway funds into subway 

construction in our major cities, a step not conducive to a balanced transportation system. 

Senator Randolph rejected the notion that the transportation system was in the terrible shape 

depicted by Senators Kennedy and Weicker. He agreed that problems existed, but “I think it is also 

necessary to say that there are today in this country millions and millions of persons who are 

moving, in any 24-hour period, by means of motor vehicles of one type or another.” The Public 

Works Committee’s bill offered a balanced approach that “reinforces the belief of the committee 

that the highway program and public transportation are inseparable.” 

As for Secretary Volpe’s observation that funds authorized for rural highways could be used for 

subways, Senator Randolph said, “The basic fairness of such an approach obviously must be 

questioned.” He also questioned whether such a sweeping change in the use of Highway Trust 

Fund revenues as proposed by the Kennedy-Weicker amendment could be made without changes in 

the authorizing revenue act. 

He agreed that mass transit needs were substantial, but “it is important to remember that the issue 

we face in providing a balance [sic] transportation system is not one of highways or mass transit.” 

The bill provided resources that could be used for urban mass transit, but “urban highway needs 
336 

also are great and we must retain the available resources also to provide these roadways so that 

they, too, may serve as part of the public transportation system.” 

In view of the concern about the legality of using Highway Trust Fund revenues for mass transit 

without amending the Highway Revenue Act, Senator Kennedy introduced a letter dated September 

19, 1972, from Robert F. Keller, Deputy Comptroller General of the United States. Keller said that 

the amendment would do what it was drafted to do. The short letter, however, did not offer any 

explanation of the legal theory behind it. 

The Senate rejected the Kennedy-Weicker amendment, 18 to 60. [Congressional Record-Senate, 

September 19, 1972, p. 31237-31247] 

Senator Cooper introduced amendment no. 1512, the Cooper-Muskie amendment that allowed 

Federal-aid urban systems funds to be used for mass transit, including rail. Senator Muskie began 

the discussion of the amendment by praising the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 drafted by the 

Public Works Committee. However, the roads financed out of the bill would be in use at least into 

the 1990s. “For that reason, we must assure that the options available and the programs which can 

be supported under the legislation we consider today will be relevant to the transportation needs and 

priorities which this Nation will face in the decades ahead. 

He cited several reasons why the situation was even more urgent now than in 1970 when he had 

proposed to broaden the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transportation, including rail 

systems. The existing program had encouraged proliferating suburban sprawl and other 

questionable land uses, as well as a high cost of car ownership that left society’s left-outs at a 

disadvantage. Auto-related air pollution was hazardous to health, while the looming energy crisis 

(to be discussed later) would severely reduce private auto use. Congestion severely hindered 

personal transportation and delivery of goods. 

The Public Works Committee addressed these concerns by allowing $800 million in Federal-aid 

urban system funds to be used for highway-related transit, with a minimum of $300 million that 

must be used for highway-related transit. However, “none can be spent for rail transit.” This 

response “is not sufficient to meet our transportation crises and assure proper evaluation of alloptions to the present highway program.” The rail option, as permitted by the Cooper-Muskie 

amendment, must be available.

Senator Muskie concluded his initial remarks by saying: 

Transportation systems to a great extent determine the economic and social structure of a 

community. The Federal Government should thus avoid imposing any particular 

transportation system on a community. I have always believed that people at the local level 

most often know what is best for themselves. The program we propose will allow local 

citizens to decide for themselves what transportation system is best for their communities 

and their future . . . . 
337 

[The amendment] has broad, bipartisan support. It applies only to the urban system aspect 

of the highway program that is before us. It involves only $800 million as against several 

times that figure which would still be available for highway construction.

This is a reasonable step in the direction of using funds for nonhighway transportation 

objects.

I urge my colleagues to support it. If they do so, they will make a significant contribution to 

a redirection of our transportation priorities in the next decades and in a direction related to 

public interest, the need of the disadvantages, the need of the poor, the need for public 

health, and the need for cities struggling under the impact of problems, so many of which 

are related to the automobile and automobile related factors. [Congressional RecordSenate, September 19, 1972, p. 31250-31252] 

Several Senators spoke in support of the amendment. Senator Williams was among them. The 

Interstate System built over the past 15 years was, he said, “the finest in the world.” However, in 

today’s “dynamic, highly urbanized society, a different type of transportation is of the utmost 

necessity—urban mass transportation.” The $3.1 billion authorized for mass transit in 1970 was 

helpful but insufficient to the need for “efficient, socially worthwhile mass transit systems.” 

Clearly, he said, “changes in the operation of the highway trust funds are long overdue.” 

He discussed the actions of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, including its 

support for the Cooper-Muskie amendment. In broadening the Highway Trust Fund to include 

public transportation, “it makes sense to include all forms of urban mass transportation and not only 

buses.” He addressed the key question head-on: 

The only question which remains is, Why should automobile and truck owners pay for mass 

transportation? 

Many of these people feel that their money should go for highways, not buses and trains. 

The answer to that is simple: we are all in the same traffic jam together and what helps the 

urban commuter also helps the trucker and the car owner. 

Therefore, if we are willing to move forward and adopt the Cooper-Muskie amendment, we 

can replace our present traffic jams with efficient urban mass transportation systems which 

will make travel easier and more pleasant and which will help all of our Nation’s citizens. 

[Congressional Record-Senate, September 13, 1972, p. 31256-31257] 

Senator Randolph explained that “with some regret” he had to oppose the amendment. He recalled 

his comments during the debate on the Kennedy-Weicker amendment about why he opposed 

allowing highway funds to be used for rail transit systems. “The provisions of the Cooper-Muskie 

amendment would, if adopted, dilute out ability to tailor the highway program to respond to the 

transit needs of the great majority of American communities.” He did not doubt the sincerity of 

Senators Cooper and Muskie: 
338 

On this occasion, however, I fear that they are overresponding [sic] to one need with an 

answer that may compromise our ability to cope with the total problem of public mass 

transit.

He also questioned the legality of the amendment in view of Section 209(f)(1) of the Highway 

Revenue Act of 1956 (“Amounts in the trust fund shall be available for making expenditures which 

are attributed to Federal-aid highways”). The Administration bill, he noted, had proposed an 

amendment to address this legal restriction. Further, he introduced a letter from Chairman Mills of 

the House Ways and Means Committee, the committee which had drafted the Highway Revenue 

Act in 1956, to Chairman Blatnik of the Public Works Committee: 

I agree completely with the observations which you made concerning the fact that diversion 

of money from the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit purposes as indicated in the 

amendment . . . would clearly be a violation of the provisions of section 209 of the Highway 

Revenue Act of 1956, as amended. I agree with you completely, and I am sure, if I 

understand the feeling of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means, that the 

majority of the Committee Members would agree with me that this is clearly a matter within 

the jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means and formal action would have to be 

taken by our Committee before any such diversion could be accomplished. 

Senator Muskie responded to the question of legality. He said that the Public Works Committee’s 

bill would permit Federal-aid funds to be used to purchase buses and build passenger-loading areas 

and bus lanes. “Thus, we are merely adding with our amendment another purchase, which is just as 

much in keeping with the overall intent of the proposed legislation.” He continued: 

In addition, Mr. President, the committee’s proposed section 142(c) states that the purposes 

authorized under (a) of section 142 shall be considered as “highway projects.” That clearly 

would obviate any need to amend any other legislation. All we need to do is to label this a 

“highway project.”

He also again cited Keller’s letter to demonstrate that the question of law had been addressed. 

[Congressional Record-Senate, September 19, 1972, p. 31258-31259] 

Senator Cooper said that Senator Muskie’s answer to the objections “was equal to any that I have 

heard.” He also introduced the complete September 18 letter from Secretary Volpe that had been

cited during the debate on the Kennedy-Weicker amendment. Secretary Volpe had said he 

considered adoption of the Cooper-Muskie amendment “of utmost importance.” Increased funding 

for the Federal-aid urban system and its use for highway-related mass transit as in the current bill 

were steps in the right direction, but the Cooper-Muskie amendment would take this movement one 

step further. Secretary Volpe continued: 

We believe that it is essential that we strike a balance between our urban transportation 

needs and our rural transportation needs. It is our considered opinion that the CooperMuskie amendment would strike this balance. It would provide the flexibility so sorely 
339 

needed in our major urban centers while at the same time insuring the continuation of our 

very important and very necessary primary and secondary highway programs. 

Senator Cooper then addressed the concern about “tapping the trust fund.” He said: 

There is only one trust that I recognize. Each one of us on the floor should recognize that 

that is the legislative trust that was imposed on each of us in our election to this body. 

Otherwise why not create a range of trust funds—a trust fund for the military, a trust fund 

for pollution, a trust fund for agriculture, and on down the line—so that we never have to 

use either our imagination or creativity nor be held responsible for the consequences. 

To my way of thinking, there is no question as to what trust is important today. It is that 

legislative trust which is thrust upon each one of us. 

Senator Weicker asked to speak. He said that shortly after the Kennedy-Weicker amendment was 

defeated, a member of his staff was going back to the Senate Office Building:

The highway people traveling in the (congressional shuttle) subway were gleeful over the 

fact that they had won so overwhelmingly. But these are the last of the highway lobbyists. 

No longer does the highway trust fund have all of its members. Only recently some of them 

said “Let us end the highway trust fund.” Henry Ford said, “Let us use the money from the 

highway trust fund for mass transit.” The Mobil Oil Co., in a series of advertisements in the 

New York Times says: “Open up the fund. We need balance, coordination, sanity.” 

Slowly but surely everyone in the country is moving ahead but the U.S. Senate. We have 

been clinging to the highway trust fund. Today the Senate can change the emphasis toward 

mass transportation. 

Highways alone, he said, “or in overwhelming proportions, are a mobility, environmental and safety 

disaster”: 

How do we answer the fact that the landscape is being paved over with concrete, all in the 

name of the God of Mobility, but still no mobility is achieved?

I think it is important that this body maintain our fiscal integrity and maintain the integrity 

of this program. However, much more important, I think, is that we fulfill our objectives 

and our objectives and loyalty are not to this highway trust fund. Our loyalties are to the 

people of this country and their mobility and to the fact that they can live, to the fact that 

they can breathe, and to the fact that they can move.

That is what I am here for, not to defend a fiction. [Congressional Record-Senate, 

September 19, 1972, p. 31260-31262] 

Senator Kennedy also supported the Cooper-Muskie amendment. It was more limited than the 

rejected Kennedy-Weicker amendment, “but it does mark a beginning.” At least it would permit 
340 

“urban areas to make the choice between highways and rail transit.” Today, cities had no choice if 

they want to receive their portion of the Highway Trust Fund. “They can accept their allocations 

and build highways or they receive nothing.” The lack of choice forced cities “to tilt their 

transportation planning toward more autos and more highways, knowing full well that they are 

merely putting off the day of reckoning.” The Cooper-Muskie amendment would move the country 

“in the direction that all observers of the transportation scene desire, in the direction of a balanced 

and integrated transportation system.” [Congressional Record-Senate, September 19, 1972, p. 

31263] 

After a few more Senators spoke in support of the bill, the Senate voted to adopt the CooperMuskie amendment, 48 to 26. Senator Randolph was among those voting against the amendment. 

An article in The New York Times about the vote said that, “Opposition to the Cooper-Muskie 

proposal has been highly visible in the cloakrooms and offices [of the Senate] over the last few 

weeks, but it was muted on the Senate floor today.” [Rosenbaum, David E., “Senate Votes Transit 

Aid From Fund for Highways,” The New York Times, September 20, 1972] 

Soon after this key vote, the Senate adopted the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, as amended, 77 

to 0. The approved bill included not only the Cooper-Muskie amendment but Title III providing 

general Treasury revenue for operating subsidies and $3 billion for urban transportation. 

[Congressional Record-Senate, September 19, 1972, p. 31266-31268] 

Secretary Volpe issued a statement commending the Senate “for the significant and historic action it 

took today in approving a Federal-Aid Highway Act that for the first time allows both rail and bus 

mass transit – as well as highways – to be financed by the Highway Trust Fund.” The legislation, 

he said, “provides funds for the challenges of today and tomorrow.” He explained: 

Transportation, no matter what its mode, is not an either/or proposition, and such thinking 

can only lead us into an ever deepening urban morass. We need all modes of transportation 

in some of our cities and we need meaningful alternatives in all of our cities. This bill 

provides for these alternatives by giving local, state and regional leaders the flexibility they 

need to attack the problems which are making our urbanized areas uninhabitable. 

He added that he had “just talked to President Nixon” who was “very pleased with the Senate 

passage of the Cooper-Muskie amendment.” They urged the House to incorporate the amendment 

into their version of the legislation. “Our transportation system must be as dynamic as our society.” 

 He was certain that House members understood this “and will respond in an affirmative manner.” 

The historic vote to open the Highway Trust Fund to rail transit was the leading point in coverage 

of the Senate’s adoption of the 1972 Act. An editorial in The New York Times called the CooperMuskie amendment “a modest proposal,” but added that “since highway interests in Congress until 

recently were resisting the diversion of road construction money even for such closely related 

purposes as highway safety and beautification, this victory for other forms of transportation 

represents a decided achievement.” The editorial lamented failure of the Kennedy-Weicker 

amendment, as did an editorial in The Baltimore Sun, which speculated that if the amendment had 
341 

passed, the funds it freed for mass transit, along with the UMTA and State matching funds, “would 

have put the country on the road toward balanced transportation at last.” 

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch began its editorial by saying, “For the first time one house of Congress 

has decided that the highway trust fund is not a sacred trust for more and more pavements, but may 

be used for balanced transportation—meaning mass transit.” The Chicago Tribune observed that, 

“The Senate finally has recognized that highways alone, despite the propaganda of the powerful 

highway lobby, cannot solve the problem of moving people in congested cities and suburbs.” It 

recommended that the Highway Trust Fund be transformed into a Transportation Trust Fund to help 

provide “a balanced transportation system in our urban areas rather than face the prospect of sinking 

under the weight of concrete ribbons.” 

The Philadelphia Inquirer also praised the “historic step.” It said:

Sixteen years of over-emphasis on highways and under-emphasis on mass transit has left 

American cities a legacy of traffic congestion and antiquated, inadequate public 

transportation. It’s time to put some badly needed flexibility into federal policy so that 

highway and mass transit facilities can be balanced in accord with local need.

 [“Transit Breakthrough,” The New York Times; “A Boost for Mass Transit,” The Baltimore Sun; 

“Senate Takes Historic Step: Highway Funds for Transit,” The Philadelphia Inquirer; all 

September 21, 1972; “Not Highways Alone,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 22, 1972; and 

“Highways and Better Ways,” The Chicago Tribune, both September 23, 1972] 

On September 25, Secretary Volpe was in Seattle to address the 91st annual meeting of the 

American Transit Association. He emphasized the changes that had occurred under the Nixon 

Administration:

Prior to 1969 mass transit was strictly a back burner program in Washington. UMTA had a 

Spartan staff, a shoestring budget, and no continuity of funding. 

Today public transportation is a billion dollar item in the Federal budget . . . . The Urban 

Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1970 laid the fiscal foundations for a 12-year 

program. And for more than a year now we have been trying to broaden the base for public 

transportation financing. 

He cited the origins of the American Transit Association:

Seventy years ago – or even 90 years ago, when this Association was in its infancy – we 

needed public transit in America because not everyone could afford a car. Today we need it 

because nearly everyone CAN afford a car. So now it is our challenge to make transit 

competitive WITH the car.

The Administration, he said, had been “aggressively PRO public transportation” because “President 

Nixon is vitally concerned with the future of America’s cities – and he knows, as you do, that ‘step 
342 

one’ in the quest for cities that work is the creation of cities in which people, goods and ideas move 

freely and efficiently.” The steps thus far were “just the FIRST CHAPTERS.” 

He cited progress in Seattle (the “Blue Streak” Demonstration Project), Atlanta (MARTA), San 

Francisco (BART), and in smaller cities such as Salt Lake City:

It has consistently been our view that keeping transit wheels turning is NOT ENOUGH. We 

must move in new directions, turn to new ideas, and devote more resources and 

resourcefulness to improving the FUNCTION of public transportation as well as its 

facilities.

In this regard, the Senate had taken “historic action” just 6 days earlier in approving the CooperMuskie amendment: 

I would remind you that the 1972 Federal-Aid Highway Act not only provides flexibility to 

local and State officials to select that mode – or mix of modes – that will help solve their 

total transportation problem; it does it in such a way that it does not interfere with or lessen 

the amounts currently available for the Interstate, primary, secondary, or rural roads. 

As he concluded his speech, Secretary Volpe said that, “highways are essential,” adding: 

Without our highways, public transportation by bus could not exist or grow. Without 

President Eisenhower’s foresight in launching the Interstate program and President 

Eisenhower’s commitment to its completion, our roadway system would be hopelessly 

constricted, dangerously out-of-date, and totally inadequate to our growing needs. 

Today, the debate “must not revolve around the relative merits of roads or rails, steel wheels or 

rubber tires, personal rapid transit or public mass transit.” The central problem was how to improve 

“the people-moving capacity our cities must have to service the seventies and remain mobile in the 

eighties.” That was why President Nixon believed the House should join the Senate “in voting to 

support urban public transportation needs through highway user revenues.” In this week, which 

was officially designated National Highway Week, Secretary Volpe said he could bring “no better 

news for highway user and transit rider alike – than our pledge of continuing commitment to the 

cause of better public transportation throughout America.” 

As focus shifted to the House of Representatives, The Wall Street Journal began its article on 

diversion: 

This week is National Highway Week, and it could be celebrated by breaking open the 

Highway Trust Fund to help mass-transit systems.

And that would mean less emphasis on highways. 

Whatever happens on this score in Congress this session, the momentum for using the trust 

fund to support transit is certain to increase. So much so, avers one Nixon administration 
343 

official, that starting next year the administration’s “modest proposal” for diverting some 

trust-fund money to transit “may fall by the wayside—the pressures will mount to open the 

trust fund all the way. 

Nixon Administration “Congress-watchers” thought that “their chances on winning on the House 

floor, while much less solid than in the Senate, are still reasonably good”:

If the trust fund diversion can be pulled off, a Transportation Department official says, “This 

will be the most important thing we’ve done in this department in the first four years” of the 

Nixon Administration.

Pro-transit forces had clearly gained support on Capitol Hill, and felt confident that any provisions 

that were not approved this year would face better prospects in the next Congress: 

Some suggest this might come about, for example, by both highway and transit interests 

agreeing to support a boost in the four-cent-a-gallon federal motor-fuel tax, thereby

providing a bigger pot for both roadbuilding and transit work. Another more modest 

proposal for fattening the trust fund is a tax on transit systems that could yield perhaps $100 

million yearly, relieving some of the pressure on the gas tax. Right now, the move to raid 

the trust fund on behalf of both rail and bus transit is coming in the face of substantial 

opposition by most elements of the highway lobby, but with the backing of environmentoriented, antiroad organizations like the Highway Action Coalition, a combination of 19 

groups including Environmental Action and the Sierra Club. [Karr, Albert R., “Diversion of 

Road Funds to Mass Transit Seen Having Good Chance on House Floor,” The Wall Street 

Journal, September 25, 1972] 

Now, the time had come for action by the House of Representatives. 

The House Rules Committee

While the House Committee on Public Works was completing work on its version of the bill, EPA 

Administrator William D. Ruckelshaus was in Detroit for a speech to the American Automobile

Association. He began by acknowledging that all Americans wanted a car but said the problem was 

that 75 percent of them succeeded in acquiring one: 

Winston Churchill once said in a characteristic fit of hyperbole that the worst disaster in the 

history of mankind was the invention of the automobile. The people do not seem to agree. 

“The very popularity of the automobile,” he said, “now seriously threatens its usefulness.” Our 

cities were “confronted by pollution, congestion, noise, delay, ugliness and urban breakdown on a 

scale that has not been seen since the last days of imperial Rome.”

The Clean Air Amendments of 1970 imposed air quality deadlines that cities would have to meet by 

1975, but the vehicle itself would have to be improved in unknown ways to control emissions. The 

auto industry claimed it could not meet the required 90-percent reduction in hydrocarbon and 
344 

carbon monoxide levels by 1975 and a 90-percent reduction in nitrogen oxides by 1976. At present, 

“exhaust emission controls cannot do the job by themselves where traffic volumes are too great or 

atmospheric conditions are unfavorable.” Changes in the way the vehicles are used were likely:

We will be hearing more about metered traffic, exclusive bus lanes, restricted parking, 

dispersed employment, and sanctions against the man who drives his six-passenger car to 

work with no one else in it. 

Statistics now show that the rate of occupancy of cars during peak load periods is down to 

1.2 persons per vehicle and—at the present rate of passenger decline—by 1980, one out of 

every three cars will be tooling along without a driver.

That wouldn’t be much more absurd than the present practice of encasing one man in 5,000 

pounds of steel, adding 400 horsepower and then making him creep along at 5 m.p.h. 

breathing a combination of synergistic poisons. 

Some thought we should build more highways, others that we should eliminate automobiles from 

congested areas and replace them with mass transit. Because the “automobile is part of the larger 

mosaic of American life,” he said that his “profound belief is that attempting to solve the problems 

of modern living by attacking a piece of that complex is wrong because it’s shortsighted.” He said: 

We desperately need a broad systems approach integrating emissions control of motor 

vehicles with highway planning, land and energy use, resource conservation, demographic 

factors, economic growth, and the protection of wilderness and countryside. We need 

transportation that is fast, safe, reliable and ecologically responsible. 

He asked how the country can “get around the energy-resources-pollution-urban design impasse?” 

The answer “obviously” was to employ mass transit “like housing and the utility infrastructure—as 

a major element in the design of more efficient cities.” The systems should be more attractive, with 

features such as air conditioning, express service, quiet low emission engines, flexible routes, 

courteous service, and “seating arrangements which recognize the importance of ‘personal space.’” 

Such service would open suburban jobs to inner city residents who could not afford a car. 

The automobile was here to stay, but “we must supplement it if we are to get the most efficient 

service out of it. Henry Ford himself has said so.” Ruckelshaus mentioned such innovations as 

automated people-movers, dial-a-bus service, air-cushion trains powered by linear-induction 

motors: 

Overall, according to the Department of Transportation, the revolution in mobility will 

require as much as $33 billion in the next 10 to 20 years. Some of this money may be 

diverted from the highway trust fund; whatever its origins it will be well spent. We don’t 

have to go from one place to another in ways that are time-consuming, wasteful of fuel, 

nerve-wracking or socially destructive.
345 

As alternatives, he suggested changing to a 4-day work week or allowing employees to work from 

home: 

Above all, in discussing the future of the private car we must not fall into the trap of being 

mere participants in endless pro-versus anti-automobile debate. We need not be either to be 

pro-humanity. 

The open road is no longer simply an invitation to adventure but also a problem and a 

challenge. We have it within our power to create a kind of mobility which transcends 

movement for its own sake or movement compelled by circumstances. We can formulate a 

life style which guarantees the variable mobility a complex society requires. [Ruckelshaus, 

William D., “Living With The Auto,” The Los Angeles Times, September 26, 1972] 

On September 21, Representative Glenn M. Anderson (D-Ca.), a lifelong resident of Los Angeles, 

asked the House Committee on Public Works, which was nearing completion of its Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1972, to approve a provision similar to the Senate’s mass transit section. The 

committee’s rejection of the amendment, 10 to 26, was not a surprise given the members’ 

longstanding support for highways. In a concession, the committee approved an amendment calling 

on the Secretary of Transportation to report to Congress on the country’s public transportation 

needs. 

As David Rosenbaum of The New York Times reported in his article about the defeat, some mass 

transit proponents “were encouraged because 10 members of the committee were willing to have 

the trust fund tapped to build public transportation systems.” He added: 

The Nixon Administration is solidly behind the idea of letting urban areas use part of their 

trust fund money for mass transit purposes, and Administration lobbying in the Senate was 

said to have been instrumental in having the measure adopted there.

In a rare alliance, the Administration has joined forces with the Democratic Study Group, an 

organization of liberal Democratic Representatives, to work to overturn the committee’s 

decision on the floor. 

Still, the highway forces were strong:

Most of the members of the Public Works Committee are strong advocates of expanding the 

Federal highway system, and, in an election year, many of them have benefited from 

contributions by highway interests . . . . [Also] there are few Representatives who have not 

taken credit for new highways in their districts. Many of these legislators do not want to see 

the highway money siphoned off for other uses. 

One of those legislators was one of the most influential: 

Representative Wilbur D. Mills, Democrat of Arkansas, has said that he believes that any 

legislation changing the use of trust fund money should go through his Ways and Means 
346 

Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax legislation. [Rosenbaum, David E., “House 

Panel Backs Ban on Diverting Highway Funds,” The New York Times, September 22, 1972] 

 

The committee completed work on its bill on September 25. It contained Title I (“Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1972”), Title II (“Highway Safety Act of 1972”), and Title III (“Prohibition of 

Discrimination on the Basis of Sex”). Its Declaration of Policy stated that after completion of the 

Interstate System, national policy would be to increase emphasis on improving the other Federal-aid 

systems to the maximum extent possible by 1990. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, Report, 

House of Representatives, 92d Congress, 2d Session, Report No. 92-1443, September 25, 1972] 

The bill’s provision on highway public transportation authorized the use of Federal-aid highway 

system funds for highway-related transit, including exclusive bus lanes and passenger loading areas 

and facilities, but not purchase of buses. If right-of-way were available, rail or nonhighway mass 

transit programs could be accommodated. The bill would repeal the provision of the 1970 Act that 

required exclusive bus lane projects to be less expensive and more feasible or prudent than 

additional automobile lanes. 

As noted earlier, the committee bill also called on the Secretary of Transportation to cooperate with 

the Governors and appropriate local officials to evaluate the estimated $63.45 billion in public mass 

transportation needs through 1990 as discussed in the 1972 National Transportation Report. 

Funding for the $75 million study would come from the general Treasury. The report to Congress 

on the evaluation would cover: 

(1) Refining the public mass transportation needs contained in such Report. 

(2) Developing a program to accomplish the needs of each urban area for public mass 

transportation. 

(3) Analyzing the existing funding capability of Federal, State and local governments for 

meeting such needs.

(4) Analyzing other funding capabilities of Federal, State and local governments for meeting 

such needs. 

(5) Determining the operating and maintenance costs relating to the public mass transportation 

system.

(6) Determining and comparing fare structures of all public mass transportation systems.

This study, the committee believed, “would enable communities to develop actual programming to 

meet its public mass transportation needs whatever that form might be.” After receiving the report 

in January 1974, “it is hoped that a proper look can be given to the need, if it may be necessary, to 

use any portion of the highway trust fund and other methods of financing to meet the pressing needs 

of mass transit (exclusive of highways) across the country.” [1972 Act, House Report, p. 12, 18] 

The committee’s bill also contained such provisions as: 

• Authorized an additional $8 billion for completion of the Interstate System ($3.5 billion a 

year for FYs 1974-1978 and $2.5 billion for FY 1979). The time for completion was 

extended to June 30, 1979. 
347 

• The bill approved use of the 1972 Interstate Cost Estimate for apportionment of Interstate 

funds as well as an additional $50 million for States that would otherwise receive less than 

one-half of one percent of the Interstate apportionment in FYs 1974 and 1975 if the State 

had not completed Federal funding of the System within its borders. 

• Authorizations for other Federal-aid programs for each of FYs 1974 and 1975: 

Federal-aid primary in rural areas - $700 million 

Federal-aid urban - $700 million 

Federal-aid secondary in rural areas - $400 million 

Extensions of primary and secondary systems in urban areas - $400 million 

Forest highways - $33 million

Public lands highways - $16 million

• Declared the national policy to be reduction of red tape to the maximum extent possible. 

• Terminated Federal-aid involvement in the U.S. 281 North Expressway project in San 

Antonio. A related provision on the “Federal-State Relationship” explained that nothing in 

Title 23 shall infringe on the sovereign rights of the States to determine which projects are 

to be federally financed. It added that Title 23 provided for a federally-assisted State 

program. 

• Extended the possible use of Certification Acceptance to all Federal-aid systems except the 

Interstate System.

• If an Interstate toll road became toll free, Interstate funds could be used for construction, 

reconstruction, and improvement of the road. 

• Since the Commission on Highway Beautification established by the 1970 Act had not met 

its deadline, the bill extended the deadline to December 31, 1973, the year before the next 2-

year reauthorization bill was due for consideration. The bill eliminated the present 660-foot 

limitation on the control of signs along the Interstate and primary systems. It changed the 

definition of “effective control” to state that signs beyond 660 feet would be limited to 

directional and official signs and notices related to motorist services. It also contained 

changed provisions on acquisition of signs to be removed and authorized $50 million a year 

for these purposes, as well as $15 million for control of junkyards. The funds would come 

from the Highway Trust Fund. 

• Continued funding for Economic Growth Center Development Highways and authorized 

funds for a Special Urban High Density Traffic Program (for highways connected to the 

Interstates) and Priority Primary Routes (not more than 10,000 miles of high traffic sections 

of highways on the Federal-aid primary system connected to the Interstate System and built 

to Interstate standards). The Priority Primary Routes were essentially former Administrator 

Turner’s “Junior Interstates” proposal.) 

• Directed the Secretary to undertake a National Scenic Highway System Study and submit a 

report to Congress by January 1, 1975. 

• Eliminated the 200-mile limitation on Howard-Cramer mileage, leaving the amount openended. Provided that substitute mileage and mileage for modification shall not exceed the 

cost (as shown in the 1972, rather than the 1968, Interstate Cost Estimate) of the aggregate 

of all mileage that is to be withdrawn from the Interstate System as nonessential. In 

considering substitute routes, the Secretary would give “preference, along with due regard 
348 

for interstate highway type needs on a nationwide basis,” to routes in States in which other 

routes were or hereafter are withdrawn and extension of routes which terminate in cities 

served by a single Interstate route, so as to provide traffic service through such cities. [1972 

Act, House Report, p. 19-40] 

The Highway Safety Act of 1972 included funding, primarily but not entirely from the Highway 

Trust Fund, for such activities as rail-highway crossings, bridge reconstruction and replacement, 

pavement marking, projects for high hazard locations, and elimination of roadside obstacles, as well 

as research and education. [1972 Act, House Report, p. 41-43] 

Title III prohibited discrimination based on gender in any program or activity receiving funds under 

Title 23 programs.

The committee report on the bill included minority views on several topics. Representatives Abzug 

and Anderson joined Representatives James V. Stanton (D-Oh.), James R. Grover, Jr. (R-NY), 

Charles B, Rangel (D-NY), and George W. Collins (D-Il.) in offering their views on “Interstate 

System Transfers and Substitutes.” Although they appreciated the sevenfold increase in funding for 

the Federal-aid urban system, “the bill does little to advance public transportation.” They 

acknowledged the bill’s changes in the Howard-Cramer amendment, but did not think it went far 

enough: 

We would amend the bill to allow Interstate funds to be used for non-Interstate purposes 

when an Interstate segment is to be deleted from the System and the responsible State and 

local officials jointly determine that this would be a better use of these funds. However, in 

no way would this amendment undermine the integrity of the System since no deletion 

could be made without the Secretary of Transportation first determining that the segment to 

be deleted was not essential to System continuity.

Our amendment would require the Governor and appropriate local officials to jointly request 

that an Interstate segment be deleted. The Secretary of Transportation could only approve 

this request if he determines that the segment in question is not essential for the continuity 

of the System. 

Funds equaling the cost of the deleted segment as of the date of its withdrawal would be 

available for alternative Interstate segments or for projects on the Federal-aid urban system 

in the urbanized area in which the deleted segment was located. Thus for the first time, 

Interstate funds could be used for non-Interstate purposes. 

They added that they saw no reason why “transportation capacity must be provided through an 

eight-lane limited access facility rather than through seven or eight separate upgradings of poorly 

designed existing streets or for that matter improved public transportation.” At present, a city 

seeking additional capacity “must accept it the only way it is offered, as an Interstate highway 

segment.” Under the proposed amendment, officials could select a different Interstate routing or 

several improved lesser facilities. [1972 Act, House Report, p. 73-74] 
349 

Representative Robert A. Roe (D-NJ) joined in their minority view on “Public Transportation.” 

They endorsed the rejected amendment that would allow a portion of Highway Trust Fund revenue 

to be used to acquire and construct facilities and equipment for bus and rail public transportation. 

The provision would permit, not require, these options. “The point is that those who are most 

familiar with an area and its needs would be permitted flexibility in developing a transportation 

program.” Getting people out of their cars would also benefit the trucking and business community 

by reducing congestion while helping alleviate air pollution and the oil crisis. They indicated they 

would offer the amendment when the bill came up for consideration on the House floor. [1972 

Act, House Report, p. 76-79] 

Representatives Jim Wright and Gray of Illinois joined Representatives Anderson, Abzug, Collins, 

Rangel, and Roe in expressing disappointment that the bicycle transportation amendment had been 

rejected. The amendment would have allowed Federal-aid to help States and localities construct 

bicycle and pedestrian paths and associated features such as bicycle shelters and traffic control 

devices in conjunction with highway rights-of-way. Allowing this use would have helped alleviate 

traffic congestion and auto pollution and provide “a healthy recreational activity as well.” 

Apportioned Federal-aid highway funds could have been used for bicycle-related work, but the 

amendment would have added $10 million a year for FYs 1974 and 1975 specifically for this 

purpose. The amendment would not have affected city sidewalks, which were a local 

responsibility, but “would help meet the pressing needs of the ever growing army (80 million 

persons) of bike riders—both young and old—who enjoy commuting to work or school, and who 

enjoy the wholesome, healthy recreation of bicycling.” [1972 Act, House Report, p. 75] 

Representative Abzug individually opposed the priority primary concept as a second generation 

Interstate System. The new program would take away from the flexibility needed in determining 

transportation alternatives: 

We do not need another such system. What is now required are funds to best meet the 

different needs found in different States. If additional highways are needed, we should 

provide the funds but the States should decide how to use them. [1972 Act, House Report, 

p. 82] 

On September 14, the House Banking and Currency Committee had completed work on its version 

of the omnibus housing and urban development bill the Senate had approved in March. The bill 

included a 2-year appropriation of $400 million—half the amount in the Senate bill—to cover 

operating deficits for transit systems. The prospects for passage on the House floor in the few 

weeks remaining were dimmed by other controversial provisions, including restrictions on Federal 

efforts to open the suburbs to minorities. The New York Times said the bill “was seen as 

progressive in its attempt to reform the grand system and aid the large cities in their development 

but sharply regressive in social content, moving against efforts of the Federal Government for an 

integrated, open society and for assistance to the poor.” [Herbers, John, “House Unit Backs 

Housing Measure,” The New York Times, September 15, 1972] 

On September 27, the House Rules Committee voted 9 to 5 on September 27 to defer action on the 

legislation, effectively killing it. As The Wall Street Journal explained, the bill “had drawn fire 
350 

both from liberals, who opposed restrictions on subsidized housing projects, and conservatives, 

who disliked the subsidies for mass transit systems and the continuation of any subsidized housing 

programs.” Another sticking point was that “the size of the massive 314-page bill offended 

practically everyone, including the chairman of the Banking Committee, Wright Patman (D., 

Texas).” The House and Senate banking committees were reported to be working on continuing 

resolutions to fund current housing programs to continue funding in FY 1973 for the Department of 

Housing and Urban Development, Federal Housing Administration, and the Veterans 

Administration. [“House Rules Unit Kills Housing Bill With Transit Aid,” The Wall Street 

Journal, September 28, 1972] 

With a little more than a week before the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 would reach the House 

floor, the debate over diversion continued. The American Trucking Associations’ Furtick 

denounced the Senate bill in a speech to the Central Motor Freight Association in Chicago. The 

industry was willing to pay its fair share, he said, but “that is not what the Senate and others are 

asking of us. They are asking us to pay considerably more than our fair share,” referring to the use 

of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit. [“Mass Transit Use of Road Fund Hit,” The 

Journal of Commerce, September 29, 1972] 

Secretary Volpe again “most enthusiastically” supported the Cooper-Muskie amendment in a 

statement issued on September 29. “I become increasingly optimistic that similar legislation will be 

approved by the House of Representatives.” The amendment was “moderate and limited” in scope, 

but would allow Federal officials “to work with these cities to help them meet their needs.”

The change, moreover, “is completely consistent with the evolving history of the Federal aid 

highway program,” as he explained:

Over the years new uses for the Highway Trust Funds have been introduced. Today we see 

these funds being used for replacement housing, construction of exclusive bus lanes, 

parking facilities, safety programs, even ferryboats. I do not, consequently, see any conflict 

in the use of these funds for buses or rail purposes. The principal beneficiaries of this new 

program would be highway users themselves who would see lessening of highway 

congestion as more and more drivers took advantage of new or improved transit. 

The old way of Federal financing dictated that State and local officials must build highways 

– whether or not they needed them. 

The new way we recommend permits these same officials to make the wisest possible 

transportation investment with their Federal assistance. This new way, it seems to me, is in 

the best tradition of representative government. 

The statement was accompanied by a Question and Answer section. One question was, “But how 

can you expect people who pay into the Highway Trust Fund to agree to this?” The answer: 

Virtually all Americans are highway users in one way or another. Either they use vehicles 

for private use or they obtain their basic goods from trucks that use those roads. They use it 
351 

for business as well as pleasure. But the point is that congestion cannot be solved merely by 

building roads. We must make use of all forms of mass transit or in reality these tax dollars 

will not buy very much in the way of better transportation. 

Another question asked if the Cooper-Muskie amendment was “unfair to truckers who pay the most 

taxes only to see some of the money going to mass transit which is of no benefit to truckers at all.” 

The answer:

The truth of the matter is that truckers will most certainly benefit. They compete with the 

private motorist in the highly congested urban areas. It has been estimated, for example, 

that the annual cost of congestion to truckers in New York City alone is more than $100 

million. Our proposals are designed to help remove many of the private automobiles from 

streets so that all vehicles can operate more effectively. Truckers surely would not like one 

alternative that has been suggested – restricting truck use in urban areas to non-rush hours 

and even nighttime. 

That same day, September 29, Secretary Volpe addressed State transportation officials gathered at 

Friendship International Airport in Maryland to discuss traditional and innovative approaches to 

transportation planning, organization, and financing. The Secretary told the assembled officials that 

he endorsed the Cooper-Muskie amendment in the Senate bill. It would not change the highwayorientation of the Federal-aid primary and secondary systems, but would allow urban officials to 

decide the best way to address their unique transportation needs. Among the beneficiaries would be 

motorists who would face less congestion as more drivers switch to transit. [“Volpe Promises 

Funds for Rail Transit System,” The Baltimore Sun, September 30, 1972; “Volpe Supports 

Highway Aid Act,” The Journal of Commerce, October 2, 1972] 

(On November 16, 1973, Friendship was renamed Baltimore-Washington International Airport to 

reflect its regional role. In 2005, it was renamed Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood 

Marshall Airport (BWI) to honor the achievements and the legacy of Supreme Court Justice 

Thurgood Marshall, who was born and raised in Baltimore.) 

At the start of a panel discussion, Under Secretary Beggs said of the Cooper-Muskie amendment: 

Although scaled down from our original request of $1 billion for urban transportation, the 

Bill as passed by the Senate would provide that flexibility in solving urban transportation 

problems we believe essential. It would bring funding and responsibility closer together. 

He explained that success on the Senate floor followed defeat in committee:

If we are to win this one, we will have to have a repeat performance of the minor miracle of 

overturning a powerful committee recommendation. The House Subcommittee on Roads 

and the full House Public Works Committee have by convincing margins voted against the 

use of Highway Trust Fund money to support transit systems other than bus-related highway 

facilities.
352 

Whatever the outcome, he said, the “momentum for meeting transportation challenges on a systems 

basis grows.” The Nixon Administration had shown “a willingness to go the extra mile in 

cooperating with you to solve your transportation problems and to help you meet your challenges.” 

On October 3, Secretary Volpe issued another statement in support of the Cooper-Muskie 

amendment. Thanks to the Highway Trust Fund, he said, “the United States has the most advanced 

and best transportation system in the world.” He continued: 

The great emphasis we have placed upon highway construction for the past 16 years has 

been, rightly or wrongly, a major contributing factor to the urbanization of America. We are 

today a more complex society and that complexity is nowhere more evident than in the area 

of transportation. 

But the quality of mobility has become flawed in many of our urban areas. It is in the effort 

to restore mobility in our cities that we urge Congress to approve use of the Highway Trust 

fund for public transportation in urban areas . . . . Returning political philosophy and 

initiative to the original concept of the Highway Trust Fund – increased mobility – will give 

us that flexibility we need.

He praised the Senate for adopting the Cooper-Muskie amendment: 

Under the leadership of Representative John B. Anderson, a similar amendment providing 

$700 million to the Highway Bill will be introduced in the House of Representatives. 

In the interest of preserving the quality of mobility in our urban areas – the economic 

viability of our cities – I urge favorable consideration of the Anderson amendment. 

The statement was accompanied by “Facts About the Highway Trust Fund” highlighting the many 

diversions from highway construction already approved. It included three recommendations for 

changes to House bill, which it described as “very much a traditional highway bill.” Of course, the 

first recommendation was adoption of the Cooper-Muskie amendment. Second, Secretary Volpe 

said the House bill provided all Federal-aid urban system funds (increased from $100 million at 

present to $700 million a year) to the State highway departments. He endorsed an amendment that 

would allocate the funds proportionately among urbanized areas of 50,000 population or more: 

If a duly constituted metropolitan transportation agency were established, the funds would 

go directly to them. If no such agency existed, the State would administer the funds for use 

only in the designated urban area. 

Finally, he endorsed an amendment on “Interstate Transfers.” Current statutes allowed the 

Secretary to delete segments that were not essential for the continuity of the Interstate System. 

Deletions would free funds for use elsewhere, but the statutory mileage limitation on the length of 

the System was a limiting factor. The additional 200 miles currently available under the HowardCramer Act helped offset the limitation. “This additional mileage has the effect of permitting funds 

tied up in a relatively expensive short urban segment to be used for a much longer rural segment.” 
353 

The House bill eliminated the 200-mile addition and authorized whatever additional mileage was 

needed. The Secretary favored an amendment that would remove the 200-mile ceiling but “would 

permit the funds earmarked for a deleted Interstate segment to be added to the Federal-aid urban 

system funds of the urban areas in which the deleted segment was located.” The funds could then 

be used for any activity that was eligible for urban system funds. The statement did not say so, but 

approval of this amendment coupled with the Cooper-Muskie amendment would mean that the 

former Interstate funds could be used for transit, including rail transit. 

The statement opposed the bill’s 2-year moratorium on billboard removal, funding for priority 

primary routes, and provisions involving freeway construction in the District of Columbia.

The New York Times endorsed House approval of the Cooper-Muskie amendment. The editorial 

recognized that amending the bill in the House “will not be easy, given the extraordinary power of 

the highway lobby.” It praised Secretary Volpe for campaigning hard for the amendment and 

President Nixon for supporting it. “If it fails, the fault will not be that of the Administration but of 

the Democratic leadership of the House.” [“Roads—Or Rail?” The New York Times, October 3, 

1972] 

James D. Dilts, who covered transportation for The Baltimore Sun, tried to set the stage for the 

coming battle. His Sunday feature article began:

In the annals of legislation, 1972 could be remembered as the year the first concentrated 

attack was mounted on the Highway Trust Fund. 

The battle would be over the Cooper-Muskie amendment, which had been approved by the Senate 

with the support of Secretary Volpe and the Highway Action Coalition. Dilts summarized the 

evolution of the legislation, noting Secretary Volpe’s testimony in support of the Single Urban 

Fund, which “was never heard of again, and did not emerge in either Senate or House versions of 

the highway bill.” 

On one side of the debate was HUFSAM, the federation of highway corporations. HUFSAM’s 

Koltnow said, “Some of the proponents [of diverting highway funds into mass transit] are less 

concerned about the real needs of transit than they are annoyed by the highway program.” 

On the other side was the Highway Action Coalition. Dilts helped his readers understand the 

contrast between the antagonists. The coalition, he explained, consisted of the same groups that 

had defeated the SST. They had reformed a year earlier with a new target: the Highway Trust 

Fund. The coalition’s offices were on the seventh floor of the Dupont Circle Building “which 

seems to be sort of a commercial Chelsea Hotel and in a similar state of physical decay.” He added 

that, “A lot of people run around the halls with guitars.” (The Chelsea Hotel in New York City was 

known for the artists, musicians, and writers who stayed there.) The current campaign consisted of 

“legislative lobbying and mailing out literature, piles of which consume most of the space in the 

office.” 
354 

He introduced readers to John D. Kramer, who had taken a leave of absence from a fellowship in 

international relations at Oxford to run the coalition for $75 a week. Kramer headed a staff of four 

and operated on a budget of $15,000 a year. “Neither he nor anyone else on the staff has been paid 

in a month.” Asked about the source of funding for the coalition, Kramer told Dilts, “That’s the 

problem. We don’t have one.” 

Dilts also visited “the plush offices” of HUFSAM a block away on the fifth floor of 1776 

Massachusetts Avenue. “The federation is conducting a public information campaign and media 

blitz on the need for more highways.” With a budget of $3 million a year, HUFSAM employed a 

staff of 50. Koltnow said: 

The transit case has been misstated. This illusion of a fat highway trust fund is a bunch of 

grapes that has been dangled in front of interested folks on the other side. The needs of 

highways have always outstripped the revenues. I defy you to find me a street you are 

satisfied with as far as safety and looks are concerned.

He added that, “We have no paid lobbyists on the hill,” although Kramer claimed that HUFSAM 

lobbied anyway. 

Both groups were focused on the House. Kramer told Dilts, “There is an awful lot of tricky 

maneuvering going on.” [Dilts, James D., “Trying to Crack the Highway Fund,” The Baltimore 

Sun, October 1, 1972] 

Engineering News-Record also tried to give its readers a sense of the debate. The 1972 Act would 

be “one of the final, and most controversial bills Congress will handle before adjourning for the fall 

campaign.” When the House passed its bill, “no doubt there will be a battle royal when conferees 

meet soon to work out differences.” 

Of course, the Cooper-Muskie amendment would be the chief battleground. In addition to the usual 

disagreements over rail transit, the article saw other problems:

A potential complication that mitigates [sic] against the transit diversion was brought up by 

Rep. Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.). He says that any such change in authorization would require a 

change in revenue collection laws, an almost impossible legislative hurdle since Congress 

wants to adjourn soon . . . . 

Some sources consider it likely that President Nixon may veto any highway bill that calls for 

more than $6 billion in annual funding. [“Battle Shapes Up on Highway Fund Diversion,” 

Engineering News-Record, September 28, 1972, p. 21] 

Despite rejection by the House Public Works Committee of the Cooper-Muskie amendment, the 

Department of Transportation and mass transit supporters thought their intensive campaign had 

gained enough support to pass on the House floor. However, before the Federal-Aid Highway Act 

of 1972 could reach the House floor, it had to go through the House Rules Committee, which would 
355 

determine which amendments would be out of order. In other words, any such amendment was not 

considered germane to the legislation. 

The Rules Committee had outlawed amendments to alter several sections, including the U.S. 281 

North Expressway provision. On October 3, Representative John A. Anderson (R-Il.) of the Rules 

Committee tried to convince his colleagues to send the bill to the House floor with a rule allowing 

consideration of the Cooper-Muskie amendment. The committee voted 7 to 8 to reject Anderson’s 

proposal. All the Republicans except Anderson voted against his plan, while six Democrats 

favored it and two voted against it. This action meant that if the Cooper-Muskie amendment were

introduced during the floor debate, it would be ruled out of order and not brought to a vote—as had 

been the case when the House refused to allow consideration of transit measures during 

consideration of highway bills in 1968 and 1970. 

The vote led to partisan finger pointing. Liberal Democrats from urban areas blamed the Nixon 

Administration for not securing the needed votes to pass the Anderson plan out of the Rules 

Committee. Administration officials explained that President Nixon had written to Anderson on 

September 30 to offer unqualified support for the plan. “I consider it of the utmost importance that 

the House act to provide more flexibility in the use of the Highway Trust Fund for urban 

transportation projects—either highways or transit—along the same lines as those on which the 

Senate has acted.” The President acknowledged the House bill’s support for highway-oriented 

mass transit, but “urban areas must have the flexibility to design, and fund, a balanced system.” He 

endorsed the Cooper-Muskie amendment as “the kind of flexibility we need today and that is why I 

am so pleased you will be offering your amendment.” 

Secretary Volpe had called nearly every member of the Rules Committee, and after the vote, had 

called Republicans again in hopes of convincing them to change their vote. They criticized Speaker 

of the House Carl Albert (D-Ok.) and Majority Leader Hale Boggs, who had refused requests that 

they help secure approval. The Minority Leader, Representative Gerald R. Ford (R-Mi.) had also 

refused to help. 

What the Rules Committee’s decision meant for the bill was unclear. Some officials thought it 

killed any chance of enacting a Federal-aid highway bill in 1972. The Administration, however, 

still planned to fight for the bill and thought it had a chance. [“Rules Panel Blocks House Vote on 

Nixon Plan to Let Urban Areas Use Road Funds for Mass Transit,” The New York Times, October 

4, 1972; “Providing for Consideration of H.R. 16656, Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972,” 

Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34066-34067] 

On Thursday, October 5, the House began considering the bill. That morning, an editorial in The 

Los Angeles Times decried the House Rules Committee’s action. The present restriction of the 

Highway Trust Fund to highways “no longer makes sense in light of environmental considerations 

and the crying need in many urban communities for a balanced transportation system including fast, 

efficient mass transit.” The key House committees were still under the grip of the highway lobby, 

the editorial stated, but the Highway Action Coalition was convinced it had the votes to approve the 

Cooper-Muskie amendment if it came to a vote before the full House. “Barring a miracle, the drive 

to change the law is dead for this year” following the Rules Committee’s action. Fortunately, “it is 
356 

highly unlikely that the corpse will stay buried.” Eventually, “common sense will prevail even in 

the U.S. House of Representatives.” [“Another Setback for Mass Transit,” The Los Angeles Times, 

October 5, 1972] 

That same day, The Journal of Commerce reported that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters 

had broken with longstanding policy to support the use of Highway Trust Funds for mass transit. 

“It’s simply a realization of the fact that highways alone can’t do the job.” The Teamsters, who had 

been influential in other battles in support of highways, said they would throw their lobbying 

support behind the Cooper-Muskie amendment because it would help relieve congestion on the 

streets and highways the truckers used. [“Teamsters Back Use of Road Fund For Mass Transit,” 

The Journal of Commerce, October 5, 1972] 

In the House, the first order of business was to adopt the House Rules Committee’s resolution 1145 

on the bill. Representative H. Allen Smith (R-Ca.) of the Rules Committee said he expected some 

controversy about the rule, especially regarding the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass 

transit. He explained that the committee had considered Anderson’s plan, but voted it down. On 

October 4, Representative Anderson had made a motion to reconsider, but it also had failed. He 

knew that several Representatives, including Anderson, had written an all-Members letters stating 

they would like to secure a vote on the Cooper-Muskie amendment. He could not speak for the 

Speaker or Parliamentarian, but he expected they would rule the amendment non-germane, 

consistent with the House Rules Committee vote. He added: 

Frankly, I am personally very much opposed to taking any of that money and diverting it and 

using that money for any type of mass transit. If they want to start a trust fund for that 

particular purpose, then they should start their own trust fund for that purpose. Because 

once you start going into trust funds, diverting them, you will have more and more and more 

problems. 

He recommended support for the House Rules Committee resolution. [Congressional RecordHouse, October 5, 1972, p. 34064-34065] 

Representative Anderson spoke in support of allowing a vote on his version of the Cooper-Muskie 

amendment. He said:

Up until 11 o’clock this morning I had been assured that our amendment would be germane. 

At that time I was informed that new points had been raised, and that we were in a new ball 

game.

He explained why the Cooper-Muskie amendment was needed, citing support from Secretary Volpe 

and President Nixon. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34065-34067] 

Members of the Public Works Committee who had signed the minority report also spoke in support 

of the amendment, with Representative Stanton, a Democrat, saying, “The minority leader has 

worked hard to make sure that the will of this body is not properly identified on this vote, in my 

judgment. I criticize him and those who seek that position.” 
357 

Minority Leader Ford responded briefly that he had “asked that the Rules Committee abide by the 

rules of the House, and that is the proper procedure in any legislative body.” He added, “To do 

otherwise would create uncertainty and legislative chaos.”

Stanton replied sarcastically, “I agree, and the intense interest of the minority leader to abide by 

those rules is to thwart the free will of this body to make a decision on the mass transit needs of 

America.” The Minority Leader asked Stanton to yield time for a response, but Stanton would not. 

He continued that he was seeking a vote “that is critical to the communities of America.” 

[Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34067] 

Representative Bingham, who had been subject to points of order in past efforts to secure Highway 

Trust Fund revenue for transit, spoke in favor of amending the rule to allow a vote on the CooperMuskie amendment. As a representative of New York City, “I feel very bitter about the way in 

which my constituents and other big city residents have been discriminated against over the years in 

the allocation of Federal funds for transportation purposes.” He wanted to make two points. First, 

he pointed out that the National Board of the Governors’ Conference supported the principle behind 

the amendment by supporting a Transportation Trust Fund consisting of existing earmarked 

transportation revenues or “beginning a phased program of percentage transfers from the highway 

and aviation trust funds and other funds made available for transportation into the proposed unified 

National Transportation Trust Fund.” He said that the Governors’ policy statement, as well as the 

Democratic Party’s platform, which called for broadening the Highway Trust Fund to include mass 

transit, went further than the Cooper-Muskie amendment. 

Second, he said he favored the germaneness rule in general. “Let us not frustrate ourselves, let us 

not paralyze ourselves, by a rigid application of the germaneness rule so that this issue cannot be 

voted on the merits.” He did not want anyone to say that the House would have approved, or at 

least voted on, the Cooper-Muskie amendment “if we followed some other procedure.” There was, 

he said, “simply no other procedure.” He added, “I have been fighting this battle since 1965, and I 

know.” [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34068] 

Representative John Byrnes (R-Wi.) brought up Secretary Volpe’s statement in February 1969 

when he said, “I believe that the integrity of the highway trust fund must be preserved without 

question . . . . In my opinion, to divert highway use tax revenues to purposes other than the 

provision of highways would abrogate a long-standing moral commitment, as well as a statutory 

provision.” Byrnes thought the Secretary’s comment was right on point. “Are we going to break 

faith with what we did in 1956 . . . .?” He quoted President Eisenhower in 1956: 

A sound Federal highway program, I believe, can and should stand on its own feet, with 

highway users providing the total dollars necessary for improvements and new construction. 

Now, Byrnes asked, are we going to say to taxpayers that after making a firm commitment on how 

highway user tax revenue would be used, “we have decided we are going to use this money for any 

purpose that comes along that suits our desire at the moment.” To do so would be to “break faith 

with those who pay these taxes.” [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34068-34069] 
358 

Representative Abzug said she thought House members had the right to hear arguments on both 

sides of the issue, especially since there was no other legislation where mass transit could be 

discussed: 

It is interesting that last week the Committee on Rules killed a housing bill which contained 

money not only for capital expenditures involving mass transportation but also for operating 

expenses for local transit agencies.

I think this amendment is perfectly germane to the highway legislation and it is the only 

legislation to which it is germane. The fact of the matter is that the present subject matter of 

the legislation does encompass facts concerning mass transit, such as the construction of bus 

lanes, bus shelters, and fringe area parking . . . . We are merely asking that an amendment 

to the Highway Act be considered on the floor. The Committee on Rules has no right to 

make a substantive determination that we cannot discuss the relationship of mass transit to 

the highway trust fund. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34069] 

After brief comments by Representative Koch in support of voting on the issue, Minority Leader 

Ford took the floor. He said that those who favored the amendment “would leave you with the 

impression that the Congress is not providing one penny for urban mass transit.” He summarized 

funding in the mass transportation act. Now, he said, they want that funding, plus they “want to 

break faith with the trust fund.” He said, “let me put this issue as clearly as I can.” Do the 

Representatives think that the people paying taxes for construction of highways want that money 

diverted to fixed rail facilities and the purchase of passenger equipment? “Of course they do not. 

They do not want you to break faith with them, and if you vote ‘no’ [on the resolution] . . . you 

will.”

Proponents spoke of the Cooper-Muskie amendment “as though this is a very simple, innocuous 

amendment,” when they were just using the old “nose under the tent” theory. “If you open the door 

a wee crack, you are going to have the floodgates opened.” Once Congress breaks faith on the 

Highway Trust Fund, those same proponents, Ford said, would want funds from the airport trust 

fund. He urged support for the House Rules resolution. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 

1972, p. 34069-34070] 

Representative Wright said he supported mass transit, but wanted to explain the three reasons why 

the Committee on Public Works had considered the Cooper-Muskie amendment “very unwise.” 

First was the breach of trust. Congress should no more break faith with the highway user taxpayers 

“than we would want to violate the social security trust fund.” Second, every penny in the Highway 

Trust Fund was needed for highways, as documented in the 1972 transportation needs report. 

Third, the Public Works Committee had worked within the framework of the trust to the taxpaying 

public “to assist and accommodate the development of mass transit wherever it is needed and can 

be used.” He cited the provision allowing the use of highway right-of-way for mass transit facilities 

as well as the provisions for fringe parking and preferential bus lanes. [Congressional RecordHouse, October 5, 1972, p. 34071] 
359 

Representative Harsha said that all the Rules Committee was asking the House to do was “abide by 

the rules we enacted some time ago.” If non-germane subjects were considered on every bill “you 

will find yourselves legislating in a circus.” The Rules Committee was not denying the House the 

right to vote on this issue if legislation were reported out of the committee with jurisdiction over 

this subject. “Then it can be brought before the House in a proper manner and dealt with according 

to the rules of the House.” 

He emphasized that Highway Trust Fund revenue was needed for highways. “By diverting even 

one penny from this highway improvement effort we are, in effect, endangering the lives of the 

people who travel on the Nation’s roads.” With 55,000 people already losing their lives on the 

roads, he said, “Let us not set the stage for killing many more.” 

If the Administration thought mass transit was so urgent, Representative Harsha asked, why had the 

Administration impounded $300 million of that money the previous year? Further, the General 

Revenue Sharing bill was awaiting passage, and that would provide more funds that communities 

could use for mass transit. “Now, how much do they want? What they really want, I think, is to 

have the operating costs of mass transit systems paid for by Federal funds.” The Cooper-Muskie 

amendment would be “the foot in the door” that would allow “this mass transit special interest . . . 

to get money to operate the system, keep the fares low and thus have automobile owners subsidize 

the subway riders.” 

Allowing consideration of the amendment would violate the fiduciary responsibility of Congress. 

“Its word must be good. If it votes down the previous question and makes the rule open to 

amendment it will be saying ‘Our word is no good, our promises are no good.’” Congress had 

given its word in creating the Highway Trust Fund and must not go back on it. [Congressional 

Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34072] 

Representative Blatnik followed Representative Harsha by saying modestly “that I had a very small 

role to play over the years on the highway program which has been so ably handled by the former 

chairman of the committee, George Fallon, who is here on the floor of the House this afternoon, and 

the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Kluczynski) and the able staff of the 

committee.” He agreed with the arguments for mass transit. They are “absolutely justified.” 

However, he also was aware of needs in rural areas where mass transit could not be the solution. 

“There is not enough money in the trust fund and you are never going to solve the problem by what 

is being attempted here—no one is going to solve these problems in this way.” He favored 

identifying needs and providing funds to meet them. Congress “should not in the process take the 

moneys from other programs where they are equally needed.” [Congressional Record-House, 

October 5, 1972, p. 34072] 

Representative Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill (D-Ma.), whose district in Boston included a portion of 

the controversial Inner Belt, spoke in support of Representative Anderson’s request. 

Representatives from Boston, such as himself, and other urban areas should have the opportunity to 

vote on the Cooper-Muskie amendment. As a member of the Rules Committee, he had tried to 

waive the point of order on this amendment, but the majority had voted to deprive “millions of 

citizens in urban areas of improved public transportation systems.” Allowing the Rules Committee 
360 

resolution to control the debate “would insure that the metropolitan areas of America would 

continue to be torn by controversies which have immobilized efforts to achieve truly balanced 

transportation systems so desperately needed by all our citizens.” [Congressional Record-House, 

October 5, 1972] 

When the debate was concluded, the House voted 200 to 168 in support of the Rules Committee 

resolution. They would not vote on Representative Anderson’s attempt to incorporate the CooperMuskie amendment into the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. [Congressional Record-House, 

October 5, 1972, p. 34075-34076] 

The Washington Post gave Minority Leader Ford much of the credit for the vote. His “strong 

speech of opposition” to modifying the resolution “lined up nearly two-thirds of the Republicans 

against it despite the President’s support.” The article noted that as Representative Anderson had 

said during the debate, the House Parliamentarian had assured him and his cosponsors that their 

amendment to consider their version of the Cooper-Muskie amendment would be ruled in order. 

On October 5, “they said they were told just the opposite, that it would be ruled out of order.” 

Instead of debating the merits of their amendment, they had to fight on a procedural motion to 

change the House Rules Committee resolution. “It is usually more difficult to win a procedural 

fight than a substantive one.” [Lyons, Richard L., “House Kills Bid to Open Road Fund,” The 

Washington Post, October 6, 1972] 

John Kramer and other mass transit supporters were angered by the maneuvering to prevent a vote 

on the issue. Kramer said, “This parliamentary maneuver insures that the highway lobby will 

continue to have a firm grip over America’s transportation dollars and that millions of citizens in 

urban areas will be deprived of the quality public transportation service they deserve.” [“MassTransit Use of Highway Fund Blocked by House,” The Wall Street Journal, October 6, 1972] 

Albert R. Karr wrote about the defeat in The Wall Street Journal on October 10. His article was 

titled “The Highway Boys Win Another One.” He began with an anecdote about a man from Peoria 

who worked for the Caterpillar Tractor Company. While in Washington, he tried to find The 

Highway Lobby in the telephone directory. When he couldn’t find it, he doubted its existence. 

Karr continued: 

Here’s news for the man from Peoria. The highway lobby exists. It’s in Washington—big 

as life, vigorous and fresh from one of its greatest victories. 

After explaining the debate over the House Rules Committee resolution, he pointed out that it was 

“remotely possible” that the highway lobby might still lose if a House-Senate conference committee 

included the Cooper-Muskie amendment in the final bill. “Even so, the effort it has mounted in 

recent weeks would still be impressive.” He summarized some of its efforts:

One anti-highway man counted nearly 30 highway lobbyists working the corridors of 

Capitol Hill as the House proposal headed toward a vote recently. Moreover, a contractors 

group, the Committee for Action, already has reported contributing $74.400 in recent 
361 

months to more than 60 political candidates. The contributions include $1,500 to Sen. 

Jennings Randolph . . . and $1,000 to John S. Blatnik . . . . 

So far, the Truck Operators Non-Partisan Committee has reported no donations. But if the 

rumors of recent donations proffered to House members during the recent debate are any 

indication, the truckers won’t be sitting on their money for long. 

On at least two occasions in recent days, the truckers were reported offering campaigncontributions checks to members of House committees as key votes approached on the 

highway measure. When the House public works panel was to register its stand on the trustfund diversion plan (it wound up rejecting the plan 26-10), some of the trucker offers 

amounted to “a couple thousand dollars at a crack,” says an observer. “They pulled out all 

the stops . . . .” 

Later, more trucker offers were made when the rules committee took up a parliamentary 

question vital to passage of the bill. The highway lobbyists wanted the committee to rule 

that any amendment from the House floor to tap the trust fund for mass transportation would 

be out of order. The committee ruled accordingly. 

The lobbyists, Karr said, were satisfied with their efforts until they learned that the Administration 

had convinced the House parliamentarian to overrule the committee: 

So the highway men went to work again. The House parliamentarian was instructed to 

uphold the point of order. 

The House rejection of the Cooper-Muskie amendment in committee and on the floor during the 

debate on points of order had been “a major defeat for Mr. Volpe.” He had supported the CooperMuskie amendment, rather than the more dramatic Kennedy-Weicker amendment, and now the 

prospects for either were dim. In supporting the more modest amendment, the Administration had 

“worked hard to persuade pro-highway members of Congress that the administration isn’t out to 

sabotage the trust fund, just to relieve urban congestion and alleviate such environmental problems 

as air pollution.” Another factor was at play as well. Secretary Volpe had been warning highway 

interests the week before that if the highway lobby did not support the relatively modest CooperMuskie amendment, they would only “encourage the extremists who want to abolish the trust fund 

altogether.” 

As for the Administration’s Single Urban Fund, Karr found that: 

[W]hen the administration’s pro-transit proposal came to its House test this year, the prohighway lobbyists were working against it much harder than the pro-transit advocates were 

working for it. The transit interests apparently decided in advance that the administration 

proposal was a lost cause this year.
362 

Now attention would turn to the conference committee, which would have to reach agreement on a 

single bill, and that was not certain with only a week to go in the session. The “sometimes-heavy 

hand of the lobby” was expected to be evident when the conference meets to work out differences:

And the lobby may do very well, partly because the conference committee itself will, in 

effect, be stacked in its favor. The House members on the committee will be flatly opposed 

to aiding mass transit, and some of the Senators on it are more pro-highway than the Senate 

as a whole.

If the provision in the Senate bill did not survive the House-Senate conference committee, “the 

prospects of a veto of the entire bill by President Nixon are very real,” according to an unnamed 

Transportation Department official. 

Mass transit advocates thought that if the bill died with the end of the 92nd Congress, they would 

fare better in 1973. With some pro-highway members retiring and others subject to tough reelections in November, the Rules Committee might be more favorable. An unnamed administration 

man told Karr, “I think we’re going to see increasing pressure for that.” He called the highway 

lobby’s impressive effort in recent weeks “a dying gasp.” 

Pro-transit interests might face defeat in 1972, but “are optimistic over the long haul.” The public, 

influenced by environmental and urban-oriented groups, was calling for less emphasis on highways, 

with Mayors and Governors supporting the transition. Karr pointed out that even some traditional 

highway supporters, such as the Teamsters Union, Mobil Oil, and the National Automobile Dealers 

Association were calling for change. The Administration, if President Nixon were reelected, was 

reportedly planning to push again for a formula similar to the one rejected by the House. 

While these trends were clear, another was less clear. “The [highway] lobby already has lost much 

of its clout in the Senate.” The Public Works Committee’s close vote turning down the CooperMuskie amendment after Senator Stafford switched his vote overnight, was an illustration (“a rare 

event for a pro-highway committee that often votes unanimously”). The success of the amendment 

on the Senate floor illustrated the changing picture. Even in the House, where the highway lobby 

was “most potent,” pro-transit interests thought they might have won a vote on the merits instead of 

on the procedural issue of the Rules Committee resolution: 

The pro-transit forces think the highway lobbyists would be wise to compromise (“They just 

can’t seem to see the handwriting on the wall,” an administration official says). One 

possible compromise would be to fatten the trust fund with new taxes, then use the fund to 

aid both roadbuilding and transit. But compromise didn’t enter into the lobby’s plans this 

year, even though the lobby’s united front has broken down a bit of late. 

Still, the House Committee on Public Works was seen as “a bastion of pro-highway support,” Karr

explained at the end of the article: 

In fact, the rural-dominated panel is philosophically so attuned to the highway lobby that it 

may almost be regarded as an extension of the lobby. For, as a committee staff man 
363 

remarks: “We hear from the highway lobby, but we don’t need to.” And as Chairman 

Kluczynski explains: “We are all cousins.” [Karr, Albert R., “The Highway Boys Win 

Another One,” The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 1972] 

Passing the House Bill

With the House Rules Committee resolution adopted, the House turned to the Public Works 

Committee’s bill. Representative Kluczynski, the floor manager, began on a defensive note: 

[The] Federal Aid Highway Act of 1972, H.R. 16656, is now before this body and I believe 

it one of the best highway bills ever to come out of the Committee on Public Works. We 

have produced a highway bill this year which will give direction to the highway program for 

many years into the future.

I would like to make it clear to you Members at the outset that this is not just another 

highway bill to add more miles of big monstrous freeways or to pave over the country and 

the cities with concrete and asphalt as many of our critics would have you believe. This is a 

highway system designed to meet the needs of America.

After summarizing the growth in vehicles, miles traveled, and deteriorating road and bridge 

conditions, he continued: 

So you see ladies and gentlemen, the problem we face in our highway program. With 

practically the same number of miles of road we must provide for almost a doubling of 

vehicles and vehicle miles of travel in only a 15-year period. Our program is not basically 

adding more miles of road, it is one of improving the safety and capacity of the ones we 

have. And believe me this is a costly proposition. 

He went through some of the elements of the bill. He said the bill reduced authorizations for the 

Interstate System (from $4 billion to $3.5 billion a year) for two reasons. First, with 80 percent of 

the Interstate mileage open, the remaining mileage was taking “a little longer to build” so less 

funding would be needed each year. Second, additional funding was needed for the Federal-aid 

systems as they transitioned from the 50-50 matching ratio to 70-30. He stressed the policy 

statement in the bill that as the Interstate System nears completion, the national emphasis should be 

on accelerated construction of the other Federal-aid systems. “This policy is absolutely necessary if 

we are ever going to come close to meeting the needs I outlined earlier . . . .” 

He said, “let me assure you that the Interstate System is coming to a close.” Three States will have 

received all their Interstate authorizations in FY 1975 (Delaware, Nebraska, and North Dakota). To 

ensure rapid completion, the bill required the States to submit all remaining PS&Es to the Secretary 

by July 1, 1977 (except in the District of Columbia). [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 

1972, p. 34078-34079] 

Representative Kluczynski yielded time to other supporters of the bill. One of them was 

Representative Schwengel, who began by noting “with great pride” that he had voted for the 
364 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which had resulted in “one of the finest investments in America 

that we have ever made in the form of a public works project.” The cost-benefit ratio “has 

exceeded anything we have ever attempted in the form of a public works project.” 

He had listened to mass transit advocates, but concluded that the bill took the wise step of turning 

down their appeals for funding. Now, he said, “we can give more thought to this problem and 

evolve a plan which will come to grips with it and bring it to a successful consummation.” After 

all, one of the “tragedies” of mass transit was that “we do not know how much it will cost.” 

Officials from New York City had said they needed $9 billion. “That is just for New York City,” 

and 67 other communities could support some form of urban transit. The bill provided funds to 

study the problem and help Congress identify solutions. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 

1972, p. 34083] 

Representative Clausen of the Public Works Committee explained that he did not favor diversion of 

Highway Trust Fund revenues to non-highway related transit. He said that “if this occurred—and I 

am sure that the battle is far from over—it would have the net effect of literally drying up the very 

fund upon which those who look to the fund for help in financing non-highway related 

transportation.” He favored creation of an urban area transportation system trust fund. The study 

called for in the bill would lead to hearings where Congress could “determine not only what the 

actual facts of transit life are as far as the needs and the estimates of costs of proposed programs 

are, but how to finance them through the creation of a third trust fund.” [Congressional RecordHouse, October 5, 1972, p. 34087] 

Representative Abzug quoted her testimony before the Subcommittee on Roads in support of mass 

transit. She added that, “It is extremely urgent that we provide Federal funds for the construction, 

maintenance, and operation of mass transit facilities.” Further, “We must stop looking upon the 

highway trust fund as a sacred cow and start being realistic as to our transportation needs.” 

She also expressed her concerns about the precedent set by the provision related to the U.S. 281 

North Expressway in San Antonio: 

I do not believe that Congress should become involved in trying to unravel specific highway 

disputes or disputes on any similar projects. I do not believe we should review each case in 

which a court grants an injunction under these statutes [NEPA and Section 4(f)] . . . . While 

section 113 is by its terms limited to San Antonio, many people throughout the country see 

the far ranging implications of this section and the threat it poses to existing environmental 

legislation. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34087-34088] 

Representative Stanton said he appreciated the fact that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 had 

opened the Highway Trust Fund to highway-oriented public transportation. Now, however, “those 

critical transportation needs are not only still with us, but have intensified and we must go farther 

and reach more deeply into the heart of the urban transportation crisis.” Support for urban roads 

and highway-oriented transit must be followed by a new opportunity, namely giving local officials 

the option of creating mass transit facilities as well as highways.
365 

The first step in fulfilling this opportunity was giving State and local officials the option of deleting 

nonessential segments of the Interstate System:

The funds released by any such deletions should be made available for all forms of 

transportation, not just highways. Sometimes other roads would be constructed with the 

funds, at other times, bus or railway transit systems. But essentially interstate sections 

which would cause unnecessary environmental, social, and economic damage—unnecessary 

because the section itself is deemed unnecessary—would now be deleted as would sections 

that simply were planned to suit the needs of another era. 

He then discussed the amendment to allow Federal-aid urban system funds to be used for any form 

of mass transit, including rail facilities. The urban Interstates, he said, “have been reduced, for 

hours each day, to long, involuntary parking lots.” Every time a new highway opened to cope with 

the problem, “we simply draw more cars onto the road.” More highways may be the answer in 

some cities, but others needed public transportation. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 

1972, p. 34092] 

Representative Anderson reiterated the importance of broadening funds for mass transit. Regarding 

the Rules Committee’s resolution, he asked, “First of all, is it germane?” He answered, “I feel it is” 

because it was simply an extension of the bill’s efforts to expand options other than the automobile 

for relieving urban congestion. What, he asked, could help solve the problem more than allowing a 

small amount of funding ($700 million in Federal-aid urban system funds) for mass transportation 

as well as highways?

This amendment, which had been ruled non-germane, was not a raid on the Highway Trust Fund. 

Under the amendment, the funding that could be used for highway-oriented public transportation 

also could be used for rail facilities. As for breaking faith with the highway user, he pointed out 

that, “during the rush hours our highways are clogged; no one can get anywhere with any degree of 

speed or efficiency.” Does it not make sense, he asked, to give those motorists another option 

rather than simply building more freeways? [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 

34092-34093] 

The Reverend Drinan contrasted his efforts to improve State Route 52 in central Massachusetts 

with efforts in Boston to block construction of the Inner Belt/I-695. Unlike the “fierce local 

opposition” to the Inner Belt, the proposal to upgrade Route 52 “is both vitally needed and has 

received virtually unanimous support.” He supported the provision authorizing funds for priority 

primary routes that could be used to upgrade Route 52. However, he was deeply concerned that the 

bill did not provide an adequate solution for urbanized areas: 

It seems to me, and to many of us, that the answer to the urban transportation crisis does not 

lie in more roads alone. The urban transportation crisis demands greater flexibility on the 

part of the Federal Government than is contained within this bill. 
366 

For that reason, he supported the Cooper-Muskie amendment on the use of Federal-aid urban 

systems funds. He pointed out that on October 2, Jack Beidler of the United Auto Workers had 

written to every Member of Congress: 

The over-use of automobiles in urban areas threatens the health of city-dwellers and the 

vitality of our cities. Indeed, continued reliance on the automobile for intra-urban travel will 

inevitably invite controls on the use of automobiles with consequent injury to the industry. 

The proposed amendment would provide the relief from such restrictions by offering an alternative 

that local officials could use to address congestion and related environmental problems. 

He also supported the amendment suggested by Representative Stanton that would allow Interstate 

funds to be used for non-Interstate purposes at the option of State and local officials. 

[Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34199-34100] 

Representative Frank Annunzio (D-Il.), a lifelong Chicago resident, urged his colleagues to oppose 

the rule they had already voted on. The Senate, he said, had broken 15 years of precedent by 

approving the Cooper-Muskie amendment by a wide margin. They put aside partisanship to 

address “our present crisis in urban transportation.” He said he had been the author of the measure 

in the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1972 that would have allowed Federal funds for 

operating subsidies: 

With the failure of passage of the 1972 Housing Act, the inequities in Federal financing 

remain unchanged, while the Federal dollars remain easily available for highway 

construction. This failure has been a critical blow to our cities, including Chicago . . . . And 

unless we make full provisions for a program to meet and solve the urban transportation 

snarl, it will grow progressively worse, and I fear that the only alternative being offered to 

us is bigger, better, longer, and wider concrete highways. There is still time to act—but it 

must be now. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34100-34101] 

Representative Koch also spoke in support of mass transit funding: 

Do more highways necessarily benefit highway users? Or at this point in time can mass 

transit perhaps better serve highway users, as well as their own users, in many urban areas? 

History has shown that new highways simply attract more cars that slow the pace of traffic 

and ensnarl the streets of our central cities . . . . There comes a point of no return in 

highway building. No matter how many freeways we build, central cities can cope with 

only so many cars. 

Even the auto company executives, he said, whose livelihood depends on the sale of motor vehicles 

had supported the Michigan legislation to allocate some State highway user revenue to mass transit. 

Since coming to Congress in 1969, he had tried to create a Mass Transportation Trust Fund, but in 

this Congress he also had introduced a bill to create a single Transportation Trust Fund spanning all 

modes: 
367 

It is in my judgment the most efficient and desirable approach to the entire subject. Only 

when localities have one source of transportation funding; [sic] namely, a single trust fund, 

will they be given a real choice in determining what form of transportation to construct. It is 

time that the Congress act to provide some of this needed flexibility in the Federal aid 

highway bill. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34106-34107] 

In the final stage of introductory comments, Chairman Blatnik urged the House to approve the bill. 

Over the next 30 years, population would double and 80 percent of the growth would take place in 

urban areas that occupy only 3 percent of the land area: 

No prophetic vision is required to foresee the chaos that will then exist if we allow ourselves 

now to be divided by needless conflict instead of uniting on a prudent course of action. 

There is no cause for conflict. The question before the House today is not whether one form 

of transportation shall be chosen instrument of the future, but how best to meet the very 

different—and equally pressing—transportation needs of rural and urban America. 

He agreed with those members pressing for mass transit facilities and those who favored improving 

primary and secondary roads outside urban areas. Highways and mass transit are needed: 

And if we are ever going to have them, if we are ever going to resolve our transportation 

crises, we must face up to the fact that there is not enough money in the highway trust fund, 

or in any other existing fund, to pay for them. 

Trying to do both jobs out of the same limited pool of Federal money makes about as much 

sense as trying to stretch a baby’s clothes to fit a giant. And we are playing a cruel hoax on 

the people of this country if we tell them it can be done . . . . 

I am confident that the citizens of this country will respond to the crisis of our transportation 

system, once they have been fully informed as to what must be done, and how much it will 

cost them.

But let us not delude them and ourselves with the notion that the job can be done on the 

cheap by grabbing a fistful of mass transit money out of the highway trust fund this year and 

another fistful next year.

The bill before them recognized “the dual nature of our transportation problem” by clearing the way 

“for genuine rather than token action on mass transit for the cities” while making a start on “closing 

the gap that has existed for too long in the rural and semirural sectors of our highway system.” 

The importance of rural road development was shown by the fact that it could reverse the migration 

toward the cities, helping to correct a problem that was usually defined as “overpopulation” but 

should be called “maldistribution of population.” He said that, “America has room for all our 

people and can support the growth we expect; but not by compressing all of them into a few large, 

unmanageable urban sprawls.” 
368 

As for mass transit, Chairman Blatnik cited the bill’s provision calling on the Secretary of 

Transportation to study the problem and report his findings to Congress. “This evaluation is not 

just another wheelspinning study; it is an action plan to be presented to the Congress . . . little more 

than 15 months from now.” It will examine each urban area to identify their different needs. With 

this information in just 15 months (“not an interminable delay”), “we will be in a solid position to 

determine what funds may be needed from the highway trust fund and other sources for mass 

transit.” 

He concluded: 

We are going to need enormous sums of money in the years ahead to provide the mass 

transit facilities that our urban centers must have. And snatching $800 million, or even $2 

billion, out of the highway trust fund would not even make a dent in the total need . . . . We 

are not going to solve our problems by pitting rails against roads in competition for the 

highway trust fund. This legislation recognizes that new sources of funds must be found 

and brought to bear on the totality of our Nation’s transportation problem. [Congressional 

Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34107-34108] 

Following introduction of the bill, Representative Anderson introduced his amendment. 

Representative Robert E. Jones (D-Al.), a member of the Public Works Committee, raised a point 

of order based on the Rules Committee resolution that found such amendments non-germane. 

Moreover, the Committee on Ways and Means had jurisdiction over changes in how the Highway 

Trust Fund revenue could be used. 

Representative Anderson argued that “the public transportation amendment which expands the use 

of highway trust fund moneys—is not a tax matter—but rather is a disposition of those taxes, a 

public works matter.” As for whether the amendment was germane, he said that it “is directly 

related to the avowed purpose of both the law, and section 122 of the bill.” 

After listening to further debate, Representative Morris K. Udall (D-Az.), serving as Chairman of 

the Committee of the Whole, ruled that the amendment was not germane. 

Representative Anderson immediately introduced a second amendment that was identical to the first 

except that it deleted each reference to rails, so it applied only to buses. Representative Jones said 

that the amendment basically now allowed Federal-aid highway funds to purchase buses. As Jones 

put it, “the amendment just puts us into the business of buying buses.” He said, “I cannot 

understand why the point of order, if it could be sustained as against the first amendment, would not 

be sustained on this amendment. 

The Chairman, Representative Udall, again ruled that the provision was not germane. The House 

would not vote on either amendment. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34115-

34117] 

After discussing highway-related provisions, Representative Abzug introduced an amendment the 

modified metropolitan planning. It would allocate Federal-aid urban funds based on population and 
369 

provide the funds directly to duly constituted metropolitan transportation agencies formed by 

general purpose local governments that would have the authority to carry out Federal-aid urban 

system projects. She said that “this provision would reduce the power of State highway officials to 

deny funding to a local area whose officials refuse to accept the State officials’ dictates as to where 

a project should be built.” She also pointed out that the amendment had the support of the 

Secretary of Transportation, the Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities.

Representative Harold T. “Bizz” Johnson (D-Ca.), who had been Mayor of Roseville (1941-1949) 

and a State legislator before winning election to the House in 1958, was a membter of the Public 

Works Committee. He objected: 

Over the years this highway program has been run on the most basic principle of 

government—the Federal-State relationship. There is no reason in the world why that 

should be changed. 

The States were better equipped to set priorities across the State and among the cities. “If we do not 

continue this State relationship it means chaos in the administration of the program.” 

Representative Harsha agreed with Representative Johnson: 

In addition, it would encourage the creation of new bureaucracies, as the number of mini 

highway departments in all of the urbanized areas within which this money would be 

distributed are established. The effect of their creation would be to further compound the 

problems that already exist in getting highways built as quickly as possible.

He added that the amendment was “nothing more than an indirect form of special revenue sharing 

which the proponents of special revenue sharing were not able to secure approval of in the normal 

fashion.” This amendment was a way of circumventing the jurisdiction of the Ways and Means 

Committee, which had jurisdiction over revenue sharing. “That is all this amendment is. It is an 

attempt to get, indirectly, what they could not get directly.” 

The amendment was rejected, 9 to 49. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34124-

34126] 

Representative Abzug introduced an amendment striking the provision prohibiting any court from 

issuing an order or taking any action to impede, delay, or halt construction of the Three Sisters 

Bridge linking Virginia and the District of Columbia. It also prohibited any such action by the 

Secretary of Transportation, the head of any other Federal Agency, the government of the District of 

Columbia, or any other body. She said that “even if the bridge is the greatest thing that could 

happen for transportation in this area,” she opposed the provision because it created an exception to 

NEPA and deprived citizens of the United States “of their right to have access to the courts for 

redress of their legal grievances.” 

Minority Leader Ford agreed that the language in the bill was strong, but pointed out that “the 

language has come at the suggestion of a per curiam decision or memorandum from the Chief 
370 

Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. On March 27, 1972, the Supreme Court had 

rejected the Nixon Administration’s appeal of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling issued October 12, 

1971, requiring additional studies. As is typical when the Supreme Court rejects an appeal, it did so 

in a one-sentence statement without explanation. However, Chief Justice Burger had issued an 

unusual opinion explaining that he concurred in the decision to reject the appeal “but solely out of 

considerations of timing.” The appeal, he said, contained questions of great importance to the 

Washington area, “not the least of which is whether the Court of Appeals has, for a second time, 

unjustifiably frustrated the efforts of the Executive Branch to comply with the will of Congress as 

rather clearly expressed in Section 23 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968.” He did not want 

to delay work on the bridge for the year it would take before the Supreme Court could render a 

decision on the appeal. Representative Ford read the statement into the record, including its 

conclusion: 

In these circumstances Congress may, of course, take any further legislative action it deems 

necessary to make unmistakably clear its intentions with respect to the Three Sisters Bridge 

project, even to the point of limiting or prohibiting judicial review of its directives.

The Minority Leader said the provision in the 1972 Act was a direct result of the Chief Justice’s 

suggestion and that the Chief Justice “fully concurs in the proposal by inference, if not directly, in 

this bill.” Later in the debate, he added, “The Court is telling us we should do something of this 

kind, as reflected in this section, in order to stop the kind of litigation which has frustrated the 

Congress and the people of this area for better than 6 years.”

Representative Abzug responded to Representative Ford by saying that after listening to the views 

of her colleagues, “I am more convinced than ever that this is one of the most scandalous provisions 

I have ever seen in a piece of legislation.” The principle that citizens could be stripped of their right 

to petition the courts “does not affect only the Three Sisters Bridge area; the principle affects every 

single place in the country.” 

She also responded directly to Representative Ford:

So far as the comments of Chief Justice Burger are concerned—by the way, they were 

purely an aside and certainly do not have the force of law—this provision goes way beyond 

even what he said. Even though he is a judge, his comments may have been injudicious. 

He did not suggest that we should restrain or should prevent any citizen from doing anything 

at all as to the enforcement of any provision of law relating to the Three Sisters Bridge. He 

did not say we should make it unreviewable by any court. Members are distorting it by 

constantly saying that is what the Chief Justice said.

In any case, his statement is not a part of the law, and it was not a part of the decision. In 

fact, the decision sustained the lower [court], which had ruled that the bridge could not be 

built unless certain conditions were remedied. We must recognize that what is involved 

here is a complete denial of due process to any citizen who pays taxes in this area or in 

every other area of this country, and no responsible body, no legislature, could possibly 

agree to that and believe any words in the Constitution. 
371 

After a lengthy discussion, the House rejected the amendment, 125 to 173. [Congressional RecordHouse, October 5, 1972, p. 34130-34141] 

Representative Stanton introduced an amendment on transfer of Interstate System mileage within a 

State. He said that “one of the biggest transportation headaches” facing State and municipal 

officials was unwanted urban Interstates “by reason of environmental and social disruption.” He 

explained:

With a situation of this nature, State and local officials often would prefer to abandon 

projects representing such segments, but they are naturally loathe to forego this type of 

transportation improvement if project abandonment means giving up altogether the Federal 

funds involved. 

Current law allowed officials to transfer the funds from one Interstate to another, and even provided

200 additional miles to facilitate such transfers where the new route was longer than the old. The 

bill before the House removed the mileage limit for Interstate substitutions, but in Representative 

Stanton’s view that change did not go far enough: 

My amendment would permit State and local officials to ask the approval of the Secretary of 

Transportation for transfer of funds representing the estimated cost of an unwanted interstate 

segment to the Federal-aid urban system for use on that system in the urban area affected. 

The Secretary could approve the transfer of Interstate funds if he concluded that the segment was 

not essential for Interstate continuity:

In these times when there are so many pressing demands on public funds at all levels of 

government, and when urban transportation problems are so severe, it verges on the criminal 

to let Federal funds be used for unwanted projects when State and local officials can find 

more desirable alternatives that better serve local, State, and Federal interests.

Representative Howard of the Public Works Committee objected because “the Interstate System is 

set up so all the interstate money will be used only for interstate roads.” The bill already provided 

funds for roads off the Interstate System. He said the “one great mistake” in the amendment was its 

unfairness to nonurban areas. If an Interstate segment were not built in a rural area, the area would 

not get money for any kind of road. The amendment “would leave gaps and holes in the interstate 

system and would not do anything for any lasting good for urban areas and would prevent even 1 

foot of a trail road being built outside of an urban area.” 

The amendment was rejected. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34141-34142] 

Representative John E Moss (D-Ca.) introduced an amendment to delete Section 109 on 

minimizing red tape. Section 109 added a subsection to 23 U.S.C. 101 (“Definitions and 

Declaration of Policy”):
372 

(e) It is the national policy that to the maximum extent possible the procedures to be 

utilized by the Secretary and all other affected heads of Federal departments, agencies, and 

instrumentalities for carrying out this title and any other provision of law relating to the 

Federal highway program shall encourage the drastic minimization of paperwork and 

interagency decision procedures and the best use of available manpower and funds so as to 

prevent needless duplication and unnecessary delays at all levels of government. 

He stressed that he was as opposed to red tape as any Member of Congress, but “I do not know 

what redtape [sic] means—and I do not know what ‘reduce to a minimum’ means.” He pointed out 

that “this broad brush language encompasses many statutes that have a direct effect on the highway 

program.” He cited Fair Labor Standards laws, minimum wage, the Davis-Bacon Act, 

environmental laws, and others that apply to all Federal agencies, not just FHWA. He continued: 

I submit there is far too much redtape in all our Government and that we, in the Congress, 

ought to act affirmatively to clear it up. But I think much of it must be recognized as being 

there because the Congress has mandated procedural requirements that make it impossible 

to operate without that redtape. If we want to objectively look at our laws and the policies 

imposed upon departments and agencies and eliminate them specifically, I will give my 

wholehearted support, but this is not the way to do it. 

Representative Wright, who had proposed Section 109, said “I honestly hope this section does some 

good.” He did not think it would do any harm, but “if there is any one thing we do need, it is 

something to stop the proliferation of paperwork and redtape which seems inexorably to attach 

itself to every program as it matures.” To illustrate the proliferation of red tape, he said that in 1950 

or thereabouts, President Harry S. Truman had asked Alf Johnson of the Arkansas State highway 

agency to work with other State highway officials who opposed Federal-aid to convince them to 

support it: 

Alf Johnson reported that the reason they had heretofore opposed Federal aid was that 

without Federal aid they could build a highway and get started on it at least 6 months after 

they decided they needed to go ahead, but with federal aid it took a year and a half. 

Now, Wright said, project development took 7 years. “Seven years from the time they decide they 

need the highway until they have fulfilled all of the proliferating requirements and may commence.” 

 He added that former Administrator Turner had testified “that new requirements imposed by laws 

and guidelines executively written were going to require—get this—18 million additional pages of 

paperwork a year by his department alone.” To illustrate, he held up a photograph sent to him by 

the Illinois State Highway Department:

The picture depicts all the paperwork related to just one highway project in their State. It is 

stacked between two chairs and two miniskirted girls are standing tiptoes on the chair trying 

vainly to reach the top of the stack. 

Representative Dingell (D-Mi.) asked if the provision repealed NEPA. Wright replied that it did 

not repeal NEPA or any other law. What Section 109 did was simply direct the bureaucrats “to the 
373 

maximum extent that they can to reduce excessive paperwork and to use minimum guidelines when 

they are necessary.” He added that, “We passed one law with 45 words and by the time they wrote 

guidelines it had 7,500 words . . . and it literally required books for those trying to work under the 

guidelines.” 

The amendment to remove section 109 was defeated without a recorded vote. [Congressional 

Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34145-34146] 

Representative Koch introduced an amendment on “Bicycle Transportation” that would allow 

FHWA to help States and localities build bicycle and pedestrian paths in conjunction with highway 

rights-of-way. His amendment was identical to a provision in the bill approved by the Senate with 

Administration support. In view of the growth of bicycling in recent years, “It is important that 

bicycles be recognized as a component of our transportation system.” The purpose of the 

amendment was to “encourage the development and use of bicycle transportation so as to increase 

the traffic capacity of the Federal aid systems and to permit the development of pedestrian 

walkways in conjunction with highway rights-of-way.” The amendment authorized $10 million a 

year (FYs 1974 and 1975) out of the Highway Trust Fund for the Federal share of the cost of 

separate or preferential bicycle lanes or paths, bicycle traffic control devices, bicycle shelters and 

parking facilities, and pedestrian walkways.

Representative George W. Collins (D-Il.) introduced a substitute that limited the funding for bicycle 

paths to forest development roads and trails, park roads and trails, parkways, Indian reservation 

roads, and Federal, State, and local parks. Representative Harsha said that the substitute 

amendment “cleans up the problems we [the Public Works Committee] had with the original 

amendment, and we are willing to accept it.”

 

Representative Wright explained why he supported the Koch amendment. He said that “bicycling 

is an American tradition” that had emerged “as one of the most remarkable social phenomena of our 

times.” It was no longer “a shiny toy more at home with children on the sidewalks than with the 

busy commuters on the streets of our cities and towns.” The question was where the estimated 80 

million Americans would ride their bicycles:

Naturally, bicycles are banned from high-speed roads. They are not permitted on many 

sidewalks. They are extremely dangerous on crowded city streets, and are generally 

confined to the right lane in order not to obstruct traffic . . . . So most cyclists must share 

the city streets with cars and buses . . . . 

Americans are used to a mobile society and we have reached the point where we are going 

to have to find unique solutions to some of the problems brought about by this way of life. I 

believe a system of bicycle ways and pedestrian paths in conjunction with highway projects 

would provide such a solution. 

In opposition to the substitute amendment, Representative Marvin L. Esch (R-Il.) pointed out its 

limitation to park lands and similar places:
374 

The intent of the main amendment is to provide for bicycle paths where they are needed the 

most; that is, within the cities in relationship to our highways. 

He urged the Members to reject the substitute and support the Koch amendment. 

The House agreed to the Collins substitute amendment and rejected the Koch amendment, again 

without a recorded vote. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34147-34148] 

Representative Bingham introduced an amendment to delete Section 126, which called for 

designation of a 10,000-mile network of priority primary routes. “Frankly, you can call it what you 

want but what this system really is is a 10,000-mile extension to the Interstate System.” The only 

difference was that the Federal share would be 70 percent, not 90 percent. It was funded at $600 

million a year initially but he estimated it would end up costing $19 billion. Secretary Volpe, 

Representative Bingham said, had strongly objected to the new program. Voting for his 

amendment would be an economy vote and an ecology vote. “To now sit down at the map and 

draw up a 10,000-mile highway network that we are going to be building for the next two decades, 

makes absolutely no sense at all.” He would prefer to give the funds to the States “with the fewest 

possible strings attached.” 

Rising in support of Section 126, Representative Cleveland said that the priority primary provision 

“is a most important part of this year’s Federal-Aid Highway Act.” In view of requests from around 

the country to expand the Interstate System, the Public Works Committee “believes it desirable to 

encourage and assist the States in building a new intermediate system of highways.” He explained:

The aim would be to improve a limited, integrated system of supplementary routes to be 

especially financed out of revenues from the Highway Trust Fund. In conjunction with the 

Interstate System, the new routes will provide accessibility to over 90 percent of all urban 

population and nearly all urban places of over 55,000 in size. In addition, such routes would 

provide much needed service to those rural regions through which they would pass. 

The amendment was rejected (the recorded vote was 9 to 68), leaving priority primary routes a part 

of the bill. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34148-34150] 

An amendment by Representative James J. Pickle (D-Tx) proposed to add a Title IV 

(“Transportation Development”) to the bill. It would create a Transportation Development 

Administration in the Department of Transportation “to provide for the better coordination of 

research and development, planning, and demonstration projects,” as Pickle described it. “The goal 

of this amendment is to help this Nation design and institute a meaningful national transportation 

policy.” The Chairman, Representative Udall, ruled the amendment not germane and it was not 

subject to a vote. [Congressional Record-House, October 5, 1972, p. 34153-34156] 

Finally, the House approved the bill, as amended, by a vote of 264 to 30. 

The House and Senate would now establish a Conference Committee to reconcile to their two 

versions of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. 
375 

The Conferees Reach Agreement

With Congress nearing adjournment, and all Representatives and one-third of Senators eager to 

return home to their reelection bids, the conferees were under a strict deadline to resolve 

differences. In some respects, the task was simple. The House and Senate Committees on Public 

Works dominated the conference and their members could relatively easily compromise on the 

highway provisions. However, the conference included Senators Cooper and Williams, both 

determined to preserve as much transit spending in the final bill as possible. 

On October 11, the Times’ Rosenbaum reported that the conferees were deadlocked. “The principal 

issue is whether any of the highway money will be made available for mass transportation.” He 

summarized the deadlock: 

According to reports from the conference room, Senate negotiators refused to accept any 

long-range highway legislation unless it allowed urban areas to use their share of the trust 

fund to buy buses and build rapid rail systems. 

House conferees reportedly objected to any legislation that would permit the trust fund to be 

tapped for mass transit. 

The deadlock, he reported, “appeared likely to kill any major highway bill for the year.” 

[Rosenbaum, David E., “Deadlock by Conferees Blocks Road Fund Aid to Mass Transit,” The New 

York Times, October 12, 1972] 

The following day, Friday, October 13, Peter Braestrup of The Washington Post reported that 

conferees were close to a compromise:

The pro-highway House conferees, led by John Kluczynski (D-Ill.) of Chicago, were said to 

have offered a swap to the Senate pro-transit faction, led by John Sherman Cooper (R-Ky.). 

The offer was attractive to lobbyists for highway interests and the mayors, but not the 

administration or environmental groups. 

The key was that the Senate bill included the controversial Cooper-Muskie amendment involving 

Federal-aid urban system funding, but also Senator Williams’ provision for $3 billion out of the 

general Treasury for mass transit over 3 years plus $800 million over 2 years for operating 

subsidies: 

In effect, the House conferees last night said they would accept the Williams program—and 

even sweeten its provisions with more money [to $4.4 billion]—as long as the pro-transit 

senators agreed to drop the Cooper provision and leave the highway trust fund untapped for 

two more years.

Cooper, who held proxies from six of the 12 senators in the conference committee [who 

were not present], was reported to be under heavy pressure last night from Williams to 

accept the House deal.
376 

Department of Transportation lobbyists and John Kramer, head of the environmentalist 

Highway Action Coalition, were urging Cooper to stand firm. [Braestrup, Peter, “Hill Nears 

Agreement on Road Act,” The Washington Post, October 13, 1972] 

An account in Washington’s Star-News reported that Senate conferees said they would rather “see 

the entire highway bill go down the drain” than agree to some of the House provisions, including 

the one on the Three Sisters Bridge: 

The House, irked by years of litigation which has blocked construction of the span across 

the Potomac River, earlier voted to prohibit the courts from halting or further delaying 

construction of the bridge project. In so doing, the House was acting upon a suggestion by 

Chief Justice Warren Burger that Congress might wish to remove the bridge from any 

possible review from the courts. 

Illustrating the difficulty of resolving issues such as this, the article quoted Senator Muskie as 

saying the entire House bill was “an indigestible morsel.” [Angle, Martha, “3 Sisters Bridge Issue 

Stalls Highway Bill,” Star-News, October 13, 1972] 

On October 15, 1972, The New York Times Magazine carried a lengthy article by William V. 

Shannon called “The Untrustworthy Highway Fund.” It began: 

After years of skirmishing, border raids and local guerrilla actions, the great highway 

struggle has broken out in open warfare. At issue is the fate of the Highway Trust Fund, 

which grows by more than $5-billion a year, pumps money into the states to build more 

roads for more automobiles and has had more to do with determining the physical character 

and social style of America’s cities and suburbs than any other Government program. 

Senate adoption of the Cooper-Muskie amendment, Shannon said, “was the first time either house 

of Congress had ever voted to divert any part of the Trust Fund revenues for anything except 

highway construction.” Although the more expansive Kennedy-Weicker amendment was defeated, 

“it laid down the lines along which the coming struggle over national transportation policy will be 

waged.” The goal was to convert the Highway Trust Fund into a general transportation fund. 

Shannon pointed out that, “Highway interests have naturally made skillful propaganda use of the 

phrase ‘trust fund.’” He quoted Senator Gaylord Nelson as asking, “If annual appropriations from 

the general fund and full, flexible control by the Congress are good enough for national defense, for 

housing, for education, why are they not good enough for highways?” 

In the early days of the Interstate System, it was “greeted with fairly widespread approval.” 

Shannon continued: 

But by the nineteen-sixties, Americans were becoming increasingly aware of the defects of 

life in the automobile age . . . . The automobile explosion has begun to arouse the alarm 

already evoked by the explosion in human population. Every time a baby is born in this 
377 

country, two automotive vehicles are also born . . . . The appalling cost of a transportation 

system based upon tens of millions of private automobiles is gradually becoming apparent. 

He quoted BPR’s brochure America’s Lifelines “boasting” that total excavations for the Interstate 

System “will move enough materials to bury Connecticut knee-deep in dirt” and that sand, gravel, 

and crushed stone could be used to “build a wall 50 feet wide and nine feet high around the world.” 

 Shannon said that, “Facts like these, which once would have been innocently impressive, are seen 

as alarming in a time of new concern over the dwindling supply of natural resources and the 

mutilated landscape.” 

The need for alternatives such as subways in big population centers “is obvious.” Mass-transit 

facilities are admittedly expensive to build, renovate, and operate: 

But the financing ought not to be a problem: If Congress in 1956 had decided to allocate 

half the money in the Highway Trust Fund to highways and the other half to mass transit, 

scores of bus companies would not have gone into bankruptcy and commuter railroads 

would not have sunk into weedy disrepair. 

He summarized highway controversies in Boston, Memphis, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C.: 

The antihighway forces have triumphed often enough to turn a once lightly contested issue 

into a closely matched struggle . . . . The Interstate system, the proud blue ribbon of the 

highway profession, has had the unintended effect of catalyzing diffuse antihighway 

sentiment and bringing into existence for the first time an effective national lobby against 

unlimited road building. 

The Highway Action Coalition “is still far smaller in staff, financial resources, and political clout 

than its opposition spearheaded by the Highway Users Federation for Safety and Mobility.” He 

discussed HUFSAM and AASHO, the latter with its “close links with Federal highway officials”:

These [Federal] engineers are also construction-and-maintenance oriented. Their narrow 

focus accounts for the highway lobby’s intransigent resistance to the use of Trust Fund 

money for any other purposes, even highway-related ones such as safety or beautification.

They had “an ingrained hostility” to the “esthetic concerns of the landscape designers and the social 

concerns of the land-use planners.” Shannon said that, “In their view, all that fussing about 

abstractions merely gets in the way of laying the concrete and moving the traffic.” 

HUFSAM, Shannon reported, had been “embarrassed” when a poll it commissioned was leaked to 

antihighway forces. The poll found that 57 percent of rural and urban people thought that limited 

automobile use in downtowns was a good idea. In cities, 66 percent favored this proposal. 

As for former Administrator Turner:
378 

The hero of the career highway men has been Francis C. Turner, director of the Bureau of 

Public Roads under the Johnson Administration and promoted by Mr. Nixon to Federal 

Highway Administrator. Until his resignation in August [sic], Turner was a close rival to 

the late J. Edgar Hoover when it came to blunt talk and pushing for his programs, regardless 

of what his political superiors thought. Turner regularly denounced advocates of rail transit 

and critics of urban freeways.

Shannon described the Resource Book on the Federal-Aid Highway Program as “a manual of quick 

rebuttals to every criticism made of highways” and the role of TRIP:

Everyone has heard of the “military-industrial complex” against which President 

Eisenhower warned in his farewell address, but at least equally powerful is what The Wall 

Street Journal has termed “the highway-auto-petroleum complex.” 

This complex remained unbroken, “but for tactical and public-relations purposes, some of its 

members have begun to back away from the lobby’s hard-line, highways-or-nothing approach.” 

Examples included Henry Ford II, Mobil Oil, and the National Automobile Dealers Association. 

“These shifts in position are significant if only as evidence that important interests are responding 

to a changed climate of opinion.” 

Unfortunately, “news of peace and reconciliation between automobiles and mass transit seems not 

to have reached Capitol Hill.” Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966, the 

first legislative victory of the anti-highway forces, and NEPA had been “under continuous 

counterattack by pro-highway forces in Congress.” The proposed Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1972, Shannon said, undermined both. One provision “flagrantly” authorized the U.S. 281 North 

Freeway in San Antonio while another restricts the scope of citizen suits. “Since citizen 

organizations have won so many highway battles only in their last line of defense, the courts, these 

seemingly obscure provisions may be as significant as the better-publicized struggle to open the 

Highway Trust Fund for mass transit use.” 

The struggle to enact the Cooper-Muskie amendment gave anti-highway forces hope that someday, 

the Kennedy-Weicker amendment might be enacted. Unfortunately, adoption of the CooperMuskie amendment “is no guarantee that more progress in this direction is sure in the future.” As 

reflected in the House version of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, “defenders of the Highway 

Fund are dug in to defend their special access to the U.S. Treasury.” What made the sides in this 

fight so entrenched was that neither can “understand why their opponents think the way they do”: 

One side sees the automobile as the basis of the contemporary American Way of Life, a 

marvelous vehicle which provides mobility, privacy, and the exciting lure of the open road. 

The other side sees the average American in need of emancipation from the tyranny of the 

automobile, which kills tens of thousands every year, poisons the air, paves over the 

landscape with endless ribbons of concrete and ugly gas stations and used-car lots, and 

provides only a noisy, slow, psychologically irksome and increasingly expensive and 

inconvenient form of transportation. 
379 

The outcome of the battle between the pro- and anti-highway forces “is now very much in doubt.” 

Perhaps, Shannon concluded, “this is because in the end the battle is not for money and concrete, 

but for the mind of the ordinary American.” [Shannon, William V., “The Untrustworthy Highway 

Fund,” The New York Times Magazine, October 15, 1972, p. 31, 120-128, 128, 132] 

The Times published a response from HUFSAM’s Jack C. Martin in the letter-to-the-editor column 

of the magazine’s November 5 issue. Martin said the amount of space devoted to the article “was 

most impressive,” but he considered it “unfortunate” that Shannon “did not report the situation a 

little more realistically.” He clearly had “relied on blatant antihighway propaganda and biased 

newspaper articles for his facts.” For example, the statement that HUFSAM had been embarrassed 

by the opinion survey and the implication that it had withheld the results were “totally unfactual.” 

HUFSAM had released the full results, including the support for automobile restrictions in 

downtowns, a few weeks after the poll was completed in July 1971. 

Martin also criticized Shannon for “perpetuating the Highway Trust Fund ‘surplus’ myth.” After 

explaining that the surplus consisted of money owed to ongoing projects, Martin lamented that “the 

hard-line antihighwayists won’t listen.” He concluded that, “Trying to boil a pot between highway 

and transit interests with distortions and clichés (‘paving over America’) is serving no good.” What 

the Nation needed was an “honest and objective airing of the country’s total transportation needs” 

so the public could make its own judgment regarding solutions. [Martin, Jack C., “Are Highways 

Worth It?” Letters, The New York Times, November 5, 1972, p. 32] 

On Monday, October 16, Jack Eisen told readers of The Washington Post that Members of 

Congress had “traded angry accusations yesterday [October 15] after Senate and House negotiators 

failed to reach an agreement to extend the nation’s highway program and expand it to include aid 

for urban mass transit.” He said that “virtually no chance remained for a resumption of sessions” to 

agree on a unified bill. 

The Cooper-Muskie amendment with its diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue to transit was at 

the heart of the collapse. The House offer to fund transit, dollar for dollar, from the general 

Treasury for a total of $4.4 billion had not been enough: 

Finally, after four days of sparring in which the Cooper-led block outvoted its Senate 

colleagues, the sessions broke down. At 10:30 p.m. Saturday, House members stalked 

glumly out of the meeting room.

Cooper . . . blamed the House members—for insisting on authorizing a new 10,000-mile 

super highway program, and for refusing to accept a compromise one-year extension of the 

existing highway law. He said House conferees insisted on 18 months or two years. 

Randolph, questioned by newsmen on a contradictory report of the proceedings, turned to 

Cooper and disagreed sharply. He said House members offered reasonable terms. 

Williams, with a side glance at Cooper, said those who refused to accept the House 

[compromise] transit plan were “sadly misguided.” 
380 

“I would suggest soul-searching with the question whether the effort was to aid mass transit 

or break up the highway trust fund,” Williams said. “Sadly, it seems to me, the majority of 

the Senate conferees chose the latter course.” 

Representatives Kluczynski and Harsha issued a “bluntly worded statement” on behalf of the House 

conferees at 1 a.m. Eisen said the statement asserted “that four unnamed Volpe aides ‘called the 

signals for this deplorable hatchet job, and they were followed obediently by seven Senate 

conferees—four of whom were not even present . . . .’” (Cooper voted their proxies.) The aim, the 

Representatives said, was “to bust up the highway trust fund at whatever cost.” 

With conferees deadlocked and Congress ready to go home, the Highway Action Coalition issued a 

statement accusing the House conferees of killing the bill “rather than accept the progressive Senate 

features.” [Eisen, Jack, “Road Bill Dies Amid Anger,” The Washington Post, October 16, 1972] 

On October 18, the final day of the Congress, conferees surprised observers by breaking their 

deadlock to agree on a 1-year extension of the Federal-aid highway and safety program that would 

ensure the 93rd Congress would address the controversial issues the conferees could not resolve. To 

please the House conferees, the bill dropped the Senate provision allowing use of urban system 

funds for rail rapid transit. To please the Senators, the bill dropped the House’s priority primary 

system funds but directed the Secretary to study the matter and report to Congress. The Interstate 

withdrawal and substitution provision of the Senate bill that allowed remaining funds to be 

transferred to the urban system did not survive the conference. However, the bill included $3 

billion for the UMTA capital program, with a Federal share of 80 percent, and $100 million for 

operating subsidies the first year plus $300 million the following year, all out of the general 

Treasury. The Highway Trust Fund was not breached. [The conference report can be found at 

Congressional Record-House, October 18, 1972, p. 37115-37133] 

The Senate considered the bill that evening. By unanimous consent of the Senators remaining in 

Washington, debate was limited to 10 minutes. When Senator Packwood suggested the absence of 

a quorum, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield asked unanimous consent to rescind the quorum call. 

Debate proceeded with Senator Randolph explaining that conferees had worked approximately 40 

hours before agreeing late that afternoon on a compromise: 

There was complete agreement of all conferees of the House. That is not to say that any 

conferees were satisfied 100 percent with the outcome of the conference. It is the composite 

thinking of men of understanding and purpose who were attempting to bring to fruition 

legislation that can be signed into law by the President to continue the highway program. 

We have also given dimension to other forms of transportation which have not only the 

approval of the American people but also the demand of the American people that we meet 

some of the unmet needs that have accumulated.

The bill would ensure the highway program continued without interruption. He explained that 

conferees had agreed on a 1-year bill “to assure that the Senate and House of Representatives would 
381 

address themselves to the highway program early next year.” They also would be able to consider 

several provisions “that were of great controversy in the conference.” 

The bill included all provisions that were identical or substantively alike in the House and Senate 

bills. He briefly listed the highway and safety provisions. He cited the general Treasury revenue 

for mass transit operating subsidies and increased funding for mass transit. These provisions “were 

adopted virtually as they passed the Senate.” 

He explained that the Cooper-Muskie amendment included in the Senate bill had been excluded 

from the conference report because its diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue “was totally 

unacceptable to the House conferees.” At the same time, Senate conferees were opposed to the 

10,000-mile priority primary provision of the House bill:

These were the major items on which the conferees could not concur, and they are sure to be 

among those which will receive searching inquiry during the first session of the 93d 

Congress. 

He added:

[This] conference was a difficult one, but it was carried out by men dedicated to the 

improvement of transportation of all types . . . . It appeared last Saturday that we would fail 

to produce a bill. But after considering the situation and recognizing that the highway 

program could not be allowed to come to a halt, I reconvened the conference this morning. I 

am glad to report that on this occasion we succeeded.

Senator Muskie asked for time to clarify two points. First, he wanted to confirm that the House had 

yielded to a 1-year bill, “which gives us a crack at this issue next year. Is that correct?” Senator 

Randolph agreed. 

Second, Senator Muskie wanted to confirm that the bill did not authorize the priority primary 

system, that it expressed only the intent to consider the plan in 1973, “and that the system cannot be 

established without action by the Congress. Is that correct?” Senator Randolph confirmed this 

understanding. 

Senator Cooper, in his last day in the Senate before retiring, agreed with Senator Randolph’s 

comments about the priority primary system:

The House conferees would not agree to the Cooper-Muskie provision. We fought against 

the establishment of a 10,000-mile “priority primary” system. No hearings were held on 

that in either House. The established [sic] minimum cost was $10 billion. We do not 

believe that should be done when the Interstate System is only 81 percent complete, and also 

it is not proper to add such a burden on the highway trust fund without proper consideration. 

 
382 

The 1-year extension would allow time for the Secretary to submit his recommendations and for the 

Congress to consider the concept. What was important was to keep the Federal-aid highway 

program active while the debate took place in 1973. 

The Senate agreed to the report by voice vote. [Congressional Record-Senate, October 18, 1972, p. 

37309-37311] 

Bringing the conference report to the House floor, Representative Wright explained that, “It is not a 

perfect bill.” The House yielded on some vital points, but so had the Senate. “We commend it to 

the Members as the best that could be achieved in the present climate.” He described it:

Essentially the bill we bring before the House in the conference report, Mr. Speaker, 

contains a 1-year extension of the authorization for the Interstate System and a 1-year 

extension of the authorization for the other systems, including the small urban systems.

It contains $3 billion in authorization for mass transit out of the general fund, not out of the 

highway trust fund, and that $3 billion commits the Government to an 80-percent Federal 

matching share. Additionally, we would authorize a total of $400 million, $100 million for 

the present fiscal year and $300 million for the succeeding year, to be available for operating 

subsidies . . . . 

Before he could continue, several Representatives requested assurances regarding this additional 

funding. Representative Ford wanted to know if it required action by the Committee on 

Appropriations. Yes, Representative Wright replied. The $3 billion “would be made available out 

of the general revenue through appropriations passed by the Congress of the United States.” In 

response to a question from Ford about contract authority, Representative Wright added, “the 

construction grant commitments authorized in this bill would not be made before fiscal 1975, for 

fiscal 1976.” 

Representative John Anderson said “I am certainly still not clear in my own mind on the 

explanation that has just been offered as to this $3 billion . . . for mass transit.” In view of the need 

for action by the Appropriations Committee, he wanted to know what assurance mass transit 

supporters had “that we are going to see anything near the sum of $3 billion made available in fiscal 

1973, 1974 or 1975 for mass transit?” 

Wright explained that this bill could only authorize the funds; it could not also appropriate them: 

In response to the gentleman’s question as to what assurance he may have that those moneys 

will actually be appropriated, I would simply say that he might rely upon the assurance of 

the growing demand and clamor for something meaningful to be done for mass transit. 

The gentleman might wish to rely upon the good faith of the Secretary of Transportation 

who has repeatedly expressed his commitment to the needs of mass transit.
383 

The gentleman may rely upon the inclusion in the present bill of authorizations for operating 

subsidies for existing mass transit, for the very first time in the history of the Congress, for 

the existing fiscal year and the upcoming fiscal year.

He might reply upon the fact that Senator Williams, who was the moving force in the Senate 

for something meaningful for mass transit, wanted this title included, is satisfied with what 

was done and believes it is the best that could be done. 

If that were not enough to reassure Representative Anderson, Wright added: 

Beyond those assurances I know of none I could give to my friend except the growing need 

and the growing recognition of the need for something effective to be done to assist those 

communities afflicted with needs for mass transit.

In response to a question from Representative Jack L. Brinkley (D-Ga.), Representative Wright 

discussed the conference decision on priority primary routes: 

[This] bill establishes the intent of Congress to create a priority primary system of not to 

exceed 10,000 miles, to take up some of the glaring gaps that have developed in the past few 

years in our highway program. It calls upon the Secretary of Transportation to present to the 

Congress by not later than September 30 of next year an inclusive report advising us as to 

his recommendations for criteria to be employed for the designation of the routes to be 

included in that system.

He continued: 

Beyond that, I should like to add briefly that I believe the most significant and innovative 

thing contained in this bill is the inclusion of the House provisions in title II in their entirety. 

 Those provisions will make available $1.1 billion over the next few years for measures 

expressly designed to make the highways safer. 

Representative Barrett said he supported the conference report, which he said “goes a long way 

toward meeting our transportation needs not just for highways, but more importantly for urban mass 

transportation.” He stressed that the omnibus housing bill had important mass transportation 

provisions, but that the House Rules Committee had refused to let it go to the floor for a vote. The 

Senate’s Federal-Aid Highway Act had included those measures “and I am delighted that the 

conferees were able to agree on these urban mass transit provisions.” 

Representative Glenn Anderson of California expressed “a little concern” about the urban mass 

transportation funds from the general Treasury because they would mean additional taxes, instead 

of the Highway Trust Fund “where there is ample money.” He said “we are introducing a wrong 

principle and a wrong area.” 

Representative Wright explained why the conferees took the funds from the general Treasury 

instead of the Highway Trust Fund. First, Congress has a “good faith obligation” to use highway 
384 

tax revenue for highways. Second, “we need every penny in that highway trust fund if we are to 

keep that obligation.” Third, “we have done everything we think we can reasonably do and offered 

on the part of the House conferees to do even more.” He elaborated on this point: 

In the conference we offered to assist mass transit immediately. We offered to agree . . . 

with every basic premise of the so-called Cooper-Muskie or, we might say, Anderson 

amendment to permit the cities to have flexibility to make a decision, if they wanted to, 

within their own incorporated limits and to substitute rail for highways, and to give them 

that money through immediate obligational authority but take it out of general revenues 

instead of the trust fund. The senators are the ones who would not agree to that. 

We feel we have an obligation to the House to uphold its position insofar as possible. We 

feel we have yielded very greatly so far and have done everything we reasonably could to be 

conciliatory and ameliatory and get a bill. [Congressional Record-House, October 18, 1972, 

p. 37133-37135] 

Representative Edward P. Boland (D-Ma.) said he regretted that the mass transit funds were not 

coming from the Highway Trust Fund. “But I am not going to belabor this point, because it is a 

dead horse . . . .” Instead, he wanted to stress that this bill was the first time the Congress had 

authorized operating subsidies. That, plus the additional $3 billion, “meets the problem and at least 

it is a step in the right direction.”

Representative Anderson of Illinois said “I must painfully conclude that I cannot agree with those 

who have just expressed the feeling that somehow in this conference report we have done a great 

thing for the cause of mass transit in this country.” After listening to the discussion, he could “only 

come to the conclusion that far from meeting the problem, we are putting it on the backburner.” 

The additional $3 billion for mass transit would not become available until FY 1975, while he and 

others had tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to provide “$700 million now out of existing 

funds—out of money that is there in the highway trust fund.” He asked, “So how can you now try 

to sell us on the proposition that we are meeting the problem of mass transit by deferring this, by 

putting it on the backburner until the fiscal year 1975 . . . .” he said, “It simply defies my 

comprehension.” The present fiscal crisis meant the country must live within its means:

Yet, when I look at this particular conference report, I come to the regrettable conclusion 

that if we adopt it in its present form, that once again this Congress will have been utterly 

derelict—utterly derelict—in its duty to try to establish some clear national priorities, and 

give the cities, to which urban systems highway money would go, the simple option of using 

that money for other modes of transportation. 

Instead, the bill before the House offered “illusory promises of something down the road, when 

there are funds available here and now” in the Highway Trust Fund. 

Representative O’Neill agreed with these comments. “We in the Massachusetts area have a terrific 

plight in the whole suburban area. We need mass transportation badly.” He, too, wanted the 

Highway Trust Fund broken. Actions of the past week had proven that the Highway Trust Fund “is 
385 

not a sacred cow.” However, he would support the bill because even if, as Representative 

Anderson feared, the money never became available, the House would “go back in here with special 

legislation to break that highway fund.” 

Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt (R-Ar.) thought the conferees could have done a better 

job, but at this late hour, approval of the bill was “vitally important to at least 36 States whose 

highway programs would be in desperate straits by early next calendar year if existing authority is 

not extended.” His State, Arkansas, was one of those States. He recognized the importance of 

mass transit, but was pleased that the bill “does not open up the highway trust fund and break faith 

with those users who have paid and continue to pay into it for the construction and betterment of 

roads.” He hoped the $3 billion for mass transit “will be a start to tackling the need but that in the 

next Congress we address ourselves to a solution that will not encroach on the highway trust 

funds.” 

His biggest disappointment with the bill was the failure to include the House provision on priority 

primary routes. The provision in the present bill at least acknowledged the congressional intent to 

establish such a system and was only calling on the Secretary to assist in developing a plan. “This 

is recognition that the plan is valid, the need is there and the program should move forward.” 

Representative Ford announced that he opposed the bill “for a variety of reasons.” He would cite 

only two. First, he did not “like the idea of contract authority to the extent that is provided for in 

this conference report.” Further, “I am totally, unequivocally, unreservedly opposed” to operating 

subsidies for mass transit. “I think it is the wrong program at the wrong time.” Moreover, Title III 

would not have been considered germane had it been proposed separately to the House. “I do not 

think that is the right way to operate.” 

Representative Wright pointed out that Representative Anderson of Illinois, a Republican, “is 

opposing this conference report on the ground that it does not do enough for mass transit and he 

wants the money out of the trust fund, while the distinguished minority leader is opposing it on the 

ground that it does too much and he wants to protect the trust fund, but he is not willing to go to the 

contract authority.” In short, “we are caught in this uncomfortable position of having done more 

than some wanted and less than others wanted.” The conference report was “the best solution of the 

problems, the best compromise, hammered out on the anvils of mutual sacrifice, that we could 

possibly achieve.”

The Minority leader agreed that they had worked hard to “maintain the integrity of the highway 

trust fund” and that the conferees “faced an impossible situation in a bad circumstance.” However, 

“I happen to have the conviction that this is the wrong way to operate.” 

Representative Kluczynski called the bill “workable legislation” that met “the urgent need for 

extension of our essential highway program and the pressure for adjournment of the Congress, with 

the understanding that a thorough review of the highway-mass transit legislation would be 

undertaken early in the 93d Congress.” He promised that “we shall consider whether an entirely 

separate fund should be established to provide the mass transit our major metropolitan centers must 

have.” 
386 

Representative Clausen, one of the conferees, said he would vote for the conference report although 

he disagreed with some of its provisions. His strongest disagreement was with the 1-year extension 

of the Interstate System apportionment instead of the usual 2-year extension. To his “deep 

chagrin,” the Senate conferees “would not budge” on the 2-year extension issue. His other deep 

concern was how “the Senate brought the controversial operating subsidies for mass transit and 

Title III into what was to have been a routine highway public works conference.” The three Senate 

Banking Committee members had insisted on their Title III “at a time when we had neither 

jurisdiction over nor hearings on, the subject of mass transportation before the House Public Works 

Committee.” He regretted, too, that the bill did not contain the House provision on priority primary 

routes. 

He also discussed the idea of a Mass Transit Trust Fund: 

It is our desire to maintain the integrity of the highway trust fund by maintaining our 

entrusted fiduciary responsibilities, just as we should uphold the purpose and interest of the 

airport-airways trust fund . . . . 

There was more argument expressed by more Senators and House Members on the third 

trust fund concept than I have ever heard, including Mr. Mills, and other members of the 

Ways and Means Committee and Senator Williams of the Senate Banking and Currency 

Committee and other Senate and House conferees. 

As a matter of fact, the House offered, as part of their many proposals, the desirability of 

advancing the “Priority Primary” and third trust fund for mass transit as a package for 

immediate consideration next year.

He urged the House to approve the bill, for all its weaknesses, and then “let us come back next year, 

maintain the cooperation and momentum and move toward developing the best coordinated 

integrated and balanced transportation systems that modern and future technology can provide.” 

[Congressional Record-House, October 18, 1972, p. 37137-37141] 

The House interrupted to consider a bill amending the Federal Aviation Act. Before the FederalAid Highway Act of 1972 could be raised again, Representative John T. Myers (R-In.) initiated this 

dialogue: 

Mr. Myers. Mr. Speaker, I make the point of order that a quorum is not present. 

The Speaker. The Chair will count. One hundred twelve Members are present, not a 

quorum. 

Mr. O’Neill. Mr. Speaker, I move a call of the House. 

A Call of the House was ordered.

Mr. Mills of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, a parliamentary inquiry. 

The Speaker. The gentleman will state it.
387 

Mr. Mills of Arkansas. Mr. Speaker, will the Speaker entertain a unanimous-consent 

request that the call of the roll be vacated?

The Speaker. The Speaker does not have that authority under the Constitution. If there are 

any Members in the Chamber who have not answered and the Speaker can identify them, he 

will have them recorded. The Speaker does not have that authority, but he does not know of 

any such members.

When the Clerk called the roll, only 156 of the 432 Members of the House were present. In the lack 

of a quorum, the House adjourned sine die. [Congressional Record-House, October 18, 1972, p. 

37199-37200] 

Early on October 18, 1972, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 was dead. 

Post-Mortems 

The unexpected breakthrough by the Conference Committee had raised hopes that the 1-year 

compromise bill would be approved. It would have ensured that the pro- and anti-highway forces 

would be able to continue their argument in 1973. 

The abrupt end on a quorum call, according to reporter Braestrup, “angered pro-highway forces, 

disappointed urban transit lobbyists, encouraged the environmentalists and pleased the Nixon 

administration, which opposed the bill’s $400 million provision for mass transit operating 

subsidies.” The end was more shocking because the bill was nearing approval by a simple voice 

vote when Representative Myers raised his point of order. Myers refused to explain his action, so 

reporters were left to speculate on his motivation, as Braestrup did: 

Myers was unreachable last night. But Republican House sources said he was angry 

because the bill no longer contained a House-passed provision barring any court interference 

with construction of the Three Sister Bridge, now stalled by environmental lawsuits. 

House Minority Leader Gerald Ford (R-Mich.) later said he had no part in instigating the 

Myers move. Other GOP members said White House lobbyists had no hand in it either.

However, several administration lobbyists spoke earlier in the day of trying to persuade a 

congressman or senator to kill the measure, to save the President from a politically painful 

veto aimed at the mass transit subsidies provision. 

Acting Majority Leader Tip O’Neill, whose Boston district included part of the unpopular Inner 

Belt, told reporters that the Highway Trust Fund was “no longer a sacred cow” in Congress. “It will 

be broken.” [Braestrup, Peter, “Highway Bill Dies in Congress,” The Washington Post, October 19, 

1972] 

Reporter Rosenbaum agreed on the subject of operating subsidies: 
388 

The Nixon Administration engineered tonight the defeat of legislation that would have 

extended highway programs for one year and provided, for the first time, operating 

assistance for local mass transit agencies.

Republicans had refused to answer the quorum call, forcing the House to adjourn without acting on 

the bill. [Rosenbaum, David E., “G.O.P. Move Kills Road Fund Bill,” The New York Times, 

October 19, 1972] 

A few days later, Rosenbaum published a more detailed analysis of “one of the fiercest behind-thescenes battles in Congress this year.” The battle had been fought by insiders, such as Richard J. 

Sullivan, chief counsel of the House Public Works Committee; Alfred E. Johnson, AASHO’s 

executive director; Joseph A. Bosco of Secretary Volpe’s staff; Fred B. Burke, “the archetypical 

lobbyist—persistent, persuasive, and knowledgeable” hired by transit organizations and agencies; 

and John Kramer, the 24-year old head of the Highway Action Coalition formed with the “stated 

purpose” to “bust the highway trust.” 

Secretary Volpe had begun the struggle with his Single Urban Fund proposal that would allow local 

officials to use Highway Trust Fund revenue to buy buses and build commuter rail systems. In the 

past such proposals never had “much political muscle” behind them, but now it was coming from a 

Secretary of Transportation who had been the Federal Highway Administrator at the launch of the 

Interstate program. 

Sullivan, Johnson, and their allies made clear to Members of Congress that the proposal was not 

acceptable. The pro-highway forces made their views known along with campaign contributions to 

the key congressional leaders. As for the anti-highway forces:

Mr. Kramer, however, was not sitting on his hands. A novice at lobbying, he learned 

quickly. He planted ideas in the minds of newsmen, and, by summertime, favorable articles 

had appeared in publications including The New Republic and Business Week.

He rounded up support from Senators Cooper and Muskie and Representative John Anderson. 

Meanwhile, Burke was working with Senator Williams and other members of his committee to gain 

support for operating expenses. 

These contacts and those from Bosco with every member of the Senate Public Works Committee 

resulted in the 8 to 7 vote in favor of the Cooper-Muskie amendment. “Mr. Bosco could hardly 

believe his success, but it was short-lived” because Senator Stafford changed his vote overnight: 

Whether one of the highway lobbyists or another Senator persuaded Senator Stafford to 

switch is unknown . . . . Mr. Bosco called Mr. Stafford. Mr. Volpe called him. It was to no 

avail. The vote stuck. 

The Stafford switch appeared to kill Cooper-Muskie, but Bosco was optimistic. “Just wait,” he 

said, “I think we’ve got the votes on the Senate floor.” He was right, with the Cooper-Muskie 

amendment passing by a 48-to-26 vote. 
389 

In the House, Sullivan of the Public Works Committee was assisted by minority counsel Clifford 

W. Enfield, formerly general counsel of BPR; Lloyd A. Rivard, a committee staff highway 

engineer; and former Administrator Frank Turner, now a consultant to the committee. The 

committee’s final bill contained no funding for mass transportation. “Even worse, from Mr. 

Kramer’s and Mr. Bosco’s point of view, the staff had written a provision into the bill calling for an 

additional 10,000 miles for the Interstate System.” 

Any hope for the Administration would be on the House floor. The key obstacle was a 

parliamentary problem. “The House parliamentarian had ruled in the past that amendments similar 

to the Volpe plan were out of order, since the legislation was not a tax bill.” They tried to convince 

the House Rules Committee to prohibit points of order, but lost by a single vote. Next, 

Representative O’Neill, the Democratic whip (essentially the vote wrangler and counter) spoke with 

Lewis Deschler, who had been House parliamentarian for 4 decades:

Mr. Deschler reportedly promised Mr. O’Neill that he would rule that the amendment was in 

order.

By the time the bill reached the House floor, however, Mr. Deschler had changed his mind. 

He announced that he would rule the mass transit amendment out of order. 

Several Representatives said that Representative Carl Albert, the Speaker of the House, had 

prevailed upon Mr. Deschler to change his position. Other Representatives said it was 

Representative Wilbur D. Mills, the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Mr. 

Deschler refused to say why he switched.

Following passage of the House bill, the Conference Committee met for 40 hours over 5 days. 

“Lobbyists crowded the hallways outside the meeting rooms. But time and again the negotiations 

broke up, deadlocked on the transit issue.” Rosenbaum continued: 

At midnight on Saturday, Oct. 14, the conference broke up, supposedly for good. But Mr. 

Johnson and the other highway advocates went to work. The bill could not die, they said, or 

the states would be out of money. Senators and Representatives were flooded with phone 

calls from their constituents.

On Wednesday, October 18, the conference had reconvened and reached agreement on the 1-year 

extension. The Senate approved the bill with little debate and the House was expected to approve it 

before adjourning: 

But the Administration officials were not satisfied. They wanted to kill the bill, believing 

that if the highway advocates were in dire need of more highway money early next year, 

they would be willing to accept any bill, even one that let the trust fund be tapped for mass 

transit purposes. 
390 

Somehow, someone then engineered a quorum call on the House floor. Republicans, 

presumably at the Administration’s behest, refused to answer it, and the House was forced 

to adjourn, killing the highway bill for the year.

Mr. Bosco said that night that the Administration had planned the maneuver. The next day 

he said he knew nothing about it. But, he said, he was enormously happy with the outcome. 

Burke and Johnson telephoned their allies with the bad news. Sullivan began working on the new 

highway bill:

And John Kramer, who had been through [none] of these experiences before, began inviting 

friends to a victory party, confident that he would win his fight next year. [Rosenbaum, 

David E., “Lobbyists Powerful in Road Fund Battle,” The New York Times, October 24, 

1972] 

An editorial in The Washington Post tried to summarize what had happened. Following Senate 

adoption of the Cooper-Muskie amendment, the editorial said, “the guardians of the highway trust 

fund [in the House] had to pull out all parliamentary stops to block a pro-transit amendment.” 

The Conference Committee had, of course, been contentious: 

Though reports of the dealings conflict, it appears that the House conferees managed to 

drive a wedge through the Senate ranks by offering to accept $4.4 billion in mass transit 

aid—as long as it all came from general revenues, leaving the trust fund inviolate. This was 

agreeable to Sen. Jennings Randolph, chairman of the Senate conferees; Sen. Harrison 

Williams, the chief Senate spokesman for mass transit aid; and lobbyists for the mayors. 

But the deal was blocked by Sen. John Sherman Cooper, who controlled a majority of 

Senate votes in the conference. Sen. Cooper held out for opening up the trust fund or, as a 

last resort, for shelving the issue only till next year. At one point, the conference broke 

down in angry disagreement . . . .

They finally agreed on an interim bill that died when the House “failed to muster a quorum and 

adjourned for the year.”

This unexpected end was discouraging, but the editorial had a different reaction: 

The most troubling element in all this is the myopia displayed by those mass transit 

advocates who leaped at the bait of billions from general revenues—billions which might be 

impounded—and were willing to forsake the goal of reform. In a bitter, late-night floor 

speech, Sen. Williams called for “soul searching on the question of whether the effort was to 

aid mass transit or to break up the highway trust fund.” 

The outcome could not be known, but the debate would be resumed in 1973. “Indeed, the friends 

of road-building are already gearing up for the next round, as if they sense, as we do, growing 
391 

public interest in taking—and staying on—the path of reform.” [“Roads Not Taken,” The 

Washington Post, October 24, 1972] 

An editorial in The Baltimore Sun predicted “a big fight early in the next Congress” over the 

highway bill. Many States would be running out of money by the start of the next fiscal year on 

July 1, 1973; some will have been forced to quit road building while waiting for a new bill. The 

highway lobby would continue to oppose use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for rail mass transit 

facilities:

Will they relent next year, believing that only by doing so can they get a highway bill 

through Congress in a hurry, thus avoiding work stoppages in many states? Or will they use 

the increased pressure from state officials on members of Congress to make sure that there 

is no consideration of mass transit? 

Our guess is that the highway advocates will follow the latter course, and be successful in it, 

unless mayors and others who want mass transit money in Congress begin the minute the 

new Congress convenes. We urge them to, for the time has certainly come when the life or 

death of such cities as Baltimore depends on a wise—and new—transportation policy. 

[“The Next Highway Bill,” The Baltimore Sun, October 24, 1972] 

The impact on highway programs was felt soon after the 1972 bill died in the House. FHWA

expected nine States to have problems: Arkansas, California, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, 

Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. They would be short of their funding ceilings by a 

combined $295.7 million. A summary in The Wall Street Journal added: 

The Federal Highway Administration also says that because of federal limits on spending in 

interstate, urban, and other individual highway categories, there are 36 states that could fall 

a combined $431.5 million short of the spending limits in fiscal 1973, lacking new 

apportionments. But it’s understood the Nixon administration plans to let the states 

temporarily switch funds between these categories to avoid this problem. 

Tom Lewis, in his 1997 book Divided Highways, wrote about the demise of the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1972, in part based on an interview with former Administrator Turner. Lewis 

recounted the parliamentary dispute on October 3 and 4: 

On October 3, the House Rules Committee . . . added a special directive allowing members 

to raise points of order against any attempt to add mass transit funding. To circumvent the 

committee’s decision, Congressman [John] Anderson went to the House parliamentarian, 

the ultimate authority in such matters, who assured the congressman he would rule that his 

motion to amend the bill for mass transit funding was in order. Anderson would have no 

need to worry. His amendment would come to the floor. But on the morning of October 4, 

the parliamentarian ruled with the highway lobbyists because of the request of one of the 

most powerful representatives in Congress, the head of the House Ways and Means 

Committee, Wilbur D. Mills . . . .
392 

Just before the House took up the highway bill, Wilbur Mills announced that any change in 

the trust fund should originate with his House Ways and Means Committee, as it had written 

the original trust fund legislation in 1956, and it alone had the power to alter it. He would 

tolerate no amendment of the sort Anderson proposed to make. That Wilbur Mills took 

such a position was no surprise. Before entering Congress [in 1939], he had served as a 

judge (an administrative leader) in White County, Arkansas, where he had charge of 

highway building. It was there he first met the regional administrator [actually area 

engineer] of the Bureau of Public Roads, Francis Cutler Turner. The two men had been 

friends ever since and shared the same philosophy about highways. 

During the Conference Committee, Senator Cooper “became adamant that the final legislation 

include Highway Trust fund money for mass transit.” This was his final negotiation before retiring 

“and he wanted to go out with honor.” Lewis continued: 

Meeting after meeting of the conference committee ended in deadlock. It was now midOctober in an election year; senators and representatives were anxious to return to their 

states and districts for the campaign. The Gallup poll showed President Nixon leading his 

hapless Democratic opponent, George McGovern, by as much as thirty-four percent. Many 

in Congress wondered if the coming Republican landslide might sweep them from office. 

Finally, on October 18, the joint committee reached a decision to appropriate $3 billion 

from the general fund for mass transit and rushed the bill to the floor of the House. 

Many transit advocates, as discussed earlier, were suspicious of the compromise because the funds 

were a few years off and subject to appropriations and impoundment. With the bill seemingly

certain of House passage, “Those who wanted to crack the trust fund had one maneuver left,” 

namely the quorum call. Representative Mills tried to override the quorum call but when Speaker 

Albert said he could not do so, the bill died. [Divided Highways, p. 228-230] 

The States that had been most aggressive in using their Federal-aid funds were the ones most likely 

to feel a pinch:

“The states in the worst fix are the ones that are out ahead of the rest,” in terms of vigorous 

programs, a highway administration spokesman says. [Karr, Albert R., “Highway Bill 

Delay in Congress Threatens to Disrupt Construction in Several States,” The Wall Street 

Journal, October 23, 1972] 

On November 3, Senator Williams wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times “to review 

the reasons for the failure of the conferees to come up with a piece of legislation that could be 

enacted into law.” He summarized the final compromise on October 18 and noted Senate approval 

of the bill. The bill died “when one House member demanded a quorum call.” He explained that, 

“Three-quarters of the Republican members failed to answer the quorum call, and the House was 

forced to adjourn.” He had no doubt about why the Republicans failed to respond: 

It is well known that President Nixon is flatly opposed to helping commuter lines meet 

operating costs. There had been broad hints throughout the conference that he would veto 
393 

this bill because of the operating subsidies provisions, and millions of Americans would 

have been outraged if this had been done. 

They now have every right to be just as angry when he has one of his Congressional agents 

from a rural district kill this legislation through a quorum call. The Administration has even 

bragged about initiating the parliamentary maneuver which killed the Federal-Aid Highway 

Act.

These are the facts. Now it is up to the American people to judge who is really to blame.

Senator Williams, writing on November 3, may have intended to influence the presidential election 

on November 7, but his letter was not published until November 16. [Williams, Harrison, A., Jr., 

“Death of Federal Highway Act,” The New York Times, November 16, 1972] 

Secretary Volpe issued a statement on October 26 saying he was “particularly disappointed that 

legislation which would permit the Federal-Aid Highway program to continue was not enacted 

before the 92nd Congress adjourned.” Because disruption in the program was “not in the national 

interest,” he had sought and received from President Nixon “the authority to ensure that the 

federally-assisted portion of our Nation’s highway program can continue while Congress considers 

how it can best be responsive to the transportation needs of all our citizens.” 

The Secretary had directed Acting Administrator Bartelsmeyer “to work with all States where the 

lack of highway legislation impacts on their highway program.” Bartelsmeyer could do the 

following: 

1. Where necessary, to release States from the categorical restrictions now placed on the 

obligation of Federal-aid highway funds so that maximum use can be made of their 

available unused authorizations; 

2. Permit States to utilize existing authority to undertake Interstate projects for which they can 

be reimbursed when a new highway law is enacted.

A statement from Bartelsmeyer was appended to the Secretary’s statement. With the increased 

flexibility, “most States will have the necessary authorized funds to carry out the highway program 

at its current obligation level if the Congress acts expeditiously.” He was optimistic about 

obligating $4.4 billion for Federal-aid highways in the current fiscal year (FY 1973). 

U.S. News & World Report published an article in its issue of November 13, 1972, titled “As Funds 

Run Low for New Highways.” It stated that the “controversial federal highway program,” which 

already was running into objections from environmental groups, was now “facing another problem: 

 lack of funds.” Virginia was one of the worst hit. “We’ve used every cent we have,” Douglas 

Fugate told the reporter. “Our Interstate program is at a standstill until new federal funds are 

released.” He cited I-77 between Wytheville and the West Virginia border as an example of a 

project that was being delayed. The article continued: 
394 

Kentucky and Tennessee have almost used up their Interstate funds. Kentucky had 

$900,000 left and Tennessee $500,000. 

At least six other States—Arkansas, California, Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Texas—

also will be short of federal money by June 30 if Congress doesn’t come through with new 

authorization [sic] early in the next session. [“As Funds Run Low for New Highways,” U.S. 

News & World Report, November 13, 1972, p. 4] 

A panel of city and Federal officials met at the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Center on Fifth Avenue 

in New York City on November 11 to discuss the future of transit systems. The occasion was an 

exhibition of advanced transportation concepts, including people-movers, personal rapid-transit 

systems, and an electric-powered car with a long, pointed glass-fiber “snout.” The panelists agreed 

that such innovations would have little impact on the present. Mr. Jaquelin T. Robertson, Director 

of the Office of Midtown Planning and Development, said, “Everything here is Buck Rogers. It’s 

not going to change our lives for many years to come.” Mr. Jerome Kretchmer of the city’s 

Environmental Protection Administration called the electric car, with its long “snout,” a “menace,” 

adding, “No one is really working to provide a transportation system that will work in our 

environment.” 

Robertson, who was working on a proposed Madison Avenue pedestrian mall, said that instead of 

focusing on “money and technology,” officials should look to short-term solutions. “We will have 

to use existing technology and existing rights of way for the next 10 years, maybe 15.” He favored 

such developments as “maxi-cabs and mini-buses, limited-size trucks, and a reapportionment of 

street use, banning autos from many central city areas.” Such a ban was essential because, he said, 

“The automobile is a hopelessly inefficient carrier of bodies” in the urban environment. Existing 

funds, Robertson said, should be used to foster “pedestrianism and jitneys in the central city, and 

trains for intercity travel.” Any money left over “can be spent diddling around with far-out things.” 

 

Deputy Administrator William Allison of UMTA agreed that items such as the people movers, 

which his agency was studying, were for 10 years or more from now. Long-range planning was 

necessary, but UMTA was committed to short-term planning as well. One research project could 

provide a new urban bus by 1974, while research in New York City included a gas-turbine 

commuter car for the Long Island Rail Road and a stored-energy braking system for the subway. 

Representative Koch was also on the panel. He expected his bill to open the Highway Trust Fund 

to mass-transit uses to reach the House floor in January. There, it would encounter “the hardest 

fight imaginable” because of the powerful highway lobby. (It was unlikely a highway or mass 

transit bill, or any other, would reach the House floor in January, which the new Congress would 

devote to organizational issues, but the report of the conference cites his statement.)

Robert N. Rickles of the Institute of Public Transportation recommended outreach to the public to 

garner support for mass transit: 

Transportation is the only environmental issue on which we can excite the majority. It’s not 

a white, middle-class, elitist issue. It’s a political issue and the middle class and the poor 
395 

must join together to demand what they are entitled to. We’ve got to convince people that 

transportation is important and that it can get better. [Prial, Frank J., “Officials Urge Better 

Transit System for Today, Not the Future,” The New York Times, January 12, 1972] 

AASHO held its 58th annual meeting in Phoenix on November 27. Dingwall of Texas, in his 

speech as outgoing president, acknowledged the “changing of the guard in the leadership of the 

United States” that had taken place in 1972. The departures included Frank Turner and “friends 

from the Halls of Congress,” including some who participated in revitalization of the program in 

1956: 

The old guardsmen, like the sentinels at Buckingham Palace, have personified the qualities 

of loyalty, discipline and dedication. Straight and stalwart, they steadfastly refused to be 

distracted from their duty. 

Looking back over his year as AASHO president, Dingwall said:

We have been active in the defense of the Highway Trust Fund. Most of the time it has 

been a rear guard action against self-serving bands of guerrillas, and at other times, we have 

faced well-meaning but generally uninformed people who have attacked the program . . . . 

To understand this, I think one must understand what’s going on in our society. Highways 

are under attack from all directions. I think that this is so because there is a substantial 

protest subculture in the United States whose chief targets are the successful elements of the 

so-called Establishment. There is an amazing lack of protest over the failures of other 

programs. But show me a successful program, or organization, or institution and I’ll show 

you a target for these attacks.

Still, he was not pessimistic. The challenges could be met “if we are willing to pitch in and work 

for continued progress in the highway program in each of our States and in the nation.” He had 

observed some change in attitude in Congress. “The uncompromising hyper-idealism which has 

run rampant in the past five years now is being tempered with realism.” 

The key was to “return to the Federal-State partnership basis.” To do that AASHO first must 

strengthen its headquarters staff “with additional well-qualified personnel to provide for continuous 

review of policy and legislative matters.” Second, AASHO must accept that its duty was “not just 

to defend the highway program, but to inform legislators on the State and national levels of the 

needs for highways and of our accomplishments.” 

One thing was clear. “The need for highways, then, is not going to decline, but accelerate.” As for 

mass transit, “let us not sit back with a ‘dog in the manger’ attitude, but let us cooperate and assist 

where we can.” Highway officials “can share our knowledge, cooperate with other modes and still 

hold out for the sanctity of the Highway Trust Fund.” This cooperation would “dispel the myth that 

we are opposed to mass transit in all its forms and manifestations.” They were opposed only to the 

use of highway funds for transit. “If it’s a trust fund that mass transit needs, I say let’s help them 

get it, but with the understanding that they stop trying to break up ours.” 
396 

He urged AASHO members to act:

Without blaming anyone or any group, without pointing the finger, and without rancor, let’s 

all talk to our congressional people and see if we can’t get this bill going again in the very 

early days of 1973. [Dingwall, J. C., “President’s Annual Address,” American Highways, 

January 1973, p. 3-4, 17-18] 

Dingwall, who had joined the Texas Highway Department in 1928, was one of those exiting the 

scene. He retired on January 31, 1973. [“J.C. Dingwall Retires as Texas State Highway Engineer,” 

American Highways, January 1973, p. 18] 

The new president of AASHO would be Thomas F. Airis, Director of Highways and Traffic for the 

District of Columbia. He had joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1929 and had served in 

the military through World War II and during the Korean War. After working on the U.S. section 

of the St. Lawrence Seaway, he joined the District’s Department of Highways and Traffic in 1959. 

He became director in 1964. [“Sixty-First President of AASHO,” American Highways, January 

1973, p. 17] 

Acting Administrator Bartelsmeyer also addressed AASHO. Thirteen years ago, he said, he had 

addressed the organization as its president. “It was an honor I have always cherished, and it is one 

of the highlights of my 40-some years in the highway field.”

(Bartelsmeyer’s presidential address had taken place in Boston during AASHO’s 45th annual 

meeting in October 1959. He had addressed the fiscal crisis facing the Interstate program as a result 

of accelerated funding to counter a recession in the absence of an increase in revenue; attacks and 

criticism of the program (“It must be realized that when any individual public financed endeavor 

gets as big as the highway program, such things are sure to occur.”), accusations of corruption, the 

talk of increased Federal controls, changes in contract authority, and proposals by critics and local 

officials to curtail construction of the urban Interstates. On this topic, he said, “Since some of the 

greatest and most acute needs for adequate modern highways exist in the urban areas, it is 

inconceivable that a sound and well balanced Interstate Highway System should not include 

extensions into these areas.”) 

The 58th annual meeting, he said in 1972, was taking place “in a troubled time” with “some dark 

clouds hovering over us at the moment.” He reminded them that “AASHO has met in troubled 

times before, and adversity – of whatever nature – has always been overcome.” He quoted 

Shakespeare’s The Tempest (“The morning steals upon the night, melting the darkness”) and added, 

“Our dark hour will also pass.” 

He explained the steps Secretary Volpe and he were taking to keep the Federal-aid highway funds 

flowing despite the absence of congressional action to extend the program. “With this increased 

flexibility, most States will have the necessary authorized funds to carry out the highway program at 

its current obligation level . . . .” 
397 

The Administration favored early action on highway legislation in 1973 to avoid any funding 

lapses, but he wanted to make clear that there would be “no retreat from the general position” the 

Department had taken in 1972. In 1973, the Department would again support the pass-through 

provision that would provide Federal-aid urban funds directly to urbanized areas to use as they 

thought best, including for rail transit. In submitting legislation in 1972, the Department “thought 

then that this was desirable and necessary. We think now that it is desirable and necessary.” In 

view of the “overwhelming problem of rush-hour traffic congestion,” local elected officials “are in 

a much better position to decide how to spend their Trust Fund dollars than anyone else.” The 

Department believed this change was proper “because, after all, anything that we can do to 

eliminate or reduce congestion is beneficial to the highway systems of those areas, and the 

motorists who use them.” 

He assured AASHO that Secretary Volpe would have said the same thing if a prior commitment 

had not kept him away: 

Incidentally, I know that there are some who feel that Secretary Volpe – who was the first 

Federal Highway Administrator back in 1956 – has turned his back on the highway 

program, that he has deserted it. This simply is not true. Believe me, at the Department I sit 

in many personal meetings with him, and I can tell you unequivocally that he has not 

relaxed one iota his concern over highways. His concern and commitment remain as deep 

and sincere as they have always been . . . .

However, John A. Volpe is Secretary of Transportation – not Secretary of Highways. This 

is the crux of the matter. He must view transportation as a master plan, as a whole, rather 

than fragmented modes, or independent parts. 

And I submit that this is what we, as highway officials, acting in our role as an integral part 

of the total transportation endeavor, must also do. 

According to a Japanese proverb, “A small-minded man looks at the sky through a reed.” 

Let none of us look through a reed; let us look, instead, at the broad sweep of the whole sky 

– the total transportation problem. 

Let us think not of ourselves only in the narrow, restrictive confines of highway engineers; 

rather, let us think in broader, more sweeping terms as transportation officials.

Let our vision be broad and unlimited, and unclouded by vestiges of policies and procedures 

that once were considered highly desirable, but which are no longer applicable to today’s 

dynamic American society.

Bartelsmeyer said he knew the members of AASHO, had been one of them, had worked with them, 

and he shared their pride in all they had accomplished as well as the many obstacles they had 

overcome. “However, life is a treadmill, and there is little time for us to relax and think about past 

accomplishments.” Now, they must accept that the Federal-State highway program “has entered a 

new era – an era in which the role of highways is a changed one, but not a diminished one.” 
398 

Highways remained vitally important, but today highway officials “must consider always where and 

how they must interrelate with the other transportation modes.” 

That is why the Department of Transportation was created, namely “to bring all of the 

transportation modes – highway, rail, air and water – together in a coordinated, unified program.” 

They “must be completely coordinated into an overall transportation system if we are going to be 

able to measure up to our mandate.” He continued: 

You, the members of AASHO, are being given the opportunity – now – to assume the 

leadership in this total transportation challenge. If you do not accept it, someone else surely 

will! I say let’s accept this challenge eagerly and enthusiastically; and, as highway officials, 

let us measure up to the same high level of performance that we have always been capable 

of in the past. [Bartelsmeyer, Ralph R., Address, American Highways, January 1973, p. 9, 

24-25] 

On the afternoon of November 27, the featured event was a congressional panel discussion with 

Representatives Kluczynski, Wright, and Clausen from the House Committee on Public Works. 

Dingwall, in his role as moderator, began by asking about Secretary Volpe’s intention to submit a 

bill in 1973 that included the pass-through for Federal-aid urban funds and the local option to use 

the funds for bus or rail transit. Representative Kluczynski cited the Department’s 1972 National 

Transportation Report to demonstrate the size of highway needs: 

It seems ridiculous to me in the face of these facts to take money out of the Highway Trust 

Fund for mass transit or for any purpose other than highways. All this kind of action 

amounts to is robbing Peter to pay Paul, with both of them actually ending up in the poor 

house. 

He advocated retaining Highway Trust Fund revenues for use exclusively for the Federal-aid 

highway system. He supported increased funding for mass transit from some other source. In fact, 

in response to a later question, he pointed out that Title III of the bill that came out of the 

Conference Committee “contained the largest and most comprehensive transit program ever to 

come before Congress.” It contained an additional $3 billion from general revenues “over and 

above” previously authorized funds as well as “for the first time operating subsidy authorization” of 

a total of $400 million in 1973 and again in 1974. “Can you imagine a highway bill with such a big 

boost for mass transit?” 

He explained that “there was not general agreement in the conference that general fund monies 

should be used for transit.” He explained: 

You highway administrators know this only too well because you all received, in a move 

unprecedented to my knowledge in the history of Congress, a telegram from seven of the 

Senate conferees which indicated the thinking of some of the Senate conferees implying that 

they had given in on the Cooper-Muskie proposal to take mass transit funds from the Trust 

Fund. What they neglected to say was that the only reason they wanted a one year extension 

of the ABCD program instead of the two years which was in both bills, was to insure that 
399 

the subject would have to be treated again early in the next Congress. As it turned out, of 

course, we have no bill and not even a one year extension, so those people got their way 

anyway.

He favored a third trust fund for mass transit. The idea had considerable support in the House and 

among transit proponents: 

Of course there are many people who profess to be in favor of a transit program, but are in 

reality simply opposed to highways. These people will undoubtedly find reasons to oppose 

a transit trust fund. But you people are just as aware of this situation as we are, and we will 

all have to face up to it and do everything possible to create this third trust fund, and I’m for 

that 1,000 percent. 

He added that, “The highway opponents don’t care how much public money has gone down the 

drain, but I care and so do you.” 

In concluding comments, Representative Kluczynski told AASHO that, “When you come before us 

next year, you should tell it like it is and lay it on the line.” He wanted them to feel free to say 

anything they want to say. “You can’t insult us.” Talk about how the absence of a bill and 

impoundments increase unemployment. Discuss the cost increases resulting from delays. Let it be 

known “what the singlemindedness of the opponents of the highway program have caused and who 

is footing the bill.” 

He predicted that Secretary Volpe “will probably have some bright and shining new proposals for 

us developed from the warmed-over remains of what they have sent us before, and justified by 

reaching into the cloudy unknowns of the Office of Management and Budget.” The committee was 

“behind you as always . . . but the fight is getting tougher.” 

Speaking of robbing Peter to pay Paul, Representative Kluczynski joked about the popular folk 

singers Peter, Paul, and Mary. “Now I didn’t mention anything about Mary, but you can be sure if 

you start taking money from Peter to give to Paul, that pretty soon Mary is going to get a little 

suspicious and want her share, too.” Representative Clausen picked up on this comment in 

discussing his support for a third trust fund: 

In my view, instead of raiding the one trust fund wherein as he said robbing Peter to pay 

Paul and then opening the door for Mary to fiddle around a little bit, it seems to me what is 

needed instead of everything trying to divide up a single pie, I believe we ought to have 

another pie. 

He said that, “if there is so much interest for mass transit in this country, let’s have the people put 

their money where their mouth is, let us create the vehicle at the Federal level.” 

He did not favor a broader trust fund. “Knowing the plight of the situation, you are going to create 

a single grab bag, and it will be a power play from this day forward as to which one is going to have 

the most to say about where the allocation will go.” He favored hearings and studies to determine 
400 

needs, estimates of costs, and methods of financing. “I think if we did that we would have a more 

realistic approach to the total problem.” 

He believed in a nationally coordinated transportation system, but warned AASHO that, “I can tell 

you that unless you unite and do your homework, you can find yourself on the outside looking in.” 

Even as AASHO was meeting in Boston, the principal advocates for using Highway Trust Fund 

revenues for rail transit, namely the National League of Cities, were meeting to discuss this issue 

and lay out a strategy for achieving their objective. Noting that the House would have 63 new 

Members, he said:

I can suggest to you that you had better go back home and communicate the problems that 

you have, not only with your local city and county officials (because we found on the one 

side it was the League of Cities that were principal proponents for mass transit), as well as 

with the counties and the governors who wanted to maintain the integrity of the Highway 

Trust Fund. And, I would suggest all of the trade organizations, be it Labor, Management, 

whoever it might be, needs to know the story, you and they need to get the message to their 

Senator or to their House people so that they have an understanding of what the real facts of 

life are as relates to the highway system.

Representative Clausen also discussed the proposed 10,000-mile priority primary network. He said 

that within the committee, support existed for extending the Interstate System after it was 

completed later in the decade:

But in the wisdom of the committee itself, it felt that what should be done is to go back to 

the needs study report and come forth with a 10,000 mile intermediate highway program 

based upon priorities that would come from the States in cooperation with the local units of 

government. 

The priority primary routes “could provide the nucleus, in conjunction with other improvements 

that we might make, to have, as an example, a safer route of travel for the trucks and the highways 

and the automobiles.” 

Pulling his topics together, Representative Clausen said that “the only way this is going to come 

about is for you to educate many public officials and start talking to some of the people in 

Congress.” 

Dingwall asked Representative Wright to discuss the safety elements of the 1972 bill. “I think all 

of us would have to agree,” Wright replied, “that safety is what it’s all about.” Highway accidents 

were “the third most prolific killer of Americans when we consider all causes, following only heart 

disease and stroke.” Well-engineered roads such as the Interstate highways “definitely can save 

human life.” 

The 1972 bill was “a forward-looking approach to try to do still more about highway safety in an 

effort to save American lives.” He discussed provisions such as funding for high hazard locations, 

including otherwise well-engineered roads, where built-in death traps exist. “We discovered that 
401 

you can apply money and effort and intelligent direction to those particular spots with dramatic 

results.” 

Representative Wright also said all these efforts would be meaningless unless we “keep highway 

construction at a level that will sustain safe highways.’ He continued: 

There has been a lot of rhetoric about paving the country over with superhighways; some 

people want to quit building highways. Well, that, after all, is begging the question. To 

follow that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion, you would come up with a pretty 

cold-blooded formula – just to let people get killed on inadequate highways. Maybe they 

won’t buy any more automobiles. I for one do not believe that. 

The Highway Trust Fund must be limited to “the ongoing coordinated highway program with all the 

safety features we can build into it for two or three very important reasons.” First, the Congress had 

made a commitment to the American motoring public: “Put up the taxes and we will build you 

better roads.” Second, “we just don’t have any surplus in the Trust Fund – certainly no surplus to 

our own needs. We need every penny.” Third, better roads save lives. Regardless of the demands 

for transit or other modes, “I can’t think of anything more important to the life, health and safety of 

the American public than an adequate highway program.” 

Representative Wright, in his concluding remarks, gave AASHO the same observation he said he 

had given to a graduating class: 

As we look to the future, all of us are going to have to broaden our perspective and see the 

bigger picture, and the thought I want to leave you with is that the fact that we can forgive 

the child for being afraid of the dark, but the tragedy of our lifetime is when grown men and 

women are afraid to see the light.

Moving forward, “we do want to approach these things with open eyes and a view to the future – 

not a partisan view, but an American view.” He solicited AASHO’s help, advice, and constructive 

criticism. “The Congress is an imperfect instrument and one of the most criticized.” To do what 

people need done, “we need your help, we need your counsel. [“Congressional Panel Discussion on 

the Future Federal-Aid Highway Program,” American Highways, January 1973, p. 6-8, 29-33] 

Leaders of ARBA and AGC also addressed AASHO. E. J. Peltier, ARBA’s president, reminded 

AASHO that one of the most important legislative achievements of the 92nd Congress had been

approval in October of general revenue sharing. Funds totaling $30 billion would be made 

available to State and local governments for all types of ordinary and necessary capital expenditures 

as well as maintenance and operating expenses. The funds could be used for roads as well as transit 

operating subsidies: 

Some of you, perhaps, have forgotten about Special Transportation Revenue-Sharing. The 

proposal . . . has lain dormant in Congress. In essence, it involves a pooling of the revenues 

from the Highway Trust Fund, the Airports and Airways Trust Fund, and funds appropriated 

for the urban mass-transit program. This pool of money was to be distributed to State and 
402 

local governments for application to any transportation program whatsoever, including 

maintenance and operating costs.

The program presented last spring by Secretary Volpe, which centered around the proposed 

Single Urban Fund, is a step in the direction of Special Transportation Revenue-Sharing. 

The Cooper-Muskie Amendment to the 1972 Highway Act . . . represents a much smaller 

step in the same direction . . . . 

If funding were made available on a “no-strings-attached” basis, he said, “there is no doubt that 

many cities will use this new funding to meet the operating deficits of their public transportation 

systems.” That was understandable, but the Federal concern must be different, namely “to insure 

the development of an efficient transportation system” throughout the country. The Federal 

investment must be restricted to capital projects. If used for operating subsidies, “it will cease to be 

an investment.” If operating subsidies were allowed, they would “involve a watch-dog operation to 

make sure the subsidies paid out are not frittered away.” He explained:

The problems associated with Federal operating subsidies for transit are similar to those 

associated with Federal aid for highway maintenance [which was prohibited]. In essence, 

the activities are not of a sort that can be adequately audited at the Federal level, and if the 

attempt is made, a mountain of red tape will result.

When the 93rd Congress convenes in January, he said, it would consider legislation for highways, 

airports, and urban public transportation. He urged AASHO to make clear that all are underfunded 

and that the Department of Transportation “has a responsibility to relate its legislative requests to 

the needs of the programs.” While he acknowledged that “local transportation decisions can be 

made at the local level,” he believed that “the Federal government also has a responsibility to exert 

leadership in developing a national transportation system.” [Peltier, E. J., Remarks, American 

Highways, January 1973, p. 11-12] 

The AGC’s William Dunn was optimistic that the Vietnam War would soon be over, with funding 

no longer needed for that cause put to use building a better life at home. In the absence of a 

highway bill, “we must now seek solutions” based on fundamentals. First, a “Trust Fund” must be 

considered “a trust in every sense of the word.” He said, “There can be no compromise on this 

principle.” A separate trust fund was needed for mass transit, not one in which “Paul and Mary 

would be stealing from Peter.” Third, if the public learned that the taxes it paid into the Highway 

Trust Fund were used for a different purpose, “they must speak out against it.” In short, 

maintaining the integrity of the Highway Trust Fund was vitally important:

We will not be coerced, cajoled or stampeded into a compromise on this basic principle. No 

matter how bad it hurts, once you compromise on principle, especially on as basic, as 

fundamental and as sacred as this; you’re dead . . . . We simply have no right to tamper with 

trust funds; that is the right of the parties to this trust the American taxpayer, the American 

motorist, and his Government [sic]. [Dunn, William, Remarks, American Highways, 

January 1973, p. 14] 
403 

Carroll Quimby, president of the League of American Wheelmen, also addressed AASHO. He 

warned AASHO “to prepare for the great cycling syndrome that is sweeping our country.” He said 

AASHO didn’t have to take his word for it. He said to “just look around you; there is no escaping 

it.” He said that, “Only the highway lobby is resisting . . . being dragged kicking and screaming 

into the America of the mid-70s.” 

He acknowledged that bicycles had equal rights to the road, but said that bicycles “can in no way 

compete with the automobile for the right to use the same roads.” The ideal would be bike paths 

consisting of an 8-foot lane separated from traffic by barriers, hedges, and grade separations. He 

urged the State highway officials to accept that funding for bikepaths should come through 

established Federal and State highway departments. One thing was certain:

It is projected that by 1975 there will be over 100 million cyclists in America, or every other 

American on a bike. Speaking to you as a representative of those cyclists, one way or 

another, we’re gonna get you. [“Highway Officials are Warned to Plan for ‘Cycling 

Syndrome’,” The Phoenix Republic, November 28, 1972] 

Tom Wicker, in his Times column on December 5, 1972, wrote about “Busting the Highway Trust”: 

The Highway Action Coalition estimates that opening the massive Highway Trust Fund for 

some form of spending on mass transit projects “is a more likely possibility during the 

coming year than ever before.” But neither the coalition nor anyone else interested in 

slowing the highway juggernaut can afford to consider the victory inevitable.

The coalition cited three defeats for the highway lobby in the past year as one cause for optimism: 

It was unable to have a percentage of alcohol tax receipts diverted into the trust fund, to stop 

construction of the Washington, D.C., subway system, or to win passage of a bill 

appropriating [authorizing] money from the trust fund without inclusion of a provision that 

a small portion could be spent for mass transit projects. 

The election was another positive sign according to coalition headcounts: 

About 60 per cent of the House members who were defeated or retired were pro-highway, 

while only about four-fifths of their replacements seem to be so oriented. The Senate count 

is virtually unchanged, but that makes little difference; last year, the Senate passed the 

Cooper-Muskie amendment, which would have permitted mass transit projects to be 

financed from the trust fund, by about two to one. 

Further, with much of the rural Interstate System completed, “the emphasis of the highway builders 

now is on urban projects that gobbled up land, ruin neighborhoods with air and noise pollution, 

scatter our cities into patternless chaos, and force more and more people into more and more 

automobiles for which there will never be enough parking until the country is paved over.” 

The final reason for optimism was that public support was growing steadily, as was support from 

public officials. Wicker cited Governor Sargent’s new master plan for transit rather than highways 
404 

in Boston, as well as the battles citizens were waging in court, legislatures, and administrative 

agencies “against big highway projects all over the country. In a Harris poll, 54 percent of 

respondents placed “higher priority on improving rail transportation rather than bus and air travel.

Still, it was not going to be easy. “No one ought to discount . . . the power and finances of the 

highway lobbyists,” as Wicker explained: 

Now that they know how strong their opposition is becoming, after years when they were 

virtually unchallenged, they can be expected to fight to the last campaign contribution and 

the last big project dangled in front of some dazzled Congressman’s nose. [Wicker, Tom, 

“Busting the Highway Trust,” The New York Times, December 5, 1972] 

The editor of Better Roads magazine, Frank Reid, was aware of the stakes facing the highway 

community. This might not be evident from the cover and contents of the December 1972 issue of 

the magazine “for Federal, State, County, Township, and Municipal Officials, Engineers, and 

Prequalified Contractors.” The cover depicted a new Warner & Swasey 880 Gradall tearing out a 

stretch of concrete pavement on Arlington Road in Akron, Ohio. The contents covered the usual 

mix of articles – optically programmed traffic signals, equipment tips from the convention of the 

American Public Works Association, and a Better Roads forum on “Winter patching: what 

materials?” 

Reid’s editorial, however, saw the coming battle in stark terms. With the highway program 

“temporarily up for grabs,” he said, “it is long past time to review some basic facts regarding the 

Highway Trust Fund.” He continued: 

The purpose of the user tax was to improve highways. Funds were collected from highway 

users. The funds were distributed by formula to build the Interstate System. The Interstate 

System was not yet completed. Needs off the Interstate System are growing. Through 

impoundment, millions of dollars of Highway Trust Fund revenue had been withheld “in the 

name of economic stabilization. 

This withholding created an artificial “surplus” that had “become an attractive target for other 

transportation modes that, for a variety of reasons, can not support a similar user-oriented tax.” The 

final fact was:

The existence of a group of irresponsible men in the Congress of the United States who 

apparently have decided that mass transit systems must be funded from the Highway Trust 

Fund and from no other source. 

These facts, Reid said, “put the present highway crises in better perspective.” An overpowering 

need remained for the money to continue flowing into highway projects. “Highway people would 

also not argue that a user tax is inviolate, per se.” However, with user taxes earmarked for highway 

betterment, and those highways in “desperate need of the money,” Reid told his readers “there is no 

justification for creating an artificial surplus and their raiding it for other uses, however laudable.” 

Unfortunately, certain legislators had “determined that the Trust Fund must be raided, even to the 
405 

point of spurning the required mass transit funds offered from the General Fund expenditures for 

urban roads!” This “highly irresponsible and illogical action” left the highway program in limbo 

until 1973, when the same claims for the “extra” money will be repeated:

Now is the time for all good highway men and all other reasonable men and women who 

use outdated and deteriorating roads to do something about the unfortunately anti-highway 

attitude that exists in Congress.

Readers should attack the “surplus” concept by bombarding “your congressmen with pictures of 

outgrown streets in his district.” Swamp him with traffic accident data “for the overtaxed roads in 

his district” compared with the safety record on newer roads. Show him the relationship between 

dollars spent and lives saved and remind him of how many more “could have been saved by the 

proper expenditure of these ‘surplus’ funds.” And ask him “if he wants to be responsible for these 

deaths.” 

Reid concluded: 

You might as well face the hard truth, no one but highway people will do this important job. 

 If the Trust Fund is to be saved you are going to have to do it. 

Do it now . . . tomorrow will be too late. [Reid, Frank, “Leave the Highway Trust Fund 

Alone: Its Job Is Not Yet Done,” Better Roads, December 1972, p. 13, emphasis in the 

original]
406 

Part 4

Finishing the Job

Aftermath of a Historic Landslide

Author and journalist Theodore J. White, writing in 1975, painted a pessimistic picture of 

Presidents who win by a landslide. They suffer, he said, from “the delusion of omnipotence.” He 

illustrated with several examples:

Roosevelt in 1936 (victory by a 60.8 percent, 11,000,000-vote landslide) went on nearly to 

wreck his second administration by his proposal to pack the Supreme Court. Lyndon 

Johnson (61 percent, 16,000,000-vote landslide) went on in 1964 to plunge the nation 

simultaneously into a social revolution, an unauthorized foreign war, and an inflation that 

still, in 1975, rages uncontained. 

To this list White added President Nixon after he defeated Senator McGovern to win a second term 

as President. Nixon won the popular vote with an 18 million vote margin (or 60.7 percent of all 

votes), taking every State except Massachusetts and the District of Columbia to secure an electoral 

college victory of 520 votes to 17. [White, Theodore, Breach of Faith: The Fall of Richard Nixon, 

Atheneum Publishers/Reader’s Digest Press, 1975, p. 169] 

President Nixon’s “coattails” did not significantly increase Republican membership in the 

Congress. In the Senate, Democrats gained two seats, bringing their total to 57. Republican 

Senator Allott of Colorado, the transit supporter, was defeated by Democrat Floyd D. Haskell, 

while the Democrat and future Vice President, Joseph R. “Joe” Biden, Jr., of Delaware, defeated

Senator J. Caleb Boggs. In the House, Republicans gained 12 seats, but remained in the minority 

with 192 seats compared with 243 for the Democrats. 

(On December 18, 1972, Senator-elect Biden’s 30-year-old wife Neilia and 18-month-old daughter 

Naomi were killed in a crash on Route 7 in northern Delaware. Out to buy a Christmas tree, Neilia 

pulled out from a stop sign into an intersection and the family’s station wagon was broadsided by a 

tractor-trailer. According to the police report, the station wagon continued “approximately 150 feet, 

spinning around, going backwards down an embankment, and striking three trees.” Their two sons, 

4-year-old Joseph (“Beau”) and 3-year-old Robert, were seriously injured but fully recovered. 

Biden, in Washington interviewing potential staff members, flew back to Wilmington to tend to his 

sons at General Division Hospital. 

(While taking care of his sons and recovering from the shock of his wife’s fatal Christmas shopping 

trip, the Senator-elect considered resigning, but was persuaded to proceed. He took the oath of 

office at the hospital. To care for his sons, he began commuting daily between Wilmington and 

Washington on Amtrak, a practice he continued throughout his years in the Senate, where he 

became one of Amtrak’s strongest supporters. [Associated Press, “Senator-Elect’s Wife Dies in 

Auto Accident,” December 19, 1972; United Press International, “Biden’s Wife, Child Killed in 

Car Crash,” December 18, 1972; Associated Press, “Biden Takes Oath Friday,” January 2, 1972]) 
407 

Like Presidents Roosevelt, Johnson, and other landslide winners, Nixon “was suffering from 

similar intoxication the morning after his 1972 election,” but one that White described as “oddly 

sullen” rather than exuberant as had been the case with his predecessors. [White, p. 169] 

Having won reelection, the President headed to Camp David in Maryland to plan the New 

American Revolution he had announced in the 1971 State of the Union Address but that had made 

little headway since. Speechwriter William Safire had coined the phrase to provide a unifying 

theme for the Administration – like the New Deal, New Frontier, and Great Society of past 

Democratic Administrations. Presidential historian Richard Reeves described the concept as 

“stringing together the same old programs and calling it a revolution.” Nixon liked the phrase 

because it was colorful, in contrast with focusing on programs most voters never heard of or didn’t 

understand. In the 1971 address, Nixon described what he had in mind: 

But above all, what this Congress can be remembered for is opening the way to a new 

American revolution—a peaceful revolution in which power was turned back to the 

people—in which government at all levels was refreshed and renewed and made truly 

responsive. This can be a revolution as profound, as far-reaching, as exciting as that first 

revolution almost 200 years ago—and it can mean that just 5 years from now America will 

enter its third century as a young nation new in spirit, with all the vigor and the freshness 

with which it began its first century. 

The phrase had not caught the media’s focus or the popular imagination, but having won reelection, 

the President wanted to accomplish the goal of his New American Revolution through executive 

actions, budget manipulation, and personnel purges, as Reeves described: 

He wanted to seize control of the government he believed was filled with time-serving 

incompetents and secret enemies. He was convinced that his orders were being ignored or 

subverted by bureaucrats in the State and Defense Departments, by Justice Department 

lawyers, by appointees at HEW, by the FBI and the IRS, by liberal numbers collectors in the 

Bureau of Labor Statistics.

He intended to reorganize and reduce the size of the executive branch of the government 

and bring it under his own direct control. 

By these moves the President would accomplish the goals of his 1971 government reorganization 

plan even if Congress had not approved the changes. 

To accomplish this revolution, he wanted people around him who felt total loyalty to the President 

and would implement his policies without question. He would “personally choose general 

counsels, public affairs director and spokesmen, personnel directors, legislative liaisons, and the 

chief administrative executives of every agency.” [Reeves, Richard, President Nixon: Alone in the 

White House, Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 2007, p. 286 (Safire), 544 (reorganization)] 

 

During a Cabinet meeting the day after the election, Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman preceded the 

President into the room, asking the members to submit pro forma resignations for the President’s 
408 

consideration as he planned his new Administration. Then the President entered to a standing 

ovation from his Cabinet. White quoted an anonymous Cabinet member who said that the 

President’s comments had “this joyless, brooding quality . . . you almost had the impression he had 

lost.” He thanked his Cabinet and emphasized that he “wasn’t about to go downhill,” as many twoterm Presidents had. The source added, “There was a vague reference about our submitting 

resignations, but it was so indirect.” The President left the room, and Haldeman came back in to 

say, “I’m not entirely sure you people understood what the President said—when he said he wanted 

your resignations, he meant he wanted your resignations.” 

The anonymous source told White, “I was watching Volpe’s expression and I could see Volpe was 

stunned. Volpe had knocked himself out in the campaign, talking two or three times a day for 

Nixon. He couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t.” 

What had happened was that the President was going to act on his longstanding plan to gain control 

of the Executive Branch as reflected in his 1971 reorganization plan: 

What was planned was surgery on the government of the United States, the extension of the 

concept of executive control of government by the elected President from that of tradition to 

an entirely new political theory—an attempted change in the nature of the Presidency, 

almost, but not quite, amounting to a Constitutional change. 

The President was about to streamline by fiat the entire Executive Branch of government, 

install within every department a personal agent of the White House staff to supervise it, 

create about himself a super-cabinet lodged in the Executive Office Building, officially 

remove traditional Cabinet members from access to him, and purge the bureaucracy until it 

became the unquestioning subordinate instrument of the White House policy center which 

he alone would direct. 

Some members of the Cabinet left voluntarily while others were elevated to new positions. Some 

did not receive such treatment:

But others were thrust out brutally—Volpe was given half an hour’s notice to decide 

whether he would accept the ambassadorship to Italy or leave entirely. He accepted the 

embassy and, on inquiry later, learned that the Cabinet was being purged of people who 

“had a base of their own.” [White, p. 171-176, emphasis in original] 

Volpe recalled the event differently. He had scheduled a speech to a highway safety symposium in 

Mexico in mid-November. The President had wanted to meet with each Cabinet member, but told 

Volpe to keep his engagement and to visit Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina to exchange 

transportation information. Returning to Washington, Volpe prepared an agenda outlining his plans 

for the second term: 

Before Volpe left for the White House, Ehrlichman called, asking to see him fifteen minutes 

before his appointment. Volpe stopped in at Ehrlichman’s office, and the White House aide 

delivered the news. He was to be offered the post of ambassador to Italy. 
409 

Volpe was surprised and angered at the breach of courtesy, but he hid his annoyance as he 

was ushered into the Oval Office. There the president congratulated him on his work at 

DOT and formally offered him the job in Italy. 

Volpe had wanted the post, but not yet. He asked for 4 more months to see crucial legislation, 

including the highway reauthorization, through Congress, but the current Ambassador, Graham 

Martin, was being shifted to Vietnam, and Nixon did not want the post in Italy to be vacant for 

long: 

Volpe returned to his office at DOT and shut the door. [Aide Barry] Locke found him 

sitting, silent, with the agenda on his desk before him next to the model of the SST. “The 

president wants me to go to Rome,” he said, simply. 

His wife Jennie was excited about the new post, but Volpe was not sure. “John,” she told the 

Transportation Secretary, “go back to the White House and say yes before he changes his mind!” 

According to Kilgore, Ehrlichman called the next day to inquire about Volpe’s decision, but Volpe 

had not made up his mind yet. The same conversation took place the second day. On the third day, 

Volpe told Ehrlichman, “Yes. You can tell the president I will go to Rome.” [Kilgore, p. 197-198] 

Perhaps Volpe should have seen it coming. Despite references to the President’s full support for 

Volpe’s initiatives, the Secretary had rarely been able to speak to President Nixon about crucial 

transportation issues. Their conversation in March 1971 about the SST was one of their few 

substantive discussions. They also had spoken following Senate passage of the Airport and 

Airways Improvement Act in 1970, 88 to 4, but only after Volpe made strenuous efforts to get 

through aides trying to block the call. After Nixon and Volpe talked about the legislation and 

transportation for a few minutes, the President said, “John, you know you can talk to me anytime 

you want.” The next time Volpe tried to speak to the President, his aides made it virtually 

impossible.

Kilgore said:

Volpe had taken the president at his word that he would be available to his cabinet, but 

within a few months of the inauguration, it was difficult to get a call put through to the Oval 

Office. Within a year, for Volpe it had become nearly impossible. 

In the years Volpe served in the cabinet, Nixon called him only once at DOT, on a day 

Volpe happened to be speaking on the West Coast. A wall seemed to be forming around the 

White House, impenetrable to all but a few insiders . . . . Word spread among the upper 

levels of the administration that the only way to see the president was through two White 

House staffers: John Ehrlichman, a young Seattle lawyer, and his friend H.R. Haldeman, a 

California advertising executive. [Kilgore, p. 189-190] 

By June 1970, according to Richard Reeves, Nixon had identified Volpe as one of the Secretaries 

he wanted to get rid of, along with former Alaska Governor Walter J. Hickel (Secretary of the 

Interior) and former Michigan Governor George W. Romney (Secretary of Housing and Urban 
410 

Development). Reeves said of Hickel that he fell out of favor with the President “because like most 

former governors, Walter Hickel among them, he was used to being listened to and used to making 

his own decisions.” Volpe, apparently, suffered from the same problem as far as the President was 

concerned. [Reeves, p. 231] (Hickel’s downfall came soon after he criticized the President’s policy 

in Vietnam; he departed his post on November 25, 1970. Secretary Romney survived to be 

replaced, like Volpe, after the 1972 election.) 

In a retrospective article, former Under Secretary Beggs and former Assistant Secretary for 

Administration Alan L. Dean discussed the tensions that had existed between the White House and 

Secretary Volpe:

Volpe was required by law to develop a transportation policy and submit it to Congress. 

The secretary, Under Secretary, and Paul Cherrington [Assistant Secretary for Policy and 

International Affairs] soon learned that the Nixon White House had its own ideas 

concerning the content of the report. What it eventually transmitted to congress fell far 

short of what the department had sought to do. This generated frictions between an 

energetic and imaginative secretary and a Nixon White House which became increasingly 

inclined to micromanage the executive departments. Frustrated in his effort to present a 

national transportation policy of the scope which he believed the country needed, the 

secretary turned to legislation as a principal means of addressing established needs and 

asserting the role of the department contemplated by the Department of Transportation Act . 

. . . 

In summary, no other executive department was as successful as DOT during President 

Nixon’s first term in developing and securing the enactment of major statutes relating to its 

mission and programs. Unfortunately, Secretary Volpe and his principal policy advisor, 

Paul Cherrington, found that the Nixon White House gave the department little credit for 

these accomplishments. Volpe and Cherrington resisted White House efforts to revise 

DOT’s legislative proposals in ways they regarded as harmful. White House aides 

increasingly viewed Volpe as aggressive and bothersome and not sufficiently responsive to 

their efforts to modify the department’s recommendations. These frictions eventually 

culminated in President Nixon’s 1971 recommendation to Congress that the Department of 

Transportation be abolished as a part of a general reorganization of the domestic executive 

departments.

Beggs and Dean summed up Volpe’s 4 years:

By the end of Nixon’s first term the department had earned a reputation for competent 

management and had shown skill in developing and securing the enactment of urgently 

needed transportation legislation. The department also generally [succeeded] in securing the 

funds needed for strengthening old programs and implementing new ones. 

There was one problem: 
411 

As previously noted its very impressive accomplishments received little recognition from 

the Nixon White House. The effort to abolish the department got nowhere, and the only 

effect of this proposal was to make it more difficult to explain and defend the president’s 

departmental reorganization program. [Dean, Alan L., and Beggs, James M., “The 

Department of Transportation Comes of Age: The Nixon Years,” Presidential Studies 

Quarterly, Winter 1996, p. 209-215] 

(One of the odder contacts between Secretary Volpe and the President occurred in May 1970. 

Demonstrating students had occupied public places, including the Lincoln Memorial, to protest the 

Vietnam War and its extension into Cambodia. They also were incensed because on May 4, 

National Guardsmen had fired into a crowd of protestors at Kent State University in Ohio, killing 

four students and wounding nine. On May 8, the President addressed the Nation on television, then 

began a restless series of telephone calls to friends and associates, beginning with National Security 

Advisory Henry Kissinger, presidential secretary Rose Mary Woods, his daughter Tricia, and 

Secretary of State William Rogers. In 3 hours, he made nearly 40 more calls, including one at 

10:56 p.m. to Secretary Volpe. The brief call ended by 10:59, when the President called 

Representative L. H. Fountain (D-NH). 

(Following the calls and a few hours of sleep, he took his limousine to the Lincoln Memorial where 

he had what White described as “a warm and pleading conversation on peace, foreign affairs and 

environment with the students encamped there.” Next, he visited the Capitol before ending his 

overnight experience at the Mayflower Hotel for breakfast with Haldeman and others. “Whether or 

not Richard Nixon came close to nervous breakdown in the events of May, 1970, is debated 

seriously by his aides.” [White, p. 131-132, Safire, William, Before the Fall: An Inside View of the 

Pre-Watergate White House, Doubleday and Company, 1975, p. 204]) 

Press secretary Ronald L. Ziegler announced Volpe’s `selection as Ambassador to Italy on 

December 7, 1972. Volpe released a statement summarizing his accomplishments:

I have tried in the past four years, with direction and encouragement from President Nixon, 

to focus all of our Nation’s great and diverse transportation interests on the central task of 

building a better, more effective mobility for America.

We have made a strong beginning. Public transportation is beginning to blossom again in 

cities and communities across the country. Our highways are a bit safer; our automobiles 

are safer. The passenger trains are running, more travelers are beginning to use them, and 

regular patrons are finding them cleaner and more efficiently run. Automation of the 

airways has been accelerated, and flight delays have been reduced.

We have seen the enactment of meaningful, long-term legislation by a Congress sympathetic 

and responsive to transportation needs. We have made the first technical and regulatory 

assaults on transportation-caused air and noise pollution. 

And we have tried on every hand to put our country’s critical urban transportation 

requirements into word and into action. 
412 

But whatever we have achieved to make the wheels of transportation progress turn faster 

and more effectively for more people, I take greater satisfaction in what we have been able 

to do to make transportation contribute to a better environment, to help the minorities 

among us gain full and equal opportunity to the realization of the American dream, and to 

lessen the risks of death and injury in every transportation mode. 

Some goals remained unaccomplished: 

For example, we have not yet been able to utilize the full flexibility of the highway trust 

fund to enable our cities to meet their urban transportation needs, afford the highway user all 

the value to which he is entitled, and provide real solutions to the total transportation 

problems. 

That was the only unrealized goal he cited in the statement.

Secretary Volpe held a news conference on December 19 in Washington. His 4 years, he said, had 

been “constructive ones for transportation and the environment.” After citing progress against 

airplane hijackers, he turned to “President Nixon’s program of assistance for public transportation,” 

including more than $2 billion in Federal mass transit funds since early 1969, the opening of 

BART, and the appearance in 1972 of “rather convincing proof of the effect exclusive busways can 

have on the travel habits of suburban commuters.” On Shirley Highway in northern Virginia, he 

said, bus ridership was up 230 percent (30,000 commuters). 

Progress on the Interstate System had continued (now more than 80 percent complete) along with 

improvement of the primary and secondary roads and highway safety. One disappointment 

remained:

We worked very hard this year to make funds from the Highway Trust Fund available for 

urban transportation projects, including public transit if communities so desire. I confess I 

leave my post as Secretary with some sense of disappointment that the Administration’s 

position on this important issue did not prevail in the last Congress. But I am confident that 

my successor will persevere in this cause, and that a proposed amendment to the Federal 

Highway Act will be foremost on our legislative agenda when the 93rd Congress convenes. 

As I have pointed out before, the language of the 1956 Highway Act specifically states that 

the trust fund will be “for the benefit of the user” – and I can think of no better way to get 

more mileage out of every highway dollar than to relieve the congestion on our urban 

roadways. 

Claude S. Brinegar 

His successor, press secretary Ziegler announced, would be Claude S. Brinegar, a 45-year old senior 

vice president of Los Angeles-based Union Oil Company. (His name rhymed with vinegar, as 

articles about him often pointed out.) He had never served in government but was “a very capable 

manager,” Ziegler told the press. The President had never met Brinegar prior to their interview 
413 

about the position, and he had contributed only $50 to the reelection campaign. [“Charlton, Linda, 

“Oilman Will Get Transportation Post,” The New York Times, December 8, 1972] 

According to a news account, colleagues described Brinegar as a “precise, able administrator who 

doesn’t waste words and is an expert at statistics.” He was the “type of administrator who must 

find things out for himself.” One colleague said, “With most people, you can give them a 

mathematical equation and they’ll use it, but Claude’s got to derive the equation before he’ll use it.” 

An engineering colleague said, “He’s considered one of the extremely good statisticians. He 

handles statistical analysis better than anyone I’ve ever run into. He also handles every problem 

from the standpoint of logic . . . and he’s a very thorough grammarian.” 

Brinegar had limited experience with transportation, and that was mostly as a consumer:

Brinegar’s experience in transportation appears limited to what he has experienced at Union 

Oil—and that’s mostly pipelines. He told a Los Angeles news conference yesterday that he 

has gained an extensive familiarity with transportation problems because he has flown one 

million air miles. He also pointed out he is a daily commuter on crowded Los Angeles 

freeways. 

Another transportation link was his service on the Board of Directors of International Speedway 

Corporation, which operated stock car tracks in Daytona Beach, Florida, and Talladega, Alabama. 

His service on the board was not because he was a car buff, but because Union Oil owned 25 

percent of the firm and was the official fuel supplier for the National Association for Stock Car 

Racing. [Aug, Stephen M., “Brinegar Known for Management,” Washington Star-News, December 

8, 1972] 

The announcement of Brinegar’s appointment prompted immediate opposition. The Highway 

Action Coalition said it was “outraged” by the nomination since Union Oil had been involved with 

the Santa Barbara oil spill and other pollution incidents. (On January 29, 1969, a Union Oil 

Company platform 6 miles off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, experienced a blowout that 

lasted 11 days and unleashed oil and natural gas. Crude oil created an 800-square mile oil slick that 

flowed onto 35 miles of coastline. Hundreds of birds, clams, dolphin, fish, lobsters, and other sea 

creatures became trapped in the oil slick and died. This incident was instrumental in creating public 

and congressional awareness of the need for Federal environmental oversight, which turned into the 

National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. See “Addressing the Quiet Crisis” at

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/nepa/index.cfm.) 

The coalition also was upset that Union Oil had contributed $20,000 in 1968 to a group that worked 

against a voter proposition that would have allowed 25 percent of California’s highway user tax 

revenue to be used for mass transit and anti-pollution activities. The company also had contributed 

$10,000 in 1970 to defeat referenda that would have protected the California coastline, in one case 

by blocking off-shore drilling. John Kramer said the appointment “represents the payment of a 

political debt that would have been better left unpaid.” As far as he was concerned, what was 

“probably the worst environmental disaster in California’s history” rendered Brinegar unsuitable to 

be Secretary of Transportation. 
414 

Brinegar, asked at his introductory press conference about the $20,000 contribution, said he was 

living in Chicago at the time and was not aware of it. He said of himself:

Although I have spent most of my business career with Union Oil, I by no means consider 

myself an oilman, whatever that term means. I think of myself as a professional manager.

He would have “no problem” working with environmentalists and added that sound, business-like 

analysis of the impact of commercial development “clearly needs to be done.” 

As for diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue to transit, he considered the criticism of him 

unfair since he had never taken a position on the matter and had not played any role, pro or con, in 

his company’s work with road lobbyists to prevent a shift. He had committed to the President to 

follow the Administration’s positions, including support for diversion. [Charlton and Aug, and 

Holles, Everett R., “Nixon Appointee Shuns Label of Oilman,” The New York Times, December 24, 

1972] 

As part of the effort to gain control of the agencies, the President selected Egil Krogh, 33 years old, 

to oversee the Department of Transportation. He would replace Beggs as Under Secretary, having 

most recently worked under the President’s domestic chief, John Ehrlichman. [“2 Nixon Aides Get 

Sub-Cabinet Jobs,” Associated Press, The Washington Post, December 10, 1972] 

The Washington Post endorsed Brinegar for Secretary, noting that “this is no time . . . to be leaping 

to premature assessments of how or what he will do.” The same sort of “weeping and wailing” that 

had greeted his selection had greeted the selection of Governor Volpe, a well-known road advocate: 

But as things turned out Volpe was the key figure in the administration’s drive to tap the 

highway trust funds for public transit dollars. And it is noteworthy that White House Press 

Secretary Ron Ziegler took special pains the other day to emphasize that Brinegar is totally 

committed to the administration’s goal of achieving greater flexibility in the controversial 

highway fund’s use. 

The editorial also endorsed Krogh based on his experience as the White House liaison on District of 

Columbia affairs. He had been involved in the long-running highway-transit controversy in the 

city:

The experience he gained in that crucible won’t hurt a bit in tackling national transportation 

problems, and the new assignment assuredly increases the chances of resolving 

Washington’s own road-rail hassle. [“Oil and Brinegar,” The Washington Post, December 

14, 1972] 

The Senate Committee on Commerce, headed by Senator Magnuson, held its confirmation hearing 

for Secretary-designate Brinegar on January 9 and 10, 1973. After a brief summary of his 

background, he concluded that “those who have worked with me know that I value honesty, 

integrity, objectivity, and hard work very highly, and I plan to bring these standards with me as I 
415 

tackle this new assignment.” [Nominations—January 1973, Committee on Commerce, United 

States Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, Serial No. 93-5, p. 4] 

After Brinegar’s brief statement, Chairman Magnuson introduced John Kramer to testify on behalf 

of Theodore Kheel for the Highway Action Coalition. Kramer summarized the coalition’s initial 

objections to Brinegar, then said: 

In general, we felt that Union Oil . . . had at best a questionable environmental record and 

that a man who had spent most of his adult life in high executive positions for that company 

. . . might not—I emphasize “might not”—be well suited for one of the most 

environmentally sensitive posts in the administration.

Nevertheless, the coalition had moderated its stance since his nomination: 

On the other hand, environmentalists and others had expressed similar doubts about the 

appointment of Secretary John Volpe 4 years ago. We proved to be wrong. 

We established a very close and mutually productive working relationship, and he proved to 

be an essentially able and energetic advocate of transportation reform.

Needless to say, we at the Coalition, would like nothing better than to be similarly proved 

wrong in Dr. Brinegar’s case. Similarly we would like nothing better than to continue our 

close relationship with the Department of Transportation in behalf of new transportation 

priorities.

Before deciding whether to support Brinegar, however, the coalition wanted to know his position on 

three issues: “(a) on opening up the Highway Trust Fund; changing the direction of national 

transportation spending priorities; (b) his views on various environmental safeguards that have been 

written into highway law, and various other important pieces of legislation; and (c) his views on the 

proper role of the citizens in the transportation planning process. [Nominations—January 1973, p. 

5-6] 

(Kheel’s formal statement, reprinted in the hearing record, reiterated these points in greater detail. 

[p. 6-9]) 

Senator Hart of Michigan asked Brinegar to address the three issues Kramer had raised. First, 

Brinegar wanted to respond to other points in Kramer’s presentation, beginning with the 

implication that “I am unqualified because of my business association.” As for Union Oil being 

responsible for the Santa Barbara oil spill, Brinegar pointed out that four companies were operating 

that lease and they had contracted a drilling company to operate the off-shore well that led to the 

catastrophe. “In any case, the four companies cleaned it up and the beaches are now, today, better 

than ever.” 

Brinegar also pointed out that he was in Chicago when proposition 18, the measure to divert some 

highway user tax revenue to transit, was on the ballot in 1970. He added that after he moved to 
416 

California, Union Oil supported a legislative proposal that became law to impose a 5 percent sales 

tax on gasoline to support many of the same things. 

 

Turning to Kramer’s three issues, Brinegar said, “I support the administration’s position of a 

flexible approach to the use of transportation funds.” He wanted to study the issues more closely 

before getting into specifics, but said “the time has come to look more broadly at the Nation’s 

transportation needs, and I plan to do that.” 

On the second point, Brinegar said, “I consider myself an environmentalist in the sense that I feel 

very strongly about the environment.” He said of Secretary Volpe that he had, “I am told, a very 

fine record and I certainly intend to see that this approach is continued and expanded if need be.” 

He had no suggestions for citizen participation in transportation planning, but “would welcome 

their contributions and suggestions.” (This response suggests he did not understand the question or 

the role of the public in transportation planning.) 

Senator Hart said he understood the response to mean “you might well consider using some of that 

money for purposes other than the highway construction.” This diversion had been proposed, 

Brinegar replied, and “the time has come to consider other uses.” He wanted to explore the issue 

before making a commitment. [Nominations—January 1973, p. 9-10] 

Senator Cannon mentioned that OMB had vetoed or quashed policies and programs dealing with 

national transportation programs. He wanted to know if Brinegar would be independent and 

“vigorously support and fight for the DOT programs when they are reviewed by OMB and the 

White House staff, or is your role simply to take orders from them, much as Secretary Volpe did in 

responding to the antihijacking problem?” Brinegar stated that his job, if confirmed, was “to 

vigorously fight for that which I believe the Department should be doing.” He was not leaving his 

job at Union Oil “to take orders from somebody that isn’t involved in my affairs.” [Nominations—

January 1973, p. 15] 

The committee had invited Senator Randolph, whose Public Works Committee shared jurisdiction, 

to join the panel in questioning the Secretary-designate. His first question was whether Brinegar 

favored a single trust fund for all transportation modes or a third trust fund for mass transit. 

Brinegar replied that he had only begun to focus on such issues and had not yet “reached a point 

where I can give my position.” 

Randolph pointed out that the Administration had suggested reducing authorizations for the 

Interstate System. Did Brinegar believe the Interstate System should be further delayed? The 

Interstate System, Brinegar replied, “has been of enormous importance to the country,” but he 

wanted “to see what the priorities are and what the programs are” before responding specifically.

In response to Randolph’s inquiry about continuing the safety proposals included in the 1972 

highway bill, Brinegar said he shared the concern about highway safety, but “the mechanics and 

funding to reach our objectives are things I really can’t speak to” until he had reviewed what is 

proposed. 
417 

In a written response to these questions, Brinegar indicated that the Administration’s legislative 

proposal would address safety and completion of the Interstate System. With 80 percent of the 

Interstate System open, “it is necessary to begin giving more weight to other transportation systems 

which had received a lower priority” during peak Interstate construction years. The legislative 

proposal would provide sufficient funds “to have the Interstate system fully authorized by 1980, our 

present completion target.” 

 

Before the hearing adjourned until the following day, Senator Randolph was given the opportunity 

to address one other issue: impoundment. He explained the congressional efforts to do something, 

including two “sense of the Senate” provisions, “but this has been meaningless from the standpoint 

of a response by the Executive to what the Congress feels.” He cited the court cases working their 

way through the judicial system. He asked Brinegar whether Congress could anticipate additional 

withholding of funds. 

The Secretary-designate did not have a position on the issue, but later submitted a formal statement 

on impoundment of highway funds. It stated that in 1972, Secretary Volpe had promised that if 

Congress approved the Single Urban Fund, it would be funded at authorized levels. Because 

Congress had not done so, the Administration was not bound by that promise. For the future, the 

key was that Federal-aid highway funds remained available beyond their year of authorization: 

Under certain circumstances, it is important to defer some transportation programs in the 

interest of the economic well being of the Nation and in order to make a more optimal use 

of Federal financial resources . . . . We believe that it is of paramount importance at this 

point to control inflation and avoid tax increases. We believe this must be done even 

though it means some deferral of our transportation programs. 

Finally, Senator Randolph asked if Brinegar, as a former oil company executive, had any difficulty 

accepting the position of the administration that Highway Trust Fund revenues should be used for 

urban mass transit facilities. Brinegar replied that he had no difficulty with the general proposition; 

the time had come for more flexibility. He planned to “get into it very hard,” in coming months, 

but “I do support the administration’s general idea of flexibility.”

In view of that statement, Randolph asked “could we say or would you wish to say that all trust 

funds should be available to mass transit, or those highway trust funds allocated to urban areas?” 

Brinegar replied, “I can’t say that.” [Nominations—January 1973, p. 17-22] 

The committee resumed the hearing on January 10. Questions concerned the highway 

beautification program, the Alaska Railroad, the concept of an Interstate highway in Alaska, 

negotiations with Canada on improving the Alaska Highway, and a possible demonstration program 

for high-speed transportation linking the Washington area’s two airports with the railroad hub at 

Union Station. 

Senator Hartke was concerned about a report that on December 14, 1972, Secretary Volpe and other 

DOT officials met with representatives of motor carriers and transportation labor to discuss a 

legislative proposal–without inviting the Interstate Commerce Commission (I.C.C.) or Members of 
418 

Congress. “Do you feel that is the proper way to develop a legislative proposal?” Brinegar was not 

aware of the meeting, but said he would like to hear from all interested parties “very early.” 

Hartke replied, “I am not asking about all interested parties. I am asking about the Congress.” He 

was clearly frustrated that Brinegar would not commit beyond saying, “I will certainly use Congress 

as a consultant” without indicating whether he meant in early deliberations or a later stage and in 

what venue. [Nominations—January 1973, p. 33-35] 

Senator Howard Baker asked about completion of the Interstate System. In view of the failure of 

Congress to pass legislation in 1972, he asked if as Secretary he would support a stand-alone 

resolution to permit apportionment of Interstate construction for a 3-year period. Brinegar 

submitted a response for the record. It came after he had been sworn in and was testifying before 

the Senate Public Works Committee, during which he endorsed the idea of a resolution. Beyond 

that, he said the Administration was committed to early completion of the Interstate System. 

[Nominations—January 1973, p. 30-31] 

At one point in the questioning, Senator Weicker asked “exactly what it is in your background that 

would qualify you for a position as a transportation advisor to the President?” Brinegar cited his 

management experience and his work with a variety of groups, technologies, and policies: 

When the President asked me, I reflected a bit on whether I was qualified. I looked into the 

Department, and inquired of myself, what could I bring to it? I found issues that were very 

important to the Nation that I could work on, and I concluded that I was fully competent to 

work on them. Yes sir; I think I have the ability. 

Senator Weicker pointed out that he did not question his academic or management background. 

“But,” he said, “I have yet to hear one single response to a question relative to transportation, Mr. 

Brinegar, where there has been any sort of specific answer.” Brinegar acknowledged that he could 

not “speak technically of whether or not I could design an airplane, build a road, or run a railroad.” 

However, “I am not sure if this type of knowledge is essential for one coming into this office.” He 

expected to work with advisors who had the necessary expertise.

The Senator asked if Brinegar was familiar with the Cooper-Muskie amendment that had passed the 

Senate by a vote of 48 to 26. “Not specifically,” Brinegar replied. He had read about it “very 

briefly” and knew it permitted the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit. Weicker 

explained that “nothing in transportation has come to the fore with greater clarity, or faster, than the 

entire issue of balancing our transportation systems, and utilizing funds for all forms of 

transportation.” He asked, “You do not find it strange that nobody in the administration mentioned 

this, during the course of interviews or talking with you or in the course of accepting this position?” 

Mr. Brinegar. I was asked to contribute if I could, to shaping a balanced transportation 

system. I was asked what my position was on the use of highway funds. As I indicated, I 

believe the time has come for a flexible approach.

Senator Weicker. What does that mean—what is a flexible approach?

Mr. Brinegar. In my opinion it means that the inflexibility of the past has to be changed. 
419 

Senator Weicker. In other words, the highway trust fund being used solely for highways 

should be changed, is that correct? 

Mr. Brinegar. Yes, sir.

Senator Weicker. Do you feel there is a similar commitment on the part of the 

administration, now, to utilization of highway trust funds for mass transit, as was the case in 

1972? 

Mr. Brinegar. I have not inquired of the administration, sir, about its present commitment. 

Senator Weicker. And they have not raised it with you? 

Mr. Brinegar. No, sir. 

Senator Weicker. I thought you indicated to my previous question that the question of 

flexibility and use of these moneys had been discussed with you, Mr. Brinegar? 

Mr. Brinegar. We talked in a broad sense, in terms of how I view the matter. I indicated I 

obviously had a lot to catch up on with respect to the details of how the position evolved. I 

have not looked at the legislative proposals, at all. I was asked to come in and develop and 

help shape overall programs and focus on the priorities. I have not gotten into specifics, sir. 

Senator Weicker pointed out that Secretary Volpe had “carried the ball for transportation” despite 

not having “the wholehearted—‘enthusiasm,’ I believe would be a better word than ‘support’—

enthusiasm of the administration.” Secretary Volpe “had to do the job” because “if he did not do 

the job, nobody was going to do it.” The Senator wanted to know if “there is going to be similar 

enthusiasm on your part” to “carry the ball.” Was Brinegar “aware of anything in the way of facts 

that have occurred within the past several months to weaken that resolve and enthusiasm when the 

issue comes before the Congress again in the early part of the session?” Brinegar replied that he 

had not gone into the details of what happened in 1972. 

Senator Weicker then raised an unexpected subject about whether the Administration’s enthusiasm 

for diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenues to mass transit had been weakened by “anything in 

the way of facts that have occurred within the past several months”:

Would you say a contribution of $186,000 from the trucking industry to the President for his 

reelection campaign might cause such a weakening of the resolve to open up the highway 

trust fund for mass transit? 

Brinegar said, “I have no way of answering that” and was not aware of the trucking industry’s 

contributions to the reelection campaign. [Nominations—January 1973, p. 48-50] 

Later, outside the hearing room, Senator Weicker talked to reporters about his allegation that the 

trucking industry’s campaign contribution had cooled the Administration’s support for diversion of 

Highway Trust Fund revenue to mass transit. “There’s been a clear shift. It’s a fact, the 

administration has switched. We’ve gone from red hot to luke warm.” He added that 

transportation “is not a hot issue at the White House, anyway.” That was one of the reasons why he 

was concerned about Brinegar’s vague responses. They suggested to Weicker that the White House 

would control the Department’s agenda through Krogh. [Winters, Bruce, “Nixon Road-Fund Shift 

Laid to Donation,” The Baltimore Sun, January 11, 1973] 
420 

During the hearing, Senator Weicker asked Brinegar if he had discussed the future of the Highway 

Trust Fund with Secretary Volpe. Brinegar said he had told Secretary Volpe “that I think we need a 

more flexible view” and was looking forward to detailed briefings on the topic. 

How many times had the Secretary-designate met with the President? They had met only once at 

Camp David for about an hour. Weicker asked if the President had given any indication of 

transportation policy. “No,” Brinegar replied. “We talked generally about the transportation issues 

around the country. Also, we talked about my role but, the President’s remarks would have to come 

from him.” 

After a lengthy discussion of Amtrak, Senator Weicker pointed out that Mobil Oil Company and 

Atlantic Richfield Oil Company had departed “the highway trust fund lobby” and favored diversion 

of revenue to transit. He asked if Brinegar knew whether Union Oil would take a similar position. 

Brinegar indicated, “I can’t speak for the company’s official position. I am not the chief executive.” 

 

The Senator also asked about Secretary Volpe’s statement in early 1970 “that the Department of 

Transportation was drafting preliminary ideas for a national transportation trust fund.” He asked 

Brinegar if he could “give us any idea of the status of these plans?” Brinegar replied, “I can’t.” He 

had not studied the issue and could not say whether he supported the concept. Did Brinegar favor 

“one transportation trust fund or would you favor several transportation trust funds?” He had not 

been close enough to the issue to have a position. [Nominations—January 1973, p. 53-54] 

Senator Tunney, who as the Senator from California had formally introduced Brinegar to the 

committee, asked Brinegar to confirm that Union Oil’s position on Proposition 18 would not 

influence his judgment on Highway Trust Fund diversion. “No, sir,” he replied. “What went on 

will in no way influence my approach to this issue.” 

Concerning project delays for environmental review, Senator Tunney asked, “Would you stop or 

abandon these reviews.” Brinegar favored “full study of the environmental issues.” Would DOT 

change the environmental review process? Brinegar did not know “what the process is, so I 

obviously can’t speak to it.” Did he believe Federal law should exempt specific projects from 

environmental review? Although it would be “hard to make a broad generality,” he would want to 

look at “the rationale behind exemptions and exceptions.” 

The Senator asked if “not building a highway is an alternative which must be considered by the 

Federal Highway Administration even though the alternative may not be within the jurisdiction of 

that bureau and I am thinking specifically where a NEPA evaluation may suggest that a proposed 

highway or highway system is environmentally unacceptable.” Brinegar replied that he certainly 

did “and one of the things that I hope to do is to concentrate more on an interrelated intermodal 

approach as we look at these alternatives.” [Nominations—January 1973, p. 56-57, 60] 

Senator Tunney’s questions concluded the hearing. 
421 

The Los Angeles Times expressed concerns about Brinegar in an editorial after the confirmation 

hearing. Brinegar, the editor said, “had little to say” and had “declined to give his views on a 

number of important transportation issues, chief among them the use of federal highway trust funds 

to support urban mass transit.” His silence “may only have been a matter of prudence” but given 

the fight over the Highway Trust Fund, it “is also somewhat disturbing.” Noting that the CooperMuskie amendment had passed the Senate with full support from Secretary Volpe, the editorial 

explained that the failure in the House “under great pressure from the highway lobby.” 

Diversion of even a small amount of funds to rail as envisioned in the amendment “is now more 

than ever a matter of urban necessity.” Given the differences between the Senate and House, “it is 

particularly important for the Administration to put its weight solidly behind the effort.” The 

editorial considered diversion “a fair and feasible approach” and hoped that Brinegar would 

“familiarize himself with the issue quickly, and that he will give it the degree of commitment it 

deserves.” [“Brinegar’s Silence on Urban Transit,” The Los Angeles Times, January 12, 1973] 

During Under Secretary-designate Krogh’s confirmation hearing on January 11, the Senate 

Commerce Committee explored his involvement in Watergate-related issues at length. Krogh, an 

attorney who had served as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs since November 

1969, acknowledged that he had helped set up the “plumbers” unit to investigate leaks in mid-1971, 

but denied any further ties to the unit after December 1971, long before plans to bug the Democratic 

National Committee’s offices in the Watergate complex were developed. The committee accepted 

his responses. 

Transportation issues covered a wide spectrum before turning, near the end, to the Highway Trust 

Fund. Chairman Magnuson asked, “Do you have any advice on the tapping of the highway trust 

fund?” Krogh replied: 

I support the concept of opening the highway trust fund for more flexible use by local 

governments. I support the initiatives that were introduced into the Congress in the last 

session. 

Senator Weicker commented that he appreciated Krogh’s response. “It is the most definitive 

response on that subject that we have had in the last 72 hours.” [Nominations—January 1973, p. 

88-89] 

On January 19, 1973, in one of Secretary Volpe’s final actions, he announced that he had rejected 

the proposed 3.7-mile section of I-40 through Overton Park in Memphis. He cited a recent 

Supreme Court decision and congressional actions. He had approved the routing through the park 

in November 1969, but the Supreme Court had ruled in March 1971 “that a lower court decision 

finding my approval in compliance with Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act of 

1966 was not substantiated by the record before the lower court.” In January 1972, the U.S. District 

Court had directed the Department to make a new determination in view of the Supreme Court’s 

decision. 
422 

Secretary Volpe noted several circumstances that had changed since his initial determination, 

including enactment of NEPA on January 1, 1970. He also cited new requirements included in the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 for consideration of environmental effects, as well as the 

Supreme Court’s ruling that “protection of parkland was to be given importance” under Section 4(f) 

and that “public parks were not to be lost unless there were truly unusual factors present” or “the 

cost of community disruption resulting from alternative routes reached extraordinary magnitudes.” 

Based on these considerations, “I find that an Interstate highway as proposed by the State through 

Overton Park cannot be approved.” He suggested several alternatives for I-40, including the use of 

the I-240 circumferential to carry I-40 traffic, the alternative eventually selected.

Immediate reaction to this decision in the long-running controversy was mixed. Mayor Wyatt 

Chandler saw the decision as a setback to the “90 percent of the people of Memphis” who 

supported the routing through the park, which had been redesigned repeatedly to satisfy “just about 

anybody of sound mind.” In the absence of Federal-aid funding, the Mayor indicated he would seek 

State funding for the expressway. “It’s the only feasible route.” State Highway Commissioner 

Robert Smith agreed that, “We’ll have to do something” because the “connecting ends are ready 

and there’s nothing in between.” 

Kramer of the Highway Action Coalition said, “This shows at least that we need not accept the 

concrete cloverleaf as the national flower.” John Vardaman, the Washington attorney who 

represented Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, emphasized how in the pre-NEPA era, individual 

citizens had taken on the highway builders. He attributed the victory to Mrs. Anona Stoner, now in 

her 70’s, who had organized the neighborhood to defend against the expressway. “Without her,” 

Vardaman said, “the highway would now be built.” [Braestrup, Peter, “Volpe Bars Subsidies to 

Build Expressway in Memphis Park,” The Washington Post, January 20, 1973] 

Brinegar and Krogh received Senate confirmation by voice vote, without debate, on January 18, 

1973. On February 2, they took part in a mass swearing in ceremony at the White House, along 

with 18 other Cabinet and sub-Cabinet positions. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger of the Supreme 

Court administered the oath of office, collectively, to the 19 men and 1 woman (Counselor to the 

President Anne L. Armstrong). 

The Super-Secretaries

In January 1971, President Nixon had proposed a reorganization of the Cabinet to create four superDepartments based on the fundamental purposes of government: Human Resources, Community 

Development, Natural Resources, and Economic Affairs. The Federal-aid highway and transit 

programs would be shifted to the Department of Community Development. The President 

demonstrated the importance of this proposal by making a rare appearance in the White House 

Press Room to talk about the plan and by inviting Representative Chet Holifield (D-Ca.), Chairman 

of the House Committee on Government Operations, to fly with him to California on Air Force 

One. The trip gave Nixon an opportunity to lobby the chairman, whose initial public reaction had 

been negative, on the reorganization. 
423 

The President reiterated his request in March 1972, but Congress did not act on the overall 

reorganization plan. In May 1972, Holifield’s House Government Operations Committee approved 

the Department of Community Development, 26 to 8. The House Rules Committee, which would 

have to schedule the bill for a floor vote, held it up. 

Although Nixon promoted the Department of Community Development through the summer and 

the campaign, the House bill had little chance of proceeding, as Professor Mordecai Lee explained:

There was no substantial political or policy constituency on Capitol Hill or in public opinion 

for such bills. Politics usually trumps policy in Washington, but in this case there was not 

much to trump. House leaders . . . never sent the DCD bill to the House floor for a vote in 

1972. [Lee, Mordecai, Nixon’s Super-Secretaries: The Last Grand Presidential 

Reorganization Effort, Texas A&M University Press, 2010, p. 2-3] 

In the wake of his landslide reelection victory, however, President Nixon was even more 

determined to reorganize and gain control over the vast bureaucracy. 

Professor Lee was a young scholar in late 1972 when he moved to Washington to research his 

dissertation in public administration on efforts to limit public relations in Federal Agencies. While 

examining files at OMB on his topic, the visiting scholar was given access to files on one of 

President Nixon’s boldest administrative initiatives. 

On January 5, 1973, the President announced an administrative reorganization that would 

accomplish the reorganization that Congress had rejected. He appointed three Secretaries to serve 

simultaneously as “counsellors to the president” for human resources, community development, and 

natural resources (“counsellor” was spelled with a double L). They would oversee all Federal 

activities under their jurisdiction across the lines of Departmental organization charts. They would 

report to one of the President’s advisors, rather than to the President. Each would have his 

traditional office in Department headquarters, but also a counsellor’s office in the Old Executive 

Office Building adjacent to the White House. As Lee wrote, “The media immediately dubbed these 

officials ‘super-secretaries.’” [Lee, p. xi] 

Under the plan, many elements of the Department of Transportation, including the Federal-aid 

highway and transit programs, would be overseen by counsellor James Lynn, the Under Secretary of 

Commerce who was nominated to be Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban 

Development. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz would be the counsellor for Natural Resources, 

which covered the Council on Environmental Quality and EPA along with many other programs 

and activities. The counsellor for Human Resources was Caspar Weinberger, the former OMB 

director who became Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare on February 12, 1973. The three 

counsellors reported to Ehrlichman, the President’s Assistant for Domestic Affairs. 

Lee explained the rationale for the changes:

Nixon perceived the federal government to be a thick and virtually impermeable machinery 

geared to liberal values, increased domestic spending, and an ever-expanding role for the 
424 

federal government in American society. From his perspective, the bureaucracy and its 

allies in Congress were indeed the enemy, and in many ways his assessment was accurate.

Civil servants were immune to political pressure since their tenure was not responsive to changes in 

political leadership. Expansion of Federal activities beginning with the New Deal in the 1930s had 

created multiple agencies that had become part of an “iron triangle of congressional committee, 

special interest groups, and agencies [that had] created a powerful and virtually impenetrable 

network of political power.” Nixon wanted to find a way “to break the back of the bureaucracy.” 

[Lee, p. 4] 

Beyond the administrative reasons for the reorganization were Nixon’s personal preferences. He 

was primarily interested in foreign affairs and had little interest in domestic policy. (Secretary 

Volpe’s difficulty in meeting or talking with the President reflected this preference.) The 

reorganization of the domestic departments, with Ehrlichman as go-between, would minimize the 

time the President had to spend on domestic affairs. Nixon also “intensely disliked confrontations 

or any in-person tensions, even though he often talked about being tough and that he was cool in 

heated situations.” Such situations could be minimized if he had little involvement in domestic 

issues that did not interest him. [Lee, p. 79 (confrontation) and 87 (foreign affairs)] 

Even before announcing the reorganization plans for the second term, Nixon had taken steps to give 

the White House greater control over the Cabinet Secretaries. Haldeman and Ehrlichman had 

prepared a 10-item list that all appointees would have to accept. Some of the items were: 

It is the President’s policy that insofar as possible all interdepartmental and inter agency 

issues should be resolved by the Counsellors and not the White House . . . 

A Cabinet Secretary should not be encouraged to anticipate either free access or frequent 

consultation with the President. Rather, his views will be transmitted to the President either 

in writing or via a principal secretary [i.e., counsellor] or Assistant [to the president] 

depending on the nature of the matter. 

Cabinet secretaries will be requested to delegate to Counsellors substantial authority 

concerning the operation of their departments. This delegation will be express and precise 

and, in each case, will be made in advance . . . .

Cabinet meetings will be rare. Cabinet officers will be expected to act in concert with their 

colleagues in policy groups and policy councils [the latter chaired by counsellors] . . . . 

The Secretary agrees to submit to the appropriate Counsellor all Congressional testimony 

and public statements for clearance prior to release.

Another section stated that Under Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries would “play increasingly 

important roles.” These would be former White Houses aides who would be more likely to 

implement Nixon Administration plans than Cabinet Secretaries who usually came from the private 

sector. The Secretaries were “expected to vest in their Number Two men broad capacity to operate 

and manage the Department.” [Lee, p. 35-36] 

In announcing the “super-secretary” plan on January 5, the Administration made clear that it also 

would continue pursuing legislation to implement the original reorganization plan. In the 
425 

meantime, the administrative change would give the President the structure he needed. Despite the 

stated claim the legislation would be pursued, one goal of the counsellor initiative was to 

marginalize Congress while strengthening White House authority: 

Besides implementing an administrative (rather than legislative) reorganization through the 

counselors, this political effort included impounding appropriated funds that fit the 

president’s agenda, moving to implement manpower revenue sharing administratively, and 

vetoing spending bills that went beyond what Nixon wanted. [Lee, p. 198] 

The attempt to marginalize Congress reflected a contempt that was reflected in a comment by an 

anonymous presidential aide to a New York Times reporter: 

“Congress is lazy, too,” said a Presidential aide, pounding his fist on his desk for emphasis 

during a recent interview. “They work short hours. They don’t know how to consult. They 

say they want to consult with the President, but then they come up here and don’t say 

anything. 

“They criticize us for not advising or consulting them in military matters,” he continued. 

“But they cannot keep a secret. If we tell them anything it is out within 30 minutes after 

they have gone back to the Hill.” 

This attitude toward Congress runs deep in the White House, and it underscores the 

seriousness of the constitutional struggle being waged between the executive and legislative 

branches of the Government as President Nixon, wielding perhaps more power than any 

President in history, moves into a second term with a landslide victory behind him. 

[Herbers, John, “Nixon’s Presidency: Crisis for Congress,” The New York Times, March 5, 

1973] 

The confirmation hearings for Brinegar and Krogh, as well as Secretary-designate of Housing and 

Urban Development Lynn included attempts to understand how Nixon’s plan would affect the two 

departments. Senator Cannon asked Brinegar about reports that in offering the Cabinet post, the 

President “told you that you were not to report to him, but were to report to James Lynn . . . who 

will report to Mr. John Erlichman [sic], counsel to the President, who will report to the President.” 

Cannon asked if the report was true. Brinegar said: 

No, sir, I do not believe it is . . . . The President and I did not discuss such a reporting 

relationship. The President expects me to serve as the Nation’s principal transportation 

adviser to him, and to enforce the 1966 statute that established the department. 

After listing some of the Secretary’s duties specified by law, he said:

I personally would rather work with Secretary Lynn, Secretary [of the Treasury George] 

Schultz, or Mr. Erlichman [sic] in resolving some of these matters than I would with some 

White House assistant whose role I am not sure of. And I think in this respect it is an 

improvement over what I understood to be the previous relationship. 
426 

As for Lynn’s role in DOT business, Brinegar said, “I don’t know. I view that he and other 

counselors [sic] will serve as chairmen of a group where we will discuss the issues and work them 

out.” He added, “If I feel strongly about certain matters I feel that I have a right to go higher.” 

Senator Cannon. Going direct to the President? 

Mr. Brinegar. Yes, sir.

Senator Cannon asked about “numerous reports in the press” that Krogh “will actually have 

responsibility for the Department, and that your role as Secretary will be to provide the 

administrative leadership and coordination within the Department.” Brinegar denied that these 

reports were correct:

The Under Secretary, Mr. Krogh, will serve as my alter ego, as Under Secretaries 

traditionally do, representing me in matters I assign to him . . . . I plan to be in charge. 

[Nominations-January 1973, p. 14-16] 

Senator Hartke raised the subject with Krogh: 

Senator Hartke. Who are you going to report to ultimately, do you know? The Secretary or 

somebody at the White House? 

Mr. Krogh. I report to Secretary Brinegar.

Senator Hartke. I know officially; I mean unofficially.

Mr. Krogh. Unofficially I report to Secretary Brinegar.

Senator Hartke. Are you the real hatchetman down there?

Mr. Krogh. No, sir. 

Senator Hartke. My understanding was that that was what you were put there for, to watch 

the Secretary so he didn’t get out of line. 

Mr. Krogh. No, sir. I just hope to stay out of trouble. He is going to be watching me. 

[Nominations-January 1973, p. 82-83] 

Secretary-designate Lynn’s confirmation hearing before the Committee on Banking, Housing and 

Urban Affairs, chaired by Senator Sparkman, was on January 17. Lynn, a native of Cleveland, was 

a lawyer who left private practice in 1969 to become General Counsel at the Department of 

Commerce. Lee described Lynn:

James Lynn was a conscientious member of the president’s political team. He wanted to be 

a team player from the White House perspective. Coming from the Commerce Department, 

where he had been general counsel and then the undersecretary, Lynn was a novice to 

community development, but he had faith in his ability to master new policy areas. In a 

sense, he represented the underlying philosophy of generalist public administration. A 

person with generic managerial talents was expected to be able to oversee just about any 

policy portfolio. 

Naturally, the hearing concerned primarily housing issues, including impoundment of funds. But

Lynn’s role as counsellor did prompt questions. The new member of the committee, Senator Biden, 
427 

said he was confused by Lynn’s dual roles. As counsellor, would he be responsible for coordinating 

five departments? “No. Not departments,” Lynn explained. “It is by function. It is activities 

within departments.” Then, Senator Biden asked, if Congress wanted information on mass transit 

programs, should it go to Secretary Brinegar or counsellor Lynn? Lynn replied: 

The President also made every [sic] clear that the responsibility for the Department of 

Transportation lies with the Secretary of the Department of Transportation. Therefore, the 

primary person that would be called in that connection would be the Secretary of 

Transportation. 

On the other hand, if the issues involved were ones that did relate, that were of extreme 

importance, that have a relation to this coordinating role—in other words, they do impact on 

other programs of the Government—and you thought it well—if the committee decided to 

call me to ask me about that particular problem, they could call me . . . . But it is true that I 

can be called and the Secretary of Transportation could be called. I would assume you 

would definitely call him and you might call me. [Nomination of James T. Lynn, Hearing, 

Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, United States Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st

Session, January 17, 1973, p. 50] 

Lee remarked that of the three counsellors, Weinberger was the most aggressive and Butz the least 

interested in his secondary role. Lynn was in between, recognizing that he was a manager without 

expertise in his program areas. As counsellor, he focused on Housing and Urban Development and 

the community development programs of DOT and Agriculture. As he saw it, transportation and 

economic development were inherent in solving urban problems that he was responsible for as 

Secretary. He had explicit interest in highway and mass transit legislation. [Lee, p. 135, 139] 

One More Passing

The State highway agencies, in cooperation with FHWA, continued steady progress on construction 

of the Interstate System. As of December 31, 1972, a total of 34,393 miles or 80 percent of the 

42,500-mile Interstate System was in use. FHWA’s quarterly press release on the status of the 

Federal-aid highway program stated: 

As currently designated, the System consists of 34,385 miles of rural and 8,115 miles of 

urban highways. As of this report, 27,826 miles or 80.9 percent of the rural mileage, and 

6,567 miles or 80.9 percent of the urban mileage were open to traffic.

Secretary Volpe was quoted as saying: 

This represents an addition of 1,405 miles completed in the 12-month period since 

December 31, 1971. It reflects the steady progress being made in constructing this, the 

safest and best engineered highway network in the world. 
428 

Overall, work had been completed or was underway on 98 percent (41,709 miles) of the Interstate 

System. “Only 791 miles, or 2 percent, have not yet advanced to the point where location public 

hearings have been held.” 

Thus far, the States had put $49.94 billion to work on the Interstate System since the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1956 had authorized the accelerated program: 

As of December 31, 1972, work estimated to cost $12.97 billion was underway or 

authorized, including $8.86 billion of construction; and $4.11 billion of engineering and 

right-of-way acquisition. 

The accelerated program had largely been the work of President Eisenhower and three Members of 

Congress. The former President had died on March 28, 1969. Senator Gore, one of the three 

Members of Congress who were the primary authors of the 1956 Act, had focused on foreign affairs 

and taken little interest in highway matters through the 1960s until he was defeated for reelection in 

1970. The second, Representative Fallon, had remained intimately involved in developing highway 

legislation and protecting the Highway Trust Fund until he, like Gore, was defeated in his 1970 

reelection bid. 

The third, Representative Boggs, had incorporated the Highway Trust Fund concept into the 1956 

Act and fought to protect its integrity for years. However, he had moved into leadership roles in the 

House, first as Majority Whip in 1962 and then as Majority Leader in January 1971. In these roles, 

he was less involved in fighting for the integrity of his creation.

When Representative Myers issued his quorum call to kill the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, 

Boggs was not in Washington. He was in Alaska making campaign appearances for Representative 

Nick Begich, who had defeated banker Frank Murkowski to win election in 1970 as Alaska’s AtLarge Representative. Now he was facing a tough reelection campaign against Republican State 

legislator Don Young. 

On October 16, the Cessna 310C carrying Boggs and Begich left Anchorage and disappeared before 

reaching Juneau. A search for the plane and its occupants was abandoned in late November. They 

were never found. (Begich won the election posthumously, but Young won a special election to fill 

his seat and would go on to become Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure (2001-2007) with jurisdiction over the Federal-aid highway program.) 

For Majority Leader in 1973, House Democrats selected Representative Tip O’Neill, who was 

looking for a way to transfer Interstate funds intended for the Inner Loop through his Boston district 

to transit.

As consideration of the Federal-Aid Highway Act resumed in 1973, the three authors of the 1956 

Act that made construction of the Interstate System possible were no longer in Congress to defend 

their creation.
429 

State of the Union 

President Nixon, in creating the counsellor initiative to insulate him from domestic affairs, also 

showed his disregard for Congress by deciding against delivering a State of the Union Address in 

1973. Instead, he released a series of “State of the Union Messages to the Congress.” They 

covered:

• Overview and Goals (February 2, 1973) 

• Natural Resources and the Environment (February 15, 1973) 

• The Economy (February 22, 1973) 

• Human Resources (March 1, 1973) 

• Community Development (March 8, 1973) 

• Law Enforcement and Drug Abuse Prevention (March 14, 1973) 

The messages on Natural Resources and the Environment and Community Development addressed 

transportation issues. 

President Nixon began the message on Natural Resources and the Environment by stating that: 

When we came to office in 1969, we tackled this problem with all the power at our 

command. Now there is encouraging evidence that the United States has moved away from 

the environmental crisis that could have been and toward a new era of restoration and 

renewal. Today, in 1973, I can report to the Congress that we are well on the way to 

winning the war against environmental degradation—well on the way to making our peace 

with nature. 

He took credit for NEPA, which “has reformed programs and decision-making processes in our 

Federal agencies and has given citizens a greater opportunity to contribute as decisions are made.” 

The Council on Environmental Quality, established under NEPA, and EPA were among the reasons 

why, “Day by day, our air is getting cleaner; in virtually every one of our major cities the levels of 

air pollution are declining.” Looking forward, the President said he would be guided by five 

principles: 

• The first principle is that we must strike a balance so that the protection of our irreplaceable 

heritage becomes as important as its use.

• Second, because there are no local or State boundaries to the problems of our environment, 

the Federal Government must play an active, positive role. 

• Third, the costs of pollution should be more fully met in the free marketplace, not in the 

Federal budget.

• Fourth, we must realize that each individual must take the responsibility for looking after his 

own home and workplace. 

• Finally, we must remain confident that America’s technological and economic ingenuity 

will be equal to our environmental challenges. 
430 

He had been disappointed that Congress had not approved many of his legislative proposals, 

including: 

Controlling Environmental Impacts of Transportation. As we have learned in recent years, 

we urgently need a mass transportation system not only to relieve urban congestion but also 

to reduce the concentrations of pollution that are too often the result of our present methods 

of transportation. Thus I will continue to place high priority upon my request to permit use 

of the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit purposes and to help State and local 

governments achieve air quality, conserve energy, and meet other environmental objectives. 

He returned to this theme in his March 8 message on Community Development. The President 

indicated he would submit a bill called the Better Communities Act to extend revenue sharing to 

community development. “The Better Communities Act is intended to replace inflexible and 

fragmented categorical grant-in-aid programs, and to reduce the excessive Federal control that has 

been so frustrating to local governments.” He also planned to again seek approval for a Department 

of Community Development to consolidate programs from Housing and Urban Development, 

Transportation, Agriculture, and other agencies:

The Department of Community Development will be a constructive center in the Federal 

Government for assistance to communities, large and small. It will facilitate rational 

planning, orderly growth, and the effective employment of resources to build viable 

communities through the United States. It will help to strengthen the physical and 

institutional bases for cooperative action by Federal, State and local governments. 

After discussing first term housing initiatives, Nixon turned to transportation, saying “Without 

better transportation, our communities will either stagnate or choke.” He listed the 

Administration’s transportation successes, including investment of $23 billion in highways (1970-

1974). 

The United States had “the best highway system in the world,” but “the commuter who uses a two 

ton vehicle to transport only himself to and from work each day is not making the most efficient use 

of our transportation system and is himself contributing to our transportation and environmental 

problems.” Good public transportation was essential for transportation and “to forward the 

common goal of less congested, cleaner and safer communities.” In improving mass transit 

systems, “we must be aware of the two special challenges in coordinating the needs of the inner city 

and the suburb and in alleviating potential disruptions which new transportation systems can bring 

to neighborhood life.” To accomplish this goal, he said: 

I recommend that the Congress authorize the expenditure by State and local governments of 

$3.65 billion over the next three years from the Highway Trust Fund for urban 

transportation needs, including capital improvements for bus and rapid rail systems. I also 

recommend continuing the rural highway program at the $1 billion a year level, and 

providing ample resources to advance the Interstate System as it approaches its 1980 

funding completion date . . . . 
431 

Some communities now feel unduly obligated to spend Federal monies on controversial 

Interstate highway segments in urban areas. I urge the Congress to allow States and 

localities to transfer such funds to the construction of other Federal-aid highways and mass 

transit capital improvements. In this way, we can help resolve controversies which have 

slowed work on a number of Interstate links in urban areas. 

This was not, he explained, “an arbitrary Federal shift of funds from highways to transit.” It was 

simply recognizing “the right of local governments to choose the best solutions for their urban 

transportation problems.” 

As a “companion measure to our Federal Highway Bill,” he urged Congress to increase mass transit 

capital grants by $3 billion to a total of $6.1 billion. He also wanted Congress to amend the Urban 

Mass Transportation Assistance Act to increase the Federal share to 70 percent for capital grant 

assistance projects to achieve parity with non-Interstate Federal-aid highway projects. 

Richard Rovere, a journalist and author who wrote the “Letter from Washington” column for The 

New Yorker (1948-1979), wrote in March that Nixon was “outdoing just about all his predecessors 

in gathering to himself as much power as possible and wielding it with clear purpose and 

remarkable vigor.” This tendency had been evident in the first term, but Rovere continued: 

But the real evidence that Nixon has more zeal for his personal consolidation of power than 

for the diffusion of authority on which he has expended so much rhetoric has come in the 

last couple of months, in which he has reorganized his own branch of government, defied 

the Congress on a half-dozen issues, and sought to establish personal control over 

institutions that few President have ever regarded as adversaries. 

Presidents usually favored a Cabinet of diverse backgrounds and opinions. Nixon, by contrast, 

“wishes to preside over a government all of whose members speak as he speaks and do as he tells 

them.” With the possible exception of Kissinger, no one at the White House or in the Cabinet was 

known to “harbor views differing in some degree from those of his patron”: 

All in all, the aides are a rather drab and undifferentiated group, but in the President’s mind 

this may be an asset, since he is able to stand out in their midst and impose his discipline 

with ease.

Last year’s congressional elections and the recent Administration behavior toward Congress 

have increased congressional resistance to the White House, and it is currently an open 

question whether, no matter how strenuous an effort he makes, Nixon will get the legislative 

actions he called for in his astonishing series of State of the Union Messages. 

Any successes would come only after “some of the most acrimonious debate heard here in years.” 

Rovere thought the President’s revenue sharing proposals had a chance of success: 
432 

This would be politically astute, because it would win for the White House a constituency it 

now lacks—governors and other high state figures—while further reducing the authority of 

Congress and of the professional bureaucracy here.

It also might have initial popular appeal because of “the American myth that there is more concern, 

understanding, and sound judgment in local units of government than in this remote and (as the 

myth has it) heartless capital.” Despite the growing “spirit of resistance [that] has been growing at 

a brisk pace in Congress,” the President remained popular and revenue sharing had some appeal on 

Capitol Hill. [Rovere, Richard, “Letter from Washington,” The New Yorker, March 24, 1973, p. 

142-143] 

Professor J. Brooks Flippen put Nixon’s message on Natural Resources and the Environment in 

perspective. Although President Nixon approved numerous lasting environmental measures, he 

saw the environment primarily in political terms. Having won his final election in November 1972, 

he had little interest in pursuing environmental battles as he tried to rein in government 

expenditures: 

The battle, as Nixon termed it in one interview with the Washington Star, was to “shuck 

off” and “trim down” domestic programs. The man who two years earlier had created EPA 

now plotted another offensive against a government “too big and too expensive.” 

Predictably, with the election a memory, it did not bode well for the environment. 

The selection of Secretary of Agriculture Butz as the counsellor overseeing the Council on 

Environmental Quality and EPA was revealing:

The environment predictably stood as a major Nixon target. Butz, now operating in his new 

capacity as natural resources counselor [sic], made this point clear in a policy paper 

submitted just after the new year. “There are many more important things than the 

environment,” Butz wrote. The issue had not hurt the president in the election and he had 

no reason to champion the cause now. “In all likelihood environmental problems will be 

solved by science,” Butz continued. Nixon should place environmental protection “in the 

correct order of priorities.” 

In his budget proposal for 1974, the President had proposed to cut environmental enforcement 

while promoting some activities that environmentalists opposed, including the TennesseeTombigbee Waterway and new advocacy of the SST:

With his budget before Congress, Nixon’s annual environmental address surprised no one. 

The message, [Richard W.] Fairbanks [III, Associate Director for Natural Resources of the 

President’s Domestic Council] acknowledged beforehand, “will replay our triumphs of the 

past” and add “general rhetoric and exhortation.” Ehrlichman, terming the Clean Air Act a 

“complete failure,” advised an aggressive defense of the administration’s position. Nixon 

did not disappoint him and essentially declared the environmental crisis over. 
433 

Flippen quoted passages from the message about the success of the Nixon Administration’s efforts 

and the principle that guided it. [Flippen, J. Brooks, Nixon and the Environment, University of 

New Mexico Press, 2000, p. 186, 190-191] 

Setting the Stage for Action

In January 1973, the sides in the longrunning battle over the highway legislation were looking 

ahead to the upcoming fight. Highway User magazine, published by HUFSAM, expected 1973 to 

be “a decisive year.” Although it expected the “tug-of-war” to resume, the magazine saw the 

possibility emerging of “reasonably adequate financing” for highways and public transit. “The 

compromise could come in proposals to establish a separate trust fund for Federal-aid to urban 

areas faced with the need to expand and improve public transportation facilities.” 

Highway officials were coming around to the concept, but transit officials also recognized that 

tapping the Highway Trust Fund would not provide enough funding to meet urban needs. Robert 

M. Coultas of the Institute for Rapid Transit said “there is not enough money in the Highway Trust 

Fund for both.” The institute had supported a total transportation trust fund or the opening of the 

Highway Trust Fund, but it also supported highway improvement because “good transit depends 

upon good highways and roads.” 

Stanley H. Gates, Jr., president of the American Transit Association, said that transit’s needs “can 

be met only with sufficient funds to support all transit operations, improve and extend existing bus 

and rail systems, and help build the several new rail systems now being supported by local areas.” 

Making a limited amount of highway funds available “does not deal with this issue.” 

The “thorny question” was where the revenue would come from for a Mass Transit Trust Fund. 

This question “will be among the forefront of those to be faced” in 1973. 

The State highway agencies were facing slowdowns in the absence of new authorizations, while 

“approximately $1.9 billion in highway funds have been held in reserve” because of impoundments. 

 These problems were compounded by environmental restrictions, such as NEPA: 

Although highway departments have come to appreciate the environmental impact statement 

as a positive element in the planning process and an efficient mechanism for improved 

coordination among highway planning agencies, the process has slowed highway expansion 

and has, in many instances, forced federal highway officials into court. 

Efforts to improve air quality and control motor vehicles in central business districts were among 

the problems “heaped” on the others. To comply with air quality standards, EPA was considering 

gas rationing in some areas, while municipal governments were considering “rigid traffic curbs 

such as high fees for commuter parking, bans on daytime deliveries by heavy duty trucks, drastic 

cutbacks in areas available for parking, prohibitions against single passenger automobiles, and 

staggered working hours.” 
434 

Governor Sargent, the article stated, had taken “the most drastic action of this sort to date” by 

canceling $1 billion worth of Boston expressways and curbing increased downtown parking. “The 

third portion of his transportation program for Boston is a proposed $1.5 billion 15 year expansion 

of mass transit facilities, anticipating at least two-thirds of this to come from federal funds.” 

The article referred to the Administration’s support for using Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass 

transit and for giving local officials a greater say in transportation decisions. It quoted Acting 

Administrator Bartelsmeyer’s comment, “There will be no retreat from that general position.” Still, 

given that needs exceed Highway Trust Fund revenues, the article said that “transportation 

specialists are asking why the Highway Trust Fund should be tapped for projects unrelated to 

highway transportation, especially when the money is derived from special taxes on highway users 

who are entitled to the improvements they pay for.” The answer, the article concluded “will 

determine in large measure the future of transportation in the United States.” [Talbott, William R., 

“Prospect ’73,” Highway User, January 1973, p. 1-6] 

One of the controversial topics during development of the legislation was expected to be the 

highway beautification program. “The battle lines are drawn,” the Washington Star-News declared 

on January 1, 1973, “for a fierce behind-the-scene fight over an issue always in public view: the 

highway billboard.” The article stated that 700,000 to 800,000 billboards were illegal under the 

Highway Beautification Act of 1965. Only 70,000 had been removed, but “erected in their place 

through a loophole in the law have been more than 2,500 ‘jumbo’ signs—some 60 feet high—that 

tower along some of the most scenic stretches of federal road.” The industry was seeking a 2-year 

moratorium on removal of “directional” signs before 1975. 

The House and Senate had included the moratorium in the failed Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. 

 In 1973, billboard opponents expected the moratorium to resurface, only weaker. As included in 

the House version of the 1972 Act, but rejected by the Senate, Chairman Blatnik and other key 

members favored a provision that would allow six directional signs along each mile of rural road 

for a net addition of 400,000 billboards. George McInturf, chief of FHWA’s beautification 

program, said the provision would “cripple the billboard removal program.” Under Secretary 

Volpe, “We finally got the states to take action after threatening to cut off a portion of their 

highway funds.” If Congress gave the States a break now, “pulling all the teeth in the world will 

not make them start again.”

The Highway Action Coalition, National Wildlife Federation, and other national environmental 

groups were coordinating an attack on efforts to weaken the Highway Beautification Act. Ken 

Hampton of the NWF was optimistic. “Last time, the billboard lobby caught us with our pants 

down. It won’t happen again.” [Bernstein, Peter J., “New Congress Faces Fierce Billboard Fight,” 

Washington Star-News, January 1, 1973] 

The coalition, of course, was primarily concerned about the overall bill. “It’s not that we’re against 

highways,” Kramer said, “it’s just that they don’t always make sense.” He was particularly 

optimistic because of changes in the makeup of the House Rules Committee, which might be less 

inclined to block funding for transit in 1973. Representatives William M. Colmer (D-Ms., the 

Chairman), William R. Anderson (D-Tn.), and H. Allen Smith (the ranking Republican from 
435 

California) had retired, making pro-transit Representative John Anderson the ranking Republican. 

(Representative O’Neill left the committee and was now Majority Leader.) Further, the November 

1972 election had resulted in a net gain of between 15 and 20 Representatives willing to vote for 

diversion of highway funds to transit. 

On the other side, highway advocates such as Randy Russell of ARBA thought that, “Our principal 

argument is that there are not enough funds in sight to finance the highway system.” He predicted 

that opening the Highway Trust Fund to transit would “destroy the rationale for the fund – that 

highway users should pay for highways.” [“Freeman [sic] Foes Prepare Next Road Block,” Jersey 

City (NJ) Journal, January 17, 1973] 

Asked by The Wall Street Journal if the highway program was at a crossroads, Representative 

Wright chuckled. “I don’t think that’s too corny.” He said it was more like a rail crossing where 

“we have to figure out how to let both the highway traffic and the rail traffic move without a 

collision.” The Journal said that the bill, once routinely approved every 2 years, “is sprouting all 

kinds of controversial side avenues, evolving into a legislative package that could have considerable 

impact on this auto-dominated society.” Should Highway Trust Fund revenue be used for mass 

transit? Should the gas tax be raised to accommodate new uses? With the Interstate System 80 

percent completed, should the focus shift to a 10,000-mile network of “junior” Interstates? Should 

the Federal Government rescue transit systems by providing operating subsidies? 

Senator Baker had observed a new “spirit of compromise” and said, “I predict we’ll get a highway 

bill fairly promptly.” He favored diversion to mass transit, but Representative Wright wanted 

transit revenue to come from the general treasury. “I don’t see them as rivals for the same dollar. 

It’s a little childish to play off against each other.”

Wright and other members of the House Public Works Committee feared that approval of a limited 

measure such as the 1972 Cooper-Muskie amendment would lead to additional poaching schemes. 

Senator Muskie lent support to that concern by stating that he wanted to use Highway Trust Fund 

revenue not only for buses and subways, but for enforcement of auto-exhaust controls: 

It appears that many, if not most, control systems aren’t working properly and we know that 

some garages are disconnecting the devices for their customers.

Highway Trust Fund revenues, he thought, should be used to hire inspectors who would check each 

car’s control devices.

Highway advocates such as Senator Bentsen argued that diversion of highway revenue would be too 

little to address urban needs. “I don’t think that’s doing mass-transit systems any favor,” said 

Senator Bentsen, now chairman of the Subcommittee on Roads. “You ought to have separate 

funding for mass transit. I don’t think there’s enough money in the trust fund to take care of both.” 

 He and others hoped that providing general Treasury funds to mass transit would satisfy those 

seeking highway dollars. However, “If I had to predict, I’d say the result in the Senate probably 

won’t be far different from last year” when the Senate approved the Cooper-Muskie amendment. 
436 

The gas tax was under debate as well. Senator Percy wanted to end the Highway Trust Fund and 

create a transportation trust fund that would receive additional revenue by increasing the gas tax to 

6 cents (from 4 cents). Others advocated simply increasing the gas tax with the additional revenue 

credited to the Highway Trust Fund to maintain current highway funding levels while providing aid 

for mass transit. Senators Baker and Bentsen did not think an increase was likely. Bentsen said, 

“I’m not at this stage ready to endorse that as a solution.” [Large, Arlen J., “The Highway Bill, 

Formerly Routinely Voted, Now is Enmeshed in Transit, Pollution issues,” The Wall Street Journal, 

February 5, 1973] 

Clearly, the rival lobbies were ready for the fight. The powerful highway lobby recognized that 

holding its position in the Senate would be difficult and that the fight would come down, once 

again, to the House. On the other side, according to The Baltimore Sun, the Highway Action 

Coalition was expected to apply the “muscle” for the fight. Kramer, according to the Sun, expected 

the Senate Public Works Committee to split evenly on the diversion of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue, but he expected the Senate as a whole to vote as it had in 1972. He viewed the House 

Public Works Committee as “hostile to mass transit interests,” but as noted earlier, was encouraged 

by the departure of pro-highway members of the Committee on Rules. The battle would be won, he 

predicted, on the House floor and he expected it to be a close fight. [Nordlinger, Stephen E., “Key 

Road-Aid Battle Looms,” The Baltimore Sun, January 15, 1973] 

The Advocates on PBS

On January 25, 1973, Boston’s Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) affiliate, WGBH, was in Faneuil 

Hall taping an episode of The Advocates, a weekly debate program that appeared on PBS from 1969 

to1974 with support from the Ford Foundation. Advocates argued for and against a proposition, 

calling witnesses who were questioned and cross-examined. The program then invited viewers to 

send postcards to vote for the side they favored. On this episode, the proposition was: 

Should half of the federal dollars reserved for highways be diverted to mass transit systems?

U.S. Representative Margaret M. Heckler (R-Ma.), an attorney from Boston, was the guest 

moderator. Former State Representative Michael Dukakis, a frequent moderator of the program, 

argued pro and Eric Julber, an attorney from Carmel, California, took con. 

Dukakis began his defense of the proposition by saying: 

The automobile is choking our cities, ripping up our neighborhoods, polluting our air, and in 

New York City, today, traffic moves more slowly than it did in 1900. It’s time to end this 

nonsense. It’s time to give the states and metropolitan areas of this nation the right to use 

their share or part of their share of the federal highway dollar for the mass transportation 

systems they desperately need.

Julber responded in the negative:
437 

The proponents of mass rail transit are well meaning. But we expect to show you that the 

so-called benefits of mass transit are a myth. And certainly there should be no invasion of 

highway trust funds, which is the money that you and I pay for our highways when we buy 

each gallon of gas. Keep an open mind on the question until you hear our side, and we think 

you will vote no. 

Dukakis asked his first witness, former Secretary of the Interior Udall, how he felt about voting, as 

a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, for the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. 

Referring to Representative Wright, another witness in the studio, Secretary Udall replied:

Congressman Wright and I were classmates [in the 84th Congress], and this was the first, I 

think, really big piece of legislation in our first term [that] was enacted. Looking back, this 

is hindsight, of course, I voted for it, I think that I made a mistake. I think that it was one of 

the big blunders of the 1950’s. Not that I don’t think we needed a basic trunk interstate 

highway system to connect the main urban areas, but I think we put all of our eggs in the 

automobile basket; and that was the mistake.

What, Dukakis asked, should we have done instead? 

Well, I think, looking back, and this is all hindsight, that what we needed in the 1950’s was 

a national transportation policy. And I think that we needed a national transportation fund. 

The idea of earmarking moneys and saying this will be used only for highways . . . meant 

that we went down the wrong road. We should have given attention to our railway systems, 

mass transit, bicycle paths, the whole works, and have that kind of balanced flexible system, 

letting the states and the cities decide essentially how they wanted to use their money.

Asked his opinion of the automobile, Secretary Udall said: 

If you ask me to single out the one most destructive thing on the American environment, it’s 

the automobile. The pollution of most of our cities, the automobile is the main contributor. 

It and its highway system have squandered our land. The noise problem that’s rising in 

most cities is primarily automobile. And certainly, it’s been wasteful all the way around. 

And I would add the final factor. We thought that this was going to reduce the number of 

automobile deaths. It hasn’t. And I think that’s part of the tragedy. 

Julber, during cross-examination, suggested to Secretary Udall that mass transit was the actual 

cause of the problem. He cited New York City as an example because the availability of the 

country’s largest subway system supported “an insane density of people.” However, Secretary 

Udall would not concede that sprawling development would be better, pointing out that “we’re 

running out of land in this country, of land that’s prime land for cities; and we’re finding already 

that one of the big mistakes we’ve made is sprawling too thin.” The trend, he said, was “toward 

compactness and cluster.”

Julber responded that “people around the country are proving they don’t want to be compacted. 

Every man wants to move out in the suburbs.” Secretary Udall cited new towns such as Columbia, 
438 

Maryland, and Reston, Virginia, as based “on the idea of cluster.” Based on building permits, he 

added, “we’re going to more and more low-rises, apartments, townhouses, and so on because we’re 

running out of land.” 

If the Nation were going to switch to rail mass transit, Julber asked, where was the additional 

electricity going to come from when already “on the East coast, I read about brownouts and 

blackouts”? Secretary Udall could not say how the additional electricity would be generated, but 

added: 

Well, we’re going to have to generate it, but that electricity, because of the efficiency of 

mass transit, will use far less energy than the automobile, which is the most wasteful vehicle 

we’ve ever come up with.

 

The next witness for Dukakis was Governor Sargent. Asked about his major policy decision on 

transportation, the Governor answered: 

What we essentially decided was that we were not going to continue to build eight-lane, 10-

lane, 12-lane highways into the city of Boston. We just can’t do it. We cannot continue 

with that. Instead, we’re going to build rapid transit. We’re going to improve bus service. 

We’re going to build tunnels for restricted use of emergency vehicles, and so on. And we’re 

going to turn the thing around and not have a total reliance for the commuter on the 

automobile, the way we have at the present time.

He discussed the Boston transportation review he ordered: 

And clearly it showed to me that we would have to have a balanced transportation system. 

But we’re not saying that we’re never going to have any roads. But we’re not going to build 

any more interstate highways into this city. And this was one of the clearest indications that 

we got from the study. And the study wasn’t merely a highway study. This was a study 

made by architects and engineers and social economists and others. I’m positive we’re 

doing the right thing for this city. 

Dukakis asked if Governor Sargent faced any problems with his plan. 

Well, the principal problem is one of money. And this is why I feel that we should be able 

to turn to the highway trust fund, that the highway trust fund shouldn’t be purely for 

highways, that each state should be able to decide how to use the available money for 

transportation. Obviously, the situation in Massachusetts is not going to be the same as in 

Montana. But today you’ve got to spend that money on highways. 

Was the Governor facing pressure to spend that highway money? “Oh, tremendous pressure, very 

obviously.” 

But would people get out of their cars to use Boston’s new transit options? 
439 

Oh, I’m positive they will. We have a new line going to South of Boston; it’s about nine 

miles long. It’s got an increasing usage of some, I think, 25,000 people that are using it 

today. It isn’t the best that we can have. I think that we can look to the future. But it is fast, 

it is clean, it is on time, and it is much better. Now, the old rickety system, granted, is

nothing but chaos. 

Did other Governors agree with his decision? 

Well, you know, it’s interesting. We had a meeting of the Governors’ Conference back a 

few years ago, and virtually none of the governors were in favor of busting the trust fund. 

But at the last meeting of the governors, they all saw the benefit. They realized that they 

would be able to have flexibility and be able to make decisions that were proper for them, 

and we could make decisions that were proper for us in Massachusetts. 

When Julber’s question time came, he asked the Governor if his decision was universally popular. 

“No,” Governor Sargent answered. “I don’t think you can face any sort of a transportation question, 

be it in the city or be it in the rural areas, that there isn’t going to be a heck of an argument.” 

The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) operated one of the country’s biggest subway 

transit systems in Boston. Despite all the so-called need for transit, Julber pointed out, the authority 

lost $70 million in 1972. “Now, if you build it any bigger, won’t it just lose more money?” 

Governor Sargent pointed out that the automobile industry is spending a billion dollars a year just to 

advertise automobiles and “to drag people away from using mass transit.” Overall, the country was 

spending “billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars building highways and just a tiny 

fraction for mass transit.” 

If Boston wants a bigger subway, why can’t officials use local funds, or use the $180 million the 

State received in General Revenue Sharing? 

We’re putting money into the improvement of our rapid transit. We’re building more. But 

what I don’t want to do is, just because the money is there, go ahead and build more 

highways right into the middle of the city of Boston. I, frankly, want Boston to be different 

from Los Angeles, if you really want to know. 

But hadn’t Boston brought on its own problems? “Five years ago, you rebuilt downtown Boston 

with a lot of federal money, great skyscrapers. Your skyline rivals New York.” How, Julber asked, 

“are we going to get all these additional people in and out of this little area of land?” 

Governor Sargent replied: 

Twenty-five years ago, we designed a highway system that made sense then, we thought. 

But we learned that it would be disastrous for that city because when the interstate system—

and I don’t disagree with the interstate system, I favor it, I think it was a great thing for this 

country—but when we started building these interstate highways through and into cities, 
440 

they were used for commuters and not for interstate purposes, they were polluting the air, 

and they were tearing the cities apart. And I don’t want to do that anymore. 

Julber introduced his first witness, Professor Hilton, the Economics Professor from the University 

of California who challenged the value of rail rapid transit. Was rail rapid transit, Julber asked, 

suitable for modern needs? 

Well, not at all because it serves essentially only the trip into a central business district 

which is declining very rapidly. As recently as 1960, about 11 percent of all trips in 

Chicago were to the Loop. It’s down to about eight percent now. It’s expected to be down 

to five percent by 1980. 

But doesn’t mass transit decrease automobile traffic? Professor Hilton said it did not. “What it 

does is quite consistent between the new installations.” He cited the new line to Quincy that 

Governor Sargent had mentioned. It diverted fewer than 1,000 vehicles a day from the parallel 

Southeast Expressway. “That expressway carries between 80,000 and 120,000 vehicles in the 

ordinary course of working days. And so the thousand vehicles is imperceptible relative to that 

variance and also to the growth, which is usually about four percent per year.” He pointed out that 

the city could “do approximately the same thing with buses on thoroughfares for about two percent 

of the investment.” 

But what about the great new BART system in the Bay Area? Professor Hilton pointed out that it 

had cost $1.5 billion and was expected, by its proponents, to divert about 5 percent of trips from the 

automobile into the area, “which would make its experience consistent with what I’ve just 

mentioned.” It cost about $2 per passenger for riders who were paying an average fare of 64 cents. 

“The rest will be made up by the subsidy.” 

Does transit help poor and minority groups? 

No, because all it does, essentially, is provide a higher quality trip into a central business 

district. The trip which they find most difficult in making is from an urban residential area, 

a ghetto, to outlying places of employment. And linear systems of all sorts, and I include 

buses in this, are too inflexible to provide this trip for them. 

Are these systems economical for the country?

Oh, no. A high official of the Department of Transprotation said quite straightforwardly 

that only two percent could be justified by fare box revenues. 

Then what is the more sensible answer to urban transportation problems? 

Well, the main thing we need is a different system of charging people for the use of the 

roads, something to replace a flat tax on gasoline, something which will charge people more 

for driving in rush hours than in off hours so as to give them an incentive to use buses or 

existing rail systems. Second, we need more circumferential freeways, like Routes 128 and 
441 

495 here [and] the beltways around Washington and Baltimore. And third, we need 

competitive taxicab and bus systems, which is to say, jitneys as distinct from monopolized 

or Cartelized ones, to make public transit more demand responsive. 

Dukakis, in rebuttal, pointed out to Professor Hilton that HUFSAM predicted that the country 

would add 66 million cars by 1985, for a total of about 188 million. “How many more highways 

and interchanges are we going to have to build to accommodate those cars?” Professor Hilton 

replied:

We’re certainly going to have to build a great many more highways, mainly in rural areas 

and the circumferential routes which I mentioned because that’s where the major increase in 

trips is. I think building additional radial facilities, paralleling the Southeast Expressway 

here with another expressway of that sort, is as wasteful as building your Quincy Rapid 

Transit Line has been. Basically, both of those are symptoms of the fact that the way in 

which roads are at present priced tends not to inhibit people from using automobiles for 

peak hour service. And so, you get the excessive demand for investment just to deal with 

peak hours. We have the same problem with [the] Panama Canal, airports, and a large 

number of others. 

He didn’t recommend closing existing transit systems. “I’m arguing against investing in additional 

ones.” 

As for those beltways in the Boston area, Dukakis pointed out, “One of them is absolutely jammed 

beyond capacity, and the other is on its way.” How many more beltways would be needed to 

relieve congestion? Professor Hilton answered: 

[Given the] present nature of all pricing, you’re going to have a saturation of most urban 

facilities in any case, whether or not you build rapid transit and whether or not you build 

additional roads. What it is is just a standard example of elementary economics courses, is 

that you get queuing when you give away anything free. 

He favored increasing the cost of driving to encourage the use of transit, mainly buses. Then, 

Dukakis said, “you would favor a fairly substantial expansion of bus systems, at least, if not rail 

rapid transit.” The professor said; 

That would very automatically come because one of the consequences of this form of 

pricing would be speeding up buses relative to automobiles. The only attraction of rail 

systems, essentially, is that they’re out of those queues of vehicles, which the nature of 

present road pricing creates. By speeding up the buses, we make them more attractive 

relative both to the automobiles and the rail systems.

Professor Hilton agreed with Dukakis that bus systems did not operate at a profit and required a 

subsidy, but pointed out that current bus systems were monopolies operating on routes inherited 

from the unprofitable streetcar lines. “If it were a competitive industry of owner-operated buses, it 

would be very cheaply operated.” 
442 

Shouldn’t the people of Massachusetts have the right to tap the Highway Trust Fund for transit if 

that is what they think they need? Professor Hilton did not want to defend the Highway Trust Fund, 

but he pointed out that people “vote with their feet,” by which he meant that they “tend to leave 

public transit as it is presently organized.” 

Julber’s final witness was Representative Wright. They discussed the nature of the Highway Trust 

Fund and its use for construction of the Interstate System and other Federal-aid highways. Then 

Julber asked what Representative Wright thought about the claim that highways create congestion?

Well, of course, that isn’t true. That’s like saying hospitals create disease. You get the 

hospital, and you get it full pretty soon. Are we going to stop building hospitals because 

they’re full?

Do good highways help relieve air pollution? “Well, good highways do, and they should.” 

Circumferential highways keep vehicles out of the congested center city, thus relieving air pollution 

to an extent: 

[It] has been estimated that 12 automobiles travelling on a freeway at a reasonably steady 

pace emit less carbon, less pollution into the air than one automobile moving on old style 

streets, stopping at every traffic light over the same distance.

Did Representative Wright agree with Secretary Udall that decentralizing of the cities is a bad 

thing? 

Well, it seems to me that it isn’t a good thing just to tell American citizens that they’ve got 

to congest even tighter into greater population density. It seems to me that population 

density is a serious and growing problem and that it contributes an almost geometric 

progression to the root of every social ill that we have, from environmental pollution, to 

crime, to psychosomatic illness, to human instability; and it strikes me that if the American 

public wishes, and I think manifestly it does wish in a large degree, to spread out and get a 

little more privacy, to get a little bit of ground around them, have a little more pleasant life, 

it isn’t the business of government to tell them that they can’t do that.

The Department of Transportation identified $600 billion in needed highway work over the next 20 

years. Is that all for new roads? Representative Wright said that only about 1 percent of the money 

would be for new roads. The “remainder would go for widening, broadening, and making safer the 

highways that already exist.”

Julber’s final question was, “Do you think it would be wise or fair to invade that highway trust fund 

when we have those highway needs over the next 20 years?” Representative Heckler requested a 

brief answer because Julber’s question time was running out. “No,” Representative Wright 

answered, “I think we can meet mass transit needs without invading the highway trust fund.” 

Dukakis explained that Governor Sargent just wanted the right to decide how to use Highway Trust 

Fund revenue in Boston. “Now, what’s so bad about that?” Representative Wright pointed out that 
443 

he was the author of a proposal included in the Conference Report on the failed Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1972 that would have let Governor Sargent trade in unwanted expressways for an 

equivalent amount of obligational authority. “Not out of the highway trust fund, no.” He 

continued: 

What’s your objective? Do you want money for mass transit? If so, we’ll give it to you. Or 

do you want to stop highways? I think we need them both. I think this country can afford 

them both. I think we need all the money that’s available in the highway trust fund to build 

the highways that we need for safety for America’s public.

Wouldn’t President Nixon simply impound a lot of that transit funding, Dukakis asked, adding that 

we “can’t be sure of anything the Nixon Administration’s doing these days”? Representative 

Wright said that in deference to Republican Governor Sargent, he did not want to get into a debate 

on President Nixon: 

What I’m saying is that I think our needs for highways are very massive throughout the 

country, but we don’t have too much money coming in from this highway users’ tax to pay 

for it, that there are other ways that mass transit can be financed and it should be financed 

just as other things are financed. 

In fact, Representative Wright wondered why Dukakis thought “the only solution is the highway 

trust fund.” Dukakis replied, “That’s where the money is, Congressman, paid by the taxpayers.” 

Representative Wright countered:

That’s not the only place where the money is. Oh, by all means, no. That money’s all 

obligated. There isn’t any surplus in the highway trust fund. Every penny in the highway 

trust fund plus some has already been obligated to the States . . . . for the construction of 

needed highways throughout the United States . . . . Now, if you want to spend money, 

rather than for urban expressways in the heart of Boston, on mass transit, fine. I’m for a 

system that would give you that money. But don’t take it away from the highway program 

because we need that to complete the highway program that people all throughout this 

country have been paying into it on the good faith assumption that their money was going to 

build safe highways for them, and they don’t ever come near Boston . . . . I’ll work it out for 

you. We can work it out. But you don’t have to rob the taxpayers who put their money into 

the highway trust fund. That’s money for highways. I say we can do both. 

In a closing argument, Julber said he did not think the problems of 1973 could be solved by 

reverting to 1890s solutions: 

Rail systems to a crowded central city have gone the way of the horse and buggy no matter 

what kind of glamorous paint jobs you put on them. What we do need is to decentralize our 

cities . . . . We should continue to upgrade our highways. We should make cars smaller. 

We should stagger working hours, develop pollution-free engines and alternate sources of 

energy. But what we should not do is to invest further in systems that have proved to be 
444 

failures in the past. And certainly there should be no invasion of the highway trust funds 

that are made up primarily of the pennies of the working people of this country. 

Dukakis closed his argument by expressing some bewilderment because “the wisdom of the 

proposal we’ve been debating tonight seems so obvious that it’s hard to understand how anyone 

could seriously oppose it.” He continued: 

Mass transit for all of us, city resident and suburbanite as well, it’s a good thing. And that 

working man that Mr. Julber has been talking about has been paying through the nose for 

highways that won’t work and can’t work here in the United States. 

We’re not asking the government to order a mandatory shift of highway funds to mass 

transit. No, all we’re asking is that the people of our states and metropolitan areas be given 

the right to decide what kind of transportation system they want and the right to use, not all, 

but just a part of the highway money they’ve paid in to the federal government for that 

transit system, if they want it. So if you’ve ever sat and fumed for hours on an expressway 

in a traffic jam and wondered if there wasn’t a better way, if you’ve ever watched in horror 

as bulldozers ripped down another neighborhood for another one of these 10-lane monsters, 

if you’re wondering if your favorite park is next on the highway builder’s list, now’s the 

time to send those politicians in Washington a message. We hope you’ll vote a resounding, 

“yes,” on tonight’s proposal. 

Representative Heckler concluded the show by reminding viewers to send their post cards to The 

Advocates to vote “yes” or “no” on the show’s proposition. The results would be revealed on the 

following week’s program. [http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/9576b8-should-half-of-the-federaldollars-reserved-for-highways-be-diverted-to-mass-transit-systems]

(According to a 1979 book by Altshuler and coauthors on urban transportation, the Quincy 

extension opened in September 1971: 

Vehicle counts several months later on all major road facilities in its corridor revealed that 

whereas traffic had previously been increasing by about 4 percent a year, it was now up 

about 7.5 percent from the year earlier figure. Although no one attributed the acceleration 

of traffic growth to the transit opening, there was certainly no basis for contending that it 

had produced any congestion relief. [Altshuler, Alan, with Womack, James P., and Pucher, 

John R., The Urban Transportation System: Politics and Policy Innovation, The MIT Press, 

1979, p. 369]) 

Ongoing Battles 

While Washington anticipated the policy fight over the highway legislation, highways battles 

continued on the ground around the country as reflected in the following survey of activity in 

January 1973 based on news accounts: 
445 

• Environmental organizations plan to seek an injunction to block construction of a 

superhighway in the U.S. 7 corridor through Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. 

They want Federal officials to consider rail passenger service in the corridor. [“Three-State 

Attempts to Block Route 7 Corridor Idea is Due,” The Rutland (VT) Herald, January 2, 

1973] 

• Connecticut highway officials began a new housing survey to determine the impact of I-291 

on Bloomfield and Windsor following criticism in September 1972 from the Department of 

Housing and Urban Development that the route would “destroy” what it called “unique . . . 

stable and racially mixed neighborhoods.” If replacement housing is not available for 

displaced residents, Federal officials may decide to authorize “last resort” housing as 

provided for under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970. [Daniels, Jeffrey, “Survey to 

Gauge Effect of I-291,” The Hartford Times, January 4, 1973] 

• The FHWA ordered the Connecticut Department of Transportation to prepare an 

“overview” of the need for I-84 between Hartford and Providence. Environmental critics 

had accused the State of “segmenting” hearings to cover up the full impact of the road along 

its entire corridor. In Rhode Island, highway officials were considering a request from 

environmentalists for a 45-day extension of the comment period on the environmental 

impact statement for I-84. [“Conn. Ordered to Justify Rte. 94 Need,” The Providence 

Journal, January 7, 1973] 

• Secretary Walter L. Revell of the Florida Department of Transportation was still considering 

the routing of I-75 from the State’s west coast to Miami. A study had recommended the 

Everglades Parkway (Alligator Alley) as the alternative that best met traffic needs, but 

Secretary Revell said the State was studying criticism of the route by the Florida Audubon 

Society, the Florida Wildlife Federation, and the National Wildlife Federation. They were 

concerned that routing I-75 along the parkway would sabotage plans to create a Big Cypress 

national firewater reserve in south Florida. “We are studying every criticism the wildlife 

people have made,” Revell said. [Witwer, Stan, “State Road Officials Still Undecided on an 

Alligator Alley Route for I-75,” The St. Petersburg Times, January 7, 1973] 

• The Virginia Highway Department delayed widening a .8-mile strip of U.S. 1 (proposed I595) in Arlington because of neighborhood objections and the absence of Federal funds 

following congressional failure to pass the 1972 highway legislation. The State said it 

would prepare an environmental impact statement and hold a new location and design 

hearing. [Mathews, Jay, “Va. Delays Widening of Route 1,” The Washington Post, January 

10, 1973] 

• In Texas, Federal District Judge Jack Roberts ordered State and Federal officials to proceed 

with “all speed reasonable under the circumstances” with environmental impact and 

alternate route studies on the U.S. 281 North Expressway through parkland in San Antonio. 

 This order was in accordance with an August 1971 Appeals Court ruling that State and 

Federal officials had not complied with Section 4(f) or NEPA in routing the highway. 

[Jackson, Wayne, “Highway Studies Ordered,” The Austin Statesman, January 10, 1973] 

• The Maryland Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that the city’s plan to route I-70 

through Leakin Park did not violate the will of the late J. Wilson Leakin. The lower court 

found that the city’s plan to exchange part of the parkland for improvements to the 

remaining part would not be a breach of trust. [“Court Upholds Leakin Route,” The 

Baltimore Sun, January 10, 1973. 
446 

• In an effort to lessen the impact of Lake Freeway (I-794) on Juneau Park in Milwaukee, the 

County Expressway and Transportation Commission voted to put the freeway underground. 

 This action was in response to environmentalists who had obtained a Circuit Court 

injunction on April 28, 1972, blocking construction through the park. [“Underground 

Expressway Plan Backed,” The Milwaukee Sentinel, January 11, 1973] 

• Following a barrage of protests, the Arizona Highway Department decided to reconsider the 

need for a third interchange on I-8 in Gila Bend, population 1,726. At a public hearing 

attended by some 300 citizens, residents argued that development around the interchange 

would siphon off business from the community. Representatives of the Papago Indian 

Reservation, who owned the private land near the interchange, favored construction because 

it would serve their planned industrial park. [“Controversial Interchange Plan Taken Under 

Study,” The Phoenix Gazette, January 11, 1973] 

• Chairman Charles E. Simons of the Texas Highway Commission told the Fort Worth Area 

Chamber of Commerce that the architects and urban planners who attack freeways are 

responsible for many of the urban ills they blame on the automobile. He cited the World 

Trade Center in New York, saying, “It is small wonder that they have congestion and strain 

transportation facilities . . . when they concentrate hordes of people in a few square blocks.” 

 He said that “the architects, environmentalists, sociologists, economists, urban planners and 

conservationists have been having a field day taking pot shots” at road building. “We hear 

very little protest against the dismal failure of the welfare, housing and urban development 

and scores of other costly programs which sap the moral fiber and vitality of the body 

politic.” He added that it’s the successful programs, such as road building, that are “the 

target for attack.” [“Speaker Fires Back at Freeway Critics,” The Dallas News, January 12, 

1973] 

• In West Virginia, the Kanawha County Regional Traffic and Arterial Study Committee 

wrote to Secretary Volpe and State Highway Commissioner William Ritchie urging them to 

halt all activity on continuation of the Danville-to-Charleston segment of Corridor G of the 

Appalachian Development Highway System except line “F” from Boone County to 

Charleston via Marmet. Line “F” would be shorter and would replace U.S. 119, while the 

approved line would require relocation of up to 9,500 feet of the Coal River – an option 

likely to result in environmental court suits. [Gallagher, Andrew, “Marmet Route Urged for 

Corridor ‘G,’” The Charleston Gazette, January 17, 1973] 

• An EPA official, David L. Calkins, held out little hope that mass transportation could solve 

the smog problem in Phoenix, Arizona. During a workshop on auto pollution, he said that 

the area’s diversified traffic pattern made mass transportation impractical for emission 

reductions. Calkins suggested that better options included formation of car pools, rapid 

turnover of government cars, limited vehicle restrictions, and even the more drastic step of 

Federal limitations on land use to encourage a corridor concept that might make mass 

transportation feasible. State Representative Burton S. Barr told the workshop that 55,000 

cars would have to be junked for failure to meet Federal emission standards. [“EPA Official 

Says Mass Transit Won’t Work Here,” The Phoenix Gazette, January 17, 1973] 

• When Mayor William Donald Schaefer took office in Baltimore on December 7, 1971, he 

inherited a decision to build an I-95 tunnel near Fort McHenry instead of a signature bridge 

across the Inner Harbor. Residents objected that the bridge, a unique cantilevered design 

with canted support towers, would disrupt historic Federal Hill and Fells Point. The 
447 

planned tunnel, wrote City Hall reporter David Ahearn, will not be an international 

trademark for the city. It “will look like any other” tunnel. The new Mayor was not bound 

by the decision, but little support existed for the bridge. “Whether the system turns out to be 

a triumph of pleasing creativity or just another big road network is up to many more leaders 

than just Schaefer alone.” [Ahearn, David, “Schaefer Urged to Junk Harbor Tunnel for 

Bridge,” Baltimore News American, January 18, 1973] 

• California State Highway Engineer Robert J. Datel announced that the State will reexamine 

proposals and hold public hearings for four freeways in northeast Sacramento County in the 

vicinity of Carmichael, Fair Oaks, and Citrus Height (Routes 65, 143, 244, and 102). The 

expressways had been planned 10 years earlier to complete the area’s freeway grid. The 

Mother Lode Chapter of the Sierra Club responded to the announcement by saying, “Seldom 

have the county’s residents had a better chance to determine their own highway destiny. 

Seldom have state and county agencies declared themselves more responsive to citizens’ 

pressures.” [“New Attitude Toward Freeway Planning,” The Sacramento Bee, January 20, 

1973] 

• FHWA approved a final draft of an environmental impact statement for the Papago Freeway 

in Phoenix. The statement, consisting of three 2-inch thick books, addressed criticism from 

EPA and the Departments of the Interior and Health, Education, and Welfare, as well as 

citizens groups trying to block the freeway and encourage substitution of mass transit. As 

alternatives, the document considered mass rapid transit on exclusive rights-of-way, an

expanded bus system, widening existing streets, and doing nothing. “It was found that 

because of diverse travel patterns generated by the current and planned use in the Phoenix 

urban area, little promise is held for an expanded role for public transit, regardless of form.” 

Despite some “unavoidable environmental effects,” the statement concluded, failure to build 

the freeway, the statement concluded, would leave Phoenix an undesirable place to work 

and live. [Tragash, Steven, “Impact Report Backs Freeway Despite Faults,” The Phoenix 

Republic, January 30, 1973] 

Boston, too, was in the mix in January 1973. When Government Sargent announced on November 

30, 1972, that he was canceling the remaining Interstates in the Boston area, one expressway was 

nearing completion. On February 6, 1973, Massachusetts opened 1 mile of a 3-mile elevated 

section of the I-93 Connector into Boston. Commissioner Sargent had begun construction of this 

final segment linking Boston to New Hampshire in 1965 at a time when it was designed to link to 

the Central Artery (I-93), the Northeast Expressway (U.S. 1), and the I-695 Inner Belt. When 

Governor Sargent imposed a moratorium on Boston freeway construction in 1970, he allowed work 

on the $100 million I-93 Connector to continue. 

As the State prepared to open the connector, The Wall Street Journal began an article about the 

route by saying: 

It’s some kind of highway, all right. Eight lanes wide and partially double decked, it sweeps 

into downtown Boston from the northern suburbs. 

But there’s one problem. It may be useless . . . . Thanks to some curious political and 

bureaucratic decisions, however, the highway is missing some key appendages. 
448 

Consequently, it won’t mesh properly with the existing roadway in downtown Boston to 

which it is attached . . . . 

The connector would feed four lanes of traffic into an area that already backs up 2 miles or more 

during peak periods and would introduce a dangerous “weaving” for an exit shortly after the 

connector merges with the Central Artery. These problems were not contemplated when the 

highway was designed because the plans included the Inner Belt and the bridge linking Leverett 

Circle and the Tobin Bridge, both of which would have diverted some I-93 traffic:

The highway was originally planned along with two other projects—another highway would 

have drained off a lot of traffic before it reached the busy downtown area and a bridge that 

would have solved the weave problem. The two additional projects, however, were stalled 

when, in 1970, Massachusetts Gov. Francis Sargent bowed to antihighway forces and 

declared a moratorium on highway building within greater Boston. 

Critics, including Governor Sargent’s political opponents, considered the highway unusable. 

Suggestions included putting bleachers on it to run the soap box derby, install mobile homes for 

low- and moderate-income housing, or simply convert it into “the world’s longest bowling alley.” 

Fred Salvucci, then Mayor White’s transportation advisor, suggested, “Just leave it there as a 

monument to a mistake.” [Gumpert, David, “There’s a Swell Road Into Downtown Boston, But 

Don’t Drive on It,” The Wall Street Journal, January 11, 1973] 

Salvucci had a suggestion, all kidding aside, as quoted in The Boston Globe: 

Mayor White’s transportation adviser, Frederick Salvucci, wants [Secretary of 

Transportation] Altshuler to consider seriously the idea of depressing the Central Artery intown. The suggestion first cropped up during the Sargent-ordered [1970] restudy. [Plotkin, 

A. S., “I-93 No Bowling Alley – At Least in One Direction,” The Boston Globe, March 18, 

1973] 

(The first week of July, the State opened the southbound lanes of I-93 to its junction with I-95 – 

where I-93 motorists encountered a traffic light. It was an interim measure designed to operate as a 

metering light to regulate traffic flow while FHWA and State officials considered solutions to the 

traffic problems. [“Stewart, Colin, “Boston’s Interstate Red Light—The Expressway Ends,” The 

Christian Science Monitor, July 5, 1973] 

The battle between the pro- and anti-highway forces in Washington and around the country did not 

diminish traffic volumes on the Nation’s roads. FHWA announced in January 1973 that during the 

past 4 years, traffic on all roads had increased nearly 25 percent. In 1968, vehicle miles had topped 

the 1 trillion mile mark for the first time (1,016 billion vehicle miles) and had increased to an 

estimated 1,250 billion vehicle miles in 1972. “One and one-quarter trillion miles is such a mindstretching figure that even comparisons are hard to grasp,” Acting Administrator Bartelsmeyer was 

quoted as saying. “It is equal to more than two and one-half million round trips to the moon.” 

The announcement also reported: 
449 

Passenger cars represented nearly 80 percent of the vehicles and accounted for over 79 

percent of the travel . . . .; trucks and truck combinations, 17 percent of all vehicles and 19 

percent of all travel; similar figures for buses were less than one-half of 1 percent. 

The Interstate System, which contained about 1 percent of total mileage of roads and streets, carried 

19 percent of the travel. Overall, roads included in the Federal-aid systems carried 67 percent of the 

travel. [“1972 Highway Travel Equal to 2 1⁄2 Million Moon Round Trips,” FHWA News, January 

31, 1973, p. 8] 

Los Angeles: 20th Century Ghost Town 

On January 15, 1973, EPA Administrator Ruckelshaus announced a draft plan for reducing smog in 

the Los Angeles area in accordance with the Clean Air Amendments of 1970. The legislation 

required transportation control measures where automobile emission controls and stationary 

pollution controls (e.g., gas stations) are not enough to reduce pollution. The Los Angeles area 

exceeded the .08 parts per million of photochemical oxidants in 1970 on at least 150 days. 

Ruckelshaus acted reluctantly only after a court ruled that he must. Plaintiffs, including the cities of 

Riverside and San Bernardino, had petitioned the court to require EPA to submit a plan to meet the 

national standards under the Clean Air Act in the Los Angeles area. Following the U.S. District 

Court ruling, Ruckelshaus acted on the final day in the court order.

In announcing the plan, Ruckelshaus told a crowded news conference that “now is not the time for 

emotional responses, not the time for panic,” but he hoped the plan would at minimum “force the 

public to confront the issue.” He acknowledged the area’s unique characteristics, saying, “The 

encircling mountains and frequent inversions hold in pollutants, and the Southern California 

climate provides ample sunshine to aid the formation of photochemical smog.” Given these 

circumstances, the area’s transportation mix was the immediate problem. “The automobile is by far 

the dominant mode of transportation. For example, in 1972, the South Coast Air Basin contained 

over 10 million persons and nearly 6 million motor vehicles.” 

The EPA plan called for reducing automobile use in the Los Angeles area by gas rationing to reduce 

driving 82 percent during the high smog months (May through October). Options for rationing 

included issuance of gasoline coupons and restrictions at the retail level. The plan also called for 

retrofit devices to prevent evaporation from gas tanks and carburetors in cars for model years 1966-

1969 and trucks for 1966-67; conversion of all 1971-1974 cars and trucks in fleets of ten or more to 

low-polluting fuels such as natural gas; and changes for stationary sources, such as vapor recovery 

systems at gas stations and prevention of evaporation of solvents into the air at dry cleaners. 

Emission controls and stationary source controls were not enough; they would leave an excess of 

roughly 270 tons of hydrocarbon effluents daily that could be reduced only by gas rationing. 

He knew the plan was drastic:

Reduction in the mobility of workers and consumers could have a major impact on the 

economic fabric of the community. Interference with the ability of citizens to move as 
450 

freely [as at present] will alter the life-style of the region . . . . Cost of doing business may 

rise to an unknown extent. 

I am proposing a strategy, but by no means saying we have exhausted all the other means. 

Other strategies we have not proposed should be examined by the public . . . . We believe 

that very serious, intelligent investigation of mass transit here in Los Angeles is very 

important. 

EPA, Ruchelshaus said, would hold public hearings on the proposal. The public would have to 

decide “through the political process” whether mass transit or a change in the law was desirable. 

He acknowledged that he would have preferred more flexibility under the law: 

If the economic and social dislocation of the people of this community is severe, then their 

representatives in Congress may see a need for stretching out the time limit in meeting those 

standards. I don’t know if reducing traffic by 80 percent is possible if you’re still to have a 

viable community. It takes something like this to get people to focus on the nature of the 

problem. 

Ruckelshaus was right that the reaction to his proposal would not be favorable. Robert L. Ohass, 

Los Angeles County’s chief air pollution control officer, called it “illogical and impractical.” He 

continued: 

It would be a little like destroying a community to save it. It would shut down the 

community. It would have a serious impact on all aspects of life. Essentially, it is not a 

solution. 

While modification of the Clean Air Act was desirable, the EPA Administrator cautioned that “if 

the result [of the proposal] were to convince people that the act itself was a bad act, it would be 

very unfortunate.” 

On January 16, Senator Muskie, one of the authors of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, 

announced that he planned to reintroduce a version of the Cooper-Muskie amendment. Further, as 

chairman of the Public Works Committee’s Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution, he would 

resist an amendment to the enforcement deadline, but an aide thought some adjustment was 

inevitable. “The Congress has got to know what the full social and economic–as well as 

environmental–costs of the problem are. But you don’t get this input until you have this kind of 

confrontation.” 

Senator Tunney, a resident of Riverside, predicted that the plan, if put into effect, would make 

southern California “a 20th century ghost town.” The plan, he said, “fails to recognize that we can 

have a healthful environment and a prosperous community.” He endorsed the stringent deadline, 

but worried that the EPA plan would give critics an excuse to gut the Clean Air Act. In addition to 

supporting Senator Muskie’s new version of the Cooper-Muskie amendment, Senator Tunney 

announced he would introduce legislation to use $900 million from the Highway Trust Fund for a 

3-year crash program to develop a clean auto engine that he said would solve 80 percent of 
451 

Southern California’s smog problem. He also advocated using $3 to $4 billion of Highway Trust 

Fund revenue to construct a bus-and-rail transit system in the area by 1980. 

Representative Glenn Anderson announced that EPA’s plan “borders on negligence” because it did 

not offer “an attractive, inexpensive, efficient transportation alternative.” Gas rationing “would 

encourage a black market that would make Saigon look like Disneyland” while permitting gas 

station operators just beyond the region to reap large profits. He said he would renew his fight to 

allow Highway Trust Fund revenues to be used for mass transit. [Aarons, Leroy R. “Rationed Gas 

Proposed for Autos in L.A.,” The Washington Post, January 16, 1973; Lydon, Christopher, “Muskie 

Urges Mass Transit Aid in Light of Proposed Auto Curb,” The New York Times, January 17, 1973; 

Houston, Paul, “Tunney Urges Use of Highway Fund for Car Research,” The Los Angeles Times, 

January 18, 1973] 

What was not evident at the time of Ruckelshaus’s announcement was that freeway building in 

California had passed its peak years, as explained by David W. Jones, Jr., of the Institute of 

Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley: 

The year 1967 was the high watermark of California’s freeway era. The Interstate program 

was in its tenth year and nearing its peak. The manpower of the Division of Highways stood 

at 9,000 engineers—up from 6,000 a decade earlier. The Highway Commission was 

aggressively certifying routes for freeway construction, and right-of-way expenditures were 

at an all-time high.

The Division of Highways was geared up for mass production and was building freeways at 

an extraordinary pace. It built 225 miles of freeway in 1965, 264 miles in 1966, and then 

328 miles in 1967. But 1967 was to prove the peak. 

Freeway production sagged after 1967, was restored briefly, and then collapsed after 1970 . . 

. . 

Freeway completion totaled 276 miles in 1970, 182 miles in 1971, 236 miles in 1972, 146 miles in 

1973, and 88 miles in 1974 – the highest total for the remaining decade: 

[I]nflation was the proximate cause of retrenchment. But the underlying cause was political 

as well as fiscal: Inflation was allowed to dismantle the highway program because other 

priorities had moved to the fore. 

As for inflation, “real dollar expenditures were quartered from 1970 to 1976.” This reduction in 

buying power was worsened by fiscal stringency:

Thus, the early seventies were the mirror image of the late fifties. In the late fifties, the 

Interstate windfall had enabled the Division of Highways to gear up for mass production. In 

the seventies, fiscal stringency dictated equally rapid retrenchment.

The gas tax was part of the problem:
452 

Through the sixties, the fuel tax was the locomotive of the freeway program. But in the 

seventies, it became a liability rather than an asset. This is because fuel taxes have no builtin mechanism to adjust for inflation, and because fuel tax collections were depressed by the 

set of events that came to be known as “the energy crisis.”

Another factor in the “cost-revenue squeeze” was what Jones called “the inflation of project 

concepts.” He said that “freeway projects became progressively larger and more complex as traffic 

became heavier and heavier.” The result of “upscoping” was a significant project cost increase.

Governor Reagan was another factor in the retrenchment: 

The governor’s cornerstone policy was that the State must live within its means, and Reagan 

instructed his highway department to make do with diminished resources. 

There was a brief debate within the Governor’s office over the special circumstances created 

by the idiosyncrasies of the gas tax, but the Governor personally rejected this argument. 

Reagan insisted that the Division of Highways make the adjustments in program necessary 

to balance its budget. In the years immediately following, revenues declined sharply, 

forcing the State to abandon land banking and advance route determination. 

His successor, Governor Jerry Brown (1975-1983, 2011- ) accelerated the retrenchment:

Governor Jerry Brown took outspoken positions on environmental issues and appointed a 

conservation-minded planner as his Director of Transportation. The Governor argued that 

the “Era of Limits” was appropriate for the highway program, and Transportation Secretary 

Adriana Gianturco echoed this view. 

Gianturco’s outspoken environmentalism and her knack for stirring up public controversy 

personalized and polarized the policy debates of the late seventies. And, as a result, it is 

widely perceived that retrenchment began with the Brown Administration and that it was its 

willful policy. A more accurate statement is that retrenchment accelerated during the Brown 

Administration, and was allowed to run its course. 

At the time, the Division of Highways was working from the Freeway and Expressway Plan 

approved in 1959. Jones summarized the central premise behind the 1959 plan: 

The congestion could and should be kept at bay by building successive generations of 

parallel freeways. This was the plan’s intellectual core, and the operative premise of the 

freeway program in metropolitan California. Outmoded by the events of the seventies, the 

commitment to parallel facilities was gradually abandoned in the eighties—not formally, not 

explicitly but nonetheless decisively.

The plan also had been approved on a key assumption, namely continuation of “the funding level 

that prevailed during the Interstate build-up and its implementation required a sustained program of 

continuing investment.” That expectation turned out not to be the case. [Jones, Jr., David W., 
453 

California’s Freeway Era in Historical Perspective, Institute of Transportation Studies, University 

of California, Berkeley, for the California Department of Transportation, June 1989, p. 309-320] 

(Gianturco, as Jones noted, was controversial. She had been director of planning for the 

Massachusetts Office of State Planning and Management from 1973 until she became Assistant 

Secretary of California’s Business and Transportation Agency in the fall of 1975. Governor Brown 

nominated her to become director of the California Department of Transportation in early 1976, and 

she was quickly branded as anti-freeway. While awaiting confirmation from a skeptical State 

Senate, she told reporters, “I think the highway system is going to remain the most important 

element of the transportation system in the foreseeable future,” adding, “My approach is for 

balanced transportation.” She explained that “different solutions are appropriate in different 

situations. In heavily settled areas mass transit may be a better way to move people around.” She 

had mixed feelings about “heavy-rail” solutions such as BART. “I would tend to favor less 

expensive, more flexible systems,” such as heavier use of buses. [“Caltrans Chief Outlines Goals,” 

Associated Press, The Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, March 30, 1976] 

(She was immediately blamed for the Santa Monica Freeway (I-10) Diamond Lanes (concurrentflow preferential lanes for buses and carpools) that had been planned during Governor Reagan’s 

term, but went into effect on March 15, 1976, as she took office. When the Diamond Lanes turned 

the general traffic lanes into “parking lots,” Gianturco was vilified as “Giant Turkey,” “the 

Madwoman of Caltrans,” and “Our Lady of the Diamond Lane.” The Diamond Lanes came to an 

end 21 weeks later when the U.S. District Court ruled against the project. In an interview years 

later, she recalled that she was “besieged, vilified, crucified” over the Diamond Lanes. She added 

that, “The freeway fiasco lasted only five months; I stayed in that job for (nearly) seven years,” but 

she would never overcome that initial image as “an arrogant, power-crazed madwoman.” [Bettijane 

Levine, “A Driven Woman: Adriana Gianturco Fought a Lonely Battle for Car-Pool Lanes in 1976. 

 Now, They’re Part of the L.A. Map,” The Los Angeles Times, February 22, 1994]) 

The impact of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970 was being felt around the country. On February 

5, 1973, the Southern California RTD announced a $5 million bus service improvement program 

and a shift away from rapid transit planning. Gas tax revenue earmarked for rapid transit would be 

shifted to expanding the district’s 1,500-plus bus network. The district hoped to gain support for 

using General Revenue Sharing funds to maintain a flat 30-cent fare anywhere in Los Angeles 

County. Alternatively, revenue sharing could be used for a $140 million “saturation” bus system. 

The RTD’s general manager, Jack R. Gilstrap, explained that sufficient revenue was not available 

to finance a high-capacity rapid transit system, or even to start such a system. [Hebert, Ray, 

“Transit Officials Stress Improved Bus System,” The Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1973] 

Transportation planners in San Diego wanted to eliminate the automobile from downtown and 

replace it with “people movers” that would carry people in electric-powered, one-car vehicles on an 

elevated concrete track. They would link peripheral parking garages with downtown street corners. 

 City streets would be for pedestrians only. Such a system was in operation at the University of 

West Virginia in Morgantown, with Federal funding help. Planners thought riders might even be 

able to use the system for free if developers would contribute to the cost or if expenses could be 

paid out of the gasoline tax. The city had submitted an application to the Department of 
454 

Transportation. [Associated Press, “Downtown San Diego Planning its Farewell to the 

Automobile,” The Baltimore Sun, February 7, 1973] 

California also was developing an ambitious expansion of bikeways. In October 1972, the 

Department of Water Resources had opened the first 67-mile section of a 444-mile bikeway on the 

California Aqueduct’s 20-foot-wide service road. The initial section stretched from Bethany 

Reservoir near Tracy to San Luis Dam near Los Banos. In Marin County, a 24-mile bicycle route 

system ran through the county and crosses the Golden Gate Bridge to connect with bikeways in San 

Francisco. The State had passed legislation requiring the State Department of Public Works’ 

Division of Highways to spend a minimum of $360,000 in highway funds each year for bikeways. 

The Highway Division already was converting older roads to bikeways after they were replaced by 

newer facilities. 

The bicycle was still far behind the automobile as a mode of transportation. Peter M. Flanagan, a 

presidential assistant, had said that even as the energy crisis grew, “The United States is not going 

back to the cold, the dark, and the bicycle.” Nevertheless, with at least 60 million bicycles in use 

nationally, efforts were underway to give them greater prominence. [“Bikeways Spread on Coast as 

More Take to Cycling,” The New York Times, January 28, 1973] 

In Richmond, the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board proposed gasoline rationing to reduce 

pollution levels in northern Virginia. Such a proposal would have to be coordinated with Maryland 

and the District of Columbia through the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments 

(COG). On January 24, COG had proposed a series of controversial measures to reduce pollution, 

but not including gasoline rationing. Proposals by COG included a $2 a day surcharge on all-day 

parking in commercial facilities; banning daytime truck deliveries; abolishing free and low-cost 

parking for government employees and private industry, as well as improved bus service, incentives 

for carpooling, and completion of the Metro rapid rail system. [“Gas Rationing Urged for Area,” 

Washington Star-News, February 7, 1971] 

The Opening Salvo

On January 18, Senator Muskie introduced three bills that collectively would divert $1.8 billion a 

year from highway construction for 2 years. In introductory comments, he said that the failure to 

adopt legislation in 1972 “should not overshadow the historic significance” of the Cooper-Muskie 

amendment because by adopting it, the Senate “served notice that the highway trust fund is too 

narrowly focused to serve today’s transportation needs.” Since a national transportation policy was 

a critical element of a national growth policy, the 93rd Congress “must seek ways in which we can 

all move freely about, without endangering our health, destroying our communities, and wasting our 

resources in the process.” 

He considered his first bill, which was a revised version of the Cooper-Muskie amendment, “the 

cornerstone of a new transportation policy for America.” It corrected “the most glaring flaw” in the 

current policy, namely the “closed circle of Federal funding which perpetuates highway 

construction as virtually the only solution to transportation problems that most cities and States can 

afford to choose.” The revised amendment increased Federal-aid urban funding to $1 billion a year 
455 

(from $800 million) and allowed the funds to be used for capital projects to improve ground 

transportation, including rail mass transit facilities and equipment. Other Federal-aid funds, 

including Interstate funds, could be used for highway-related public transportation improvements, 

excluding rail. 

The second bill, the Highway Act Amendments to Provide Motor Vehicle Emission Programs (S. 

738) required the States to establish annual inspection programs for auto emission control devices. 

An estimated $350 million a year from the Highway Trust Fund would reimburse the States for the 

inspection programs. 

The most controversial bill was the Highway Act Amendments to Allow Transfer of Funds in AirImpacted Urbanized Areas from Highway Programs to Other Programs to Improve Transportation 

(S. 739). It allowed the Secretary of Transportation to use up to 10 percent of annual Highway 

Trust Fund revenues for emergency programs to develop or improve transportation systems in the 

28 urban areas in 18 States that EPA had indicated would not be able to meet the 1977 clean air 

deadline. The bill would prohibit approval of new highway projects that might raise pollution to 

levels that would jeopardize public health. It also would allow highway funds to be shifted to 

public transportation in cities with high pollution levels. 

Beyond the three measures, he encouraged Senator Randolph to consider additional provisions in 

the new Federal-Aid Highway Act, including a special program to focus on the highway needs of 

urban areas of less than 50,000. He continued: 

It should give Governors the program direction authority now given to State highway 

departments. It should finance the separation of highway-railway grade crossings from the 

highway trust fund. And, finally, a new bill should give local governments increased 

authority to make transportation decisions through an allocation formula for regularly 

apportioned urban system funds. 

In support of his three measures, Senator Muskie explained that each year, “the circle closes tighter 

as the problems multiply.” Whatever the problem, he said, “more highways and more cars have 

become the only answer—even when they are obviously not the right answer.” The automobile had 

“revolutionized life in America,” but now it threatened “to degrade the quality of life.” He 

continued: 

Highways and automobiles have had as destructive an effect on our cities themselves as they 

have had on the health of the people who live in those cities. Highway construction divides 

our urban areas with ribbons of concrete—separating people from their jobs and from each 

other, destroying the integrity of communities, and encouraging suburban sprawl and other 

questionable land uses . . . . . The senseless construction of urban freeways has run 

roughshod over the real transportation needs of city residents . . . . In the process of 

destroying the environment, threatening our health and ravaging our cities, highways and 

automobiles are also helping to lead us to an energy crisis from which there may be no road 

back . . . . 
456 

With great ingenuity, productivity, and activity, we have created the present mess. I am 

convinced that with an equal amount of ingenuity, productivity, and activity, we can reverse 

it—and create a sensible national transportation policy. [Congressional Record-Senate, 

January 18, 1973, p. 1527-1531] 

Each of the bills was expected to encounter opposition from pro-highway Members of Congress. 

However, Senator Muskie thought that the drastic steps announced to combat air pollution in 

southern California had dramatized the need for mass transit alternatives to the motor vehicle. 

[Kenworthy, E. W., “Muskie Will Seek to Tap Road Fund,” The New York Times, January 18, 

1973] 

On January 23, Senators Bentsen, Randolph, and other members of the Committee on Public Works 

introduced S. 502, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. It authorized $3.25 billion a year through 

FY 1979 and $257 million for FY 1980 to complete the Interstate System. It also authorized 

Interstate fund apportionments based on the 1972 Interstate Cost Estimate and extended the 

completion due date to June 30, 1980 (from June 30, 1976). 

The bill included a declaration of policy that the Secretary should carry out the Federal-aid highway 

program “in such a manner as to give the highest priority in all instances, to highway safety and the 

saving of human lives.” The companion Highway Safety Act, however, was not included with the 

January 23 bill (it would be introduced on February 19). 

In addition, the bill would: 

• Establish a national policy to “encourage the minimization of paperwork and interagency 

decision procedures” and make “the best use of available manpower and funds so as to 

prevent needless duplication and unnecessary delays at all levels of government.”

• Provide for transfer of Interstate mileage upon the joint request of a State Governor and the 

local governments concerned if the Secretary determines that the segment is not essential to 

completion of a unified and connected Interstate System and that the State does not plan to 

build a toll road in the corridor. The mileage would then be available for designation of 

another Interstate route that was considered essential for connectivity

• Remove from designation on July 1, 1973, any Interstate segment for which the State has 

not provided assurances of its construction. Prior to July 1, 1974, the State may substitute 

an alternative segment that meets Interstate requirements. Any segment should be removed 

from designation on July 1, 1974, unless the State has provided a schedule for construction 

within the period of fund availability. (These provisions did not apply to Interstate segments 

designated under the 1,500-mile extension authorized in 1968.) 

• Authorized funds from the Highway Trust Fund for the Federal-aid systems, Forest 

Highways, Public Lands Highways, and Parkways. Also authorized general Treasury funds 

for forest development roads and trails, public lands development roads and trails, park 

roads and trails, and Indian Reservation Roads. 

• Federal-aid urban funds would be made available to metropolitan planning organizations 

(MPOs) to carry out projects if the MPO “has adequate powers and is suitably equipped and 

organized to carry out projects on the urban system.” 
457 

• Federal-aid urban funds could be used for construction of facilities “to serve bus and other 

public mass transportation passengers, and for the purchase of passenger equipment other 

than rolling stock for fixed rail.” 

• Federal-aid highway funds could be used for the construction of separate or preferential 

bicycle lanes or paths and other bicycle-related facilities as well as pedestrian walkways and 

equestrian trails in conjunction or connection with Federal-aid highways. No motorized 

vehicles would be permitted on these facilities except for maintenance purposes.

• Authorized $50 million a year for the Special Urban High Density Traffic Program for the 

construction of highways connected to the Interstate System in urban areas. 

• Based on guidelines issued by the Secretary, a State may submit a certification that it has

processes for carrying out Federal-aid highway construction responsibilities. The 

certification, if approved, would allow the Secretary to discharge his responsibility for 

project approvals, other than to oversee the procedures to be sure they are satisfied. The 

Secretary could not approve certification if he concluded that the procedures will not satisfy

the social, environmental, and economic objectives of Federal requirements. To protect the 

rights of aggrieved parties, the provision allowed for suits under Section 5 of the 

Administrative Procedures Act to be heard in an administrative hearing regarding a State’s 

failure to comply with its certification. 

• Funds for Forest Highways and park roads and trails could be used for adjacent vehicular 

parking areas, related facilities, and the purchase of buses to provide interpretive [sic] or 

shuttle transportation services as an alternative means of transportation. 

• Authorized the Secretary of the Interior to develop the Highland Scenic Highway as a 

parkway from West Virginia Route 39 to U.S. 250 near Barton Knob. 

• Provided for reconstruction of the Alaska Highway and the Haines Cutoff in Canada. 

• Requested reports by January 1, 1975, on the feasibility and necessity of constructing six 

specified routes, including extension of I-70 from Cove Fort, Utah, to serve Ely and Carson 

City, Nevada, to Interstate standards for purposes of including them in the Interstate System. 

• Severed the contractual relationship between the Federal and State Governments for the San 

Antonio North Expressway between I-35 and I-410. It would cease to be a Federal-aid 

project. Texas must repay Federal-aid funds used to develop the expressway. 

• Called for demonstration projects to relocate railroad lines from the central area of Lincoln, 

Nebraska, and Elko, Nevada. 

• The Secretary is to report to Congress by January 1, 1975, on the feasibility of establishing a 

national system of scenic highways linking recreational, historical, scientific, and other 

similar areas of scenic interest and importance.

• Authorized $20 million a year for a 2-year Rural Highway Public Transportation 

Demonstration Program to encourage development, improvement, and use of public mass 

transportation systems operating vehicles on highways to enhance access to employment, 

health care, retail centers, education, and public services.

On January 23, Senator Baker introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 6. It authorized the 

Secretary of Transportation to apportion Interstate funds to the States based on the 1972 Interstate 

Cost Estimate. If adopted, the resolution would address the problem created when Congress failed 

to approve the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. The 1970 Act had authorized Interstate 
458 

construction funds through FY 1976, but without approval to use the 1972 Interstate Cost Estimate, 

the Department did not have the legal authority to apportion additional Interstate funds. Early 

passage would allow States to proceed with Interstate projects using funds already authorized while 

Congress completed work on the new Federal-aid authorization legislation.

(A concurrent resolution is usually initiated on matters affecting the operations of both Houses of 

Congress. They are not equivalent to a bill and are not submitted to the President for approval. 

Instead, they normally are used to express facts, principles, opinions, and purposes. According to a 

1974 guide to congressional actions, the Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate would 

transmit approved concurrent resolutions to the Administrator of General Services for publication 

in a special part of the Statutes at Large. [How Our Laws Are Made, Government Printing Office, 

Stock No. 5271-00424, 1974, p. 8-9]) 

The committee announced that it would begin hearings on February 7. 

Engineering News-Record saw the expected battle in Congress shaping up as a repeat of the 

unsuccessful struggle in 1972. The committee bill was similar to the 1972 version of the bill, but 

did not allow the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for non-highway related transit facilities. It 

authorized $650 million a year for the Federal-aid primary system and $350 million for secondary 

highways. Urban extensions of primary and secondary highways would be funded at $350 million a 

year. One difference was that the authorization for the Federal-aid urban system was cut to $650 

million, with all of it available for highway-oriented mass transit. (The 1972 bill authorized $800 

million a year for the urban system, but required $300 million to be used for bus transit.) 

Henrik E. Stafseth, AASHO’s new executive secretary, said:

Congress is reacting by just getting a bill into the hopper as soon as possible. The fastest 

way to do this is by using last year’s bill. [“Fight on New Highway Act is Repeat of ’72,” 

Engineering News-Record, January 25, 1973, p. 24] 

In discussing the pending battle, an editorial in The New York Times emphasized the significance of 

the Los Angeles clean air plan. It gave “dramatic force” to the familiar arguments of critics that 

“major highways in cities and suburbs often disrupt neighborhoods, invade parks, obliterate 

historical landmarks, and usually intensify the traffic congestion they are designed to relive.” The 

editorial endorsed Senator Muskie’s bills. “Before gas masks and gas rationing become the order of 

the day, it is time for Congress and the Department of Transportation to draw up the plans and take 

the action to meet a rapidly developing emergency.” [“Coming Up For Air,” The New York Times, 

January 27, 1973] 

On January 31, 1973, Senators Kennedy and Weicker introduced the Highways and Related

Transportation Systems Improvement Act of 1973. Under the bill, 90 percent of non-Interstate 

funds would be apportioned to the States. Half of this amount would be administered by the State 

Governors, and the other half passed through by the Governors directly to local governments in the 

metropolitan areas where some 73 percent of citizens reside. The non-Interstate funds could be 
459 

used for highways, as at present, or for acquisition, construction, improvement, operation, or 

maintenance of public transportation systems, including rail transit. 

The remaining 10 percent of non-Interstate funds would be available to the Secretary of 

Transportation for discretionary use to help urban areas meet the ambient air quality standards of 

the Clean Air Act and emergency relief programs in the event of a natural disaster.

For the funds apportioned to the States, the Governors would use their portion and pass through the 

urban share based on population. The bill required comprehensive planning at the State and urban 

area levels with the objective being “the solution of transportation problems with a combination of 

roads, rail, and buses that makes the most sense.” Comprehensive plans were not possible, Senator 

Kennedy said, “when adequate funding existed only for the construction of highways.” Without 

sufficient funding, “transportation planning will remain an empty exercise for planners.” 

The Governor must approve the State plan and submit it to the Secretary of Transportation for 

approval. The Secretary may approve it only if the State considered “social, environmental, and 

economic impacts of various mixes of transportation modes for solving transportation problems.” 

Senator Kennedy explained that by approving the Cooper-Muskie amendment in 1972, the Senate 

had “finally blasted the first crack in the transportation ethos that more highways are the only 

answer to our transportation needs.” He continued: 

Now it is time to extend that recognition to the Congress as a whole and to permanently 

change the highway trust fund from a federal conduit for concrete into a sensible national 

mechanism to finance transportation solutions—whether they call for mass rail transit, 

buses, intercity rail or essential highways. 

Now was the time, he said, because of “the transportation crisis that now exists.” He summarized 

the problems stemming from “a free-flowing Federal spigot that has poured out more than $53 

billion for the past 16 years” for highways: “too many cars and trucks in urban areas, severe decay 

of the environment and financial distress in key segments of the transport industry.” The “failure to 

examine the concrete dream that has produced federally financed highways that are laden with air 

pollution” was given renewed emphasis by EPA Administrator Ruckelshaus’s proposed rationing of 

gasoline consumption in the Los Angeles area. “A major city is being told to kick its autos off the 

streets if it wants to assure an adequate supply of clean air to its citizens.” He emphasized the 

larger point: 

While Los Angeles may be unique in its geographical and meteorological characteristics, the 

essential element remains: almost total reliance on highways and the automobile to meet 

transportation requirements has produced a host of environmental, social, and economic 

disasters in its wake.

In addition to authorizing $3.25 billion for Interstate construction for each of the next 6 years, the 

bill required a review of remaining Interstate routes and a halt of those in urban areas where cities 

and States concurred. The funds for withdrawn routes could be used in the area for transportation 
460 

projects, including mass rail transit. The substitute plan would require continuation of the Interstate 

System around a city via a bypass or beltway. Senator Kennedy explained that these provisions 

were particularly critical because $17.5 billion of the $30.7 billion remaining cost of completion 

involved urban Interstate segments that “often carry unacceptable environmental, social and 

economic consequences in their wake.” He cited his home State as an example:

Thus, in Boston, after a 33-month exhaustive study, the Governor concluded that it was in 

the public interest to put a permanent moratorium on interstate routes planned through the 

Boston metropolitan area. Instead, he opted, and wisely I believe, for a plan that 

concentrated on mass transit. Highways still will be constructed, but not through urban 

neighborhoods or scarce parklands or historic sites. 

Similar actions appear likely in a host of other cities where routes have been stalled by 

citizen and court actions. 

In all of these areas, present law prohibits money allocated for highway routes to be used for 

any other purpose. If it is not used to complete the original route, then it is reallocated to 

another area. Nor is the bill introduced by the committee an adequate answer since it still 

prohibits a single dollar of those funds from being used for mass rail transit.

Our bill would remedy this flaw, permitting the completing of an interstate network and at 

the same time promoting urban transportation solutions. 

Senator Kennedy said that unlike the 1972 version, the new bill did not mandate the formation of 

metropolitan transportation agencies. It did, however, strengthen and encourage them by providing 

that in the new planning process, elected officials and citizens would be involved from the 

inception of the plan. “Elected authorities would participate in the management of the planning 

agency and they would have voting power proportional to their population.” 

This shift was the key because “it provides flexibility to local and State decisionmakers on how to 

meet their transportation needs and it assures adequate funds to permit the creation of a balanced 

transportation system.” The bill did not mandate more mass transit and fewer highways, but for the 

first time, “it does not distort the planning process by tempting financially pressed cities and States 

with Federal dollars for highways and virtually nothing for any other transportation programs.” 

In drafting the planning section of the bill, Senator Kennedy said, “The critical issue to be decided 

is whether we will give the mayors and the governors new options to enable them to meet these 

problems.” The bill tried to separate State highway officials from transportation decisionmaking. 

Elected Governors and elected local officials, the Senators reasoned, “have the best understanding 

of the transportation priorities of their regions.” In short, they were more likely to be responsive to 

citizen/voter demands for alternative transportation modes than unelected highway officials who 

saw highways as the solution to most transportation problems. 

Senator Kennedy introduced the bill, designated S. 679, as well as articles on “the transportation 

crisis.” The reprints included articles about the EPA plan for the Los Angeles area, William 

Shannon’s Times article “The Untrustworthy Highway Fund,” a statement by Theodore Kheel (“The 
461 

Fight for a Transportation System That Works”), a piece by Ben Kelley (“The Highway Lobby—

Congestion and Pollution”), newspaper articles about the difficulties confronting mass transit, and 

an article by Senator Kennedy called “Our Nationwide Transportation Mess.” 

Senator Weicker emphasized that the bill did not interfere with Interstate construction funding. 

“The important distinction is the treatment of an estimated $2.75 billion allocated for noninterstate 

funding.” The bill simply gave State and local officials a new option for the use of this funding on 

rail or bus transit. Further, funding for these areas would go directly to metropolitan areas under a 

pass-through provision based on each city’s size: 

The overall intent of these pass-through provision is to stimulate transportation planning in 

urban areas at the local level. And, in fact, money becomes available under the passthrough 

[sic] only when a city or agency has a comprehensive transportation plan approved by the 

Secretary of Transportation and the Governor. 

He called the new bill “the most progressive and appropriate plan for applying our Highway Trust 

Fund to the transportation needs of America.” He continued: 

Highways were our first priority when the trust fund was set up in 1956. But the building of 

highways became a national obsession—and this obsession has caused what can only be 

described as “the great American motion sickness.”

Our transportation system has become an indifferent, inefficient, destructive, and deadly 

“beast of national burden” . . . . What we are now saying to the Congress is that the 

highway trust fund is no more sacrosanct than any other federal project, regardless of what it 

is called . . . . [The] highway lobby in Washington has fought a vigorous battle to protect 

“its” fund. Arrogantly they claim to speak for all Americans, and unfortunately most 

Americans are too lazy to face them down.

Because the problem “has been a creeping rather than instantaneous disaster,” people sat in their 

cars and grumbled while accepting “the traffic jams, the death, the pollution, the environmental 

desecration.” He repeated the parable he had used in 1972 about cooking a frog, concluding as he 

had then, “In terms of transportation, we are the frog and we had better jump or - ” [Congressional 

Record-Senate, January 31, 1973, p. 2688-2705, statement ended as shown] 

President Nixon was continuing to impound funds as part of his plan for economic stabilization. In 

early February, the White House announced that it was holding $8.7 billion in “reserve.” The 

largest item in the list of impoundments was $2.5 billion in Federal-aid highway funds that were 

being withheld to “help maintain economic stability without undue price and cost increases.” Other 

transportation impoundments included $20 million in urban mass transit projects, $207 million in 

FAA air facilities construction, and $50 million in National Park Service road construction. 

The President had defended impoundments during a January 31 news conference.
462 

Q. Mr. President, how do you respond to criticism that your impoundment of funds 

abrogates power or authority that the Constitution gave to Congress? 

A. The same way that Jefferson did, and Jackson did, and Truman did . . . . The 

constitutional right for the President of the United States to impound funds—and that is not 

to spend money, when the spending of money would mean either increasing prices or 

increasing taxes for all the people—that right is absolutely clear.

He acknowledged that Congress wanted responsibility for funding decisions: 

Believe me, it would be pleasant to have more sharing of responsibility by the Congress. 

But if you are going to have responsibility, you have to be responsible, and this Congress . . 

. has not been responsible on money. 

He had checked the campaigns of every Member of Congress, he said, and reported that “I didn’t 

find one Member of Congress, liberal or conservative, who had campaigned on the platform of 

raising taxes in order that we could spend more.” Congress had to choose whether to raise taxes or 

cut programs. That was difficult for Members of Congress because they often represented special 

interests. The President was the one person who spoke for the general interest, not the special 

interests: 

Therefore, I will not spend money if the Congress overspends, and I will not be for 

programs that will raises the taxes and put a bigger burden on the already overburdened 

American taxpayer.

Deputy Attorney General Joseph Sneed testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s 

Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights that precedent and the Constitution upheld the President’s 

right to impound. Senator Ervin, chairman of the subcommittee, replied, “Every generation has its 

murderers and thieves, but that doesn’t make murder meritorious or larceny legal.” [“Congress 

Challenges Nixon Budget Priorities,” Engineering News-Record, February 15, 1973, p. 12] 

On the eve of appearing before the renamed Senate Subcommittee on Transportation, Secretary 

Brinegar announced that he was abolishing the post of Assistant Secretary for Environmental and 

Urban Systems, the post once held by former Seattle Mayor Braman, and creating a position for an 

Assistant Secretary to handle congressional relations, which Secretary Volpe had handled himself. 

John E. Hirten, an architect and urban planner who had held the environmental position since July 

1971, would become an Assistant to the Secretary, while his former duties would be spread among 

other Assistant Secretaries. 

For the new post of Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, Brinegar 

selected Robert T. Monagan, a former Republican leader in the California State Assembly. In the 

State Assembly, he had voted regularly to use part of the State’s gas tax for mass transit. According 

to unnamed Department sources, Brinegar concluded that the veteran politician Monagan would be 

more effective at lobbying Congress than the politically inexperienced Secretary. [Braestrup, Peter, 

“New DOT Job Seen Going to Monagan,” The Washington Post, February 6, 1973] 
463 

Hearings Get Underway

The Subcommittee on Transportation of the Senate’s Public Works Committee began hearings on 

its bill, S. 502, on February 7. The Department of Transportation had not yet completed its 

legislative proposal, but Secretary Brinegar would be one of the witnesses on this first day. 

Chairman Bentsen began by summarizing the failure of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 after 

the House and Senate had reached agreement on the final day of the 92nd Congress. The Federal-aid 

highway program could continue through the end of FY 1973 (June 30, 1973), “but many States, 

including my own, are rapidly depleting their resources for continued highway upgrading and 

development.” States were uncertain whether to program projects for FY 1974, but “I do not 

believe we would serve our cause or the Nation’s by rushing this measure through without a 

thorough examination of the issues involved.” He would not, he said, “sacrifice responsible 

highway legislation in the name of expediency. 

To ensure a balanced and comprehensive view, he had scheduled nearly 40 witnesses “from all 

walks of life” to discuss the serious questions before the subcommittee: 

I have directed the various witnesses to address themselves to the most difficult and 

controversial issues confronting us, including, the proper authorization levels for the various 

Federal-aid programs, interstate, primary, secondary, and urban; the value of retaining the 

various categorical programs as opposed to encompassing them under three or four general 

headings; the use of highway trust funds for public transportation purposes, including rail 

transit; the so-called “pass through” of highway funds to urban areas, bypassing the States; 

the transfer of interstate mileage and the substitution of alternative segments by the States; 

and the advisability of the so-called “priority primary” system in last year’s House bill, 

which would have authorized a new 10,000-mile system to approximate interstate standards 

using selected, heavily traveled roads.

He acknowledged that S. 502 contained $500 million less from the Highway Trust Fund and the 

general fund than the bill the Senate passed in 1972. The total still represented “a substantial 

investment for highways and highway related purposes,” but he recognized “that the needs in these 

areas must be viewed in light of our efforts to contain inflation and offer reductions in Government 

spending.” 

The day before, February 6, a school bus collision with a train in his home State of Texas had killed

seven children and injured several others. This tragedy in Littlefield dramatized “the serious 

national problems of highway safety in the United States.” He said he would introduce a 

comprehensive highway safety bill in a few weeks. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, 

Hearings, Subcommittee on Transportation, Committee on Public Works, United States Senate, 1st

Session, 93rd Congress, Serial No. 93-H2, Government Printing Office, 1973, p. 1-3] 

(According to a contemporary AP account, a Santa Fe freight train slammed into the rear of the 

school bus at a speed of 58 mph. Red signal lights at the rail-highway crossing were working. 

Seven children were killed, including two sets of brothers and sisters. Seventeen were injured, 
464 

including the bus driver. [Associated Press, “7 Killed in School Bus Crash,” The Daily Register, 

Red Bank, New Jersey, February 7, 1973]), 

Senator Bentsen introduced Senator Randolph, who acknowledged that, “We are in a period of 

change, perhaps even more important, a period of challenge.” In addition to the usual issues 

involved in any Federal-Aid Highway Act, he said the subcommittee faced “the overriding 

controversy of the relationship of the highway program to mass transit.” He wanted to listen to all 

voices, but his view was clear:

I believe highway funds can and should be used to strengthen public transportation systems 

that are oriented to the use of highways. This is the type of public transportation on which 

most American communities depend, and it is the type that can be expanded, realistically 

expanded, rather quickly to meet situations that we have in certain areas of our country. 

He would continue to support funding for mass transit from sources other than the Highway Trust 

Fund, but said that “we have a job to do, the completion of the Interstate System and the 

improvement of other roads.” 

He pointed out that Congress had created a second trust fund for airports and airways rather than 

tapping the Highway Trust Fund. Now, the Senate was considering additional funding for airports 

and airways complexes. “There was no effort made to amend that legislation . . . to divert that 

money from the airport and airways trust fund for mass or urban or rail transit.” As this example 

suggested, “I believe that we will find if we are diligent, ways in which we can fund mass transit 

from other sources, Mr. Chairman, rather than to deplete the highway trust funds, and set in motion 

a deterioration of this worthwhile effort.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 68-69] 

Senator Baker discussed Senate Concurrent Resolution 6: 

This measure would provide the Secretary of Transportation the authority to apportion 

Interstate System funds for 1974, so that while Congress debates the greater issues, the 

States will not lose the spring construction season for the Interstate System. This, I believe, 

is very important.

He emphasized the importance of the subcommittee’s first task in providing for completion of the 

Interstate System “as quickly as possible.” He continued: 

Second, provide for an orderly, intelligent, attractive system of urban mass transit for the 

United States of America, and third, begin to decide the future of the highway program, and 

its relation to a unified transportation system. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 

70-72] 

Next, Senator Muskie introduced his three measures. He said that when the Senate approved the 

Cooper-Muskie amendment in 1972, “it was clear that a more flexible and more sensible 

transportation policy was a necessary step in securing for us the benefits of growth without making 

us its victims.” His revised version of the amendment “would correct the most glaring flaw in our 
465 

present transportation—a closed circle of Federal funding which perpetuates highway construction 

as virtually the only solution to transportation problems that most cities and States can afford to 

choose.” 

After summarizing his two other bills, he said:

The automobile has revolutionized life in America, but now, it threatens in many ways to 

degrade the quality of life in America. Highways and the cars that use them pollute the air 

and menace our health, transform and degrade the urban environment, inefficiently consume 

our resources, and distort our transportation priorities.

The costs of air pollution take the highest toll among the residents of our Nation’s great 

cities, where motor vehicle emissions account for upward of 80 percent of urban air 

pollution . . . . 

Highways and automobiles have had as destructive an effect on our cities themselves as they 

have had on the health of the people who live in those cities. Highway construction divides 

our urban areas into ribbons of concrete, separating people from their jobs and from each 

other, destroying the integrity of communities, and encouraging suburban sprawl and other 

questionable land uses. The senseless construction of urban freeways has run roughshod 

over the real transportation needs of city residents, displacing hundreds of thousands of 

people and businesses in the process. 

They also were leading the Nation into “an energy crisis from which there may be no road back.” 

Motor vehicles used 40 percent of all petroleum consumed in the United States, with 55 percent of 

that share devoted to private cars. “In light of an impending energy and fuels crisis, this waste is 

unacceptable; but as long as automobiles remain our principal mode of urban transportation, that 

reckless consumption of dwindling supplies of fuel will continue unchecked.” 

Clearly, he said, “Americans are paying a heavy price for the luxury and convenience of private 

automobile transportation.” Many Americans who paid the price got nothing in return. “For these 

Americans, the highway trust fund and the transportation system it creates rob Peter to pay Paul.” 

Urban Americans without a car did not have the mobility “to gain access to adequate education, 

health care, job opportunities, and other necessities . . . .” 

The Highway Trust Fund, he said, perpetuated these “inequities and imbalanced transportation 

priorities,” and the time for change was now. His three measures “will not provide automatically 

the ingenious new transportation systems we need nor quick public acceptance of mass 

transportation as a substitute for the luxury and convenience of the private automobile.” However, 

diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue “must come first, both to signify our willingness to 

change and to make it financially possible to do so.” 

In closing, he cited the I-93 Connector in Boston and asked the subcommittee to reprint an article 

from Newsweek called “Boston—The Road to Nowhere” (the issue of February 12, 1973) that cited 

the nicknames that “disgruntled city fathers and private citizens alike” call the new connector: “that 
466 

stupid thing,” “the road that goes nowhere,” and “the $100 million misunderstanding.” Far from 

relieving traffic jams, opening the road “will almost certainly make them worse—and a good deal 

more dangerous.” The highway was, the article said, “an idea whose time has gone,” and explained 

that when Governor Sargent imposed his moratorium, the I-93 Connector was excepted because 

“with $60 million invested in the project and 90 per cent Federal financing guaranteed for the 

remaining cost, it was cheaper for the state to finish the job than call if off.” 

Senator Muskie concluded: 

This road to nowhere epitomizes the ridiculous misallocation of spending priorities which 

the current highway program fosters, and which I hope this year’s highway legislation will 

find a way to correct. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 73-74, 94-95] 

Secretary Brinegar’s Busy Day: A.M.

Secretary Brinegar was the first witness. He began by saying that since his confirmation hearing, he 

had spent “a substantial amount of time” studying existing programs and the proposals from 1972 

to formulate current policy. He did not consider himself “a 30-day expert on all aspects of this 

important program,” but he had done his homework and was prepared to discuss the issues. 

In view of the disruption caused by failure to pass the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, he said 

that the Administration supported Senator Baker’s Senate Concurrent Resolution 6. It was not a 

substitute for a comprehensive bill, but it would alleviate the situation in States whose Interstate 

highway authorizations were running short. 

He had not yet completed work on the Department’s bill, but he would outline its broad concepts, 

provide the Administration’s views on S. 502, and respond to Senator Bentsen’s questions to all 

witnesses.

The Senate’s adoption of the Cooper-Muskie amendment in 1972 “broke important new ground in 

adding flexibility to the uses [of highway funding], and we believe it is of utmost importance to 

continue in this direction. Federally supported highways had made cities accessible, but too many 

cars made them almost inaccessible at times. At the same time, public transit systems “have 

become increasingly incapable of offering attractive alternatives.” 

The Administration would address these problems in three directions. First, it would propose to 

extend the FY 1974 funding level of $1 billion for UMTA to continue another 3 years. Second, 

local officials could use General Revenue Sharing ($6 billion a year) to address pressing needs. 

And third, Secretary Brinegar favored additional flexibility in the use of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue in urban areas to deal “with transportation alternatives that will improve the cities’ overall 

transportation systems.” They were not a substitute for UMTA’s capital program:

Rather, they will be aimed more at the myriad of capital needs that every urban area has and 

can best develop its own program to solve. No doubt, funds will go to meet highway needs, 

some will go for bus lanes and related investments, some will go to purchase buses, and 
467 

some would go to make capital improvements in urban rail systems. The end result, of 

course, is to allow cities to find ways to improve their overall transportation systems. The 

fiscal year 1974 budget sets an authorization of $1.1 billion for this purpose. 

He emphasized that he did not agree with those who thought the use of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue for nonhighway projects was unfair to highway users who paid the tax. First, motorists 

would be better off if mass transit, whether bus or rail, reduced traffic on urban roads to relieve 

congestion. Second, he pointed out that the taxes combined into the Highway Trust Fund were 

existing taxes credited prior to 1956 to the general Treasury. Approximately 50 percent of highway 

user revenue would have been collected for general purposes if the Highway Trust Fund had not 

been created. “Thus, on grounds of equity it seems fair to consider that a sizable amount of trust 

fund moneys could be legitimately used for transportation purposes that broadly benefit a large 

segment of the population.” 

The only question was to determine the “fair portion” of Highway Trust Fund revenue that could be 

used for this broader purpose. He considered one-quarter of the general fund-type taxes to be fair. 

Therefore, he was recommending that $1.1 billion or slightly over 20 percent of all Highway Trust 

Fund revenues be available for flexible uses. Accordingly, Federal-aid urban system funds should 

be available for capital highway and mass transit projects, including rapid rail systems, subject to 

decisions by State and local governments. Similarly, State officials should have the option of using 

Federal-aid highway funds in rural areas for highways or bus service projects. 

Secretary Brinegar also discussed the pass-through provision. The Administration had supported 

pass-through for local general purpose units of government that created a metropolitan agency 

equipped to address transportation problems on an areawide basis. The Senate’s 1972 bill had 

adopted the idea. S. 502 contained a similar provision, the difference being that the cutoff for 

earmarking funds to urbanized areas was 250,000 population instead of 50,000. The 

Administration had modified its position as well:

We would recommend that the urban system funds be earmarked only for urbanized areas 

which have a population of 400,000 or more. Some 55 areas fall into this category. We 

believe that the problems of such cities are extremely complex and that these cities are more 

likely to have the organization and staff to solve their own problems. For areas smaller than 

400,000, we think that the State should continue to play the primary role in developing 

transportation programs. Also, we would recommend a modification which would permit 

general purpose agencies to be the recipients of pass through funds, as well as single 

purpose transportation agencies. We encourage the formation of State departments of 

transportation, for example, but we do not believe that the Federal Government should be 

fostering the creation of otherwise unnecessary special purpose agencies at the city level.

The Department wanted to continue the vital Federal-State partnership “and we envision the States 

playing an important role in determining suitable institutional arrangements, such as having the 

authority to approve the makeup and boundaries of local general-purpose agencies chosen to 

receive the funds.” 
468 

In 1972, the Secretary recalled, the Administration had supported the Interstate transfer provision of 

the Senate’s 1972 Act that authorized unlimited mileage to facilitate transfers and substitutions, 

with the estimated cost of the withdrawn segment determining the amount available for 

substitutions. S. 502 differed in allowing the substitution of other important highway and public 

transportation projects. Secretary Brinegar described this change as “a laudable move toward 

flexibility,” but he suggested several changes. In particular, “we do not believe that as a general 

rule, if an interstate segment is dropped, a new interstate segment should be designated.” The State 

and locality should “be given the option to use these funds on any other Federal-aid system, 

including the urban flexible fund, at the prevailing matching ratio.” 

Regarding the proposed alternative Federal-aid highway procedures, he was concerned that they 

stripped the Secretary of adequate controls. He favored a more moderate approach similar to the 

procedures used on the Federal-aid secondary program. Extending these procedures to the other 

systems would “eliminate unnecessary engineering and construction supervision and still retain the 

cooperative Federal-State relationship that has existed over the past 50 years.” 

He favored consolidation of categories, particularly those focused on urban areas, and urged 

Congress to “resist the continued proliferation of new categorical grant-in-aid programs.” They 

were inconsistent with the goal of increased flexibility for State and local officials. He also 

opposed the priority primary concept. “Now that the Interstate System is nearing completion, we 

should avoid the creation of such programs and should give the States more flexibility to determine 

and meet their future transportation needs.” 

The Department’s bill, he said, would request authorizations for 3 years instead of the traditional 2 

years. “With the failure to enact a bill last year, to remain on a biennial cycle could require 

Congress to enact a bill this year and then again next year.” 

Finally, he addressed an issue that had come up during his confirmation hearing, namely whether 

Congress should exempt specific projects from environmental statutes. He had replied at the time 

that he generally did not favor granting exceptions. Now, he said, he could say that he opposed the 

practice because, “it is my belief that granting exemptions for single projects increases pressure to 

exempt a large number of other sensitive projects, and could seriously compromise the 

environmental laws which Congress has directed me and others to enforce.” [Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 95-102] 

Senator Bentsen began the questioning by recalling that in 1972, Secretary Volpe had assured the 

Public Works Committee that OMB had promised to let FHWA spend the $3.25 billion in the 1972 

bill for the Interstate System. S. 502 retained that amount and Secretary Brinegar had mentioned it, 

but the President’s budget referred to only $2.6 billion. Initially, the Secretary deferred an answer 

because he had been focusing on “the larger issues, the general thrust of the program” during his 

few weeks in office. He had not had time to review Secretary Volpe’s testimony or speak to him 

about it. In a written response submitted later, the Secretary explained that Interstate funding was a 

long-term measure; if sufficient funds were not made available in one year, they would be made 

available in a subsequent year. The $2.6 billion in the President’s budget for FY 1974 was the 

program level needed “to promote the economic well being of the Nation.” 
469 

Looking at the budget for the entire program, Senator Bentsen saw the Administration was 

requesting a total program of $5.35 billion, but only $4.4 billion in obligations. “Are we saying that 

you are talking about impounding approximately a billion dollars?” Secretary Brinegar 

acknowledged that impoundment “is a particularly technical and, partly, legal issue” but it was one 

that “I am not prepared to discuss today in any depth.” 

If the country was not going to spend the tax revenue collected, Senator Bentsen asked, should the 

tax be reduced? The Secretary had not yet reviewed enough information to comment on needs, “but 

I do want to make the point that the revenues and program levels each year have not necessarily 

balanced out.” He cited Administrator Ruckelshaus’ plan to ration gasoline in the Los Angeles area 

as an example of how future revenue levels are not easily predicted. He later submitted a written 

reply that the Administration did not recommend a tax change now, but tax rates could be 

considered in the future “as we attempt to define a Federal transportation program for the post 

Interstate period.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 102-105] 

Senator Buckley, during his question period, said that “the heartbeat of the city lies in movement” 

and pointed out that since he understood that 50 percent of Highway Trust Fund revenue came from 

urban areas, “I think this should be an allocation of a fair share to the cities.” He was concerned

about the article in The Washington Post indicating that the post of Assistant Secretary of 

Transportation for Environment and Urban Affairs was being abolished. He pointed out that this 

was the office that reviewed all NEPA statements and this function “would be assigned, for 

example, respectively to the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Aviation 

Administration,” as contained in a DOT Order dated February 5. 

Secretary Brinegar appreciated the opportunity to correct the article. He had simply reorganized the 

Office of the Secretary “so that the areas I find most closely related are under the proper staff 

people.” He now had an Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Consumer Affairs “so the 

function has by no means been moved away.” He shifted the urban systems function to the staff 

involved with planning and programs across the whole system. Moreover, former Assistant 

Secretary Hirten was now “my principal assistant, and will advise me personally on matters in the 

environmental area.” He continued: 

The responsibility for reviewing environmental statements was placed with the 

administrators. This was based on my conception and belief that these people should be 

forced to deal responsively with the environmental issues. I am by no means turning my 

back on these things . . . . I think we are strengthening them in a way that will allow us to 

speak more quickly and more effectively. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 

105-106] 

Senator Pete V. Domenici (R-NM), a former Mayor of Albuquerque who had won his first term 

during the 1972 Nixon landslide, recalled Senator Muskie’s reference to robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

Since the country had enough highway needs for all Highway Trust Fund revenue, was that not 

what we would be doing, robbing Peter to pay Paul, if that revenue were diverted to other needs? 

Secretary Brinegar had not yet fully absorbed all the data to respond, but did believe that “the 

problems in front of us are very much tied to highway problems as we move to our big cities, so I 
470 

must say yes, there are adequate funds to do what we are trying to do in the near term.” [FederalAid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 106-107] 

Senator William L. Scott (R-Va.) said he was frustrated about delays in building I-66 into the city. 

“I hate to think that our Government is so ineffective that we cannot build a highway.” (Scott had 

defeated Senator Spong in November 1972 and was serving his first term; he was the first 

Republican to represent Virginia in the Senate since the post-Civil War reconstruction era.) He 

knew about the court action delaying the route, but he wanted to know what the Secretary could do 

to expedite construction “and without telling us why it cannot be built.” Secretary Brinegar noted 

that he now lived in Virginia and was aware of the problems of getting into and out of the city. 

However, “I have to admit I have not yet gotten to I-66.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 

502, p. 107-108] 

Senator Baker agreed with Senator Scott about the need for I-66, but wanted to state that Senate 

Concurrent Resolution 6 was not a substitute for the needed comprehensive legislation. “The 

resolution is simply to enable the Interstate to proceed at once, so as to avoid the prospect of losing 

this construction season.” He cited his home State of Tennessee, which he said “will miss bid 

opening for this spring, and will effectively, delay for a year completion of much needed sections of 

the Interstate Highway System.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 108-109] 

When Senator Bentsen’s turn came again, he asked for the Secretary’s position on operating 

subsidies for mass transit. The Secretary mentioned that he would be testifying soon before the 

Senate Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs and would oppose subsidies. In that case, 

what did the Secretary think about adding a penny to the gas tax for mass transit, a proposal that 

would raise $1 billion over 5 years? Secretary Brinegar could not speak directly to the question but 

said that President Nixon “has spoken in broad terms about not wishing to raise any taxes in the 

years that are ahead of us.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 109-110] 

Senator Buckley, in his second round of questions, asked if the Department was studying the postInterstate period “when the primary national interest in the highway construction is at an end”? One 

idea was to turn the major responsibility for highways over to the States. Secretary Brinegar 

explained that the 1972 Report to Congress on National Highway Needs covered the period of the 

1970s. The 1974 report would cover the 1980s. “It is far too early, however, to draw any 

conclusions, but certainly we would not rule out studies of the feasibility of reducing the Federal 

role substantially and placing greater control in the States and communities.”

The Senator also asked if the delegation of final NEPA authority to the Modal Administrators had 

been cleared with the Council on Environmental Quality. The Secretary replied in bureaucratic 

terms:

Sir, there again, the use of the word final is not proper. What we are striving for is to have 

the work done in the agencies. We feel they must work with the concepts in the 

organizational structure that is down the line. Final authority has not been delegated. I have 

a staff process to make sure that we are involved. We are discussing it with the Council on 
471 

Environmental Quality, and we will proceed properly, I assure you. [Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 110-111] 

Senator Domenici, in his second round, wanted to make clear that although New Mexico was a 

rural State, he fully supported mass transportation. However, with roadway needs so great, he 

questioned the idea that diverting highway funds “could really have an impact on that [mass transit] 

need when we see systems that are costing five, six, eight, 10 times the original estimates in their 

experimental stages.” Secretary Brinegar thought the issue came down to two questions: 

First, are we able to forecast the cost of the system when we start—and that is an issue I will 

address myself to as an administrator—and, second, how do you establish, allocate 

priorities? 

He would do his best to address both points over time. 

Finally, Senator Domenici emphasized that he wanted to be sure that rural States received their fair 

share of the roadway dollar. Could Secretary Brinegar confirm that “a State like ours with no desire 

to have a mass transportation operation in it would not get less than it would have otherwise 

received?” The Secretary replied, “Yes, sir.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 111-

112] 

Senator Scott asked the Secretary’s view on retaining all highway tax revenue for highways until 

the Interstate System was completed before considering diversion. “It just seems, Mr. Secretary . . . 

that if you are using all of the money for one purpose and then you start using it for two purposes, 

that the consequence will be delay.” The Secretary said he did not see the split as involving two 

purposes. With 80 percent of the Interstate System open, and most of the remaining mileage in 

urban areas, the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit “is just a matter of adding 

another step to help the cities solve the problems.” 

After again discussing I-66, which then ended at the Capital Beltway and was his commuter route 

into the city, Senator Scott asked about the suggestion that highway funds bypass the State highway 

agency and go directly to urban areas. The Secretary acknowledged that areas over 400,000 

population, including two in Virginia, would have the option of receiving the funds directly on a 

pass-through basis. He also acknowledged that Highway Trust Fund revenues could be used for 

mass transit at local option. The Senator made his position clear: 

Let me say unequivocally, I will vote against any measure that takes any money out of the 

highway trust fund for any purpose other than highways until the Interstate System is 

completed, so you have one obstinate member of this committee. [Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 112-114] 

Senator Randolph emphasized the importance of citizen involvement in highway planning at an 

early stage. He had tried to provide needed legislation, but wanted to know if the Secretary could 

direct FHWA to more fully implement the statutory requirements. “I do not want to use the word 

‘subvert’ lightly, but I think this has been happening.” 
472 

The Secretary had not yet considered this issue, but promised to submit a response in writing. His 

written statement indicated that additional legislation was not needed. FHWA had been working 

aggressively in this area through policy requirements and research. One policy, which had been 

implemented in September 1972, directed the State highway agencies to develop environmental 

Action Plans for identification of social, economic, and environmental effects; consideration of 

alternative courses of action; involvement of other agencies and the public; and use of a systematic, 

interdisciplinary approach. The plans had to include early citizen participation in the highway 

development process. Details were left to the States, which could exercise considerable freedom 

based on their unique needs and condition. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 114-119; 

America's Highways 1776-1976, FHWA, 1976, p. 375] 

Senator Muskie used his next question period to ask several quick questions. Did the Secretary 

support the revised Cooper-Muskie amendment, now called the Muskie-Baker amendment? “We 

are looking at it.” Did the Secretary believe a formula should be developed to limit State highway 

department discretion in urban areas? The Secretary supported pass-through of Federal-aid urban 

system funds for urban areas with populations of 400,000 or more. Did the Department have a 

view on S. 739, which allowed the Secretary to use up to 10 percent of the Highway Trust Fund for 

emergency plans in areas such as Los Angeles that could not meet air quality standards? The 

Secretary was not ready to offer a position. 

What was the Department’s position on substituting the Governor for the State highway department 

as the primary policymaking authority for highway programs? The Secretary submitted a written 

response that substituting the Governor “would cause serious difficulties in States where 

transportation policy-making authority is vested in the State legislatures.” In other States where the 

highway agency is responsible to the executive branch, “an amendment along these lines has no 

major impact.” The department would not support such a change. 

Senator Muskie wanted to respond to the argument that the provision might discriminate against 

rural areas and States:

I would like to point out that 51 percent of all trust fund revenues come from urban areas, 

and for regular Federal aid routes other than Interstate, urban areas receive $475 million, 

while rural areas receive $950 million. So the argument of discrimination ought to be in the 

perspective of those facts. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 119-120] 

Senator Bentsen asked how the Secretary arrived at the figure of 400,000 as the cut-off for passthrough to urban areas. Secretary Brinegar said “we looked at the list of cities that might be 

affected, and in looking for a proper breaking point for the various urban areas, 400,000 seemed to 

give us the 55 major areas we thought should be included.” He was open to considering different 

views. “We don’t have the final answer.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 123] 

The Secretary’s Busy Day: P.M.

That afternoon, Secretary Brinegar appeared before the Subcommittee on Housing and Urban 

Affairs of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs to discuss the proposed 
473 

Emergency Commuter Relief Act, S. 386. Senator Williams had introduced the measure on 

January 16 to provide for Federal-aid to defray operating expenses of mass transit systems. At the 

start of the hearing on February 6, Senator Williams said: 

This would be a program of grants on a two-thirds Federal, one-third matching basis, to 

State or local bodies to assist any mass transportation system maintaining service in an 

urban area, and to pay operating expenses incurred as a result of providing this service. 

Included within the terms of such assistance are grants for debt servicing for mass transit 

investments.

The operation assistance provisions are geared to fulfilling three prime objectives: 

Maintenance of service to the public; stimulation of further ridership, especially in the 

commuter peak-hour category; and assistance to communities in meeting their overall 

development aims. 

The bill authorized $800 million over the next 2 years, a figure based on the hearing record during 

the 92nd Congress. It also provided $3 billion in contract authority for the capital grant program 

under the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 and increased the Federal share to 90 percent for 

capital assistance projects to provide parity with Interstate highway projects. 

He stated that, “Today, we once again begin hearings—or rather rehearings—on the problems and 

prospects of mass transit,” adding, “Like the Gospel, we don’t expect the story to contain any 

surprises—its strength and power is in the retelling.” Many witnesses would testify, but “even as 

we hear their testimony, we must face the grim fact that costs are going up, fares are increasing, and 

as a result, service is being curtailed and more and more transit riders are being forced to use private 

automobiles.” 

They had heard all the arguments against the measure in previous years. The delay in passing the 

1972 bill had “the one great benefit . . . that the grim predictions once made to rebut such arguments 

have come to pass.” More systems had failed and gone into public ownership while ridership 

declined as a result of deteriorating service. [Emergency Commuter Relief Act, Hearings on S. 386, 

Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, 

United States Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, February 6 and 7, 1973, Government Printing 

Office, 1973, p. 1-3] 

Before beginning testimony, Senator Williams introduced statements on the bill. Senator Adlai 

Stevenson III (D-Il.), a cosponsor of the bill, pointed out that similar legislation had passed over the 

past 2 and a half years, “only to have its final passage founder.” Events during this period had 

rendered the situation a true “emergency,” and more appropriately a “crisis.” He cited Chicago as 

an example:

Chicago is under the threat of an order to be effected on February 18 raising Chicago Transit 

Authority fares to 50 cents—from 45 cents, already the highest average fare in the country—

closing down 23 “L” stations altogether, eliminating 18 bus lines, and curtailing most 

evening and weekend service.
474 

Chicago faced all the “attendant problems of pollution, relatively high energy consumption, 

congestion, too much concrete, and too little parking” that can lead to proposals such as the EPA’s 

draft plan to ration gasoline in the Los Angeles area. “The time is now to save mass transit. In 

doing so we shall be saving our cities.” [Emergency Commuter Relief Act, p. 10-11] 

Senator Weicker’s statement said that he had supported $800 million for subsidies in 1972, but had 

to exercise “some degree of caution” on S. 386 because he opposed “underwriting mediocrity, ad 

infinitum.” Operating subsidies “must go hand-in-hand with programs that will renovate and 

improve our transportation systems.” Opening up the Highway Trust Fund to transit, which he 

expected to happen in 1973, would not be sufficient to revitalize mass transit systems. 

Further, “We have seen what happens when transportation decisions have not been made by living 

humans, but rather by a highway trust fund created in 1956.” Since then, an “automatic pilot” had 

been turned on that allowed the “trust” concept to shape transportation policies. “Trust fund sounds 

so proper,” he said, but “the fact is that with the creation of the trust fund, the Congress of the 

United States turned over its responsibilities in the area of transportation to private interests.” He 

did not want the same pattern to apply to operating subsidies. Too often, cities examining mass 

transit “found a fatal downhill spiral of increasing fares, decreasing service, and diminishing 

ridership.” He said: 

The only way we can break away from deficits is by making a sufficient investment in 

research and development and capital improvements. We cannot expect the American 

taxpayer to shell out money to cover deficits, ad infinitum. This runs directly in the face of 

good business practice or good Government practice. 

He strongly supported the additional $3 billion to address capital needs:

To have balanced transportation in America, we must have a balanced attack on the deficits 

that plague the mass transit sector of our transportation systems. The approach taken in the 

allocation of $3.8 billion in the proposal we are considering today represents a most 

responsible and intelligent step in dealing with the mobility crisis in America. [Emergency 

Commuter Relief Act, p. 12-14] 

Representative Koch appeared to discuss a bill he had cosponsored, H.R. 2734, with Representative 

Fernand J. St. Germain (D, RI) to accomplish the same purposes as S. 386. After discussing the 

provisions of H.R. 2734, he said, “Outside help must be forthcoming if public transit is to be 

properly utilized.” He cited the new element of compliance with the Clean Air Amendments of 

1970. New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation had developed an air quality 

implementation plan that called for transportation control strategies involving fundamental changes 

in New York City’s transportation patterns, including restriction of vehicles during peak hours. The 

plan was geared to the 1977 deadline permitted by an EPA extension, but a recent decision by the 

Third District Court in Washington reversed the extension, “putting the city under even greater 

pressure than originally anticipated.” 
475 

He said he’d been before this committee, at this same desk, for 4 years, and hoped something would 

be different this time. Given all the support for mass transit, “it is hard to understand why . . . we 

haven’t had more success.” [Emergency Commuter Relief Act, p. 14-16] 

At 2 p.m. on February 7, Secretary Brinegar appeared before the committee accompanied by 

UMTA Administrator Frank Herringer and the Department’s General Counsel, John W. Barnum. 

Although the Department had not yet completed its bill, the Secretary was prepared to offer his 

views on S. 386. 

Regarding subsidies, the Secretary understood the plight of urban mass transportation. “Yet, I 

cannot believe that the approach proposed in S. 386 is the proper one.” Although every system was 

losing money, just five of the systems were responsible for 70 percent of the losses or $500 million 

(New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles). New York City, for example, 

reported a deficit in 1968 of $77 million, but the shortfall had increased to $179 million in 1972. 

“Simply offering to divide up $400 million a year amongst the Nation’s transit systems certainly 

will not arrest rapidly increasing deficits such as these.” 

Federal operating subsidies would offer the “easy way out,” he said, “and passing the higher costs 

and inefficiencies upward to the Federal level is to invite an accelerating subsidy program.” 

Subsidies would offer an excuse for system operators and their political partners to avoid 

addressing fares, routes, personnel, and wages that “can only properly be dealt with at the local 

level where the real knowledge and responsibility exists, and where ultimately the tough decisions 

have to be made.” The Secretary stated that “it is by no means clear that either the causes or the 

solutions are simple enough to be addressed by such a subsidy grant program as here proposed.” 

Finally, with over 1,000 transit systems in the United States, and at least 300 serving metropolitan 

areas of 50,000 and over, at least 500 would qualify for subsidy under S. 386. Properly judging 

needs and distributing the funds “would be most serious not to say costly, and time-consuming.” 

He cited labor costs:

Some systems, for example, have labor costs that are 60 percent of revenues while others 

are 80 percent. Should we insist that labor costs—or even particular labor rates—go down 

in the high ones or revenues up, or a little of both, or what? 

He did not want to be so negative, but “this problem, like many in our country, cannot be best 

handled by yet another Federal grant program.” 

He did support the provisions of S. 386 that increased capital grants funding and the flexible use of 

Federal-aid urban system funds. However, he opposed the provision to increase the Federal share 

from 661⁄4 to a mandatory 90 percent for capital grant projects. “We do favor shifting the maximum 

percentage to 70, to provide a level that makes it equal with highway funds, other than Interstate, 

and with the proposed flexible funds from the highway trust fund.” [Emergency Commuter Relief 

Act, p. 49-53] 
476 

Senator Williams detected what he considered an inconsistency. The Secretary acknowledged in 

questioning that the Nixon Administration’s proposal for Special Revenue Sharing for 

Transportation would have allowed the use of funding for operating subsidies. To be consistent, the 

Senator said, the Secretary should support the use of Federal-aid urban system funds for the same 

purpose. The Secretary disagreed:

When you have highways in the cities—and they do impact on transit systems in terms of 

capital construction—we feel that the money in the highway trust fund can legitimately be 

brought over and used to extend or modernize the transit systems that are intimately 

connected with the highway system. But to try to embrace within those concepts the 

operating deficit problem, we feel would overwhelm this program. [Emergency Commuter 

Relief Act, p. 54] 

Senator Robert Taft, Jr. (R-Oh.) asked if S. 386 should be amended to include an allocation formula 

for the operating subsidies. Secretary Brinegar could not state a position since he opposed the 

operating subsidies. In that case, Senator Taft asked, would the Secretary’s position be different if 

the legislation required transit systems to submit comprehensive mass transportation service 

improvement plans in return for help with operating expenses. The Secretary said, “I would have 

trouble embracing that, because, as I indicated, I think the proper long-term solutions are going to 

have to come from allocations at the local level.” [Emergency Commuter Relief Act, p. 56] 

(Secretary Brinegar’s comments about the departmental changes did not entirely satisfy the 

environmental community. An editorial in The Washington Post expressed concern about abolition 

of the post of Assistant Secretary for Environment and Urban Systems noting that Hirten had 

“performed valiantly” under Secretary Volpe. The Post also expressed concern about shifting 

environmental approvals to FHWA and the other agencies that funded the projects. 

(Concerns about these moves “were not relieved” by Secretary Brinegar’s explanation of them. 

However, DOT “loyalists” assured observers that, as the Post put it, “there is nothing sinister afoot 

at all.” The Secretary had simply needed to free an Assistant Secretary slot for congressional and 

intergovernmental affairs. Environmental affairs was chosen because, the editorial summarized, 

“the old-line transportation agencies have become so infused with an environmental conscience, 

and so tied to detailed review procedures, that a separate review office has become superfluous.” 

(The Post was willing to take a wait-and-see approach, but “this is no time to back off from close 

review of specific projects, or from the broad assessment of alternate strategies.” [“Switching 

Tracks at DOT,” The Washington Post, February 17, 1973]) 

Carmack Cochran, speaking on behalf of the American Transit Association, addressed some of the 

points Secretary Brinegar had raised. Cochran said that since the idea of operating subsidies had 

first come up in 1970, two major points against it had been cited. “First, critics say it won’t work 

[and that] it will not prevent the decline of transit.” He cited the exclusive bus lanes on the Shirley 

Highway and cities where subsidies “have been instituted, and as a result, fares and deficits have 

stabilized and riders increased” (Denver, Colorado; Erie and Reading, Pennsylvania; Louisville, 

Kentucky; Madison, Wisconsin; Oakland, California; and Tulsa, Oklahoma). He said:
477 

The important point is that an operating subsidy is not a stopgap measure to prop up 

financial deficits. It is not a case of pouring funds down a rathole. It can indeed breed 

incentives, improve service, lower fares, and reduce the number of automobiles congesting 

our streets and polluting the air. The key is the infusion of operating funds. 

The second argument against operating subsidies was that “revenue sharing will enable local 

officials to take care of the problem.” Carmack explained that in a survey of 1,000 transit systems, 

the association found that only 5 cities used General Revenue Sharing for transit operations 

(Detroit, Little Rock, Terre Haute, New York, and Wichita). One reason for this lack of usage was 

“that only 25 percent of all the publicly owned transit systems are within city departments 

supported by funds from the regular city budget, and are thereby the beneficiaries of general 

revenue-sharing payments.” The remaining systems are “independent public authorities supported 

from their own sources of income.” 

On behalf of the American Transit Association, Cochran urged Congress to “act swiftly and 

decisively to enact transit assistance legislation” as its “No. 1 priority.” [Emergency Commuter 

Relief Act, p. 65-68] 

Familiar Voices

Many of the organizations that had testified on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 testified again 

in 1973. Because of the large number of witnesses, Senator Bentsen limited the witnesses to 15 

minutes, although witnesses could submit written testimony of any length.

ARBA’s Daniel J. Hanson testified on February 7, accompanied by J. L. Cone, Jr., of ARBA’s 

Contractors Division, Eugene M. Johnson of The Asphalt Institute, and Ray W. Burgess, ARBA’s 

senior vice president and Director of Public Works for Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hanson based his 

statement on policy positions ARBA’s executive committee had approved on January 22, 1973. 

ARBA supported completion of the Interstate System at the earliest possible date. To accomplish 

this goal, Burgess read the policy position calling for $4 billion a year, not the reduced amount of 

$3.25 billion a year in S. 502: 

The program has been stretched out too long already. This stretch out has cost a great deal 

of money, transportation efficiency has suffered, and needless human lives have been lost. 

With funding delayed, ARBA recommended extending the deadlines included in the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1970 for deletion of Interstate segments that did not have a schedule for 

expenditures (from 1973 to 1975) and for which PS&E had not been approved (from 1975 to 1978). 

“Under the unfortunately adverse circumstances we have been confronted with in recent years, 

additional time is needed, and we believe this additional time will afford the States time to get these 

projects in line.” 

ARBA, which also backed a strong Federal-State partnership for the Federal-aid highway program, 

opposed the pass-through provision: 
478 

The difficulties of establishing “suitably equipped and organized” metropolitan 

transportation agencies are immense. If we are to maintain the same level of professional 

competence which the program now enjoys, “pass through” will require greatly increased 

staffing in both local and Federal highway agencies. In our opinion, the potential benefits 

are simply not worth the additional staffing requirements and other necessary added on 

functions. 

 

Burgess added that while flexibility has much merit, “too much flexibility may result in completely 

losing the identity of the long and well established Federal aid highway program.” The passthrough bypassing the State highway agencies “would greatly complicate the overall administration 

of the highway program without any significant offsetting benefits.” 

Hanson also expressed concerns about S. 502’s “alternative highway procedures.” Under 

certification acceptance, FHWA waived the requirement to obtain Federal clearances at each stage 

of project development, with final acceptance based on an inspection of the finished project. S. 502 

proposed that FHWA would certify that the highway agency would meet all Federal requirements. 

ARBA was concerned that FHWA would have to establish “elaborate machinery” to review each 

agency’s operations. “While the objectives are desirable, in our opinion, a more evolutionary 

approach is needed.” Burgess added, “There is a real possibility that this effort to avoid redtape 

would actually impose an additional burden of redtape.” 

In support of highway-oriented public transportation, ARBA recommended that highway funds be 

made available for road projects that “will enable bus transit to reach its full potential with respect 

to speed and convenience . . . .” In particular, ARBA wanted to remove the restrictions in 23 

U.S.C. 142(d) and (e) on the use of Federal-aid highway funds for fringe or transportation corridor 

parking facilities. Johnson explained: 

At the present time, the restrictions referred to above make it quite difficult to establish 

project eligibility for transit-related highway improvements. We believe it should be made 

as easy as possible for highway departments to use highway funds for physical 

improvements in support of bus transportation. 

ARBA did not support the use of highway funds to acquire buses, but did support creation of an 

urban public transportation trust fund. 

In view of the long lead time needed for highway projects, ARBA opposed impoundment of 

Federal-aid highway funds: 

In 1956, Congress said that in effect, you can not have it both ways. If you want the 

advantages of financing a program from a special fund, you will have to suffer the 

disadvantages of working within the capability of that fund. 

The response of the Executive Branch, as expressed through the current impoundment 

policy, has been somewhat different. The Administration feels that the program must suffer 

the disadvantage of special funds without enjoying any of the advantages. The taxes are 
479 

levied, theoretically at least, at levels intended to sustain the highway program authorized by 

Congress. However, the level of active obligations has been substantially below that level 

in recent years.

ARBA did not want to abandon the Highway Trust Fund. “It must be said, however, that the 

Highway Trust Fund, as it has been administered for the past several years, places an inequitable tax

burden on the highway user.” 

During the brief question period, Senator Bentsen explained that “the problem we face is one of 

continued inflation in this country . . . and that is the present reason for substantially reducing the 

levels of authorizations” for the Interstate System. He asked Burgess if he believed the urgency of 

Interstate needs overrides the need to control inflation. “Absolutely,” Burgess replied, citing the 

safety benefit. He also doubted that increasing Interstate authorizations would cause inflation. 

The Senator commented that Johnson had discussed support for an urban public transportation trust 

fund but had not indicated how it would be financed. Would ARBA support a 1-cent increase in 

gasoline taxes for this purpose? Johnson replied that ARBA had not taken a position on this idea, 

but he did not think the organization would be supportive. Then, Senator Bentsen asked, what 

should be the source of revenue? Johnson could offer only his personal opinion that the trust fund 

should equal whatever percentage of general Treasury revenue was being authorized for UMTA’s 

programs.

Senator Bentsen also asked Johnson why ARBA supported highway-oriented public transportation 

but not the use of Federal-aid highway funds to purchase buses. Johnson replied: 

I feel that the highway trust fund is for highway construction, and all of the appurtenances of 

the highway itself, rather than the vehicle that is driven. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, 

S. 502, p. 133-158] 

L. P. Gilvin appeared before the subcommittee on behalf of the AGC. In introductory comments he 

stated that AGC could not support diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue to mass transit, which 

he described as “meaning generally rail lines in a handful of our largest cities.” Congress should 

look into mass transit needs as it did before initiating the Interstate System. He suggested 

establishing a Mass Transit Trust Fund as “the best possible way to provide funds” for that purpose. 

 

AGC’s statement explained that in 1956, a “solemn commitment” was made with highway users 

that revenue for the Highway Trust Fund would be used only for highways. In seeking funds for 

mass transit, some advocates stated that the Highway Trust Fund now had a “surplus” that could be 

diverted, but this was a false statement. The idea that highways and mass transit needs could be 

met from the Highway Trust Fund “is ill advised, to say the least.” AGC recommended a separate 

Mass Transit Trust Fund, stating only that the source of revenue should be other than the existing 

highway and airport trust funds. 

The pass-through of highway funds to urbanized areas “would destroy the current Federal-state 

relationship “ by allowing local officials to choose options that “would negate the planning and 
480 

coordination of the State Highway Department or State Department of Transportation.” AGC’s 

statement continued: 

Another disruptive feature of the “pass-through” is that it would be likely to allow politics to 

play a large part in determining how the funds are used. We feel that allowing politics to 

become involved would be detrimental to the highway program, mass transit projects, and 

the nation. 

In brief questioning, Senator Bentsen asked about a possible source of funds for mass transit. 

Gilvin could suggest only that a Department of Housing and Urban Development program provided 

funds that communities could use for buses. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 158-

181] 

The Sierra Club followed the AGC to the witness table. Brock Evans, the organization’s 

Washington representative, and Dr. Robert Burco, an international transportation consultant from 

San Francisco, presented the organization’s views on S. 502. 

Although S. 502 had some good features, such as its provision for bicycle pathways, Evans said that 

the Sierra Club had concluded “that the general thrust of the highway legislation seems to be quite 

destructive of many features of the American environment.” It reflected the “same philosophy that 

we have lived with for so long now, a philosophy that seems to concern itself primarily with 

moving vehicles as opposed to moving people.” The time has come “to look for truly meaningful 

solutions.” 

The Sierra Club was particularly disappointed that the section of S. 502 on public mass 

transportation excluded rail transportation: 

Buses will not do the required job, and neither will traffic control devices; these are just a 

part of what is necessary.

And while rail transportation may not be a panacea for our transportation ills, it too is 

certainly a part of any meaningful and truly balanced transportation system. 

 

The Sierra Club was strongly committed to Senator Muskie’s amendment and urged the 

subcommittee to “reconsider this and include rail systems at least as a part of the local option.” 

 The club also opposed provisions that had the effect of “further encroachment upon the dwindling 

scenic and natural resources of the Nation.” Evans cited the provision authorizing funds for roads 

in “remote back country areas of our national forest system.” Most of the funding would be used 

for roads primarily to encourage timber sales. 

He objected to the provision of S. 502 that terminated the Federal role in the North Expressway in 

San Antonio. The club opposed it “not only because it means the destruction of a beautiful park, 

but also because of the serious precedent which it establishes.” 
481 

In addition, the Sierra Club opposed the priority primary system, which would have “the probable 

result of a great deal more adverse environmental impact than if the roads remain as they are now.” 

 Evans said the Sierra Club would oppose the “Alternative Federal-Aid Highway Procedures” 

provision because it would have “the effect of removing the Federal watchdog role of 

environmental protection . . . by giving, in effect, a green light to State highway departments to 

proceed with destructive highways without a Federal overview.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1973, S. 502, p. 182-184] 

Dr. Burco explained that the environmental side effects of motorization should be considered when 

setting urban and national transportation policies. The problems caused by the automobile 

extended “far beyond the narrow concerns of personal mobility,” as the EPA plan for the Los 

Angeles area illustrated. “Either the law must give, or a way of life must change so drastically that 

few can comprehend how it could come about.” He continued: 

The very same traffic restrictions that may be called for in achieving air quality goals may 

be those needed . . . a few years later when shortages of petroleum energy may impose 

restrictions on gasoline availability for much discretionary travel, or at least send pump 

prices of gasoline soaring to the point where auto-dependent cities make little economic 

sense.

In S. 502, he did not see “a concern for these environmental externalities,” but rather “an attack on 

even those environmental protections that have been hard won in the Congress and in the courts for 

park land preservation and Federal environmental impact review.” 

Much can be done “to break out of the destructive circle of deteriorating environmental quality, 

citizen protest, blocked urban highway projects and further deterioration of both existing mobility 

and confidence in Government.” Dr. Burco cited Governor Sargent’s freeway moratorium as an 

example of how citizen-initiated issues can lead to “a plan for the future substantially different from 

the expectations of only a few years ago.” That type of review was the responsibility of the Federal 

Government, he said, not just the States and urban regions. 

In particular, States and regions should be able to “choose freely the transportation course best 

suited to them,” as he explained: 

This means not just a local option of where to put an interstate freeway or a network of 

expressways, but a local option of choice to invest heavily in traffic controls, rail transit if 

they desire, and greatly expanded local bus services, as an alternative to more urban 

highway investment. 

He recommended opening up the Highway Trust Fund “to a substantial commitment of resources to 

urban public transportation, including rail systems where locally desired.” Expenditures for the 

urban Interstates should be reduced, with many of the contested urban segments, such as the 

Century Freeway in Los Angeles, dropped. This move would free up resources for urban transit 

“now, and not on some distant day” when the consequences of urban motorization would be too 

severe for remedy.
482 

He favored the creation of regional transportation commissions and said that a pass-through of 

funds would put the modes on a more balanced footing. Balance can more readily be obtained by 

an organization with “the governmental capability for resolution of problems close to these 

problems, rather than in a sometimes distant State capital.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 

502, p. 184-189] 

As with the other witnesses, Senator Bentsen asked if Dr. Burco had a recommendation on how to 

fund mass transportation, such as a 1-cent increase in the Federal tax on gasoline. Dr. Burco 

thought such a tax might be useful, but believed that additional study of transit needs was essential. 

 He also thought that reducing investment in highway operations in urban areas would free funds 

for other priorities. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 184-189, 192] 

The National Wildlife Federation’s counsel, Robert M. Kennan, Jr., testified next, stating that his 

organization “supports the practicable funding for all modes of urban transportation, not only 

highways and expressways, but also rail rapid transit, from the highway trust fund.” The 

organization opposed the priority primary system as well as the exemption of the North Expressway 

from Federal involvement. 

Kennan also was concerned about developments within the Department of Transportation, 

particularly elimination of the Office of Environment and Urban Systems and delegation of NEPA 

review authority to the Modal Administrations. An independent review, particularly of projects 

under the Federal-aid highway program, was essential to ensure consideration of alternatives, 

including alternative modes. Further, when the Department was created, the Secretary retained 

authority under Section 4(f) “to establish a mechanism by which the new Office of the Secretary of 

Transportation could exercise control over the very independent Federal Highway Administration.” 

Retaining that oversight was vital:

We have had too much experience with the Federal Highway Administration over the past 5 

to 10 years, to be very sanguine about that Agency’s dedication to the principles of section 

4(f) and the principles of the National Environmental Policy Act. 

We do not feel at all comfortable about this new delegation of responsibility. 

His formal statement discussed the federation’s views in greater detail. It outlined the problem: 

The federal-aid highway program is this nation’s largest and most expensive continuing 

public works project. It provides the means for consummating America’s love affair with 

the automobile. Its offspring include mobility, more diverse productivity, energy depletion, 

pollution, injury and death . . . . 

In urban areas, the highway problem is much more acute. Air and noise pollution from 

motor vehicle traffic frequently rise to levels that endanger public health. Precious space is 

taken for parking that could be devoted to more productive uses. New highways disrupt 

neighborhoods and destroy community cohesion. Finally, highways tend to dominate the 

fabric and character of our cities.
483 

The statement called the exemption of the North Expressway “a shameful precedent” and expressed 

relief that S. 502, unlike previous legislation and the House bill in 1972, did not contain any “illconceived provisions that would have confounded the confusion resulting from the Congress’ first 

foray into the District [of Columbia] highway matters in 1968.” 

When Kennan completed his statement, Senator Bentsen asked if he could recommend a source of 

funding for mass transit, such as the 1-cent gas tax proposal. The Sierra Club had not taken a 

position on the matter, but speaking for himself, Kennan thought the 1-cent proposal was possible, 

but added that Highway Trust Fund revenues should be available as well. The Senator asked if 

Kennan thought the Highway Trust Fund could meet highway and transit needs. Kennan replied: 

Within our large urban areas, the completion of the Interstate System is not a high-priority 

item. In many cases, the interstate segments that are proposed have been inadequately 

planned, and mass transit facilities might well replace them.

The highway trust fund, I think, is probably an inadequate level of funds. Perhaps some 

additional funds from the general funds are needed if we are talking about meeting the basic 

needs of mass transit.

Senator Scott wondered why the National Wildlife Federation was interested in highways. Kennan 

explained that “some of the most important continuing problems that we have with protection of the 

environment of this country are created by highway construction, operation and maintenance.” 

Because Kennan’s formal statement commented on the freeway controversy in the Washington 

area, Senator Scott asked, “What wildlife do we have within the Washington metropolitan area?” 

Kennan replied that wildlife was not the organization’s only interest. “Our concern is with the 

quality of people’s lives.” Was he concerned, the Senator wanted to know, about people going back 

and forth to work from the suburbs? Kennan suggested that one way to help them would be to 

increase carpooling. When the Senator asked if Congress should mandate carpooling, Kennan 

stated that while it should not be mandatory, “it is an important component of strategies of local 

communities . . . to reduce highway congestion during rush hours.” 

Senator Domenici asked if Kennan agreed that roadways made it possible for people to enjoy 

America’s scenic beauty and its wildlife. Yes, Kennan answered, but too many automobiles were 

making those places harder to enjoy because of overcrowding. He cited the north rim of the Grand 

Canyon as an example.

In addition, Senator Domenici wanted to clarify the National Wildlife Federation’s views on 

completion of the Interstate System. Kennan said that organization was mainly concerned about the 

urban segments. “The Interstate System can be completed without completing many of these very 

controversial and many very expensive short segments of highways in the urban areas.” By 

contrast, he agreed that Florida needed an Interstate to connect Tampa and Miami. “The concern of 

the National Wildlife Federation with that particular road is not whether the road is needed, that is 

quite clear. The question is where it is to be located.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, 

p. 192-200] 
484 

The final witness on February 7 was the president of the National Association of Regional Councils 

(NARC), a member of the County Council of Prince Georges County, Maryland, and chairman of 

the National Capital Area Quality Planning Committee. Francis B. “Frank” Francois called S. 502 

“a good bill” that contained several improvements over present law, “such as giving local 

decisionmakers a larger role in determining transportation needs and priorities.” On behalf of 

NARC, Francois wanted to suggest several changes to make the program even more responsive to 

local and regional needs. 

NARC, he said, strongly supported the pass-through provision for Federal-aid urban system funds 

because “local governments acting in concert are the best decisionmakers . . . .” He applauded the 

provision allowing the use of Federal-aid highway funds for public transportation systems and 

vehicles, but urged Congress to allow Highway Trust Fund revenues to be used for rail transit as 

well. The importance of this change had been brought home in recent months because 

“approximately 70 metropolitan areas have an automobile related air pollution problem that 

requires the development of a transportation control strategy to reduce pollution to acceptable levels 

required under the Clear [sic] Air Act of 1970.” 

For the Washington area, “substantial changes in travel modes” would be needed to meet national 

air quality standards by 1975. At least $130 million would be needed for buses alone, in addition to 

the commitments already made to construction of the Metro rail system. Rail was, Francois said, 

essential in Washington and elsewhere: 

Without this discretion, we are convinced that it will be difficult if not impossible for urban 

areas to solve their transportation problems, and at the same time meet the necessary air 

pollution standards imposed under Federal law.

He recommended revising S. 502 to enable general purpose local governments to “effectively 

participate in the allocation of urban system funds.” The metropolitan transportation agency should 

consist of elected officials from general purpose local governments because that would involve “the 

real regional decisionmakers” in the process. The bill also should prohibit creation of more than 

one metropolitan transportation agency in a multi-State urbanized area. To ensure equitable voting 

procedures within the agency, S. 502 should provide for “a proportionate voting system or in the 

alternate, a procedure providing that local governments representing 75 percent of the area approve 

decisions” on the use of urban system funds. 

NARC also supported the provision allowing transfer of Interstate locations in urban areas, with 

reallocation of these routes on a dollar-for-dollar basis. 

In addition, NARC agreed with the $1 billion authorization for the rural Federal-aid primary and 

secondary systems, but recommended requiring the State highway agencies to work with rural 

regional councils in a joint decisionmaking process. 

Francois said that NARC supported the alternative highway procedures, but only if S. 502 included 

“adequate safeguards to insure that the continuous transportation planning under section 134 is 

maintained and given weight in making decisions on urban projects.” 
485 

In response to a question from Senator Scott about metropolitan area decisionmaking, Francois said 

he did not think the metropolitan transportation agencies should be involved in decisions on rural 

Interstate segments, but when the Interstate becomes a commuter road in an urban area, “I think that 

is a local problem for local jurisdiction.” 

Senator Domenici wanted to clarify the role of the metropolitan transportation agency. Was 

Francois suggesting that Congress give governmental functions to councils of government? 

Francois replied:

From the standpoint that they are becoming operating agencies, no. 

From the standpoint they are becoming planning and decisionmaking agencies, yes. I think 

somebody has to make the regional decisions, and I think the locally elected officials 

operating through their regional councils are best able to do it. 

Once made, those decisions, they are up to the governmental units themselves involved. 

Why, Senator Domenici asked, do “we need councils of Government making final decisions . . . 

instead of the States?” Francois acknowledged that this question “is very real right now in State 

after State.” About 100 years ago, he said, many rural-dominated States gave away their 

responsibilities to local governments. Today, those States “are trying to regain some of these 

powers.” The decisions, though, should be made at “the level closest to the people affected.” Many

issues cut across jurisdictional lines and in those cases, either the State must decide or the local 

governments must come together in regional councils to make the decisions. [Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 218-226] 

(Francois, a patent attorney, served in a local capacity until 1980 when he became executive 

director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. He held the 

post until he retired in 1999.) 

Watergate Committee 

Elsewhere on February 7, 1973, the Senate’s discussion on how to approach the Watergate 

controversy came to a head. 

Senate Majority Leader Mansfield had been disturbed by the early allegations in the Watergate 

affair and decided that the Senate would investigate them. The Senate Judiciary Committee was the 

proper venue for investigation, but its chairman, Senator James O. Eastland (D-Ms.), was 

personally loyal to President Nixon. Mansfield decided that Senator Ervin, chairman of the 

Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, should lead the investigation. 

Mansfield and Ervin drafted a resolution creating the Senate Select Committee on Presidential 

Campaign Activities. On February 5, Senator Kennedy had offered Senate Resolution 60 for 

consideration. Theodore White described the result: 
486 

Angrily, futilely, plaintively, Republicans argued that any investigation of Presidential 

elections should look into the elections of 1964 and 1968 and the allegations of wiretapping, fraud, eavesdropping that ran to Lyndon Johnson. Outnumbered, they saw their 

amendments voted down, and finally, on February 7th, they too joined in the language of the 

original resolution, voting by 77 to 0 for a Select Committee that would “conduct an 

investigation and study of the extent, if any, to which illegal, improper, or unethical 

activities were engaged by any persons . . . in the presidential election of 1972 . . . .” 

Further, the Select Committee would have the power to subpoena any persons “who the 

select committee believes have knowledge or information” about such activities. And, 

finally, it should bring back recommendations for any new legislation “necessary . . . to 

safeguard the electoral process by which the President of the United States is chosen.”

The Select Committee, which quickly became known as the Ervin Committee, would include four 

Democrats, including Ervin, and three Republicans. Senators Mansfield and Ervin had agreed that 

at least on the Democratic side, they did not want potential presidential candidates to be included 

because that would give the investigation a partisan tone. They selected Senators Daniel K. Inouye 

(Hawaii), Joseph M. Montoya (New Mexico), and Herman E. Talmadge (Georgia). Minority 

Leader Baker included himself as well as Senators Edward J. Gurney (Florida) and Weicker. 

[White, p. 230-231] 

Reeves quoted President Nixon’s comment, captured on the Nixon Tapes, following approval of the 

resolution: 

“I don’t see how the Senate can destroy us,” Nixon said that day. “The problem with all this 

is that it is going to be a television story. But, on the other side of the coin, it may wear out 

the story after a certain length of time.” 

Haldeman agreed. It would, he thought, turn out to be the same old thing over and over. “I just 

can’t imagine that the people really get very interested.” [Reeves, p. 570) 

The Kennedy-Weicker Bill, S. 679 

Senators Kennedy and Weicker were the lead witnesses on February 8. They presented S. 679, the 

Highways and Related Transportation Systems Improvement Act of 1973, before the subcommittee 

with opening statements that recycled their comments from when they introduced the bill. Senator 

Weicker left off his ending about cooking a frog and instead concluded by comparing the effort to 

divert funds from the Highway Trust Fund to a wreck on the highway that backs up traffic for miles 

in State after State:

So when New York choked on its automobiles it was not long before New Jersey and 

Connecticut ground to a halt and then Massachusetts and then Delaware and then Maryland 

and then . . . . Let’s clear this highway trust fund off the highway and get America moving 

again. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 231-258 (Kennedy), 258-268 

(Weicker)] 
487 

Senator Bentsen began the questioning by saying he agreed that the mutual objective was “to move 

the people effectively and efficiently.” Considering the enormity of the task, the question was 

whether the Highway Trust Fund by itself was sufficient to meet highway and mass transit needs. 

He then asked his standard question about an alternative source of revenue, including a 1-cent gas 

tax increase earmarked for mass transit. 

Senator Kennedy agreed that the additional revenue would be helpful, especially for the mass transit 

system in Boston, but “I do not think we want to lose sight of one of the essential aspects of our 

proposal,” namely giving Governors and metropolitan transportation agencies the flexibility to use 

non-Interstate funds to “provide for a balanced transportation system assuring safe movement of 

people, and protection of the environment as well.” Senator Weicker agreed that while the 

additional penny for mass transit might be desirable, it would not address “the point we are trying to 

make.”

If the Kennedy-Weicker bill passed in its entirety, Senator Bentsen asked, should funding continue 

from the general Treasury for mass transit. “Well, yes,” Senator Weicker replied, “there is no 

question to that fact. Mass transit has been [starved] so long, you have some catching up to do . . . . 

It is a tragic situation, so you could not meet the needs of mass transit solely from the highway trust 

fund.” Senator Kennedy illustrated this need by citing “over $4 billion worth of applications for 

mass transit funds, and less than a billion dollars in funding which is available.” 

Senator Stafford wanted to clarify the bill’s plan for distributing funds. The bill requires a State to 

apportion 50 percent of the non-Interstate funds to metropolitan areas, but he wanted to know if the 

remaining 50 percent also could be spent in urbanized areas. Senator Weicker responded that their 

bill left the decision to the Governors and the metropolitan area transportation departments the bill 

encouraged the States to create. Senator Kennedy added that such a scenario was unlikely since the 

State legislature was unlikely to approve matching funds in such a case and the Secretary of 

Transportation retained a veto over the State’s plans. 

Senator Randolph began his question period by observing that he was “intimately acquainted” with 

the two Senators’ viewpoint. “I am appreciative of their continuing interest, yet I am pleased also at 

their ineffectiveness to do what they have attempted.” Senator Kennedy said that he and Senator 

Weicker would prefer to think of it as Senator Randolph’s effectiveness, rather than their 

ineffectiveness.

Senator Randolph pointed out that Senator Weicker had been a member of the Committee on Public 

Works in the 92nd Congress, but left for a post on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban 

Affairs in the 93rd. “I think it would have been valuable to us, Senator Weicker, had you actually 

been a member of the committee as we attempted to resolve our transportation problems.” That 

comment was an opportunity for Senator Randolph to say he was upset by a reference in Senator 

Weicker’s introductory statement to the February 6 broadcast of NBC’s news magazine show, First 

Tuesday. Weicker had said:

Slowly, Mr. Chairman, attitudes and people all across America on this issue are becoming 

more informed. In large part, this is the result of the very proceedings we are participating 
488 

in today—which, in turn, have led to informative news coverage, such as the very fine 

network program of 2 days ago, on NBC’s “First Tuesday,” which displayed an informed, in 

depth, and most valuable contribution by commentator Paul Duke and producer Paul 

Jefferies.

Senator Randolph, referencing Weicker’s favorable comment, said “well you might commend 

NBC, because they took good care of you.” Senator Randolph would not presume to tell the news 

media “how particular stories should be covered,” but he did have some observations on the 

program, specifically about how he was presented: 

It dealt with those individuals and groups that attempt to influence highway legislation 

before the Congress . . . . Specifically, the two brief occasions, I think it was 18 seconds, on 

which I was seen, gave a totally false impression of my position on the issues discussed. 

Anyone watching the show, Senator Randolph said, would get the impression that he was “totally 

inflexible in regard to the use of highway trust fund revenues, and I believe there should be no 

deviation from past practices, when all of these funds were dedicated solely to highway 

construction.” That was simply not the case, he said. He opposed the use of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue for rail transit, “but I do believe their use for certain other public transportation purposes 

are proper.” He had given this view in an extensive interview for the program, but the program did 

not present his views accurately.

Similarly, Senators Kennedy and Weicker were wrong to assert that the Committee on Public 

Works “has not attempted to cope with the problems of mass transit.” He pointed out that the 

Senate had approved the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1970, and while the Kennedy-Weicker 

bill had been defeated in 1972 (by a vote of 60 to 18, he helpfully noted), virtually every member 

who voted against it had voted for the 1970 Act: 

That indicates that to try to line up sides in a matter of this kind, to speak in disparagement 

of what the highway program has done in an effort to raid a fund which was created by the 

Congress for the purpose of doing a specific job, I think, I suggest is the wrong approach. 

He added that the Interstate System was not yet completed, many other highway needs existed, and 

the Administration was impounding funds to accomplish these works. He would “very eagerly and 

earnestly join” in helping to create a Mass Transit Trust Fund. 

Next, Senator Randolph wanted to talk about a strike that was starting on this day. “These people 

you talked about that need to be moved, those millions of people, or hundreds of thousands of 

people, are not being moved.” By contrast, the automobile did move, he said. “It is not affected by 

a strike.” 

(About 28,000 workers from the United Transportation Union had gone on strike against the 

PennCentral a minute after midnight, February 8, in a dispute over reductions in crew size. 

Commuters through the Northeast Corridor, from Washington to Boston, would be affected. 
489 

On February 9, Congress approved emergency legislation ending the Penn Central strike for 90 

days. The legislation also required the Department of Transportation to preserve rail traffic in the 

Northeast. Workers returned to their duties before President Nixon was able to sign the bill, which 

had to be flown on commercial jet to the “Western White House” in San Clemente, California. 

[Jones, William H., “Pennsy Halted by Rail Strike,” The Washington Post, February 8, 1973; 

Shabecoff, Philip, “Penn Central Operating Again; Nixon Signs Bill Halting Strike,” The New York 

Times, February 10, 1972]) 

As this example illustrated, Senator Randolph said, “I am not a pessimist, but I feel that those who 

believe that the answer is rail transit are going to be very sorely mistaken.” He said that BART was 

supposed to be the “showcase of this type of rail transit,” but he introduced several articles on the 

theme that it been a disappointment: 

• Harris, Michael, “Optimistic Glow Has Faded,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 4, 1972 

(“. . . the cheery economic predictions from the BART management have not been borne out 

. . . . And when the full system goes into service, the financial problems may grow even 

worse.”).

• Nolan, Dick, “BART’s Empty Seats,” San Francisco Examiner, December 17, 1972 

(“BART, the crisis creature that devoured the tax rate, very likely has developed an 

insatiable appetite for red ink, and this is the biggest BART problem, not merely its 

operational troubles under automatic train control.”). 

• Nolan, Dick, “The Puffing of BART,” San Francisco Examiner, December 17, 1972 (“No 

amount of gelatinous puffery put out by the BART propaganda mill has been too much to 

swallow.”).

Senator Randolph summarized the articles: 

The article of December 17, 1972, discussed the downward revisions in traffic estimates, 

BART management has lowered this estimate, they say quietly, to 18,000 passengers per 

day, from the original estimate of 26,000 passengers per day. Well, the actual traffic is 

amounting to only 13,000 persons per day. The article says that that “ain’t good.” I do not 

want to use that kind of language, but the record so far is not very impressive, and I think 

perhaps there has been overselling. 

I hope that this will not be true in every instance. The article covers the costs and all of 

these matters that are of concern to you gentlemen who came today, advocating that we 

siphon off funds dedicated to highway development. 

Senator Kennedy responded that he realized Senator Randolph’s State of West Virginia needed

more roads, “but just do not hold it against us in Massachusetts, in our being able to develop our 

own transportation system.” Washington did not always know what is best for each local 

community, and he believed the Mayors and Governors should decide what is best. “They are 

saying, we cannot control the situation, because we have not got the authority or the responsibility.” 

He added:
490 

Finally, let me say the trust fund has been cracked over the objection, the very articulate and 

able objection, of the Senator from West Virginia, with the acceptance last year by 48 to 26 

of the Cooper-Muskie Amendment . . . . We know that there are very strong men that are 

arguing that we are trying to kill the Interstate System, but we are not. All we want is a 

balanced system.

Senators Randolph and Kennedy continued: 

Senator Randolph. Mr. Chairman [Bentsen] . . . I do not want him to accuse me of being 

parochial any more than I would accuse him of being parochial. 

Senator Kennedy. I want to be parochial. I want to be parochial for Massachusetts, and I 

want to see the people of that State decide how the funds out of the Interstate System should 

be spent. That is what I am here for. I welcome that label.

Senator Randolph. I thought you took a broad view of the country, Senator. 

Senator Kennedy. That is why I supported the Interstate System. I think you can have both. 

 That is what we tried to do, support the national concept of the Interstate System for its 

continuation, and also to permit the States themselves to be able to resolve their 

transportation needs. Hopefully, we can get the best of both worlds, I think we can. 

Senator Randolph. Then you support a trust fund for rail transit? 

Senator Kennedy. Well, we have to see how. We would have to see how that is developed. 

 I think what we need is to develop a single transportation fund, rather than a proliferation of 

different trust funds. If we have a single transportation fund, within that concept there 

would be a continuation of financing of the Interstate System, but you would also be able 

from that to devise a formula to develop a balanced transportation system, including all 

modes of ground transportation and it could be done from a single fund. 

Senator Weicker interjected his opposition to a Mass Transit Trust Fund. “The fact is if we indulge 

ourselves in what seem to be coming [sic] the national fad of the 1970’s, we will end up putting all 

of our money in mass transit rather than in highways.” Neither he nor Senator Kennedy wanted 

such an outcome, which is why they favored a single transportation trust fund. 

Because of time problems, Senator Bentsen interrupted this testy exchange so he could call on 

Senator Domenici, who mentioned that he came from a rural State with only one metropolitan area 

“and it is barely that within the definition used in Congress.” He indicated that highway needs 

existed in every State, but that “the need for mass transit in spite of your nationalizing it, is 

regional.” He was concerned that their policy would lead to more people moving into metropolitan 

areas (“by making it more easy to get around”) and that would lead to more of the social problems 

that were common in large cities. 

Weicker responded that when he, a single term member of the House of Representatives, ran for the 

Senate in 1970, “the people upstate, they said, what does he know about our problems. All he 

knows is mass transportation. That is a problem peculiar to southwestern Connecticut” near New 

York City. He continued: 
491 

Then, all of a sudden, a highway came through the suburbs of Hartford, and there was one 

highway too many. They say we do not want this highway and we have got to have an 

alternative.

It was not mass transit that attracted people to Hartford. The people moved into that area, 

and all of a sudden, mass transit, the idea of a balanced mass transportation system, not 

relying on highways, is no longer an issue for southwestern Connecticut, but the whole State 

of Connecticut is now involved. 

He concluded, that “all we tried to do in the bill is to allow, the option to determine how you are 

going to resolve your transportation problem in your community.” The approach would work in 

Connecticut or New Mexico.

 

Senator Quentin N. Burdick (D-ND) wanted to know if the bill would reduce funding for States “of 

wide open spaces, a State of low population” that thrives on roads and cannot support mass transit 

systems. Senator Kennedy assured him that total funding would increase and that “I think North 

Dakota would actually come out ahead.” But no State would get less than at present. 

On a second round of questioning, Senator Bentsen asked about the appropriate size of an SMSA

for purposes of handling pass-through funding. S. 502 called for a pass-through for areas of 

250,000 population, while Secretary Brinegar recommended 400,000. Senator Kennedy said the 

Kennedy-Weicker bill set the minimum at 50,000 population, but he thought 250,000 would be 

satisfactory. In response to another question from Senator Bentsen, Senator Weicker explained that 

in States where SMSAs followed county lines and included some rural areas, the Governor would 

be responsible for designating a metropolitan transportation agency that left rural areas to the State. 

This exchange concluded Senator Kennedy’s and Senator Weicker’s testimony. [Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 268-283] 

Representative Glenn Anderson was the next witness. He lamented that by a vote of 200 to 168, 

the House of Representatives had rejected the Cooper-Muskie amendment in 1972. In 1973, he felt 

“that we will be successful in permitting a portion of the Trust Fund to be used for mass transit 

purposes.” In Los Angeles, he said, he had seen the problems caused by highways and automobiles. 

“We have seen the strips of concrete rip out homes, and separate entire communities like the Great 

Wall of China.” He had seen the pollution, the freeways that resembled parking lots during rush 

hour, the wasted fuel. Based on this experience, he was not trying to stop all highways or claim that 

mass transit was the sole answer:

But, rather, I am here to urge this committee to permit flexibility in the use of highway trust 

funds . . . . We do not want to require someone to build a mass transit system—nor do we 

want to demand that a State construct a highway, if the elected officials do not want it.

The point is, State and local officials should be permitted to select the modes of 

transportation that they feel are best suited to their particular situation, taking in the 
492 

consideration of the needs of the people, the environmental considerations, and the demand 

for energy.

The freeways of Los Angeles, he said, had average speeds under 20 m.p.h. This experience 

indicated that “more and more freeways will not alleviate our transportation problems . . . [but] 

would only compound our problems, especially with the environment.” 

He said that he, and the people of the Los Angeles area, understood the rationale behind EPA’s 

January 15 announcement of its plan to meet clean air standards. “But we cannot require a 82-

percent cutback [sic] of automobile usage without providing an efficient and economical 

alternative.” Public transportation was essential for the area “to allow people the freedom on which 

this country is based.” 

He discussed the use of existing rights-of-way for mass transportation and the provision of a more 

energy efficient transportation option. As for the Highway Trust Fund, he addressed the argument 

that the fund was a “trust” reserved for highway uses. He pointed out that “50 percent of the 

receipts of the trust fund were derived from taxes [in 1974] which were on the books long before 

the trust fund was created in 1956, and prior to that time, were used for general revenue purposes.” 

Since 1956, he said, “the trust fund, presently, has been so changed to meet other needs that it is 

difficult to argue that mass transit is not highway related.” He cited examples of how Highway 

Trust Fund revenue was being used for purposes other than highway construction: 

In 1962, Congress allowed trust fund moneys to be used to help relocate families who were 

forced to move by highway construction. 

In 1970, Congress permitted the use of trust fund moneys to construct ferryboats on the 

same basis as in the construction of highways. 

Two-thirds of the cost of the highway safety program is paid out of the Highway Trust Fund. 

The 1970 act also permits trust fund revenues to be used for exclusive busways, passenger 

loading facilities, and fringe parking to serve any type of public mass transportation. 

As this list indicated, the Nation could use Highway Trust Fund revenues for ferryboats, but not to 

purchase or construct a bus or rail transit system: 

In short, the Highway Trust Fund was created to meet our transportation needs by taxing the 

people of the United States. I contend that a portion of that money for mass transit would 

certainly help meet that need by eliminating a part of the highway congestion, by reducing 

auto pollution, and by helping to alleviate our energy crisis.

Specifically, he endorsed the use of Federal-aid urban system funds for rail or bus mass 

transportation as well as highways. He also recommended the subcommittee amend S. 502 to 

permit the Secretary of Transportation to allocate up to 10 percent of Highway Trust Fund revenues 

for emergency mass transit programs in areas targeted by EPA to curtail automobile usage.

Senator Bentsen began the questioning by asking about the difference between the original cost 

estimate for BART and present estimates. Representative Anderson conceded that costs had 
493 

increased. “However, to place this in perspective, the Interstate Highway System, approved by 

Congress at a cost of $27 billion in 1956, is now estimated to cost $68 billion to complete.” He 

expected BART would work out its problem, but “they will have to get some assistance.” 

What about the charge that BART had been oversold and that many people who told pollsters they 

would ride the line never did so. Again, Representative Anderson conceded that ridership was 

lower than projected, in part he said because feeder lines had not been started. 

The Senator asked his usual question about funding for a mass transit trust fund. Representative 

Anderson did not favor an increase in the gas tax at this time; his concern “with the financing of our 

present transportation problems is that it is not flexible.” 

Recognizing that Representative Anderson was on the House Roads Subcommittee, Senator 

Bentsen pointed out that “you have not succeeded on three occasions, at the Rules Committee, 

Public Works Committee, or on the floor to get the Cooper-Muskie amendment passed.” What 

were the chances in 1973? Anderson pointed out that he had handled the amendment in the House: 

The Rules Committee, we lost that vote by an 8 to 7 vote. Three of the members who voted 

against us on that Rules Committee are not back in Congress this year. While we have 

examined the makeup of the new Rules Committee, we have not had a chance to determine 

whether it is still 8 to 7 again.

He said that “a number of Congressmen who did not support us last year” did support the 

amendment this year. “All we needed was a few turnarounds to pass the Muskie-Cooper 

amendment.” 

Senator Stafford asked how many miles of urban rapid rail transit could be built for a billion 

dollars. Representative Anderson did not know, but he did recall what was said in 1972 about the 

$800 million in the bill:

At that time, the Secretary of Transportation told us that he could not even spend that money 

at that time; that there was not enough equipment that could have been bought to have used 

it up. 

Did Representative Anderson know how much a rail system for Los Angeles would cost? No, he 

did not but added that he thought “we should first use separate bus lanes, and probably bring rail 

into the picture at a later date.” He added regarding the Los Angeles area: 

I feel we would be better served with bus transit for the immediate future, although we do 

have some areas, where years ago we did have a rail system, with many of those rights-ofway still there, and still unused, and perhaps could be picked up, and we have some of the 

rail companies, the big railroad companies, that have lines we could utilize for some type of 

a rail system. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 284-290] 
494 

AAA, American Trucking Associations, and the Highway Action Coalition 

When AAA’s turn came to testify on February 8, J. B. Creal, executive vice president, said in his 

formal statement that AAA had testified at length in May 1972. To save time, he would comment 

on the questions raised by Senator Bentsen in inviting witnesses. 

Although generally supportive of S. 502, AAA found two provisions unacceptable. The first was 

the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue to purchase buses. AAA was supportive of mass transit, 

but “with less than 50 percent of the revenue in sight to carry out needed highway improvements, it 

is essential that each program continue to be funded as now provided by existing laws.” Local 

jurisdictions could purchase buses with UMTA and General Revenue Sharing funds: 

If the public transportation crisis is as urgent as we have been led to believe, high on the 

cities’ list of priorities should be the purchase of transit buses. They now have the funds to 

place many new buses in service.

Under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970, highway users already were “doing a great deal for 

transit,” not only providing the roadway on which 75 percent of public transit patrons ride, but 

preferential bus lanes, construction of parking lots and loading areas and shelters for transit users: 

Now the proposal is that the highway user pay for the vehicle itself! Will the highway user 

next be asked to pick up the tab for all or part of the fare? 

S. 502, he added, called on the motorists to pay for equestrian trails and walking and biking paths, 

national forest fire control facilities, municipal parking lot bonds, and aid for the construction of 

toll roads, among other things: 

We don’t believe that the American public wants its highway user taxes used for purposes 

other than providing a first-class highway system.

In May 1972, AAA had cited its member poll showing that 80 percent of respondents favored using 

gas taxes only for highways. Recent polling by AAA member clubs produced similar results:

AAA believes that it is time we get back to basics. The Highway Trust Fund was 

established to provide the federal share of the costs of building our Primary, Secondary, and 

Urban highways, not just the Interstate System. The Interstate System was designated as 

part of the Primary System and a high priority was established for its early completion. 

Despite this, a thirteen-year program has stretched out to seventeen years and is likely to 

extend a quarter of a century if we don’t resist all of these efforts to change the original 

concept of the Trust Fund. . . . If [highway user taxes] are not to be used for such purposes, 

then why should the tax be continued? 

The second objectionable feature of S. 502 was the provision allowing a State to shift Interstate 

routes without regard to existing mileage limitations:
495 

AAA recommends that we adhere to the original limited mileage and needs formula 

concepts. If a state indicates its intention not to build a route, or a segment of a designated 

route, then the cost of the System in that state should be reduced in an amount equal to the 

cost of the uncompleted segment, based on the latest available cost estimate. But, under 

Sec. 111(c) of S. 502, it is proposed that if the new route costs less to build than that 

originally planned, the difference in cost may then be added to the apportionment of the 

urbanized area from which the withdrawn route or portions thereof were located. 

Local officials, he said, seem to think they were entitled to Interstate funds even if they did not 

intend to use them to build an Interstate highway. AAA preferred the existing concept: 

If a state decides not to build a segment of the agreed-upon system, then . . . the cost of the 

entire system is reduced and that state’s proportionate share of the cost of completion of the 

system is reduced.

In other matters, AAA said the authorization of $3.25 billion for the Interstate System was too low 

and should be increased to the former level of $4 billion a year in the interest of expeditious 

completion. AAA supported consolidation of categorical grants. “We believe that a large number 

of specifically authorized programs unnecessarily impede the individual highway departments.” A 

functional realignment of roads among the Federal-aid primary, secondary, and urban systems to 

assure roads were assigned to the proper system would eliminate the need for transfers among 

systems.

Finally, AAA supported the priority primary routes “since it works toward the objective of placing 

our highway dollars to work on those roads where the traffic needs are the greatest.” Focusing the 

funds on roads included in the 10,000-mile system “should bring maximum return on the dollars 

invested.” 

Senator Stafford began the brief question period by pointing out: 

Critics of the highway program claim that it is actually an incentive for the American public 

to buy more and more automobiles which calls for more and more miles of roads. They 

point out we are reaching a level of diminishing returns in our overuse of automobiles 

because of the problems of pollution, congestion, social dislocation, and so on. 

Is it your view that this country will have to rely less on the automobile in the future in order 

to solve some of the problems? 

Creal was doubtful about the phrase “love of the automobile,” and preferred to think people loved 

“their freedom of mobility” and do not want to give it up. “The problems “should be basically 

tackled one at a time, but not in a state of panic as one big problem, as we have heard from some 

areas.”

Senator Bentsen wanted to clarify the provision of S. 502 regarding toll roads: 
496 

I should point out that the toll roads in our bill can only be constructed once a State has 

exhausted all of its interstate funds. Also, the tolls must be applied to the State share of the 

project, that is paid off, then it becomes a free road. Now, does that appear fair to you? 

Charles N. Brady, director of AAA’s Highway Department, replied that “one of the reasons we 

object to this provision is the continuation of tolls.” Highway users had been paying into the 

Highway Trust Fund “and yet what they wind up with is a toll road.” AAA did like the provision 

that the toll road would become toll-free after bonds, with their interest payments, were retired.

Senator Bentsen explained that the provision was really intended for Louisiana “where the people 

feel the tax burden is such that they cannot handle this problem” without resorting to toll financing. 

 The subcommittee “became convinced of the equity of it” and wanted to help build those roads at 

the earliest possible moment. Brady replied that given the long time needed to pay off bonds, S. 

502 should extend the Highway Trust Fund for a 15-year period.

Did AAA believe, Senator Bentsen asked, that UMTA revenue was sufficient for mass transit 

facilities? Creal recommended that Congress follow the process that led to the Interstate System. 

First, study transit needs, then determine how to raise the money: 

It seems to us that mass transit is a pretty loosely used term, because some people think of it 

in terms of rail transit only. We are pretty well convinced that only five to seven 

communities will be able to use rail transit with any hope of economic feasibility.

Regarding AAA’s hard line on diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue, Senator Bentsen asked 

for AAA’s views on using the revenue for highway safety programs such as replacement of railway 

crossings, pavement markers, and bridge replacement. Since such measures “are improvements to 

the highways themselves,” AAA agreed that they were legitimate expenditures of Highway Trust 

Fund revenues. 

The Senator pointed out the problem of inflation, the desire to avoid tax increases, and the need to 

cut spending. He noted AAA’s recommendation to restore Interstate funding to $4 billion, but 

wanted to know if AAA would agree to reductions in view of those problems. No, Brady replied, 

AAA would not. “The highway program is funded out of the Highway Trust Fund, adding that to 

the extent funding is reduced, “the further you are slipping behind, and we are already, even at the 

$4 billion level, into the 1980’s before we can finish this up.” 

Senator Bentsen emphasized “the whole spectrum of human concerns” facing the Congress and said 

that if we do not address them now, “I do not know when we will do it and therefore, as much as we 

want these things, some of these things, we are going to have to defer.” Brady replied that the 

Highway Trust Fund was “a stabilizing type of operation, if it would be permitted to operate as it 

was intended.” It had a predictable income and a well-known level of expenditures. If it had 

operated as intended, cost overruns would have been minimized and unit costs would not have 

fluctuated greatly but instead, Presidents “have been manipulating the funds through impounding 

and cutbacks.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 307-317] 
497 

On February 21, John de Lorenzi, managing director of AAA’s Public and Government Relations, 

wrote to Senator Bentsen to say that AAA had not been given an opportunity to comment on the 

proposal to increase the gas tax by 1 cent to finance mass transportation “while numerous other 

organizations and spokesmen were.” AAA was opposed because it “feels there is no basis in equity 

to single out all highway users as the tax source of support for mass transportation.” Mass transit 

“is a responsibility of the general fund of the Treasury.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, 

p. 318] 

John Kramer also testified on February 8 on behalf of the Highway Action Coalition. The 

organization’s chairman, Theodore Kheel, could not attend but submitted a statement for the record. 

Kramer said the issue of how transportation should be financed, and especially the future of the 

Highway Trust Fund, was the central issue for the 1973 legislation in view of the plight of the 

Nation’s mass and intercity transit systems:

Since the establishment of the Highway Trust Fund in 1956, 268 transit systems have gone 

out of business, leaving millions of Americans with little or no access to public 

transportation of any kind. Most of the remaining systems are expensive to the rider and 

decrepit in service and operation. 

Only massive Federal aid will prevent many more transit systems from disappearing, much 

less assure quality service to the rider at a reasonable cost.

He cited the disparity between Federal spending for highways and transit: 

Last year highways consumed more than 60 percent of the total Federal transportation 

budget, as compared to mass transit’s meager 6 percent.

Including the revenues that local and State governments spent for road construction, 

maintenance, and safety, the total bill for our nation’s highway systems came to $21.9 

billion last year.

This is a huge sum of money. It is not only vastly more than was spent on mass transit, but 

it is also more than the total Federal, State, and local government expenditures on housing, 

urban renewal, parks, recreation, sanitation, and police and fire protection combined. 

The time had come to shift priorities from highways to transit and that, in turn, “will require making 

at least some Highway Trust Fund revenues available for public transportation.” 

The Highway Trust Fund, he explained, distorted local transportation priorities: 

Clearly, many localities and States have built highways because they had Federal funds to 

build those highways, and did not consider mass transit systems because they had 

inadequate funds to build and operate them. That was true whether or not the highways 

were the better solution to the locality’s particular transportation problems.
498 

He summarized his organization’s priorities:

Recognizing the urgency of the urban transportation problems and the lack of a single, 

simple solution, the Highway Action Coalition believes that the only viable policy is to 

increase the flexibility that local governments have in determining how Federal funds are to 

be used in their urban areas. 

Local elected officials must have the option of determining whatever mix of ground 

transportation modes will best meet their overall transportation needs, whether these needs 

be predominantly highway needs or transit needs. 

He appreciated that S. 502 made Federal-aid urban system funds available for the purchase of 

buses, but the coalition was “sharply disappointed that S. 502 represents a retrenchment from the . . 

. bill of last year in that it makes appreciably less money available for the urban system.” Coalition 

members also were disappointed that unlike the 1972 bill, S. 502 did not allow primary and 

secondary funds in rural areas to be used for rural bus programs. 

The group “enthusiastically” endorsed the provision of S. 502 that gave State and local officials the 

option of using Interstate funds to satisfy other transportation needs instead of building a 

controversial Interstate segment. He recommended, however, that the Federal share for these 

substitute projects be changed to 90 percent “so as not to unduly prejudice local transportation 

decisions in favor of an otherwise unwanted Interstate project.” 

The Highway Action Coalition strongly supported the new Muskie-Baker bill and the KennedyWeicker bill, S. 679. 

As for other elements of S. 502, Kramer endorsed the provision calling for annual transportation 

hearings and directing the Secretary of Transportation to issue guidelines to increase citizen 

participation in the transportation planning process. He also endorsed the pass-through provision as 

“a crucial step.” The provisions of the Kennedy-Weicker bill encouraging States to form 

transportation departments and making highway revenues available for public transportation were 

“important and desirable innovations.” 

Members of the coalition were concerned that NEPA, Section 4(f), and other safeguards not be 

“undermined, and that citizens continue to have recourse to the courts, when Federal and State 

officials violate these important laws.” In particular, the coalition opposed environmental 

exemptions for specific projects, such as the North Expressway in San Antonio: 

We understand that an effort may be made to similarly exempt the Overton Park 

Expressway in Memphis, Tenn., and Interstate Route 66 in Arlington, Va., from the 

environmental protection statutes. 

He urged the committee to include “measures to deal with the problem of automobile-related air 

pollution and the need to conserve our increasingly scarce petroleum resources.” For this purpose, 

he endorsed Senator Muskie’s proposed amendments to S. 502 providing emergency transit 
499 

assistance to cities having difficulty meeting Federal ambient air quality standards, establishing 

mandatory auto emissions inspection programs, and prohibiting new highway construction that 

might cause air pollution levels to exceed Federal limits.

During the question period, Senator Bentsen objected to the implication that “construction of rapid 

rail transit does not also result in some substantial economic, environmental and social damages.” 

Kramer acknowledged that it can:

Living within 20 feet of a Metro station, where there is construction at 7:30 in the morning, 

I can attest to some of the damage, at least in the form of noise pollution that mass transit 

can cause, and on a serious note, I think it is important that these various environmental 

protection statutes also extend to mass transit.

However, looking at overall environmental impacts, “there can be little doubt as to which is the 

more environmentally preferable.” 

Senator Bentsen’s final question concerned operating subsidies, which the committee had supported 

in 1972, but that Secretary Brinegar said he opposed. Kramer replied, “No question but that 

operating assistance is perhaps the No. 1 priority of public transportation.” He shared some of 

Secretary Brinegar’s doubts about assuring subsidies do not undermine quality service and admitted 

that “we are a little bit nervous about some of these proposals currently before the Senate.” 

However, if that was the best that was possible, the Highway Action Coalition could live with it. 

[Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 320-328] 

William A. Bresnhan, president of American Trucking Associations, began his testimony by 

recalling creation of the Highway Trust Fund in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956: 

We supported the program in 1956, but with a degree of reluctance because we feared the 

very thing that is happening now. We felt in our bones that before the program was 

completed there would be an effort to divert large parts of the money to other purposes. The 

variety of proposals to divert substantial sums of money for other purposes are particularly 

unfair to the trucking industry. 

He listed the taxes paid by truckers:

We agreed in 1956 to pay these taxes for as long as the people and the Congress felt there 

was need for the money for the construction of highways. We have been faithful in keeping 

our end of the bargain, and did not come up here asking repeal of the excise taxes when they 

were repealed a couple of years ago for automobiles and commercial vehicles weighing less 

than 10,000 pounds. 

If Congress was going to stop or curtail the Federal program, it should also stop or curtail the 

special highway-user taxes.
500 

His organization supported mass transit, including a fund for it, and was willing “to pay our share 

of any across-the board taxes that apply to all businesses and industry to finance such a program.” 

He continued: 

But we think it is unfair to single out one industry to bear the brunt of taxation to tackle a 

problem like mass transit which should be the responsibility of everyone. 

Bresnahan also addressed the size-and-weight issue affecting operation of trucks. The 1956 Act, he 

said, contained size-and-weight limits for the Interstate System that the States could ignore only if 

they were willing to forgo Interstate construction funds. Those limits were temporary, pending 

completion of a study conceived by AASHO, BPR, and the Highway Research Board, to measure 

the effect of size and weight variations on pavements and bridges. That study, known as the 

AASHO Road Test, resulted in recommendations for changing the limits. 

The Johnson Administration supported a legislative change and the Senate approved the new limits 

in 1967. However, the House had not voted on the proposal after “distorted and misleading 

attacks” on the bill. Although eight western States had changed their legal limits in accordance 

with AASHO’s revised standards, “they still cannot permit them on the Federal Interstate System—

the best roads in the world—without losing their funds for completion of the Interstate System.” 

He urged Congress to repeal the standards in the 1956 Act or increase them “to more realistic 

levels.” (For information on the AASHO Road Test, see 

(http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/50aasho.cfm).

In response to a question from Senator Bentsen, Bresnhan said that his organization did not object 

to bus lanes, but “we regret the need to object to the acquisition of buses.” The best he could say 

for it was that other proposals, such as making 50 percent of Federal-aid highway funding flexible, 

were worse. He saw “no reason why buses should be paid for out of the trust fund.” 

Senator Bentsen asked if American Trucking Associations would consider a 1 cent tax on gasoline 

to support mass transit as the type of across-the-board tax Bresnahan mentioned: 

Not really, because that is just another highway tax . . . . I am not recommending this, but it 

would be fairer and more tolerable for example if there was a 1-cent gasoline tax on all fuel, 

including, not only that used by trucks and automobiles, but airplanes, water carriers, and 

railroads, but even if you did that, you would be narrowing down the responsibility to a 

degree that we do not think it should be. 

Was Bresnahan satisfied with Secretary Brinegar’s comment that since truckers pay highway user 

taxes, “it is reasonable that those funds be directed to the special use, namely, that of meeting the 

extra cost of building highways to meet truckers’ needs.” Bresnahan replied, “No; not at all” and 

continued: 

[It] is one thing to talk about fair share, and charging the trucks more, because it costs more 

to build highways for trucks, when all the money goes for highways, but when you talk 
501 

about spending a billion or $2 billion on transit, in our view, the whole issue of fair share 

goes out the window. 

In response to a question from Senator Domenici, Bresnahan commented on the Secretary’s view 

that since highway user taxes prior to 1956 went to the general Treasury, taking 20 or 25 percent 

out of the fund for transit was not objectionable. Bresnahan agreed with the Secretary’s facts, 

saying, “Well, that is true, but in effect, he is saying to go back to an injustice that existed before 

1956, and apply it again . . . .” 

Senator Randolph closed out the questioning by noting that Senator Clifford P. Hansen (R-Wy.) 

was going to introduce a bill to repeal the size and weight limitations on Interstate highways. 

[Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 351-357] 

To end the day’s hearing, Senator Bentsen had scheduled witnesses to discuss his bill’s Section 

147, the provision that eliminated the Federal role in the North Expressway project through 

Brackenridge-Olmos Basin Parklands in San Antonio. The initial panel included Anthony Athens, 

Jr., chairman of the Sierra Club, South Texas Group, and Boone Powell, architect. 

Athens began by saying the special exemption for the North Expressway “would set a dangerous 

precedent weakening vital environmental safeguards” while the road as planned “would seriously 

degrade the major urban park and open space system of San Antonio.” In fact, the road would be “a 

disaster” for the park. In view of court victories thus far, intervention by Congress was 

“inappropriate and unnecessary.” He credited Congress for “genuine environmental awareness” in 

passing the laws, NEPA and 4(f) in particular, that it now wanted to eliminate compliance with for 

this one project. 

Exempting this project “may well open a Pandora’s box of requests for similar exemptions from 

across the Nation wherever crudely planned and environmentally damaging projects have been the 

source of controversy.” Athens estimated that any one of the 50 or so controversial road projects 

could be “candidates for tomorrow’s pleas to the Congress for special exclusion.” The issue, 

therefore, was not just about what the citizens of San Antonio want, “but rather a question of the 

continuing wholeness of the environmental safeguards which were the broad intent of Congress.” 

Eroding these safeguards risked letting them be “eroded into oblivion.” 

The North Expressway was “a dinosaur of the roadbuilding concept,” conceived 30 years earlier 

before people saw “the untrammeled use of automobiles destroying and distorting our cities, 

befouling our air, squandering our resources, and giving us inefficient transportation in the 

bargain.” As an example of changing attitudes, he cited EPA’s requirement of strategies to reduce 

urban automobile use, including moratoriums on free construction and increased reliance on public 

transit. “Advocacy of such a project without full study of alternatives is, we believe, the worst form 

of environmental folly, and one which the Congress should not encourage.” 

Powell, an architect living in San Antonio, discussed some of the city’s charms as well as earlier 

historic preservation battles, such as a 1930’s State plan to put a highway through the grounds of 
502 

historic Mission San Jose. The mission was saved and was now a national monument. He also 

described the park and its many features:

In conclusion, there are numerous reasons why the special legislation for San Antonio 

should not be enacted. Two successive Secretaries of Transportation have refused to 

approve the route proposed by Texas; the Federal court, in an exhaustive opinion, held that 

Federal laws had not been followed; the legislation has been opposed by all Federal 

agencies with expertise in the area—the Department of Transportation, the Council on 

Environmental Quality, and the Environmental Protection Agency. 

The issues could be resolved through completion of the environmental impact statement without 

congressional action. 

Senator Bentsen acknowledged the “sincerity and good will on the part of both sides” of the 

controversy. He noted, however, that EPA had calculated that by 1990, the expressway would 

substantially reduce air pollution in the area of the park due to more efficient traffic movement. 

Athens replied that in his opinion, “that is a thesis which remains to be proven.” 

The Senator pointed out that parks officials supported the expressway, including the director of 

parks and recreation and the San Antonio Zoological Society. Athens could not speak for those 

officials, but his own observation was that “it will very, very well do decided damage to the park, 

and all of the potential of the park cutting it in such small pieces.”

Senator Bentsen disputed the statement that the case was not unique and would set a bad precedent: 

It is the only case in America which I know of in which the people have been denied their 

right to build a highway within the boundaries of their own State, with their money, for their 

own use. 

That concluded his time without a response to his statement. 

Senator Buckley, who opposed the exception for the North Expressway, observed that he had over a 

dozen cousins and aunts living in San Antonio “and not a single one of them has lobbied me one 

way or the other.” (Senator Bentsen observed, “Considering your position, I wish they had.”) He 

wanted to know if the Texas Highway Department had taken any steps to comply with the court’s 

August 1971 decision. “Not that we are aware of,” Powell replied. How long would compliance 

take? Powell estimated 18 months.

If the Texas Highway Department returned the Federal-aid funds used on the expressway as 

envisioned in Section 147, Senator Buckley asked, would the recaptured funds remain available to 

Texas. Powell explained his understanding that the repayment was “a mere shift in bookkeeping” 

that would not affect the amount of Federal-aid highway funding available to Texas. 

Finally, Senator Buckley asked if the State had made any effort to comply with Section 4(f). No, 

Athens explained, because the State claimed that since it had applied for funding before enactment 
503 

of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966, it was not bound by the provision requiring 

consideration of all “feasible and prudent” alternatives before approval of the taking of parkland for 

a Federal-aid highway project. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 372-379] 

Sam McDaniel of the Texas Highway Department and Frank A. Bennack, Jr., publisher of the San 

Antonio Light newspaper, testified in support of the North Expressway. He explained that the 

project was a local issue. The city of San Antonio had proposed the project, located it through the 

park, and asked the State to build it. He displayed a map showing the route “in light of the ‘First 

Tuesday’ program the other night on NBC . . . .” He did not question the sincerity of those who 

opposed use of the park, whom he characterized as “quite affluent, some of them,” but added, 

“There is not much controversy over the fact that the expressway is needed, and any alignment 

which avoids this basin will displace over 1,000 families, not people, but families, by either going 

to the east or west to avoid the basin area.” 

What created the controversy was the State’s decision to use Federal-aid for the project and then to

not withdraw from Federal-aid soon enough. The State was bound by its agreement with the city to 

build this road “whether or not it is approved for Federal aid, because this is what the people of San 

Antonio want.” 

McDaniel tried to address the earlier question about how long compliance with Federal-aid 

requirements would take. The State could complete the environmental impact statement “without a 

terrible amount of delay” but that was “merely the first step in the procedure . . . .” Having already 

worked on the project for 9 years, the State would need around 5 more years to complete the review 

process. 

Bennack explained that he was appearing before the subcommittee as a citizen representing groups 

favoring the expressway. He provided some of the history, such as the 1961 referendum in which 

residents approved a bond issue, 2 to 1, and how FHWA had approved the route 9 years ago before 

Section 4(f) and NEPA. He added that in 1971, after years of controversy, “the community still was 

able in a very short time to get 103,000 people to sign the petition that they wanted this project 

completed.” 

Senator Bentsen asked Bennack how many elected city officials supported the project. Bennack 

replied that, “I believe it would not be stretching a point to say it is almost unanimous.” 

Senator Buckley said he was curious why the State had decided to ask for Federal-aid for the 

project in the first place. McDaniel simply stated that the project was routinely scheduled for 

Federal-aid. When opposition arose, the State “felt it would not be proper to change it just because 

there was controversy,” especially since the State thought it could repay the Federal-aid funds and 

proceed with State funds if it did not agree with the Secretary of Transportation’s decision. 

After the District Court allowed the project to proceed, the State and Secretary entered into an 

agreement “that the Secretary would agree to the end sections, if the [Texas Highway] commission 

would agree that unless the Secretary approved the middle section [through the park], no Federal 

funds would go into the end sections either, and that any funds that got into the end sections prior to 
504 

the decision on the middle section, would be refunded to the Secretary.” Construction began on 

that basis, but the Appeals Court ruled that the project had not been properly reviewed and returned 

it to the District Court. They could continue through the courts to secure approval to de-Federalize 

the project, but “we feel that the people of San Antonio need this expressway, and that they will get 

it much, much quicker, if we can get the Congress to turn it loose.” 

Senator Buckley said, “What I am concerned with is the principle, whether the Congress should be 

legislating to overturn a court decision, and what the impact of this legislation will have on the 

integrity of the environmental laws.” McDaniel did not believe such an action would set a 

precedent for other controversial projects: 

I think it is the only case in which all of the right-of-way acquisition had been made, and the 

route approval had been given, prior to the effective date of either one of the statutes, and all 

of that had been done with local funds, no Federal funds whatsoever were involved. 

Other controversial projects such as I-66 in northern Virginia “are cases in which you are talking 

about clearly Federal projects, and many of them are interstate projects, and you are not talking 

about a project where the city originally asked for it and its people voted for it.” 

When Senator Buckley asked if Texas would be willing to forgo $1.8 million in Federal funds, 

Senator Bentsen pointed out that under Section 147, the funds would be credited to the 

unprogrammed balance of Federal-aid funds for the category they came from, “but it is my 

understanding from counsel that it does not go back to Texas, that they lose that allocation, whereas 

the House bill provided it did go back to Texas.” Senator Buckley said he was still not satisfied.

Senator Bentsen concluded this portion of the hearing, and the day’s sessions, by saying, “I hope the 

day never comes when Congress will not be willing to judge a particular situation on its merits, or 

listen to local people . . . .” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 449-457] 

Following 2 days of hearings, Engineering News-Record said that the “battle to shape a new 

highway bill has reopened on Capitol Hill with little sign [of] an impending compromise.” Instead, 

the hearings “saw old antagonists reiterate familiar positions . . . .” After a brief comparison of 

Secretary Brinegar’s proposal and the Kennedy-Weicker bill, the magazine’s Washington Observer 

concluded: 

Although the highway battle promises to be a protracted fight, Administration sources say 

they are confident of prevailing in the Senate. The crunch will come in the House, which 

last year refused to go along with Senate-passed legislation to tap $800 million in trust fund 

money for optional spending. [“Highway Fund Battle Recurs Over Urban Spending,” 

Washington Observer, Engineering News-Record, February 15, 1973, p. 7] 

The hearings triggered editorials around the country. The Baltimore Sun, which was still 

chronicling the long-running controversies over the city’s Interstate connections, began an editorial: 

“There is a good chance this year that Congress will agree to tap a sacred cow, the Highway Trust 

Fund, so some of the $6 billion in it can be used for mass transit.” The possible limitation of funds 
505 

to the purchase of buses was “fine—as far as it goes. But such a restriction would do nothing to 

repair deteriorating train service or build needed new transit systems.” The newspaper was hesitant 

about the proposal to increase the gas tax by a penny for mass transit. “In effect, such a step would 

leave the brimming fund intact.” The Eisenhower plan for the Interstate System was “a resounding 

success,” but the “urgent need now is for improved mass transportation serving urban areas.” Still, 

the highway lobby was strong: 

It seems evident, therefore, that the price of improving mass transportation facilities 

includes eagle-eyed vigilance by the public, while the bill is being drawn up and when 

Congress votes on it. [“Don’t Blink,” The Baltimore Sun, February 8, 1973] 

The Birmingham News thought the Highway Trust Fund “is the logical source of funds with which 

to provide alternatives to the automobile.” Diversion was sound for several reasons: 

It would reduce pollution. It would help preserve urban land being consumed by more and 

more highways. It would reduce costs of transportation to individuals and help reduce the 

need for more and more highway construction. It would help relieve urban vehicular 

congestion. It would require less energy be used by moving more people more efficiently. 

There was no reason why details could not be worked out “to shift some of the focus from highway 

construction toward total transportation systems.” This was essential because, “Making it possible 

for even more cars to pour into the cities over new highways only adds to the problems.” [“To Aid 

Mass Transit,” Birmingham News, February 10, 1973] 

The Cleveland Plain Dealer, which also supported diversion, hoped proponents were right that 

chances were better in 1973 than they had been in 1972: 

We believe the American public will benefit from the better-balanced transportation system 

that would be made possible by diverting some highway construction money into bus or rail 

transit in auto-choked urban areas.

After endorsing the Kennedy-Weicker bill, the Plain Dealer acknowledged that there “may be an 

element of inequity in expecting highway users to help pay for mass transit.” However, “it is no 

more inequitable than having the general public, through its taxes, support railroads, or aviation, or 

barge or ship transportation.” This was especially true since highway users would benefit by 

improved mass transportation that could help relieve congestion. [“Use Road Funds for Mass 

Transit,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 10, 1973] 

The Milwaukee Sentinel said that Secretary Brinegar’s proposed to tap the Highway Trust Fund for 

mass transit “is an indication of another idea whose time has come.” The highway lobby, the 

editorial stated, could no longer “fend off reasonable approaches for spreading around the gasoline 

tax money which feeds the fund.” Operating expenses should remain a State and local 

responsibility, while mass transit advocates and environmentalists would be well advised to 

“temper their zeal with a more responsible attitude toward basic highway needs.” The effort to kill 

Milwaukee County’s freeway system was “an example of misused zeal.” The editorial encouraged 
506 

all parties to “start working together in a common cause.” [“Tap the Fund,” Milwaukee Sentinel, 

February 12, 1973] 

The New Orleans States Item thought that reasons “for opening the enormous highway fund to 

other modes of transportation become more compelling with each passing year.” The usual 

argument, that mass transit would relieve traffic congestion, was valid, but a new problem also 

should be considered. “In contemplating the national energy problem, Congress might view the 

efforts to channel highway funds into mass transit systems in a new light.” [“Energy and Mass 

Transit,” New Orleans States Item, February 13, 1973] 

An editorial in the Tucson Citizen reported that when Phoenix Mayor John Driggs, who supported 

construction of a 200-mile freeway system, announced that he opposed diversion of Highway Trust 

Fund revenue to mass transit, Citizens for Mass Transit—Against Freeways took “strong 

exception.” The group did not want to “follow in the footsteps of sprawling, ugly, smog-ridden Los 

Angeles.” The editorial agreed with the group that “Freeways are not the answer in Phoenix 

anymore than they have been in Los Angeles or would be in Tucson.” For years, the highway lobby 

had “succeeded in keeping a lock on the Highway Trust Fund.” Now, it was “time that lock was 

picked, and the legislation introduced in Congress could just do it.” [“Break the Trust,” Tucson 

Citizen, February 13, 1973] 

President Nixon was more determined than ever, according to the Pittsburgh Press’s editorial, to 

make Highway Trust Fund revenue available “for buses, commuter trains, and other mass transit 

projects.” Secretary Brinegar’s proposal, plus the $1 billion a year available through UMTA “could 

give hard-pressed rail and bus systems the funds to upgrade their service.” Highway boosters 

thought highway user revenue should be used only for highways. “But tax money should be spent 

where the need is greatest—and the need for clean, fast commuter systems is far greater at the 

moment than the need for new roads.” The editorial quoted Cincinnati Mayor Theodore M. Berry 

who had said the only alternative to improved mass transit is “more highways, more cars, more 

pollution.” That alternative, the editorial stated, “cities would do well to avoid.” [“Nixon and 

Mass Transit,” Pittsburgh Press, February 16, 1973] 

Governor Sargent

When the Subcommittee on Transportation returned on February 15 for a third day of hearings, 

Governor Sargent was the first witness. He was participating as Governor of Massachusetts but 

also as a representative of the National Governors’ Conference, which he served as chairman of its 

Committee on Commerce, Transportation, and Technology. 

He began by saying the pending legislation “holds immense significance” and its impact “will be 

felt for decades to come, and into the next century.” With that in mind, he said, the Governors “feel 

that the day has come when the Federal Highway [sic] must be broadened.” It must allow 

flexibility so that each State is allowed to meet its transportation needs in its own way. 

The country was justifiably proud of its “magnificent highway network,” but when those highways 

moved into the cities, they “began to tear up neighborhoods, uproot families, and displace 
507 

industry.” Commuters abandoned the buses and trains and “they now clog our expressways every 

morning and every evening.” The “inescapable conclusion” was that highways alone “cannot meet 

the transportation needs of some of our urban areas.” 

The National Governors’ Conference recognized the need for more rural roads, but “certain 

metropolitan areas have exhausted the potential of expressways.” Those areas should be given “the 

full capacity to create a more balanced system to reflect their specific needs.” That was not the case 

under current law: 

Today the Federal Government pours dollar after dollar into a State which builds highways. 

 As a result, there is enormous pressure on a governor of an urban State to build more and 

more highways. 

And it is no easy task to refuse. 

So what the Congress must do is to change the system. You must, in my view, modify the 

highway trust fund to allow greater flexibility.

Governor Sargent said a panel of State Secretaries of Transportation, including Secretary Altshuler, 

would be testifying later and could address the technical details of the proposals under 

consideration. The National Governors’ Conference supported the proposals Secretary Brinegar 

had presented, but he would limit himself to a couple of suggestions, starting with the Interstate 

transfer provision. It would greatly ease the burdens on some States that would no longer be 

“shackled to outdated plans that were designed for an earlier age”: 

The Governors’ conference [sic] believes that the Congress should allow the State to refuse 

the highway but still retain the money. It should allow the State to transfer such funds to 

either a different highway construction project or to mass transit, rail or bus. 

At the same time, the conference opposed the pass-through that would bypass State governments in 

the allocation of money. The intention to involve local communities in the highway program was 

good, he said, but “the means are questionable”:

By giving money to both the communities and the State you will be splitting the two apart. 

With an independent source of revenue, each will march off in its own direction. And any 

hopes for comprehensive statewide planning will be lost. 

Governor Sargent broadened his subject to the looming energy crisis the country was facing. The 

country needed new energy sources but in the meantime “must make better use of what energy 

resources we now have.” He cited a study by Chase Manhattan Bank concluding that “passenger 

cars alone burn 40 million barrels of oil a day,” representing 30 percent of total daily use. He also 

cited a floor speech in which Representative John Anderson pointed out that in urban areas, 

automobiles use twice as much gasoline per passenger mile as transit buses, four times as much as 

commuter buses, and seven times as much as commuter rail. 
508 

He also pointed out the environmental crisis that EPA had so clearly documented in finding that as 

many as 28 cities would be unable to meet ambient air quality standards by 1977. “And they will 

fall short because we now rely too heavily on the automobile for urban city travel.” Automobiles, 

he said, produced two-thirds of all carbon monoxide emissions, more than 50 percent of 

hydrocarbons, and two-fifths of nitrogen oxide. “In comparison, the pollutants left by the other 

forms of transportation are negligible.” 

For these reasons, the day had passed “when the automobile can travel unrestricted through our 

central cities.” The time had come to revise the Highway Trust Fund to give each State the 

flexibility to create the transportation network it needed. While we should take pride in our 

highway network, it was at the same time choking urban areas, paving through neighborhoods, 

displacing families, and fouling the air. “And the irony is that we did not intend to do this in the 

first place. It was an oversight, a mistake.” Now was the time to correct the mistake:

I hope, in my view, that you will revise the highway trust fund. I hope you will let each 

State meet its own transportation needs in its own way. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, 

S. 502, p. 484-488] 

Senator Bentsen noted the endorsement by the National Governors’ Conference of diversion of 

highway revenue to transit but pointed out that Governor Robert Docking of Kansas said on 

February 7 that, “The Highway Trust Fund should be preserved for the purpose it was intended, to 

build the Interstate highway system, and to make improvements to other Federal aid highway 

systems.” Did this not reflect division among the Governors? 

Governor Sargent explained that when he first raised the idea before the conference of using 

Highway Trust Fund revenues for mass transit, “it got nowhere.” Each year, however, support for 

flexibility grew “and at the last meeting, there was a clear vote on the part of the Governors to 

support this concept.” Even Governors from rural States that wanted more highways, not mass 

transit, supported the concept when they understood that their States would not be short changed. 

As with most witnesses, Senator Bentsen asked the Governor about funding options for transit, 

including the 1-cent gas tax increase. With $5 billion over 5 years from the increase plus the 

commitment of UMTA funds, “do you think that would support that?” Governor Sargent said he 

was primarily interested in “the matter of flexibility of the highway trust fund.” An additional 

penny a gallon “would provide that additional flexibility.” To provide sufficient funds for mass 

transit, “I would not say let us cut out the funds by any stretch of the imagination, but I would like 

to feel that the States would have this flexibility with the use of the highway trust fund.”

Regarding the pass-through that the Governors opposed, Senator Bentsen asked, “Would not that 

increase the flexibility?” The Governors, Sargent said, “feel that it is important to channel these 

funds through the Governors of the 50 States” and they can work with local officials, as had 

happened in the Boston area, to decide the best mix of projects. 

Did Governor Sargent have an opinion on whether metropolitan areas of 250,000 population, as in 

S. 502, or 400,000, as Secretary Brinegar had proposed, could best determine how the funds should 

be spent? Governor Sargent did not express a preference. Instead, he replied, “I think that the State 
509 

has got to look to the overall plan, the overall planning, the comprehensive planning for a balanced 

transportation system of the State.”

Senator Stafford wanted to clarify whether Governor Sargent meant that the Interstate transfer 

provision should allow the funds to be used within the State or another State such as Stafford’s own 

Vermont. Governor Sargent replied that like other States, Massachusetts had plans “that were 

prepared 20 years ago, that we have determined cannot be continued”: 

We would like to be able to transfer those dollars to our projects that made more sense, in 

the light of the problems that we created by this great commuter crush that we have . . . . 

We love Vermont, but we need our Massachusetts money in Massachusetts.

Since the pass-through provision would leave Boston decisions to Boston officials, Senator Stafford 

asked how Federal-aid urban system funding under the Muskie-Baker amendment might be spent in 

the area. “Would most of it still go to roads, or would half of it go to buses and rapid transit?” 

Governor Sargent did not want to predict a percentage, but after summarizing the Interstate 

highways he had halted, he said: 

We have decided that to do that would really be disastrous to the entire metropolitan Boston 

area. We would like to not build it, in fact, we are not going to build that, but what we 

would like to do is to have a large infusion of funds, to meet and to construct rapid transit, 

and to update on [sic] buses, and to modernize our system, use it for capital improvements, 

that we would consider we would use quite a percent of those funds for that purpose. 

He would include rail mass transit systems. “I personally think that we should have the broadest 

range of possibilities so that you truly can have a balanced transportation system.” 

Senator Stafford also wanted the Governor’s view on whether the Governor, the State department 

of transportation, or the highway department should be responsible for long-range transportation 

planning. Governor Sargent thought that States with a department of transportation should let the 

department handle long-range planning, but in States without such a department, the Governor 

should be responsible. 

Senator Domenici said that as a former Mayor, he had come to a simple conclusion. “I have 

concluded that the greatest problem we have in our country is piling people on top of each other, 

and then trying to undo the social entanglements.” He thought it might be better to move people 

out, “even if it were called sprawl,” than try to solve city problems. As a new Senator, he found 

that “people are saying, let us experiment thoroughly with a program of any magnitude before we 

commit our country to it.” He did not want to support something in the 1970s only to have people 

look back 20 years later and “then say that was wrong.” He asked Governor Sargent: 

So, I wonder if you have an opinion as to whether we know enough about the interrelation 

of the problem of why people use cars, will they use mass transit, will it really have any 

more of an impact on the total problem than trying to complete in the best way we can a 

system of highways that at least we know something about, and address ourselves to a true, 
510 

true feasibility experiment of some magnitude with the total problem of moving people in a 

manner called mass transit.

 

The Governor said that as for sprawl, “I think we can all agree that planning used to be a dirty 

word,” but it is desperately needed now because “we should be doing the planning rather than 

having the developer do the planning for us . . . .” He did not think that in the 1950s, when the 

cities clamored for Interstate highways, “we thought we would be setting up a system used by 

commuters a good deal, so we have created some problems.” In Boston, with its antiquated subway 

system, he was “very encouraged to find that the use of this is increasing tremendously,” including 

a new line that is computer run: 

I think that people, if they find they can have rapid transit that is clean, that is efficient, that 

is on time, they will use it, but certainly Americans have had a love affair with the 

automobile, and people like to be able to have that flexibility, being able to go whenever 

they want, wherever they want.

In response to questions from Senator Scott, Governor Sargent explained that he planned to expand 

mass transit in the Boston area to include additional lines and new computerized equipment. He 

was using revenue from State bond issues and funding from UMTA. 

The Senator and the Governor then engaged in a colloquy that went to the heart of the matter: 

Senator Scott. Is it your feeling that the people who use the highways should pay for mass 

transit?

Governor Sargent. Yes; I believe, for example, in my State, that we would be much better 

off and all of the people would be better off if they used mass transit. 

Senator Scott. Are you going to make the people use mass transit, whether they want to or 

not? 

Governor Sargent. We are going to try to persuade them to by having a good system. 

Senator Scott. Do you take it upon yourself to tell the people what is best for them, because 

you are the Governor of the State of Massachusetts? Don’t we live in a democratic society, 

where we have freedom, and where people should decide such things as this for themselves? 

 Is this not a big brother type of approach? 

Governor Sargent. I think that the people want to have a balanced system. I think they want 

to have alternative ways of doing things, and I am not saying, Senator, that a rural State 

should lose any money at all for highways. I am just saying that I think that an urban State 

should have flexibility in usage. 

Senator Scott. Would it be reasonable to complete the Interstate System before we start 

diverting funds out of that system and weakening it for mass transit and other purposes. 

Governor Sargent. Mr. Chairman, I very strongly feel that we should finish the Interstate 

System.

Senator Scott. Before we take any money out of it for the other purposes? 

Governor Sargent. Well. I think for instance in our State, and I was faced with this problem 

of some 20-year old plans that were there, that would have torn through the city, and so on, 

and we said no, we are not going to build those facilities, we said that we should use some 
511 

of those funds for mass transit. That does not mean that we are not going to complete the 

Interstate System. I think that we should complete the Interstate System nationally, I think 

we should complete it in Massachusetts? 

Senator Scott. Before we divert funds? 

Governor Sargent. I do not think we should, however, say we are going to go forward with 

that 20-year old plan that would ruin the city of Boston and Cambridge and so on just 

because the plans are there.

Senator Scott, a native of Williamsburg, Virginia, then became nostalgic, recalling the small 

community where he grew up. He said, “we did have mass transit, we had street cars that ran from 

one little community to another, they are all gone now,” adding, “I cannot help wondering what 

happened to the street cars.” Like Senator Domenici, he wondered what would happen in 20 years, 

but he could not “understand such a thing as stopping beltways.” 

The final questioner was Senator Randolph. Regarding the Governor’s endorsement of Secretary 

Brinegar’s proposals, he asked, “Are you aware we do not have them?” Governor Sargent said he 

was not aware of the details, but based his comments on the Secretary’s statement. Senator 

Randolph added, “The members of the committee are awaiting those details, which we hope will be 

brought to us as soon as possible.” 

Senator Randolph pointed out that he had tried to “pass a bill to be resourceful and creative and 

come out of the straightjacket in which we found ourselves, to encourage uses of bus lanes, and 

many other innovative matters in connection with the movement of people.” The bill had failed in 

1972, but “sometimes we have a feeling that some of the witnesses do not want to really give credit 

for that which has been done.” He wanted to clarify Governor Sargent’s concern about the passthrough provision of S. 502. Regarding community participation, did the Governor mean 

determining whether rail or some other form of transportation would be pursued rather than the use 

of highways? Governor Sargent confirmed: 

I could be accused of being a Governor, and therefore I feel that way, but I think the funds 

should go through the Governor, so he could be concerned with the overall transportation 

planning, to try to have a balanced system, rather than having it go directly to the cities and 

towns. 

The same applied to the use of Federal-aid urban funds. “We have set up machinery to work with 

the communities on this, but we would want to be sure again that this was part of an overall 

comprehensive plan for the entire State.” 

The Senator explained that the Interstate routes were included in the Interstate System to meet a 

transportation need. If that need no longer existed, “then how can an obligation be imposed on the 

trust fund?” Confused by the question, Governor Sargent said he would go back to the issue of 

flexibility. “It seems to me that a Governor and his secretary of transportation in a State can make 

the wisest decisions regarding his State.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 488-497] 
512 

More Familiar Voices

Dr. Ronan of the Institute for Rapid Transit and MTA testified next. He explained that MTA was 

expanding the New York City subway system, redeveloping suburban railroads, and operating 

suburban bus routes. It also had been authorized to build a highway bridge crossing over Long 

Island Sound: 

The proposed Rye-Oyster Bay Bridge, to be connected into Interstate highways 95 and 287, 

will vastly improve access by automobile, bus and truck between Long Island and the 

mainland. 

In his multiple capacities, he opposed Section 130 of S. 502 on “Urban Highway Public 

Transportation” if it restricted funding to mass transit systems other than rail. As such, he said, “the 

bill would have the effect of discouraging the transportation of passengers within urban areas by 

rail.” He did not believe that such an outcome “would be in the national interest for a variety of 

reasons, including economics, air pollution control, and the need to conserve energy.” He added 

that whether a metropolitan area would be better served by bus or fixed rail “should not be 

predetermined by Federal statute.” The past 20 years had shown that if the legislation did not allow 

the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for rail mass transit, “there would be a strong inducement 

for State and local governments to opt for highways just to get the Federal financing to do 

something about their problems.” 

He also was concerned about the definition of metropolitan transportation agencies in the section of 

S. 502 on availability of Federal-aid urban funds: 

As presently defined in the bill, a metropolitan transportation agency must have the power to 

engage in highway construction to qualify for assistance. This would eliminate most of the 

publicly owned urban transit systems in the country as grant recipients. 

We believe that the bill’s definition of areawide metropolitan transportation agencies should 

be modified to permit funds to be made available directly to governmental bodies that have 

been duly authorized to construct and operate urban public transportation services. 

[Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 498-502] 

Daniel Mikesell, supervisor of San Bernardino County, California, and other county officials 

represented the National Association of Counties (NACo) before the subcommittee. Mikesell, who 

chaired NACo’s Steering Committee, explained that county officials were responsible for 67 

percent of the Nation’s roads, or about 2.3 million miles out of 3.8 million miles. “Most of the 

Federal aid secondary system, as well as the urban system [designated] under the 1970 act, is under 

county control.” With that in mind, NACo supported the reduced authorization level for the 

Interstate System in S. 502 because it meant “the backlog needs of other systems will be given 

increased money.” He urged that Congress authorize at least $2 billion for non-Interstate roads.

NACo opposed the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit. For several years, it had 

recommended creation of a separate Mass Transit Trust Fund, with the full amount of Highway 
513 

Trust Fund revenues reserved for highways through 1977 without cutbacks or delays. “While the 

establishment of a trust fund does not come under the jurisdiction of this committee, the 

establishment of such a fund might change your approach to providing funds for public 

transportation.” 

With that distinction in mind, NACo supported the proposed increase in contract authority for mass 

transit, from $3.1 billion to $6.1 billion as well as funds for operating subsidies. 

In addition, NACo opposed the pass-through provision: 

These metropolitan agencies do not now have the authority or power to develop and 

implement the plan. Nor is it likely that this authority or power will be provided by State, 

county, and city officials in the foreseeable future. 

We also are not convinced that such a provision would necessarily give local governments 

more flexibility and control over funding. State governments would still control the 

distribution of other State road assistance, a major part of outside funding for local 

governments in many States, in addition to the large expenditure of State funds on major 

roads within the State.

NACo favored retention of the funding categories for the Federal-aid highway systems, but 

reduction of the special purpose programs. Once these programs had focused attention on the area 

in question, such as TOPICS, bridge replacement, or railroad-highway grade crossing safety, they

should be folded into one of the basic categories. 

The Interstate transfer and substitution provisions in S. 502 were generally acceptable to NACo. 

However, the funds resulting from a withdrawal should be used only on the Interstate System, not 

the other Federal-aid systems. If the State could not use the funds, the funds should be retained in 

the Highway Trust Fund and the total cost of completing the Interstate System should be reduced. 

NACO had serious reservations about the proposed 10,000-mile priority primary system. The cost 

of these routes “would be better used for needed improvements on he other non-Interstate System— 

primary, secondary, urban, and urban extensions.” 

During a brief question period, Senator Stafford pointed out that while NACo favored reduced 

authorizations for the Interstate System, most other witnesses favored completing the network as 

soon as possible. Mikesell explained that given the tremendous amount of mileage that needed 

upgrading in the country, “we are not able to cope with the conditions of the roads or the traffic they 

now bear.” He added that “we are so behind in bringing these roads up to standard, that we feel that 

some slight reduction in the interstate, it would not be adverse to the public interest.” 

Senator Stafford asked if NACo would support a 1-cent gas tax increase for urban mass transit 

systems. NACo had not taken a position on how to fund a Mass Transit Trust Fund, but Mikesell 

suggested an excise tax on automobiles as “a source that is not being tapped now, and oftentimes 
514 

they blame automobiles for the terrible conditions of our Nation, and maybe it would reduce the 

sale” of the vehicles. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 510-515] 

As in the past, former Deputy Federal Highway Administrator D. Grant Mickle represented 

HUFSAM. In response to the questions submitted to all witnesses, Mickle stated that the 

documented need for highways and safety improvements is “so huge that total highway and safety 

authorizations should fully utilize highway trust fund income.” 

He recommended consolidated categorical programs because the present array “increasingly 

hampered management by the States and cities.” He favored a functional reclassification of roads 

to align them better with the goals of the Federal-aid primary, secondary, and urban systems. As a 

result of such a reclassification, a new priority primary network would not be needed since the 

routes would be classified as principal arterials and included in the Federal-aid primary system. 

“Within a state’s own improvement priority system, such routes could be given precedence.” He 

recommended eliminating the Special Urban High Density Program, the proposed Rural Public 

Transportation Program, and other special systems and categorical programs. He did, however, 

favor study of a possible National Scenic Highway System, as proposed by S. 502. 

HUFSAM strongly supported mass transit and would not object “to a public transit trust fund 

supported from general tax sources . . . .” Mickle supported pass-through of funds to qualified 

urban governments, but recommended against allocating the Federal-aid urban system funds on a 

population basis, which would lead to “inequities which defeat the worthy purpose of an increased 

emphasis on urban highway needs.” He suggested amending S. 502 to require each State to 

develop an allocation plan for Federal-aid urban system funds, the plan to be approved by the 

Secretary of Transportation. 

In view of urgent urban needs, HUFSAM favored strengthening metropolitan planning in stages. 

First, encourage development of metropolitan area transportation planning agencies for better 

coordination of highway, transit, and land use planning. Second, the agencies should receive 

Federal-aid funds directly when the State and U.S. Secretary of Transportation certify that they 

“have shown their ability and desire to carry out, as well as plan, areawide transportation 

improvements.” Where significant changes in community plans occur, the Federal-aid program 

should be suspended temporarily to allow for assessment and adjustments. 

HUFSAM opposed any Interstate transfer or substitution provision that was contrary to completing 

the Interstate System. Route substitutions should be used only to ensure System continuity. Any 

cost savings should be applied to accelerated completion of the Interstate System. 

Senator Stafford asked Senator Bentsen’s usual question about increasing the gas tax by a penny 

with the revenue dedicated to mass transit. The gas tax, Mickle responded, is regressive in that it 

“takes away a higher fraction of total income from the poor than from the affluent.” The motoring 

public accepted this disparity because of the “special benefits provided to the users as a class in the 

use of the proceeds from that tax.” HUFSAM would object to a 1-cent increase for mass transit 

“because it is regressive without the special benefits.” A Mass Transit Trust Fund should be 

“funded from the very broadest base of tax because it benefits a very broad base of use.” 
515 

Did Mickle not believe, Senator Stafford asked, that a 1-cent gas tax for mass transit would benefit 

highway users by relieving congestion? Mickle explained “the approximate amount of diversion 

from highways to mass transit is about equal to 1 year’s growth in traffic.” His written statement 

elaborated on this point. The 1972 Transportation Needs Study provided one reason for his 

statement:

All told, the DOT study showed that the proportion of travel by transit will drop from seven 

percent in 1970 to six percent by 1990—and this was based on the assumption that planned 

transit improvements [totaling $63 billion] would be made. The study’s findings—that 

transit needs are high, and that they have no appreciable affect [sic] on highway needs, are 

brought into perspective by recent and proposed high-quality transit improvements. 

He cited Canada’s 1967/Expo Transit, BART, and the Washington area’s METRO: 

Downtown-oriented, high capacity transit systems—although they may be needed in a few 

corridors—will make few if any inroads on the major transportation demands our cities and 

suburbs will experience. 

Transit riders—just like everyone else—also “vote with their pocketbook.” Three out of 

four transit patrons use buses, and dominate in every city except New York. And when they 

can, nonauto users opt for auto-like services. Taxis carry more passengers than all the urban 

rail and commuter rail systems combined. Buses and taxis, needless to say, need good 

highway transportation in order to do their job well. 

Senator Stafford asked Mickle to comment on the claim by highway opponents “that better 

highways will in themselves lead to greater congestion and more pollution” by increasing demand 

for more automobiles. Mickle replied: 

I have a suspicion that people that make statements like that were not around during the 

period immediately following World War II when we had a tremendous backlog of needs in 

highways. The demand was not generated by highways, it was generated by the desire of 

people to have a flexible type of transportation provided for by automobiles. 

The kind of needs program we see for the future is not one of building vast mileage for new 

superhighways. There are tremendous needs of the type I mentioned in my statement of 

improving unsafe bridges, narrow highways, bad curves, bad intersections, and most of the 

funds will be for that type of thing in the future, not for new highways. [Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 520-534, emphasis in original] 

The afternoon session on February 15 began with Senator Jacob Javits of New York. He recalled 

his role in securing Senate approval in 1972 of the Cooper-Muskie amendment and said that 

position should be sustained in 1973: 

There is a very big issue involved here, Mr. Chairman, and that is whether or not the United 

States is going to realize the fact that most of our people live in major cities, about 70 
516 

percent of our population, and just how far you can go with these ribbons of highway, and 

so very, very frequently, one person to a car, or when we have to adopt some other approach 

before we are inundated with traffic, which . . . will throttle us all, and the pollution of the 

emission of miles upon miles of automobiles.

We should be very proud of our modern system of highways, “but that does not mean our feet have 

to be rooted in concrete.” In view of these concerns, he supported the two bills Senator Muskie had 

introduced, S. 738 to support State auto emission inspection programs and S. 739 to allow diversion 

of Highway Trust Fund revenue. He explained: 

Mr. Chairman, with regard to mass transit, for years and years we thought the only way out 

of our national transportation problem was the highway, and established an enormous trust 

fund for that purpose and this trust fund is today so great, it is not even being expended . . . . 

We have a tremendous challenge before us, where already overburdened municipalities face 

either deficits or the takeover of their municipal transit systems.

He also supported S. 386, the Emergency Commuter Relief Act, but this bill addressed only mass 

transit “and only indirectly moves to correct the fundamental imbalance in our transportation 

system.”

He said that “an effort has been made to see the highway trust fund as a sacred cow,” which means 

“if you took it literally, that you have got to keep tightening the noose of the highway around our 

necks with all of the money we have available.” He continued: 

It is almost a case, Mr. Chairman, where we have to ask ourselves, have we got enough 

brains to save ourselves, or must we be like the lemmings, just walk into the ocean and 

commit suicide? Perhaps we are as blind as they are, but I would hope not. 

Senator Stafford referenced Senator Javits’ description of the Highway Trust Fund as a “sacred 

cow” and asked if he saw any reason why it could not be modified. Senator Javits said, “There is 

no commitment in it that cannot be changed by the Congress with the signature of the President.” 

The Highway Trust Fund represented a commitment at that time, but the time had come to make a 

different commitment.

Senator Bentsen mentioned the comment about Highway Trust Funds not being expended leading 

to a carryover from year to year. He pointed out that these were funds impounded despite their 

authorization by Congress. Senator Javits acknowledged the problem. 

Senator Stafford requested Senator Javits’ views on a transportation trust fund for all surface 

transportation. Javits replied: 

The general treasury is in such trouble . . . [that to] start now and try to find $11 or $10 

billion out of the general treasury, you might as well forget it. I would rather use the 

existing trust fund. 
517 

Senator Randolph began his question period by pointing out that he supported mass transit, had 

voted for every mass transit bill in the Senate, and had urged the President to release impounded 

mass transit funds. However, he told Senator Javits, “I am concerned that you in your desire to take 

care of the problems, which is certainly a problem in certain cities, you are really shrinking a 

highway trust fund that is needed . . . to meet the needs of some cities.” If funds were diverted, “we 

may be in a position where we are not going to complete either one of the jobs you think need to be 

done, urban mass transit, including rail in some instances, and the highway program.” 

He was determined to complete the Interstate System and “we will work in every possible way to 

see that that is brought about.” That would cost $17 billion to $19 billion. Meanwhile, the cost of a 

rail system, in even a few cities, “is astronomical.” He continued: 

For that reason, I think we are going to have to find additional funds; I think we are going to 

have to tap new resources, as it has been suggested, with the imposition of a tax. 

He pointed out that Senator Javits had supported the Highway Trust Fund and the Airport and 

Airways Trust Fund, “so I suggest that you might give thought to an urban mass transit trust fund.” 

He explained, “I know it is impossible, as I see it, to have enough funds to do the job that you think 

must be done if we are to draw away from the Highway Trust Fund.” 

Senator Javits responded, “I believe it is the duty of the Congress to evaluate the pace at which the 

interstate highway system is built, in terms of advancing social and environmental developments in 

the country.” If it were up to him, he would allocate 70 percent of the Highway Trust Fund revenue 

to urban problems, because 70 percent of the people live in cities. By contrast, Senator Muskie was 

proposing the use of only one-sixth of the funding for alternate uses. Further, in view of the many 

problems facing urban areas, we should consider whether “the greatest public weight must fall with 

the completion of the interstate highway system by a given date, which would mean utilizing all of 

the Highway Trust Fund for the purpose, or whether the greater public interest dictates that might 

be slowed up somewhat . . . .” 

Senator Muskie concluded the session with Senator Javits by saying that in traveling around Maine, 

he found the reaction to the Muskie-Baker amendment was “so long as the Congress does not 

undertake to dictate to Maine what it should do with its share of the Highway Trust Fund, that 

Maine people ought not to undertake to dictate to New York what it should do with respect to its 

transportation needs—and that is what the Muskie-Baker amendment says.” [Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 546-554] 

William D. Ruckelshaus

In the afternoon of February 15, EPA Administrator Ruckelshaus appeared before the 

Subcommittee on Transportation. He was, he said, particularly interested in provisions of S. 502 

that offered assistance to communities to alleviate motor vehicle pollution. He mentioned 

construction of bus lanes and the purchase of buses, but said that while these were laudable 

measures, “we believe this approach alone offers too little too late.” Events necessitated “a more 

comprehensive approach in solving the major problems accompanying transportation programs.” 
518 

He explained that the Clean Air Amendments of 1970 mandated the attainment of NAAQS, 

designed to protect public health, by mid-1977, at the latest: 

Currently, we estimate 20 metropolitan areas, including eight of the Nation’s 10 largest 

cities, will need some form of transportation controls if air quality standards are to be met 

by 1977. 

Transportation controls would be needed that go beyond traditional air pollution control measures. 

Examples included “improvements in mass transit, auto free zones, parking surcharges, staggered 

work hours, and conversion of fleet vehicles to gaseous fuels.” Given the complexities of the 

issues, EPA had extended the deadline by 2 years, from 1975 to 1977. (Gaseous fuels include 

natural gas, hydrogen, and hydrogen-natural gas blends that reduce harmful emissions.) 

The Los Angeles area faced the most severe problems. Ruckelshaus explained that EPA, under 

court order, proposed regulations that “would require expensive retrofitting of pre-1975 motor 

vehicles, conversion of fleet vehicles to gaseous fuels, greater control of stationary sources, and 

extensive gasoline rationing during the 6 worst months of the year.” 

Even in areas with less severe problems, however, “motor vehicle travel must be curtailed . . . at a 

time when intracommunity motor vehicle usage is increasing and continued urban growth is 

occurring, particularly in those areas already experiencing the greatest problems.” The only way 

motor vehicle use could be reduced is “if alternative modes of transportation are made available.” 

Efficient mass transit capable of “moving people where they want to go fast, and in an inexpensive 

fashion,” would give people the incentive to reduce use of their automobiles. 

Not every urban area is suited to a rail system, Ruckelshaus said, “but local elected officials should 

have the option of choosing between buses, rail, and highways.” EPA, therefore, “strongly” 

endorsed Secretary Brinegar’s proposal to allow greater flexibility for local communities in how 

they use Highway Trust Fund revenues. “Local officials are in the best position to determine the 

transportation systems that will solve their communities’ transportation, environmental and social 

needs.” 

He was “under no illusion” that improved mass transit alone will solve the air pollution problem: 

If air quality standards are to be met and maintained, appropriate measures must also be 

adopted to discourage the use of private automobiles. Clearly, an integrated approach of 

providing better mass transit service coupled with a regulatory and/or economic disincentive 

mechanism will be needed in many communities.

In concluding his opening statement, Ruckelshaus pointed out that controlling air pollution was 

“only one aspect of the challenge of a balanced transportation system.” If all vehicle emissions 

were eliminated, the Nation’s urban areas “would still be faced with a host of transportation related 

problems—noise, waste of fuel resources, congestion, deteriorating cities, unemployment and 

underemployment, and physical alienation.” Congress had to look to alternatives: 
519 

With sufficient incentives and flexible funding, we could provide buses and commuter 

trains that are fast, safe, reliable, and convenient. Mass transit as a part of a sensible longterm solution to communities’ modern transportation needs must be included as a major 

element in the design of more efficient cities.

Highways were still needed as part of an integrated transportation system:

A balanced transportation system will only evolve if decisionmakers at the local level have a 

choice between various modes of transportation to serve their citizens’ needs. [Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 565-567] 

Senator Bentsen began the questioning by asking whether a “reasonable reduction” in air pollution 

would occur if the billions of dollars requested by Secretary Brinegar for mass transit were used for 

mass transit. Increasing mass transit funding would be “meaningful,” but if Senator Bentsen was 

asking if that kind of expenditure would solve the problem in an area such as Los Angeles by 1977, 

“my answer is ‘No,’ it would not.” In Los Angeles and some other areas, “solutions must be 

projected into the future in terms of decades, and not in terms of years.” He added that if we 

continue to build highways in these areas, “we are going to assure that decades in the future, air 

pollution problems will be with us, hence we are not really addressing the problem as 

comprehensively or intelligently as we should.” 

Regarding operating subsidies, Senator Bentsen acknowledged that the Nixon Administration was 

opposed, but he wondered what EPA’s view might be. Ruckelshaus stated that the 

Administration’s position was that “they do not believe the operating subsidies should come from 

highway trust funds, or from the Federal Government itself.” Subsidies should come from the local 

communities. “I think we ought to distinguish between the large capital expenditures needed to get 

a mass transit system underway, and the need for the continued operation of those systems in 

competition with any other mode of transportation at the local level.”

In view of the controversies surrounding urban Interstate segments, would EPA be concerned about 

passage of Senator Baker’s Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 6, which Secretary Brinegar had 

endorsed, authorizing the immediate apportionment of Interstate funds? Ruckelshaus said that 

Secretary Brinegar had endorsed the resolution because he did not want to see Interstate funding 

held up while complex issues were debated during consideration of Federal-aid highway legislation. 

EPA was satisfied that NEPA and other laws provided “a sufficient handle” on the controversial 

Interstate segments. Ruckelshaus was more concerned about “the larger issue of whether the fund 

itself, should be broadened so as to make its moneys available in a more flexible way.”

Senator Stafford asked what assistance the Muskie-Baker amendment, if adopted, would give to 

areas such as Los Angeles in meeting air quality standards. Ruckelshaus replied:

I am not so naïve to believe there is any panacea for the problem in Los Angeles. Simply by 

the Congress waving a wand, will not alleviate all that air pollution.
520 

Giving local officials flexibility in how they use Highway Trust Fund revenue might encourage 

them to adopt a long-range plan for alternatives modes of transportation that over a decades-long 

span, not by 1977, would reduce emissions. Taking such a long range approach, “rather than 

simply to say we cannot achieve it, we are not going to do anything about it, is pretty much where 

we are right now in Los Angeles.”

What about buses, Senator Bentsen wanted to know, if enough motorists could be attracted out of 

their cars? Buses, using diesel fuel, had two problems, odor and particulate matter or smoke. The 

newest diesel engines “can in fact be used in a more environmentally acceptable way.” Further, 

buses are less of a problem than automobiles when it comes to carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons: 

The problem in Los Angeles is primarily a problem of hydrocarbons and its interaction with 

nitrogen oxides and with sunlight that in turn forms smog. What we are trying to do in Los 

Angeles is reduce drastically the amount of hydrocarbon that is being emitted in the air. 

If buses were well patronized by former motorists, they “would greatly reduce the amount of 

hydrocarbon emitted into the air.” 

Senator Muskie said that in drafting the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, the Committee on Public 

Works recognized that “if the timetables set out in that legislation were to be met, that we would 

have to develop not only a clean car at the earliest possible date—and we set the date, 1975—but in 

addition, there would have to be drastic changes in the way we use the private automobile in our 

cities.” He said that this same committee was refusing to do anything to achieve those goals. “We 

have to make a beginning, and I think this is the place to make it.” 

Since HUFSAM and others estimated that the country needed $600 billion worth of highway 

improvements, Senator Muskie asked what such an expenditure “would do to this country.” 

Ruckelshaus replied that “it is almost beyond my comprehension, Senator, what that would do to 

this country.” He would redefine the term “needs” since what was needed was “a transportation 

system that is safe, convenient, efficient, effective, and that whatever it takes to provide such a 

transportation system is the kind of approach” that is needed. 

Would it be a “wise public policy” for the Federal Government to continue supporting highway 

construction in urban areas with air quality problems? Ruckelshaus did not want to rule out 

highway construction, but building more highways that would “exacerbate a situation, is the wrong 

way to go.” Local officials needed to think in terms of transportation options “to achieve as clean 

air as possible consistent with moving people” and that generally meant “some alternative than 

simply to building more highways.” 

Senator Muskie asked if EPA was complying with Section 102 of NEPA and Section 309 of the 

Clean Air Act that “require EPA to file environmental impact statements on all Federal highway 

projects.” Ruckelshaus explained that EPA commented on all environmental impact statements. 

“As a matter of fact, the biggest single burden on our Federal Activities Office is to comment on 

impact statements filed pursuant to highway projects.” The Senator asked if EPA was commenting 

adversely on highway projects in the regions that needed transportation controls. Ruckelshaus 
521 

replied that EPA did comment adversely in many instances. For the record, he submitted letters 

EPA had written commenting on the Stadium Freeway in Milwaukee; the widening of the Lincoln 

Highway in Cook County, Illinois; the I-95 Center Leg Inner Freeway in Washington; the Papago 

Freeway in Phoenix; and the Long Island Sound Crossing in New York. 

Senator Muskie had additional questions, but deferred them in view of time constraints and 

requested written responses. Ruckelshaus, who submitted them after Secretary Brinegar released 

the Department’s Federal-aid proposals later in the month, generally accepted that the Department’s 

proposals would address the concerns Senator Muskie raised. 

Senator Bentsen interrupted Senator Muskie to respond to the comment that the committee had not 

done anything about clean air. “We provided for bus lanes, we have provided for the expenditure of 

funds for buses, which will have an immediate impact on the emission of pollution.” They were 

steps to cut pollution “and I think that is an affirmative step on the part of the committee.” 

Before Senator Bentsen could ask Senator Randolph to take his turn in the questioning, Senator 

Muskie said he appreciated Senator Bentsen’s comment about the committee’s actions. “I will 

concede the committee has done something. So I will modify my position to say that what it has 

done, in my judgment, is completely inadequate.” 

Senator Randolph said he was sorry Senator Muskie felt that the committee’s effort had been 

completely inadequate. The committee had “done so much” but “is not given credit” for these 

efforts. “There is a feeling among some people in the country that the Public Works Committee is a 

pork barrel committee. That is said over and over again” even though the committee addresses a 

broad range of problems. He told Senator Muskie that he had worked hard to ensure that 

environmental reports on highway projects—“6,000 or 7,000 a year”—were part of the process. “I 

think that we are just concerned with how best to do the job, how quickly it can be done.” 

Senator Randolph had missed Ruckelshaus’s formal statement but speculated that “you may have 

indicated that we have to think of the long-range program, how one can fit into another . . . .” 

Ruckelshaus confirmed that he had said “if we are going to advantageously impact not only the 

problem of air pollution, associated with the use of the automobile, but the local problem of 

transportation, and in fact the quality of life of our people in a given community, we are talking in 

terms of decades and not just years.” 

Before Senator Muskie began his second round of questioning, he wanted to smooth over any hurt 

feelings. He began by saying, “I am very proud to have been a member of the Public Works 

Committee ever since I came to the Senate, and the fact we have been able to agree unanimously on 

so many pieces of environmental legislation is, I think, a tribute to the committee.” 

If Congress did not open the Highway Trust Fund to support public transportation in urban areas, 

the Senator asked, was Ruckelshaus aware of any other funds that might be made available quickly 

to help meet the Clean Air Act requirements? “A short answer to your question, Senator, is no.” 

The only other source was UMTA funding. 
522 

What other transportation alternatives did EPA envision? Ruckelshaus said that increased use of 

buses was “clearly the only short-term alternative that is available in most metropolitan areas.” 

Constructing a rail transit system “obviously takes longer.” 

Was EPA concerned, Senator Muskie asked, about recent trends increasing the size and weight of 

cars as well as fuel consumption? Ruckelshaus replied that unless the country looked at the totality 

of the problem, including these trends, “we are really never going to solve it.” He added: 

In fact, in my own mind, even though I am the Administrator of the EPA charged with the 

enforcement of the Clean Air Act, I sometimes have mixed emotions about solving the air 

pollution part of the problem of transportation, because what that may, in effect, do is take 

away the public pressure to do something about transportation as a whole. I think we need 

public demand to address this problem in a comprehensive and intelligent total way if we 

are really going to come up with any solutions that make any sense in the long run. 

Was EPA considering the issue of limiting motor vehicle sizes? “I think we are just on the 

threshold of discussing that issue. The issue has arisen in term of the claims that the emission 

devices that are being put on the 1973 automobiles are causing an enormous fuel penalty.” People 

were discussing the fuel penalty all over the country: 

We made an analysis of the factors that were causing fuel penalties, and we found that 

automatic transmission causes a 6 percent fuel penalty, an air conditioner causes a 9 percent 

fuel penalty—up to 20 percent during certain periods of use in the summer—that 

automobile emission devices, on the average, of a 1973 automobile over the uncontrolled 

1968 cars causes a 7 percent fuel penalty, but the single most important factor in fuel 

penalty is the weight . . . . If we are concerned about the conservation of fuel, then I think 

we ought to look at all of these things that cause fuel penalties and think about limiting 

those that are of less social benefit. If you do that, then the last one you get to would be 

emission control devices.

Senator Randolph took the final question slot by asking about the BART system in the Bay Area. 

Ruckelshaus had not ridden it, but said officials in San Francisco told him they “are optimistic 

about its eventual use, and we are watching it very carefully as is the Department of 

Transportation.” Senator Randolph agreed it was “a tremendous project,” but added, “It is the 

terrific cost of these projects, and to pull the money from the highway trust fund, that is not going to 

do the job.” Ruckelshaus agreed it would not do “the total job,” but the country had to “start 

somewhere.” 

“The Congress has committed itself,” Senator Randolph said, “to urban mass transit,” but 

Ruckelshaus doubted that “the commitment is sufficient in terms of the long-range kind of 

commitment that exists with the trust fund.” The Senator asked if he would support a trust fund for 

mass transit. Ruckelshaus said the Administration’s approach was to use “available trust fund 

money, so as not to bias the decisions of the local officials toward one mode of transportation over 

another.” 
523 

Ruckelshaus added that comparing rail, bus, and automobile alternatives in urban conditions, a rail 

system is not always the best way to go” although it might be cost-effective in some cases. Senator 

Randolph said he was skeptical about rail systems:

I hope that the rail systems work. I hope we have enough money to do the job. In the 

BART system, the estimate of traffic has been cut by 50 percent . . . . I frankly am a 

believer in change, and in meeting the problems of change, but I doubt that the Metro 

system in the District of Columbia is going to be the success that is envisioned. I hope it 

will be, but I doubt it very much. The periods of use of such a rail system are 3 or 4 hours a 

day, when the road is being used 24 hours a day, and in that long period, the rail system is 

not being used. 

Ruckelshaus cautioned against judging BART or any new rail system in its first few months of 

operation “because we are talking about attitudes of people, and their dependence on certain modes 

of transportation shifting to another.” Education was needed to “convince people why they should 

adopt some provision of transportation which is public.” But the decisions made today will last for 

decades, so “I think we have to protect ourselves into the future in determining how we have to 

move our people in order to answer ultimately many of these questions.” [Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 567-576, 619-620] 

Following Ruckelshaus, the subcommittee heard from a panel of State transportation officials: 

Secretary Altshuler of Massachusetts, Secretary Harry Hughes of Maryland, Secretary Norman 

Clapp of Wisconsin, and Commissioner Raymond T. Schuler of New York. Secretary Hughes, a 

former State legislator since winning election in 1954, took the lead in explaining that 20 States 

now had departments of transportation. They met informally for the first time in September 1972 in 

Baltimore and 17 of the States attended a second meeting, held in Miami, the previous week. One 

of the reasons for the Miami meeting was to discuss the Federal-Aid Highway Act. 

(The Maryland Department of Transportation had begun operations on July 1, 1971, the 12th State 

transportation department in the country. It combined the Maryland State Roads Commission, the 

Baltimore Metropolitan Transit Authority, the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the Aviation 

Commission.) 

Secretary Hughes said State transportation officials recommended a funding level of $4 billion for 

the Interstate System, $1.5 billion for urban roads, $1.5 billion for rural needs, all out of the 

Highway Trust Fund, and $ billion for transit out of the general Treasury. In addition, Hughes said, 

the 17 States were “for flexibility in the funding of transportation, and in meeting the transportation 

needs, and are in favor of some more simplicity in trying to meet these problems. He then went 

through the issues the 17 States had discussed. They recommended a general block grant structure 

combining existing and proposed Federal-aid categories into three principal parts: Interstate, urban 

and rural. 

The pass-through provision should be modified to permit a responsible State agency to perform the 

functions of developing transportation plans. 
524 

All the States, except California, supported optional use of urban and rural funds for public 

transportation. Eleven States favored optional use of the funds for rail transit, while the others, 

including California, opposed it. 

The States favored completion of the Interstate System but recognized that because of 

environmental challenges, some segments would not be built. For those that were deemed not 

essential to Interstate connections, flexible substitution provisions should be provided, with the 

emphasis on: “A dollar-for-dollar rather than a mile-for-mile substitution, with costs being 

determined at time of transfer.” In addition, some or all of the States favored permitting 

substitutions as follows: 

For other Interstate Highway projects anywhere within the State.

The transfer of all or part of the removed segment funds to the urban fund for the use of the 

urbanized areas from which the segment was withdrawn. 

The responsible statewide transportation institution must consult with local governments 

affected by substitution. The consultation must not be interpreted as requiring local 

government approval which would undermine the responsibility of the State institution to 

complete the Interstate System.

The present deadlines must be amended to require submission by the States of their 

schedule for completion of the Interstate System. The new deadlines should be July 1, 

1974, for submitting completion schedules. 

Senator Bentsen pointed out that the President’s budget included only $4.4 billion for the Federalaid highway program as part of the effort to address “the problem of inflation, trying to hold down 

the cost of living, and trying to protect the deteriorating dollar.” He said that “some things have to 

give” and that S. 502 called for less than the comparable bill in 1972. Was it realistic to talk about 

an $8 billion authorization under the circumstances? Hughes explained that requesting an 

authorization of $8 billion was the consensus of the 17 States meeting in Miami. It was based on 

the cost of completing the Interstate System and addressing other road needs and urban problems. 

He admitted he did not think it realistic. 

Commissioner Schuler of New York added that “the significant thing about our appearance today is 

that . . . we speak in terms of full funding because we are here fighting for everyone’s interest in 

transportation in the Nation.” The point was not the level of funding, which was a matter for the 

President, OMB, and the Congress to decide. Rather, the point was “the need for flexibility in this 

funding, so that those of us who do have transportation responsibilities in our States [can] use the 

dollars to the best needs we have in our States, and not be bound to the strict and past categories . . . 

.” 

Senator Bentsen asked for clarification of the States’ views on the pass-through provision. Schuler 

stated that in New York, as in the other 19 States, his department “is responsible for all modes in all 

areas of the State.” As a result, “the State is the most effective mechanism to address transportation 

problems and their solutions . . . .” He acknowledged that in States without a department of 

transportation, the pass-through provision might be desirable if the funding went to “a constituted 
525 

government on the basis of one-man, one-vote which has a viable organization to implement 

projects.” 

Altshuler elaborated on the Miami discussion by pointing out that the metropolitan perspective was 

“very important in dealing with urban highway problems,” but State transportation officials 

objected to pass-through for several reasons:

• First, “there are few genuine governments at the metropolitan level” that could implement 

projects. “As written, its real intent is to pass through the funds to the individual cities and 

towns within the metropolitan areas via the conduit of the co-called metropolitan 

transportation agency.” 

• Second, the provision did not specify that the metropolitan agency must encompass all 

modes. It “could be simply a highway agency.” 

• Third, the provision appeared to anticipate that States would continue to provide the 

matching share. The States would be less concerned “if it were the localities that would put 

up the matching funds required for utilization of Federal-aid.” 

• Fourth, he thought the provision “gets much of its thrust from the history of certain abuses 

that have occurred in the Interstate program.” States had “overridden the desires of the local 

communities” for certain Interstate segments in view of the 90-10 matching shares, but no 

such history of abuse occurred on other Federal-aid highway and transit programs. These 

projects, moreover, did not have the “devastating impacts that some Interstate projects in 

urban areas have had.” 

• Finally, the Secretary of Transportation already had the authority to reject projects where a 

dispute arises between the State and local communities.

“Thus, our position is that the executive responsibility ought to remain with the State governments, 

which have the capacity through their Governors and State Departments of Transportation to keep 

the process moving, with all modes of transportation and the full statewide and metropolitan-wide 

perspectives receiving their due.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 567-576, 621-628] 

The Final Day of Senate Hearings 

On February 16, AASHO was among the final witnesses before the Subcommittee on 

Transportation. The District of Columbia’s Thomas Airis, president of AASHO, began by 

acknowledging that many of AASHO’s recommendations in recent years were incorporated into S. 

502. However, the 1972 Transportation Needs Study had identified extensive capital improvement 

requirements:

Their totals included $602 billion representing highway needs; and urban public 

transportation needs of $63.5 billion, which were divided approximately $45 billion for rail 

oriented, and $18.5 billion for highway-oriented transportation. The latter is largely busses 

[sic].

Realistically, he supported a program of $300 billion, extended to 1990, to address the most 

important needs, or $20 billion annually. This total involved Federal, State, and local funding, with 
526 

the Federal share in the magnitude of one-third or $6.7 billion per years, not including highway 

safety programs.

The fact that 80 percent of the Interstate System was open “does not really indicate the total work 

effort needed to complete the Interstate System.” Cutbacks, impoundments, and other delays had 

affected the schedule. The job of completion was “going to be more complicated and complex” 

because the remaining segments were among the most difficult, “such as sections in highly 

populated metropolitan areas, or mountainous sections, where the expenditure per mile is very 

high.” Nevertheless, the Interstate System could be completed in the 1970s “if the funds were made 

available.” That is, if the funds were authorized and the Administration did not impound a portion 

of them, “the highway industry can give quick job opportunities to the returning veterans, because 

we are geared for a greater volume of work than really has been allowed.”

AASHO also addressed the questions raised by Senator Bentsen in his invitation. Some of the 

answers were.

• The matching ratio for the basic Federal-aid highway program should be changed 

permanently from 50-50 to 70-30 “in order that the accumulating Highway Trust Fund 

balances can be recycled into their intended purpose.” 

• Congress should consider changing the traditional 2-year Federal-aid highway bill to a 4-

year authorization. 

• Interstate authorizations should continue at $4 billion a year. 

• The bill should not include language that would “impair or encroach upon” the State 

highway agencies’ authority over the State highway system, including extensions through 

urban areas of 50,000 population and above. 

• Urban areas of 50,000 population and above should be encouraged to provide an areawide 

“authority” or “consortium” to carry out the 3C transportation planning process and commit 

local governments to the implementation phase of highway improvements. The State 

highway agency would have to approve the plan. 

• AASHO opposed impoundments, but if they occurred, “an amount equal to the highway 

user revenues withheld [should] be automatically distributed by the Secretary of the 

Treasury directly to the States” based on their contributions. 

• Up to 50 percent of funds, up from 20 percent at present, should be available for transfer 

among the Federal-aid system categories.

• Congress should consider equitable reimbursement for toll roads, bridges, and tunnels 

incorporated into the Interstate System so they may become free of tolls.

• Regarding Interstate completion, Congress should retain 1973 for submission of schedules 

for expenditure of funds for completion of remaining segments. However, the Secretary 

should be allowed to extend the 1975 deadline for submission of PS&Es. 

• Those attempting to block highway projects in court should be required to post a bond of 

sufficient amount “to show sincerity of purpose and responsibility of action.” 

• AASHO opposed the pass-through provision by an overwhelming majority of the State 

highway agencies.
527 

• AASHO supports simplification of program procedures, and recommends extending the 

procedures in place for Federal-aid secondary projects to the other systems, not including 

Interstate projects.

• Congress should create an adequately financed mass transportation trust fund from revenue 

other than from taxes currently levied for the Highway Trust Fund. 

Senator Bentsen commented on the difference between AASHO’s recommendation of $71⁄2 billion 

and the Administration’s $4.4 billion. Maine’s David H. Stevens replied, “we felt a compulsion to 

bring those [amounts] to the attention of the Congress because of the needs in the highway 

program.” He added, “We would like to get this money under the wheels, if we can, as quickly as 

possible” to curtail construction cost inflation. 

The Senator observed that AASHO had not taken a position on the priority primary network. 

Stevens said the members had several concerns. They were concerned about creating another 

category “with all of the paper shuffling in the program.” They also wanted to concentrate on 

completing the Interstate System and were concerned that funding might be diverted. In addition, 

the States were concerned “over how the routes could be selected, and whether or not they could be 

uniform throughout the States without definite guidelines.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 

502, p. 702-712] 

Towards the end of the day, the Subcommittee on Transportation heard from Dr. George Wiley of 

the Urban Environment Conference, Inc., and Helen Leavitt, author of Superhighway-Superhoax. 

Dr. Wiley said he was the national coordinator for the Movement for Economic Justice. “This 

movement is a new movement by the people concerned about the terrible disparities in the 

distribution of income and resources in our very rich and affluent society.” He identified the 

group’s important concern: 

. . . the fact that the resources going into the highway trust fund are being used to the great 

disadvantage of the people who reside in the cities of America, and it is a great disservice to 

the majority of people in the country, and it works a special hardship on poor people and 

minorities who live in the center cities, but I believe that it does a disservice to us all, and I 

especially want to emphasize on poor people. 

Millions of working people who live in cities and earn $5,000 to $15,000 are faced with the 

poisoned fumes of the automobiles even though they do not receive benefits from them: 

[It] is these people whose pocketbooks are being raided by the terrible misuse of their tax 

money for purposes that do not benefit them or their families, and whose jobs are being 

undermined and whose access to jobs are undermined by the encouragement of the flight of 

business into the suburbs, a flight that they may not be able to follow, because in many 

cases, they do not, or they may not have access to the transportation to get to those jobs that 

they do desperately need and depend on. 

Wiley did not view S. 502 from the perspective of the “world of politicians, planners, engineers, 

and administrators.” He viewed it from the world of the urban poor: 
528 

These are the people whose homes most often get destroyed, neighborhoods bisected, jobs 

siphoned away, whose transit systems disappear, and whose very health and that of their 

children is endangered.

From that perspective, he said that “it is unreal coming to hearings like this,” adding: 

Everyone living in the real world knows that the Federal highway programs have, since 

1955, had an incalculable impact on the face of this country and on its social fabric.

Who is it who does not know that the highway programs have been one spur to the 

tremendous growth of suburbia? 

Is there anyone here today who does not know that building those roads was accomplished 

time and again, in city after city, by bulldozing a poor neighborhood. 

That has been common knowledge from the beginning for anyone who cared because the 

decisions to run the roads through those neighborhoods were conscious decisions, based on 

the economics and politics of the situation. 

According to recent studies, Wiley said, a center city resident is twice as likely to be unemployed as 

his or her suburban counterpart. “The principal causes of this disparity are the displacement of 

people and jobs and the disappearance of urban transit systems.” He continued: 

In the 3 years between 1967 and 1970, 146,950 families were rooted out of their homes by 

highway and renewal programs. 

In a job market based on the automobile, “not having one often becomes a sentence to joblessness, 

homelessness, and disillusionment, and eventually welfare.” He summarized the destructive efforts 

of “the Nation’s romance with the automobile” and the consequences of highway building: 

It is well known that—80 percent of air pollution in major cities attributable to cars; as 

much as 60 percent of land area in some cities devoted to streets and parking; as many as 

one-third of the people in major cities with health and respiratory problems attributable to or 

aggravated by air pollution; fuel shortages; dying transit systems and the flight of jobs to the 

suburbs—that these and other problems are getting worse. 

As for S. 502, Wiley said that the Urban Environment Conference believes “we need to provide a 

great deal more money for our cities to begin to turn around the decline of public transportation.” 

The group strongly supported the Kennedy-Weicker bill, and supports the Muskie-Baker 

amendments only as an “interim measure which would start to change Federal transportation 

priorities.” In addition, the group supported the provisions that gave State and local officials the 

option of using Interstate funds “to satisfy other transportation needs in lieu of segments of the 

planned system under challenge with the qualification that the Federal share should be at a 90-10 

ratio on the substituted project as well.” Wiley said the bill also should provide for rail transit as 

called for in the Muskie-Baker amendments, S. 679. 
529 

S. 502 was converting concerns “into politically acceptable rhetoric, but there is a vast gap between 

rhetoric and substance.” He concluded: 

Past transportation programs have consciously sacrificed the needs of the urban poor in the 

interests of suburbia and more highways. 

It is time some of the money started flowing back the other way. If the center cities could 

sacrifice their neighborhoods and their livelihoods so that the suburbs could drive to work, it 

is only fair now that the suburbs apply some of their automobile taxes to transportation 

benefitting the inner city.

Senator Bentsen pointed out that Dr. Wiley had used up the time allotted, but he gave Leavitt a 

couple of minutes. She agreed with Wiley that S. 679 and Senator Muskie’s amendments “provide 

more flexibility for funding public transportation.” As might be expected, she was for opening the 

Highway Trust Fund, but her explanation was unusual: 

I contend it has been “open” for many years. A cursory look at the administration’s unified 

budget for 1974 reveals that highway trust fund receipts will total $5,749 billion. Outlays 

will total $4.700 billion, leaving a $1 billion surplus. This surplus, along with other Federal 

trust fund surpluses, will simply be applied to the budget deficit. In other words, trust fund 

receipts are now helping finance space, defense and other federal financed programs.

Between 1971 and 1974 the surplus balance from the highway trust fund alone increased 

100 percent from $3.6 billion to $6.7 billion. Over one-quarter of the $505 billion public 

debt is money borrowed from trust funds established for specific programs. Indeed, surplus 

highway trust fund taxes are treated as any other tax collected, and simply applied to deficits 

accrued from other programs. 

So much for “opening” the sacrosanct trust fund. 

She pointed out that 67 cities would soon have to curtail automobile transportation to meet the new 

air quality standards. She cited the District of Columbia, where she lived, as an example of a 

metropolitan area that once had a trolley service that worked well until after World War II. 

Initially, she said, “engineers recommended the system be expanded and that no radial expressways 

be built in the Nation’s Capital.” However, “pressure from road interests and generous funding 

resulted in a massive freeway program to accommodate the automobile.” By 1960, the trolley 

system was being dismantled. “Today these same trolley cars serve the residents of Barcelona, 

Spain.” Commuter rail also deteriorated. 

Now, with 1.2 million motor vehicle trips a day, the District was experiencing one of the worst 

pollution problems in the country. “And it is auto-generated.” At present, she said, “we have 

embarked on a $3 billion subway construction program in an attempt to duplicate and even improve 

the service we once had.”
530 

The “Federal generosity toward highways” had distorted the transportation planning process in 

metropolitan areas such that “you now find yourselves in the ridiculous position of further 

expanding and multiplying your mistakes with still more money for the Interstate System, and more 

money for the ABC programs.” And based on the same logic, “you intend to provide a still larger 

juggernaut on our small towns and cities, the economic growth center development highways.” 

Meanwhile, she said, “our transportation problems grow worse, which is itself an incredible feat.”

Put simply, “we need public transportation, and we need it now.” She opposed automatically 

funded programs based on the trust fund concept “because such programs experience little or no 

review and no control of spending.” Simply adding public transportation to the “pot” of highway 

legislation would not address the problem “without reform of both this committee and your 

counterpart in the House, as well as at the State level, [and] will no doubt result in further chaos in 

transportation planning.” 

Leavitt proposed making Federal transportation funding contingent on each State establishing a 

department of transportation. She pointed out the precedent that the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, 

which established the Federal-aid highway program, required each State to have a State highway 

agency capable of carrying out Federal-aid projects. She continued: 

As for reform within this committee, it would be imprudent, immodest, and most unladylike 

for me to tell you gentlemen what I think you ought to do. 

With the conclusion of her statement, Senator Bentsen asked if Dr. Wiley agreed with the Nixon 

Administration’s opposition in 1972 and again in 1973 to operating subsidies. The reply was 

indirect. “I could agree with the administration on some things that they do, but I believe that their 

opposition is based on the wrong reasons.” Construction of superhighways should be halted until a 

serious review of mass transit can be undertaken and the Highway Trust Fund can be opened to 

nonhighway uses. 

Leavitt added that the Urban Environment Conference would support operating expenses “with the 

realization that again unless you have some kind of oversight, some kind of control on operating 

expenses, it too can become a runaway spending program.” She added:

In other words, we could look forward to the day when public transportation serves the 

needs of the majority, and it might actually become a profitable venture again, at which 

point one might question operation expenses . . . . We will never know whether a bus 

company could make a profit, until we get a balance in transportation, and more people start 

using it.

With so many other problems facing the Nation, Senator Bentsen asked where the money for mass 

transportation should come from. “How do you balance these out, Doctor?” Wiley pointed out that 

the problem was the priority given to superhighways despite all their negative consequences. “If we 

are talking about priorities, the priority ought to be on the people who are the most disadvantaged . . 

. .” The priority should be “on mass transit, and development of a comprehensive transit plan rather 

than on pouring money down the sewer of superhighways.” 
531 

Senator Bentsen asked Dr. Wiley, “Are you antihighway, or are you just against the degree of 

expenditure for highways?” Wiley replied “that the priorities are just totally out of whack” and the 

time had come to “put a stop to the rush for more highways until there could be a serious evaluation 

of how much more money could be put into mass transit systems.” The Urban Environment 

Conference urged putting no more Federal money into highways until this was done. 

Senator Stafford referenced Dr. Wiley’s comment about the percentage of air pollution attributable 

to automobiles. Will not a considerable proportion of that pollution be alleviated by 1975 under the 

Clean Air Amendments of 1970? Wiley replied with a question: “Will we tolerate the people 

killed between now and 1975?” Leavitt pointed out that The Washington Post carried a story that 

morning in which the Ford Motor Company said it could not meet the standards. Wiley added that 

the devices to curb pollution would not deal with the total problem he had described in his 

statement.

Senator Stafford also wanted to know if Leavitt wanted to dictate how a rural State such as 

Montana should spend its receipts from the Highway Trust Fund. She replied that she was 

concerned that many States still did not have a department of transportation. As for Montana, it 

may be a rural State, but “this does not mean that one cannot take a look at other forms of 

transportation.” Just changing the psychology to think of transportation rather than “simply 

highways” would be a step forward. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, S. 502, p. 750-760] 

The Brinegar Bill

Secretary Brinegar finally released the Department’s legislative proposal on February 21, 1973. It 

was called the Federal-Aid Highway and Public Transportation Bill of 1973. As he had indicated 

during his testimony, the bill would open Highway Trust Fund revenues for mass transportation 

capital improvement projects, including rail projects in urbanized areas. A companion measure 

would amend the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act by virtually doubling the $3.1 billion 

of funding made available in 1970. In a statement announcing release of the bill, Secretary 

Brinegar said:

President Nixon, in a special message to Congress, placed high priority on the use of 

Highway Trust Fund money for mass transit. We are implementing this policy by providing 

greater flexibility both in transportation funding for urban areas as well as in the disposition 

of those funds by State and local authorities, who know their own priorities best . . . . The 

increased UMTA funding would assure program continuity and orderly development of new 

large-scale projects in our urban areas.

In a letter transmitting the legislation to the Congress, Secretary Brinegar explained:

Since the adjournment of the last Congress, we have reviewed our prior proposals and those 

advanced by members of the Congress. We have given particular attention to the important 

question of the proper use of Highway Trust Fund monies for transportation projects—

especially those in urbanized areas. We believe that only by the proper combination of 

highway and mass transit capital investment can we expect to effectively meet the severe 
532 

and complex transportation problems faced by our urbanized areas. Our proposed bill . . . 

reflects this belief by making funds available for both types of investment, including 

improvements to bus and rapid rail systems. 

We also believe that because of their familiarity with the particulars of their transportation 

problems, large urbanized areas should decide for themselves the proper mix of highway 

and mass transit capital investment. Accordingly, the bill passes through urban system 

funds to urbanized areas having a population of 400,000 or more. 

The bill also provides a means for the resolution of the controversies which have tied up a 

number of Interstate links in our urban areas. Recognizing that the controversies are usually 

not whether additional transportation capacity is needed, but rather how best to supply it, we 

would permit funds originally authorized for the Interstate System to be expended for other 

highway and public transportation projects. 

In a departure from tradition, the bill provided for a 3-year authorization (FYs 1974-1976) instead 

of 2 years. Over that period, the bill requested $3.65 billion for the Federal-aid urban system and 

$3 billion for rural highways. Interstate authorizations totaling $19.8 billion were spread over the 

period through FY 1980, the revised completion date for the System. As part of the Interstate 

facility, Interstate funds could be used for the construction of the following: 

. . . exclusive or preferential bus lanes, highway traffic control devices, passenger loading 

areas and facilities, including shelters, and fringe and transportation corridor parking 

facilities to serve bus and other public transportation passengers. 

Mass transit projects could not be approved unless the Secretary was satisfied that the responsible 

public mass transportation agency had adequate capability to use fully the proposed project and to 

maintain and operate properly any equipment acquired. 

Secretary Brinegar highlighted other important features, including changes affecting the Federal-aid 

urban system. All routes on current systems, including primary and secondary extensions, in 

urbanized areas were to be combined into a more flexible urban system. Federal-aid urban system 

funds—$1.1 billion for FY 1974, $1.2 billion for FY 1975, and $1.35 billion for FY 1976—could 

be used on highway projects or public mass transportation projects defined as: 

. . . ground transportation providing general or special service (excluding school bus, 

charter, and sightseeing service) to the public on a regular and continuing basis. Included 

within the scope of the projects are exclusive or preferential bus lanes, highway traffic 

control devices, passenger loading areas and facilities, including shelters, and fringe and 

transportation corridor parking facilities to serve bus, rail, and other public mass 

transportation passengers; the construction of fixed rail facilities; and the purchase of 

passenger equipment, including rolling stock for fixed rail facilities.
533 

The rural segments of the primary and secondary systems would be combined into a rural primary 

system. The bill also encouraged rural public transportation systems by permitting primary funds to 

finance the Federal share of projects for:

. . . highway traffic control devices, passenger loading areas and facilities, including 

shelters, and fringe and transportation corridor parking facilities to serve bus and other 

public transportation passengers, and for the purchase of passenger equipment other than 

rolling stock for fixed rail facilities.

The goal, Secretary Brinegar said, was “continuation of a strong rural highway program, providing 

State officials flexibility for transportation investments for rural areas, extension of the secondary 

road program procedures to all Federal-aid systems other than the Interstate System, and expansion 

of the coverage of our billboard control program.” 

The Interstate transfer provision would be available until July 1, 1974. Upon the joint request of a 

State and the local government concerned, the Secretary could withdraw approval of a controversial 

Interstate segment if he determined that it was not essential to completion of a unified and 

connected Interstate System and he received assurances the State did not intend to build a toll road 

in the corridor. Following withdrawal, the Secretary could permit dollar-for-dollar substitution, 

based on the 1972 Interstate Cost Estimate, for any project on any Federal-aid system within that 

State, including substitute Interstate routes and highway-oriented or fixed rail mass transit projects. 

The matching ratio would be the ratio applicable to the particular Federal-aid system. 

The Secretary would remove from designation on July 1, 1974, any segment that the State had not 

established a construction schedule for within the period of Interstate funding availability and where 

the Secretary had not received assurances the schedule would be met. In addition, the Secretary 

would remove any Interstate segment that had not submitted a PS&E for approval by July 1, 1976. 

The planning section of the bill required the Secretary to cooperate with the States in the 

development of transportation plans and programs formulated with due consideration to their 

probable effects on the future development of urbanized areas. Projects must result from a 3C 

transportation planning and programming process conducted by local governments with 

consultation and participation by the State. All reasonable measures must have been taken to 

permit public participation in the planning and programming process. 

Similarly, Federal-aid urban system projects must be selected by appropriate local officials after 

consultation with the State in accordance with the 3C planning process. 

Further, Federal-aid urban system funds apportioned to any State attributable to urbanized areas 

with a population of 400,000 or more would be allocated to that area based on the ratio that the 

population of the State bears to the population of all such urbanized areas within the State. If the 

urbanized area had established an agency to plan and carry out projects, the funds would be made 

available to this agency. The urbanized areas were not required to create such an agency, but such 

agencies would receive funding if they were created under State law by the local unit or units of 
534 

general purpose government and were suitably empowered, equipped, and organized to plan and 

carry out projects. 

Other provisions included: 

• The concept of Certification Acceptance, available only for Federal-aid secondary projects, 

could be extended to the other Federal-aid systems, exclusive of the Interstate System. The 

Secretary would discharge his responsibilities by accepting a certification from the State that 

it is capable of performing those responsibilities. The Secretary would be required to 

conduct a final inspection. Certification Acceptance applied only to the Secretary’s 

responsibilities under Title 23, United States Code, not to NEPA or other laws.

• Added a section, Section 146, to Title 23 for development of routes for bicycles, 

pedestrians, and equestrians. Funds authorized for the Federal-aid systems could be used 

for such routes on or in conjunction with highway or other appropriate rights-of-way. The 

funds also could participate in the cost of traffic control devices, shelters, and bicycle 

parking facilities. Projects would have to be consistent with an overall plan providing for 

safety and contiguous routes. Similar projects also could be developed with funds 

authorized and appropriated for Forest Highways, forest development roads and trails, 

public lands development roads and trails, parkways, Indian Reservation Roads, and public 

lands highways at the discretion of the Department charged with responsibility for the 

programs.

• For the first time, funds for Indian reservation roads and bridges would come from the 

Highway Trust Fund. Funds for Forest Highways and public lands highways would come 

from the Highway Trust Fund as directed by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970. 

• Established a new federal-aid highway system consisting of roads on Indian reservations 

that were not on any other system. Funds would be made available to the Secretary of the 

Interior for use in a manner consistent with the exercise of his trust responsibility. The first 

step would be for the Interior Secretary to work with the States, counties, and Indian Tribal 

councils to conduct a study of the new Federal-aid system, including a functional highway 

classification study and a cost estimate to be completed by July 1, 1974. 

• The bill retained the Federal-State matching share of 70-30 included in the 1970 Act. 

Senator Baker introduced the bill as S. 967 on the Senate floor on February 21. He was confident, 

he said, that with 4 days of hearings completed, the Committee on Public Works would complete its 

work expeditiously. “This is vital. Each day of delay means that we are likely to miss another day 

of the spring and summer construction season in many areas of the Nation.” He added that 

Secretary Brinegar supported Senate Concurrent Resolution 6 to allow apportionment of FY 1974 

Interstate funds. [Congressional Record-Senate, February 21, 1973, p. 4825-4832] 

In the House, Representative Kluczynski introduced the bill as H.R. 5138. 
535 

A Change of Heart 

Also on February 21, Representative Kluczynski reversed his longstanding view of how Highway 

Trust Fund revenues should be used. He now favored giving cities the option of using them as they 

saw fit. He still supported the national highway program, as he had throughout his 22 years in 

Congress, but said, “I feel that the need is so great in the cities of our nation, and especially in my 

own city of Chicago, that I have decided to step forward and support proposals to grant the states 

and cities the option to spend a portion of the monies, heretofore earmarked solely for highways, for 

public transportation programs, as well.” Broadening the uses of Highway Trust Fund revenues 

would “help the highway program to continue to meet the nation’s transportation objectives.” 

Washington observers attributed the surprising development to “severe pressure, partially from 

federal officials, but more from Mayor Daley, who has been known to feel for some time that too 

much tax money was going into rubber tires and not enough into buses, subways and commuter 

trains.” Some of the pressure came from trying to help his hometown address its transit problems. 

The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), which managed the city’s buses, subways, and elevated 

trains, was operating under a State interim subsidy of $18.9 million but faced millions of dollars in

operating losses before the end of the year. If funding to close the operating deficit could not be 

found, CTA would have to cut service and lay off some of its 12,000 workers. 

Milton Pikarsky, a new member of the CTA board and soon to be its chairman, said he was not 

surprised by the turnaround. “I’ve known for at least a year his feelings on public transportation,” 

but suggested that Representative Kluczynski had continued to act on his earlier views because he 

knew his support for diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue was not shared by other committee 

members.

John Kramer of the Highway Action Coalition praised Kluczynski as a “statesman” for his reversal 

of position, saying his support “will make a major difference to our efforts to shift national 

transportation spending priorities away from yet more highway construction towards needed public 

transportation facilities and services.” Kluczynski had been “one of the chief roadblocks” to 

opening up the Highway Trust Fund to transit, but his shift had come “in the light of new realities.” 

 [Murray, David, “Kluczynski Switches, Backs Road Funds for Mass Transit,” Chicago Sun-Times, 

February 22, 1973; information on CTA operating subsidy from “Chicago Transit Board to Set 

Cutbacks Today as Subsidy Funds End,” The Wall Street Journal, July 5, 1973] 

The Chicago Tribune, in an editorial, praised the Nixon Administration for its efforts to allow the 

use of Federal-aid highway funds for mass transit, and agreed with its opposition to operating 

subsidies. The Federal Government should help urban areas plan, construct, and equip mass transit 

systems. State and local governments must assume responsibility for ensuring that the levels of 

service and fares meet the transportation needs of the people they serve. “If an operating subsidy is 

needed to provide adequate service it should not come from Washington.” 

Efforts to open the Highway Trust Fund in 1972, failed “thanks in part to Rep. John Kluczynski . . . 

.” The editorial continued, “Now that the CTA is in trouble—and at Mayor Daley’s urging—Mr. 

Kluczynski has seen the light and has pledged to support the legislation.” 
536 

The newspaper pointed out that Mayor Daley wanted Federal funding for operating subsidies. 

Based on experience, the editorial did not think Illinois would get back as much as it put in. 

“Illinois taxpayers would be contributing to subsidies not only in Chicago but also in New York 

City, Atlanta, St. Louis, and elsewhere.” Instead of waiting for Federal subsidy funding, the State 

should create regional mass transit authorities to administer funding from State or local sources. 

[“Highway Funds for Mass Transit,” Chicago Tribune, February 25, 1973] 

Engineering News-Record observed that Kluczynski’s “defection” was “bound to hurt trust fund 

purists.” Their reaction, however, was subdued. An unnamed “highway user group spokesman” 

said: 

We really don’t want to criticize Klu. He’s been under intense pressures. It is hard to 

envision him suddenly switching positions like this, but on any vote that’s on the public 

record, he’s going to have to vote for diversion from now on. [“Roads Subcommittee Head 

Now Supports Tapping Trust Fund,” Engineering News-Record, March 1, 1973, p. 12] 

(On March 27, 1973, the Illinois Senate voted to override Governor Daniel Walker’s veto of a bill 

to provide $12.6 million to aid mass transit in Chicago, to be matched by $6.3 million from 

Chicago and Cook County. The Illinois House had voted to override the veto a week earlier. The 

funding would cover CTA’s operating deficits through June 30. Governor Walker had asked that 

the State pay only half of the needed $18.9 million. [“Chicago Transit Agency to Get Subsidy 

Funds; Veto is Overridden,” The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 1973]) 

King Auto’s Day of Judgment 

In the wake of Ruckelshaus’s plan for the Los Angeles area, The Baltimore Sun published a column 

on February 3 titled “King Auto’s Day of Judgment Approaches.” Despite “a howl of incredulity 

and anguish” arising after the announcement, “something of the sort will come to pass” around the 

country in time. It was “high time to divert public funds from more highway construction to the 

improvement of public transportation”: 

The “concrete lobby” of highwaymen prevented President Nixon, last year, from tapping the 

federal Highway Fund for that purpose. In Michigan, where King Auto first proclaimed his 

suzerainty, the state concrete lobby prevented Governor Milliken from using any part of the 

sacrosanct state highway fund even to hire more highway patrolmen. We go on tearing 

cities and countryside apart for new roads, as if we meant to pave the whole face of America 

with concrete, and drive madly in all directions, fouling the air until we are asphyxiated.

Soon, the end would come. “When King Auto expires, I’ll go to his funeral—but just for the ride.” 

 [“King Auto’s Day of Judgment Approaches,” The Baltimore Sun, February 3, 1973] 

President Nixon had anticipated that day in his State of the Union Message on Natural Resources 

and the Environment, submitted to Congress on February 15, the same day Ruckelshaus appeared 

before the Subcommittee on Transportation. The President had extolled his Administration’s 

progress in passing NEPA, the Clean Air Amendments, and other legislation, as well as creation of 
537 

EPA. “Year by year, our commitment of public funds for environmental programs continues to 

grow; it has increased four-fold in the last four years.” Much remained to be done. In the area of 

“Controlling Environmental Impacts of Transportation, he had said, as noted earlier: 

I will continue to place high priority upon my request to permit use of the Highway Trust 

Fund for mass transit purposes and to help State and local governments achieve air quality, 

conserve energy, and meet other environmental objectives. 

EPA, however, was having trouble in the courts with implementation of the Clean Air Amendments 

of 1973. Its decision to extend the deadline for compliance with air quality standards by 2 years 

was under challenge in the courts. 

On January 31, 1973, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia had ordered EPA to 

rescind its order extending the deadline for 17 States. The court acknowledged that Ruckelshaus 

had acted “in the best of faith,” but had violated the “strict requirements of the Clean Air Act of 

1970” and in so doing had not complied with the congressional intent as reflected in the setting of 

“limited and well-defined statutory extensions.” Ruckelshaus was to inform the 17 States that the 

compliance date was April 15, 1975, for submitting corrected plans for meeting the standards. The 

States must identify plans to meet the standards or make a persuasive case for a delay until 1977. 

[Kenworthy, E. W., “Court Bars Delay in Cleaning Up Air,” The New York Times, February 2, 

1973] 

The auto industry was not faring much better. On February 10, the same court turned down the auto 

industry’s request for a 1-year extension, but ordered EPA to hold hearings on their concerns and 

decide within 60 days. [Kenworthy, E. W., “New Hearings Set on Car Emissions,” The New York 

Times, February 11, 1973] 

Having lost in court, the industry tried public relations. The president of Ford Motor Company, Lee 

A. Iacocca, appeared before the New York Chamber of Commerce on February 15 to argue for a 1-

year extension of Federal emission standards for automobiles: 

As of today . . . we know of no practical way to meet the 1975 emission standards for our 

products in time to produce 1975 models. 

As Helen Leavitt would mention during her testimony before the Subcommittee on Transportation, 

Iacocca recommended a 1-year extension and temporary standards that could be met by cars without 

catalytic converters. “We’ve already spent millions of dollars and we can come pretty close, but 

can’t meet the precise requirements of the law.” California, he added, would need a 2-year 

extension. His proposal, he said, could save “at least $100 to $125 a vehicle and still improve air 

quality.” [Associated Press, “Ford Chief Asks Exhaust Rule Lag,” The Washington Post, February 

16, 1973] 

Two days earlier, Judge Charles W. Joiner of the U.S. District Court in Detroit fined Ford $7 

million because some employees had tampered with test engines so they would comply with air 

quality standards. Ford did not contest the Justice Department’s charge. The tests in question—

engines ran for 50,000 miles over 100 days—had taken place between the fall of 1971 and the 
538 

spring of 1972 on engines for the 1973 model year. The improper adjustments had not been 

reported to the EPA, but rendered the results meaningless when discovered. U.S. States Attorney 

Ralph Guy, Jr., said the fine “demonstrates that the Government means business in enforcing the 

provisions for the Clean Air Act.” [Salpukis, Agis, “Court Fines Ford $7-Million in Suit on 

Pollution Test,” The New York Times, February 14, 1973] 

By contrast, the National Academy of Sciences released a report on February 16 that concluded the 

industry probably could meet the 1975 standards. The report, called for under the Clean Air 

Amendments of 1970, said four types of system could work: a modified conventional engine 

equipped with an oxidation catalyst, a carbureted stratified charged engine (Honda), a Wankel 

rotary engine equipped with a thermal reactor (Mazda), and a diesel engine (Mercedes-Benz). 

The report said the U.S. industry was concentrating on the most expensive and least satisfactory 

methods for meeting the standards. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader explained why he thought 

that might be the case. 

As has been their practice for more than 20 years, the domestic automobile companies once 

again are mounting an intense propaganda campaign to advertise their “inability” to meet air 

pollution control standards . . . . What the giant auto corporations say they cannot 

accomplish in 1975, two small Japanese auto companies have already accomplished. 

According to official U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) test results, Honda and 

Toyo Kogyo have easily met the 1975 standards for 50,000 miles with their respective 

vehicles, the Honda and the Mazda. 

According to Nader, the industry had known since the 1930s that automobile pollution was a cause 

of the Los Angeles smog problem. When California demanded that vehicles sold in the State come 

with exhaust controls, the industry said that such equipment would not be feasible until the 1967 

model year. “But when California certified the control devices of two non-automotive companies, 

GM, Ford and Chrysler suddenly announced they could indeed install such devices in 1966 

vehicles.” Nader indicated that the real reason for the delay was revealed in 1969 as a result of a 

Justice Department lawsuit against the domestic manufacturers and the Automobile Manufacturers 

Association for conspiring to restrain development of auto exhaust control systems since 1953: 

The evidence brought together prior to this suit by a Los Angeles grand jury outlined the 

cross-licensing agreement and other close associations between these so-called auto 

competitors that forged this illegal, united front of inaction. In September 1969, the 

domestic auto companies entered into a consent agreement with the government agreeing 

never to engage in such a conspiracy again.

Now, he said, the companies remained “obstinate to all government pleas,” insisting on installing “a 

less effective but more expensive exhaust control system—the catalyst-equipped vehicle which will 

carry a gouging sticker price of $230 above the 1970 vehicle price . . . .” He concluded: 
539 

What these corporate mastodons need is more competition from smaller companies and 

strong antitrust enforcement. [Nader, Ralph, “Detroit’s Excuses,” The Washington StarNews, February 25, 1973] 

(A secret Justice Department memorandum, which Nader had obtained in 1971, summarized the 

conspiracy to suppress development of pollution controls and recommended criminal prosecution. 

As he said, the memorandum was based largely on a grand jury investigation in Los Angeles, July 

1966-December 1967, led by Samuel Flatow of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division. The 

memorandum stated:

Throughout the entire conspiracy, the participants were cognizant of the antitrust 

implications of their activities. Despite this fact the conspiracy was carried on for economic 

reasons. The health and welfare of the community were disregarded. In these 

circumstances criminal prosecution is clearly indicated.

(In January 1969, the Justice Department decided instead to launch a civil conspiracy complaint 

against General Motors, Ford Motor Corporation, Chrysler Corporation, American Motors, and the 

Automobile Manufacturers Association. Several smaller manufacturers were named as 

coconspirators rather than defendants. On September 11, 1969, the manufacturers entered into a 

consent decree in which they admitted no guilt but agreed not to conspire to obstruct development 

of pollution control devices. They also promised not to cross-license patents or patent rights, 

restrict publication of research relating to the devices, jointly assess patents submitted by inventors, 

or act jointly to file safety data with government agencies. [Graham, Fred P., “U.S. Settles Suit on 

Smog Devices,” The New York Times, September 12, 1969; Mintz, Morton, “Justice Dept. Had ’68 

Memo on Auto Plot,” The Washington Post, May 19, 1971]) 

Referring to the new study, an editorial in The Los Angeles Times drew a similar conclusion, saying 

the U.S. auto industry was pursuing a dual-catalyst system “that the academy has criticized for high 

cost, poor fuel economy and expense of maintenance”: 

The blame for that, the academy study says, falls on the industry. The auto makers were 

extremely laggard in their pollution control and development work, and did not really begin 

to move until government pressures were exerted. Then they chose to devote their 

antipollution efforts “almost entirely" to “minimal modifications” of existing engines.

Whether to stick with the industry’s current efforts or extend the deadline to give the industry more 

time to adopt a better option was “as the academy notes, a multibillion-dollar choice.” [“A Hard 

Choice on the Auto Deadline,” The Los Angeles Times, February 25, 1973] 

In California, Senators Cranston and John Tunney, both Democrats, appeared before a Southern 

California Association of Governments meeting on February 15. Senator Cranston predicted that 

Congress would divert Highway Trust Fund revenue for rapid transit, while Senator Tunney said he 

intended to introduce legislation that would divert revenue from the Highway Trust Fund to help 

develop a smogless alternative to the internal combustion engine. [“Road Use for Fast Transit 

Forecast,” The Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1973] 
540 

On February 20, the Los Angeles Environmental Quality Board met at Parker Center police 

headquarters to receive suggestions for alternatives to EPA’s drastic plan. An article about the 

meeting said, “Most said the plan calling for an 80% reduction in vehicle use was too radical and 

posed a serious threat to the economy.” Suggestions included improving the rapid transit system 

and increasing the use of bicycles. The article said that according to the Southern California RTD, 

“it would take about 8,000 to 10,000 buses to fill the void created by a reduction in vehicles called 

for by the EPA plan.” [“Alternatives to Gas Rationing Proposed,” The Los Angeles Times, 

February 21, 1973] 

On the eve of 3 weeks of EPA hearings in the Los Angeles area, reporter Gladwin Hill, who 

specialized in environmental issues for The New York Times, explained:

Officials of Los Angeles County, which covers the biggest portion of the basin, say that by 

rigorous regulations going back to 1947 they have reduced smog from stationary sources, 

such as factories, to only 10 per cent of total air pollution, and that 90 per cent of the smog 

now comes from automobiles, whose emissions are a Federal responsibility. 

Neither local officials nor state officials see any possibility—short of stopping auto traffic 

entirely—of meeting Federal standards even by 1977. But they foresee, with an everincreasing ratio of fume-controlled cars, the problem being brought within bounds by 1980 

or soon thereafter. 

William D. Ruckelshaus, the E.P.A. Administrator, has suggested that one solution for Los 

Angeles would be to seek a special dispensation from Congress extending the compliance 

deadline even beyond 1977. 

In a sense, the Los Angeles basin hearings will be an academic exercise, because the Federal 

antipollution agency has no power to enforce whatever transportation control plan it finally 

promulgates. The agency is dependent for this on state and local cooperation in adopting 

the legislative and administrative measures necessary to carry out any plan.

But, in another sense, Mr. Ruckelshaus has said, Los Angeles is a national test case in the 

willingness of citizens to alter lifestyles to meet air quality standards they have already 

espoused through their Congressmen. [Hill, Gladwin, “Hearings to Open on Alternative 

Solutions to Smog Problem in Los Angeles,” The New York Times, March 4, 1973] 

According to Hill, the first day of EPA’s hearings “did not evoke a high pitch of civic excitement.” 

He said, “Fewer than 200 people attended the initial session, in the auditorium of the Parker Center 

police headquarters.” State and local officials addressing the forum agreed the region could not 

meet the standards even by 1977. Hill summarized: 

The consensus of initial witnesses was that blame for one of the nation’s worst air pollution 

problems rests with the automobile industry, and that the Federal Government should be 

centering its attentions on Detroit rather than Los Angeles. 
541 

He quoted Senator Tunney as calling the EPA proposals “a drastic and nonsensical” measure that 

“would lead to economic and social chaos and be impossible to enforce without putting a bayonet at 

the back of every motorist.” Tunney added that, “Instead of turning to police-state solutions, we 

should mobilize our effort to develop mass transit and to mass produce an alternative to the internal 

combustion engine.” He explained that, “Detroit, by sticking with the present internal combustion 

engine, has been trying to saddle a dinosaur.” [Hill, Gladwin, “Plan to Cut Auto Travel in Los 

Angeles Basin Scored at Hearing,” The New York Times, March 6, 1973] 

The second day of hearings brought some optimistic comments. Harold Sullivan of the California 

Air Resources Board thought the area could reduce automobile travel by 10 to 15 percent by 1977 

through extensive use of buses, carpools, and parking restrictions. Land use controls were also a 

potentially important measure. Larry Moss, the Sierra Club’s southern California representative, 

recommended land use limitations (including zoning controls and embargoes on electricity, gas, and 

sewage hookups) and controls on shopping centers, sporting arenas, and other crowd-generating 

venues. Auto travel could be reduced 30 percent, he said, by such measures as increased bus 

service, exclusive bus lanes and low fares, priority treatment for high occupancy vehicles on 

freeways, and car-free zones in the city. He also advocated a car tax based on the individual 

emissions of each vehicle. 

By contrast, Donald C. Tillman, the city engineer and president of the Los Angeles chapter of the 

American Society of Civil Engineers, recommended completing the area’s freeway system, coupled 

with efforts to relieve bottlenecks. He also suggested the area encourage bicycling, implement 4-

day work weeks, expand carpooling, and increase rapid transit. 

With a mayoral election underway, candidates attempting to defeat Mayor Sam Yorty, who had 

been a strong backer of freeway construction, appeared before the forum. Jesse Unruh, a former 

Speaker of the California State Assembly who had lost his 1970 bid to defeat Governor Ronald 

Reagan, said that trying to attain the 80-percent reduction in auto travel through gasoline rationing 

as proposed by EPA would lead to “quite possibly a revolution.” If implemented, the plan could 

lead to “armed raids on gasoline stations.” He thought a 20-percent reduction might be possible 

through increased bus service and reduced parking fees for carpools. 

Another candidate, City Councilman Thomas Bradley, an African-American former city police 

officer, commented that “obviously” automobile travel would have to be reduced. [Dreyfuss, John, 

“Public Will Sacrifice to Fight Smog, Panel Told,” The Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1973] 

On March 9, 1973, The Los Angeles Times reported discouraging news for those seeking to cut 

automobile traffic: 

Downtown Los Angeles is bulging with more people who use cars each day but fewer 

commuters and shoppers appear to be riding buses to get there, the city Traffic Department 

reported Thursday. 

By 1975, it will be worse. There will be about the same number of persons, but more 

vehicles will be entering and leaving the Central City, the researchers reported. They said 
542 

the number of vehicular trips by then will equal the postwar peak set in 1957 when there 

was no freeway loop for motorists to bypass the downtown core. 

The report, based on figures compiled in May 1972 from a count at cordon boundaries around a 

one-square-mile section of the Central City core, found an increase in carpooling “especially among 

the Civic Center’s government workers,” but a decrease in the number of people using the area’s 

buses to enter the core (124,226 passengers, down from the previous year’s 125,659): 

The cordon count showed that while automobiles account for about two-thirds of the 

persons entering the downtown area, buses carry 20.7%, down from 21.3% in the previous 

count. Significantly, however, automobiles account for nearly 89% of the traffic entering 

the Central City but buses only 1.5%. 

The number of pedestrians also was declining, partly due to the loss of apartment houses and other 

multi-unit structures on the downtown fringe. [Hebert, Ray, “Auto Riders Up in Central City; Bus 

Use Drops,” The Los Angeles Times, March 9, 1972] 

At the same time, Governor Reagan signed a law creating the California Department of 

Transportation in the State Business and Transportation Agency, effective July 1. The new 

department would include divisions of transportation planning, mass transportation, and 

aeronautics, in addition to absorbing the Department of Public Works that was responsible for 

freeway development. In signing the bill, the Governor said, “This plan will provide balanced 

transportation systems consistent with our state’s social, economic and environmental goals.” He 

added: 

The new department will be responsible for developing a statewide transportation system 

based on regional plans submitted by local councils of government or transportation 

commissions. After public hearings and adoption, regional plans will be brought into the 

statewide plan with necessary adjustments for inter-regional systems. This will give 

California a coordinated transportation system that will serve all the people better now and 

in the future. [“Calif. Bill Sets up State Department of Transportation,” The Journal of 

Commerce, March 9, 1973] 

The Los Angeles Times observed on March 19 that plans for the area’s freeways were slipping:

Southern California’s freeway development program is dying a slow death. Legislative 

deletions have decimated some routes. Others have been hit by court actions and a financial 

crunch is threatening still others. 

Clearly, the freewheeling, freeway-building days of the early 1960s, when every mile of 

freshly paved freeway was considered a blessing, are gone.

The article claimed that the “changing mood about Southern California’s freeway program” was 

casting “serious doubt on the future of all routes not yet built.” The area’s 23 freeways, fully or 

partly completed, had cost more than $3 billion, but an additional 17 routes had seen “little 
543 

planning and no construction” thus far. Highway officials were concerned because, as one 

unnamed State highway official pointed out, this remaining mileage was part of the 1,557-mile 

network adopted 15 years earlier. “When you start chopping up the system, you defeat its purpose.” 

[Hebert, Ray, “California Freeway Plans Slip,” The Los Angeles Times, reprinted in The 

Washington Post, March 18, 1973] 

The Los Angeles City Council acknowledged on March 19 that the city did not have a satisfactory 

program to control auto emissions. The council voted 12 to 2 to grant the city’s Department of 

Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) request to present suggestions, during testimony before EPA’s 

March 23 hearing, on alternatives to EPA’s radical plan for gasoline rationing in the Southern Coast 

Air Basin. General Manager Jack Green told the council that DEQ had studied several options: 

They include improved public transportation, incentives to discourage auto use, auto-free 

zones, increasing parking costs, carpooling, exclusive bus and car pool lanes, limitation of 

second and third-car ownership, limitation of auto registration, exclusive bicycle lanes and 

“park-and-ride” facilities.

Other studies have been carried out, he said, [of] on-ramp metering on freeways, reduction 

of speed limits to 55 m.p.h., staggered working hours and a four-day work week. 

“The general conclusion of these studies,” the report said, “has been that the programs 

would have only a minimal effect on emission reduction.” 

The council directed DEQ to inform EPA that the council was awaiting a DEQ proposal for the 

conversion of city-owned cars to meet the 1975 standards; the city is encouraging improved public 

transportation, including freeway rampside parking, mini-buses, and incentives for bus use; the 

DEQ would soon report on the status of the city’s 4-day week program and submit 

recommendations for staggered work hours and a split week; and that the council had instructed 

DEQ to recommend to the city’s Public Health, Welfare and Environmental Committee any 

Federal, State, and local abatement programs for support by the city. 

The plan, said Councilman Arthur K. Snyder, was weak, “but at least it will be better than the city 

standing mute.” [Baker, Erwin, “City Council Approves ‘Weak’ Pollution Report, The Los Angeles 

Times, March 20, 1973] 

Since 1938, the State constitution had limited revenue from the State gas tax to highway 

construction and maintenance. On March 20, James R. Mills, a Democrat representing San Diego 

in the State Senate, introduced a constitutional amendment to allow use of some of the $700 million 

collected annually from the State gas tax for rapid transit construction. Funds from motor vehicle 

taxes also could be used for control of smog caused by automobiles. Mills, Senate President Pro 

Tem, had been the author of a similar measure, known as Proposition 18, that voters had rejected in 

1970 by a vote of 3,121,611 to 2,648,287. An article about the new measure said: 
544 

Proponents argued in 1970 that rapid transit would reduce air pollution and speed up 

commuting in large metropolitan areas. Opponents claimed passage would mean a gas tax 

hike and lessen funds needed to complete the state freeway system.

In 1973, Mills said, the constitutional gas tax restriction “has outlived its usefulness and now 

threatens to stifle development of balanced transportation systems.” Compared with proposition 

18, chances for the new measure had improved because, “Californians are demanding that we do 

more to solve our transportation and air pollution crisis.” He added, “We just can’t continue to 

pour all of our gas tax money into more and more freeways. That makes absolutely no sense at all.” 

[Gillam, Jerry, “Senate Gets Measure to Boost Rapid Transit,” The Los Angeles Times, March 21, 

1973] 

Also on March 20, Vice President Spiro Agnew was in Los Angeles as the featured speaker during 

a luncheon at the Los Angeles Convention Center for an international seminar on rapid transit. The 

focus was on promoting a rapid transit system for Los Angeles, but attendees included 

representatives from Atlanta, Montreal, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. The Vice President 

said the automobile was not a monster, but it could turn into one if cities such as Los Angeles 

became totally dependent on it: 

We can develop more rational and efficient ways to move around in our cities, and mass 

transit—whether it be bus, rail or an innovative new system—can free us from automobile 

servitude. 

A decision must be made. People are ready for a change. We see it in the lines of traffic 

jamming Los Angeles freeways.

The Federal Government was ready to help the Nation’s cities, as reflected in Secretary Brinegar’s

highway and transit proposal to open the Highway Trust Fund to urban bus and rail use. Vice 

President Agnew also cited the proposal to allow State and local officials to withdraw controversial 

Interstate segments in favor of other highway or transit projects, a plan that “makes a great deal of 

sense.” He explained:

Highways are not an end in themselves. Their purpose is to solve the needs of a 

transportation corridor. If there is a more efficient and effective way, or a combination of 

ways . . . is it not wiser to give localities real flexibility?

Regarding the Los Angeles area, the Vice President praised bus and rail transit options. A bus 

could take the place of 30 automobiles, but a rail system was “even more impressive.” Building a 

rail system would take time, but Los Angeles and other cities could take steps to solve some of their 

transportation and environmental problems in the meantime. Steps included “fringe benefits” for 

transit riders, such as fare reductions supported by private businesses, as well as auto-free zones and 

pedestrian malls that would create an incentive for walking. 
545 

He also referred to the Pacific Electric interurban rail network that had once served the area before 

being replaced by a bus system because “the tracks got in the way of the automobiles . . . .” He 

said:

Paradoxically, you are now considering ways of re-creating the efficiency and 

environmental integrity of that system at a cost of several billions of dollars. Perhaps that is 

an unfair oversimplification, but we have come nearly 180 degrees since those tracks were 

removed to facilitate automobile traffic. [Hebert, Ray, “Auto May Turn Into a Monster, 

Agnew Cautions,” The Los Angeles Times, March 21, 1973] 

The EPA hearings ended March 22 after testimony from more than 200 witnesses in nine Los 

Angeles Basin cities. Ruckelshaus said EPA would review the 3,500 pages of testimony before 

releasing its own “transportation strategy” for Los Angeles by June 15. Overall, the witnesses 

generally did not challenge EPA projections, but they did not believe automobile traffic could be 

cut by the proposed amounts. Gladwin Hill summed up: 

Three weeks of public hearings have convinced Federal aid pollution officials that there is 

no possibility of imposing a big reduction in Los Angeles Basin auto traffic to clean up the 

air.

Instead, the Environmental Protection Agency will recommend a combination of less harsh 

measures, such as improving mass transit, car pooling, “disincentives” to downtown driving 

and conversion of fleet vehicles to natural-gas fuel. [Hill, Gladwin, “Pollution Aides Doubt 

Traffic Cut,” The New York Times, March 26, 1973] 

While the hearings were underway in the Los Angeles area, EPA had been holding hearings 

required by the U.S. Court of Appeals on the auto industry’s request to delay Federal emissions 

standards for 1975 cars. On April 11, Ruckelshaus announced that he had decided to suspend the 

requirements for the 1975 model year and approve two standards for the country. The stronger 

standard would apply in California where cars sold in 1975 would be required to have their exhaust 

systems purified to release no more than 0.9 grams of hydrocarbons and 9 grams of carbon 

monoxide per mile of travel. For the rest of the country, the second standard limited emissions to 

1.5 grams of hydrocarbons and 15 grams of carbon monoxide. The stiffer standards envisioned by 

the Clean Air Amendments of 1970 would apply to 1976 models (0.41 grams of hydrocarbons and 

3.4 grams of carbon monoxide). 

Ruckelshaus explained that this two-phase approach would avoid the risk of “societal disruption.” 

An article in The Washington Post about the decision stated: 

Ruckelshaus, in explaining his decision, said he had to weigh the symbolic rollback from 

the act’s requirements against the risk of unleashing a political and consumer backlash by 

forcing Detroit into putting troublesome devices on 1975 automobiles. Such a backlash, he 

said, might “destroy the momentum” of the effort to clean up the air. 
546 

He said the White House had accepted “with alacrity” his suggestion that it stay out of the 

decision on Detroit’s request to suspend the 1975 clean air requirements for one year. “This 

is my decision,” he said. 

Ralph Nader immediately denounced the decision. He charged that “once again the concessionaires 

within the Nixon administration have sold out the environment to industry polluters.” 

The four Detroit-based auto manufacturers (General Motors Corporation, Ford Motor Company, 

Chrysler Corporation, and American Motors Corporation) expressed concern about the technology 

available for meeting the interim standards for 1975 and its cost. General Motors’ chairman, 

Richard C. Gerstenberg, said “we are disappointed and dismayed by the decision of the EPA. 

While the 1975 standards, as originally established, have been delayed for a year, the interim 

standards will be most difficult to attain and may well require the use of costly catalytic converters 

nationally.” Henry Ford II said that “on the basis of what we know now, the requirements for 49 

states are so tough as to make it extremely doubtful that we can meet them across the full range of 

all production without the use of expensive, untried catalysts.” Chrysler considered the standards 

“beyond our present non-catalytic capability,” while American Motors called the ruling 

“regrettable.” [Wilson, George C., “Auto Makers Win Delay on Clean Air,” The Washington Post, 

April 12, 1973; and Salpukas, Agis, “Detroit Unhappy with E.P.A. Action,” The New York Times, 

April 12, 1973] 

(The original standards had been developed by Delbert Barth of the National Air Pollution Control 

Administration in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, but based on the state of 

technology, he proposed them for 1980 vehicles. The Senate Committee on Public Works, with 

strong encouragement from Senator Muskie, applied the standards to 1975, in effect legislating 

technology. [Train, Russell E., Politics, Pollution, and Pandas: An Environmental Memoir, Island 

Press/Shearwater Books, 2003, p. 167]) 

The media understood Ruckelshaus’ position. “Rather than risk widespread economic disruption,” 

a New York Times editorial stated, “by insisting that all the standards be met for 1975 models, he 

chose to postpone their full impact to 1976.” Unfortunately, the editorial added, “the Administrator 

lacked the authority to require the car manufacturers to use their grace period for developing a 

better approach, for example, a counterpart of the Honda engine . . . .” The Washington Post called 

it a “realistic decision, the best choice that could have been made from among a number of 

unattractive alternatives.” It said that Senator Muskie was threatening congressional action to 

impose engine design and efficiency standards on the auto industry. “It is not an idle threat” since 

foreign auto makers had met the standards. “What Muskie and others are demanding to know is 

why Detroit has failed to exploit that technology, to the coming detriment of car buyers and of air 

quality.” [“Year’s Grace,” The New York Times, April 12, 1973; “Car Deadline: Reality and 

Discontent,” The Washington Post, April 12, 1973] 

Similarly, The Wall Street Journal applauded the EPA decision and criticized the automakers for 

“embarking on a campaign to persuade Congress to roll back those standards . . . .” Instead, they 

should “demonstrate good faith” instead of “swarming over Capitol Hill, taking full-page 

advertisements, and having vice presidents fan out over the countryside making speeches 
547 

denouncing the standards.” Admittedly, “environmental zealots” wanted to “punish Detroit for past 

sins even more than they would like clean air.” They may make “the loudest, most irritating 

noises,” but that was no reason for the auto industry to “react in kind.” Americans would be willing 

to “make accommodations along the way as long as it feels in its bones that the manufacturers are 

trying.” [“A Matter of Emphasis,” The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 1973] 

(Flippen, in his book about President Nixon’s environmental actions, provided an historical 

viewpoint that was not available to reporters at the time:

In the year since the original denial, science had developed adequate catalyst technology on 

prototype cars. Because the cost of expanding this technology to mass-produced models 

was extensive, the companies argued that the necessary technology was unavailable, a 

conclusion that environmentalists vigorously challenged. General Motors Corporation, 

anxious to curry favor with the administration and improve its image with the public, 

offered a solution: interim standards establishing a two-tier system. California, GM 

suggested, would have to meet the rigid EPA standards and thus require catalysts on all 

models. The rest of the nation would only have to meet 50 percent of the standards. This 

allowed more time for study while making the effort feasible for the companies. The 

proposal constituted a significant weakening of the law, but Nixon insisted that EPA accept. 

 “Pull Ruckelshaus in when he goes too far,” Nixon wrote an aide upon hearing of the offer. 

“I want sympathetic consideration of this request.” Under pressure, Ruckelshaus 

announced in early April that EPA agreed. The issue was “terribly complex,” Ruckelshaus 

tried to explain. It was inexcusable, the National Resources Defense Council replied. The 

administration had “sold out to big business” . . . . 

It was for the companies only a matter of the bottom line; had EPA not forced them to spend 

the necessary money, the nation would have paid the price in its air quality. It was indeed 

complex, but Nixon’s order to compromise was more in the interest of the auto industry 

than the nation’s air. 

It was also, the White House calculated, in its own political interest. The companies 

unleashed a furious public relations campaign to convince Americans that the rigid 

standards necessitated a dramatic increase in the price of a new car. Company engineers 

insisted that the cost would rise by an average of almost one thousand dollars, a figure 

outrageously high. They also maintained that fuel efficiency would suffer, that cars with 

catalysts would consume more gas and thus cost consumers an additional two hundred 

dollars annually. Environmentalists and their champions on Capitol Hill did their best to 

counter such claims . . . . It was, however, a tough argument to debunk, as the White House 

knew. [Flippen, p. 192-193]) 

Mayor Yorty, who had become Mayor on July 1, 1961, had defeated Councilman Bradley in the 

1969 Democratic primary by claiming the former police officer was a Black Power-type radical. 

Now, in 1973, Bradley was again challenging Yorty, but with rapid transit a key issue. On April 18, 

Bradley met with the press about 90 minutes before Mayor Yorty’s weekly news conference. This 

was part of Bradley’s new strategy of taking the initiative from the Mayor, who had been using his 
548 

news conferences to make charges against his opponent. On this day, Bradley said, “We’ve got to 

get on with the matter of rapid transit,” adding: 

You know, Sam Yorty seems not to recognize that we have a rapid transit problem and 

perhaps that’s true because he flies about this city from home to work or other places in a 

$150,000 helicopter, paid for by the taxpayers of this city. Now, while he’s flying overhead, 

we’re stuck on our overcrowded freeways, unable to move.” 

He cited his own actions in support of rapid transit. He led the fight to get the State Legislature to 

provide funds, $4 million a year, for the first leg of a rapid transit system (Yorty had tried to 

transfer the funds to nontransit needs). He supported setting aside freeway lanes for exclusive use 

by buses, known as “freeway flyers” (Yorty “hasn’t opened his mouth or lifted his finger to do 

anything about it”). He had proposed a successful mini-bus plan (“not a word from” Yorty in 

support) and attempted to break the Yellow Cab monopoly (“Sam Yorty’s commission has blocked 

that effort”). Bradley said he also had been involved in the fight in Congress to break open the 

Highway Trust Fund for mass transit (“not a word from Sam Yorty on that issue.”). 

Los Angeles, Bradley said, ranked 20th among the 21 major recipients of Federal transportation 

funds on a per capita basis. “It’s time that this city had a mayor who would not simply fly above 

(the traffic problems), or fly away from them, but who would care about all the people of this city, 

who would begin to deal with the problems that face us.”

Mayor Yorty, in his news conference, denied all the “wild charges” and said he was only addressing 

the point because, “I’m trying to clear up a little confusion based on demagoguery.” He had backed 

rapid transit, and Bradley knows it, so “rapid transit is not an honest issue in the mayoralty race.” 

As for the allegation about the helicopter, “Everybody knows that isn’t true. He doesn’t seem to 

care what he says.” As he had in 1969, he accused Bradley of trying to become Mayor so he could 

“get control” of the police department. (The Los Angeles Times had looked into the helicopter issue 

some time ago. Based on a review of departmental records, the newspaper found that Mayor Yorty 

rarely used the helicopter to commute, but did use it to keep speaking engagements and reach other 

events around the State.) [Reich, Kenneth, and Bergholz, Richard, “Bradley Accuses Yorty of 

Failure on Rapid Transit,” The Los Angeles Times, April 19, 1973] 

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 6 

While completing work on S. 502, the Senate Committee on Public Works approved Senator 

Baker’s Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 6 to allow Secretary Brinegar to apportion $1 billion of 

Interstate funding on the basis of the 1972 Interstate Cost Estimate. Senator Baker brought the 

resolution to the Senate floor on March 6. 

It was, he said, “an emergency measure designed to assure that interstate highway funds continue to 

be available for obligation by the States without interruption.” The failure of the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1972 left many States without Interstate funds. Virginia had no funds left, while 

eight States had less than $5 million available. Seven States had between $5 million and $10 

million available while five had between $10 million and $20 million. With the spring construction 
549 

season about to get underway, “these States are in immediate need for fiscal year 1974 

apportionments.” 

Senator Baker pointed out that the resolution enjoyed support from the Nixon Administration, but 

“will become effective immediately upon passage by the House without Presidential signature.” 

Senator Bentsen said that S. 502 involved a number of controversial measures that would take time 

to resolve, but in 1972 and again in 1973, there was “no controversy” over continuing development 

of the Interstate System. Some controversy did exist about the appropriate funding level. While 

that issue was resolved, Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 6 involved only a portion of the funding: 

Although the full amount authorized for fiscal year 1974 is presently $4 billion, the 

committee chose to apportion only $1 billion at this time for several reasons. The 

availability of $1 billion would permit the States to award construction contracts this spring 

at the beginning of the construction season when activity of this type normally is greatest. 

Further, the committee did not believe it would be wise to apportion the full amount since 

we are now considering a reduction in the annual authorization for interstate construction. 

He emphasized that adoption of the resolution would “in no way impair the ability of the Congress 

to enact a new general highway bill,” adding:

It has been considered by some that the urgent need for interstate funds would be an 

incentive for prompt action on the bill. The committee considered this situation in deciding 

to apportion only $1 billion at the present time. The continued nonavailability of the 

remainder of the fiscal year 1974 funds should remain as one of the encouragements for 

prompt action, but reduce the pressure sufficiently to prevent us from being rushed more 

than is necessary for the thoughtful deliberations that are required on the highway 

transportation issues we face this year.

Senator Randolph concurred: 

While the Congress works to produce a new general highway bill, there could be widespread 

unemployment in the highway construction industry and severe disruption of State 

construction schedules. At the same time, continuing inflation would push the ultimate cost 

of the system to new highs. 

Without a recorded vote, the Senate approved Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 6. [Congressional 

Record-Senate, March 6, 1973, p. 6431-6433] 

The Senate Committee on Public Works Bill

On February 28, Secretary Brinegar wrote to let Senator Randolph know the Department of 

Transportation’s views on S. 502. The Secretary stated that the Federal-Aid Highway and Public 

Transportation Act of 1973, S. 967, introduced a week earlier, reflected the Administration’s 

position. He believed that “its enactment would go a long way toward solving some of our Nation’s 
550 

major transportation problems.” However, S. 502 included “a number of the constructive 

measures” that had been included in the 1972 legislation the Senate had approved. 

The most important issue was whether “the bill will be amended to provide our State and local 

officials with a full range of options as they attempt to solve their transportation problems.” He 

rejected the “arbitrary limitation” on the options for highway-related mass transit:

In my testimony before your Committee, I made the point that the taxes which accrue to the 

Highway Trust Fund are quite general in their incidence and predate the establishment of the 

Trust Fund. To treat these taxes as specific user charges and to insist for that reason that 

their revenues cannot be invested in rail transit facilities or equipment is to sharply impair 

the ability of State and local officials to grapple with the complexities of today’s urban 

transportation problems . . . . S. 967 goes much further and provides the flexibility we 

believe essential to the solution of our transportation problems. 

Secretary Brinegar also had some concerns about modifications in the pass-through provision. The 

original version made Federal-aid urban system funds available to urbanized areas, but the present 

version earmarked the funds for incorporated municipalities with populations in excess of 400,000: 

Under such a provision, funds for an urbanized area that were attributable to suburban areas 

would be held at the State level while funds attributable to the major city would be first, 

earmarked for that city and second, made directly available to them if they were suitably 

equipped to carry out the program . . . . Such an action would constitute the severest setback 

to our efforts to encourage State and local officials to approach urban transportation 

problems on an areawide basis. 

He strongly opposed the revised measure and urged the committee to return to the original version. 

He recommended that Federal-aid urban system funds be limited to areas with populations of 

50,000 or more, instead of 5,000 as in the bill. In addition, he suggested combining Federal-aid 

urban system funds with funding for the urban extensions of the Federal-aid primary system. 

Retaining the separate funding categories “will result in duplication and unnecessary administrative 

complexity.”

The Secretary approved the committee’s efforts to consolidate some categories, but opposed its 

retention of the Special Urban High Density Traffic Program at $50 million. “We believe that 

roads of this type can be constructed under existing programs and would recommend the deletion of 

the new grant program.” 

The provision allowing Federal-aid funds to be used for construction of parking facilities inside 

central business districts was a concern because it did not require that they be located and designed 

in conjunction with public transportation facilities. “We believe there is no justification for Federal 

funding unless such facilities are part of a public transportation program.” 

He also was concerned about the toll road reimbursement program, which would permit the States 

to commit future Federal-aid primary funds far in advance of Federal-aid authorizations and receipt 
551 

of tax revenues. “The program has always operated on a pay-as-you-go basis and we recommend 

that this principle not now be abandoned.” 

The exemption for the North Expressway in San Antonio was “neither good government nor 

conducive to preservation of the environment that all have accepted as a primary national goal.” 

[The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, Report to Accompany S. 502, Committee on Public Works, 

United States Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, S. Report 93-61, March 13, 1973, p. 45-47] 

The Department’s bill, however, had been introduced too late for any real committee consideration. 

On March 1, the Senate Public Works Committee rejected, 6 to 8, the Muskie-Baker amendment to 

open Federal-aid urban system funds to rail transit. Senator Muskie was optimistic that the 

amendment would be approved on the Senate floor. Recalling the 48 to 26 vote approving the 

Cooper-Muskie Amendment in 1972, he said, “We had a good margin last year and I hope we do as 

well this time.” [“Mass-Transit Backers in Senate Lose Bid to Tap Road Fund But See Eventual 

Win,” The Wall Street Journal, March 2, 1973] 

The committee also rejected Senator Muskie’s amendment to modify the pass-through provision to 

allow funds to go to cities of 250,000 population, instead of 400,000. In addition, the committee 

rejected his motion to increase Federal-aid urban system funding from $650,000 to $1 billion, but 

accepted Senator Randolph’s substitute to increase funding to $850 million. 

In other committee votes, Senator Buckley moved to strike the provision dealing with the North 

Expressway in San Antonio, but the motion failed. The committee adopted a measure introduced 

by Senator Burdick that each State should receive a minimum of one-half of one percent of the 

Interstate apportionments for FYs 1974, 1975, 1976. This measure was intended to ensure that 

States such as Delaware, Nebraska, and Burdick’s own North Dakota that would finish their 

Interstate mileage over the course of the bill would not be denied Interstate funding. [The FederalAid Highway Act of 1973, S. Report 93-61, p. 43] 

The committee approved the bill on March 1 by unanimous voice vote. Aside from the usual 

funding provisions, the bill included: 

• Funds for Forest Highways would come from the Highway Trust Fund as in the 1970 Act, 

as would funds for parkways and Indian Reservation Roads for the first time. Funds for 

forest development roads and trails, public lands development roads, and park roads and 

trails would come from the general Treasury. 

• Continued the Federal share of 70 percent for non-Interstate projects. 

• The Secretary was to administer the Federal-aid highway program to “encourage the 

minimization of paper and interagency decision procedures and the best use of available 

manpower and funds so as to prevent needless duplication and unnecessary delays at all 

levels of government. 

• The Federal-aid systems would be realigned based on anticipated functional use in 1980. 

The Federal-aid primary system would consist of rural arterial routes and their extensions 

into or through urban areas; the Federal-aid secondary system would include rural major 
552 

collector routes; access roads to airports would be eligible to be included in the Federal-aid 

secondary system. The Federal-aid urban system would include urban arterial and collector 

routes, exclusive of extensions of rural arterial routes through urban areas; it also could 

include access roads to airports and other transportation terminals. 

• At the request of a Governor and the local governments concerned, the Secretary could 

withdraw approval of any Interstate segment if the route is not essential to completing a 

unified and connected system within a State. Dollar-for-dollar substitution of an essential 

connection would be permitted without restriction on length. The existing 200-mile limit 

for substitute routes, known as Howard-Cramer mileage, would be repealed.

• If a substitute connection were not needed, or if the cost of the connection were less than the 

cost of the original route, the total amount of the difference would be available for use on 

the Federal-aid urban system or for local public transportation purposes under Section 142 

of Title 23. 

• States must notify the Secretary by July 1, 1974, of their intent to build remaining Interstate 

segments. By July 1, 1975, States must submit a schedule for completing their remaining 

segments (including alternate segments). Otherwise, segments would be removed from the 

System.

• States could employ Certification Acceptance for all non-Interstate projects.

• The existing authority of the States that issued bonds to construct projects on the Federal-aid 

primary system, including the Interstates, was extended to allow use of Federal-aid funds to 

retire not only the principal of such bonds, but the interest in the case of the Interstate 

System.

• Any toll road included in the Interstate System that becomes toll-free would be eligible for 

Interstate funds for construction, reconstruction, or improvement. 

• The States would make Federal-aid urban system funds available for use in urbanized areas 

of 400,000 or more population, with the amount based on population. If the Secretary of 

Transportation finds that the municipality had sufficient authority to develop and implement 

a plan for expenditure of funds for the urban system and related highway public 

transportation purposes, the State must pass the funds through the funds to that 

municipality.

• Allowed construction of publicly owned parking facilities in the central business district and 

the imposition of parking fees to repay bonds or other obligations used for the local share.

• Federal-aid highway funds could be used for highway public transportation purposes within 

urban areas. Eligible activities included construction of exclusive bus lanes, traffic control 

devices, passenger loading areas and facilities, and the purchase of passenger equipment 

other than fixed rail for use within such areas. Interstate funds could not be used to

purchase buses, but could be used for exclusive or preferential bus, truck, and emergency 

vehicle routes or lanes. Buses must meet emission standards prescribed by the EPA. 

• Federal-aid funds could be used to develop and improve bicycle transportation, equestrian 

trails, and pedestrian walkways on or in conjunction with highway rights-of-way. Eligible 

activities included separate or preferential bicycle lanes or paths, bicycle traffic control 

devices, bicycle shelters and parking facilities, pedestrian walkways, and equestrian trails. 

Projects must be part of an overall plan providing for safety and for contiguous routes. 
553 

• The Secretary could reimburse States with Federal-aid primary funds after they have 

received their final Interstate apportionment for 70 percent of the construction cost for new 

toll roads and improvements to existing toll roads. All toll revenue would be devoted to 

retiring bonds while also covering operating and maintenance costs. 

• Authorized $50 million for construction of special highways connected to the Interstate 

System in portions of urbanized areas with high traffic density. The Federal share of 

Special Urban High Density Traffic Program projects would not exceed 90 percent. 

• Authorized $15 million for access highways to public recreation areas on Federal lakes.

• Provided for construction of the Highland Scenic Highway as a parkway from West Virginia 

State Route 39 to U.S. 250 near Barton Knob. 

• Provided for relocation of U.S. 25E through a tunnel to be constructed in the Cumberland 

Gap National Historical Park.

• Authorized over $58 million for reconstruction of the Alaska Highway. 

• Increased authorizations for construction of two bridges on Federal dams on the Arkansas 

and Tennessee Rivers in the vicinities of Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Chattanooga, 

Tennessee.

• Required feasibility and necessity studies for five specified routes proposed for inclusion in 

the Interstate System. 

• Terminated the San Antonio North Expressway as a Federal-aid project upon the return of 

Federal-aid funds paid to the State of Texas for that purpose. 

• Funded demonstration projects in Lincoln, Nebraska; Elko, Nevada; and Brownsville, 

Texas, for the relocation of railroad lines from the central city to eliminate rail-highway 

grade crossings.

• Funded a rural highway public transportation demonstration program to include traffic 

control devices, passenger loading facilities, fringe and corridor parking facilities to serve 

mass transportation passengers, and the purchase of passenger equipment other than railroad 

rolling stock. 

• Directed the Secretary to complete by October 1, 1973, the draft environmental impact 

statement on I-66 in Virginia from the Capital Beltway to the Potomac River. By December 

31, 1973, the Secretary must complete review of all public hearing comments and file the 

final environmental impact statement and make the final determination on whether the 

project may proceed. The Secretary’s decision would be conclusive. [The Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1973, Report of the Committee on Public Works, United States Senate, 93d 

Congress, 1st Session, Report No. 93, 61, March 13, 1973] 

On March 4, President Nixon gave a radio address to the Nation in advance of his State of the 

Union Message on Community Development: 

A few years ago we constantly heard that urban America was on the brink of collapse. It 

was one minute to midnight, we were told, and the bells of doom were beginning to toll. 

One history of America in the 1960’s was even given the title “Coming Apart.” 

Many of the problems that prompted that concern had been addressed. “Today, America is no 

longer coming apart.” Crime was down as were civil disorders and substandard housing. “The air 
554 

is getting cleaner in most of our major cities.” Cities were no longer on the brink of financial 

catastrophe, the business world was investing in downtowns, while, “The Nation’s first new transit 

system in more than 20 years has just been opened in San Francisco. Another is under construction 

in Washington, D.C.; others are planned in Atlanta and Baltimore.” He continued: 

What does all this mean for community life in America? Simply this: The hour of crisis 

has passed. The ship of state is back on an even keel, and we can put behind us the fear of 

capsizing.

One reason was that the Federal Government no longer thought it “should take the lead in 

developing local communities.” America, the President told the Nation, “is still recovering from 

years of extravagant, hastily passed measures, designed by centralized planners and costing billions 

of dollars, but producing few results.” 

He discussed the General Revenue Sharing Act he had approved at Independence Hall in October 

1972 and promoted the Better Communities Act, which would provide $2.3 billion in its first year 

of operation with no strings attached. He also cited the proposal to establish a Department of 

Community Development and pointed out that he had taken a first step by appointing Secretary 

Lynn as the Counsellor to the President for Community Development. 

Turning to transportation, he said that over the past 20 years, “Federal money has helped build the 

world’s best system of modern highways.” But the time had come to “concentrate on moving 

people within cities as effectively as we move them between our cities.” The focus must be on 

helping “communities develop urban mass transit systems of which America can truly be proud.” 

He explained his plans: 

I propose that our States and communities be given the right to use a designated portion of 

the Highway Trust Fund for capital improvements in urban public transportation, including 

improvements in bus and rapid rail systems. 

Changing the way we use the Highway Trust Fund should be one of the top items on our 

national agenda. If we do not act now, our children will grow up in cities which are 

strangled by traffic, raked by noise, choked by pollution. 

By opening up the Highway Trust Fund today, we can open up great new vistas for our 

cities tomorrow.

I have also asked that Federal funding authority for mass transit capital grants be doubled—

from $3 billion to $6 billion. And I recommended that the Federal share of mass transit 

projects be raised to 70 percent. 

All of these steps will help us meet the challenge of mass transit.

He concluded his radio address: 
555 

If the spirit of community means anything, it means a spirit of belonging, a spirit of 

responsibility, a spirit of participation. Restoring this “spirit of community” is the ultimate 

purpose of all the community development efforts of our Administration. 

“A great city,” Walt Whitman wrote, “is that which has the greatest men and women.” Only 

by appealing to the greatness that lies within our people can we build and sustain the kind of 

communities we want for America.

President Nixon would repeat his recommendations in his March 8 State of the Union Address on 

Community Development as discussed earlier. 

On March 8, Secretary Brinegar addressed the National Newspaper Association. He emphasized 

that President Nixon “believes quite strongly that decision-making authority should be returned to 

the people—to the community—as much as possible, along with the funding to help those decisions 

to work.” The enhanced prospect for moving decisions back to the communities to improve 

transportation was “the kinds of ‘good news’ that are so often hard to find in any newspaper.” 

Everyone, he said, agreed on the importance of transportation. “It’s certainly no great discovery to 

observe that transportation changes the land around it and, in turn, is then changed by the changes.” 

He illustrated with an example from American history:

How many of our cities began as “Tank Towns” and “Whistle Stops”? Or “Portlands” or 

“River City Junctions”? And our way of living is still being shaped by transportation. Huge 

shopping centers appear because of beltways and bypasses, not vice versa. Thus, we see 

that transportation planning and policy making is a complicated interrelated affair.

Today, “the very popularity of the car, at least as we now know it, is threatening its utility.” If, as 

the President says, “we must do a better job of community development,” that translates “to a 

significant degree, to better transportation development.” Transportation decisions affect, and are 

affected by, land use policies, the economy of the community, and its desirability as a place to live 

and work. The Department’s 1973 Highway and Transit bill, he said, embodied the types of 

changes he was encouraging Congress to enact. 

The country had done a good job with the Interstate System, but now was the time “to bring our 

urban mobility up to the standards we have come to expect in Interstate travel.” The keys were 

“flexibility,” not inflexibility, and “intelligent resource usage,” not just using dollars on a “use it or 

lose it” basis:

The era for the “sugar bowl” type financing that inflexibility encourages should be over. It’s 

a luxury we can ill afford as we try to use the nation’s resources as intelligibly [sic] as 

possible. 

While summarizing the provisions of the Department’s bill, he endorsed the Muskie-Baker 

amendment and said: 
556 

This amendment is in no way a “raid” on the Trust Fund. It is a logical use of the monies to 

meet pressing transportation needs that are quite related to past uses. The amendment does 

not affect the amount of money going to any state, but only offers some new options on its 

use. 

The Senate Takes Up The 1973 Act

The Senate began considering the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 on March 14. Peter Braestrup 

of The Washington Post reported that the pro-highway and pro-transit forces predicted close votes 

on the controversial amendments that would permit the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue to build 

subways and buy buses. “Major issues and pet projects have made the three-year, $18 billion 

measure the focal point for considerable behind-the-scenes lobbying.” 

Senator Randolph planned to lead the opposition to the Muskie-Baker amendment with the backing 

of such groups as AASHO, HUFSAM, and American Trucking Associations. The Muskie-Baker 

amendment had the support of the Nixon Administration, Mayors, the public interest group 

Common Cause, unions such as United Auto Workers and the Teamsters, and “most actively,” the 

Highway Action Coalition. Braestrup recalled the vote, 48 to 26, on the similar Cooper-Muskie 

amendment in 1972, but both sides expected the vote to be closer in 1973, perhaps with only a sixvote margin: 

John Kramer, chief lobbyist for the environmentalist coalition, said yesterday that most of 

those senators absent from last fall’s vote were pro-Randolph men, so those results were 

somewhat misleading as to true Senate sentiment. “The outcome in the Senate,” Kramer 

predicted, “will have an important psychological effect on the House side”—where the 

administration’s “bust-the-trust” drive faces stronger opposition. 

Randolph, Braestrup wrote, had endorsed Senator Williams’ Emergency Commuter Relief Act, 

which was going to be offered as an amendment to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. It would 

authorize an additional $1 billion a year for UMTA programs and $400,000 a year for operating 

subsidies, with all the funds from the general Treasury. “Randolph has endorsed the Williams 

amendment—partly to offset arguments that, by defending the Highway Trust Fund, he is ‘antitransit.’” 

The reporter also cited the Kennedy-Weicker amendment to open non-Interstate funds to bus and 

rail transit. This was, of course, a more radical proposition than the Muskie-Baker amendment. 

The prospects were not good since as Braestrup pointed out, the 1972 version of the amendment 

received only 18 votes. 

Braestrup also mentioned another controversial amendment: 

Last but not least of the major amendments is Sen. Clifford Hansen’s proposal to lift all 

federal weight and size curbs on trucks using the Interstate system. This proposal is favored 

by Randolph but not by Muskie, the American Automobile Association or the 

environmentalists. [Braestrup, Peter, “Narrow Vote Seen in Senate on Roads Bill,” The 

Washington Post, March 14, 1973] 
557 

In an introductory statement, Senator Bentsen explained that the bill was in some ways similar to 

the 1972 bill that the Senate had passed. However, with additional time to consider the issues, the 

Public Works Committee had improved on that bill. “So, while some of the issues are the same as 

in 1972, our responses to them are, in several cases, different.” 

One major difference was that it covered 3 fiscal years instead of the traditional 2. “Had the 

committee reported a 2-year bill this year, it would have meant that highway legislation would have 

to be considered again in 1974, almost before the present legislation was fully implemented. 

Given the importance of the Interstate System, Senator Bentsen explained why authorizations had 

been reduced from $4 billion authorized in recent years. The reduced amount “is adequate for 

orderly continuation of the program as its present stage and will not work an undue hardship on any 

state’s highway activities.” Because of impoundments, the amount was more than had actually 

been made available and more than the President’s budget proposal of $2.6 billion a year. 

Even with the $16 billion authorized by the new bill, the Interstate System would not be completed 

until about 1982. He pointed out that while construction time would have to be extended, “the cost 

of the system also has grown and today stands at more than $73 billion.” Under current legislation, 

the next Interstate Cost Estimate was due in 1974, but the new bill would change that date to 1975 

when “we will be in a better position to make a determination on the final cost and completion date 

of the system.” 

One reason the Interstate System was behind schedule was that it included many controversial 

segments that had been held up for several years. He described the Interstate transfer and 

substitution provisions: 

The bill revises the statute to permit interstate transfers on the basis of cost rather than 

mileage . . . . In this connection, the bill also provides that where State and local officials 

determine that an interstate link is no longer desirable, it can be removed from the system 

entirely so long as the removal does not leave a gap in the total nationwide Interstate 

System. In both cases—Interstate transfers or total removal of a segment—any funding 

remaining would be transferred to the urban system apportionment for the urban area 

concerned.

He stated that 56 urbanized areas with populations of 400,000 or more were eligible to receive 

Federal-aid urban system funds attributable to them on the basis of the relationship their population 

bears to the State population. Cities of 400,000 or more within those urbanized areas were eligible 

to receive pass-through funds: 

This means that the cities themselves rather than the State highway departments would carry 

out urban system programs if they quality as pass-through recipients. To qualify, the cities 

would have to have the legal authority under their State laws, and would have to 

demonstrate to the Secretary of Transportation their competence to carry out an urban 

highway program. 
558 

The committee, Senator Bentsen said, had spent more time on the urban funds than any other, but 

the most controversial element of the discussion involved the use of Federal-aid highway funds for 

public transportation: 

The committee is aware that there is a strong relationship between the highway program and 

public transportation. In recent years that relationship has been given emphasis by programs 

to construct preferential or exclusive bus lanes and such other facilities as fringe parking, 

first as demonstration programs, and later as permanently authorized activities.

S. 502 proposes to broaden this relationship by authorizing the use of urban system and 

urban extension funds for public transportation purposes, including the purchase of 

equipment. The key issue in this section, and the one which has precipitated much 

controversy, is the limitation on equipment purchase to that which is highway-related. Rail 

transit equipment is specifically excluded.

As it did last year, the subcommittee and the committee gave very careful consideration to 

the public transportation needs in American cities. Once again we concluded that the 

highway program could be used to help meet these needs by restricting its involvement to 

public transportation which is highway oriented. 

He pointed out that rail transit was assisted through UMTA programs, which were far more 

effective than funding from the highway program: 

The limitations of apportionment formulas utilized by the highway program would prevent 

any city from receiving a significant amount of assistance for very expensive rail 

construction. On the other hand, the proposals of S. 502 would relieve some of the pressure 

on the urban mass transit program and consequently make more money available from this 

source [UMTA] for rail construction. 

Regarding the provision on the North Expressway, he said, “This action was requested by the State 

and local governments so that they might complete the expressway with wholly local funds if the 

project meets local standards.”

After summarizing other provisions of S. 502, he concluded: 

S. 502 continues the evolution of the program that began when it was first adopted in 1916. 

A great part of the success of the federal-aid program certainly is due to the continued 

vigilance of the Congress and to the adaptability that regular reviews of the program have 

fostered.

Highway transportation is essential to the continued growth and prosperity of our country. It 

is a basic form of transportation and will continue to be such in the foreseeable future. 

[Federal Aid Highway Act of 1973, Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 

7890-7892] 
559 

Senator Randolph said of the bill: 

To say that this is a comprehensive bill is, of course, the truth. To say that it is an 

innovative bill is also the truth. To say that it is a bill that meets the challenge of our 

changing times is true.

He quickly began a defense of the Highway Trust Fund. Congress, he said, “did not approve an 

abstract concept” in 1956. It approved construction of the Interstate System “so that the mobility of 

America might continue to expand, so that the products of its factories could move to the cities, so 

that the products of its farms could move to the consumers, and that Americans generally would 

benefit.” No one could deny that the Interstate System had benefited every State.

In his years in the House and now the Senate, he had been involved in the development of highway 

legislation and seen many changes that kept the Federal-aid highway program “abreast of the 

times.” He continued: 

Seldom, however, had I been involved in the development of highway legislation that has 

stimulated both the public and congressional concern as has the bill before us. The success 

of the highway program in recent years has solidified the American public’s preference for 

motor vehicles as its primary form of transportation. The highway program, as a result, has 

been subjected to careful scrutiny concerning the role it plays in American life. 

The new bill was based on “our continuing experience in the Senate,” and “addresses contemporary 

needs, and does so in a responsible manner.” It “neither maintains the status-quo, nor makes 

changes intended to be permanent in the future.” 

After defending several special interest provisions, including the Highland Scenic Highway in his 

home State, he concluded: 

[The] Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 is the product of a careful evaluation of America’s 

highway transportation needs. When the Federal-aid program was begun 57 years ago, these 

needs were relatively small. In 1973, they are vastly more complex and I am convinced this 

bill is the mechanism by which these needs can be met. [Congressional Record-Senate, 

March 14, 1973, p. 7893-7894] 

After further introductory discussion, Senator Cranston was the first to address the key issue. He 

praised the bill for addressing the very critical needs of the cities “to some extent.” The bill, 

however, “falls far short of meeting the critical transportation needs of our cities.” He explained:

Urban and intercity transit systems are faced today with crippling financial difficulties and 

their plight is worsening. Since the establishment of the highway trust fund in 1956, a total 

of 268 city transit systems have gone out of business, and 100 of these have folded since 

1963. As freeways are built to accommodate the suburban commuter, those left behind in 

the cities—most often the very young and the very old, the handicapped and the poor—are 

left without a means of transportation and must absorb the increasing social costs associated 
560 

with the inner city deterioration. Today, only 7.3 billion transit passengers are carried 

annually as opposed to the 23 billion carried in 1945. 

UMTA funding was helpful, but he discussed the 30 to 1 disparity in funding for highways 

compared with transit:

To begin to move toward the development of clean, efficient, nonpolluting, and energy 

conserving mass transit, we must recognize that our total surface transportation resources 

are finite and that we must, therefore, reallocate some of the funds currently allocated for 

highways to mass transit. 

Today, the Senate will have three opportunities to provide more adequate funds for public 

transportation. 

They would be the Kennedy-Weicker and Muskie-Baker amendments and an amendment to be 

introduced by Senator Williams. These amendments were “critically important to California and to 

the Nation.” He mentioned the public hearings that EPA was conducting in Los Angeles regarding 

the proposal to institute gasoline rationing and other severe measures. The EPA plan, in the 

absence of an adequate public transportation system, “would wreak economic and social havoc on 

the Los Angeles area.” Some 66 metropolitan areas faced similar restrictions before they met EPA 

air quality standards. 

He quoted the Highway Action Coalition’s testimony to demonstrate the superiority of transit to the 

automobile (“Per passenger mile, a car consumes five times as much fuel as a train, and six times as 

much as a bus.”). The air and noise pollution of the automobile “are reaching unbearable levels,” 

with the brunt of these problems falling on those left behind by the suburban exodus, namely the 

old, the poor, and the handicapped. “The highway user and the city dweller alike will benefit from 

a vigorous Federal effort to develop viable transportation alternatives to the automobile.” He urged 

his colleagues to support the three amendments. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, 

p. 7895-7896] 

Senator Williams introduced the first amendment, his Emergency Commuter Relief Act 

amendments to the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964. After it was entered into the record, 

the Senator asked that Senator Kennedy and Weicker be added as cosponsors. When that was done, 

Senator Bentsen asked that he be included, and that was so ordered. 

Senator Williams explained that the Senate had approved this amendment in 1972 on “several 

occasions.” He yielded to Senator Javits, who recalled that he was a proponent in 1972 and 

cosponsor in 1973. “The time for responsible congressional action is now if the present picture of 

our mass transit systems is . . . one of rising fares, increasing deficits, and declining ridership to that 

of a financially sound and viable transportation operation.” Senator Javits emphasized the key 

provisions, including $800 million over 2 years for operating subsidies and a $3 billion increase in 

contract authority for the UMTA capital grant program through FY 1977: 
561 

It is now up to the Congress to seize the initiative before it. The more than 70 percent of the 

Nation’s people suffer from crippling and decaying mass transit and commuter systems and 

cannot bear the continued delay over needed Federal assistance.

Mr. President, we are subsidizing airlines, railroads, ships, housing, and numerous other 

programs, but I know of no subsidization more indispensable to the life and environment of 

the increasingly city dwelling American people than this kind of buttressing which is called 

for by this amendment. 

Senator Williams added that, “three times the Senate has responded by overwhelmingly passing 

legislation which would not only provide for the future of mass transit, but which would also enable 

it to survive its present crisis.” The 91st and 92nd Congresses had passed the bill as part of the 

housing bill and as an amendment to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. “But each time the 

legislation failed short of final enactment.”

The Emergency Commuter Relief Act was designed to meet the overwhelming need:

It is designed to halt the raising of fares to intolerable levels, and the curtailment of essential 

transit services.

It recognizes that mass transit is the lifeblood of an urbanized society and that a program of 

capital grants meshed into one of operating assistance can go a long way toward alleviating 

the distress of both private transit operators and the increasing number of municipalities 

who own and operate systems. 

He concluded: 

During the 4 year delay in enacting this legislation, costs have risen, fares have increased, 

and services have been curtailed and as a result, more and more transit riders have been 

forced to use automobiles. 

And while expenditures have been held in check, transit plans and projects that are urgently 

needed in urban areas have piled up and gathered dust . . . . 

By adopting the Emergency Commuter Relief Act, we in the Congress will by our deeds 

explicitly affirm the President’s pledge to make mass transit our Nation’s top transportation 

priority for the 1970’s. 

Senator Stafford said he supported the amendment, in part because the revenue it authorized did not 

come from the Highway Trust Fund. He supported mass transportation but “the highway trust fund 

is not large enough to meet the extensive needs of all rail systems.” He was pleased to join the 

Administration in supporting the additional $3 billion for capital grants. Although the 

Administration opposed the $400 million a year for operating subsidies, his view was that “the 

subsidy provision is vital to the effort to reverse the trend that has seen the death of so many urban 
562 

transit companies across our Nation in the last 15 years.” He added that this bill did not “supplant” 

the Muskie-Baker or Kennedy-Weicker amendments that would be considered later.

Senators Randolph and Bentsen indicated their support for the Emergency Commuter Relief Act, 

but Senator Baker said that while he supported the $3 billion in additional UMTA funds, “I find 

myself not in agreement with providing operating subsidies in the amount of $800 million.” 

Further, he was concerned that “our Committee on Public Works is stretching its jurisdiction to the 

extent that I believe we are intruding on the jurisdiction of another standing committee of the 

Senate in the authorization of funds to be appropriated other than from the trust fund for these 

purposes.” When the discussion of the amendment ended, he would introduce a motion to table 

(not consider) the amendment. 

Senator Williams, who knew the motion was coming, stated “my strong position in opposition.” 

The Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs had jurisdiction over transit. Since a 

housing bill to attach the amendment to was unlikely, the committee concluded that “it would be 

proper for me to bring this measure to the Senate as an amendment to the highway bill which also 

deals in part with mass transit, insofar as bus systems are concerned.” 

Senator Weicker stated that he would vote against tabling the amendment. I do think it far better at 

this point of the entire debate to offensively anticipate what is going to take place here rather than 

be on the defensive”: 

There are two situations involved here: No. 1, the direct funding of mass transit in this 

Nation; and, on the other hand, the situation as it relates to the Highway Trust Fund whereby 

those moneys will be available for all forms of transportation—rail, highway, bus, etcetera.

So I want to make the situation quite clear that, in supporting the very fine amendment 

offered by the distinguished Senator from New Jersey, it will also be my intention to attack 

another problem or another aspect of the problem, which would specifically relate to uses of 

Highway Trust Fund moneys, because we are so far behind in the task of providing mass 

transit that the effort that will be required will be on both grounds, the use of money from 

both the Highway Trust Fund and those that are directly related to mass urban 

transportation. We will not have done our job in behalf of mass transit merely by passage of 

this particular amendment.

Senator Biden recalled Secretary Brinegar’s testimony opposing subsidies but acknowledging that 

they could not be met from the farebox: 

I think it is unreasonable to expect all mass transit systems to be on a pay-as-you-go basis. 

Like the police and fire departments, mass transit systems provide a service essential to the 

vitality of our communities and like those departments such systems should be subsidized, if 

necessary. Unlike the police and fire departments, however, which are highly localized and 

serve a resident constituency, the mass transit systems often cross the jurisdictional lines of 

local governments and transport people from one constituency to another—and they should 

be encouraged to do so . . . . Because of the jurisdictional conflicts, such transit systems 
563 

may require Federal initiatives for their construction and quite reasonable Federal subsidies 

for their operation. 

As for concerns about abuse of the subsidy, Senator Biden pointed out that the Federal funds would 

require a grant from the State or local public body in the ratio of 2 to 1. “This local commitment 

would provide an incentive for limiting the size of the operating subsidies and thereby encourage 

efficiency.” He contrasted that incentive with General Revenue Sharing, which he said did not have 

“the checks and safeguards available under the present legislation, and I think that would be 

throwing the money away.” 

Senator Domenici recalled the decision to change the name of the subcommittee from “Roads” to 

“Transportation.” He said: 

It was expressed then by our chairman that the reason was that this committee should be 

involved in the whole matter of public transportation, so that it would not be a matter of 

merely roads, but also a matter of the financing program for transportation. 

He noted, however, that the amendment, and specifically the operating subsidy provision, had never 

been considered by the Committee on Public Works. Therefore, he agreed with Senator Baker’s 

proposal to table the amendment: 

If the Senate is going to be critical of priorities, then we should not bring to the Senate, 

without even going before the Transportation Subcommittee of the Public Works 

Committee of the Senate, a matter that is not included in the bill under discussion by the 

Senate.

When Senator Baker introduced his motion to table the amendment, it was rejected. Then, by a 

vote of 59 to 36, the Williams amendment was agreed to. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 

14, 1973, p. 7896-7902] 

The Kennedy-Weicker amendment was the next up for consideration. Senator Kennedy introduced 

the amendment by saying the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 now before the Senate “contains a 

series of highly important and valuable reforms in the highway aid program.” He cited six reforms. 

The bill:

• Would make funds previously earmarked only for urban highways available for mass transit 

systems, including the purchase of buses. 

• Would increase Federal-aid urban system funds eightfold to $850 million. “I would note 

that if enacted, this would be the first time a highway aid bill recognized the high financing 

share borne by urban residents over the past 16 years.” 

• Allowed State and local officials to halt an Interstate route and use a portion of the funds for 

other urban transportation. 

• Permits the Secretary of Transportation to allocate $350 million of “urban extension” funds 

to help areas comply with air quality standards under the 1970 Clean Air Amendment Act. 
564 

• Recognized rural mass transit needs by authorizing a small demonstration bus transit 

program. 

• Finally, “the bill recognizes the desirability of enabling large urban areas to plan for 

themselves and to implement those plans by pass through urban funds to urban areas larger 

than 400,000.” 

Even so, “this bill still falls woefully shy of its own objective, the objective of an efficient, 

balanced, safe and environmentally sane national transportation system.” This was because it 

“rejects the lesson of history by denying to cities and States full flexibility in how they use the great 

bulk of trust fund moneys, outside the Interstate System.” He continued: 

Instead of seeking to remedy the past mistakes in the highway trust fund mechanism which 

have flawed the worthy objective of creating a national interstate highway system, this bill 

perpetuates those mistakes. For it says to cities and States, you may not build rail mass 

transit systems, even though they may be your most urgent need. And it says to rural States, 

you may not build bus transit systems, with any of your rural fund moneys, even though they 

may be high on your list of priorities. 

The Kennedy-Weicker amendment tells State and local officials that they “are not imprisoned by an 

archaic concept of national transportation needs that sees highways as the only answer to the 

Nation’s transportation needs.” 

After describing the provisions of the bill, he said: 

Passage of this amendment would shatter the practice of separate funding for separate 

modes of transportation. It would end a system in which the national interest has come in 

second best to special interests which see the highway trust fund as their private property. 

And it would call a halt to a Federal financing philosophy that has prevented a single city, 

State, or region from selecting the mix of road, bus, and rail services that it felt best to meet 

its transportation needs. 

He restated many of the points he had made when he and Senator Weicker introduced the 

amendment. Cities paid 50 percent of the Highway Trust Fund revenue, but less than 10 percent of 

Federal-aid mileage was in urban areas. Over 50,000 people lose their homes to the highway 

bulldozer each year, while two-thirds “of urban America is dedicated to repairing, parking, selling, 

and carrying the auto,” despite the fact that, “In cities across our land, the 16-year highway boom 

has left the worst possible debris—foul air that actually endangers the health of local citizens.” He 

cited the Los Angeles problem: 

The failure to examine the concrete dream has produced federally financed highways that 

are so heavily laden with air pollution that health officials will not allow us to drive on 

them. EPA Director William Ruckelshaus’ proposal for gasoline rationing to cut auto use in 

Los Angeles by 80 percent within the next 3 years demonstrates the extreme nature of the 

problem facing the country. 
565 

He cited the air quality improvement and energy savings of a shift of motorists to mass transit. 

He referred to the hundreds of failed transit systems and the backlog of $4.4 billion in urban mass 

transit needs:

Passage of this amendment would mean that the highway trust fund would no longer be 

merely a concrete conduit. It would mean that the trust fund would no longer take the form 

of a club over the heads of State and city decisionmakers with the slogan “use it or lose it.” 

Instead, it would offer a new slogan, “use it the best way possible” to solve local 

transportation problems. 

To those who argued that the Highway Trust Fund could not be used for rail mass transit, he 

pointed out the way Congress had broadened eligible activities in recent years to include 

replacement housing, training of highway officials, and archeological salvage. “If all of these 

various programs can be funded out of the trust fund, then surely bus and rail mass transit can be 

funded as well.” Moreover, many of the taxes had been enacted for general revenue purposes until 

the Highway Trust Fund was established in 1956. “Legally, there is no question of our power to 

provide this option, and the GAO and the American Law Division of the Library of Congress, and 

the General Counsel’s Office of the Department of Transportation all have indicated their 

agreement that Congress has the power to authorize these programs from the trust fund.” 

The issue, Senator Kennedy emphasized, was not highways versus mass transit “and it never has 

been.” The amendment did not require one dollar to be spent on mass transit. The issue was 

flexibility:

Passage of this amendment will place Federal transportation financing on an even keel for 

the first time and will enable cities and States the flexibility they have been denied in the 

past to meet local transportation problems. If we seek a balanced transportation system in 

this land, then this amendment should be approved . . . . I would hope, Mr. President, that 

the Senate would realize the importance of providing flexibility in this bill to permit those 

who come from States which are urbanized, as well as those which are rural, to decide for 

themselves how to develop their own transportation system. Because I believe their concern 

is how to move people and I do not believe they want to be required to lay down more 

concrete. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7903-7905] 

Senator Weicker recalled that the Cooper-Muskie amendment that passed the Senate in 1972 “came 

to grief in the House.” What this meant, “quite simply, is that the Congress will today shape one of 

the most important transportation policies of our time.” As with Senator Kennedy, he restated 

many of the arguments he had used when they had introduced the amendment. He concluded: 

Highways alone are a mobility, environmental, and safety disaster—and we have now 

become a nation of automotive lemmings. There is no longer any reason for a Senator to 

advocate a particular form of transportation—transportation is not a question of States’ 

rights. Mobility is a national concept.
566 

Citing the example he had used of the wreck on the highway blocking traffic from State to State, he 

said, “Let us clear this highway trust fund off the highway and get America moving again.” 

[Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7905-7906] 

Senator Biden spoke in support of the Kennedy-Weicker amendment:

Having only recently been an elected local county officials, there are several misconceptions 

which I would like to attempt to clarify regarding the whole question of mass transportation. 

 First, is the misconception that the automobile has been the friend of the suburbs. One of 

the most important tasks of any local official is to plan the growth and development of his 

community. Such planning requires controls over concentrations of development or lack of 

concentration. 

Unfortunately, the car, because of its mobility, permits people to spread at will and virtually 

forces the roads to follow it as the congestion develops. This fact makes coherent 

development practices more difficult. The automobile, unlike mass transit, removes 

investment decisions from local officials and gives them to each individual, so that the local 

government cannot use transportation to control growth in the same way that it can use 

sewer or water extensions where it controls the investment. The resultant sprawl has 

virtually eliminated the sense of community that so many Americans used to have and 

which I believe they still want. 

Without overdramatizing, it seems to me that many of our suburban problems, such as 

increased crime, greater drug use, and the dissatisfaction of our youth, can be traced in some 

measure to the kind of community or, really, lack of community that we have built. 

Mass transit, he said, could “guide the development of these communities by focusing 

transportation services in certain areas while diminishing the ability to just settle anywhere.” 

Senator Biden also disputed what he called the second misconception, namely, “that fixed rail 

transportation is not feasible for some of our smaller urban areas.” A fixed rail system could help 

the small town of today plan as it becomes tomorrow’s large urban area. “The development of 

mass transit facilities in currently rural areas may be the backbone of orderly development in the 

future.” 

Without the ability to use Highway Trust Fund revenue for long-range mass transit planning, “good, 

solid, local planning cannot take place.” He concluded: 

Transportation can and should be a good social program that will enhance the life of all our 

citizens. But there are many other arguments for the Federal Government to make the 

highway trust fund available, at the option of the local government, for mass transit 

purposes. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7906-7907] 

Senator Stafford was the first to speak in opposition to the Kennedy-Weicker amendment. He was 

concerned that it would “take us too far afield and into areas where there are few demonstrated 
567 

needs and fewer demonstrated solutions.” He thought that the Muskie-Baker amendment would 

address urban mass transit problems. As for rural areas such as much of his home State of 

Vermont, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 “contains what I believe is the most orderly and 

most effective way to attack the problems of rural transportation.” Everyone wanted to spend 

Federal dollars wisely, but the pending amendment “carries the potential for spreading these dollars 

too far and too thin at this time.” 

Senator Bentsen also found the amendment to be unacceptable, saying it “places before the Senate 

some new issues not even presented to the committee during its hearings.” He commented on the 

use of rural Federal-aid highway funds, which were now to be opened to rural mass transit. “I 

believe it is legitimate to ask if there presently exists any ongoing rural transportation program 

which would give the States or any level of government responsible for spending these funds an 

idea of the kinds of programs that will produce results.” Since he considered the answer to his 

question to be “no,” the rural transportation demonstration program in S. 502 would help determine 

what works. 

He also was concerned that the amendment would open one-half of the funds credited to the 

Highway Trust Fund for possible use for mass transit: 

I would remind my colleagues that we still have considerable highway needs for upgrading 

and construction in this country, particularly in the rural areas. To dilute the funds by this 

much, as this amendment suggests, would be very unwise. 

In view of the government’s need for fiscal restraint, the Public Works Committee had held down 

expenditures in the bill. “But it is quite another thing to take this reduced authorization and then to 

open it up as broadly as this amendment suggests to the funding of mass transit.” To do so would 

“cripple a highway program that we have already cut back.”

Senator Kennedy responded by reiterating his point that about 50 percent of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue came from urban areas, while less than one-third of non-Interstate funds were spent there. 

“At least let us spend it for mass transit, buses and highways if we want.” 

Senator Weicker said the Kennedy-Weicker amendment raised the same issue as the CooperMuskie amendment in 1972 and the Muskie-Baker amendment in 1973. “The issue is clear. Is 

there to be a matter of choice or are the State and local officials going to be told how their money is 

to be spent?” He said all the Nation’s “energy, thoughts, and money” had been directed solely to 

highways. Now the time had come to find other modes that “will unsnarl us from the traffic jams.”

He continued: 

Consider the arrogance of this lobby called the Highway Trust Fund Lobby. Who are they? 

They are the ones who sell the ingredients for a highway system. Our job is not to sell 

anything but mobility on the floor of the Senate. That is our job. They have the arrogance 

to suggest that when we pay our gasoline taxes we expect them to use it for highways. I 

dare say that there is not one person in 10 who knows what the gasoline tax is going to be 
568 

used for. I dare say that there is not one in 10 who wants it to be used for highways only, 

rather than for other modes of transportation. Americans want to be able to move, and our 

legislative work here in the U.S. Senate ought to be geared toward that end. [Congressional 

Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7907-7909] 

Senator Mike Gravel (D-Ak.) was concerned that “we have this desire to crash down the trust fund” 

to satisfy mass transit needs:

So the committee tried to respond to the needs of this country rather than adopt a policy 

which would result in crashing down and distorting and destroying a program that has 

served this Nation well . . . . In fact, the trust fund has worked so well that certain people 

want to invade the trust fund for other uses. 

This attempt to “piggyback the program” would be “an unfortunate development as a policy of this 

country.”

Senator Tower, responding to Senator Weicker’s comments about the highway lobby, asked, “I 

wonder if it could not be charged that there is a lobby behind this mass transit movement from the 

people who sell rolling stock on railroads, who sell the rails or the ties, or what have you.” The 

highway user tax is “probably one of the fairest taxes in this country, because the proceeds from 

that tax go to benefit those who pay the tax.” The Kennedy-Weicker amendment would be “totally 

inequitable.” In fact, it was “immoral.” 

He regretted the vote to incorporate the Emergency Commuter Relief Act:

We have just provided an operating subsidy for mass transit, and we will regret the day we 

did it, because we are encouraging poor management and inefficiency, and discouraging 

applying the cost of mass transit or passing it on to the people who use mass transit. Why 

cannot the people who use mass transit pay for it, instead of making the people who use the 

highways pay for mass transit? 

Senator Kennedy again stated that 95 percent of the tax revenue going into the Highway Trust Fund 

had previously been part of the general Treasury: 

Yet, “we are robbing Peter to pay Paul” the opponents say. Just because the highway trust 

fund has been able to earmark their own boondoggle . . . does not give them a right to say 

that they have a right in perpetuity to use those funds for building highways. Congress 

authorized the program and Congress can change that authorization. 

He emphasized that he and Senator Weicker were “merely trying to give the kind of discretion to 

those in the States, the governors and the mayors, so that they might be able to enter into the 

development of transportation systems.” whether in rural or urban areas, 

As the debate wound down, Senator Weicker wanted to respond to Senator Tower’s point about the 

existence of a mass transit lobby:
569 

The highway trust lobby is a very well defined group. On our side, it is the people’s lobby. 

It is not anyone who wants to sell railroad cars or buses. It is a people’s lobby and they have 

had it. 

He also disagreed with Senator Gravel that the purpose of the Highway Trust Fund was to build 

highways: 

I would point out that this is not the objective. The objective is to have transportation 

systems to move people. 

He said that he and Senator Kennedy thought the time had come to learn from experience, “which 

has been a bad one.” 

Senator Tower replied that much of the marketplace moves by highway, not on mass transit 

systems. That is why the Interstate System should be the concern. “The fact of the matter is that 

the urban mass transit benefits only those who live in those localities.” Further, “these systems 

cannot now maintain themselves based on their current methods of operations and their current 

revenues.” By approving Senator Williams’ amendment, the Senate had voted that everyone in the 

United States would subsidize the urban mass transit systems in the Northeast corridor. “However, 

a case cannot be made that urban mass transit systems—and particularly those in communities—are 

a greater national asset than the Interstate Highway System which moves not only people but almost 

everything else of importance in this country.” [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 

7909-7910] 

Senator Randolph took up much of the remaining time before the Senate voted on the KennedyWeicker amendment. He began by addressing the issue of lobbying: 

Mr. President, there was not a vote, last year, of 60 against this amendment and 18 for it 

because Senators were voting as a part of a lobby, either for a rapid rail transit lobby or a 

highway lobby. The Members of the Senate were thinking these problems through and 

expressing themselves, just as they will today. 

He pointed out that despite Senator Kennedy’s and Senator Weicker’s antihighway comments, 

Massachusetts had 256 highway projects underway and Connecticut had 228 highway projects 

under construction: 

What I am saying is that rapid rail transit would be an adjunct, moving people into a city, 

either Hartford or Boston. Remember, my fellow Senators, that the persons who work in the 

buildings, the persons who provide the services in the complex of structures throughout a 

great metropolitan area, will never receive those items on which they work and which they 

use by rail transit. Those items will be brought to the front door, to the alleyway, or to the 

back door, and if there are those who ride by rail into the city, remember that the products 

and the items used in servicing the people of a great city will move by road, by highway. It 

cannot be any other way. 
570 

If, as the two Senators and their cosponsors proposed, the mode of travel were reversed, the cost 

would be “astronomical” for the movement of people and products. 

Improved rail transportation could not be accomplished via the State’s highway allotment: 

For example, how much in primary and secondary funds could Rhode Island use? . . . [It 

would receive] $4 million. How much can Connecticut use? $6.5 million. How much can 

Massachusetts use? $9 million. 

What would this buy in the way of rail service, and still meet the highway needs of the 

States I have mentioned? 

Senator Kennedy interrupted to ask “why not let the people of Massachusetts decide how they are 

going to expend that $6 million” [sic]?

Mr. Randolph. Is the Senator saying that there is not a need in this country for a highway 

trust fund? Is he saying there is not a need in this country for an airports and airways trust 

fund? Why does not the Senator from Massachusetts advocate an urban mass transit trust 

fund? 

Mr. Kennedy. If the Senator will yield further, he asked me that question before his 

committee, and I indicated that I think there ought to be a single national transportation trust 

fund with this kind of flexibility, so that we could develop balanced transportation for 

communities, for States, for regions, and for the country. So we have answered that 

particular question. 

Mr. Randolph. No, the question has not been answered, because earlier today I indicated 

that the trust fund will die in 1977, and then is the time to evaluate its future.

Mr. Kennedy. The Senator indicated that Massachusetts would get $6 million. All our 

amendment would do would be to permit the people of Massachusetts to decide how that 

money would be spent rather than depend on an arbitrary restriction devised in 1956—for 

conditions then. 

Mr. Randolph. Well, remember, the Senator has referred to the people. The people in those 

States, we know, pay user taxes. They have had highway programs, and those moneys come 

from bond issues on which they vote directly. Today if we adopt this amendment or another 

amendment, we begin to put a stop to a program which is not completed but must be 

completed. I wish the Senator could realize that fact . . . . 

Mr. Kennedy. Mr. President, as far as completion of the Interstate System is concerned, 

there is no change. Our amendment does nothing that would threaten the completion of the 

Interstate System. Second, if these States had gone ahead and had various bond issues or 

made long-term commitments or had obligations, then the States themselves can make that 

determination, and decide, as far as they are concerned, that they are going ahead and build 

more highways. But if other States have a different view and if Massachusetts does not 

desire to make highways its number one priority, then, I still ask the Senator why he wants 

to mandate a formula that would require us to do so. 
571 

He asked unanimous consent to include supportive material in the record, including a March 13 

telegram from Kramer of the Highway Action Coalition wholeheartedly endorsing the KennedyWeicker amendment on behalf of 19 national environmental, consumer, civil rights, and trade union 

organizations: 

We believe that granting cities and States the option of selecting whatever nix [sic] of 

ground transportation modes that will best meet their particular needs is an essential and 

vital step.

Other items included letters from Dr. Ronan of the Institute for Rapid Transit, Stanley H. Gates, Jr., 

of the American Transit Association, and Stephen Bossi of the National Catholic Rural Life 

Conference. 

Senator Randolph had the final word as time to debate the amendment expired. He pointed out 

that, “The funds are distributed, of course, on the basis of highway needs. There is no formula by 

which we make distribution based on rail needs. One is clearly defined. The other does not exist.” 

The Senate rejected the Kennedy-Weicker amendment by a vote of 23 in support, 70 against. The 

amendment had gained some support since securing only 18 votes in favor in 1972, but still was not 

close to adoption. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7910-7913] 

Next, the Senate considered the Muskie-Baker amendment opening Federal-aid urban system funds 

for rapid rail systems. Senator Muskie emphasized that this amendment was “a sensible proposal” 

that would affect only Federal-aid urban funding. It would not affect rural areas. It would not force 

cities to substitute mass transit facilities for highways, but would merely make that option available 

for the first time. “The amendment would not divert trust funds from highways that ought to be 

built; it would allow cities to substitute alternatives for highways that should not be built.

He also pointed out that the amendment was not supported by only narrow interest groups. It was 

supported by the Nixon Administration and a broad coalition that included the Nation’s Governors, 

the National League of Cities/U.S. Conference of Mayors, the United Auto Workers, and Common 

Cause. “It has become clear to these and many other Americans that our current national 

transportation policies are badly out of step with our needs.” In addition to the problems of 

congestion, “highways and the cars that use them pollute the air of our cities and menace the health 

of the people who live there.” In passing the Clean Air Amendments of 1970, the Senate resolved 

to protect public health: 

We explicitly excluded considerations of economic and technological feasibility in setting 

ambient air quality standards under the act. And for the same reasons we set a statutory 

deadline for the development of a clean car. 

He cited the Public Works Committee’s report on the Clean Air Amendments of 1970: 
572 

As much as seventy-five percent of the traffic may have to be restricted in certain large 

metropolitan areas if health standards are to be achieved within the time required by this bill 

. . . . 

Construction of urban highways and freeways may be required to take second place to rapid 

and mass transit and other public transportation systems. Central city use of motor vehicles 

may have to be restricted.

Senator Muskie said that a switch from auto to rail would vastly improve air quality:

On one hand, Mr. President, we have told the cities they must make changes to their 

transportation systems to protect the public health. But on the other hand we have withheld 

the funding flexibility that would make those changes possible. This is not consistent policy 

on our part, and it is a disservice to the cities and to the national policies we ourselves 

established. By finally granting that long-sought flexibility, this amendment would make it 

possible for the cities to fulfill both their responsibilities . . . .

He was concerned, too, about the destructive impact of highways and automobiles on cities. “The 

heedless construction of urban freeways has run roughshod over the real transportation needs of city 

residents, displacing literally hundreds of thousands of people and businesses in the process.” He 

continued: 

On one hand, Mr. President, we have expressed our concern over the fate of our cities as 

places where people can live and work, and we have created programs and spent money to 

restore the urban environment. But, on the other hand, we have forced those same cities to 

build highways which defeat that objective. 

The Muskie-Baker amendment would “restore good faith and good sense to our efforts to save our 

cities.”

Then there was the waste of fuel at a time when the country was facing “an energy crisis from 

which there may be no road back.” He pointed out that the Highway Action Coalition predicted 

that cutting automobile use in urban areas by merely 25 percent would save 1 million barrels of 

petroleum a day. He said that “our present extravagance is unacceptable,” continuing, again using 

the one-hand/other hand image: 

On one hand, Mr. President, we have rung the alarm concerning the energy crisis, and we 

are seeking ways to reduce our fuels’ consumption and to increase our reserves. But on the 

other hand, our policies have the effect of pressing upon our cities the most wasteful and 

inefficient form of transportation that exists.

The Muskie-Baker amendment would “bring our transportation policies in line with our energy 

concerns.

The amendment also would address the problems of households that did not own a car. Many 

Americans pay “a price for urban highways that we cannot afford” while getting “nothing in 
573 

return.” For these citizens, in short, “the highway trust fund and the transportation systems it 

creates rob Peter to pay Paul.” The Muskie-Baker amendment would “correct these inequities” by 

making the Highway Trust Fund “more sensible, to bring it up to date, and to revitalize it as a 

useful funding mechanism to meet our transportation needs.” 

Senator Muskie reminded his colleagues that the funds now credited to the Highway Trust Fund 

once were credited to the general Treasury. “The question now before us is whether—the original 

purpose being nearly completed—those General Treasury revenues presently in the trust fund 

should be applied to a broader purpose.” He pointed out that Congress had never “made that trust 

fund irrevocable, nor has the Congress ever waived the right to modify its purposes.” In fact, the 

purpose had been modified, for example by extending Highway Trust Fund revenues to billboard 

removal and relocation of junkyards. “And this year, S. 502 would authorize trust funds for the 

relocation of railroad lines . . .” in Lincoln and Brownsville. “The argument that the trust fund is 

sacrosanct falls in light of these precedents.”

One option was to build only more roads, “regardless of whether they are wanted or needed.” A 

second option would be to return some of the funds to the general Treasury to create a public transit 

trust fund. The problem with this option was that competition for general Treasury revenue was 

fierce, and instead of giving State and local officials flexibility, it would restrict them to using the 

funds for public transportation. 

Therefore, the best option was to amend the Highway Trust Fund to allow some of its dedicated 

funds, that were not subject to the competitive forces of general Treasury revenue, to be used in a 

flexible way for the transportation mix State and local officials think best. 

In summary, Senator Muskie said that in 1956, when the priority was to build the Interstate System, 

but the Senate was faced now with “another transportation problem that is national in scope.” In 

approving the Muskie-Baker amendment to address this new problem, he said that no trust will be 

violated, no money wasted, and no transportation project built “that does not make sense from the 

point of view of the people who must live with it.” The amendment would not “provide 

automatically the ingenious new transportation systems we need for our cities, nor quick public 

acceptance of mass transportation as a substitute for the luxury and convenience of the private 

automobile.” However, it represented a “starting point, both to signify our willingness to change 

and to make it financially possible to do so.” [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 

7914-7916] 

Senator Muskie then engaged in a brief colloquy, probably arranged, with Senator Frank F. Church 

(D-Id.) in which Senator Church asked about the impact of the amendment on a rural State such as 

his own Idaho. Would the amendment diminish funding for Idaho? “Not in any way.” Idaho 

would not lose a penny? “The Senator is absolutely correct.” The principle is that people at the 

local level should decide for themselves how best to address their transportation problems? “The 

Senator has cited it with precision.” [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7937] 

Senator Baker took a few minutes to explain why he believed the Muskie-Baker amendment 

“completes what we set out to accomplish in S. 502; that is, to allow urban areas the freedom they 
574 

need to plan effectively for transportation” without diverting resources from rural areas that have 

different needs. Some might ask about the provisions in S. 502 that open Highway Trust Funds for 

buses, “Isn’t this far enough?” That question misses the point, Senator Baker said, which is “to 

remove artificial barriers to rational transportation planning.” 

He was convinced that the majority of urban areas would continue to spend most, if not all, of their 

Federal-aid highway funds on highways and highway-related projects. If the amendment is 

adopted, those cities will be able to spend their funding for roads because they decide that “roads 

are the best answer to their problems and not because the only funds available must be used to 

construct highways.” 

He did not dispute the historical justification for past policies or “the tremendous impact of the 

Federal-State highway partnership in developing the Nation,” but today, especially in urban areas, 

“highways are no longer the single answer to transportation needs.” 

He believed that public transportation systems could, some day, be profitable. He planned to 

introduce an amendment that would direct the Secretary of Transportation to report to Congress 

within a year “on means by which those mass transit systems which benefit from highway trust 

funds can contribute to the trust fund.” If such a means can be found, it would help maintain “the 

integrity of the trust fund as a user fund.” 

Finally, he emphasized that neither he nor any of the other cosponsors of the Muskie-Baker 

amendment intended the Highway Trust Fund to be “the major source for massive investment in 

urban mass transit.” Continued investment through UMTA was essential. “The significance of the 

amendment lies less in the amount of urban system highway funds finally expended on rail projects 

than on the provision’s recognition of the need to encourage truly comprehensive transportation 

planning and rational consideration of a range of alternatives to the use of private automobiles in 

congested urban areas.” [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7938-] 

When Senator Bentsen took the floor, he recalled that S. 502 increased Federal-aid urban system 

funds ($100 million to $850 million), which he said was “a recognition by this committee that the 

transportation problems of our urbanized areas have become increasingly severe in recent years, and 

that the Federal Government has a responsibility to meet them.” For cities with a population over 

400,000, S. 502 provided a pass-through of Federal-aid urban system funds “because we believed 

that incorporated municipalities of that size were in a better position to judge their local needs” and 

“have considered some State highway departments insensitive to their local needs.” Local officials 

could use the urban system funds for highway-oriented mass transit or traditional highway projects.

Why not, he asked rhetorically, allow the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues for rail mass transit? 

 He understood the great need for all forms of mass transit, including rail. For that reason, he 

supported the Emergency Commuter Relief Act that added $3 billion to UMTA funding for capital 

grants and $800,000 for operating subsidies. Further, he rejected the idea that if you were prohighway or pro-transit, you had to be anti- the other option. “If you are pro mass transit, as I am, it 

does not necessarily follow that you are anti highway or that you believe that the Highway Trust 

Fund is necessarily the proper vehicle for directing funds into mass transit.” 
575 

His argument, he said, was practical, not philosophical. If the Muskie-Baker amendment passed, 

each State would receive a relatively small amount of Federal-aid urban system funding that could 

be used to address large amounts of needs. He pointed out that the District of Columbia, which was 

building its Metro system at an estimated cost of $2.9 billion, would receive $5 million. San 

Francisco was building the BART at an estimated cost of $1.45 billion, but the State of California 

would receive only $98 million in urban system funds that, under the Muskie-Baker amendment, 

could be used for mass transit. Georgia, with its $1.3 billion subway system under development in 

Atlanta, would receive $14 million for its urban areas, some of which would not go to Atlanta. 

New York’s share would be $84.4 million: 

With needs that vast, it is obvious to me that a move now to open the Highway Trust Fund 

to rail mass transit would be interpreted as little more than a symbolic gesture, which would 

tend to offer only token support to both highways and mass transit. In other words, we 

could very well harm the highway program without offering more than very minimal 

support for mass transit.

Senator Bentsen said he was ready to study “any alternative which would provide realistic funding 

for these purposes.” He planned to look into the issue as a member of the Senate Finance 

Committee. Senators Muskie and Baker knew that he was sympathetic to their general goals. “At 

this time, however, I believe that the Highway Trust Fund is neither an adequate or realistic vehicle 

to achieve their objectives.”

Senator Weicker responded to Senator Bentsen by asking Senator Muskie a question. “Is there any 

directive in the language of this amendment . . . that directs that any portion of the money be used 

for mass transit?” Senator Muskie replied, “Not at all.” Therefore, Senator Weicker stated, the 

issue was not one of highways versus mass transit but rather highways versus a balance in 

transportation policies. He fully supported the Muskie-Baker amendment, which he thought would 

“set a new direction for transportation policies in this country.” He added: 

Then the only persons that I feel sorry for are those in the House of Representatives who 

will have to be subjected to the last-ditch effort of those who feel that the answer to the 

problem is more highways. And, to that extent, they will be pressured by the lobbys [sic]. 

Senator James A. McClure (R-Id.), who was serving in the House of Representatives when he won 

election to the Senate in November 1972, agreed with the point that transit needs far exceeded the 

resources of the Highway Trust Fund. He quoted Robert Coultas of the Institute for Rapid Transit 

who said: 

We believe that the highway system should be built and completed, and we believe that 

there has to be much more Federal support of urban transit systems. Now there is not 

enough money in the Highway Trust Fund for both. 

Senator McClure stated that the end result of adopting the Muskie-Baker amendment would be “to 

deprive us of a safe, efficient road system, to meet our future needs, while simultaneously failing to 

meet the mass transit needs of the urban areas.” In fairness, he contended that the “basic 
576 

beneficiaries of future transit systems should pay the costs of building and operating those 

systems.”

Senator Domenici also cited the high cost of transit systems, pointing out the section of the Public 

Works Committee’s report that stated:

Costs of rail systems are so high that the highway trust fund would not be able to bear any 

substantial share without seriously impairing its ability to meet the highway needs of the 

Nation. 

Some people, he recognized, preferred to “do something, even something marginally effective” 

rather than “do nothing.” Of course, S. 502 did something by allowing the use of Highway Trust 

Fund revenue for highway-oriented mass transit. “These changes were made because the 

committee felt that buses can be made available quickly to utilize existing urban highways, whereas 

rail transit, in addition to being costly, has a long development time.” To allocate funds that are 

insufficient to have a “significant beneficial impact from the highway trust fund simply because it is 

a convenient source, will have the unintended and undesirable effect of delaying the development of 

a comprehensive resolution to the dilemma of urban transportation . . . .” 

Senator Domenici said that human nature being what it is, he anticipated that approving the 

Muskie-Baker amendment would encourage people to think “these initial modest diversions from 

the highway trust fund” could accomplish “more than is possible.” The unfortunate result would be 

a loss of momentum in finding a real solution to the funding problem. 

He concluded with a defense of highway transportation. Without roads and motor vehicles, people 

would be living in “skyscrapers and cubicles,” unable to see the out-of-doors because they could not 

get around: 

I do not think it is fair to attack the automobile and the highways of America because this 

country has not seen fit to take care of another and completely different problem, the 

problem of the central city and the need for a transit system. [Congressional Record-Senate, 

March 14, 1973, p. 7938-7942] 

Senator Buckley of New York was fully supportive of the amendment, as he had been in 1972. 

“We have heard official after official complain of the compartmentalized thinking which has 

resulted too often from certain programs.” The highway program was an example because it 

prompted State and local officials to think in terms of highways rather than transportation solutions. 

 “We have reached a point of diminished returns as we try to conceive of our transportation needs 

as a whole . . . .” He continued: 

I believe that what is contained in the Muskie-Baker amendment will serve, if nothing else, 

to psychologically liberate our planners, to liberate their thinking so that they can see the 

pool of resources available and determine in the most intelligent manner possible how best 

to deploy those funds towards the completion of a system which has as its objective not rail, 

not highway, not one form of transportation nor the other, but the most effective way of 
577 

allowing individuals to move where they need to move and allowing goods to be shipped 

where they need to be shipped. 

 

As for “the so-called sanctity of the trust fund,” he used the oft-stated point that 50 percent of the 

revenue comes from urban residents who “favor the kind of flexibility which we speak of, and . . . 

recognize their own convenience as motorists is best served by relieving the congestion that too 

often frustrates them.” He concluded: 

I do not believe that we should allow a fixation on this narrow issue of “sanctity” of the fund 

to preclude us from advancing in the direction which this country so vitally needs. 

[Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7942] 

Senator Percy agreed that S. 502 was a step forward in opening the Highway Trust Fund to 

highway-oriented mass transit. “Unfortunately, however, the committee bill forbids cities like 

Chicago from using their allotment for rapid rail improvement.” He discussed Chicago’s 

experience:

The city of Chicago now has a public transportation system with both rail and bus elements. 

 The rapid rail routes complement and supplement service provided by buses. Both 

elements are in serious disrepair, and yet the committee bill would prevent Chicago from 

improving its rail service.

He introduced into the record an article he had written for the Chicago Sun-Times, March 11, 1973, 

that began, “Chicago today faces the unhappy prospect of losing a public transportation system it 

desperately needs, and of possibly gaining a superfluous superhighway.” (He was referring to the 

controversial Crosstown Expressway, designated I-494.) While Federal-aid matching ratios favored 

highways, congestion was growing. Meanwhile, the CTA was threatening a fare increase (to 50 

cents from 45 cents) and a cutback in service unless the State provided immediate relief. “Without 

this aid,” the article said, “the CTA cannot pay its employes [sic], buy supplies or meet other dayto-day operating expenses.” 

Senator Percy’s article traced the problem to 1956 when President Eisenhower was in office and 

Mayor Daley was serving the first year of his first term. In that year, the Nation embarked on 

construction of the Interstate System and established the Highway Trust Fund to finance it. 

“Compared with the Highway Trust Fund, the machinery designed to provide funding for mass 

transit resembles an anemic step-brother.” Aid began, he said, only 3 years earlier under the Urban 

Mass Transportation Act. “Unlike highways, whose financing comes from a sacrosanct trust fund 

that can be used only for highways, mass transit gets its money from general revenue” and must 

compete with other priorities.

The article concluded:

We have seen enough of bulldozers razing homes and paving over parklands to make room 

for more roads which quickly become so congested no one can move. 
578 

Neighborhoods threatened by the proposed Crosstown Expressway must be preserved, as 

must the CTA.

It is hard to overstate the mindless callousness of a system which permits a four- six- or 

even eight-lane superhighway [sic] to rip through the heart of a city, tearing up entire 

neighborhoods and wiping out public parks and irreplaceable historical sites, all so that 

thousands of additional cars can crawl along at the grand speed of 15 m.p.h., causing 

intolerable pollution and consuming more of our increasingly limited supply of gas and oil 

resources. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7942-7944] 

Senator Muskie responded to some of the amendment’s opponents. The Muskie-Baker amendment 

gave officials the option of using rail transit to solve their transportation problems, but does not 

change in any way the highway option for States that wish to go that route. He pointed out, again, 

that 98 percent of the revenue credited to the Highway Trust Fund once went into the general 

Treasury:

Congress decided to divert those funds from the General Treasury into the highway trust 

fund for the specific purpose of building the Interstate Highway System. It is now time to 

consider whether to make those funds available in part to serve another national 

transportation need, having to do with the need for mass transportation in our cities. 

As for Senator Bentsen and others who opposed the amendment because it involved relatively small 

amounts of funding, Senator Muskie said: 

I make two points in response. First, the highway trust fund when this bill is enacted will 

have undertaken to finance $87 billion of highway construction in this country since 1956. 

Resources of this magnitude surely, if applied to our needs in the next 21 years, are 

sufficient to build us a balanced transportation system. 

I am not proposing that at this point we divert these funds entirely to mass transit. We are 

not ready for it . . . . The Muskie amendment is a first step, a beginning step, not a total step 

in giving the people of our cities a choice as to the transportation system that makes the 

most sense to them, the people that delivered it. 

Really, he added, those who thought the Muskie-Baker amendment was too small should have 

voted for the Kennedy-Weicker amendment. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 

7946] 

Senator Randolph said the issue was not diverting funds but whether enough funds were available 

to meet highway needs. He fully supported mass transit and would support an urban Mass Transit 

Trust Fund. He asked Senator Long, chairman of the Finance Committee, how he would feel about 

setting up such a trust fund. Senator Long said that if the Senate wanted to earmark funds, even 

highway user tax revenue, for that purpose, “I personally would be happy to vote for such a 

proposal.” Congress could earmark any tax because “there is nothing sacred about any particular 
579 

source of revenue.” He suggested consulting Administration officials about their support for such a 

trust fund and the sources of revenue. 

After thanking Senator Long, Senator Randolph explained that he did not oppose the Muskie-Baker 

amendment because he opposed its objectives. To the contrary, he supported urban mass transit: 

My argument with the proposed amendment . . . is based on the fact that it will not 

accomplish their objective, if their objective is to improve our ability to respond to 

demonstrated need . . . . The proposal is a charade. It is not being offered as an effort to 

meet urban transit needs, but as a means to “bust the trust,” it is without genuine purpose, 

for it is ill-timed and arises in the wrong context. 

The funds involved, he pointed out, did not come close to meeting needs as documented in the 

Department of Transportation’s 1972 needs report. If all the Federal-aid urban funds were used for 

rail mass transit, it would still not be “a serious gesture.” It was, instead, “the offering of a false 

promise.” 

The areas that required substantial transportation control measures to meet air quality standards by 

mid-1977 will not be able to build rail transit systems by then. That was why EPA Administrator

Ruckelshaus told the Subcommittee on Transportation that bus service was the best option within 

the timeframe.

He disagreed with the concept that “we are letting the dead hand of the past control our ability to 

respond to the problems of the present.” The Highway Trust Fund had been created in 1956, but 

Congress had reviewed and extended it in 1961 and again in 1970. “The issue of the use of the 

fund has thus been before the Senate twice since the highway trust fund was established” and would 

be again in the 94th Congress. “The issue of extending the fund, modifying it, or letting it pass from 

existence will be squarely met then.” Creation of a Mass Transit Trust Fund also could be 

considered in the next Congress. 

After other Senators expressed their views, the Senate voted to approve the Muskie-Baker 

amendment, 49 to 44. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7946-7950] 

The final vote of the day was on an amendment offered by Senator Henry L. Bellmon (R-Ok.) to 

prohibit impoundment of authorized Federal-aid highway funds unless necessary to “defray 

expenditures which will be required to be made from” the Highway Trust Fund. Before Senator 

Bellmon commented on the amendment, the Majority Leader, Senator Mansfield apologized for 

bringing the measure to the floor after having promised that the Muskie-Baker amendment would 

be the final vote of the day. “However, circumstances make it almost mandatory—if I may use the 

word advisedly—to consider this amendment at this time.” Debate would be limited.

Senator Bellmon explained the purpose of his amendment: 

My information is that at the present time there are $2.5 billion of highway trust funds 

impounded, and this measure would have the effect of releasing those funds and starting the 
580 

orderly flow of this fund back to the States, so the States could build the system in an 

orderly fashion. 

Impoundment of Federal-aid highway funds, he said, began in FY 1967. Since then, “this executive 

intrusion has had a devastating impact.” It affected construction schedules, completion of the 

Interstate System, and construction industry jobs. He did not believe the Constitution allowed such 

a practice:

The Congress has gone on record on several different occasions to express the sense of this 

body that this practice be stopped. Up to now the executive branch has ignored the will of 

the Senate and continues to impound the funds. 

He cited Missouri’s lawsuit and Judge Becker’s ruling. The U.S. Court of Appeals had heard the 

case on January 10, 1973, and a ruling was pending. To those who argued Congress should await 

the ruling, he pointed out that the ruling could involve “many possible variables,” and would likely 

be appealed to the Supreme Court. That could take many more months. “Let the Senate act now to 

finally set the record straight, upon the enactment of this new highway program.” 

Senator Bentsen explained that he had to reluctantly oppose the amendment. He was deeply 

concerned about impoundment, but with the courts considering the matter, “I think any action 

which we take today would cloud the clarity of our legal position in opposition to impounding.” 

His concern was that the court could find that “Congress was so unsure of the President’s lack of 

authority to impound in the past that it has for the future removed any question . . . .” Alternatively, 

if the Senate rejected the Bellmon amendment, “it could be argued that . . . the Senate was 

upholding the President’s authority to impound.” He asked that the amendment be withdrawn. 

Senator Baker said he was reluctant to vote for the amendment, but would do so. He pointed out 

that one of the first colloquies he had engaged in after coming to the Senate in 1967 was in 

opposition to President Johnson’s impoundment of Highway Trust Fund authorizations. He was 

concerned that a vote against the amendment would appear to be, as Senator Bentsen had said, 

support for the President’s authority to impound. “I want to keep intact the cash-and-carry nature of 

the highway trust fund” so reluctantly, he would vote for the amendment. 

Senator Bentsen requested a vote on tabling the amendment (neither approving nor disapproving it), 

but the vote was 29 to 59 against doing so. The Senate then voted, 64 to 21, to approve the 

Bellmon amendment as part of S. 502. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 14, 1973, p. 7950-

7953] 

On March 15, The New York Times reported that the Administration had “lobbied hard” for the 

Muskie-Baker amendment, but had “vigorously opposed” Senator Williams’ amendment, primarily 

because of its funding for operating subsidies, and Senator Bellmon’s amendment. In addition: 

The bill has been the subject of intense lobbying over the last week. Even this morning 

[March 14], representatives of road builders and truckers were visiting Senate offices to 

argue against the Muskie-Baker plan.
581 

And lobbyists from the White House, including John D. Ehrlichman, President Nixon’s 

chief advisor on domestic matters, were also in touch with Senators, working for the transit 

proposal. 

Senator Weicker said approval of the Muskie-Baker amendment was “a shattering victory over the 

highway lobby, which has for years held the Highway Trust Fund in a grip of concrete.” Senator 

Randolph objected to the reference to lobbies. “The equities are with those of us who oppose the 

amendment.” [Rosenhaum, David E., “Senate Approves the Use of Road Funds for Transit,” The 

New York Times, March 15, 1973] 

A spokesman for HUFSAM said, “We’re heartened by the closeness of the vote on the Muskie 

amendment. It will give us a better chance in conference this time around.” Despite Representative

Kluczynski’s change of heart, the House Committee on Public Works was not expected to include a 

version of the Muskie-Baker amendment in its bill. However, transit advocates were not worried. 

John Kramer predicted, “We’re going to win on the floor,” citing a more “urban-oriented” House 

membership than in 1972. He predicted that “the floor vote is going to be very close.” 

An additional concern was the threat of a presidential veto. Inclusion of funding for operating 

subsidies and the prohibition on impoundment raised the concern. [“Senate Again Votes for 

Highway Trust Fund Diversion,” Engineering News-Record, March 22, 1973, p. 54] 

The Senate Finishes Its Bill

On March 15, the Senate took up numerous amendments, some of which involved State interests. 

Senator Byrd began by introducing an amendment cosponsored with Senator Randolph to add 

Wheeling, West Virginia, to the railroad relocation demonstration project. No one objected to this 

amendment, but before the Senate voted, Senator Randolph wanted to address a point Senator 

Muskie had made: 

The Senator from Maine pointed out we are doing something in reference to railroads. I 

think it is important to have the Record reflect that the relocations are made so that the 

highways near these railroads can better serve the people. This is the reason for the 

relocations.

We are not in the business of relocating a railroad; we are attempting to make the highway 

program more meaningful to the people involved and the community where the relocation 

takes place.

The Senate approved the amendment. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8182] 

Senator Buckley revived the amendment he had introduced in 1972 to delete the provision, now 

Section 148 of S. 502, allowing Texas to return Federal-aid funds used on the North Expressway 

and build it as a State project. The future of the North Expressway, he said, was in the courts. 

After Secretary Volpe had approved the two end segments, the U.S. Court of Appeals had found 

that the action did not satisfy NEPA or Section 4(f) because he had not considered feasible and 
582 

prudent alternatives to the middle section that would require the taking of parklands. The 

Department of Transportation had since issued a report on the middle section, including 

alternatives, but had not decided on the preferred routing. “Thus the status of this dispute is that 

construction of the North Expressway is enjoined by order of the court until the State and the 

Secretary make the required study.”

The Senator objected to the provision because it would be “the first step in an unending process of 

undermining on a case-by-case basis the environmental protection statutes which we now recognize 

as essential to safeguard the country’s environment.” Congress would become involved in “an 

endless round of specific adjudications over whether this highway or that dam or this canal should 

be exempted,” thereby thrusting Congress “into the realm of the courts in the adjudication of 

sharply contested specific disputes.” He introduced a letter from Russell E. Train, chairman of the 

Council on Environmental Quality, stating that Section 148 “represents an extremely bad precedent 

and a retreat from the Federal Government’s commitment to important national environmental 

concerns . . . .” 

Senator Buckley said, “I do not believe we should take that first step.” 

Senator Bentsen began by observing that Senator Buckley did not object to the project, but only to 

the precedent he believed Section 148 would set. “I am sure that is a great comfort to the people of 

San Antonio who have been trying to build this project since 1959.” He explained that Section 148 

did not set a precedent. “It simply approves the action already taken by the State of Texas in 

returning the Federal funds designated for this project and removes any Federal involvement.” He 

continued:

Senator Buckley speaks of all these interstate projects waiting back here in the hills and in 

the wings which will be seeking relief. This is not an interstate project. I have not heard 

any State offering to build a 90 percent federally financed interstate system with local funds. 

 Just name me one. Even if a State wanted to build one, Congress could not wash its hands 

of such a project. Interstate highways have been designated as part of a national system. 

What we have in San Antonio is local people wanting to build a local road with local funds. 

 According to testimony received by the Transportation Subcommittee, this is the only 

instance in which such local action has not been allowed. 

He also recalled Senator Buckley’s support for the Muskie-Baker amendment, saying “how he 

wanted local options and local decisions to be made. That is what I am asking for the people of 

Texas.”

Senator Tower pointed out that 6 months ago this week, the Senate had debated this identical 

question before the amendment was “soundly defeated.” The House had approved the amendment, 

but of course, the bill failed for unrelated reasons. 

He wanted to address the two primary objections to Section 148. First, he cited the unique 

circumstances, already explained, that would prevent the provision from setting a “dangerous 

precedent.” The second objection was that the expressway “would be detrimental to the 
583 

environment of San Antonio.” He said that “it has become apparent that oft times false claims have 

unfortunately overshadowed the facts.” He pointed out that only 9 acres of the park, located at the 

extreme southwest corner of the Brackenridge golf course, would be affected. “In fact, the golf 

course has been rebuilt to accommodate the expressway and has been back in play in its realined 

configuration for some 4 years.” 

He concluded: 

I would hope that we in this body never reach the point that we feel ourselves so restrained 

by statute that we refuse to examine the merits of an individual case which reaches us for 

consideration. The San Antonio north expressway represents just such a case, boasting facts 

which, when balanced, find the equities in favor of its completion. 

Senator Buckley responded that he was for local determination, but “when one seeks Federal money 

it comes with Federal conditions attached. This is a fact of life.” He insisted that section 148 

would set “a very large precedent and one which will be cited time and time again.” He knew of 

“over 30 cases, certainly not on all four’s with this one, where equivalent arguments could be made 

for elimination of Federal protection.” He noted the provision in S. 502 on I-66 in Virginia, but 

pointed out that it did not exempt the project from NEPA or other Federal requirements, but only 

gave the review process priority. 

He pointed out that Senator Cotton planned to introduce an amendment later in the day that would 

waive certain Federal-aid requirements for I-93 through Franconia Notch in New Hampshire: 

No; we will be opening a Pandora’s box if we isolate a specific case where matters affecting 

sensitive areas in a Senator’s State are concerned . . . . I do not believe we here should be 

arguing whether or not this is desirable or not desirable. This is precisely the determination 

that is to be made by competent transportation authorities on the basis of a comprehensive 

study. 

His chief regret was that few Senators were on the floor to hear the debate so they would 

understand the essentials of the issue. In fact, Senator Buckley was convinced that his amendment 

had been defeated in 1972 by nearly 2 to 1 because the Senators had “an insufficient understanding 

of the importance of this matter.” 

Senator Domenici said he reluctantly disagreed with Senator Buckley:

The theme of his argument is that it is wrong to commit a present injustice in the name of 

avoiding a future misapplication of this section . . . . [It] seems to me there is no question 

but that to agree with the Senator from New York is to agree that the present injustice of a 

serious nature must be permitted to stand because we are concerned that we will not be able 

in the future to distinguish similar injustices that come before us or other tribunals charged 

with environmental protection for the citizens of this country. 
584 

As a member of the Subcommittee on Transportation, he had read the statements of experts from 

San Antonio indicating that “no harm would come, and they would like to complete it for 

themselves.” 

The Buckley amendment was “an anomaly” because the trend was to turn over to local officials the 

flexibility to make their own decisions. All Texas was saying is, “Let us finish this ourselves.” In 

this case, “this action is infinitesimal even if it were to cause some little harm to the environment.”

Senator Baker said he would support the Buckley amendment. He did not want to interfere in the 

affairs of the State of Texas:

I cannot help but express my concern for the precedent being set here. I have a somewhat 

dissimilar, but not entirely dissimilar, situation in my own State of Tennessee with respect 

to the Overton Park project, which is now involved in litigation . . . . I have never 

contended that it should be removed from the Federal system, or that the law of the United 

States should not be complied with. Rather, I believe, that we should get about the business, 

as fast as possible, of resolving this dispute so we can build the highway, not remove it from 

the Federal system.

The Buckley amendment may cause some hardship to the people of Texas, but Senator Baker 

thought the issue was “important in principle.” 

Senator Tower wanted to underscore Senator Domenici’s observations. The route for the North 

Expressway had been approved and the right-of-way acquired years ago, and a great deal of money 

had been spent before enactment of NEPA:

The matter became fouled up in a faceless bureaucracy here and was subjected to the whims 

of some arbitrary civil servant who treated the people of San Antonio with the arrogance of 

a maharajah. I do not think our cities should be subjected to that kind of treatment.

The spirit of environmentalism, he said, dictated opposition to the Buckley amendment: 

[If] you want to foul up the environment in San Antonio, [then] force the people to buy the 

right-of-way for another route, leave this structure a useless eyesore, force them to buy 

another route and use up other valuable land. 

Senator Randolph pointed out that in 1972, the Senate undertook “a very thorough debate” on the 

Buckley amendment and then chose to vote 49 to 24 to reject it. Referring to Senator Bentsen, 

Senator Randolph said, “I believe that today he has again made a case for the rejection” of the 

amendment.

Senator Buckley said this was a new Congress with new members who had not participated in the 

debate in 1972. The Congress was “not, in my judgment, bound by such precedent as we may have 

established last year” on the amendment. 

He also wanted to reply to the argument of injustice based on timing: 
585 

The fact is they did not first apply for Federal funds until 1968, or 2 years after the 

enactment of section 4(f). Federal approval did not come until August 13, 1970, 8 months 

after the enactment of NEPA. There was nothing to stop the city of San Antonio from 

proceeding, however it wanted, without Federal funds, as its willingness to return those 

funds confirmed. 

He acknowledged the popular votes in favor of the North Expressway. “I suggest that they did not 

necessarily vote for this precise route, given the number of alternatives that are available . . . .” 

Senator Gaylord Nelson concluded the debate on the Buckley amendment. He began generally by 

recalling that in 1970 he had said that a national environmental agenda for the 1970s must begin, as 

he phrased it then, “to utilize the billions of dollars a year that could be made available on 

completion of the Interstate Highway System to provide new transportation alternatives, including 

mass transit, in our polluted, congested, highway-choked urban areas.” 

He said that S. 502 “responds to our changing transportation needs in this country.” One way it did 

so was by addressing a unique situation in Wisconsin involving delays in construction of I-57 south 

of the Saukville interchange leading into Milwaukee. At the State’s request, FHWA had designated 

I-57 (Milwaukee to Green Bay) in December 1968 as part of the 1,500-mile Interstate extension 

authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968. For the section of I-57 into Milwaukee, the 

State would not be able to meet the deadline of July 1, 1973, for submitting a schedule for

completing construction within the period of availability of Interstate funds. The Secretary of 

Transportation was to remove the designation of all segments that failed to meet the deadline. 

Senator Nelson explained that at his request, Section 112 of the Senate’s Federal-Aid Highway Act 

of 1972 provided that for projects added under the 1,500-mile extension, the first qualifying 

deadline would be changed to July 1, 1974. The House had not included the deadline switch and it 

did not survive into the conference bill. However, after the legislation failed on the last day of the 

92nd Congress, Senator Nelson secured an assurance from Senator Randolph that the issue would be 

addressed in 1973. 

The routing of I-57 in Milwaukee via the proposed Stadium Freeway was still under debate, but 

whatever the routing, the State could not set the schedule for construction. The Governor and local 

officials had reached an agreement “which conditions this project as well as some others on a show 

of substantial progress in off-setting the housing deficit in Milwaukee resulting from past 

construction of all kinds.” State legislation had been enacted to establish a Wisconsin Housing 

Authority that would address the problem, but the legislation faced a court challenge claiming that 

it conflicted with the State constitution. Section 112 of S. 502 would, like its predecessor in 1972, 

address the deadline problem for Wisconsin. 

Following the discussion of I-57, Senator Nelson addressed post-Interstate needs:

In order to turn the focus of attention on creating a truly balanced transportation system in 

this Nation, however, we must also have a greater degree of flexibility to meet the specific 

and varying needs of each State, urban and rural. Now is the time to allow a wider degree of 
586 

discretion and alternatives to State and local governments in the allocation of Federal 

transportation funds to essentially local transportation needs. 

For that reason, he had supported the Williams and Muskie-Baker amendments the day before:

If our focus is to be on the best possible transportation for the maximum number of people, 

we cannot limit our flexibility or dictate our transportation financing options. A singular 

choice is really no option at all. Allowing the steadily available dollars of the highway trust 

fund to be applied to mass transit in our urban areas, if local government wishes to use their 

share of funds in such a manner, provides a real alternative. 

He did not say so, but his concern about the deadline approaching for I-57 was not an attempt to 

exempt the segment from environmental or right-of-way requirements; he wanted to give the State 

more time to do so. The provision exempting San Antonio’s North Expressway from Federal 

oversight was another matter. He concluded his floor presentation by supporting the Buckley 

amendment: 

The National Environmental Policy Act established in law and principle that Federal and 

federally aided projects should be carefully reviewed for their environmental impact before 

they are undertaken. If we begin now, under whatever guise, to excuse projects from such 

requirements, Congress will simply be writing the beginning of the end of this vitally 

important environmental protection law . . . . While this particular exemption would appear 

to have a very limited narrow application, we can be sure others who might wish to avoid 

environmental studies will be tempted to view it as a possible precedent . . . . 

I express my strong opposition to the San Antonio exemption and urge Congress to require 

that this project comply with the law. While this particular exemption would appear to have 

a very limited narrow application, we can be sure others who might wish to avoid 

environmental studies will be tempted to view it as a possible precedent.

The Senate vote was closer than in 1972, but still went against the amendment, 50 to 43. 

[Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8184-8193] 

(Wisconsin officials wanted to use the number 57 for the new Interstate between Milwaukee and 

Green Bay because they planned to route the Interstate along State Trunk Highway 57 north of 

Saukville. The number was approved in 1969. However, a routing controversy resulted in a shift 

of the route to the U.S. 141 corridor along Lake Michigan. In 1974, the route was renumbered I-43 

to avoid confusion with I-57 between Sikeston, Missouri, and Chicago, Illinois.) 

 

The next amendment was considerably easier. Senator Hugh Scott introduced an amendment to 

designate a transcontinental route the “Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway” as initially suggested by 

Secretary Volpe. It specified the routing via I-70 from Washington, I-25 from Denver, and I-80 

from Cheyenne, Wyoming, and indicated that all references to these segments should designate 

them by this new name. Senator Scott did not need to take much time on this amendment. He said: 
587 

President Eisenhower was a forceful advocate and initiator of our present Interstate 

Highway System, which was created during his administration. The adoption of my 

amendment would be a fitting tribute to the man who made so many contributions to 

develop the outstanding highway system we now have across the country. 

Senator Randolph pointed out the importance of designating public facilities “to call attention to 

certain men in public and private life who have been instrumental in moving the country forward.” 

President Eisenhower provided “the leadership from the executive branch of Government, in 

bringing to being this program, which has been of great importance to the strengthening of 

America, the servicing of our people.” 

Senator Bentsen and Senator Stafford briefly indicated their support and then the amendment 

passed on a voice vote. It passed. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8193-8194] 

Senator Hansen introduced his amendment to repeal the weight limit restrictions in Section 127 of 

Title 23, United States Code. Section 127 imposed a weight limit of 18,000 pounds on a single axle 

and 32,000 pounds on a tandem axle for trucks using the Interstate System. The restrictions had not 

been changed since they were included in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. “In adopting 

Section 127, the Congress relied upon the size and weight recommendations of the American 

Association of State Highway Officials—AASHO—a recommendation which in 1956 was 10 years 

old.” His amendment would return regulation of size and weight to the States: 

I have no fear whatsoever of the States abusing that jurisdiction, because money for highway 

maintenance is provided exclusively by the States. There is no Federal-aid whatsoever for 

highway maintenance costs. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Interstate highway 

maintenance costs have been excessive or unusual in those States who were grandfathered 

in 1956 and whose limits exceed 18,000 pounds for a single axle and 32,000 pounds for a 

tandem axle.

It is significant in my judgment that eight western States have enacted legislation permitting 

axle limits for non-interstate highways that exceed the limit for interstate highways . . . . My 

purpose in offering this amendment is solely to give an opportunity to the Western States to 

increase their ceilings to the standards recommended by the Bureau of Public Roads in 1964 

[as a result of the AASHO Road Test]. 

Earlier in the week, AAA spokesman Chuck Brady had said, “This is one of those sleepers. 

Nobody’s paid any attention except us and the truckers.” Both sides agreed that the provision in the 

1956 Act was a bar to bigger trucks; they disagreed only on whether this was a good thing. The 

resulting State-by-State limits were “a crazy quilt,” according to a Hansen aide. AAA was 

concerned that if the ban were dropped, “we’ll soon see trains of wide trucks and trailers on the 

highway,” resulting in higher maintenance costs and increased safety hazards. “The law has helped 

to hold the line,” said Brady. [Braestrup, Peter, “Sleeper in Bill Would End Curb on Interstate 

Trucks,” The Washington Post, March 13, 1973] 
588 

On the Senate floor, Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wa.) said that if weight limits were left 

to the States, “the State that raised it the highest would set the standard” because the other States 

would be pressured to accommodate the heavier vehicles. Senator Hansen replied that “a person 

might assume” that to be the case, but he did not think so, primarily because the States are 

responsible for 100 percent of maintenance costs: 

I cannot envision that any State would be so irresponsible as to assume it would abandon all 

caution and throw good judgment to the winds and say that while we legally can go higher 

than we should go, that is what we will do, rather than working at keeping the Interstate 

System in repair and making such changes as would conform to the standards in the system 

now. 

Senator Jackson responded that “it seems to me to be logical for the Federal Government to insist 

on uniformity . . . in connection with usage by the trucking industry on those roads.” Senator 

Hansen pointed out that because of the grandfather provision, the States were not uniform at this 

time. “All we are asking is that the States may have control over policies and actions in those areas 

where it is not inappropriate.” 

Senator Jackson, with support from Senator Buckley, argued that instead of eliminating all limits, 

perhaps the legislation should establish a national level comparable to the prevailing limits. 

Senator Hansen pointed out that in 1968, the Senate had approved a measure to increase the limits 

to 20,000 pounds for a single-axle and 34,000 pounds for the tandem axle based on a BPR 

recommendation, but the House did not consider the provision. 

Senator Stafford referred to “the long and controversial history of legislation dealing with the 

subject of larger buses and trucks and of the inability of the Congress to reach any agreement on the 

matter after prolonged study and debate.” He did not think it would be appropriate “to attempt to 

legislate this issue on the floor without the benefit of committee deliberations.” He was particularly 

concerned about the safety implications of larger trucks and buses: 

There are too many unanswered questions of safety—of survival on our highways—to act 

on this sweeping proposal at this time on the floor of the Senate. Our highway death toll is 

a national disgrace as it is. We should not take any action here today that may hinder our 

efforts to reduce that highway death toll. 

Senator Hansen did not consider the safety issue to be “germane to the amendment.” He pointed 

out that Senator Stafford’s State of Vermont is one of those with higher, grandfathered limits:

So it seems somewhat inappropriate to me that the question of safety should be raised by my 

good friend from Vermont, because I think that the action taken by the Bureau of Public 

Roads in urging that the width be increased and the action taken by the Senator from 

Vermont pretty well speak for themselves.

Senator Stafford conceded that his State had higher limits, but said: 
589 

It comes right down to this. That the operators of trucking concerns, as long as we have 

some reasonable limits on the Interstate System, are not generally going to buy trucking 

equipment which is larger than they can operate on the Interstate System. So, in Vermont 

and many States like it, while axle weights are larger than on the Interstate, the truck 

operators, in fact, buy equipment which complies with the Interstate requirements, rather 

than the State law.

Senator Hansen agreed, but added: 

We can continue as we now do and it will take far greater numbers of trucks on the 

American highways today to move the same amount of material. I think that in itself 

endorses this amendment. 

Senator Kennedy said that he opposed this effort “to sidestep normal Senate procedures . . . .” The 

amendment “denies the Senate and the Congress the opportunity to judge the safety impact of this 

action,” let alone the financial impact on the States. “Every time in the past, when this has been 

attempted, we at least have had the benefit of hearings.”

The Hansen amendment was soon defeated, with 23 votes in support and 67 opposed. 

[Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8194-8200] 

When Senator Cotton’s time came to introduce his amendment on I-93 through Franconia Notch, 

Senator Bentsen first introduced remarks submitted by Senator Nelson for the record because he 

could not be on the Senate floor at the time. “I would like to express my opposition to any 

amendment which would exempt this proposal in any way from full consideration of its 

environmental impact and of requirements in Federal law to protect park land wherever possible 

from any highway development.” 

Senator Nelson included an analysis by the Highway Action Coalition of the controversy. The fourlane I-93 had been routed through Franconia Notch State Park, which included the rock formation 

known as the “Old Man of the Mountain,” the iconic symbol of the State of New Hampshire. 

Conservationists were concerned that traffic vibrations would cause landslides and rock damage

that might harm the Old Man of the Mountain, “and would create an unwelcome intrusion of noise, 

air pollution and concrete into the Park environment.” The Interstate also would “consume a large 

part of the usable land on the floor of the narrow valley.” 

On March 2, 1970, Secretary Volpe had informed the State that construction was to be indefinitely 

postponed in view of his responsibilities under Section 4(f) and NEPA. Further, he did not believe 

that projected traffic volumes warranted a full-scale Interstate. He suggested the State consider 

alternatives, possibly involving parallel U.S. 3, and reiterated his opposition to the planned 

Interstate in the fall of 1972. However, a reduced-scale highway would not satisfy the design 

requirements for an Interstate route.

Senator Cotton explained that his amendment expressed the sense of the Senate that the Secretary 

of Transportation should reconsider a request from any State to build a parkway instead of an 
590 

Interstate if the request were approved by the Governor, the State Legislature, the Department of 

Public Works and Highways, and the State’s congressional delegation. He added that he had 

written the amendment in general terms, instead of specifying I-93 in New Hampshire, but that 

facility was the only one covered by the amendment. 

He said that he and other State officials had visited Secretary Volpe shortly after he took office to 

make their case:

We all went down and had a hearing to express the desire of New Hampshire. All 

precautions had been taken. No hazard to the natural objects up there from blasting or 

otherwise would have to be faced, because the new lane would be on the opposite side of 

the Notch—from the side of the Old Man in the Mountain [sic]. 

Now, Mr. Volpe sought to be fair. But the Secretary of Transportation rejected the request 

of our delegation . . . and the highway was not able to be constructed through the Notch. 

He acknowledged that under current law, the Interstate would have to be open to multipurpose 

traffic, including trucks, and could not be limited to noncommercial traffic as his amendment would 

accomplish. The amendment would express the sense of Congress that the Secretary should 

consider the State’s proposal for a parkway design and exempt it from the design requirements for 

an Interstate highway. The resulting project also would send trucks and other heavy traffic by an 

alternative route. “As a result, you would not have the situation we now have of people driving 

through the Notch, trying to see the Old Man in the Mountain [sic], and running into other cars.” 

Senator Stafford asked Senator Cotton “whether or not there is any intent in his amendment to seek 

exemption on meeting environmental requirements, so far as the amendment is concerned?” 

Senator Cotton replied: 

There is absolutely nothing in the amendment that denies to any person, any 

environmentalist, or any ecologist the full appeal to the courts. All we seek is 

reconsideration. Then, before we proceed all persons will have all their rights protected by 

the court. 

Senator Bentsen said he had opposed the original version of the amendment, but he wanted to 

confirm that the revised amendment did not mandate construction of the highway and that it was 

merely expressing the sense of the Congress that the Secretary should reconsider the State’s 

proposal. When Senator Cotton confirmed this understanding, Senator Bentsen offered his support. 

After Senator Randolph offered his support, Senator Cotton said that “having tried cases for many 

years, I know that when the court is with you, it is time to stop arguing your case.” He requested a 

vote. The Cotton amendment was agreed to by voice vote. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 

15, 1973, p. 8204-8206] 

By this time in the debate, Senator Byrd asked if future amendments could be subject to limited 

time in order to get through all of them. That having been agreed to, the Senate turned to an 
591 

amendment from Senator Abraham A. Ribicoff (D-Ct.) concerning New York’s plan to build a 

161⁄2-mile bridge across Long Island Sound from Rye in Westchester County to Oyster Bay in 

Nassau County. Although the bridge would be in New York, it would affect Connecticut: 

The proposed structure will have an immense impact not only on New York, but on the 

entire Long Island Sound region. Because its northern end is located only a few miles from 

the Connecticut border, this bridge will funnel millions of cars and trucks onto the already 

overcrowded Connecticut Turnpike and Merritt Parkway. 

New York’s MTA estimated that the bridge would carry 33 million cars a year, “half of which 

would be overflow traffic from other New York bridges and half of which would be newly created.” 

Because the authority “has kept important information from the public, it is difficult to predict 

what impact the bridge will have on the local ecology.” However, Senator Ribicoff predicted that it 

would create chaos for shipping on the sound and that “noise will increase, the sound’s water 

quality will deteriorate, the air will grow dirtier, and valuable wetlands at both ends will disappear.”

Connecticut did not want this bridge to be built. His amendment provided that the Secretary of 

Transportation could not approve any project that would significantly affect a contiguous State’s 

highway system without the concurrence of that State. 

Senator Bentsen indicated he concurred (signaling that the Committee on Public Works 

recommended approval) and the amendment was approved by voice vote. [Congressional RecordSenate, March 15, 1973, p. 8214-8216] 

Senator Scott took a few moments to discuss Section 152 of S. 502, the provision concerning I-66 

in Virginia. He said that he had requested a seat on the Committee on Public Works primarily 

because of his interest in the completion of I-66 from the Capital Beltway into Washington. At the 

committee’s organization meeting on January 18, 1973, he had expressed this interest, and had 

repeated his interest during the hearings on S. 502. 

He explained that I-66 “is an integral part of our overall balanced transportation system in the area, 

and an important link in moving the suburban commuter and the visitor in and out of our Nation’s 

Capital.” Section 152 set a precise schedule for considering the issues and completing all 

determinations necessary for construction. “When a matter has been under construction [sic] for 17 

years and the road still is not built, then it seems reasonable to me that some dates for 

administrative action should be taken . . . .” He was pleased that the committee had included his 

amendment in S. 502 and he hoped the House of Representatives would do the same. 

[Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p.8216-8217] 

Senator Weicker, with support from Senator Kennedy, introduced an amendment that modified 

Section 105 (“Programs”) of Title 23, United States Code. Section 105 provided that as soon as 

practicable following apportionment of Federal-aid highway funds for a fiscal year, the State 

highway agency shall submit a program or programs of proposed projects for approval by the 

Secretary. The Secretary may approve the program except for any projects not on the Federal-aid 

systems. 
592 

Among other things, Senator Weicker’s amendment replaced references in Section 105 to the State 

highway department with the Governor. He explained that under his amendment, “any highway 

construction project funded with Federal money must be part of an overall transportation plan rather 

than simply a highway plan. It also says that the Governor has ultimate responsibility for such 

planning and not just State highway officials. He added: 

This amendment is important because it recognizes that highways, while a vitally important 

part of any balanced transportation system should not be planned in isolation from mass, 

inter-city rail or air transportation facilities. All should tie in with each other. All should 

recognize the varying environmental, social, and economic impact of alternate modes of 

transportation in all areas—rural as well as urban.

Senator Kennedy added that under the amendment, “any highway project funded with Federal 

money must be part of a comprehensive transportation plan rather than merely be covered by a 

highway construction design. And it says that the final authority should be with the official who is 

elected by all of the people of the State, the Governor, rather than the State highway departments.” 

Under the present system, a Governor can “rightfully claim that his hands are tied” if people 

disliked the State highway department’s choice. This amendment would ensure accountability “by 

pinning the final decisionmaking responsibility on the Governor.” 

Senator Bentsen indicated his support, saying “this amendment complements the bill and is a good 

addition to the bill. The Senate agreed to the amendment by voice vote. [Congressional RecordSenate, March 15, 1973, p. 8217-8218] 

Senator Robert Dole (R-Ks.) introduced an amendment to add two routes to those identified in 

Section 146 of S. 502 to determine the “feasibility and necessity for constructing to appropriate 

standards proposed highways . . . .” One route was from Wichita, Kansas, to Tucumcari, New 

Mexico. The other was from Kansas City, Missouri, to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Both, he said, 

were important to his State of Kansas. After Senator Bentsen said he supported the amendment, the 

Senate adopted it by voice vote. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8218-8219] 

Senator Domenici introduced an amendment eliminating the provision of S. 502 apportioning onehalf of 1 percent of Interstate construction funding to any State that completed its designated 

mileage:

My concern, Mr. President, and Members of the Senate, centers on what I believe is a very 

bad precedent. It seems to me that what the committee language . . . does is say to the 

States, “When you complete the Interstate System we are going to give you a bonus. We do 

not really know why. We do not know whether you finished because you did a better job 

than others.” We are going to say to the other States that they did not finish, and we are not 

going to give them that bonus. We do not know why. We have just decided that those 

States that have finished will get additional revenues to complete other highway programs in 

those States.
593 

Senator Burdick, representing North Dakota, one of the three States that would benefit from the 

one-half of 1 percent apportionment at that time, objected. From the start of the program in 1956, 

the State highway departments had been told to make the Interstate System their top priority:

The mandate was clear—to move swiftly toward early completion of the Interstate System. 

It seems now that three States may have completed [their Interstate segments] too fast for 

their own good . . . . Ironically, if the proposed amendment passes, it would have been more 

advantageous for the three States to prolong Interstate completion even though this would 

have cost the Federal Government more money in terms of rising construction costs now 

estimated to be about 10 percent a year.

He explained that Congress originally anticipated that the States would complete their segments 

simultaneously. That would have resulted in a smooth transition from Interstates to non-Interstates. 

 In part because Congress added 1,500 miles to the Interstate System in 1968, simultaneous 

completion was no longer practical. He offered a substitute amendment making clear that the onehalf of 1 percent is “an interim provision to be reconsidered at the expiration of this authorization.” 

With support from Senator Bentsen, the Senate agreed to Senator Burdick’s substitute amendment, 

again by voice vote, after the measure was limited to the 3-year authorization period covered by the 

1973 Act. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8219-8221] 

Senator Paul J. Fannin (R-Az.) introduced an amendment that would increase the width of buses 

allowed on the Interstate System from 96 inches to 102 inches. He mentioned that hearings had 

been held on the issue in December 1971 and February 1972, but that the issue was deferred until 

the Department of Transportation completed a report on the issue. On January 22, 1973, Secretary 

Volpe sent the report to Senator Randolph. The study by FHWA and NHTSA concluded: 

In summary, the 102-inch wide bus is safe. The research did not indicate any properties of 

102-inch wide buses which would suggest that they pose an increased hazard to cars, despite 

the fact that lateral maneuvering space is reduced by 3 inches or half the additional bus 

width. On the Interstate Highway System, lanes are at least 12 feet wide and the 3-inch 

width increase still allows car maneuver space of at least 53 inches, which is adequate for all 

operating conditions. 

He pointed out that his amendment was wholly permissive, leaving each State to decide whether to 

permit wider buses on its Interstate highways.

Senator Bentsen said the Fannin amendment was more narrowly drafted than the Hansen 

amendment that had been rejected earlier “in that it pertains only to increasing the width of buses to 

a specified size rather than lifting all limits on the size of buses and trucks.” He did not say he 

supported the amendment but he did say he would not oppose it. 

Senator Stafford was concerned that the limited increase “may be a foot in the door which will 

result in additional amendments which can be offered or may be offered to increase the size of 

trucks and buses, as well. He opposed the amendment. 
594 

After Senator Baker briefly indicated he opposed the amendment, Senator Harold Hughes (R-Ia.) 

asked Senator Fannin several questions: 

• Was the decision on bus width purely optional? “That is correct.” 

• Could a wide bus from Chicago ride through Iowa if State had not authorized that width? 

“It is my understanding that this is permissive legislation.” 

• What would happen when these buses leave the Interstate to get to their destination? “I 

think he [Senator Hughes] realizes that city ordinances and State laws would be effective in 

this respect.”

• Is it the intention of the bus companies to use this extra width to increase passenger comfort. 

“That is correct. I think there is a safety factor, too, as far as bus construction is concerned.” 

• What is the width of a two-lane Interstate highway? “On the Interstate Highway System the 

lanes are at least 12 feet wide.”

• If two wider buses were passing each other, they would have 208 inches? “There would be 

a clearance of 53 inches.”

• Does the Senator have the engineering dynamic studies on these buses? “I can answer . . . 

that there is a negligible difference in aerodynamic disturbance effects between 96-inch and 

102-inch buses.” 

• Would a wider bus passing an automobile in a high wind have a dangerous effect? “I do not 

think there would be.” 

Senator Hughes stated that he asked these questions because of his concern about “putting wider 

vehicles on highways that are already glutted with traffic, particularly on holiday weekends and 

summer vacations.” Senator Fannin said he thought the amendment would have the opposite effect 

because the more comfortable buses would encourage more drivers to take the bus instead. Senator 

Hughes was unconvinced, concerned that as Senator Domenici had said, this amendment was a 

“foot in the door.” 

The Fannin amendment was defeated, 14 to 68, with Senator Hughes among those opposed. 

[Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8221-8223] 

Senator Baker introduced an amendment that modified the pass-through provision of S. 502. It 

would allow the municipalities or combination of agencies to undertake any Federal-aid urban 

system project “which shall be planned in accordance with the planning process required by section 

134 of this title, and which shall not be in conflict with any State Transportation Plan approved by 

the Governor.” (Amendment in italics.) “While the amendment does not endanger the powers 

given to urban areas meeting the criteria of the pass-through provision of the bill, it assures that 

projects undertaken under that section will not impede the efficiency of statewide transportation 

programs.” He said he was mainly concerned that urban plans not conflict with the hard work of 

the Tennessee Department of Transportation in developed “a forward-looking plan.” With Senator 

Bentsen’s concurrence, the Senate approved the amendment. [Congressional Record-Senate, 

March 15, 1973, p. 8223] 

Senator Baker also introduced an amendment that called on the Secretary of Transportation to study 

revenue mechanisms, such as a fuel tax, that could be used to finance transportation activities 
595 

receiving assistance from the Highway Trust Fund, with a report due by July 1, 1974. His goal was 

“to explore revenue mechanisms relative to mass transportation systems which would afford the 

basis for preserving the ‘pay-as-you-go’ feature of the trust fund.” He added that he did not believe 

that “a concept so basic to the trust fund should be discarded.” He continued: 

The study will disclose among other things the amounts which public transportation systems 

already contribute to the fund or would contribute under the existing tax setup, and how any 

additional tax burden should be distributed in order not to penalize those systems which do 

not share in the trust fund. 

He did not expect the added amounts to be substantial initially. “But it is my belief that in time as 

the concept of urban mass transit becomes more popular these systems may become major 

contributors to the fund.” 

Senator Bentsen raised no objection and the Senate approved the Baker amendment by voice vote. 

[Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8223-8224] 

Senator Baker’s amendment was the last one considered. 

Senator Bentsen began the concluding remarks: 

Mr. President, we have had a long and vigorous debate on this measure, and I believe we 

have aired many of the difficult and controversial matters associated with the highway 

program.

After committee leadership complimented each other and their staff and several Senators engaged 

in colloquies on specific measures, including amendments they had intended to introduce but did 

not, the Senate voted 77 to 5 in favor of the $18 billion, 3-year Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. 

Senators Kennedy and Weicker voted “Yea,” while Senator Muskie was among the 18 Senators 

who did not vote. [Congressional Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8224-8232] 

 

Reporting on the vote, The New York Times considered the Senate’s rejection of Senator Hansen’s 

amendment on size and weight limits to be the major story on March 15. “Because most truck and 

bus routes include mileage on Interstate highways, the law has the effect of restricting the size of 

vehicles on nearly all roads.” The article pointed out that: 

Trucking interests have lobbied in Congress for years for increasing or eliminating the 

limits. But environmentalists and organizations of motorists have opposed any change, and 

the truckers have never succeeded.

The article described the Ribicoff and Muskie-Baker amendments and Senator Williams’ 

Emergency Commuter Relief Act, each of which had been included in the bill: 

The Nixon Administration supports diverting trust fund money into mass transit, but it 

opposes operating subsidies. An Administration spokesman said today that President Nixon 
596 

would veto the bill if the final version contained the operating grants. [Rosenbaum, David 

E., “Senators Retain Truck, Bus Limits,” The New York Times, March 16, 1973] 

Engineering News-Record reported that transit advocates “were jubilant after the Senate action, 

while pro highway forces in Washington were regrouping for the crucial showdown on the House 

floor.” The article continued: 

A spokesman for the Highway Users Federation said, “We’re heartened by the closeness of 

the vote on the Muskie amendment (it carried 48-26 last year). It will give us a better 

chance in conference this time around.” 

The House’s recently renamed Subcommittee on Transportation was opening hearings on its bill the 

following week. “Despite the fact that its chairman, Rep. John Kluczynski (D-Ill.), recently 

reversed his long standing opposition to diversion . . . the full committee is expected to retain its 

previous stance.” 

The Highway Action Coalition was not worried. “Says its director John Kramer, ‘We’re going to 

win on the floor.’” By contrast, a HUFSAM spokesman acknowledged that the House makeup in 

1973 was more “urban-oriented” than in 1972 and predicted that “the floor vote is going to be very 

close.”

The Senate version, the article stated, contained two provisions—funding for transit operating 

subsidies and the Bellmon amendment prohibiting impoundment of Federal-aid highway funds— 

that could attract a presidential veto. “The Administration has staunchly opposed operating 

subsidies for public transit. And Nixon contends that the executive has the power to impound 

appropriated funds.” [“Senate Again Votes for Highway Trust Fund Diversion,” Engineering 

News-Record, March 22, 1973] 

The Los Angeles Times commended the Senate for approving the Muskie-Baker amendment. “For 

the second straight year, there is a question of whether the House will show a similar sense of 

responsibility to the transportation needs of the cities and concur in the Senate’s action.” 

Concurrence was “imperative” if urban areas were to relieve “the terrible congestion” they faced. 

The House was the “big hurdle because it is there that the influence over key committees by the 

highway lobby—a coalition of interests that profit from the building and use of roads—is most 

powerfully felt.” 

The editorial acknowledged that the Interstate System was “a good system that allows rapid travel 

from one state to another,” but “what the nation now needs are good systems to allow rapid travel 

from one side of a city to another.” It added: 

Breaking open the trust fund makes sense not only because most cities desperately need 

efficient mass transit systems as a supplement or alternative to increasingly inefficient 

reliance on autos, but because the federal highway program no longer can usefully absorb all 

of the money earmarked for it. [“Breaking Open the Highway Fund,” The Los Angeles 

Times, March 16, 1973] 
597 

The Baltimore Sun, in another city wrestling with highway controversies while trying to boost mass 

transit, also commended the Senate action. “If the House of Representatives goes along, then a real 

turning point in the development of American transportation policies will have been taken.” It 

continued: 

“Busting the trust,” as it has come to be called, has been the goal of those who favor 

balanced transportation development. They argue, and we agree, that the idea of an 

exclusive trust fund for highways only is shortsighted and illogical. If there has to be a trust 

fund in this field, it ought to be a general transportation fund (as in Maryland), since the 

needs of motorists and transit passengers are so related.

The editorial explained that “the idea of a sacrosanct trust fund is not all that traditional,” having 

been created only in 1956 to include revenue mainly from longstanding excise taxes. “This fund 

has been successful. It did what it was created to do—built an interstate system and greatly 

improved other federal aid roads. But times change.” [“Busting the Trust,” The Baltimore Sun, 

March 16, 1973] 

Sun columnist Ernest B. Furgurson was not optimistic that “common sense” would prevail in the 

House where “a powerful bloc” wanted to restrict 100 percent of the Highway Trust Fund revenue 

“to the exclusive task of paving over the rest of the country.” He explained: 

The bloc of legislators is in league with such selfless lobbying outfits as the American 

Trucking Association [sic], the Highway Users Association (another cover name for the 

truckers and their friends) and with various state highway officials whose bureaucratic 

empires are founded on continued restriction of the money to highway building.

They were upset about the Muskie-Baker amendment “as if it heralded the end of the free enterprise 

system.” Furgurson pointed out that the $850 million in Federal-aid urban system funding 

represented less than 5 percent of the total authorized funds. “And it is not as if the urban areas 

would be ordered to use it for buses, subways or trains; they would merely be allowed to, and be 

just as free to use it for more freeways if they wished.” He added:

It is not the money, it is the principle of the thing. The principle is that the highway “trust” 

fund, because it comes from federal taxes on gasoline, tires and trucking tonnage, should not 

be used for anything that would not benefit buyers of gasoline and tires and operators of 

trucking lines—only more highways. 

The concept “is bogged down way back in the Nineteen-teens, in the days when young Lt. Dwight 

Eisenhower drove across the continent [in the 1919 Army convoy] and wisely concluded from that 

experience that we could use a better road system.” Four decades later, he had signed the FederalAid Highway Act of 1956 and now, in the 1973 Senate bill, a transcontinental route was to be 

named after him:

But as Eisenhower himself might appreciate by now, things have changed. The automobile 

had metamorphosed from servant to master. The highway has passed the point of merely 
598 

linking towns and cities, until now it functions mainly to channel congestion and pollution 

back and forth from cities to suburbs. 

Furgurson concluded that “to continue to ram roads into our cities without making a major effort to 

develop parallel systems is to assure our strangulation . . . .” [Furgurson, Ernest B., “Common 

Sense and Highway Money,” The Baltimore Sun, March 18, 1973] 

A Washington Post editorial said the vote on the Muskie-Baker amendment gave “a big boost” to 

the “campaign for saner urban transportation policies.” It was “an important victory for the crucial 

principle of flexibility in metropolitan transportation planning.” This flexibility was also reflected 

in the provision allowing a Governor to cancel controversial Interstate projects.

Overall, the bill was “generally sound,” although it included several “special-interest” provisions, 

such as the provision allowing Texas to build the North Expressway through a park in San Antonio. 

 The amendment to kill this provision failed in the Senate, but “by the surprisingly small margin of 

seven votes.” The editorial explained, “This outcome suggests a rising impatience with efforts to 

build highways by circumventing environmental laws.” 

The prospects in the House were “more encouraging than in the past, thanks to President Nixon’s 

strong support for reforms in transportation policies, and the recent conversion of Rep. John C. 

Kluczynski.” His conversion, “spurred by the financial woes of Chicago’s mass transit system, 

symbolizes a growing recognition that federal policies must be reformed to deal with the mass 

congestion and pollution which afflict the cities.” Continued hard work “by the broad coalition 

which prevailed in the Senate” meant that “there is a real chance to achieve such reforms this year.” 

[“Roads, Rails and Realities,” The Washington Post, March 21, 1973] 

Washington’s Star-News considered the Senate vote “a dress rehearsal” for the “real show” that was 

beginning with the start of hearings by the House Committee on Public Works. A similar bill, the 

editorial reminded readers, had passed the Senate in 1972 but died in the House, “where opposition 

was strongest to further encroachments on the highway trust fund for non-highway uses.” 

The editorial asked, “Can the wall be breached this time?” It answered, “We fervently hope so.” It 

explained, “The case for viewing urban transportation as a multi-faceted problem, in which roads 

are only a part, is indisputable—and the Senate bill merely nibbles at that approach.” 

Citing Senator Muskie’s comments about the highway user taxes prior to 1956, the editorial 

declared the idea of a “sacrosanct” Highway Trust Fund to be “a myth that has grown with age.” 

The diversity of transit-related provisions in the Senate bill was “an encouraging change in 

congressional sentiment that clearly was absent only a few years.” The Nixon Administration’s 

“enlightened support has been most helpful and should be exerted anew in the House.” [“Transit’s 

Big Chance,” Washington Star-News, March 20, 1973] 
599 

Ramifications 

Officials were looking at the legislation from the perspective of their own transportation issues. In 

Maryland, for example, Secretary Hughes had announced on February 22 that the State would not 

build I-95 through Prince George’s County into Northwest Branch Park. In Washington, the route 

was to connect with the I-70S North Central Freeway, a segment that faced intense opposition by 

residents. Short of killing the project outright, he recommended considering an alignment along a 

Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco) transmission line paralleling New Hampshire Avenue. 

Addressing a meeting of the steering committee of the Western Prince George’s Transportation 

Alternatives Study at Parkdale High School, Secretary Hughes said:

I am in no way convinced that this option is feasible or desirable in terms of the ultimate 

outcome of the study. There are several compelling reasons, including legal considerations, 

for its inclusion . . . .” 

The Secretary had previously killed a spur of the North Central Expressway from the Capital 

Beltway near Silver Spring south into Washington. [Eisen, Jack, “Official Kills I-95 Route Into 

D.C.,” The Washington Post, February 23, 1973] 

Now, with approval of the Senate’s bill, States such as Maryland and Massachusetts potentially had 

an option to replace unwanted Interstate segments, not with other Interstate segments, but with 

other highway or transit projects. The Baltimore Sun pointed out that the “sleeper provision” could 

mean “a whale of a lot of money if the House of Representatives sees fit to retain” the Interstate 

transfer provision. Although Maryland had built 326 miles of its 358-mile Interstate network, “the 

most expensive—and most controversial sections” in the Washington and Baltimore areas remained 

only lines on the map. 

The newspaper pointed out that Maryland was due over $1.1 billion, which was “more than the total 

$975 million cost of the first 28-mile phase of the rapid rail transit system proposed in Baltimore.” 

The unbuilt Maryland sections of I-95 and I-70S in the Washington area accounted for part of the 

money, but Baltimore’s controversial “3-A system” was responsible for the larger share. The 3-A 

system consisted of “extending I-70N through Leakin Park to intersect with I-95 near Washington 

Boulevard, building a boulevard through the Franklin-Mulberry corridor, and building the Eastern 

portion of I-95 under Fort McHenry to Canton and out through the Northeast area to link with the 

Kennedy expressway.” Mayor Schaefer, according to a spokesman, was “committed to a 3-A 

system and that’s the way he wants it to stand.” 

In the wake of Senate action on the 1973 Act, Secretary Hughes and Governor Marvin Mandel 

“were noncommittal on the possibility of using expressway money for buses or rail transit.” The 

Secretary was “on record as preferring to use any unspent urban interstate funds on improving 

primary and secondary roads in the state.” He would allow the use of the funds for mass transit, 

according to a spokesman, only “if and when it’s demonstrated that currently planned highways 

can’t be built.” 
600 

John Kramer had lobbied Maryland’s Senators to support the transfer provision: 

Mr. Kramer also said Mayor Schaefer, Governor Mandel and Mr. Hughes are “very key 

figures” in the national bill, due to their leading roles in national political and transportation 

groups. He said Governor Mandel had been “very helpful” in pushing for use of the 

highway trust for urban transit, and could be very influential in swinging needed votes in the 

House, where the Maryland delegation, for instance, is split down the middle. [Hill, 

Frederic B., “Funds for 3-A Road Could Go to Mass Transit,” The Baltimore Sun, March 

19, 1973] 

In New York, the Ribicoff amendment on the Long Island Sound bridge was of special interest. 

The Times reported that the amendment passed by “voice vote and with little discussion” to give 

Connecticut “veto power over Federal funds for the bridge’s access roads.” The article explained:

Initially, Mr. Ribicoff planned to offer an amendment specifically barring Federal funds for 

the Long Island Sound bridge’s access roads unless the New York and Connecticut 

legislatures gave their approval. After discussions during the afternoon with the staffs of 

Senator James L. Buckley, Conservative-Republican, and others, the language was rewritten 

to omit any specific reference to the Long Island Sound bridge and to the legislatures of the 

two States. The Ribicoff aide said that the revised language “has the same immediate 

effect” of the Senator’s original proposal. 

Many residents and officials in Long Island, Westchester County, and Connecticut opposed the 

bridge. The State legislature had twice tried to rescind its earlier approval of the bridge, but 

Governor Rockefeller had vetoed the bills. A similar battle was expected in the current legislative 

session. [Madden, Richard L., “L.I. Bridge Faces a New Obstacle,” The New York Times, March 

19, 1973] 

In February, Judge Lloyd F. MacMahon of the U.S. District Court had ordered the State to solicit 

additional information on social, economic and planning factors before holding public hearings. On 

March 16, the Department of the Interior indicated it would not grant easements for the access 

routes because they would harm a wildlife refuge that Oyster Bay Town had deeded to the Interior 

Department in 1968 to protect the area from the bridge. State Transportation Commissioner 

Schuler hoped Federal transportation officials could convince the Interior Department to change its 

position, but an FHWA spokesman pointed out that the Secretary of Transportation could not 

overrule the Secretary of the Interior. Governor Rockefeller was thinking of appealing to the White 

House. [Bender, Judith, “There’s Hope for Bridge Yet: NY Aide,” The New York Times, March 

21, 1973] 

Robert Cahn, a Pulitzer Prize winning staff writer for The Christian Science Monitor who 

specialized in environmental and parks issues and was a founding member of the Council on 

Environmental Quality, wrote about how the Senate came to include the San Antonio North 

Expressway provision in the bill. “Congress is being maneuvered to turn its back on its own 

environmental protection laws in the case of a controversial Texas highway,” namely NEPA and 

Section 4(f). Senators Tower and Bentsen had “buttonholed colleagues seeking support, making 
601 

deals for their votes on other legislation,” with Senator Bentsen taking advantage of his post as 

chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation. 

Cahn, who had written about the San Antonio controversy periodically, disputed the claims the two 

Senators had made while talking with their colleagues–that NEPA was applied after the route had 

been set (“a point refuted by the court decision”), that the area where the highway would be built 

was not a park but a “flood retention facility” (“It includes 13 baseball diamonds, a golf course, a 

wilderness trail, and many other recreational facilities”), that “the” alternative route outside the park 

would displace many poor people (“Actually a number of alternative routes are available, one of 

which would take only a few homes of wealthy people in the City of Olmos Park”), and that city 

residents had twice approved the route (“a 1961 ‘approval’ was on a bond issue that did not specify 

an expressway route” while a recent county petition in support of the expressway had secured 

100,000 signatures but “wasn’t checked for name and address validity”). 

Pro-park citizens had worked with national environmental groups to oppose the provision and 

enlisted Senator Buckley to lead the Senate battle. Secretary Brinegar and Chairman Train of the 

Council on Environmental Quality had expressed their opposition to the provision: 

On the day of the vote, the environmentalists were confident of victory. Surprisingly, six 

members of the Public Works Committee voted against Chairman Bentsen. But Sen. Henry 

M. Jackson (D) of Washington, principal author of NEPA, and Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey 

(D) of Minnesota, who had written letters to citizens saying he would vote against the San 

Antonio expressway, both voted against the Buckley amendment. This encouraged other 

senators who may have been hesitating. 

As a final blow, some Republicans received word on the day of the vote that the White 

House did not support Messrs. Brinegar and Train, that it was all right to back Senator 

Tower. When the roll call ended, Senators Bentsen and Tower had won by seven votes. 

Special Assistant to the President Tom C. Korologos was in the Senate reception room 

before the vote passing on the White House position to Senate Republicans. Had he urged 

support for the Buckley amendment, four more Republican votes could easily have been 

obtained, and the decision reversed. 

I asked Senator Jackson to explain his vote. He said the San Antonio case was unique, that 

no other exceptions would be allowed. So he felt the environmental laws would survive. 

Also, Senator Bentsen had assured him that the San Antonio provision was necessary, that 

the alternate route would take the homes of a thousand poor people. 

If the environmentalists prevailed in keeping the San Antonio provision out of the House bill, Cahn 

wrote, “the issue will go to a House-Senate conference dominated by Public Works Committee 

members favorable to the Bentsen-Tower position.” Cahn concluded: 

What has happened to date in the Senate is a blatant example of elected representatives 

acting for “special interest” and neglecting the national interest. [Cahn, Robert, “Texas 
602 

Highway: Will Congress Ignore Own Rules?” The Christian Science Monitor, April 4, 

1973] 

(Cahn won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for a series of articles on the future of National Parks and ways

of preserving them. On January 29, 1970, President Nixon announced his nominees to serve on the 

Council on Environmental Quality established under NEPA: Russell E. Train, then serving as 

Under Secretary of the Interior; Gordon MacDonald, a geophysicist on the faculty of the University 

of California at Santa Barbara; and Cahn, a Washington State native living in the District of 

Columbia. The President joked: 

And incidentally, I asked the three gentlemen, “Now, which one of you shall I call a 

doctor?” Of course, Dr. MacDonald is from the University of California at Santa Barbara. 

Russell Train said, no, don’t call him a doctor, although I do think he has an honorary 

degree, and Mr. Cahn said, “No, I am just a journalist.” 

In September 1972, just a few weeks before the presidential election, MacDonald and Cahn 

resigned. In his book about Nixon’s environmental record, J. Brooks Flippen said that, “While 

Cahn avoided direct criticism of Nixon, his disappointment was obvious. ‘The bureaucracy has 

grown slow in giving weight to environmental factors in decision-making,’ he explained. 

‘Correspondence with the White House was less than ideal.’” [Brooks, p. 131]) 

 

With the House about to take up the Federal-Aid Highway Act, newspapers looked to their State’s 

congressional delegation to get a sense of their position on key issues. The Sun found that, 

“Maryland’s eight members of the House of Representatives still are divided sharply on use of 

Highway Trust Fund money for urban mass transit.” As in 1972, they were split 4-to-4. 

In 1972, Representatives Edward A. Garmatz (D), Goodloe E. Byron (D), Lawrence J. Hogan (R), 

and William O. Mills (R) had voted against using the funds for transit projects. Representative 

Sarbanes, who had defeated Representative Fallon, had voted in favor of the measure along with 

Representatives Gilbert Gude (R), Clarence D. Long (D), and Parren J. Mitchell (D). 

In 1973, Representative Margaret S. Holt (R), who had taken retiring Representative Garmatz’ seat 

in the 1972 election, planned to vote against diversion. “I believe strongly in a balanced 

transportation system, but at this time, I don’t feel we should go into the highway fund.” 

Representatives Hogan and Mills confirmed that they were still opposed to diversion. [“Road Fund 

Splits Delegates,” The Baltimore Sun, March 18, 1973] 

In California, where compliance with the 1970 Clean Air Amendments was a critical issue, a 

canvass of the House congressional delegation found that it was “sharply divided as the issue heads 

for House action.” The survey found that 13 of the Representatives supported diversion of Federalaid highway funds for mass transit systems, including bus and rail. Four were leaning in favor of 

tapping the Highway Trust Fund. Four were “solidly against” the idea, while three were leaning in 

that direction. 
603 

The Los Angeles Times reported that Representative Glenn Anderson would be “leading the ‘busttrust’ effort in the House,” as he had in 1972. “We are giving local officials an effective tool to 

help solve the energy crisis, clean up our air, use our land more effectively and transport people in a 

safe, efficient and economical manner.” He had lined up six cosponsors from the delegation for his 

version of the Muskie-Baker amendment, H.R. 101, but Representative Alphonzo Bell, a 

Republican representing a Los Angeles district, had introduced his own bill. He said: 

The trust fund is a logical source of funds for mass transportation projects, since highway 

users will benefit from the decrease in congestion and traffic which mass transit provides. 

Some of the opponents were concerned about “breaking faith” with highway users who paid the 

taxes that went into the Highway Trust Fund. They were particularly opposed to using the funds for 

rail transit, and more supportive of highway-oriented transit. They favored general Treasury 

funding for rail systems. 

The Highway Action Coalition was lobbying those leaning toward opposing diversion, with special 

attention being paid to Representative Delwin M. Clawson, a Republican from Downey in the heart 

of Los Angeles, who was leaning toward opposing diversion. [Houston, Paul, “Californians in 

House Divided on Using Highway Funds for Transit,” The Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1973] 

With the fate of the issue now in the House, reporter Mary Russell of The Washington Post

published a profile of Senator Randolph because he might be the key voice in the conference 

committee that would likely be needed to reconcile differences in the House and Senate versions of 

the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. It began with a quote from the Senator:

“When I first came to the Hill in 1933 I became a member of the House Committee on 

Roads. Even before that I had envisioned a need for a superhighway system. I was so bold 

as to draw lines on a map outlining where it would go. Then I introduced legislation. I 

didn’t see it as a process of machines laying concrete and asphalt. I saw it as a process of 

one part of America getting to know another part of America.” 

Back then, in the 1940s and 1950s, Russell pointed out, no one challenged the slogan “America on 

the move” and Randolph “was considered progressive and liberal for his dedication to 

superhighways.” Times had changed: 

Today, in an America beleaguered by air pollution, crowded in cities already congested by 

traffic and facing the prospect of possible gas rationing this summer, Randolph’s views 

sound a little outdated. He sounds, in fact, like the New Deal liberal he is—a liberal who 

believes social change can be accomplished by outlays of money for material goods and 

nonmaterial programs, as opposed to the new breed liberal, who wants to attack institutions 

he feels are preventing social change.

Randolph may have been “losing ground” but he was “far from fading.” If, as expected, the House 

rejected the use of Federal-aid urban system funds for rail transit as permitted by the Muskie-Baker 

amendment, Senator Randolph would be “the key to the form the country’s transportation policy 
604 

will take—at least for a while.” The expectation (“not much doubt”) was that he would concede the 

House’s position on the issue, leaving mass transit to wait until 1976 “for another shot at a slice of 

the lucrative pie.” If so, “Randolph will deserve much of the credit for preserving the trust fund 

intact.”

He was, clearly, a friend of the powerful highway lobbyists. Indeed, Russell pointed out, he had 

worked for ARBA after leaving the House in 1947 until he joined the Senate immediately after a 

special election in 1958. A Senate aide pointed out, however, that saying the Senator was “selling 

out” to the lobby was pointless. “Randolph’s past the point where the highway lobby can influence 

him much more.” Being from West Virginia, Randolph understood that roads “don’t just mean 

going from place to place. They mean jobs, and that’s the point from which Randolph looks at it.” 

The Highway Action Coalition’s Kramer acknowledged that Senator Randolph was “very good at 

clubby Senate politics” and using his position on the Public Works Committee to “trade off votes 

on the highway act.” For example, the coalition had expected Senator Magnuson to vote for the 

Muskie-Baker amendment but instead he agreed to a “live pair” with Senator John C. Stennis (DMs.). 

(When a member expects to be absent for a vote, he may arrange in advance to be recorded as in 

favor of, or opposed to, the measure by being “paired” with another member who holds a contrary 

view but also will be absent. As the 1974 guide to Congress explained, “A specific pair of this kind 

shows how he would have voted if he had been present.” It also ensures that his absence will not be 

the deciding factor in the outcome of the vote. If one of them unexpectedly is present, he “votes as 

he would have voted if he had not been paired, and subsequently withdraws his vote and asks to be 

marked ‘present’ to protect his colleague.” This arrangement is known as a “live pair.” [How Our 

Laws Are Made, p. 33]) 

Russell quoted Kramer as saying:

Randolph used two tacks. First, he reminded Magnuson he had given him everything he 

wanted—a dam, fish hatcheries, some roads. Then he said the real issue is “whether I’m 

chairman of the committee or Muskie is.” That got to Magnuson as a fellow chairman. 

With (Sen. Howard) Cannon [who voted against the Muskie-Baker amendment], Randolph 

played the trust fund bit. Cannon’s interested in airports, and Randolph told him if they 

break this trust fund they’ll break the airport trust fund. With (Sen. Mike) Gravel, he just 

gave him the Alaska highway and (Sen. Russell) Long got the toll road he wanted. 

Randolph came close, but he failed on this vote because trading off pork just doesn’t pay at 

the ballot box the way it used to. And when an issue gets a lot of coverage and members 

know their vote is going to be watched, Randolph’s kind of politics just doesn’t work. 

Senator Randolph denied calling in “chits” (favors). “I just never do it. I don’t believe in it.” 

Instead, a Republican Senator’s anonymous aide said, Senator Randolph was “a courtly Southern 

mogul of another era, a gentle courtier even when he’s pushing you around, and a very hard 
605 

working sob [sic] who knows his stuff.” The aide explained that the Senator’s attitude was, “Does 

anybody want anything? Just let me know.” In return, he assumed they would give him what he 

wanted.

Senator Randolph’s politeness had its limits, as Kramer explained:

“Every time Lowell Weicker comes within 20 feet of Randolph, his jowls start quivering. 

When Weicker starts in about children dying in school bus accidents and highways for the 

rich and paving the country with asphalt, Randolph nearly goes into cardiac arrest.”

The Senator recognized that times were changing. “I know it is not enough just to think anew; we 

must act anew.” Citing under-utilization of BART as an example, he was convinced that the 

country, including its urban areas, would need roads for many more years. The cost of rapid rail 

transit was well beyond the revenue in the Highway Trust Fund. Russell wrote, “He feels the mass 

transit people should ‘get their own trust fund, like the airport people did.’” He added, “I only want 

the interstate system completed so I can dedicate myself to work in the front ranks of mass transit.” 

 As for how long completion of the Interstate System would take, his reply “holds scant comfort for 

the transit backers: ‘About 10 years, maybe longer.’” [Russell, Mary, “Sen. Randolph: Key to 

Highway Trust Fight,” The Washington Post, April 16, 1973] 

Frank C. Herringer

On December 19, 1972, the White House announced that Alexander P. Butterfield would be 

nominated to be FAA Administrator. Butterfield, a former Air Force pilot and Deputy Assistant to 

the President, had served most of the past 4 years in the White House as a deputy to H. R. 

Haldeman. Butterfield’s confirmation would be delayed in February when Senator Magnuson, 

chairman of the Commerce Committee, explained that the White House had acted “naively” by 

forwarding the nomination to Congress before Butterfield resigned his “retired” commission as a 

Colonel in the Air Force. The law establishing the FAA said that the Administrator “at the time of 

his nomination shall be a civilian.” The White House would have to withdraw the nomination and 

resubmit it. 

In two earlier cases, Congress had passed legislation to waive the FAA requirement, most recently 

President Johnson’s nomination of Air Force General William F. McKee in 1965, the only four-star 

General in the history of the Air Force without a pilot’s license. In 1973, the Congress would not 

consider such a bill, as a Senate aide told the Newhouse News Service. “LBJ was enjoying the 

zenith of his power in Congress then. The climate in 1973 is vastly different.” Further, an aide told 

The New York Times, “Nobody here likes the White House much, and Butterfield is a rather routine 

career officer who never amounted to much until he latched onto Haldeman. So why make it easier 

for them to stuff another crony into another agency?” [Newhouse News Service, “Hitch Delays 

FAA Nominee,” Washington Star-News, February 16, 1973; Apple, R. W., Jr., “Nominee to F.A.A. 

Quits Air Force, The New York Times, February 27, 1973] 
606 

After Butterfield resigned from the Air Force (at a cost of $10,000 a year), the White House 

resubmitted the nomination. The Senate confirmed Butterfield who served as FAA Administrator 

from March 14, 1973 to March 31, 1975. 

Also on December 19, 1972, the White House announced the appointment of Frank C. Herringer to 

be UMTA Administrator. Herringer was born in 1942 in New York City and raised in Seaford on 

Long Island. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College, having majored in 

mathematics and economics. He joined the international management consulting firm of Cresap, 

McCormick and Paget, Inc., in 1965 and remained there until joining the White House in 

November 1971 as a deputy to Frederick V. Malek, the President’s advisor on personnel matters. 

As Professor Lee noted, Malek was “the White House staffer in charge of appointing loyalists to 

positions in the departments and agencies for the second term . . . .” before moving to OMB as 

Deputy Director. [Lee, p. 99] 

The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held a confirmation hearing for 

Herringer on January 26, 1973, with Chairman Sparkman presiding. The nominee did not make an 

opening statement. Senator Proxmire began the questioning by pointing out that Herringer’s 

biographical sketch did not include any experience in the field of transportation or mass 

transportation or work related to mass transportation. “Were there other opportunities you had to 

develop any understanding or experience in the area of transportation?” Herringer had to admit, 

“No, sir; there were not.” 

Senator Proximire explained that, “I am concerned about the administration’s tendency to appoint 

very bright people—you are extraordinarily young—who have no experience at all in the field in 

which they are moving . . . .” Although the Senator was certain Herringer was “a very quick 

learner,” he wondered “if it is logical to appoint nonexperts in all these areas.” He mentioned the 

appointment of James Lynn to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development as another 

example. 

Herringer responded that UMTA had many experts who knew the technical details of the field. “I 

think what I bring to the task are management skills, as my record attests.” 

Nevertheless, Senator Proxmire was concerned that someone with so little expertise would head a 

billion dollar agency when the Administration may be thinking about making sharp reductions. “If 

the man in charge doesn’t have a feeling in his heart and in his stomach about the need for the 

program, it seems the program could be crushed, before you get to develop that kind of sensitivity 

and understanding of what is needed.” 

Herringer said “it is my understanding that this is not an area in which there are great cuts to be 

made.” Further, in his review of the field since the nomination, he had come to very few 

conclusions but one “I can state without a shred of doubt: this has to be one of the most exciting, 

the most challenging fields in or out of Government.” He planned to thoroughly review UMTA’s 

demonstration programs and its research and development activities “to insure that the money is 

being spent on projects which have a real benefit, that appeal to the needs of the consumer, and that 

somehow advance the technology of urban mass transportation.” He also planned to address the 
607 

long-range objective for the major cities. “It seems that much of the work has been ad hoc, such as 

in response to a grant request. I hope to push out in that direction.” 

Senator Proxmire pointed out that “the heart of this problem is that our highway trust fund has 

resulted in providing a steady growing source of funds for building highways.” He asked Herringer 

how he felt about transferring Highway Trust Fund revenue to mass transit. He called

Administrator Villarreal “a champion” of diversion. Herringer said he would have supported the 

Cooper-Muskie amendment had he been in office in 1972, but “beyond that, I really do not know 

the answer . . . .” Given the need to complete the Interstate System and improve other highways, 

“that decision would have to involve people far beyond the Urban Mass Transportation 

Administration.”

Seeing Senator Weicker on the panel, Senator Proxmire asked about the Kennedy-Weicker 

amendment from 1972. (At this point, Senators Kennedy and Weicker had not yet introduced their 

1973 amendment.) Herringer was hesitant to take a position because of the broad scope of the 

amendment. “I do not think from that perspective I can by myself make a determination of whether 

those dollars should be transferred around.” The FHWA Administrator, the Secretary of 

Transportation and others “with a perspective that encompasses all of the aspects of the problem” 

would have to be involved. He would say only that he would determine how much money should 

be spent on urban mass transportation and then “work with the Secretary and with others to develop 

the funding, especially where it concerns transferring money from one program to another.” 

Senator Proxmire concluded by saying:

One way of holding down very expensive programs is to divert money from the highway 

trust fund into mass transit. Very painful to the highway people, but very logical from the 

standpoint of some of us who want to get as much as we can out of a very limited budget . . . 

. The best way to make a priority is the way the highway program became a priority, and 

that is to give it a funding [source] that is protected, insured, and growing. [Nomination of 

Frank C. Herringer, Hearing, Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, United 

States Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, 90-185, January 26, 1973, p. 1-6] 

Senator Weicker asked if Herringer supported the concept of diversion. He did. Senator Weicker 

also wanted to confirm that aside from diverted Highway Trust Fund revenue, Herringer supported 

separate funding for mass transit. He did. If funds were diverted, would that reduce funding from 

other sources? Herringer said he had no way to answer the question. 

Senator Biden had not been in the Senate in 1972, but said he understood that Secretary Volpe had 

been a strong advocate for opening up the Highway Trust Fund. Would Herringer be as strong an 

advocate? “Well, Senator, people who know me would be very quick to say that I am not a passive 

individual.” Advocacy would be needed. [Nomination of Frank C. Herringer, p. 7-9] 

On a second round of questions, Senator Biden asked if Herringer would support Federal funds for 

operating subsidies. Herringer had studied the issue, but still had some questions, such as: 
608 

[How] do you do this without throwing money down this tunnel forever? How do you 

motivate management to hold down labor costs, how do you insure equitable treatment from 

one city to another, particularly since transit systems do not have common accounting 

systems, fares are at different levels vis-à-vis expenses; and some cites, like Atlanta, have a 

sales tax to subsidize their mass transit, while someplace else does not. [sic]

He worried that once started, subsidies would become a long-term commitment. He wanted to 

study the issue further. As an alternative, local subsidies were an option. “Hopefully through the 

capital grants program and through improved management of the transit operating companies, we 

can also reduce the problem from the serious level where it is now, I believe about $450 million a 

year.”

Senator Biden, having just come from local government, mentioned their financial straits. He 

added, “I would hope that you would not rely too much on the local municipalities and State 

governments to begin to solve the problem.” He agreed that a long-term plan was vital, but “the 

Congress has been so reluctant to formulate such a plan that if we wait until the plan is formulated, 

everything else may come to a screeching halt in terms of mass transportation.” [Nomination of 

Frank C. Herringer, p. 10-14] 

The committee approved his nomination on January 26 and the Senate confirmed him without 

debate on January 31 along with other nominees, including James T. Lynn as Secretary of Housing 

and Urban Development. 

 

Shortly after 31-year old Herringer took office, Business Week told its readers that his nomination

had “startled many Washington observers.” The article explained:

Other than the fact that his father is a signal maintenance man on the New York City 

subway, Herringer has virtually no transportation experience. As part of the Administration 

team that must race to fashion legislation allowing cities to use highway funds for mass 

transit, Herringer will step from obscurity into the Capitol Hill equivalent of a barroom 

brawl.

Last year, an Administration-backed proposal to tap $800-million of the heretofore inviolate 

$5-billion Highway Trust Fund for urban mass tranit sparked a bitter battle, pitting 

environmentalists and urban-oriented rapid transit forces against the powerful coalition of 

roadbuilders, oil companies, and motor carriers that make up the highway lobby. 

Now, even with the States running out of highway funds, “neither mass-transit nor highway forces 

[are] showing any willingness to compromise.” It would be a stern test for the new Administrator:

Characteristically, Herringer dismisses the problem with the insouciance of a young man 

accustomed to victories. The highway battle will be a tough fight, he concedes. “But I’ll 

have some help,” Herringer smiles. “Last year, we just ran out of time.”
609 

That battle aside, Herringer will find “problems aplenty” at UMTA, not least being “surrounded by 

the outstretched hands of big-city mayors, who must combat increasing congestion and air pollution 

problems with crumbling, debt-ridden transit systems.” In addition, he wanted to examine UMTA’s 

priorities:

One of the first tasks ahead of Herringer will be establishing a clear order of priorities for 

UMTA, which has been dispensing its grants both to bus systems and to the more expensive 

rail systems. “My principal responsibility will be to determine how much money we should 

be spending on urban mass transit,” he says. “I [also] want to take a hard look at all our 

R&D, to make sure it is wanted and needed by our consumers. My training and whole 

outlook say, ‘Let’s get a sense of the long-range plan, then make sure everything we do is 

compatible with it.’ And I get the feeling that everything that is going on at UMTA is a

response to events of the day.” 

Herringer’s White House boss, Malek, had a reputation as a strong partisan (“a hard-nosed hatchet 

man”) not only for the reelection of the President but the plan to disperse Nixon loyalists to Federal 

agencies to thwart independent agency heads and bureaucratic obstruction. Herringer denied having 

any role in Malek’s partisan activities. His job had been “placing people in slots.” He told 

Business Week, “I’ve never gone to an Under Secretary’s office and told him to clear out by 5 

o’clock. And I wouldn’t characterize myself as a housecleaner or hatchet man.” He planned to be 

more concerned with, as the article put it, “seeing that commuter trains—rather than heads—

manage to roll.” Herringer said, “I plan to be very accessible, especially now that I’m trying to get 

the total picture at UMTA. I want to get to the cities and see mass transit first-hand, and I plan to 

meet with industry.”

The article concluded:

Herringer, who lives with his wife in Fairfax, Va., is embarrassingly forced to reflect on the 

urban dilemma every morning from behind the wheel of his car. “Yes, I drive to work,” he 

admits. “I hate it, but it’s indicative of our transit situation.” [“His Job: To Push Urban 

Transit,” Business Week, February 17, 1973] 

Urban Mass Transportation Act Hearing

On March 21 and 22, the House Subcommittee on Urban Mass Transportation, Committee on 

Banking and Currency, held a hearing to consider the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 

1973. Representative Joseph G. Minish (D-NJ), a former labor organizer and long time resident of 

West Orange in northeastern New Jersey, was the chairman. He explained that the committee had 

established this subcommittee “to highlight the importance with which we as members of the 

Banking and Currency Committee view the whole matter of urban mass transportation.” 

The hearing, the new subcommittee’s first, was being held to consider several mass transportation 

bills. Representative Minish had introduced the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973 

(H.R. 5424) containing the transit provisions from “last year’s housing bill which the House never 

had an opportunity to consider.” The act included $400,000 a year for operating subsidies, a $3-
610 

billion increase in UMTA grant funds, and a prohibition on grants for school buses. The hearing 

also would consider the Administration’s proposals to amend the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 

1964. The Administration bill (H.R. 5919) included the $3-billion increase, changed the Federal 

share to 70 percent, funded a training program “to provide fellowships for training of personnel 

employed in managerial, technical, and professional positions in the urban mass transportation 

field,” and several technical amendments. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, 

Hearings on H.R. 5424 and H.R. 5919, Subcommittee on Urban Mass Transportation, Committee 

on Banking and Currency, House of Representatives, Committee Print 93-384, March 21 and 22, 

1973, p. 1-5) 

The first witness on March 21 was Dr. Ronan. He complimented the committee on the creation of 

the new subcommittee, which he was sure would result in “a greater congressional commitment to 

the proposition that improving the health of our metropolitan regions and their urban public 

transportation systems is indispensable to the national interest.” He supported the Administration’s 

proposed increase in UMTA funds for capital grants and recommended increasing the Federal share 

to at least 80 percent, rather than 70 percent as Secretary Brinegar had proposed. He supported S. 

502, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, with its transit provisions. 

Transit systems across the country were making “heroic efforts” to help urban public transportation 

systems pay their operating and maintenance expenses. “The day is past for expecting local transit 

systems to be able to operate out of the farebox.” The Federal Government “can and must play a 

role in helping to stabilize transit finances.” He supported the Minish bill and S. 502 and said he 

was “greatly encouraged by the widespread support which these bills have garnered for this is 

indicative of a national awareness that the Federal interest is well served by their intent.” 

He acknowledged that “roughly one-third” of the funds from the Minish bill for operating subsidies 

would go to the tri-State area surrounding New York City, including Minish’s New Jersey, but said: 

If we look at it, realistically, I think a more modern approach as meeting a regional need 

wherever that may be is indicated. In some parts of the country, a metropolitan region is 

totally within one State and in other areas it may be an interstate region. In the New York 

area and some other areas, we have tristate metropolitan regions. We really ought to look at 

it in this way.

Now, I would also observe that many other areas of Federal assistance do not have a 

limitation based on State boundaries. In other words, the aid to agriculture is not limited to 

a certain percentage of people within the State or farm communities within the State.

Dr. Ronan also endorsed the Muskie-Baker amendment in S. 502 because it made “meaningful 

sums of moneys” available that State and local communities could use for “projects involving rail 

transit, buses, new technology, or highways—which best suits local needs at local option.” Urban 

Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 7-9] 

Carmack Cochran addressed the committee on behalf of the American Transit Association. He 

appreciated the important steps taken since passage of the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance 
611 

Act of 1970, but now, he said, “is the time to reassess, to reevaluate, and to reorder priorities.” The 

foremost goal “must be the guaranteed financial stability of urban transportation.” The debate over 

operating subsidies was now in its third year, with the delay signifying “that there is an unlimited 

capacity [on] the part of the money spenders to think up new reasons for not making good on a 

broad commitment to transit.” The industry should be thought of as a “public service” since anyone 

thinking of investing in it “would be better advised to speculate elsewhere.” Only the Federal 

Government had the resources to provide the needed assistance. 

He addressed some of the arguments against Federal operating subsidies, including the idea that it 

would to be “a case of pouring public funds down a rathole.” He argued that subsidies “can indeed 

breed incentives, improve service, lower fares, reduce the number of automobiles congesting our 

streets and polluting the air.” Atlanta, he said, was an example of how subsidies can increase 

ridership. 

To those who say that localities can use General Revenue Sharing for operating subsidies, he 

replied that a survey of 1,000 transit systems revealed that only five cities had used the funds for 

this purpose (Detroit, Little Rock, New York, Terre Haute, and Wichita). A major reason was that 

“only 25 percent of all the publicly owned transit systems are within city departments supported by 

funds from the regular city budget, and are thereby the beneficiaries of General Revenue Sharing

payments.” Further, many localities simply choose to use the funds on other activities. 

“A Federal program, then, is needed to assist the cities in continuing present service innovations 

and to provide the incentive to other cities to institute public transit programs.” Time was of the 

essence. “Fares across the country are breaking the 50-cent barrier and the reaction of the riding 

public is predictable. Those that can, will ride, one to a car, and jam our downtown parking and 

highways even more.” [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 26-29] 

ARBA’s Daniel J. Hanson also testified. Although ARBA was primarily an association of road 

contractors, its constitution cited “other forms of transportation facilities, including urban mass 

transportation vehicles.” He said that Federal grants were more effective when “directed toward 

clearly defined objectives.” Federal-aid highway funds met this goal by being restricted to capital 

improvements, not for maintenance or operation. Given the needs in this area, ARBA supported 

increasing the Federal share from the traditional 50 percent to 70 percent for Federal-aid highway 

projects and supported the increase to 80 percent for mass transit projects under Chairman Minish’s 

bill. 

He strongly supported Federal-aid highway funding for highway-oriented transit activities, but “we 

are opposed to the use of highway funds for the purchase of equipment, either buses or rail transit 

vehicles, and for the construction of such facilities.” He explained: 

We believe that there is a principle involved and that the Federal aid program should be 

clearly defined in structure and in meaning and [that] overlapping and duplication of 

programs should be avoided. Under the terms of the Senate bill, local transportation 

authorities would, I am sure, go shopping around for the best buy in Federal urban mass 

transportation grants. 
612 

The advantages of using the so-called title II urban mass transit funds [the Emergency 

Commuter Relief Act] would be considered against other provisions for financing from the 

Federal level. I think this is the precise kind of problem that has confronted us in the past in 

regard to overlapping and receipt of complaints from local officials. 

He encouraged consideration of a trust fund for transit to put it on the same footing as highways and 

airports. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 74-76] 

Baltimore’s Mayor Schaefer appeared on behalf of the National League of Cities and the U.S. 

Conference of Mayors. “It is our position that the preservation of public transportation in our cities 

cannot be met solely by State and local financial resources, but requires a substantial commitment 

from the Federal Government.” The additional assistance for capital grants was vitally needed. 

The proposed Federal-State matching ratio of 80-20 should be mandatory instead of discretionary. 

He also stressed the importance of the proposed operating subsidy of $800 million over 2 years. 

“At present, transit fares have reached that point in a geometric progression where each new 

mandated rise and concurrent service cut will drive away more and more riders.” His own city of 

Baltimore had been operating its transit system in the black but was about to slip into the red. 

Cities had many needs and limited budgets. “We are being innovative and creative, but our 

resources are clearly limited. Moreover, we cannot stretch revenue sharing to cover everything.” 

Baltimore, he said, was a rebuilding city with a strong commitment to mass transit. It must be 

adequately financed. “To partially finance it places us in a position where we accomplish little.” 

An analysis of ridership around the country made clear that: 

If we do not have the subsidy, the rate continues to increase to a point where it is impossible 

for people . . . they can’t pay the fare, then we are defeating our purpose. So in addition to 

having adequate funding for capital programs we must have the operating assistance to keep 

the fare within reason. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 132-134] 

Commissioner Schuler of the New York testified that “there is almost universal agreement [that] 

operating assistance is an absolute requirement for the continuation of what public transit we have.” 

 What was at issue was the role of the Federal Government, which traditionally shied away from 

operating subsidies “which may turn into ‘rat holes.’” He argued in favor of Federal assistance:

If, indeed, it was proposed to simply make up transit operating losses, the “rat hole” 

argument would be valid. But if ridership is the key, if the program builds in incentives for 

better service, increased ridership, and equitable fares we can have a positive program . . . . 

I believe a case can be made for Federal operating assistance for urban public transportation 

on the basis of its role in helping urban centers maintain economic health, which in turn 

affect [sic] the health of the Nation. If price-support programs to maintain the well-being of 

farmers are in the national interest, operating support for urban transit is also in the national 

interest. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 147] 
613 

On March 22, UMTA Administrator Herringer was the first witness. He began by summarizing the 

mass transit provisions of the bill Secretary Brinegar had released on February 21: 

First, to increase the authorization to incur obligations from $3.1 billion to $6.1 billion . . . . 

Second, the administration recommends increasing the maximum Federal share of capital 

grants and technical studies from two-thirds of the project’s cost to 70 percent of project 

costs . . . . 

In addition to increasing the authorization and the Federal share, the administration’s 

proposed bill would clarify the scope of technical study activities and eliminate restrictions 

on the number and type of managerial training grants, making the program a much more 

effective tool for improving the management and operation of mass transportation. 

He also commented on the bill Representative Minish had introduced. Under H.R. 5424, the 

Secretary would be able to make grants or loans of $400 million a year for 2 years for operating 

costs provided the applicant submitted and the Secretary approved a comprehensive mass 

transportation capital and service improvement plan. Herringer did not question the seriousness of 

the struggle to cope with rising costs but could not “accept that the proper Federal role is to provide 

operating subsidies.” He explained: 

The dilemma we are faced with is that on the one hand for the Federal Government to 

allocate operating subsidies without setting standards and controls would provide absolutely 

no assurance that the moneys were being used effectively—while on the other hand to 

establish controls and standards at the Federal level would require that we involve ourselves 

in making local decisions that we are not competent to make. 

For example, H.R. 5424 would require the Secretary to determine whether a local plan would 

provide efficient, economical, and convenient mass transportation service and would place 

operations on a sound financial basis. Such a determination “would immerse the Federal 

Government in myriad local issues relating to such matters as fare levels and fare structures, 

maintenance standards, management practices, labor work rules and practices, and the like.” Even 

with an expanded bureaucracy, UMTA “would not be in a position to make these local tradeoffs for 

each and every system,” which he estimated totaled between 500 and 1,000. “Who are we,” he 

asked, “to tell New York City or Boston or any other city what fare it should charge?” 

Adding the Federal Government to the determination of fares, routes, wages, and other 

characteristics “will not provide answers.” Instead, he said: 

In fact, it may allow local authorities to avoid taking the tough, non-monetary steps, such as 

traffic regulations, pricing of parking facilities, and the like, which are absolutely essential. 

Instead, what we will probably be faced with is a continually accelerating demand for 

greater and greater subsidies, without producing real improvements. [Urban Mass 

Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 89-91] 
614 

The questions for Herringer covered many aspects of UMTA’s programs but some focused on the 

key issues raised during consideration of the highway legislation. Representative Koch said he was 

“really sorry” that Herringer had opposed operating subsidies. “It is hard for me to really 

understand that.” He asked if Herringer agreed that “you simply cannot pay the cost of operating 

the subways and the commuter lines out of the fare box.” Herringer could not say that. “I would 

say that many cities have decided that the priority is to lower fares and, therefore, incur an operating 

deficit for the purpose of getting more people on mass transit.” 

Regarding the concern about having to establish a bureaucracy, Koch said that would not be 

needed, at least under the bill passed in 1972: “That bill provided in its formula that a mass transit 

facility would receive a subsidy based on the number of fare passengers carried.” This would 

establish a competition among the systems. “Isn’t the competitive aspect there something you want 

to encourage to upgrade mass transit?” 

Herringer explained that the bill provided for a formula allocation of funds, but only after the local 

body had submitted a plan and the Secretary approved it as putting the system “on a sound financial 

basis, whatever that means.” He continued: 

We would have to get in and evaluate this plan. How are we going to decide whether New 

York and Atlanta will be on a sound financial basis? What does that mean? Does that 

mean because New York’s labor costs may be 80 percent and Atlanta’s may be 60 percent, 

that one is and one is not on a sound financial basis? There are many problems.

Representative Koch said that “with all of the talent” in UMTA, he was confident it could make 

such evaluations. Herringer replied, “I appreciate your confidence in the Urban Mass 

Transportation Administration, but I don’t think we are competent to do that.” [Urban Mass 

Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 103-104] 

Representative Steward B. McKinney (R-Ct.) also wanted to talk about operating subsidies. He 

encouraged Herringer to read a book called Is Your Volkswagen a Sex Symbol? (Jean Rosenbaum, 

M.D., Hawthorn Books, 1972). He summarized the book as saying: 

The American people are in love with the automobile. The love affair is beginning to cool 

quickly. They don’t run, they don’t get any gas mileage, gasoline is going to increase in cost 

dramatically, probably double or triple over the next 10 years, people are going to find out it 

costs more to drive their car to work than it does to get there by any other means. 

The alternative is just as bad. “We have insulted the America people with public transportation 

over the last 30 years that anyone with an ounce of dignity finds it very difficult to find an excuse to 

ride on it.” To get people out of their cars, “you have got to have a system that is running and 

sustaining its cost and educate people slowly to the fact that, gee it is going to run on time, my 

goodness the air conditioning does work. Gee, it doesn’t take any longer now than it did in 1947.” 

He asked how Herringer would feel about a subsidy limited to 3 years “to educate your people to let 

them know that, yes, you do have a system that works.” 
615 

As a daily commuter for 3 years on the New Haven Railroad, Herringer said he understood the 

problems Representative McKinney was describing in Connecticut. He could not, however, 

support a temporary subsidy. One problem was that he did not believe the subsidy would be 

temporary. “I think the pressures would be such it would be very hard to limit it to 2 years or 3 

years because everyone would be back asking for more in 2 or 3 years.” Further, what guarantee 

was there that during the temporary period, urban mass transportation would improve to the extent 

that it would convince people to use it instead of their automobiles? He pointed out that some 

localities had put a surtax on gasoline to pay for mass transportation, citing Atlanta and California. 

(A few years earlier, journalist Anthony Bailey had offered this faint praise for the New Haven 

Railroad:

[The] poor railroad’s passenger traffic problems are so tediously familiar that one is liable to 

forget that even the New Haven Railroad in its present bankrupt state, carries passengers to 

the towns on its tracks as fast as a car. Moreover, despite its extravagantly over- or 

underheated cars; its dry, overpriced sandwiches; its wet, overpriced omelettes; its dusty, 

collapsing seats; and thermopane windows turned into seasick-inducing chambers by a rock 

that has been thrown by a vandal and a railroad-carwashing machine which half filled the 

window with water—despite all this it sometimes allows one to read, eat, or sleep en route. 

[Bailey, Anthony, Through the Great City, The Macmillan Company, 1967, p. 13-14]) 

Representative McKinney pointed out that such a tax might work for a city, but in a megalopolis 

such as Washington, with its ties to Maryland and Virginia, or Connecticut with its links to New 

York City, “we have a tough time just deciding on what color upholstery is going to go in the cars,” 

yet alone how to increase revenue. Herringer pointed out that: 

The institutional problems are great and are a whole different set of problems from the 

operating subsidy problem. You would still have the institutional problems with an 

operating subsidy. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 105-106] 

(Dr. Rosenbaum’s book explored the psychological forces that cause people to select a car, pet, 

home, and other items. The chapter on the automobile began: 

Instead of the eagle, the national symbol of the United States should be the automobile, for 

the nation has become the land of pistons and the home of horsepower. 

(She attributed the success of the automobile to several factors. For example:

The automobile is the number-one answer for the lazy man who lives within nearly all of us. 

This lazy man, who has little or no regard for the muscular or motor functions of the body, 

is the reason we continually look for easier ways of doing things. The automobile not only 

has catered to that laziness but in some ways has strengthened it. 

(The automobile also is a symbol. “Owning and driving a car are a sign of adulthood, though not 

necessarily a sign of mature and responsible adulthood.” 
616 

(Dr. Rosenbaum assigned “the biggest psychological basis and compensation for owning an 

automobile” to the fact that “the automobile has become an extension of the individual personality.” 

 She continued, “It has become the means by which man is able to actively express his wishes for 

power and mastery over nature.” Beyond those factors, she called the automobile “the most 

common sex symbol in our modern society. It is identified with sexual ability and physical sexual 

characteristics.”

(These forces played out in our choice of automobile. “There are psychological reasons for 

choosing the automobile you do, and your choice of car may reflect exhibitionism, inferiority, 

family loyalty, delusions of grandeur, and other personality traits.” Gender and marital status also 

affected selection. Women, Dr. Rosenbaum said, are more interested in style, color, consumer 

ratings, and convenience of handling than men: 

They also make inquiries about the performance of an automobile from relatives, friends, 

and the salesman. They are more willing to be guided in their selection. Women are 

probably shrewder buyers because they are less swayed by horsepower and nonessential 

accessories. They are accustomed to bargain hunting and are interested in getting the most 

for their money. 

(As for the Volkswagen cited in the title, Dr. Rosenbaum says that its buyers were a special group: 

When you buy a Volkswagen, you don’t just get a car; you also acquire a lot of friends—

other Volkswagen owners. The Volkswagen is a way of life. More than that, it is a 

declaration of a certain attitude toward life and society. The Volkswagen owner is saying 

that he is concerned about economics, air pollution, and good craftsmanship. Volkswagen 

owners include students, professional people, and executives as well as a large number of 

older retired persons who appreciate economy and ease of handling. Creativity marks the 

Volkswagen owners. They usually take an intellectual and rational view of life. They are 

individualists. A Volkswagen owner is almost fiercely loyal to his “bug” and does not 

harbor secret wishes to own a Cadillac, a Thunderbird, or a Continental. 

(She acknowledged another personality trait: 

Although it is difficult to ignore the automobile, some people try to and do, to an extent, 

succeed in organizing their life-style in at least a semi-nonautomotive pattern . . . . Because 

of the psychological and sociological implications surrounding them, automobiles have 

become particular objects of disdain. 

It has even become the “in” thing among some intellectuals to adopt a pseudoprimitivism 

and denigrate the place of automobiles in modern life. There is a big scrap heap in these 

people’s minds to which they consign automobiles, television sets, and elaborate and (to 

them) unnecessary household appliances and gadgets. 

(These people aside, “no subculture has been so strong or exerted so much influence as the 

automobile subculture.” As she explained in the chapter’s conclusion: 
617 

Air pollution problems may cause technical and mechanical modifications to be made in 

automobiles, and restrictions may be placed on when and where they may be driven, but the 

automobile as a symbol of aggression and sexual power will only be challenged when our 

society itself and our social structure are changed. [Rosenbaum, p. 1-26]) 

Representative Andrew Young (D-Ga.), an African-American who had emerged from the civil 

rights movement and was serving his first term in the House, began by saying, “I am so glad to see 

that there is at least something that comes from this administration that I can wholeheartedly say 

amen to and I was very pleased with your presentation . . . .” He continued: 

[I] would just like to say that our experience in Atlanta has been that not only does mass 

transit provide transportation but it really has provided an economical boom for the entire 

metropolitan area. When UMTA committed itself to a billion, when we together committed 

ourselves to $1,400,000,000 for a transportation system, what we found in the first year after 

that commitment was that there was almost $4 billion of private sector money committed to 

the central city area, and I can see this program as the basis of saving metropolitan America 

. . . . I think the viability of our cities pretty nearly revolves around our ability to solve the 

transportation problems. 

He asked, “let me understand that you don’t have any problem with Atlanta, say, subsidizing, 

providing an operating subsidy as part of its local share?” He explained that a sales tax was the 

basis for the subsidy. Herringer clarified that: 

No, the operating subsidy is separate, we require right now one-third local share on our 

capital grants. That is a straight local contribution to the capital cost of the project. 

Operating subsidy provided locally is separate and in addition to that. 

Representative Young said he had not realized the distinction. He pointed out that he and his 

Atlanta constituents were concerned “that the opening of the trust fund might mean that there would 

be a tendency not to fund the UMTA Act to the full extent . . . .” Herringer reassured him by saying 

“that is one of the reasons why we are strongly pushing the extra $3 billion in contract authority to 

assume [sic] the cities that we are not considering this flexibility in the urban system fund as a 

substitute for the UMTA capital grant program.” [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 

1973, p. 107] 

(The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transportation Authority (MARTA) was developing a 48-mile 

rail transit system financed by a 1-percent sales tax. The referendum approving the sales tax 

increase was accepted by African-Americans in the city in return for a pledge to operate the system 

as a subsidized public service, like a police or fire department, and to keep fares low rather than on 

a pay-as-you-go basis. In February 1972, MARTA purchased the area’s primary bus company, 

which served mostly African-Americans, and promptly reduced fares from 40 cents to 15 cents a 

ride. Ridership increased by 21 percent in the first year, during which the buses carried 11.5 

million more passengers than in the previous year. This immediate impact of the decrease in fare 

caught the attention of transit supporters around the country. Construction of the MARTA rail 

system began in 1975, with the first segment opening on June 30, 1979. [“MARTA’s Past and 
618 

Future,” Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transportation Authority, http://www.itsmarta.com/martapast-and-future.aspx] 

(Voters in Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, and DeKalb County approved the referendum, 

but voters in Clayton and Gwinnett Counties turned it down in an apparent attempt to preserve their 

suburbs for white residents in an era when open housing laws were still controversial and school 

busing demands had helped fuel “white flight” out of Atlanta. The failure to extend MARTA into 

these suburban areas reduced its effectiveness as a solution to regional transportation problems. 

[Allen, Frederick, Atlanta Rising: The Invention of an International City 1946-1996, Longstreet 

Press, Inc., 1996, p. 224-226]) 

Representative John Joseph Moakley (D-Ma.), who was a lawyer, former State legislator, and 

member of the Boston City Council serving his first term in the House, said that Herringer’s 

opposition to subsidies “bothers me just a little bit,” as it had Representative Koch. Providing 

capital grants to build and improve urban mass transportation but not operating subsidies was “like 

putting a person in business and saying we are not going to give you any capital to operate with.” 

He wondered if Herringer opposed operating subsidies because a bill authorizing them could not be 

approved. Herringer assured him that the practical political consideration was not a factor. The 

Nixon Administration opposed operating subsidies “because we just do not feel that that is a proper 

Federal role.” He emphasized that he did not quarrel with State or local governments that decide to 

operate the systems with a deficit to keep fares low enough to attract more riders. “But what we are 

saying is the Federal Government is not the proper subsidizing organization for all of the reasons 

that I have mentioned.” 

As for the analogy offered by Representative Moakley, Herringer responded “that we don’t give 

people the buses or the trains without being assured by them, as part of our capital grant guidelines 

system, that the funding is there to support the operations of that system for a 5- or 10-year period.” 

The systems have assured UMTA that if a deficit occurs, they will be covered. [Urban Mass 

Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 108-109] 

Representative Tom S. Gettys (R-SC) asked Herringer if diverting Highway Trust Fund revenue to 

mass transportation was a “violation” of trust? Herringer replied, “I certainly support the 

administration position of flexibility in the urban systems portion of the highway trust fund.” But, 

Representative Gettys asked, was there “any moral obligation for us to abide by what appears to be 

sort of a contract with the American people in the highway trust fund?” Herringer pointed out that 

highway user taxes existed prior to 1956 when the decision was made to dedicate them to the 

highway program. In recent years, “we have seen the fund gradually being expanded, the use of 

funds being expanded to include parking lots, exclusive bus lanes, and even one ferryboat has been 

purchased under the fund.” He concluded that diversion would be seen “not as a violation of the 

fund, but as a natural extension of the evolution of the fund to meet the needs of today.” 

Mr. Gettys. You feel that that is a proper approach to obtaining money for the mass transit 

conception rather than getting a new source of funds. 

Mr. Herringer. Well— 

Mr. Gettys. Just out of the general treasury, maybe. 
619 

Mr. Herringer. Mr. Gettys, we are not, as I understand the provision, we are not getting 

additional funds for mass transportation. All we are doing is allowing the cities to decide 

whether they wish to use that portion, that 20 percent of the highway trust fund which is 

apportioned for use in urbanized areas for mass transportation or for highways. 

Mr. Gettys. Then, in other words, you are not giving more money or less money, it is going 

to be a local determination as to the use of the money. 

Mr. Herringer. That is correct. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 

110] 

Representative Minish asked Herringer about a statement by Secretary Volpe in the 1972 National 

Transportation Needs report saying that the Department supported making revenue available to 

State and local governments “for general public purposes or for the general transportation purposes, 

including operating subsidies . . . .” Herringer pointed out that the statement was in reference to 

General Revenue Sharing, which could be used for operating subsidies or any other purpose at the 

discretion of State or local officials. He thought perhaps it also was referring to Special Revenue 

Sharing for Transportation, but that bill had not “progressed very far in Congress.” Representative 

Minish was not satisfied with the answer, but said: 

It is kind of stretching it a little but I can’t argued [sic] with what you want to say. Let me 

say this. You are the only one of 11 witnesses that appeared here yesterday who opposed it 

and you probably will be the last. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 

111] 

Representative Garry Brown (R-Mi.) asked if the revenue from the Highway Trust Fund went 

entirely for capital improvements, not operating subsidies. Herringer agreed. Did the Federal 

Government once subsidize operational expenses of the airlines and still subsidized commuter 

airlines? Herringer confessed he was not an expert on all operating subsidies, but he believed that 

Representative Brown was correct. Was funding under the Urban Mass Transportation Act 

restricted to capital projects? “That I do know.” 

Admitting that he was “jumping around,” Representative Brown turned to Special Revenue Sharing 

for Transportation: 

Mr. Brown. If you fold those all together, which are all capital moneys, how do you come 

out under special transportation revenue sharing with operating expenses? 

Mr. Herringer. I am not familiar with the specific provisions of the special transportation 

revenue sharing proposal. 

Mr. Brown. Let me ask you. Is the administration still considering the special revenue 

transportation package? 

Mr. Herringer. I don’t think so. As I understand it, after we proposed it, it didn’t really get 

very far in Congress and we have pursued other avenues since then. 

After once again asking Herringer to confirm that he opposed Federal funds for operating subsidies, 

Representative Brown concluded his questioning. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 

1973, p. 111-112] 
620 

Representative Koch used his next turn to ask about the philosophy of whether the Federal 

Government should be involved in operating subsidies. He asked if that philosophy applied only to 

transit or was it a “general philosophical approach that you draw distinctions that operating 

subsidies are evil and capital subsidies are angelic?” Herringer would not phrase it that way, but 

said “that as a general philosophical tenet of this administration we believe in a minimum of 

interference by the Federal Government in local matters and operating subsidies of transit would 

require us to get involved in local matters therefore, we oppose operating subsidies.” 

Koch pointed out that the Federal Government provides subsidies to farms not to operate and for 

low-income housing. “Do you find a problem with that?” Herringer replied that sometimes, 

“perhaps subsidies are the only way to handle the problem.” 

Koch pursued this line of argument: 

It seems to me that the automobile owner gets a double subsidy, that is, the subsidy from the 

highway trust fund and the subsidy he receives at the end of the year by deducting the 

gasoline tax from his tax return and the interest paid on his automobile loan. Isn’t that a 

subsidy that I as a nonautomobile-owning citizen of this country am in fact paying? Do you 

object to that?

Herringer replied that, “I certainly don’t want to be put in the position of defending the 

automobile.” He continued: 

I think that we have given the automobile a great deal of freedom in this country and it is 

about time we started rearranging our priorities. In terms of the specifics you just 

mentioned, I would have to think about it. The automobile owner is paying a tax once on 

his gasoline and he is deducting that tax as we all deduct taxes for real estate and other local 

taxes. So perhaps that is not a good example of a subsidy of the automobile owner. 

Representative Koch’s question time expired. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, 

p. 113-114] 

Representative McKinney wanted to return to his idea of a temporary subsidy. “What if we were to 

have a 3-year subsidy program for new transit systems which would say that the Federal 

Government would pay 75 percent of the deficit the first year, 50 percent of the deficit the second 

year, 25 percent of the deficit the third year, and that is it.” By then, he reasoned, “local 

enthusiasm” for the system would give it the “political clout” to have the local government provide 

the subsidy if still needed. Citing the example of Atlanta, Herringer responded that, “If more local 

areas would have the foresight and would understand . . . what mass transportation could bring to 

their area, they themselves would make it a priority.”

Representative McKinney replied that Atlanta was “an enormous area,” in contrast with his 

hometown of Bridgeport, Connecticut, which was just one town among many. The issue was not 

that simplistic because “you can’t run the buses to the edge of Bridgeport and stop.” That was, 

Herringer said, where the State role comes in. He cited the example of California, which “has 
621 

passed an increase in the tax on gasoline which goes solely to supporting mass transportation.” 

[Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 114-115] 

(On February 12, 1973, Representative Koch, age 48, had announced that he would seek the 

Democratic nomination for Mayor of New York City, with crime as the number one issue. At a 

news conference in the Hotel Biltmore, he declared, “Overriding all is the paramount problem of 

crime—crime on our streets, crime in our schools, crime within our government.” He called for 

mandatory jail terms for those who committed violent crimes. “I believe that people who are 

convicted of violent crime have got to go to jail and if they happen to be drug addicts, you treat 

their addiction but you treat it in jail, not in neighborhood clinics from which 7,000 addicts are 

missing.” 

(His tough-on-crime tactics alienated his liberal supporters without gaining support from 

conservatives. On March 28, he announced he was abandoning the race, having had difficulty 

raising campaign funds. [Lynn, Frank, “Koch Enters Race for Mayor; Declares Crime is Main 

Issue,” The New York Times, February 13, 1973; Carroll, Maurice, “Koch Abandons Mayoral Race, 

Citing Trouble in Raising Funds,” The New York Times, March 29, 1973] City Comptroller 

Abraham D. Beame would win the nomination and general election, becoming Mayor on January 1, 

1974.) 

The Senate’s Highway Safety Act of 1973 

Senator Bentsen introduced the Highway Safety Act of 1973, S. 893, on February 19 “to continue 

the efforts of the Federal Government to reduce the continuing death and injury that takes place on 

our country’s roads.” He had decided to introduce the measure separately from the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act because “I believe that highway safety requires the separate and undivided attention 

of the Subcommittee on Roads and the Committee on Public Works, as well as the Senate.” He 

was concerned that “matters of great importance” in the safety bill “could become obscured if they 

are part of a highway construction bill that becomes as controversial as it did last year.” 

The bill would authorize $500 million a year (FYs 1974-1975) from the Highway Trust Fund for 

highway safety, significantly more than the $289 million a year in the President’s budget. “This use 

of trust fund revenues reflects my conviction that highway safety is an integral part of the total 

highway program and that its support from user revenues is fully justified and desirable.” He 

added: 

The highway trust fund has facilitated the construction of the world’s most advanced 

highway system, and it should be utilized to make this the world’s safest highway system.

Senator Bentsen explained that the bill differed somewhat from the safety measures in the FederalAid Highway Act of 1972. He had reduced the number of categorical programs while still 

addressing “the essential activities” in broader authorizations. He highlighted several significant 

changes:
622 

• For the highway safety programs under 23 U.S.C. 402, the bill authorized $150 million a 

year (FYs 1974-1975) for NHTSA and $85 million a year for FHWA. For highway safety 

research and development under 23 U.S.C. 403, the bill authorized $50 million a year for 

NHTSA and $15 million for FHWA. (For Section 402, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1970 had authorized $75 million (FY 1972) and $100 million (FY 1973) for NHTSA and 

$30 million a year for FHWA. For Section 403, the 1970 Act had authorized $70 million 

(FY 1973) and $115 million (FY 1974) for NHTSA and $10 million a year for FHWA). 

• The bill authorized $10 million a year for the Secretary of Transportation to award in grants 

“to States which the Secretary determines have achieved above-average results in highway 

safety.”

• It authorized $100 million a year for elimination of hazards at railroad-highway grade 

crossings. “The time,” he said, “is long overdue to begin eliminating the thousands of grade 

crossings in our country.” The Federal share would be two-thirds for projects on a Federalaid system, one-third off the systems. 

• Senator Bentsen continued the bridge reconstruction and replacement program, established 

by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970, at $100 million a year. He expanded the program 

to include deficient bridges off the Federal-aid systems. The Federal share of projects on 

the Federal-aid system would be two-thirds, but one-third for off-system projects. 

• The bill broadened the State-administered highway safety program to include Indian Tribes. 

 “Highway safety is as serious a problem on Indian reservations as it is elsewhere, but 

existing statutes do not permit the same type of safety programs to be carried out on Indian 

reservations as are conducted by the States.

• Future highway safety standards would require States to prohibit motor vehicle operators 

from driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquors, narcotics, or drugs, and to 

provide effective enforcement and appropriate penalties that would constitute a meaningful 

deterrent.

• The Secretary’s discretionary authority to suspend use of 10 percent of Federal-aid highway 

funds for States not implementing a highway safety program would become mandatory. 

• The Secretary would be authorized to carry out safety research, including research into the 

effects of drugs on motor vehicle operators. 

Senator Bentsen said the Highway Safety Act of 1973 was “a realistic bill, both as to program 

content and as to financing levels.” [Congressional Record, Senate, February 19, 1973, p. S 2660-

2663] 

The Subcommittee on Transportation held hearings on the Highway Safety Act of 1973 on March 

13 and 14. James E. Wilson, NHTSA’s Acting Administrator, was the first witness. Wilson, who 

was NHTSA’s Associate Administrator for Traffic Safety Programs, “heartily” supported the 

decision to authorize S. 893 entirely from the Highway Trust Fund. “We, too, believe that the cost 

of insuring the safe operation of highway transportation is properly considered an integral part of 

the cost of highway transportation.” 

Wilson summarized the thrust of S. 893 as being “to continue the existing programs under section 

402 and 403 of the act and to provide significantly increased authorizations for those programs.” 

Although the Department’s proposal in 1972 had called for an authorization of $150 million for 
623 

Section 402 in FY 1974, he now recommended holding off on the increase at least 1 year in view of 

“the current limitations” of the Section 402 program: 

The States had made progress, but “we lack any substantial certainty as to how to design effective 

countermeasures except for a few aspects of the highway safety problem.” Target groups that 

contribute disproportionately to highway deaths and injuries had been identified, namely the young, 

elderly, drunken and “habitually or flagrantly negligent,” but “we have not yet developed and 

validated ways of cost-effectively reducing the roles of these groups.” He continued: 

It is one thing to provide the States with technical expertise, planning guidance, and seed 

money for the implementation of highway safety programs. It is quite another to provide 

substantial funds in the expectation of money alone making a significant impact upon the 

highway safety problem. The latter approach assumes the existence of a funding delivery 

system and a level of expert knowledge adequate to identify and concentrate efforts upon 

highly cost-effective countermeasures. It also assumes that the States have the will to take 

the tough measures necessary to reduce deaths and injuries.

Identifying cost-effective safety measures would “maximize the catalytic potential of the funds by 

promoting innovation and the establishment of institutionalized and specially-adapted capabilities 

for dealing effectively with the target groups.” Providing too much funding before then would 

“perpetuate dependence upon Federal funding” and subsidize “improvident use of limited 

resources.”

Wilson also questioned the need to change current requirements on penalties available to the 

Secretary:

[The] Secretary’s flexibility in securing State compliance should not be restricted. In most 

cases, direct negotiation and the suggestion of the possible necessity for invoking the 

penalty have been sufficient to persuade the States to take appropriate corrective measures. 

He said the Department would submit legislative proposals for highway safety that would facilitate 

efforts by NHTSA’s multidisciplinary crash investigation teams to encourage parties to provide 

information for research; prohibit the use of statements made to research teams and crash reports as 

evidence in court; and urge the States to adopt voluntarily laws requiring the use of safety belts. 

[Highway Safety Act of 1973, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Transportation, Committee on 

Public Works, United States Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, Serial No. 93-H5, March 13 and 14, 

1973, p. 26-31] 

(In September 1969, Secretary Volpe selected Douglas W. Toms, director of the Washington State 

Department of Motor Vehicles, to serve as director of the National Highway Safety Bureau in 

FHWA. His arrival would be delayed because of illness in his family, but when the safety bureau 

left FHWA to become NHTSA in March 1970, Toms was its first Administrator. He stayed 

through President Nixon’s first term, but did not depart until April 1, 1973. He told reporters that 

his resignation had been accepted in January, but that finding a replacement had proven difficult. 

“It’s too hot a seat,” he explained. Referring to Ralph Nader and auto safety groups, he said they 
624 

“watch you like a hawk. There’s no way that you can satisfy all the needs and demands of that 

diverse group and I can never recall a situation where everyone liked our final finding.” 

[“Departing Traffic Safety Chief Says It’s Hard to Find Successor in ‘Hot Seat’,” The New York 

Times, April 2, 1973] 

(His successor, Dr. James B. Gregory, had worked for 21 years for Union Oil Company as a 

research chemist. He took the oath of office as Administrator on August 13, 1973. James E. 

Wilson was appointed Deputy Administrator. He took office in August 1973, but left NHTSA by 

the end of the year. 

(Gregory, an advocate for requiring airbags in automobiles, announced his resignation unexpectedly 

in February 1976. Despite initial rumors that he had resigned because of plans to delay requiring 

installation of airbags in new automobiles, he insisted he had resigned for “strictly personal” 

reasons. “You get up one morning and you’re worn out. You think maybe its time to lay this career 

to rest.” He said he would remain in office until the President appointed a successor. On June 9, 

Secretary Coleman announced that he would postpone his decision on airbags until January 1977; 

in December 1976, after former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia defeated President Ford’s

election bid, Coleman deferred the decision to the new Administration while calling on the industry 

to install airbags voluntarily. [Henry, Diane, “U.S. Traffic Safety Chief Quits as a Decision on Air 

Bags Nears,” The New York Times, February 27, 1976; Henry, Diane, “U.S. Delays Decision on 

Use of Auto Bags Till January,” The New York Times, June 10, 1976; Holsendolph, Ernest, 

“Coleman Puts Off Air-Bag Ruling; Proposes a Limited Voluntary Plan,” The New York Times, 

December 7, 1976]) 

Wilson was followed by Acting Administrator Bartelsmeyer who testified that while he agreed with 

the elimination of several safety programs that had been included in the 1972 legislation (Special 

Pavement Marking Program and the program to eliminate roadside obstacles), he did have some 

concerns. He favored broadening Federal programs through consolidation and letting States 

establish programs based on their own highway safety priorities. Funding separate programs for 

rail-highway crossing safety and bridge replacement “go fully in the opposite direction.” He also 

objected to funding ($25 million) for purchase of pavement marking equipment. “We do not 

believe that the outcome of such a categorical approach would result in a major increase in safety.”

He also said that expanding the bridge program to include bridges off the Federal-aid highway 

systems “would be a mistake.” He explained that “the reason for establishing Federal-aid systems 

was to insure that funds are concentrated where the most traffic is carried and where the largest 

payoffs exist.” With the Federal share increased to 70 percent, the proposed change “would make 

available a significant portion of the State funds for State roads not on any Federal-aid system.” 

Off-system bridges can best be accommodated by State safety programs.

Highway safety programs, Bartelsmeyer said, were still in their formative stages. Much experience 

had been gained, but “during its first 6 years the program has operated at relatively low funding 

levels.” He recommended against the funding increases in S. 893 until officials gained “a better 

understanding of the needs and priorities” for the safety program: 
625 

In summary, we think it is important to continue the highway safety programs in their 

present form for at least 2 more years, during which we will be conducting an intensive 

evaluation of the present program. 

If, after this intensive evaluation, we determine that statutory changes are necessary, we will 

request legislative authority with respect to the highway safety program. [Highway Safety 

Act of 1973, p. 36-39] 

John H. Reed, former Governor of Maine and now chairman of the National Transportation Safety

Board (NTSB) agreed about avoiding categorical programs such as pavement marking, bridge 

safety, and grade crossing elimination. The NTSB supported improvement in these areas, but 

favored “the administration’s approach of allowing the States maximum flexibility in selecting their 

own priorities.” Further, separate funding for the grade crossing program was premature while 

FHWA and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) were conducting an inventory of all grade 

crossings. 

Governor Reed also was concerned about establishing Federal standards in the areas of driving 

under the influence and law enforcement as a deterrent. “It is very difficult to obtain uniform 

deterrent effects in local courts by any form of Federal action.” Allowing the States “the greatest 

possible flexibility in determining the emphasis they desire to place on different standards is 

preferable to singling out one or another standard, at the national level, for special emphasis.” 

[Highway Safety Act of 1973, p. 46-47] 

D. Grant Mickle said that HUFSAM favored the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for only twothirds of the Federal safety program, not 70 percent “since the benefits of the safety program are 

enjoyed by travelers on and off the Federal-aid systems.” Instead of categorical programs for 

bridges and rail-highway grade crossings, HUFSAM favored “a more general safety emphasis 

program” that encouraged States to reconstruct and replace bridges, protect grade crossings, remove 

roadside obstacles, and undertake other safety work. Such projects off the Federal-aid systems 

should be financed out of the general Treasury. [Highway Safety Act of 1973, p. 63-65] 

Max Sproles, executive director for highway-rail programs, Association of American Railroads, 

was concerned about funding levels for the rail-highway crossing elimination program. Sproles 

said that the country had 223,000 rail-highway crossings, only 22 percent of which have “trainactivated protective devices.” About half the crossings that needed improvement were off-system. 

He recommended, therefore, eliminating the two-third/one-third split to give the States “the 

opportunity to improve the most hazardous crossings based on their needs.” [Highway Safety Act of 

1973, p. 60] 

The next witnesses were Dr. William Haddon, Jr., president of the Insurance Institute for Highway 

Safety, and the institute’s vice president for communications, Ben Kelley. Dr. Haddon had been 

instrumental in securing passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 and 

the Highway Safety Act of 1966. He also had served as the first Director of the National Traffic 

Safety Agency and the National Highway Safety Agency, both originally within BPR and FHWA 

before becoming the separate NHTSA. Ben Kelley was the former BPR official who wrote the 
626 

critical The Pavers and the Paved: The Real Cost of America’s Highway Program. Dr. Haddon 

had appointed Kelley vice president for communications in March 1969. 

Rather than a lengthy statement, they presented a film called Boobytrap! In doing so, they 

emphasized that they were not talking about dangers on old highways with antique designs. They 

were talking about “built-in, manmade boobytraps” on modern highways—“the mess of boobytraps 

that has turned the sides of our roads into instruments of death and injury for thousands of car 

occupants each year,” as Kelley explained in the film. He was referring to bridge piers, signposts

and unyielding light poles, trees and rocks, steep embankments, ditches and drop-offs, and other 

fixed roadside objects. They represented, Dr. Haddon told the subcommittee, “a modern 

investment, modern insensitivity on the part of those responsible to the things that are killing and 

maiming people throughout this country and abroad . . . .” 

The focus on roadside boobytraps had been highlighted in 1967 by Joseph Linko, a television 

repairman from the Bronx. In those days, repairs were commonly made in the homes. As Linko 

drove to his customers’ homes from his shop on Third Avenue, he noticed obvious dangers that 

could easily have been avoided if highway engineers and maintenance crews had wanted to—

guardrail ends that could spear vehicles, concrete sign stanchions and utility poles left exposed 

within a couple feet of roadways, rigid light poles—all placed along the newest highways in the 

area. Even when guardrails were placed along the roadsides, hazards were sometimes installed on 

the roadway side or before the guardrail instead of behind it. He took pictures of the boobytraps as 

part of a one-man safety crusade. After a while, he came to believe that (1) highway and traffic 

engineers did not know what they were doing and (2) if they did know, no one was paying attention 

to them.

On May 23, 1967, he had testified, along with his color slides, about highway boobytraps before 

Representative Blatnik’s Special Subcommittee on the Federal-Aid Highway Program, Committee 

on Public Works. Linko’s slides, straight-forward comments, and stories of disaster told the story 

in everyday terms, not those of the usual polished highway lobbyists. 

Before the hearing he had examined the 65-mile Capital Beltway, which he found to be a study in 

deficiencies, as described in a July 1973 congressional report: 

The Subcommittee heard testimony and saw photographic evidence of such roadside 

hazards as unguarded steel I-beam sign supports anchored in concrete, exposed bridge piers, 

spear-like guardrail, guardrail lacking proper transition to bridge parapets; and gore areas 

with numerous post, pipe and concrete encumbrances. [The gore area is the triangle area at 

exits between the roadway and the exit ramp.] Some guardrail was placed along the 

highway shoulder in such a way that it actually would steer an errant vehicle into a fixed 

object, rather than divert it away. [Highway Safety, Design and Operations (The Need for a 

Safer Driving Environment), Report of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Review to 

the Committee on Public Works, House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, 

Committee Print 93-7, July 1973, p. 1-3] 
627 

(Frank Turner, then the Director of Public Roads within the FHWA, had commented to the 

subcommittee in 1967 about how roadside hazards were included in modern highways: 

There is no simple answer to offer for the question you have asked as to why these roadside 

obstacles have been erected . . . . The principal cause is clearly that our previous judgment 

in designs dated 7 to 8 years ago did not anticipate the degree and frequency with which 

drivers would run off these new roads. It took some time to observe that a dismaying 

pattern of run-off-the-road accidents was occurring and an equally long time to develop the 

appropriate corrective measures and to get these into the stream of planning and 

construction. While some observed defects are still being included in recent construction, I 

believe that the focus of attention on these items by this Subcommittee and the Bureau has 

served to force the necessary and desired change. But change comes slowly, even with the 

impetus of such things as these hearings. 

(On May 19, 1967, FHWA adopted Highway Design and Operational Practices Related to 

Highway Safety (known as “The Yellow Book” because of the color of its cover) prepared by 

AASHO’s Traffic Safety Committee. In doing so, FHWA informed its engineers that, “It is 

expected the plans for projects on all high-speed highways yet to be advanced to contract will 

incorporate the features of added safety as are presented in the February 1967 report (the Yellow 

Book).” For completed Federal-aid highways, “each State highway department is asked to establish 

an active corrective program to apply the findings of the February 1967 report.” [Highway Safety, 

Design and Operations, p. 10]) 

Six years later, the institute’s film demonstrated that easily avoidable roadside boobytraps remained 

a common safety hazard. In addition to the film, they brought a scale replica of a Baltimore 

Beltway exit to Towson, Maryland, that had been featured in the film because it contained more 

than 100 boobytraps. Kelley said that FHWA estimated “that close to $1 billion would be required 

to remove the man-placed, man-designed, manmade hazards along the Interstate System.” Beyond 

that, no one could estimate the cost because “no authority, whether State or Federal, has yet been 

required to carry out an inventory of the manmade and naturally grown obstacles along miles of 

primary and secondary and interstate highway roads.” 

Asked about FHWA progress in addressing the problem, Dr. Haddon replied, “Until recently, very 

little.” Kelley added that recently, the Department of Transportation had required the State highway 

agencies to inventory obstacles in gore areas “with the idea of either removing them or putting up 

crash cushioning structures in front of them . . . but it has not yet gotten to the broader problem of 

what is happening on the miles between the gore areas, and what is happening on the many miles of 

noninterstate freeway.” 

The solution, Dr. Haddon said, was that “you have to go after this specifically with a specific 

mandate with the necessary funds and inventory, or they are just going to stay out there.” [Highway 

Safety Act of 1973, p. 132-134] 

(In 1972, Linko had returned to the Washington area and toured the Capital Beltway again. “A lot 

of the hazards were gone,” reporter Hank Burchard said of the tour, “but a lot were still there, and 
628 

he found that some new death traps had been added.” For example, at the beltway interchange with 

State Route 450 (Defense Highway) in Maryland, a “guard rail still stood, like a battering ram, at 

the point where motorists must make split-second decisions at high speed.” Linko and Burchard 

found pieces of a bronze-colored Corvette lying around the base of a steel lightpole that was only 

dented. Burchard said of Linko: 

What Linko does, basically, is nag, nag, nag . . . . He’s been bugging people about highway 

safety for the best part of 10 years now. Linko says his specialty is stupidity, “the stupidity 

of engineers and construction crews who just don’t think about what they’re doing. They 

put up a guard rail. Then, 15 feet away, they put up a heavy steel signpost, so you have to 

knock down the signpost and kill yourself before you get to the guard rail that’s supposed to 

protect you . . . .” 

Driving around the highways with Linko, you get an idea why he has been so successful in 

getting things changed. He talks loud, his tone is abrasive, and he talks long. It is very hard 

not to listen to Joe Linko. [Burchard, Hank, “Bronx Repairman Warns of Built-In Road 

Death Traps,” The Washington Post, February 26, 1972] 

(Administrator Turner had not appreciated Linko’s implications. After Burchard’s article appeared, 

Turner sent a letter to The Post assuring readers that, for FHWA, “there is no higher priority than 

highway safety.” He had read Burchard’s article “with dismay” and ordered a “prompt 

investigation” of the TV repairman’s allegations. “As it turns out, the facts of the matter are quite 

different than portrayed by your reporter.” Had he “bothered to check,” he would have learned that 

the “downed steel light pole” (the base referred to in the article) was part of a safety upgrade to 

install a breakaway pole. The other location was the same:

Maryland has a series of safety projects currently under way along its 44 miles of the 

Beltway. These include clearing gore areas, installing breakaway sign and light pole bases, 

adding guard rail to bridges and turning ends into cut slopes, construction of median 

barriers, and adjustment of drainage structures that constitute a fixed object hazard. 

(Virginia was continuing to upgrade safety along its portion of the Capital Beltway. “Such 

misleading inaccuracies as contained in your Feb. 26 article do not contribute to this most important 

endeavor. Accurate reporting would help.” [Turner, F. C., “A Further Look at Beltway ‘Hazards,’” 

The Washington Post, March 30, 1972]) 

Haddon and Kelley were followed by Franklin M. Kreml, president of the Motor Vehicle 

Manufacturers Association (MVMA). He had been a leading figure in highway safety since his 

years as a police officer in Evanston, Illinois (1924-1935). He founded the Northwestern University 

Traffic Institute in 1936 (the institute was renamed the Northwestern University Center for Public 

Safety in 2000 with an expanded mission) and the Traffic Safety Division of the International 

Association of Chiefs of Police. During World War II, Kreml served as chief of the U.S. Army’s 

Highway Division in the Mediterranean Theater and additional posts leading to the rank of 

Brigadier General. In addition to heading Northwestern University’s Transportation Center and his 

stint with MVMA (1971-1975), General Kreml served as chairman of the Presidential Task Force 
629 

on Highway Safety beginning in 1969 (the task force’s October 1970 report was called Mobility 

Without Mayhem). In 1994, he was inducted into the Safety and Health Hall of Fame International. 

He began by expressing disappointment that the Highway Safety Act and National Traffic and 

Motor Vehicle Safety Act, both adopted in 1966, had not resulted in the “real reductions in highway 

fatalities that we hoped would result.” He explained: 

Instead, our annual highway death toll has continued to increase, despite the fact that 

millions of dollars have been added to the price paid by the car buyer because of the cost of 

such safety improvements. The fault, however, does not lie with the laws. It lies, instead, in 

the fact that their potential—the balanced approach to overall highway safety for which the 

legislation provided the foundation—has not been fully utilized. 

Several things were needed to achieve the full potential of those laws: 

“First, recognize that there are three critical elements of the highway safety problem: the vehicle,

the driver, and the highway.” The focus had been on vehicle safety and as a result, “we have not 

applied what we already know about driver and highway improvements and have not sufficiently 

extended our knowledge in these areas.” 

“Second, we need to undertake a great deal more research to understand and improve driver 

behavior and to improve highway design in terms compatible with driving and use patterns.” Better 

guidelines for safe driving, adequate traffic control devices and signs “so both good and poor 

drivers are better able to avoid accidents,” and research were essential. 

“Third, we need to increase private sector participation in the national program.” Following 

passage of the 1966 Acts, “many private agencies, organizations, and individuals, who had 

previously been active in the highway safety movement began to withdraw as the Federal 

Government assumed increased control.” Kreml said, “The private sector—business, industry, the 

media, the public—must be involved in the highway safety movement.” 

“Fourth, and I would like to particularly emphasize this point . . . State and local officials must be 

active participants in the development and continuing review of Federal highway safety program 

standards.” The Federal Government had a vital role to play, but State and local officials have “the 

legal power, the personnel, and the equipment to deal with it through programs for driver education 

and licensing, enforcement of laws governing vehicles in use, and the construction and maintenance 

of our roads and streets.” 

“Fifth, the funds appropriated for highway safety should be increased.” The need for increased 

funding for State programs was “far in excess of the highest figure proposed” in any of the bills 

under consideration. In addition, he supported keeping categorical safety programs to a minimum 

“so that States can decide on the basis of local need how best to allocate the funds available to 

them.” 
630 

As for current funding requirements, Kreml explained that current legislation gave the Secretary of 

Transportation the authority to withhold 10 percent of a State’s Federal-aid highway funds if the 

State did not satisfy safety requirements. “This penalty has never been invoked and the realities of 

the Federal-State relationship suggest that it never will.” As a more effective measure, he 

recommended incentive bonuses “to reward States for progress in implementing the program 

standards.” 

He concluded his presentation by saying of these steps: 

The American people, as they use the streets and highways of our country, are entitled to a 

much higher order of protection than they are getting today—protection which can be 

provided only through such a balanced effort. 

Senator Bentsen began the question period by asking if the funding levels Kreml recommended 

were realistic in view of the Administration’s position. “I can speak only as an advocate,” Kreml 

replied, “not as an effective judge of political action,” but he added, “I would suggest perhaps the 

committee has a responsibility to speak to the figures it believes are necessary.”

Asked by Senator Bentsen about whether driver education programs were effective, Kreml said that 

“with some sadness, sir, I respond negatively . . . . I think that what is wrong with driver training is 

that it simply has not gone far enough.” The programs he was familiar with “simply school the 

individual in the manipulation of the vehicle, not the control of the vehicle, particularly under 

emergency situations, or other difficult situations.” He thought that training, licensing, supervision, 

and enforcement, together, could have a real impact on driver behavior:

We hear some prophets of doom saying the human being is such a complicated, 

unpredictable, even whimsical mechanism, that it is foolish to try to control him. Yet, we 

have record after record of cities, counties, and States which through the application of 

effective control of traffic through law enforcement have reduced accidents and kept them 

down. 

I cannot be impressed, I cannot be anything, I am sorry to say, but impatient with those 

practitioners in our field who say that the driver is a hopeless proposition. It is the richest 

payoff area in my view in the middle and long run, assuming only we do effective work. 

Senator Scott asked Kreml how long it might take to correct the many roadside boobytraps on the 

Nation’s highways. Kreml replied:

I think that this would, given the present programs, and the present rate of replacement, this 

would take on the order of 20 years. However, that should not be immediately interpreted 

as a statement of hopelessness, because it seems to me that if a sharper focus were to be 

taken on the accumulation of reliable data regarding the placement, the time, and the 

approximate cause of the accident, it would be possible to channel funds into those areas, 

and to those roads, and those particular places on the roads where we have a particularly 

hazardous situation. [Highway Safety Act of 1973, p. 134-141] 
631 

In considering the bill, the committee took only one roll call vote. On March 29, the committee 

rejected Senator Muskie’s proposal to authorize $20 million in FY 1974 and $25 million in FY 

1975 from the Highway Trust Fund in grants to States to establish and support inspection programs 

for motor vehicle emission control systems in areas requiring transportation controls to comply with 

air quality requirements. Only Senators Muskie and Richard C. “Dick” Clark (D-Ia.) supported the 

amendment, which was defeated 2-7. [Highway Safety Act of 1973, Report of the Committee on 

Public Works, United States Senate, to Accompany S. 893, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, Report No. 

93-106, April 6, 1973, p. 17] 

The committee voted unanimously to approve the bill, which included: 

• Federal-aid safer roads system—The system included all public roads or segments thereof, 

whether on or off the Federal-aid systems, needing improvements to correct safety hazards, 

selected or designated by each State subject to approval by the Secretary of Transportation. 

A committee analysis explained that the hazards to be corrected fell within three major 

categories: “(1) projects to improve highway marking and signing; (2) to eliminate roadside 

obstacles; and (3) to eliminate hazards at railroad-highway grade crossings.” The Federal 

share of project costs was 90 percent. This program was intended to correct roadside 

boobytraps. 

• Bridge reconstruction and replacement—Authorized $100 million a year for FYs 1974 and 

1975. The program was expanded to include deficient bridges off the Federal-aid systems.

• Bicycle safety—Added bicycle safety to the areas to be covered by highway safety standards 

and to required driver education programs. Since the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, 

approved by the Senate on March 15, included new authority for construction of bicycle 

paths, the committee expanded the language in Title 23 encouraging development and 

promulgation of highway safety standards to include bicycle safety. The committee 

intended that the States implement driver education to reduce conflicts between motorists 

and bicyclists. 

• Alcohol and other drugs—The committee dropped the provision requiring mandatory 

penalties for States not complying with the Federal alcohol safety standard, citing the 

complicated nature of the problem and the fact that most States were in compliance. The 

approved bill authorized the Secretary to continue research in this area. 

• Indian reservations—Indian reservations would now be eligible for highway safety grants. 

The funds would be apportioned to the Secretary of the Interior, with 95 percent of the funds 

to be expended by Indian Tribes. The Federal share could be increased if necessary to assist 

a Tribe in meeting the non-Federal share. [Highway Safety Act of 1973, p. 13-15] 

On April 6, Secretary Brinegar informed Senator Randolph of the Department’s views on S. 893, 

the Highway Safety Act of 1973, as it approached a committee vote: 

The Committee has made some commendable modifications and additions to the existing 

Federal highway safety programs. While the thrust of these initiatives are laudable, we are 

concerned over the creation of a new “Federal-aid safer roads system”, the provision for a 

Federal share of up to 90 percent for certain projects on this system, and the authorization of 

Federal funds for this new system and for the special bridge replacement program. We 
632 

believe that the objectives of the Public Works Committee can be accomplished within 

existing funding for the Federal-aid highway systems and the levels in the Administration’s 

proposed highway safety legislation (S. 1406). 

To reduce expenditures, Secretary Brinegar recommended eliminating funds for the “Federal-aid 

safer roads system” and bridge replacement programs. 

If the Federal-aid safer roads system survived, he suggested reducing the Federal share to 70 

percent, the same as for other Federal-aid highway projects off the Interstate System.

The Department did not object to the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues for safety projects off 

the Federal-aid highway systems. Secretary Brinegar also supported the reduction in categorical 

safety programs to give States and communities greater flexibility in selecting safety projects. 

He urged the committee to consider two provisions from the Administration’s bill. Regarding the 

penalty on any State that did not implement a highway safety program, the Administration bill 

“would provide the missing incentive by enabling the State to recoup the withheld funds if timely 

correction action were taken by the State.” He also advised the committee to include the provision 

that would “protect persons who voluntarily aid the efforts of Federal accident investigation teams” 

by barring the use of their statements as evidence. [Highway Safety Act of 1973, p. 19-20] 

The Senate considered the legislation on April 12. Senator Bentsen explained why the committee 

had introduced a separate highway safety bill instead of combining it with the Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1973, as had been the case in 1972. The subject, he said, was important enough to demand 

consideration “apart from other matters which might detract from it.” In highlighting its notable 

provisions, he began: 

Of primary importance is our belief that highway safety activities should be financed from 

the highway trust fund. This reflects the committee’s conviction that safety is an integral 

part of the total highway program and that its support from user revenues is fully justified 

and desirable. 

After several supportive statements and no amendments, the Senate approved the bill by voice vote. 

Desperate in New York City

In 1973, officials in New York City and New York State were struggling with the cost of mass 

transportation systems, as they had for decades. 

In the late 1940s, Governor Thomas E. Dewey had insisted that the subways operate on a selfsustaining, pay-as-you-go basis. As a result, the first fare increase, from 5 cents to 10 cents, went 

into effect in 1948 with the goal of ensuring the subways operated in the black. When the city 

turned the subways over to the new New York City Transit Authority in 1953, fares increased to 15 

cents. The authority was supposed to cover all costs from the farebox, but it had failed to do so 13 

out of 19 years despite fare increases in 1966 (to 20 cents) and 1970 (30 cents). Frank J. Prial of 
633 

The New York Times explained that the city “regularly shelled out thinly disguised subsidies that 

fool no one, but presumably honor the letter of the law.” 

On November 2, 1971, as mentioned earlier, voters statewide turned down Governor Rockefeller’s 

$2.5 billion bond issue that would have raised $1.35 billion for mass transit and $1.15 billion for 

highways. Following the defeat, Governor Rockefeller said, “This is a reflection of the national 

mood . . . the people don’t want to take on new taxes.” The defeat was, he said, a vote for “belttightening.” 

Mayor Lindsay saw it differently. “The vote on the bond issue was a rebellion against concrete.” 

With so much of the bond revenue earmarked for highways, city residents voted against the 

measure because they thought more should have been devoted to transit. Residents of other parts of 

the State, his reasoned, objected to bonds to keep the subway fare at 30 cents when they were 

paying more for bus fare. 

Theodore Kheel, a key opponent of the bond plan, said, “The people saw through the flimsiness of 

the program,” adding that the vote was a “repudiation of the highway trust fund.” When the 

Governor challenged Kheel to come up with his own plan, as The New York Times explained, he 

suggested using city funds to hold the fare at 30 cents for a year: 

During that year, he said, there should be “a national campaign to open up the Federal 

Highway Trust Fund for transportation; legislation to force the Port of New York Authority 

to take a greater role in mass transit in the city, and new taxes on automobiles and their 

drivers aimed at easing the financial burden on mass transit. [Quote lacks a closing 

quotation mark in original.] 

The defeat left State and city officials scrambling to find a way to keep the 30-cent fare. In the 

immediate aftermath of the vote, Governor Rockefeller planned to meet with Republican legislative 

leaders and was prepared to place “anything” city officials favored before the legislature. He 

added, “I personally don’t see how it can be saved at 30 cents.” 

Mayor Lindsay, who thought that only the Republican-controlled State legislature could save the 

fare “if they really want to,” asked his transit task force to find ways to finance the deficit without 

raising the fare. Possibilities included remnants of the plan developed on the assumption the city 

would receive $170 million from the bonds, to be supplemented with increased toll revenue from 

the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and loans from the city’s sinking fund and the State. 

On November 8, 1971, Comptroller Beame presented an alternative plan to the task force. He 

suggested the city impose a “transit tax” on real estate transactions and businesses that benefit from 

public transportation to pay 40 percent of the transit fare. The task force, meeting at the Drake 

Hotel, was doubtful. 

The Mayor, in the end, favored a plan proposed by Assemblyman Albert H. Blumenthal that would 

impose a statewide 10-percent income tax surcharge, with the revenue allocated to transit districts

around the State. The tax would be deductible from Federal and possibly State income taxes. 

Whether the State legislature would approve the proposal was uncertain, but even if the plan were 
634 

approved, the fare would “have to come to a minimum of 35 cents,” Mayor Lindsay said on 

November 7. 

Like Kheel, many officials looked to Washington for relief. In addition to his campaign to open the 

Highway Trust Fund, he called on the President’s Federal Price Commission to prohibit the 

increases. Beame sent a telegram to President Nixon urging support to open the Highway Trust 

Fund to mass transit. Senator Javits announced support for that plan as well as his proposal to 

provide $200 million a year for transit subsidies. Representative Ryan and 18 other members of the 

city’s congressional delegation introduced a bill to freeze mass transit and commuter fares at the 

present level until April 1973. 

 

On December 6, 1971, a congressional delegation from New York City met with Secretary Volpe to 

discuss increased Federal-aid for the city’s mass transit system. Representative Ryan said the 

delegation did not expect to receive additional funds, but wanted to demonstrate that, as the Times

put it, “the Federal Government is not the transit cornucopia that many state and city officials have 

said it would be.” Just 2 days earlier, for example, Governor Rockefeller had proposed a plan that 

would avoid a fare increase above 35 cents if the city received $100 million in Federal operating 

subsidies. As Representative Ryan knew, the Nixon Administration opposed such funding. 

The city also was hoping to receive capital grant funds for construction projects such as the new 

Second Avenue Subway line that had exploded in cost (from $151 million in 1968 to $371 million 

in 1971). UMTA Administrator Villarreal pointed out that New York had submitted requests for 

$200 million more than the agency’s $600 million budget in the current year. He added that no 

State could receive more than 12.5 percent a year of total funds. “New York ought to keep in mind 

that we have hundreds of requests from 50 states to consider. Over the years, the city’s grants 

might add up $800-million, but I just don’t see any possibility of the very large grants coming 

through in the near future.” 

What emerged was a hybrid plan that Mayor Lindsay and Governor Rockefeller approved, but that 

required a 5-cent fare increase to 35 cents. The city would borrow $100 million from the State, to 

be repaid over 5 years, and $100 million from its own sinking fund, and generate another $70 

million from increased tolls on the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority facilities. The plan 

also counted on smaller amounts of revenue from advertising on transit vehicles and franchises for 

hot dog stands. 

A New York Times editorial on November 16 stated the problem: 

New York City’s mass transit system hurtles toward financial disaster as fare-box revenues 

fall farther and farther behind operating costs. Union negotiators are pressing for pay 

increases far in excess of Federal guideposts. Even with a noninflationary settlement, 

prolonged neglect and accumulated deficits now require an estimated $440 million more in 

revenues over the next two years than the present thirty-cent fare will generate.

The editorial said that “Mr. Beame may well be right in believing that business and real estate 

interests would prefer a transit tax, deductible from Federal and perhaps state tax returns, to another 
635 

fare increase.” However, “we continue to believe that the emphasis should be placed on the 

automobile as the source of revenue to ease the transit crisis it has helped create.” Saying that every 

fare increase had resulted in more automobile traffic, the Times favored the plan to increase 

Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority tolls and impose new tolls on the East River Bridges. 

Adopting the principle that “rubber should pay for rail,” the editorial concluded: 

As New York City confronts the choice of higher transit fares or some form of new and 

additional taxation, there is good reason for city officials to select as their target the fumespewing, air-fouling, street-clogging, noise-creating, grossly inefficient automobile. Indeed, 

this is an idea whose time came quite some time ago. 

Mayor Lindsay estimated that the city needed to spend $5.3 billion for transit development in the 

1970s, and $2.8 billion of that sum by 1975. The Times, describing the plan to visit Secretary 

Volpe, pointed out that New York City officials were hoping to unlock the Highway Trust Fund to 

help with these costs: 

Actually, New York officials have given themselves a fairly rigid timetable for unlocking 

the Federal coffers for mass transit. Both the Governor and the Mayor have described the 

plan to hold the fare at 35 cents as a stop-gap measure designed to provide “breathing 

space” in which to work out a permanent plan for financing mass transit here, presumably 

with some kind of Federal participation. 

A Wall Street bond specialist, asked by the Times to describe the New York City Transit 

Authority’s financing, said: “The Mad Hatter and Mr. Micawber, working together, could never 

dream up anything as strange.” 

Now, the Times said, the self-sustaining philosophy “has been discredited,” in part by Atlanta’s 

example. The fare reduction and sales tax subsidy in Atlanta were a stark contrast with talk in New 

York City that the fare would have to go up to 40 cents in 1973 and even higher in later years. “The 

only hope is some fundamental change in federal legislation that would tap the Highway Trust Fund 

or some other source for mass-transit operating subsidies.” The Times added: 

Ridership on Transit Authority buses and subway has dwindled from a peak of 2.7 billion a 

year, just before the fare went from five cents to 10 cents, to a low of 1.65 billion in the year 

ended last June 30. 

Transit officials expected a similar decrease after the 35-cent fare went into effect in 1972, but 

predicted that the “resistance factor” would lesson over time. 

[All from The New York Times: Lynn, Frank, “State Transit Bond Issue is Voted Down Despite 

Rockefeller-Lindsay Campaign,” November 3, 1971; Prial, Frank J., “Rockefeller and Lindsay 

Differ on Ways of Saving Transit Fare; Bond Loss Deepens Fiscal Crisis,” November 4, 1971; 

Prial, Frank J., “City Hall Parley is Called on Fare,” November 5, 1971; Lynn, Frank, “Everybody 

Was for the Bond Issue Except the People,” November 7, 1971; Prial, Frank J., “City Delegation 

Due to See Volpe Today on Transit Aid,” December 7, 1971; “Testing Transit Theories,” 
636 

November 16, 1971; Prial Frank J., “Financing of Transit Authority is Complex,” December 28, 

1971] 

Fares increased to 35 cents on January 5, 1972, and ridership declined 2.5 percent the first month, 

although revenue was up 10 percent over the comparable period in 1971. The companion toll 

increase had resulted in a million fewer motorists using Triborough facilities, although they did not 

necessarily switch to the buses or subways. A spokesman for the Kinney Parking System said, “We 

were hit pretty hard by the toll increase. I don’t know how the people are getting into the city, but 

they are not driving and parking in public garages.” [Prial, Frank J. “Transit Riders Found to Have 

Dropped 2.5% After Rise,” The New York Times, January 29, 1972] 

Throughout 1972, State and local officials searched for a way to meet expenses without another fare 

increase. On June 10, 1972, the Governors’ Special Commission on Financing of Mass 

Transportation issued a 90-page report. The commission, formed by the Governors of Connecticut, 

New Jersey, and New York, called for such changes as: 

• A $25-a-person mass transportation tax on everyone who lives or works in the New York 

metropolitan area;

• A 100-percent Federal income tax credit on all local transportation taxes;

• That the States be allowed to spend Federal transportation aid on capital projects or debt 

service for capital projects; 

• Creation of general transportation funds by the Federal and State governments to channel 

transportation taxes and revenues into transportation projects; 

• An increase in the Federal share of capital projects to 90 percent;

• Establishment of a 25-cent toll on all free-water crossings into Manhattan; and 

• Continuation of fares at a reasonable level even with large Federal subsidies to ensure that 

users of the service share in paying for it. 

These changes, which relied heavily on modification of Federal laws, were “imperative,” the report 

said, if mass transportation in the tri-State area were to be improved while being put on a sound 

financial footing. “It is essential for the Federal Government, now, to reverse the imbalance in 

transportation financing, to define new priorities, and to provide new sources of revenue for 

financing mass transportation services.” If the proposed changes were adopted, “the region’s masstransportation problems can be solved while keeping fares within the reach of all the people.” 

[”$25 Tristate Tax Urged on Transit,” The New York Times, June 11, 1972] 

The following week, Mayor Lindsay and the city’s congressional delegation increased their efforts 

to secure Federal operating subsidies. Representative Emanuel Celler (D), chairman of the 

Judiciary Committee and the most senior member of the House, said he was “plumping” for help 

and was “gratified” that UMTA was about to approve $25 million for the Second Avenue Subway 

line and $65 million to buy 300 subway cars. The prospects for operating subsidies were dimmer. 

Although the Senate had approved $400 million in subsidies as proposed by Senator Javits in an 

amendment to the housing bill, its fate in the House was unknown while the Nixon Administration 

was opposed. 
637 

The city’s Transportation Administrator, Constantine Sidamon-Eristoff said, “We’re pressing 

everywhere we know how to bring the problem to the attention of the National Government.” He 

said the city was urging conversion of the Highway Trust Fund to a Transportation Fund. The city, 

he said, had “exhausted” available city funds to keep the fare at 35 cents until March 31, 1973. 

While the State had not helped with operating subsidies, “the city has bailed out this system from 

which the state and whole metropolitan region benefit.” [“City Looks Anew to U.S. for Aid in 

Rescuing Its Transit System,” The New York Times, June 12, 1972] 

In August 1971, Mayor Lindsay had switched his registration to the Democratic Party. At the time, 

tthe assumption was that he would run for President, but he was coy. “Whether this means I will 

run for President, I do not know,” he said in a news conference. As the Times reported after the 

event, he was seen as a potential contender by Democratic Party officials around the country, but as 

for his prospects, their reactions “ranged from unabashed enthusiasm to outright hostility.” 

[Tolchin, Martin, “Lindsay Switches to Democrats, Urges New National Leadship; as for 

Presidency: ‘I Don’t Know,’” The New York Times, August 12, 1971] 

The speculation about a presidential bid proved correct. However, Mayor Lindsay’s bid for the 

Democratic presidential nomination sputtered. As author Rick Perlstein explained, “He was still a 

media darling, a regular on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show [then originating in New York City]; 

dazzled by his charisma . . . [but] the media seemed not to be noticing that his New York was 

becoming the symbol for everything wearying and gross about the United States.” [Perlstein, Rick, 

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, Scribner, 2008, p. 611] Mayor 

Lindsay responded to those who despised New York City by saying he had confronted every one of 

the city’s problem, even if he had not quite solved them. 

As a Republican until August 1971, he had no constituency within the Democratic Party and lost 

his Republican funding sources. Despite adopting positions to the left of the eventual nominee, 

Senator McGovern, and portraying himself as a Washington outsider, Mayor Lindsay gathered only 

a little more than 196,000 votes during the primary season (a little over 1 percent of the total cast). 

He finished sixth in the Wisconsin primary on April 5, earning only 7 percent of the vote. 

Recognizing that the voters had spoken, he dropped out of the race. Presidential historian Theodore 

H. White summarized Mayor Lindsay’s candidacy: “It may be said that rarely has so eloquent a 

spokesman for so profoundly important a cause presided over so blundering a political campaign.” 

His impact on the Democratic National Convention in Miami, July 10-13, 1972, would be 

negligible and a harbinger of his long-term political decline. [Cannato, p. 515-521] 

Theodore Kheel continued his campaign against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 

which was restricted by a 1962 law from being involved in any mass transit projects other than the 

PATH commuter railroad linking Manhattan and New Jersey. Kheel had suggested a legislative 

change that Governor Rockefeller had approved on June 9, 1972, despite strong opposition from the 

financial community. However, Governor William T. Cahill of New Jersey, who previously 

supported the idea, indicated he would not sign a comparable bill because of concern about lawsuits 

from bondholders who had been assured that all revenue not needed for operation and maintenance 

would be devoted to retiring the bonds by 2007. “I am disappointed,” Kheel said, “at the apparent 

reversal of Governor Cahill’s supposed concern about getting the Port Authority involved in mass 
638 

transportation.” [Prial, Frank J., “Governor Presses for Mass Transit,” The New York Times, June 

10, 1972] 

Kheel also had gone to court in an attempt to have the 1962 law declared illegal. In 1971, the U.S. 

District Court refused to hear the suit. The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s ruling. 

On August 24, 1972, Kheel announced that he would take his case to the Supreme Court in a 

continuing effort to free as much as $2.5 billion of the Port Authority’s borrowing power for mass 

transportation. He acknowledged that if the Supreme Court refused to hear his suit, he was 

“finished in the Federal courts.” Whatever the outcome in the courts, Kheel had this to say about 

the New Jersey Governor: “After three years in office, Mr. Cahill’s accomplishments with regard 

to the Port Authority add up to a big zero.” [Prial, Frank J., “Governor Presses for Mass Transit,” 

The New York Times, June 10, 1972; No byline, “Kheel’s Mass Transit-Aid Suit taken to U.S. 

Supreme Court,” The New York Times, August 25, 1972] 

Governor Cahill, who had taken office on January 20, 1970, had been working to improve transit 

since taking office. In November 1972, he and Governor Rockefeller announced a “dramatic and 

significant breakthrough” to allow the Port Authority to participate in mass transportation capital 

improvements. The agreement covered rail links between midtown Manhattan and Newark and 

Kennedy International Airports, an extension of PATH, and direct rail service into Penn Station for 

commuters on the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad. The estimated cost was $650 million, but the plan 

was contingent on enactment of legislation nullifying the 1962 Port Authority covenant. The bill 

signed by Governor Rockefeller in June would not be sufficient. 

Dr. Ronan, in a news conference, said the Federal contribution would cover up to two-thirds of the 

cost, but he hoped to see that increased to 80 percent so the Federal Government would pick up 

four-fifths of the bill. He insisted that the bi-State announcement would not be another in a series 

of “breakthroughs” that were ultimately unfulfilled. “These are not to be considered idle 

projections.” Work on the Kennedy access line could start in 1973. 

Kheel was skeptical. “The law clearly states that no Port Authority revenues can be used for mass 

transportation until the present bondholders are paid off—which won’t happen until 2007.” The 

projects were “off in the dim future.” Having spent a year trying to have the 1962 law declared 

illegal, he said it was “crystal-clear,” adding, “I don’t see how they can get their hands on Port 

Authority money until it is declared unconstitutional in court.” He acknowledged that such a 

finding could take years. Officials hoped to get around the restriction by limiting the agreement to 

bonds issued after 2007. [Prial, Frank J., “Governors Say Port Authority Plans $650-Million MassTransit Program,” The New York Times, November 16, 1972] 

In response to confusion about the proposal, Governor Rockefeller wrote to the Times on November 

17 to clarify that the plan involved State and Federal money, but Port Authority funds as well: 

Federal funds are expected to provide some 60 per cent of the total cost. The Port 

Authority’s fund will supply virtually all the remainder. State funds will be used only as 

contingencies, if necessary at times, to advance the projects. Accordingly, Port Authority 

revenues will be a principal source of funds for these projects. 
639 

Port Authority bonds will not include the limitations of the so-called “statutory fund” as 

Governor Cahill and I are recommending legislation to eliminate this restriction on the Port 

Authority capacity to finance mass-transit improvements. [Rockefeller, Nelson A., 

“Tapping the Port Authority,” The New York Times, November 21, 1972] 

Following action by the New Jersey State legislature, Governor Cahill approved the necessary 

legislation on December 28, 1972. The State’s premise was that the 1962 law permitted the Port 

Authority to participate in passenger rail projects if they were self-supporting. (Kheel pointed out 

that the restriction had been put in the 1962 expressly because such projects are never selfsupporting.) 

On March 14, 1973, the same day the U.S. Senate approved the Muskie-Baker amendment opening 

the Highway Trust Fund to rail transit, the New York Senate approved two bills in support of the 

$650 million Port Authority mass transportation construction program. However, the State 

Assembly failed to approve the bills. Democrats had attempted to amend the bills, which they 

considered a “cave-in” to financing arrangements dictated by New Jersey to appease bondholders. 

They feared the measure would endanger the financing for mass transportation. [Farber, M. A., “2 

Port Authority Mass-Transit Bills Pass in Senate but Stall in Assembly,” The New York Times, 

March 15, 1973; and Kheel, Theodore W., “Jersey Catching Up,” The New York Times, January 23, 

1973] 

Observers expected Assembly approval the following week, but the bill failed again on March 19. 

That same day, The New York Times reported on a city-ordered study conducted by the Regional 

Plan Association, “a private, nonprofit group that aims to promote the coordinated development of 

the three-state metropolitan area.” The study, released on Sunday, March 18, examined ways that 

transportation might be designed to help poor people. The ideas included: 

• Extend 15 bus lines to connect low-income areas to manufacturing districts in New York 

City’s five boroughs and industrial areas in New Jersey. The extensions would primarily 

help residents of the South Jamaica area of Queens, the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, and 

the East Tremont-South Bronx area. 

• Free bus transfers at all bus intersections in the central parts of low-income areas, a total of 

355 bus connections, with a goal of free transfers throughout the system.

• A 75-percent discount on train commuting from midnight to noon outbound from the city, 

and noon to midnight inbound. 

• Revised subway construction plans to be more responsive to the needs of poorer residents. 

In what The Times called “its most controversial section,” the report also recommended that 

policies on automobiles “be tailored so that efforts to save the environment would not be made at 

the expense of low-income workers.” The article continued: 

The report reasoned that workers’ use of cars to get to jobs brought “substantial gains in 

travel time, to wider job choice and in income.” It therefore proposed such measures as a 

subsidy for down-payments on small cars, a reduction in auto-insurance costs for low-
640 

income people, increased parking space in low-income areas and a re-evaluation of policies 

that have “led to a virtual moratorium on new expressway construction in the city.” 

The New York City Transportation Administration had initiated the study, with the U.S. 

Department of Housing and Urban Development providing $150,000 of the total cost of $197,000. 

The agency had received the report on August 1, 1972, but had delayed release while other agencies 

reviewed and debated its content. With the release, Administrator Sidamon-Eristoff provided 

preliminary comments on the report: 

Mr. Sidamon-Eristoff said some of the bus and train proposals might be adopted if the costs 

could be kept reasonable. But he suggested that most of the ideas for encouraging auto use, 

in this time of concern about pollution, were “not in the real world.” He specifically 

opposed car subsidies, increased residential parking and expressway construction. 

The city’s Environmental Protection Administration had disassociated itself from the report months 

earlier, but a spokesman for the agency said, “There are things we simply cannot accept, mainly the 

exhortations for more expressways and encouraging use of cars by poor people.” [Witkin, Richard, 

“More Bus Service is Urged to Help Poor Get to Jobs,” The New York Times, March 19, 1973] 

Traffic continued below expectations on Triborough facilities, down 8 percent in 1972 compared 

with 1971 since the toll increase went into effect on January 5, 1972. Revenue, however, was up. 

On April 2, 1973, the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority turned over $74 million in surplus 

funds to the New York City Transit Authority, up from the expected $24-$50 million. The 

additional funds would help the authority address its expected deficit of $200 million. [Prial, Frank 

J., “74-Million Goes to Transit From Car-Commuter Tolls,” The New York Times, April 2, 1973] 

Governors Rockefeller and Cahill were in Manhattan on April 4 to dedicate the twin towers of the 

World Trade Center. Governor Rockefeller called the twin towers a “great marriage of utility and 

beauty.” With State offices as the principal tenants of the South Tower, he said, “The old days of 

trudging from building to building are over.” Governor Cahill called the World Trade Center “an 

industrial and trade United Nations.” 

U.S. Secretary of Labor Peter J. Brennan was to read a statement by the President, but refused to 

cross a picket line established by striking PATH workers who used the occasion for their cause 

because their employer, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, also owned the World 

Trade Center. James Kellogg III, chairman of the Port Authority, read the President’s statement, 

which hailed the center as “a major factor for the expansion of the nation’s international trade.” 

Theodore Kheel, “the persistent critic of the Port Authority,” as the Times called him, had suggested 

the day before that the two Governors “propose at the dedication ceremonies that the World Trade 

Center be sold to private enterprise at the earliest possible date.” The Times continued: 

He called the center “socialism at its worst” because it competed unfairly with private 

developers and urged that the money from its sale be used for mass-transit purposes. 
641 

When a reporter asked about Kheel’s suggestion, Governor Rockefeller replied, “It gets him a 

headline.” [Prial, Frank J., “Governors Dedicate Trade Center Here; World Role Is Cited,” The 

New York Times, April 5, 1973] 

On April 29, Mayor Lindsay announced a plan to reduce transit fares, which the MTA had predicted 

would hit 55 cents in 1974 unless new funding sources could be found. (He had announced on 

March 7, 1973, that he would not seek a third term as Mayor, but was undecided whether to run for 

Governor or the Senate in 1974.) The Mayor’s plan would roll back bus and subways fares to 25 

cents and cut rail commuter fares by 30 percent while providing for long-range financing of mass 

transit in the area. The plan, which called for creation of a regional governmental body to raise and 

disburse funds, relied on Federal grants and State matching funds. The Federal funds were 

projected to come from the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, which had passed the Senate with 

the Emergency Commuter Relief Act. If the Federal funds did not materialize, the plan called for a 

payroll tax of one half of 1 percent. “The tax would be repealed when equivalent Federal subsidies 

were made available.” 

The Mayor pointed out that, “The current agreement to maintain the New York City transit fare at 

35 cents expires on the first of January and a new labor contract must be negotiated with the transit 

workers by March 1, 1974.” These dates created pressure for answers to the financing problems. A 

55-cent fare would be “a killing blow to our economy and an outrage to every working family in the 

New York area.” It would, he said, “drive more passengers out of the system, would increase 

traffic and air pollution, confront low- and moderate-income families with impossible daily travel 

costs and threaten the viability of the city’s economic center.” 

He planned to submit legislation to the State legislature the following week. Asked to comment, 

Governor Rockefeller said, “this is the first we have heard of this. We can’t comment until we have 

studied it.” [Prial, Frank J., “Lindsay Suggests Plan for Transit to Reduce Fares,” The New York 

Times, April 30, 1973] 

Mayor Lindsay had said that to avoid “the darkest day in the economic history” of the area, officials 

“must put aside our petty parochialisms and face the menace which faces us all.” Nevertheless, The 

Journal of Commerce pointed out the basic flaw in the proposal: 

Any such scheme devised on the assumption that Congress will enact the mass transit bill in 

a form that Mr. Nixon won’t veto, that the requisite funds will be approved for this purpose 

by Washington and that Albany will cheerfully match them would strike us as resting on 

something decidedly less than “a firm and durable financing footing” . . . . Mr. Lindsay’s 

scheme offers no real promise that new people will be drawn into the transit system; what it 

does guarantee is that people using [transit] now won’t have to pay so much to use it. 

[“Cause Without Effect?” The Journal of Commerce, May 1, 1973] 

The Christian Science Monitor also was skeptical about the proposal from Mayor Lindsay, whose 

term as Mayor would end in December:
642 

His timing is significant in that he is widely thought to have an eye on the 1974 

Gubernatorial election when Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller is expected to try for a fifth term. 

Mayor Lindsay’s fare-reduction plan . . . is expected to win him many friends among the 

millions of New York City voters who ride the city’s subways and buses. 

However, the plan was facing “the inevitable uphill battle” in the State legislature while “city 

politicians are falling all over themselves to support the general idea of holding the line on fares.” 

City Comptroller Beame, running for Mayor, “is somewhat miffed that Mayor Lindsay sneaked in 

before him with a transit-fare plan.” He wanted to stabilize and possibly reduce the 35-cent fare. 

(Based on the Atlanta experience, Kheel wanted to reduce the fare to 15 cents as a way of 

increasing ridership.) [Winder, David, “Lindsay’s Transit Plan Woos Voters,” The Christian 

Science Monitor, May 9, 1973] 

The legislature would not complete action on the two Port Authority bills until May 7. Governor 

Rockefeller, with Governor Cahill at his side, signed the legislation on May 10, putting into effect

the breakthrough agreement that had been announced the previous November. One of the bills 

authorized the Port Authority to begin work on the rail link between Manhattan and Kennedy 

International Airport without waiting for preliminary design work on the companion rail link to 

Newark Airport. The second bill allowed for the PATH link from Pennsylvania Station in 

Manhattan to Plainfield, New Jersey, via Newark. The legislation also covered improvement of 

terminals and other facilities. At a joint news conference in the Park Lane Hotel, Governor Cahill 

called the legislation “really historic” because it demonstrated that “this entire metropolitan area 

really is a unit.” [Fowler, Glenn, “Rockefeller Signs Mass-Transit Bills, Completing Bi-State Pact 

on Facilities,” The New York Times, May 11, 1973] 

On May 17, Dr. Ronan announced that a fare of 60 cents was virtually inevitable unless $300 

million in subsidies could be found from city, State, and Federal sources. He said that in submitting 

a city budget proposal, Mayor Lindsay had omitted the annual $100 million subsidy for transit 

operating costs that the city had paid the previous 2 years: 

This $100-million amounted to about 8.3 cents for each subway and bus ride. Without it, 

fares would have been 45 cents since January, 1972. Meanwhile, inflation keeps pushing 

costs higher and ridership continues to decline. Even if the city continues to provide $100-

million a year in transit aid, an additional $200-million annually will be needed to keep the 

fare at 35 cents.

Even with fares staying at 35 cents, ridership had declined and the city had lost a “disastrous” 

252,000 jobs in the 3 years ending in December 1972. 

As for the Lindsay plan, Dr. Ronan pointed out that “it really does not make that much difference 

where the money comes from,” as he said the Atlanta plan illustrated. He was leading the fight in 

Congress, he said, to secure Federal-aid for operating subsidies. [Prial, Frank J., “Ronan Says Fare 

May Rise to 60C,” The New York Times, May 18, 1973] 
643 

An editorial in The New York Times commented on Dr. Ronan’s warning. The current “bailingwire fiscal arrangements” had been “adopted in desperation two years ago.” A fare increase to 60 

cents “would impose extraordinary burdens on low-income workers, especially those living in twofare zones, and risk crippling the city economy.” Mayor Lindsay’s plan, announced “belatedly” 

several weeks earlier, of a regional cooperative plan offered an option:

A regional payroll tax is one alternative. Adjusting bridge and tunnel tolls to discourage the 

use of private automobiles—to make these vehicles begin to pay their way—would 

encourage better utilization of mass transit facilities and generate further revenues.

Further, cities across the Nation were facing similar problems:

Efforts must be redoubled in the Congress to break open the Highway Trust Fund and to 

divert some of this available money to mass transit needs.

For now, though, the “time for deliberate discussion has almost run out, but not quite.” The city, 

region, and State still had time “to develop a permanent transit subsidy scheme that will avoid 

recurring fare-rise crises and assure adequate levels of service.” [“Fare Disaster,” The New York 

Times, May 21, 1973] 

Mayor Lindsay appointed a committee to press for his financing plan. At a City Hall news 

conference, the Mayor said his proposal had drawn little reaction from State legislators and Mayoral 

candidates. “The silence has been great,” he said, but failure by the legislature to address the area’s 

transit problems would be “an act of irresponsibility.” 

He also announced that Theodore Kheel would head the committee. Kheel endorsed the Mayor’s 

plan, although he reserved judgment on a payroll tax as the most effective option for transit 

funding. In the absence of a plan, Kheel said, he agreed with the Mayor that the fare would go to 55 

cents on January 1, 1974. Kheel added that he had also served on the committee to save the 20-cent 

fare. “I think I was on committees to save the 5-, 10-, and 15-cent fares, too.” [“Mayor Picks 

Kheel to Head the Panel on Train-Fair Cuts,” The New York Times, May 16, 1973] 

The Watergate Controversy Gathers Steam

President Nixon turned 60 on January 9, 1973. He told wire service reporters that the key to staying 

young was “Never slow down.” As President, he had many problems “but boredom is the least of 

them.” [Associated Press, “Nixon, at 60, Gives Formula for Living: ‘Never Slow Down,’” The 

New York Times, January 9, 1973] His birthday, a Tuesday, was a normal work day, with a small 

dinner party with family and friends to celebrate the occasion. 

Even as he launched his counsellor plan to control domestic affairs, his National Security Advisor, 

Henry Kissinger, was in Paris trying to negotiate a peace pact with Le Duc Tho of the Hanoi 

Politboro. The jobless rate was at 5.2 percent, Congress was debating the war, and the President 

was considering budget cuts. On January 11, he ended mandatory wage-price controls he had 

imposed to control inflation. 
644 

On January 10, Judge John J. Sirica opened the trial on the Watergate burglars. According to 

prosecutors, the Committee to Reelect the President had paid the defendants to gather “intelligence” 

on opponents, including the break-in and bugging at the Watergate office of the Democratic 

National Committee. One of the burglars, E. Howard Hunt, quickly pleaded guilty to the six 

charges against him. Although he told the court he did not know whether “higher-ups” were 

involved, the government planned to call him before a grand jury for questioning. On January 15, 

four more of the burglars admitted their guilt, leaving only James W. McCord, Jr., and G. Gordon 

Liddy on trial. 

A few days earlier, a Times profile had described the President as quiet, contemplative, and 

isolated, but bitter about what he considered unfair attacks on his decision to bomb population 

centers in North Vietnam over the Christmas season. On the eve of the Inauguration, the Times said 

of Vice President Agnew:

In six short years, the Greek immigrant’s son who once sold vegetables on a Baltimore 

street corner has become one of the most talked about politicians in the country, and on the 

eve of the President’s second four years in office, it is Mr. Agnew who is talked about most 

as the man most likely to succeed Mr. Nixon as the Republican nominee. 

Not everyone agreed with that assessment. Although he was “the object of unmitigated envy,” 

observers also expressed “considerable doubt, substantial scorn, and no little compassion as well.” 

They doubted his political skills and thought he was on top – but only for now. [Herbers, John, 

“Nixon at 60: Quiet and Contemplative,” The New York Times, January 10, 1973; Wooten, James 

T., “Agnew is ‘On Top’ Now, But Faces a Hazy Future,” The New York Times, January 20, 1973] 

President Nixon was inaugurated for his second term on January 20, 1973. The Nation, he said in 

his Inaugural Address, was “on the threshold of a new era of peace.” At home, “Government must 

learn to take less from people so that people can do more for themselves.” He said: 

We have the chance today to do more than ever before in our history to make life better in 

America—to ensure better education, better health, better housing, better transportation, a 

cleaner environment—to restore respect for law, to make our communities more livable—

and to ensure the God-given right of every American to full and equal opportunity. 

Because the range of our needs is so great, because the reach of our opportunities is so great, 

let us be bold in our determination to meet those needs in new ways. 

Just as building a structure of peace abroad has required turning away from old policies that 

have failed, so building a new era of progress at home requires turning away from old 

policies that have failed. 

Abroad, the shift from old policies to new has not been a retreat from our responsibilities, 

but a better way to peace. 

And at home, the shift from old policies to new will not be a retreat from our 

responsibilities, but a better way to progress. 
645 

Two days later, on January 22, President Johnson died of heart failure at his ranch in Johnson City, 

Texas, while the Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 to overrule all State laws that prohibit or restrict a 

woman’s right to obtain an abortion during her first three months of pregnancy. 

On January 26, in Judge Sirica’s courtroom on January 26, Hugh W. Sloan, former treasurer of 

President Nixon’s reelection committee, testified that campaign funds totaling $199,000 had been 

paid to Liddy with the approval of two top campaign officials, former Commerce Secretary Stans 

and former Attorney General Mitchell (January 21, 1969 – March 1, 1972). 

A Vietnam pact was signed the next day and Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird ended the military 

draft. 

The White House fired Dwight L. Chapin, the President’s former appointments secretary, on 

January 28. Newspaper disclosures identified him as the White House contact with Donald H. 

Segretti, who had led Republican “dirty tricks” efforts to disrupt Democratic primaries and harass 

candidates. 

The jury in the Watergate trial convicted Liddy and McCord on January 30. The two were sent to 

jail pending a bail hearing. At the hearing on February 2, Judge Sirica expressed his view that a 

recently concluded criminal investigation had failed to get to the bottom of the Watergate crimes. 

He hoped that the pending congressional investigation would explore the crimes more deeply. 

In the following days, additional revelations were published. A Haldeman aide, Gordon C. Stachan, 

was linked to Liddy and Segretti. Chapin acknowledged to the Federal Bureau of Investigation 

(FBI) that he had directed the President’s personal attorney, Herbert W. Kalmbach, to pay Segretti. 

The U.S. prosecutor in the Watergate trial, Earl J. Silbert, announced he would open a grand jury to 

hear from the defendants. The government had been unable to develop evidence against anyone 

else, but would focus on Liddy during the hearings. 

On March 12, the President invoked executive privilege in announcing that current and former 

members of his personal staff, including Chapin and counsel John W. Dean III, would not testify 

before congressional panels investigating Watergate. The Senate Judiciary Committee immediately 

challenged the announcement by calling Dean as a witness in the confirmation hearing of L. Patrick 

Gray III to become Director of the FBI. Questions had arisen about Gray’s tenure as acting Director 

because he had provided FBI reports on the Watergate break-in to Dean. 

On March 14, the same day the Senate approved the Muskie-Baker amendment, Dean stated he 

would not testify, but would respond to written questions. In the face of declining support in the 

Senate, Gray asked that his nomination be withdrawn, an action President Nixon announced on 

April 5. 

On March 23, Judge Sirica imposed a sentence of not less than 6 years, 8 months and not more than 

20 years in prison on Liddy and a sentence of 35 to 40 years on his codefendants. James McCord 

wrote to Judge Sirica claiming that he and his co-defendants had been under “political pressure to 

plead guilty and remain silent” to avoid testimony that might result in naming others involved in the 
646 

incident. McCord asked to meet with the Judge in private because he feared retaliation if he 

revealed who was behind the break-in. 

Within days, McCord had talked with investigators on Senator Ervin’s Select Committee about 

previously unnamed White House conspirators, including Dean and Jeb Stuart Magruder, the 

reelection committee’s deputy manager who was now Assistant Secretary of Commerce. While 

Hunt began appearing before a grand jury, McCord agreed to testify before the committee in secret, 

adding to the list of those involved: former Attorney General Mitchell; Charles Colson, former 

deputy counsel to the President; Haldeman; and Robert Mardian, former Assistant Attorney 

General. 

Press secretary Ron Ziegler announced on March 30 that the White House was willing to 

compromise with Senate investigators on an informal basis in any way that does not violate the 

separation of powers. Aides were instructed to appear before the grand jury if summoned. The 

change in approach appeared to be a response to bipartisan congressional criticism that the White 

House appeared to be covering up high level involvement in the Watergate break-in. During an 

April 2 news conference, Senator Ervin rejected the offer of informal cooperation, saying that 

White House staff were not “nobility and royalty” who could avoid testifying. 

On April 4, Senators Ervin and Baker of the investigating committee said that they had no evidence 

implicating President Nixon’s aide, Haldeman, in Watergate.

An attorney for Colson announced on April 7 that he had passed a privately administered lie 

detector test confirming that he had no knowledge that his employee Hunt was going to break into 

the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. [Lydon, Christopher, “Colson 

Reported Passing a Lie Test on Watergate,” The New York Times, April 8, 1973] 

In Augusta, Maine, on April 7, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, George H. W. 

Bush, addressed 250 Maine Republican leaders. He told reporters the wiretapping of Democratic 

National Headquarters at the Watergate was “grubby business” and “Mickey Mouse.” Calling the 

decision behind the plan “amateurish,” he said, “I don’t think for a minute the President condoned 

it.” He said that he and the President wanted to clear up the controversy as soon as possible and the 

best way to do that was through complete disclosure by all participants. [“A ‘Grubby Business,’” 

The New York Times, April 8, 1973] 

On April 17, President Nixon appeared before a hastily arranged news conference to make two 

announcements on the Watergate investigations. First, he believed the White House had reached 

agreement with the Ervin Committee on testimony by present and former aides. He said that the 

committee’s ground rules allowed witnesses to testify in executive (secret) session if appropriate. 

This type of testimoney was mutually acceptable, but he reserved the right to invoke executive 

privilege during the course of questioning. 

Second, he said that he had begun his own “intensive new inquiries into this whole matter” on 

March 21. In recent days, he said, he had reviewed the facts uncovered by his investigation as well 

as the progress of the Justice Department’s investigation: 
647 

I can report today that there have been major developments in the case concerning which it 

would be improper to be more specific now, except to say that real progress has been made 

in finding the truth. 

He said that if any employees were indicted, he would suspend them and, if they were convicted, he 

would automatically discharge them. He also had expressed his view to the appropriate authorities 

that no one in his Administration, past or present, should be immune from prosecution. He added 

in closing that, “I condemn any attempts to cover up in this case, no matter who is involved.” 

The President took no questions. However, Ziegler informed the press that previous statements 

denying White House involvement were “inoperative.” The President’s announcement was 

perceived as a counteroffensive to reclaim the initiative and demonstrate that he was not involved in 

wrongdoing. 

Senator Ervin had been driving home to Davidson, North Carolina, at the time of the President’s 

announcement. The following day he said that he appreciated the President’s offer of cooperation 

but reserved the right to determine whether a current or former White House aide could refuse to 

testify.

Attorney General Richard G. Kleindienst withdrew from involvement in Watergate-related matters 

on April 18. Congressional and White House sources were claiming that serious allegations had 

been made against Mitchell, Dean, Stans, Kalmbach, Magruder, and Strachan. Reports on April 19 

indicated that former Attorney General Mitchell had sat in on meetings where plans for bugging the 

opposition were discussed, but rejected the plan. Dean, embattled amidst the growing allegations, 

issued a statement indicating that he would not be made a “scapegoat.” 

The swirl of Watergate events continued as Mitchell appeared before the Federal grand jury on 

April 20, reportedly stating he “would like to know” who kept pressing for spying after he turned it 

down. Reports indicated that prosecutors were seeking links between Haldeman and the break-in. 

Soon, rumors were spreading that Haldeman’s role in the White House had been diminished as a 

staff shake-up appeared imminent. 

On April 26, Gray was reported to have told friends he destroyed documents given to him by 

Ehrlichman and Dean after Dean said they “should never see the light of day.” The same day, 

Magruder resigned from his post at the Commerce Department. He reportedly had told prosecutors 

that Dean and Mitchell had approved the break-in. 

Each day brought new, often shocking developments. On April 27, Gray quit the FBI and the 

President named EPA Administrator Ruckelshaus as Acting Director. Haldeman and Ehrlichman 

were reportedly fighting efforts to force them out of the White House, John Dean was seeking 

immunity in return for his testimony, and a new development linked Watergate to the ongoing trial 

in Los Angeles of Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers he had helped prepare for the 

Rand Corporation. Judge William M. Byrne, Jr., told the courtroom that he had received a letter 

from Watergate prosecutor Silbert indicating that Liddy and Hunt had burglarized the office of 
648 

Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding, in search of Ellsberg’s medical files that they hoped 

could be used to discredit or at least embarrass him. 

As April ended, President Nixon was reported to be in “virtual seclusion” at Camp David trying to 

decide how to put Watergate behind him, but continuing revelations would make that impossible. 

Haldeman and Ehrlichman, who normally accompanied the President to Camp David, had stayed in 

Washington amid a swirl of reports about developments within the White House. Dean was 

reportedly ready to testify under oath about their role in the coverup of the break-in. Haldeman and 

Ehrlichman were preparing to meet with Silbert to discuss actions. 

On April 30, President Nixon returned to Washington to deliver a televised address in which he 

accepted responsibility for Watergate, but stated that he did not have prior knowledge of it. The 

wrongdoing was by his staff and reelection committee who had authorized the break-in in an effort 

to stop wrongdoing by the Democrats. 

Dean, Ehrlichman, and Haldeman had resigned earlier in the day. Attorney General Kleindienst 

also resigned, saying that with friends and associates involved in the investigation, his impartiality 

was in doubt. The President chose Defense Secretary Elliot L. Richardson to become Attorney 

General. In addition, the President indicated that he was turning his internal investigation of the 

allegations over to Richardson. This shift would allow the President, he thought, to focus on 

important foreign and domestic matters.

Pressure was growing for appointment of a special prosecutor as evidence mounted that top aides 

had engaged in obstruction of justice and the circle of those involved continued to expand. The FBI 

released a report on May 1 in which Ehrlichman indicated that the break-in at Dr. Fielding’s office

had come about after he, at the President’s direction, had ordered a secret investigation into the leak 

of the document. Hunt and Liddy were assigned the task, but Ehrlichman claimed he did not know 

they planned to break into Dr. Fielding’s office.

Investigators had concluded by May 3 that the Committee to Reelect the President had employed 

Segretti to engage in a campaign of spying and dirty tricks to ensure a weak opponent for the 

President. Republicans worked to undermine other candidates during the primary season to ensure 

that Senator McGovern would win the nomination. For example, Segretti had conspired to 

undermine Senator Muskie, the presumed frontrunner, and stir dissent among the candidates and 

their campaign staffs. In one incident, Segretti sent a letter on the letterhead of Senator Muskie’s 

campaign advising “Fellow Democrats” that they should be aware of “several facts.” Perlstein 

summarized the false allegations:

These included that Henry Jackson had sired an illegitimate daughter in high school and had 

twice been arrested for homosexual activity in Washington, D.C., and that Hubert 

Humphrey had been arrested for drunk driving in the company of a “known call girl” 

generously provided him by a lumber lobbyist. 
649 

Another tactic was a letter supposedly from the Muskie campaign to wealthy Democrats asking 

them not to contribute to his campaign; he preferred small donors, not “the usual fat cats.” 

[Perlstein, p. 633] 

On May 4, Judge Byrne released Hunt’s testimony revealing that the White House had conceived 

the break-in at Dr. Fielding’s office and that it had been accomplished with equipment from the 

Central Intelligence Agency. The effort, Hunt claimed, was directed by two White House aides, 

David Young and Egil Krogh, Jr., now the Under Secretary of Transportation. The effort had begun 

in August 1971 when Young, Krogh, Hunt, and Liddy met in the Old Executive Office Building to 

develop a strategy for investigating leaks. With Ehrlichman’s approval, they agreed on the break-in 

at Dr. Fielding’s office because they expected to find information they could use to undermine 

Ellsberg. The burglary took place on September 3, 1971, but they did not find the files they were 

seeking. Ehrlichman vetoed their plan to break into Ellsberg’s home. 

Information soon emerged that the President had attempted to prevent release of information about 

the break-in at Dr. Fielding’s office. As recently as a week before the courtroom revelation, 

Ehrlichman had told Krogh that for national security reasons, the President did not want the 

information released. The President reversed himself at Richardson’s insistence. Krogh had since 

acknowledged his involvement and resigned from the Department of Transportation. 

On May 10, Mitchell and Stans were indicted for perjury, while the White House continued a 

restructuring necessitated by recent developments. One change was that the plan to control the 

domestic departments via counsellors was abolished, a move that was inevitable following the 

departure of Haldeman and especially Ehrlichman. This explicit change reflected a more subtle 

shift as the President’s grand scheme of executive control of power in Washington was unraveling. 

President Nixon informed the counsellors of the changes during a May 10 Cabinet meeting. 

Following the principle of de-centralization, he would restore authority to the Cabinet Secretaries

for the operation of their departments as well as policy development, congressional liaison, and 

public relations. He wanted a lower profile for the White House, but assured the Secretaries that 

the door to the Oval Office would be open to them. The three counsellors were stunned, having had 

no warning of the change. [Lee, p. 188, 191] 

Reporting the changes, Engineering News-Record commented:

Transportation Secretary Claude Brinegar—crippled by the loss of under secretary Egil 

Krogh, who admitted a supervisory role as a former White House aide in the burglary of a 

safe in the Watergate-related Pentagon papers case—moves out of the shadow of James 

Lynn, still Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary but no longer urban 

development counselor [sic]. Similarly, Interior Secretary Rogers Morton can now bypass 

former natural resources counselor Earl Butz and Labor Secretary Peter Brennan can be 

independent of human resources counselor Caspar Weinberger. Policy disputes will go 

more directly to Nixon. [“Watergate Fallout Slows Government Machinery,” Engineering 

News-Record, May 17, 1973, p. 7] 
650 

Citing “improper government conduct,” Judge Byrne dismissed the charges against Ellsberg and his 

codefendant, Anthony J. Russo, Jr. “The conduct of the Government had placed the case in such a 

posture that it precluded the fair, dispassionate resolution of these issues by a jury.” 

The Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities began public hearings on May 

17 with Senator Ervin in charge. 

[This section is based on numerous articles appearing in The New York Times from January through 

May 18, 1973.] 

Secretary Brinegar Makes His Case

Following Senate approval of S. 502 on March 15, the bill was referred to the House Committee on 

Public Works. 

As noted earlier, Vice President Agnew was in Los Angeles on March 21 to address the 

international rapid transit seminar. In his discussion of the Administration’s support for Highway 

Trust Fund diversion to mass transit construction, he mentioned the Senate’s vote for such use: 

Only the concurrence of the House is necessary now to provide our states and localities with 

the flexibility they will need to achieve a truly balanced transportation system. [“Transit 

Commuters Wooed by Agnew,” Washington Star, March 22, 1973] 

The House Subcommittee on Transportation, with Representative Kluczynski as chairman, had 

begun hearings on the 1973 highway legislation on March 1, 6, and 7 with consideration of the 

Highway Safety Act of 1973, H.R. 2332, introduced by Representative Harsha on January 18. It 

included such measures as:

• Rail-Highway Crossings—Required the States to identify crossings in need of grade 

separation, relocation, or protective devices and authorized $150 million (FY 1974) and 

$225 million (FY 1975) for installation of safety devices on roads whether on or off the 

Federal-aid system.

• Bridge Reconstruction and Replacement—Authorized $225 million (FY 1974) and $450 

million (FY 1975), with two-thirds from the Highway Trust Fund for on-system projects. 

The balance was to come from the general Treasury for off-system projects. 

• Pavement Marking Program—Authorized $125 million a year to help States improve the 

pavement marking of all highways to provide greater vehicle and pedestrian safety. 

• Projects for High-Hazard Locations--$100 million a year for projects to eliminate or reduce 

hazards at locations with a high accident experience or potential, with the same breakdown 

of Highway Trust Fund/general Treasury funding as for the bridge program. 

• Program for the Elimination of Roadside Obstacles—Authorized $75 million a year to 

remove obstacles that may be hazardous to vehicles and pedestrians, including replacement 

of existing sign and light supports with supports designed to break away upon impact. 

• Highway Safety Educational Program and Study--$1 million out of the Highway Trust Fund 

to study how to use the mass media to promote highway safety. 
651 

• Citizen Participation Study--$1 million out of the Highway Trust Fund for a study of ways 

to encourage greater citizen participation in highway safety programs. 

• National Center for Statistical Analysis of Highway Operations--$5 million out of the 

Highway Trust Fund to study the feasibility of establishing the center. 

• Pedestrian Safety Study--$5 million out of the Highway Trust Fund for a study of pedestrian 

safety.

• Incentives for Compliance with Highway Safety Standards--$10 million a year out of the 

Highway Trust Fund in incentive grants for States that made the most significant 

improvements in highway safety. 

• Authorized the use of NHTSA safety research funds for grants to States, local agencies, 

institutions, or individuals to demonstrate the administrative adjudication of traffic 

infractions. 

The bill also authorized: 

• $200 million (FY 1974) and $300 million (FY 1975) out of the Highway Trust Fund for 

NHTSA to carry out its highway safety programs under 23 U.S.C. 402; 

• $115 million a year out of the Highway Trust Fund for NHTSA to carry out its highway 

safety research and development under 23 U.S.C. 403; 

• $35 million (FY 1974) and $45 million (FY 1975) out of the Highway Trust Fund for 

FHWA to carry out its highway safety programs under 23 U.S.C. 402; and 

• $10 million a year out of the Highway Trust Fund for FHWA to carry out its highway safety 

research and development programs under 23 U.S.C. 307(a) and 403. 

The bill also funded research on pavement marking and drug use and driver behavior. [1973 

Highway Legislation (Highway Safety), Hearings on H.R. 2332 before the Subcommittee on 

Transportation, Committee on Public Works, House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, 

Report 93-3, March 1, 6, and 7, 1973, p. 3-26] 

Many of the same individuals and organizations testified before the House and Senate panels, 

offering similar views in both venues. These included HUFSAM’s Mickle, the Insurance Institute 

for Highway Safety’s Ben Kelley, ARBA’s Hanson, and American Association of Railroads’ 

Sproles. Again, too, NHTSA Acting Administrator Wilson and FHWA Acting Administrator 

Bartelsmeyer presented the Department’s views.

On March 19, the Subcommittee on Transportation began hearings on the Federal-aid highway 

portion of the legislation. The subcommittee had not yet released a Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1973 bill, but Representative Kluczynski hoped the witnesses would help the subcommittee “cope 

with the questions presented in S. 502 which has passed the Senate, and also the administration bill, 

which I introduced at the request of the administration on March 5.” 

Because of the “emergency of the issue on mass transit,” he said the subcommittee had invited 

witnesses from “the entire spectrum of the mass transit program,” including operators, 

manufacturers, and unions. He added that the Committee on Public Works was “highly in favor of 

mass transit as it is for highways,” including “the proper financing of these two complementary 

systems of transportation.” The witnesses would help the subcommittee find “a proper solution to 
652 

the problem and not one which represents a hastily contrived and partial answer which will only 

promote further confusion.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), Hearings before 

the Subcommittee on Transportation, Committee on Public Works, U.S. House of Representatives, 

93rd Congress, 1st Session, Report 93-5, March 19-23, 1973, p. 1] 

Representative Harsha agreed that mass transit was a key consideration in 1973:

I think it is fair to say that every member on this subcommittee, and probably on the full 

committee also, shares a genuine concern over the subject of mass transportation for our 

cities. Our differences with the pro mass transit proponents is more directed at funding 

rather than the need and recognition of the problem. 

Representative Abzug said “we are on the threshold of realizing and acknowledging that one aspect 

of transportation—roads and highways—cannot be considered or dealt with in a vacuum, but that 

we must consider all of our basic forms of public transportation on a coordinated basis.” On March 

14, she had introduced the “Highways and Related Transportation Systems Improvement Act of 

1973,” H.R. 5573, which would permit all Highway Trust Fund money, except for Interstate funds, 

to be used for mass transit. Like the Kennedy-Weicker amendment, H.R. 5573 would make about 

$3 billion available for highway or mass transit uses. It also contained a pass-through of funds 

earmarked for urbanized areas to be made available to a metropolitan transportation agency. 

She pointed out that the Administration bill “once again supported the concept of making Highway 

Trust Funds money available for mass transit purposes,” adding, “I do hope this year they will really 

put some muscle behind the position.” She also complimented Representative Kluczynski “for 

statesmanship by coming around to my way of thinking about the use of Highway Trust Fund 

money for mass transit.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 3-4] 

Representative Cleveland agreed that the “overriding issue is whether we will yield to pressures to 

divert funds from the Highway Trust Fund for urban rail transit.” He was sure that mass transit 

advocates would invoke “considerations of balance, flexibility, fairness, State and local 

prerogatives, pollution, energy, and the like.” He continued: 

But if the past is any guide, none of this rhetoric will justify invading the trust fund for two 

fundamental reasons: 1. The needs for highway-related improvements are so great, and 

anticipated user tax revenues so limited by comparison, that the trust fund will be 

overwhelmed by highway demands alone. 2. Whatever the need for transit, the case cannot 

be made for requiring those who contribute to the trust fund to foot the bill. I am not about 

to see the New Hampshire farmer help pay the commuting cost for the affluent New York 

suburbanite. 

He pointed out that in 1972, Senator Williams had sponsored a bill to continue contract authority 

for the UMTA program for 3 years at $1 billion a year in general revenue, plus operating subsidies. 

 “But this was opposed by those who sought to pry open the trust fund.” He quoted Senator 

Williams’ comment when the conference deadlocked: 
653 

I . . . can only say that the Senate members of the conference who rejected this proposal in 

my judgment were sadly misguided. I would suggest soul searching on the question of 

whether the effort was to aid mass transit or to break up the trust fund. 

Sadly, it seems to be the majority of the Senate conferees chose the latter course.

Representative Cleveland was certain that the subcommittee would again “hear misinformed 

statements about the mythical huge surpluses in the trust funds, dangers of ‘paving over America’ 

or chopping up the country with superhighways.” Comments such as these, he said, were focused 

on the Interstate System and ignored the needs on other highways, as well as the terrible toll of 

death and injuries. 

For those fighting for highway improvement, Representative Cleveland said, nothing could be more 

frightening than the exchange in 1972 between former Representative Schwengel and Theodore 

Kheel of the Highway Action Coalition. Asked how much revenue New York needed, Kheel 

replied: 

I could not give you a precise figure. I think there is no limit, really, on our true needs. We 

have neglected mass transportation so extensively in the postwar years that the needs that 

we have are frightening.

As for serving the poor, Representative Cleveland pointed out that the Tri-State Regional Planning 

Commission described subway riders as New Yorkers whose family incomes were slightly above 

average, with the remaining subway trips by middle and upper-income suburbanites. The 

commission had said, “Subways are not primarily the vehicle of the poor; rather, the poor of the 

Region simply do not, or cannot, travel extensively.” This description supported Representative 

Cleveland’s point about subsidizing affluent subway riders. 

He urged the subcommittee to look into “the entire matter of urban planning and development 

controls related to urban transit.” In view of existing requirements for 3C metropolitan planning, 

much of the transit problem stemmed “from apparent failures of metropolitan areas to plan their 

own development in coordination with transportation improvements.” Looking at the “urban 

environment in the fullest sense,” he feared that one of two possibilities was likely to occur:

(1) That development around subway facilities is allowed to become so dense as to render 

the facility obsolete, thereby generating demand for further costly improvements; and (2) 

that development is allowed to take place in disregard of the need for transportation, again 

generating demand for costly improvements. 

Representative Cleveland pointed out that: 

There are comprehensive planning requirements imposed in connection with the highway 

program, and I understand that some 30 cities are not certified as meeting even the minimal 

requirements of establishing a planning process and planning agency. 
654 

This suggests that a review of planning is in order. 

He cited the World Trade Center in New York City as an example. It was, he said, “expected to 

create a nightmare of congestion,” and quoted Kheel as saying of the port authority, “This is going 

to be a great irony, that any agency created to solve our transportation problems winds up creating 

one of the worst traffic jams in history.” In view of these words, Representative Cleveland said, “I 

see even greater irony in his attempts to use the trust fund to bail out New York. No wonder, again 

in his words, ‘there is no limit, really, on our true needs.’” 

He looked forward to a full discussion of the relationship between national policy objectives and 

locally formulated plans. Under NEPA, an EIS for an urban highway project must consider any 

adverse environmental impacts. “So I urge exploration of this field with the thought that any 

funding of urban mass transit be accompanied with a more meaningful and explicit ‘impaction’ 

statement.” Then, and only then, could “a realistic determination be made as to the even partial 

justification for diversion of highway funds for mass transit.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 29-32] 

Secretary Brinegar, the first witness, was accompanied by Acting Administrator Bartelsmeyer, 

Administrator Herringer, Department General Counsel John Barnum, and Deputy Under Secretary 

Ted Lutz. The Secretary began by summarizing the failure of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1972 and the problem that failure caused for the Interstate program. Although the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1970 had authorized Interstate Construction funds through FY 1976, FHWA did 

not have authority to apportion the FY 1974 Interstate funds to the States because Congress had not 

approved the most recent Interstate Cost Estimate. “We have done what we can administratively to 

alleviate this problem by providing additional flexibility in the use of available funds, but at this 

point there is nothing more the Department can do short of legislation.” 

He therefore endorsed Senator Baker’s Senate Concurrent Resolution 6, which would permit the 

immediate apportionment of $1 billion in Interstate funds to the States. Approval of the resolution 

would allow the States to continue Interstate construction while Congress developed comprehensive 

highway and public transportation legislation. 

In contrast to his testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Transportation, Secretary Brinegar 

could discuss the Administration bill, H.R. 5138, specifically instead of its general principles. He 

began by focusing on the provision allowing the use of Federal-aid urban system funds for mass 

transit, including investments in rail transit. This was, he said, “a needed and rational response to 

the complex transportation problems that our cities face.” If Congress did not give cities the 

flexibility to chose the best transportation solutions, “we run the risk of forcing them, simply 

because of the inflexibility of the allocation process, to make investments that may be ‘secondbest.’” He added:

Rarely can a Nation afford the luxury of “second best” investments, but in today’s 

inflationary times we especially cannot tolerate them.
655 

He acknowledged the “hue and cry” over the proposal, the charges of “breaking a sacred trust” and 

“destroying the highway program.” The rhetoric, Secretary Brinegar said, was unfortunate and the 

charges simply untrue: 

I doubt if anyone who has tried to move about in our major cities at rush hours or who has 

examined the data on urban air pollution can any longer doubt the need for a stepped-up 

attack on the urban transportation problem. 

Modern, federally supported highways have made our cities accessible, but too many cars 

and trucks trying to use these highways have, as a practical matter, made these cities almost 

inaccessible just at the times most of us most need the accessibility.

And, as the highways and vehicles have increased in number in the past decade, public 

transit systems—reflecting declining ridership, increasing costs, and often institutional 

inflexibility—have themselves become less and less capable of offering attractive 

alternatives.

The Administration was addressing the problem three ways. First, the Administration proposed to 

continue UMTA programs for 3 additional years beyond FY 1974 at $1 billion a year from the 

general Treasury. Second, local officials had access to about $6 billion in General Revenue Sharing

funds that could be used for any kind of transportation projects. Third, local officials would have 

flexibility in the use of Federal-aid urban system funds: 

These funds are not intended as a substitute for the UMTA capital program, which is 

especially needed to fund large-scale projects. Rather, they are aimed at the myriad of 

capital needs that every urban area has and can best develop its own program to solve. 

As for whether the proposal could be called “breaking of the trust,” Secretary Brinegar pointed out 

that it was, first, “a logical and moderate extension of the variety of uses that the highway taxes 

have been put to since they were assembled under a single umbrella in 1956 and, second, it 

maintains the equities of the relationship between who pays the taxes and who receives the 

benefits.” The excise taxes in the Highway Trust Fund had previously contributed to the general 

Treasury; they had been earmarked in 1956 when the Interstate System was considered a high 

national priority. In fact, prior to 1956, Federal-aid highway funds came from the general Treasury. 

 “Thus, on grounds of historic equity it is fair to conclude that a sizable amount of trust fund 

moneys could be legitimately used for transportation purposes that broadly benefit a large segment 

of the population.” 

Secretary Brinegar also pointed out the gradual broadening of the use of Highway Trust Fund 

revenues beyond the “sacred trust” philosophy of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956: 

In 1962 trust fund payments were permitted to assist in housing relocation arising from 

Federal-aid highway construction. 

In the 1968 act three changes were made: (1) The fund was broadened to embrace what is 

called the TOPICS program: “traffic operations improvements to increase capacity and 
656 

safety” in the cities. This program resulted in a redefinition of Federal-aid highways to 

include urban area street grids. (2) The uses of funds for relocation and replacement 

housing were further broadened. (3) States were permitted to acquire land adjacent to 

highway rights-of-way for construction of parking lots. 

The 1970 act expanded the uses of the funds into several new areas: (1) Funds were 

permitted to be used in urban areas for bus lanes, passenger loading facilities, bus shelters, 

and fringe and corridor parking to serve any type of public mass transportation. (2) 

Housing relocation assistance was broadened materially, with funds now authorized to 

construct replacement housing. (3) Highway safety program costs, which had previously 

come entirely from the general fund, were brought largely under the trust fund. (4) 

Financing of forest highways and public lands highways that are on a Federal-aid system 

were moved from the general fund to the trust fund. (5) The training of State and local 

highway department employees was financed from the trust fund. (6) A Federal-aid urban 

system—a grid embracing urban area main traffic arteries—was designated and brought 

under the trust fund. (7) Ferryboats were recognized as reasonable substitutes for Federalaid highways in some cases and were permitted to be financed from the trust fund. 

These changes “enabled us to deal flexibly and equitably with the Nation’s evolving transportation 

needs.” All that H.R. 5138 was seeking was “some more keeping up with the times.” 

Secretary Brinegar explained that while trying to expand the Highway Trust Fund, he did not 

advocate creation of a mass transit fund. As was the case with the Highway Trust Fund, a trust fund 

for mass transit would build “inflexibility into decisionmaking that cannot help but produce 

‘second-best’ decisions.” He added: 

Old-time “sugar-bowl” finance, where one bowl held the week’s food money, one held the 

rent money, and so on, belongs in the past; it is not the solution to today’s complex urban 

transportation problems. We do not want to create yet another sugar bowl, as we would 

through a new trust fund, but only permit a more reasonable use of the funds in the bowl 

that is already here.

He described the pass-through provision in H.R. 5138: 

This provision would earmark urban systems funds for each urbanized area larger than 

400,000. It would make those funds directly available to the appropriate metropolitan 

agency where one exists or is created by the State or local government units. In the absence 

of such an agency, the funds would be held by the State for use in the designated urbanized 

areas.

The Department’s proposal in 1972 had involved earmarking urban system funds for urbanized 

areas with populations of 50,000 or more. “We have concluded that earmarking funds is desirable 

only in the case of the larger areas.” The proposal would affect 57 metropolitan areas with 400,000 

or more residents. 
657 

He said the bill also modified the Interstate transfer and substitution provisions contained in the 

Senate version of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972: 

First, as a general rule we do not believe that, if an Interstate segment is dropped, a new 

Interstate segment should be designated. If a State and locality wishes to delete a 

controversial Interstate segment from the system, and DOT agrees that this link is not 

essential to the national system, we propose that the State be given the option to use these 

funds on any other Federal-aid system, including the urban flexible fund. 

Second, we believe these funds should be used at the prevailing matching ratio. The 

Interstate System is funded on a 90-10 basis because of its national significance. When 

segments are withdrawn from that system and the funds made available for alternative 

projects, we believe that it is appropriate to change the Federal share to 70 percent, as will 

be the case for all non-Interstate projects as of July 1, 1973; with these changes we support 

this important amendment.

The Department supported a 3-year reauthorization because trying to stick to the traditional 2-year 

bill would mean Congress would have to resume consideration of a Federal-aid highway act in 

1974. “We are confident that Congress will adopt meaningful reforms in the program this year and 

this will make it unnecessary to take up the renewal of the program twice in the 93d Congress. 

H.R. 5138 consolidated programs to eliminate the proliferation of categorical grant programs. It 

provides “a simplified program of assistance . . . without imposing specific, narrow objectives to 

which local governments must adhere.” Therefore, the Administration opposed the “priority 

primary” proposal adopted by the House in 1972. “As we approach the 1980’s and the completion 

of the Interstate System, we must focus instead on trying to provide greater flexibility in our 

transportation programs, not less.” 

Secretary Brinegar shared the concern of Congress and the States about unduly burdensome 

regulations. H.R. 5138 proposed a certification acceptance process that would shift responsibility 

to the State highway agencies for many procedures and requirements of Title 23. However, it 

would not cover environmental, relocation, or civil rights requirements: 

We therefore oppose legislation which would provide exemptions from these general 

Federal requirements for particular highway projects. We will, of course, work with States 

and localities to develop workable solutions to difficult transportation problems, but 

projects which cannot comply with the basic standards should not be undertaken. 

Finally, he objected “most strenuously” to two provisions of S. 502 as approved by the Senate. 

First, he objected to the provision that limited the Administration’s ability to impound funds. “We 

believe that such authority is essential to the control of inflation and to the promotion of the 

economic vitality of the Nation, as well as prudent management of the program.” Second, he 

opposed the provision authorizing payment of $400 million a year in operating subsidies for mass 

transportation systems:
658 

We believe that administering such a subsidies program is the wrong thing for the Federal 

Government to do, and that this problem can be dealt with most effectively through local 

action. Neither the causes nor the solutions to the widely varying local transit operating 

problems are simple enough to be addressed by the proposed subsidy program. 

Pressures to work out proper local fares, routes, manpower levels, wage rates, traffic 

regulations, and land uses must be dealt with at the local level, where the real knowledge 

and responsibility exists. The proper Federal role is that of providing funds for mass transit 

capital grants, as I have described above, and providing general revenue-sharing funds for 

local uses in accordance with locally determined priorities. [1973 Highway Legislation 

(Future Highway Needs), p. 33-40] 

Representative Robert E. Jones, a Democrat who had represented his Alabama district since 1947, 

was the first to question Secretary Brinegar. “I think your statement is a great paradox; you are all 

for it, but administratively against it.” The Secretary, Jones said, had talked about the importance 

of completing the Interstate System, and “yet we want to go into the trust fund, and, consequently . . 

. we will take other opportunities to further delay the Interstate System.” The list of past diversions 

from highway projects had given the Secretary “cause to say that you would do that with other 

resources in the trust fund.” 

The Secretary pointed out that the Federal-aid highway systems already existed and he was simply 

proposing a change in its operation. The changes did not affect the Interstate System. “It is our 

intention to allocate funds to this program in a timely fashion, to see that it is completed upon its 

schedule, which we now believe is 1980.” When Representative Jones expressed doubt about the 

date, Secretary Brinegar asked Bartelsmeyer to discuss Interstate completion:

According to the needs that are remaining, we can complete the Interstate System by 1980. 

It will take some averaging of authorizations and funding levels in about the $3 billion 

range.

The most funds that have ever been obligated in the Interstate program was in 1969, which 

was $3.44 billion; so the stretchout of about, I would say, 2 years— 

Representative Jones interrupted to ask how long the schedule would have to be stretched out in 

view of the impoundment of $2.8 billion. After explaining that the figure was actually in the range 

of $2.3-$2.5 billion, Secretary Brinegar said that the impoundment was undertaken “to balance the 

short-term fiscal needs of the country.” He added that “if we try to do too much too fast, we will 

end up doing things in a way that strains the Nation, and we are all hurt.” He saw “reasonable 

completion of the system with the restraints now on it.”

 

When Representative Jones expressed concern about the administrative time needed to advance 

projects to construction, exclusive of NEPA compliance, Secretary Brinegar mentioned the 

certification acceptance provision to cut red tape. He added:
659 

We certainly would like to speed it up, but I do have to note that, as to the Interstate System, 

the remaining pieces which are down to less than the last 10 percent are heavily 

concentrated in controversial areas, many in urban areas, where there are a great many 

public interests to be investigated, and these are always, as you near the end of a program, 

increasingly difficult to speed up. 

On the subject of the $6 billion in General Revenue Sharing, Secretary Brinegar said, “it is too early 

to tell what is being done with this money,” but it was available for transportation, including 

assistance with operating subsidies. Representative Jones said he did not know of any mass transit 

system that was profitable. Secretary Brinegar elaborated on the varied causes of losses:

There are differences in local fare practices, differences in local employment practices, as to 

how they are staffed, differences in route structure; the causes of these losses are so 

divergent that we feel that the local areas have to decide themselves how much of this they 

can tolerate and how they are going to finance it. In fact, this is being done throughout the 

country. 

Representative Jones thought “it would be incumbent upon us to address ourselves to that problem, 

rather than wait for some revenue-sharing proposal that might come along.” Transit was “a 

laudable and good cause,” but what he wanted to know was “how much we are going to expend, 

how much is going to be necessary from year to year, to accommodate the number of people that 

are going to make use of this.” Secretary Brinegar replied:

Sir, we certainly want to see and encourage modern and efficient local transit systems. We 

are trying to do that through the capital grant program, which I mentioned. 

But again, to come back to operating practice, that is a very difficult problem for the Federal 

Government to address. In some of the data I looked at in the Boston system, about 80 cents 

out of the dollar went to pay labor costs; and in other areas, 60 cents out of a dollar goes for 

labor costs. 

Now, should you say to Boston to lower the labor costs? 

He believed that local governments can best decide operating details, just as States are responsible 

for 100 percent of highway maintenance costs. 

Asked if the Federal Government should get involved in setting operating rules to ensure Federal 

investment is properly protected, Secretary Brinegar deferred to Herringer. He explained:

We do have very detailed capital grant requirements, but we do not ever try to dictate the 

maintenance and operations practices of a mass transportation system . . . . In our capital 

grant program, we have criteria that a transit company must satisfy before it can get a capital 

grant, and that would include submission of a plan, projection of operating revenues and 

expenses, and assurances that the system will continue to operate.
660 

Representative Jones wanted to discuss the contrast between highway maintenance and operating 

subsidies. Was not the maintenance requirement part of approval of a highway project? Secretary 

Brinegar replied that “we require the highways to be maintained, but we do not provide the money. 

If they are not maintained, then we would stop the money. Likewise, on our capital programs, we 

would require performance—“ Representative Jones interrupted to ask what authority would the 

Department exercise to ensure proper maintenance of federally assisted mass transit operations? 

“The programs are still pretty new,” the Secretary explained, with capital funds still going in, but 

the Department was reviewing programs such as BART “to make sure that the money is doing what 

it was represented to do . . . .” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 40-47] 

The next questions came from Representative Harsha, who began by asking Secretary Brinegar 

about the administrative measures the Department had taken to stretch out Interstate funds 

following the failure of legislation in 1972. At the Secretary’s request, Bartelsmeyer responded: 

What we are talking about, Mr. Harsha, is that we permitted the States to use obligational 

authority that is allotted to them outside of the categories that were initially assigned to 

them.

We have also worked out a method with respect to the Interstate, where those States who 

have obligational authority left, but who do not have authorization left, who have used up all 

of their authorization of apportionment, they come into what we call the ACI program—the 

advance construction Interstate program. 

Next, Representative Harsha said he wanted to “dispel this myth about a so-called trust fund 

surplus.” Was it not only a cash balance on any given date? Bartelsmeyer replied that, “There is no 

surplus when you consider that the fund has all the obligations that have been made against it to be 

honored, to be paid out.” 

Representative Harsha said he had seen a study that claimed that rail transportation “is the most 

expensive method of transporting people in contrast to buses and automobiles.” The Secretary did 

not believe that was true in high-density urban areas. Many factors went into the ridership decline 

of transit, but in view of the traffic jams in our cities, “the automobile had not been put to the best 

usage. We have to look to other uses because the cities will become unmanageable.”

Representative Harsha thought “we have to look at the better solutions, and do it in the most 

efficient and cheapest way we can, and rail rapid transit for the purpose of moving of people is not 

the cheapest way.” Secretary Brinegar emphasized that for Federal-aid system funds, he believed 

that local officials can best “see how to allocate these priorities . . . and find the lowest costs.” He 

offered to provide data demonstrating “that the rail systems do better over options in some cases 

than others,” but Representative Harsha was dismissive. “I’m sure if you put your mind to it, you 

could come up with some figures to justify anything, Mr. Secretary.”

This led to a discussion of how much Federal-aid highway funding would be available for mass 

transit. The Secretary explained that H.R. 5138 proposed authorizations of $1.1 billion for the 

urban system, with local officials determining whether to use the funding for highway or mass 
661 

transit, including highway-oriented facilities. How many areas would use it for mass transit? “We 

don’t know.” 

Mr. Harsha. Now, you want $1 billion out of the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit; is 

that correct?

Secretary Brinegar. No, sir.

Mr. Harsha. What do you want? 

Secretary Brinegar. We want it to be placed in the hands of the State and local areas to 

decide how best to address their urban transportation problems. This will go for a number 

of uses to help solve local problems—highways, bus lanes, buses, parking systems. 

Mr. Harsha. Theoretically, couldn’t it all be used for mass transit?

Secretary Brinegar. Yes, sir.

Representative Harsha pointed out that the Department’s own needs report identified $600 billion 

in needs over a 20-year period, with $300 billion identified as essential. Meanwhile, the Highway 

Trust Fund is only going to collect $125 billion over that period. “Therefore, we have one-half of 

the needed funds in the trust fund, if continued at the present level, to complete the essential 

highway needs of the country?” 

Secretary Brinegar agreed, but pointed out that the Highway Trust Fund brought together existing 

taxes to build the Interstate System. “I see nothing in the legislative history or the debates that 

suggests this fund was to be held together forever to meet the needs of the country, no matter how 

defined.” Representative Harsha said that according to that logic, “why couldn’t you just as 

logically use these funds for construction of navigation dams on the rivers at some point in time?” 

The Secretary responded:

Sir, the logic I tried to explain is that there comes a point when the right solution to a 

transportation problem is not just another mile of highways, but rather, something else . . . . 

The point is, if the right solution to a transportation problem involves more than just a 

highway, and the beneficiaries are those who are broadly supporting this highway system 

through their taxes, I think it is quite appropriate to bring them into it. We have done that 

with parking lots; we have done that with bus lanes; we have done it with housing 

relocation. We have broadened the concepts as the problems become more complex.

Did not they all apply to the Federal-aid system? Yes, Secretary Brinegar replied, and in the case of 

the Federal-aid urban system, it was created a few years ago, but “now we’re saying the proper 

solution to the urban-aid system may in fact require a bit of flexibility to find a real solution, so that 

the congestion in the highways can be relieved and everyone can benefit.” 

In closing, Representative Harsha wanted to clarify that the highway program was not paving over 

the country. He pointed out that the needs report stated that 93 percent of highway construction 

was for improvement of existing facilities, and only 7 percent involved new highways. The 

Secretary agreed. Representative Harsha went on:
662 

Then we’re not talking about paving the country with new highways. We’re talking about 

making the present system, which in a great majority of the cases, outside of the Interstate, 

is totally inadequate and unsafe to use under the present conditions and traffic patterns. 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 47-53] 

Representative Wright began his question period by referring to the provision in the Administration 

bill allowing termination of Interstate segments and use of remaining funds for other systems, as 

well as the history of impoundments. He asked, “there wouldn’t be any way to complete that 

program by 1980, would there?” The Secretary replied, “I’m not sure about the impossible.” That 

was the intention: 

Many of the segments in the urban areas I suspect will never be built and will be traded off. 

This may be, and should be done, if it’s the right solution. This is what we hope to give 

local people the option to do. 

Representative Wright pointed out that while projections of revenue going into the Highway Trust 

Fund have been reasonably accurate, the estimated cost of the Interstate System keeps going up. 

When Secretary Brinegar tried to explain that the Administration’s fiscal restraints were attempting 

to reduce inflation, Representative Wright told him, “But you don’t stop escalating the cost of 

building highways by impounding funds and waiting 2 or 3 years, because that just means that 

highways are going to cost that much more.” The Secretary disagreed:

If you are straining the resources of the builders beyond their ability to bid low cost projects, 

you, in fact, could accelerate it quite sharply.

He also pointed out that the unspent funds in the Highway Trust Fund draw interest. “Recently it is 

drawing interest at a more rapid rate than inflation.” Moreover, accelerating construction would not 

necessarily solve the inflation problem by straining contractor resources. 

Representative Wright, like Representative Harsha, wanted to discuss the 1972 needs report. It had 

calculated $63.4 billion in urban public transportation needs through 1990, or $3.5 billion a year; 

and $569 billion for highways, or $33 billion a year. “What I’m trying to do, Mr. Secretary, is to 

find the extent to which your proposals would meet the needs that your Department says exist.” 

Although Secretary Brinegar agreed with the arithmetic, he did not agree with the conclusion. 

While needs may exist, many other factors affected how dollars are allocated, such as the energy 

situation or the pollution problem: 

The worst thing you can do with a plan like that is to say that that’s it and take it so seriously 

you now build a 20-year program around it . . . . You should continue to do it in light of 

new knowledge each time you move along. I can hardly think of a program in this country 

that can be done for 20 years that, in fact, you can live with for 20 years. As you turn each 

corner you find a new set of assumptions facing you. It is a very fine way of keeping a 

program on track, of allocating your priorities 2 to 3 or 4 years ahead—but as you get more 

than about 5 years, it becomes very fuzzy. You can ruin countries and companies by 
663 

planning like that, and certainly we plan to keep it up and sharpen it and bring in energy, the 

pollution—all of this has to be brought to it. 

On that point, Representative Wright pointed out that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 opened 

the Highway Trust Fund to preferential bus lanes, fringe parking facilities, and highway safety. He 

asked how many parking facilities had been built. Bartelsmeyer said that one in New Jersey had 

opened, six had been programmed, and 11 were in the concept stage, while five States were 

working on parking facilities as a demonstration program. He explained, “you have to remember 

that it is the State highway departments who have this money under their control, and it is not the 

local areas who can decide that they want fringe area parking.” More would be built if local 

officials made the determination.

Representative Wright asked about the number of preferential bus lanes in addition to the Shirley 

Highway lanes in northern Virginia. Bartelsmeyer cited one under construction in San Bernardino. 

“There are others underway.” That is, Representative Wright said, what worried him about 

flexibility, namely that using the funds for one choice means not using them for another. “We don’t 

want the cities to get the idea that they’re going to get a whole lot more and then find out they don’t 

have money enough for either highways or mass transit.” He said the committee wanted to do what 

was necessary for highways and urban mass transit, “and we think this country can afford them 

both.” 

As for operating subsidies, Representative Wright said none of the systems were paying their way 

in the United States or Europe: 

But we find the average guy says, “Yes, build mass transit and so forth,” and what he is 

really saying is, “Yes, get some of the rest of these guys off the roads so there will be more 

room for my car.”

The question, he said, “is, if we give it to you, will you spend it?” 

Secretary Brinegar replied that the Department would do its best to spend the funds as directed. But 

as for operating subsidies, he did not think that was a proper role for the Federal Government. “I 

would have to say further that I would recommend that the President veto a bill that had operating 

subsidies in it.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 53-60] 

Secretary Brinegar’s statement and question period had gone well beyond the scheduled time, but 

the subcommittee decided to continue, with Representative Cleveland taking the next turn. He 

commended the Secretary on “a persuasive statement. You haven’t persuaded me, but it is a 

persuasive statement.” Regarding the inflexibility of trust funds, he pointed out that the 

Department also administered the Airport and Airways Trust Fund. Did he plan to abolish that 

fund? No, the Secretary did not. 

Representative Cleveland stated that Congress had used the trust fund concept “in a good many 

attempts to meet problems.” Now, in view of the great needs documented in the Department’s 

1972 report and the toll of death on highways as discussed in the recent hearings on the Highway 
664 

Safety Act, “you’re suggesting that we divert it.” He added that, “you haven’t given us any hard 

factual reasons why we should divert it, except simply that there’s a pileup in the cities, there’s 

traffic problems, which of course we all recognize.” 

Secretary Brinegar denied using the word “divert.” H.R. 5138 was proposing permissive alternative 

uses. “We feel the dollars should be allocated with priority uses and should be allocated in a way 

that the decisions could be made on the basis of local knowledge to solve the problems.” 

Representative Cleveland said that for most Americans, “mass transit still is the wheeled vehicle.” 

It was odd, he thought, that in the name of mass transit, the Administration was proposing to (“I say 

‘divert,’ you say ‘flexibility’”) to “subvert the best ongoing program we have for the mass transit 

needs of most Americans.” Secretary Brinegar said he defined the term broadly to include 

highway-oriented mass transit, but “mass transit rail uses are an alternative that I think we can’t turn 

our back on.” 

The Representative said he was not very sympathetic to rail mass transit when he reads, as he did in 

The Wall Street Journal on March 20, 1972, about the World Trade Center, the largest office 

building in the world. The article quoted Kheel’s comment about the irony of an agency formed to 

solve transportation problems creating one of the worst traffic jams in history. It also summarized 

critics as saying, in essence, that “the already-teeming streets will teem even more.” Representative 

Cleveland also cited an article in The New York Times on April 13, 1972, about a plan that Mayor 

Lindsay and David Rockefeller, chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, had announced the day before 

“for a long-range $1.2-billion development of apartments and offices that would rise on platforms 

above the East River, bordering the financial district of lower Manhattan.” 

Representative Cleveland told Secretary Brinegar:

Now you’re asking a New Hampshire driver to take his gasoline tax and send it down there 

so they can build these buildings, with no thought by anybody as to how the people are 

going to get in and out of there. You’re proposing seriously that we take the Highway Trust 

Fund money to support that type of situation? To me it’s unbelievable; it is not fair.

The Secretary pointed out that Highway Trust Fund revenues were not transported from New 

Hampshire to New York City. Allocations over the years had “fairly well balanced the rural and 

urban sources of funds against the rural and urban uses.” This response did not satisfy 

Representative Cleveland:

Mr. Secretary, will you at least agree with me, that if we’re going to spend Federal money—

forget whether it’s New Hampshire or California money or whatever—if we’re going to 

spend Federal money to assist urban mass transit, there has to be some consideration of what 

they’re going to do in those cities, how they’re going to get people in and out of building 

complexes like the monstrosities I’ve alluded to.

The Secretary agreed that cities “need a rational transportation plan.” 
665 

(Financing for the Manhattan Landing East River project that Representative Cleveland mentioned, 

collapsed during the city’s mid-1970s fiscal crisis and the project was never built.) 

Representative Abzug interrupted to point out that 150 million people, or 73.5 percent of all 

Americans, live in urban areas. “I might agree with you that we don’t need some of that luxury 

building that is taking place in New York, but that is not an argument against mass transit for the 

millions of people who live in New York and other urban areas throughout the country, who have 

no way of making a livelihood unless they have mass transit facilities far beyond what we have 

now.” 

Representative Cleveland pointed out that New York was losing population to the suburbs, as 

reflected in the loss of a congressional seat following the 1970 census: 

What are you going to do with mass transit, making it easier for the people left in Manhattan 

to get out and live in the suburbs? Then they use these systems to go back and forth 

between the suburbs and the downtown financial markets— 

Representative Abzug replied that “what is being discussed is an integrated system wherein there is 

a commitment of funds to people who live in the urban and suburban areas who do need mass 

transit facilities.” New York City was far from “a ghost town” and that “we are toiling and 

struggling and desperately need some assistance for mass transit” for urban and suburban residents, 

as in every urban area. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 60-67] 

She had used the balance of Representative Cleveland’s time. 

Representative Roe of New Jersey began his questions by saying he was “reappraising my thinking, 

on a couple of bases.” First, he discussed General Revenue Sharing, “the biggest boondoggle I 

think that has ever been forced upon this country.” What did the Secretary mean when he said that 

flexibility in transportation could be based partly on revenue sharing when the Executive Branch 

was canceling “everything else out.” 

Secretary Brinegar explained that, “Revenue sharing was an effort to provide funds that will 

encourage local decisionmakers to determine their best use.” He also disputed the claim that other 

programs were being cancelled.

Representative Roe said that everyone coming before the committee “tells us that part of the 

funding necessary is going to come from revenue sharing, and I don’t want the people in my State 

to be misled that revenue sharing is going to solve the mass transit problem. It is not.” State and 

local officials, he said, have “100 other things that they have to fund.” He wanted to make clear 

that “by no means is the so-called flexibility of revenue sharing . . . going to solve the mass transit 

problem.” 

Describing New Jersey as “the most urban State in the Nation,” Representative Roe said he was 

concerned about the creation of metropolitan transportation agencies for urban areas of 400,000. “I 

don’t want some pseudo-agency, politically machinated—call it a transportation agency—to have 

control over my cities. No way . . . .” With all the talk of flexibility, he said he did not “support the 
666 

point of view where one community would be pitted against the other for the meager funds that are 

going to be available.” 

The Secretary disputed the characterization of metropolitan transportation agencies, and offered to 

submit a written response for the record. He clarified that Washington was not going to dictate the 

characteristics of the metropolitan transportation agencies:

The Administration’s proposal permits a metropolitan agency to be established by the State, 

permits an agency to be developed by a combination of local governments, or in the case 

where there is no agency, the funds earmarked for an area would remain with the State for 

use in that specific urbanized area. The metropolitan agency thus established will be as 

responsible for local transportation requirements as the State and local governments who are 

empowered to create it decide it should be. Furthermore, the existence of a metropolitan 

agency does not in any way circumvent the provisions of Title 23 which require public 

officials of urbanized areas to be consulted regarding any highway project within their area. 

Representative Roe said he wanted to explode the myth “that there is all kinds of money sitting on 

the shelf waiting to accommodate the mass transit needs, that the members of this committee are 

holding these funds back and that we’re only interested in highways.” In view of the extensive 

documented needs for highways and transit, “It is wrong to tell the people of America that we are 

going to solve the mass transit problem or come to grips with it at all on a billion dollars a year.” 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 67-70] 

The next questioner was Representative Clausen, whose district was in the northwest corner of 

California, far from the State’s urbanized areas. He asked about the potential for declining revenue 

levels in the Highway Trust Fund in view of exclusive bus lanes taking thousands of cars off the 

roads. He wanted to know “what we are going to have in the way of substitute revenues to make up 

for the losses into the Highway Trust Fund?” At present, Secretary Brinegar replied, the exclusive 

lanes and other alternatives to the automobile were not affecting revenues, which were up, “partly 

because gasoline consumption has gone up so sharply due to the air-pollution equipment on the 

cars.” He recognized, however, that gasoline supplies were being squeezed and that could affect 

gas tax revenue. “We think there are adequate funds to do the priority projects that are in front of 

us, and that’s what we’re trying to propose.” 

Representative Clausen said that by promoting highway-related public transportation, the 

committee had already addressed “the greatest opportunity for flexibility.” What was needed for 

urban areas was a third trust fund “for the purposes of permitting the individual again to have 

flexibility and in deciding which mode of transportation he himself chooses to support, consistent 

with his own desires and, of course, the other congestion matter you have referred to.” Secretary 

Brinegar repeated his concern about new trust funds leading to “too many ‘we’ve got to find 

something to do with it’ kind of solutions.” 

Next, Representative Clausen turned to impoundments. “I can’t imagine anyone depriving us of the 

ability to move forward and develop safer highways . . . .” That was not, the Secretary explained, 
667 

the point. “We’re just trying to make intelligent trade-off decisions.” The dollars would be spent 

when doing so was best for the economy. 

Representative Clausen said he was willing to set a higher priority on developing adequate mass 

transportation systems, “but not at the sacrifice of slowing down on our commitment to make the 

highways safer, and in the urban areas, more functional.” Secretary Brineger pointed out that more 

mass transit funding was coming from the general Treasury. The goal of the flexible urban system 

funding was not to build subways with Highway Trust Fund revenues but to “provide some 

flexibility for the local tradeoffs in these small things that are properly needed in the cities.” [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 71-73] 

Representative Ray Roberts (D-Tx.) thanked Secretary Brinegar for acknowledging that airpollution devices were causing automobiles to use more gasoline than in the past. As a result, “we 

have caused a shortage with reference to refining capacities.” He then asked the Secretary to define 

the Highway Trust Fund. The Secretary said he would not have called it a trust fund; it was a 

special fund or earmarked fund. “It was a way of bringing an umbrella over these agreed-upon 

purposes,” in this case to improve transportation. Referring to the Social Security Trust Fund, 

Representative Roberts asked if in breaking open the Highway Trust Fund, “aren’t you setting the 

precedent to break the next one?” The Secretary said, “I fail to see the connection.” [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 74] 

By this point in the hearing, the Representatives were being kept to a short time limit with the 

option of submitting questions to the Secretary for the record. Representative Hammerschmidt used 

his time to point out that as a donor State, Arkansas was contributing 7 percent more to the 

Highway Trust Fund than it was getting back. “As I read the bill, I fear the suggested allocation to 

urban areas—and I speak particularly of the 1 billion urban dollars suggested in the bill—creates or 

compounds the inequity that I feel already exists.” He said the bill was asking “a State like 

Arkansas—49th in the Nation’s per capita income—to further subsidize the urban areas.” 

The Secretary noted that the donor-donee relationship came about in the Federal-Aid Highway Act 

of 1956 as a way of creating a national Interstate System spanning low-population States. 

“Certainly it is not our intention to bias or unbias in the future urban versus rural.” 

In that case, Representative Hammerschmidt asked, was the Secretary saying that “if after serious 

study we decided in fact there is inequity and offered amendments thereto, it is possible you might 

support it”? The Secretary said he would “have to look at the inequities pretty broadly.” [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 74-75] 

Representative Gerald E. Studds (D-Ma.), who had served in President Kennedy’s White House 

(1962-1963) and as a legislative aide to Senator Harrison Williams (1964), was the next questioner. 

He was serving his first term representing the 12th district on Cape Cod. He said of his district:

Our commuting folks coming into Boston are sitting on that wretched expressway, polluting 

the air, and their own temperaments, by the time they get to work and by the time they get 

home. We have, as you know, extended the mass transit facilities south of Boston to a place 
668 

where there is no parking, so it does no good whatever for the bulk of the commuting 

population. 

Turning to the needs report, he continued: 

The question I’m getting at . . . the last 6 years we have been spending at a decreasing rate 

on railroads, minus 0.2 percent; on transit, minus 2.3 percent. And when I look at the 

projection of needs through 1990 and read the total report of transportation needs estimated 

for all modes, it amounts to $670 billion, of which some 84 percent is for highways. 

I wonder if you could share with me whether or not that strikes you as further irrationality? 

Secretary Brinegar replied that the question was a broad one. “What I am talking to today is a small 

and, hopefully, good beginning, to bring some flexibility into part of the decisionmaking process.” 

The congested highways in Representative Studds’ district may have been built because of the 

allocation procedures that said “spend it or lose it.” 

Continuing on the theme of irrationality, Representative Studds responded to the earlier comment 

about declining passengers on mass transit systems. “That may have something to do with the fact 

we haven’t got any trains left.” 

Turning to the issue of impoundment, he noted the Secretary’s comment about Congress limiting 

the President’s authority to control the rate of expenditure under the highway program. “It may be 

old fashioned, but I used to think that was the job of Congress, to have to say what will be done, 

and how, with the people’s money.” Secretary Brinegar explained that Congress authorized 

programs, but the rate of expenditures, “balancing off the abilities of the country, the abilities of the 

States to move ahead rationally,” required Executive Branch management. [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 76-77] 

Representative Abzug was the next questioner. She said that the Secretary was being inconsistent 

in supporting mass transit but not operating subsidies. Funds from UMTA could be used to fund 

construction of transit facilities, but she asked, “Where can we find a way to support the program 

that you project? How are we going to run these facilities?” 

Secretary Brinegar summarized his view:

Ms. Abzug, I cannot answer it simply because there is no simple answer. What I have been 

trying to indicate is that the wrong place is the Federal Government, as has been proposed 

by Senator Williams. We have no way of deciding, in my mind, which of the 500 transit 

systems are deserving of which kinds of allocations that have been proposed . . . . 

Two or three years ago the Nation’s operating transit systems were losing $200 million; this 

year they’re losing $500 or $600 million. They could be losing a billion unless the 

discipline and the management at the local level says this is the way it should be run, and 

this is where they should be financed. 
669 

This is too big an issue to bring into this highway bill. I’m not saying I have a solution as to 

how it is done, but it has to be worked out at the local level, whether they are going to have 

to tax the people locally, or whether they will have to take it out of another source . . . . It’s 

somewhat like the fire and police service. If, in fact, one area wants more or less, they do 

find ways to do it. 

Representative Abzug also questioned the way the pass-through provision in the Administration 

bill, H.R. 5138, would operate. “It seems to me that, too, is inconsistent with the goal, in the sense 

that the areas which most need to be able to allocate the funds right now would be held back from 

doing so pending the establishment of an appropriate metropolitan agency, and would continue to 

be left at the mercy of a State which had not up to now fulfilled these needs.” She wondered if he 

would consider the provision in her bill, H.R. 5573, that would permit areas over 250,000 

population to expend funds on a proportionate basis until the metropolitan agency is established “so 

that we begin to be able to use these now and channel them into the areas which have the greatest 

need.” 

Secretary Brinegar explained that under H.R. 5138, Federal-aid urban system funds would not be 

withheld pending creation of a metropolitan transportation agency. If such an agency did not exist, 

the State would have to expend funds earmarked for a specific urbanized area in that area. Further, 

“the urban systems routes and projects must be designed by the appropriate local officials of an 

urbanized area whether or not a metropolitan agency existed.” 

Would it not, Representative Abug asked, be more appropriate “if we could set up a method 

whereby the Interstate funds remain where they are and all other systems are put together, with all 

the non-Interstate being available for balanced transportation programs?” The Secretary said that 

idea “goes too far, and we believe the proper trade-off decisions are in the urban areas.” Urban and 

rural funds should be kept distinct. Representative Abzug thought that making rural funds available 

for highways or transit would simply allow for balanced transportation in rural areas. Secretary 

Brinegar answered that his bill contained the flexibility for rural areas to buy buses and provide 

highway-related transit facilities, but creating a rural fund that was entirely flexible would be too 

much. 

After receiving an assurance from the Secretary that funds transferred from an Interstate segment 

would remain in the jurisdiction where the withdrawn Interstate was to have been built, 

Representative Abzug concluded her questions. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 78-80] 

The final questioner was Representative Dale Milford (D-Tx), a native of Big Tussle who was a 

television meteorologist in Waco before winning election to the House in November 1972. He 

asked for confirmation that all the revenue going into the Highway Trust Fund came from highway 

users, not transit riders. The Secretary confirmed that statement. When the Highway Trust Fund 

was conceived, Representative Milford stated, “we essentially told the American motorist that the 

fund was being originated solely that the user would pay the cost of the roads and the operation of 

the roads.” Secretary Brinegar explained, again, his reading of the legislative history that these 
670 

taxes, previously going into the general Treasury, were simply earmarked for highways. “So there 

wasn’t a promise made that ‘you payers of gasoline will just see this money going to highways.’” 

The Representative said that, “We did not tell the American motorist, though, that we were levying 

a tax on him to buy buses or to run railroads.” The Secretary pointed out that while the funds were 

not being used to run railroads, they were being used to buy buses and for other highway-oriented 

mass transit facilities. “As the concepts and the problems have evolved, the uses have evolved.” In 

some urban areas, “it might be necessary to go a bit further and include rails. This will benefit 

broadly the people who are paying in and using the highways.” 

Representative Milford pointed out that the seven changes in usage Secretary Brinegar listed in his 

statement all involved the motor vehicle or the motorist. The Secretary agreed that, “Up until now, 

until we got the ferryboats, at least, it all related very closely to the highways.” The ferryboats, 

Representative Milford suggested, probably carried automobiles. Perhaps, the Secretary said, but 

that was not the test. “I think the test is: Does it help the transportation needs and broadly benefit 

the people who are both paying and using it.” In Representative Milford’s view, that was a 

violation of the trust and purposes of the Highway Trust Fund. 

He returned to the issue of declining mass transit use, suggesting “that one of the main reasons why 

people will not use mass transit is because of the inconvenience.” The Secretary, suggesting that 

the decline was partly because of “the changing shape of the cities, the changing service offered by 

the transit systems,” said it was “a trend that has to be addressed and reversed.” 

What, the Representative asked, was the Department doing to “develop more modern means of 

mass transit?” He suggested, “For example, modern computer technology, coupled with the 

development of the induction motors which now make it possible to economically operate peoplemoving systems, entirely pollution free, over existing roadways in metropolitan areas.” Herringer 

responded that UMTA had an extensive program “in research development demonstrations of new 

innovative systems, including ‘people movers,’ personnel [sic] rapid transit systems.”

That exchange concluded Secretary Brinegar’s testimony before the Subcommittee on 

Transportation at 1 p.m., an hour later than expected. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 81-82] 

Representative Clausen submitted questions to Secretary Brinegar for written responses. Asked 

about total urban mass transit needs, the secretary explained that the 1972 National Transportation 

Report estimated a demand of $63 billion for the years 1970-1990. That was, however, a rough 

estimate in view of “the dramatic decline” in transit use beginning in the 1940s. Cities were only 

now beginning to plan for transit use. “Until current planning and analysis which adequately 

considers the role of transit has been further developed, it will be very difficult to predict with 

confidence the demand for capital investment in urban mass transportation facilities and 

equipment.” He could not estimate how much of those needs local officials would try to meet from 

the Highway Trust Fund if allowed to do so. 
671 

Representative Clausen had asked what assurances the Secretary could provide “that ever increasing

amounts of Highway Trust Fund monies would not be diverted to non-highway purposes”? The 

Secretary disagreed with the premise of the question. “I do not concede that the [flexibility] we 

recommend for the urban system is a diversion to non-highway purposes.” The proposed flexibility 

was limited to the urban system in a few cities and would not affect the Interstate System.

Why had transit ridership declined? “The primary cause for the ridership decline has been the 

overwhelming switch to use of the private automobile as a means of transportation.” The outward 

spread of cities had undercut transit efficiency. As ridership declined, investment in maintenance 

and upgrading facilities also declined, making transit a less attractive alternative to the automobile. 

Meanwhile, operating costs continued to increase dramatically. “This, combined with the loss of 

revenues already caused by reduced ridership, has compelled fare increases which have further 

discouraged persons from using transit.” 

Is America’s love affair with the automobile ending? Secretary Brinegar referred to “ample 

evidence” that people would willingly “surrender” their automobile if adequate public transit were 

available. Urban commuters do not “choose” the automobile; “this choice is forced upon them by 

the lack of adequate transit service.” Flexibility in the use of urban system funds would allow local 

officials to address the imbalance:

The requirements of the Clean Air Act and recognition of our energy problems may well 

compel reduced reliance on private cars, at least in cities, and it is important that mass 

transportation be in place to fill the obvious commuter need.

Would the pass-through provision undermine the Federal-State partnership of the Federal-aid 

highway program? No, because the Administration bill would require that the metropolitan agency 

would be established by either a State agency or a local agency under State law. This requirement 

would reserve a major role for the State. 

Representative Clausen’s final question was: “Are you prepared to assure the Committee that 

further declines and funding for the Federal-aid highway program will not take place in the future?” 

Secretary Brinegar could not give a clear answer. At present, the highway program enjoyed a high 

priority “within a budget constrained by the need to control inflation without increasing taxes.” He 

could not predict future funding levels that would undoubtedly reflect the state of the economy. 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 90-92] 

In covering the Secretary’s testimony, Bruce Winters of The Baltimore Sun said that House 

consideration of the bill began “with mass transit advocates more sanguine than in past years over 

eventual inclusion of substantial sums for rail and bus commuter facilities.” Winters said that one 

reason for optimism was Secretary Brinegar’s support for permitting local governments “for the 

first time” to use Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit in urban areas. Another reason was 

Representative Kluczynski’s reversal, under “prodding” from Mayor Daley, in favor of flexibility. 

These positive factors did not mean the Committee on Public Works would approve using Federalaid highway funds for rail-transit. An unnamed individual described as one of the House’s transit 
672 

strategists told Winters that advocates of diversion expected to lose in the subcommittee and full 

committee:

He expressed greater confidence, however, over the prospect of engineering the bill through 

the Rules Committee so that it comes before the whole House in a parliamentary condition 

that would make passage of the transit rider easier than last year. Once on the House floor, 

the transit strategists believe they can carry the bill to use trust fund money. [Winters, 

Bruce, “House Unit to Open Debate on $18.2 Billion Highway Bill,” The Baltimore Sun, 

March 20, 1973] 

More Voices

As testimony continued on March 19-23, many familiar individuals and groups presented their 

views to the Subcommittee on Transportation. 

Representative Glenn Anderson, who followed Secretary Brinegar, explained that as a State official, 

including 8 years as Lieutenant Governor, before his election to the House of Representatives in 

1968, “I have probably been involved in highway background development and work in the State of 

California as much as perhaps any other elected public official.” He understood the value of 

highways, especially in rural areas, but having lived in Los Angeles his entire life, he also knew the 

problems associated with highways: 

We have seen the strips of concrete rip out homes and separate entire communities like the 

Great Wall of China.

We have witnessed the deterioration of our air—caused primarily by the pollution-belching 

automobiles chugging along on our freeways which have more of a semblance to parking 

lots during the rush hour. 

We have seen the impending energy crisis which faces our country, due in large part to the 

inefficient practices we have allowed to occur.

He did not want to end highway construction, but believed that State and local officials “should be 

permitted to select the modes of transportation that they feel are best suited to their particular 

situation, taking into consideration the needs of the people, the environmental considerations and 

the demands for energy.” 

He cited the conclusion of a 1971 study in Los Angeles, conducted with FHWA, that despite the 

city’s extensive freeway system, “mobility in the Los Angeles area has not improved since 1965.” 

He added, “And this congestion cannot be relieved by more and more freeways. Studies have 

shown that new urban freeways merely encourage additional traffic.” 

A greater reliance on the automobile “would only compound our problems—especially with the 

environment.” This statement was illustrated by EPA’s proposed transportation controls for the 

area. He was convinced that area residents were willing to make some adjustments in the style of
673 

living to curb air pollution, but “we cannot require a 82-percent cutback of automobile usage 

without providing an efficient and economical alternative.” 

The energy situation was another factor in the Representative’s thinking. Although the country 

imported 25 percent of its oil, the American Petroleum Council estimated that imports would 

increase to 58 percent by 1985. The country “will be even more dependent on the oil-rich, but 

politically volatile, Middle East to run our factories, heat our homes, and fuel our cars.” One 

alternative was “a more rational use of oil,” as reflected in a shift of urban transportation to mass 

transit.

He agreed with the argument that the taxes presently collected in the Highway Trust Fund had 

previously been used in the general Treasury for nonhighway purposes. Further, “the trust fund has 

been so changed to meet other needs that it is difficult to argue that mass transit is not highwayrelated.” He continued:

In short, the Highway Trust Fund was created to meet our transportation needs by taxing the 

people of the United States. I contend that spending a portion of that money for mass transit 

would certainly help meet that need by eliminating a part of the highway congestion, by 

reducing auto pollution, and by helping to alleviate our energy crisis.

He supported allowing Federal-aid urban system funds to be used for highway alternatives, 

including rail transportation. He also supported allowing the Secretary of Transportation to allocate 

up to 10 percent of annual Highway Trust Fund revenues to help cities with serious pollution 

problems that are forced to curtail automobile use. “In summary, we should strike a balance in our 

transportation program by permitting State and local officials the flexibility needed to meet the 

special requirements of the particular area.”

When Representative Harsha’s turn for questioning came up, he said he did not have any questions 

for Representative Anderson, but did want to make a point about Republican questioning of 

Secretary Brinegar earlier that day: 

It was suggested that the minority was attacking the Secretary of Transportation this 

morning. I want to make it perfectly clear that that was absolutely not the intent of the 

minority. The minority was trying to point out to the Secretary the fallacy of his thinking . . 

. . The executive has the idea that it is not only to administer the laws but to write them as 

well. And I, as a member of the minority, have no intention of abdicating my authority to 

write the laws.

Also we were merely trying to point out to the Secretary that there was absolutely no 

congressional input in the administration’s point of view this morning. We hardly agreed 

with it, obviously, I am sure to every one here [sic]. Finally, I don’t believe, even though 

the administration is of my party, that I have any obligation to lay down and play dead with 

a proposal or a policy that I absolutely do not believe in. 

That was the point of my interrogation, not to attack the Secretary. 
674 

Representative Anderson, who said he had watched the proceedings for 2 and a half hours, said he 

had been impressed by “the way the committee handled themselves . . . and I was equally impressed 

with the way the Secretary handled answering the members of the committee.” [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 83-90] 

B. R. Stokes, general manager of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District, followed Representative 

Anderson. He introduced himself to the subcommittee by explaining that he also was serving a 3-

year term as a special consultant to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation as a member of the Urban 

Transportation Advisory Council, and had been chairman of the council’s Steering Committee since 

March 1971. He also had been a consultant with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban 

Development and Governor Reagan’s California Task Force on Transportation. 

BART, he explained, had been designed as a 75-mile system “to suit the geography and reinforce 

the linear settlement patterns of the three counties” in the transit district:

BART is designed as the vital trunkline component of the total public transportation service 

which is taking shape in the Bay Area. In an era when realities of traffic congestion, central 

city decay, air pollution, and the need for energy conservation are widely recognized, BART 

is even more important in the minds of Bay Area citizens now than when first conceived. 

In September 1972, BART had opened with an initial 28-mile, 12-station stretch between Fremont 

and Oakland. An 11-mile extension between Oakland and Richmond had opened in January 1973. 

The system had experienced service delays and reliability problems related to its automatic train 

control system, as well as an accident in October when a train ran through the Fremont Terminal 

Station into a sand pile buffer, with no serious injuries. BART had been “greeted with an 

overwhelming enthusiasm,” despite critical commentary around the country. 

At present, BART was operating only on weekdays, and only 14 hours a day instead of the 

projected 20 hours at peak service. Given the limited experience, “it is far too soon to judge our 

record,” but ridership had been “very close to our projections.” 

The estimated cost of BART was originally $1 billion, but was now $1.5 billion. The bulk of the 

revenue for capital costs came from a $792 million general obligation bond issue, supported by 

property taxes and authorized by referendum in 1962. The referendum also triggered the use of 

$180 million in toll revenue from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge for construction of the 

tunnel connecting East Bay and West bay, as well as the sale of revenue bonds for the purchase of 

rolling stock—bringing the total to the estimated $1 billion cost.

Stokes discussed the financing of the new system to explain its relatively high fares:

Other than a small property taxing capability of 5 cents per $100 of assessed valuation for 

administrative purposes, BART has no assured source of funds with which to meet 

operating costs other than fare box revenue. The legislation which established BART, 
675 

contemplated that the capital cost should essentially be paid from general tax revenue but 

the operating costs should be paid from fares. 

This means that BART has had to set relatively high fares in order to cover anticipated costs 

. . . . Combined BART and feeder bus fares are in fact probably higher than low income 

segments of the population can reasonably afford. 

Despite the fare, “BART’s early experience proves that people will pay for high quality 

transportation.” 

Based on current projections, “our total expected source of funds would be sufficient if costs could 

be held to our target estimates.” Estimates of operating costs had been taken into account when the 

fares were set, but inflation and increased employment needs, “such as having to provide our own 

policing services,” had adversely affected expenses. The system was experiencing higher 

maintenance costs than expected. In addition, “we face labor negotiations in which labor arbitrator 

decisions have already placed us in an adverse bargaining position.” The impact on BART’s wage 

and benefit structure “could be severe.” The system also was “experiencing public policy pressures 

which seek to reduce fares for public transportation or at least hold them at present levels.” 

Stokes tried to put BART in the context of changes in transportation philosophy: 

BART was conceived in an era when it was felt that transit would have to compete with the 

automobile in terms of comfort, convenience and out of pocket operating expenses to make 

transit riders out of motorists. Highway building programs in most urban areas were still 

proceeding with optimism and resolve at the time, in the belief that more highways and 

more cars were the answer to America’s urban transportation requirements in all but a few 

of its densest cities. The potentially damaging side effects of our dependence on the private 

auto for urban mobility were barely beginning to be noticed in terms of continually 

increasing congestion, declining air quality, housing and business dislocation, and faltering 

local transit finances. But now they are widely recognized, and even a specter of petroleum 

energy shortages threatens continued dependence on the automobile for most trips in urban 

areas. The era that we are fast approaching is more likely to be one in which automobile 

usage will have to be viewed as complementary with rail and bus transit rather than 

competitive. Future urban transportation policies which fail to recognize this altered 

perspective may fail to use either transit or automobiles as effectively as they might. 

Perceptions of how, when, and where the automobile should be appropriately used are 

changing, and recognition of its social costs are evolving to a new appreciation of the 

comparative advantages of transit in many urban situations. 

In this changing environment of urban transportation policy, the role of transit may become 

substantially enhanced. Rail systems such as BART, performing reasonably well now in 

terms of patronage, revenue and costs, may be called on to carry a greatly increased burden 

of regional traffic. If the economic and practical dictates of air quality maintenance or 

energy conservation are added to those of congestion avoidance and social equity in urban 
676 

transportation policy considerations in future years, the inducement to greatly increased 

patronage may cause BART to exceed present financial expectations.

BART, however, was “but one component of an overall strategy of providing for urban 

transportation in a manner compatible with high levels of both mobility and environmental quality.” 

 The strategy developed by the multimodal Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) 

included high quality bus service for feeder purposes, private automobiles on highways, and it all 

“must operate as a whole, not as a series of disconnected policies” for rail transit or highways and 

streets or buses. Implementing this strategy had called for financial sacrifice when highway 

construction was not involved: 

Such locally willed choices should not be thwarted nor punished by the financial distortions 

of national or state programs favoring a single mode. If large urban areas are to choose what 

is truly best for themselves in the context of transportation and related public policies, they 

require a pass-through of Federal funds to their own control uncommitted as to modal 

preference. Such funds could then be used interchangeably to provide for the expanded bus 

feeder and local services that would enhance both local mobility and overall operations of 

regional transit; for new highway construction and operating controls that would improve 

the functioning of street and freeway systems; and for the construction or extension of rail 

transit systems to shape and serve highly developed areas. And each in the proportions 

judged necessary to get the job of urban transportation done most compatibly with other 

competing local values.

Stokes endorsed the provisions in the Senate and Administration bills that permitted the use of 

Highway Trust Fund revenue for rail transit at local option. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 92-102] 

During the questioning, Representative Roe pointed out that despite the revenue sources available 

to BART, it would still need subsidies from some other source. Stokes agreed, attributing the 

additional expenditures to “the added services that society has asked us to provide.” Given BART’s 

limited experience, he could only estimate the additional costs roughly at perhaps 10 percent ($3-4 

million).

Representative Wright asked if local officials had been able to document a decrease in automobile 

use since BART opened. Stokes said experience was too limited, but he pointed out that about 

4,000 automobiles park in the system’s lots each day. “These are 4,000 automobiles that are not on 

some freeway and out on some street.” For now, then, the impact on congestion was based only on 

subjective observation: 

I will say this, that the only major freeway that we now parallel is the Nimitz Freeway, 

which runs north and south in Alameda County. I would say, strictly subjectively—and I 

can’t back this up in any way, shape, or form—that since we have been operating, last 

September, the occurrences of major tieups on the Nimitz due to normal congestion and this 

sort of thing have been reduced by, I would say, 150 percent. 
677 

He predicted that when BART was at full service, it would carry about 60 percent of peak-hour 

trips to and from work. The trains would carry the equivalent of seven lanes of traffic on the San 

Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. 

Regarding the flexibility Stokes mentioned, Representative Wright asked if the source of the 

flexible funding made a difference. When Stokes said, “Not really,” Representative Wright pointed 

out that, “The trust fund is not the only place you can get the money from.” He asked if Stokes was 

simply looking for money for mass transit, not trying to stop highway construction. Stokes said that 

“only a damned fool” would try to stop highway building. “We have incorporated to a very new 

degree the use of the automobile to use our system, the building of parking lots at all our stations 

for an initial capacity of 20,000 automobiles.” He anticipated that 50 percent of passengers would 

access the stations in their automobiles when BART was fully opened. 

Representative Harsha asked, “Will the farebox be self-supporting?” Stokes could promise only 

that it would be “next year,” but labor negotiations might alter costs beyond projections. “What this 

does to our wage rates, what inflation does to us, I really can’t predict.”

Representative Harsha asked if Stokes thought that asking the taxpayers of the Bay Area who paid 

for BART to allow their highway user taxes to support construction of similar systems elsewhere 

was fair. Stokes pointed out that based on local votes, Bay Area taxpayers were paying about 80 

percent of the costs in the form of a sales tax, bridge tolls, and property taxes: 

And I would like to turn the question around. Do you think it is fair that the people of San 

Francisco, for instance, have been paying gasoline taxes for the past 10 years and have 

turned down $350 million in highway projects because the people of San Francisco don’t 

want highway projects—and not get any benefit out of those taxes they are paying? 

Rather than answer, Representative Harsha repeated his point about the fairness of asking Bay Area 

taxpayers to support rail systems in other areas that did not vote to support it themselves. “Yes, 

sir,” Stokes replied,” we were a little bit ahead of the game,” but he returned to his point: 

And again I would just ask you, is it fair that the people of San Francisco who have said 

time and time again no more freeways, because of their little 49-square mile area, is it fair 

for them to continue to pay gasoline taxes and to get no benefit in any kind of transportation 

in that area.

Representative Harsha replied, “They certainly won’t get any benefit if the highway user fund is 

used for the construction of rail systems all throughout the country.” He added that the problem 

was that the lack of resources outside the Interstate System resulted in inadequate highways:

Mr. Stokes. All I can say, Mr. Harsha, is that there are going to be very few more additional 

freeways built in the bay area.

Mr. Harsha. I am not talking about building more freeways. I am talking about improving 

those that are already constructed.
678 

Mr. Stokes: What I am saying is that the people of the bay area have very clearly, 

unmistakably opted for improved public transportation and expanding public transportation. 

What we are talking about here today is their flexible use of the money that might come to 

them through this small portion of the highway fund, to be able to use those funds on a 

flexible basis, if they so desire.

Representative Harsha concluded his questions by repeating his point that, “I just don’t think it fair 

to those people to take their money and to construct a similar system in New York or Chicago.” 

The people in those other cities “should assume the burden that the people in San Francisco have.” 

Representative Jones pointed out that his State of Alabama did not have even 1 foot of rail transit 

service. Stokes suggested that might change in the next 10 years. “We have a whole new arsenal of 

technology in public transportation, not just high-capacity carriers which we have in the bay area 

but things between buses and, which some of your great cities might find desirable, might find 

useful, particularly if the energy crunch becomes that much more critical and the use of 

automobiles, God forbid, does somehow become artificially restricted.” 

Representative Clausen said the committee “does not want to be put into position of being for 

highways at the expense of the rail mass transit, or any other form of mass transit.” The question 

was how to pay for both to develop a balanced transportation network on a national scale. He 

believed that “if we are going to, in effect, rob or raid the Highway Trust Fund” for rail mass transit, 

funding would be inadequate for both modes: 

Much comment was made when the Secretary was here, that it was a question of having 

sugar bowls, and I sincerely believe, and I will advocate this as long as I am involved, that I 

believe we sincerely need to expand on other methods of finance, up to and including the 

possibility of a third trust fund, so that the airport-airways, the mass transit and the highway 

financial requirements can be met with these three positive methods of finance.

Stokes said he believed the idea of a Mass Transit Trust Fund “would really beg the question.” 

Flexible use of Federal-aid urban system funds was a start, but funding categories or “sugar bowls” 

as Secretary Brinegar had called them, have “all sorts of ills from a philosophical basis.” He 

explained:

I think if we could put our transportation dollars into a single pot, and let the local areas opt 

for their own needs, weighing one mode against the urban values, then decide what is 

important for that particular area.

Representative Jones took exception to this comment. “Is there anything wrong in using funds for 

transportation purposes without going into the trust funds? Why is it you have got to go to the trust 

fund?” Revenue from the Highway Trust Fund already was inadequate for needs. The focus should 

be on building national assets rather than on “these continuous, fractious, collateral arguments.” 

Representative Clausen clarified his point:
679 

It is obvious that we are not going to have enough money to meet the highway requirements, 

let alone dipping into the trust funds [sic] to meet mass transit requirements and, you are 

going to cut back on the use of the automobile, you are going to cut back on the dollar input 

to the trust fund that you are going to be dependent upon for both of these and that is why I 

suggest we not divvy up a restricted pie now. We need to move into the direction of what is 

a required sugar bowl or pie to meet both of these goals. That is my point. 

Representative Clausen added that, “we do not want to mislead the American public into thinking 

that we are going to meet the leadtime requirements by divvying up a divided pie,” but 

Representative Jones responded that they were “squandering our time talking about whether we are 

going to get in the trust fund, what we are going to get out of the trust fund.” He added, “We are a 

nation in motion” and asked “why can we not just make whatever necessary and prudent 

requirements to take out of the general fund what is necessary to transport that number of people?” 

Stokes said he did not consider the debate a squandering of time. He said he had flown all night to 

participate in the hearing “because of the importance that is assigned by the Nation’s transit 

operators to increased funding, to do many of the things that have been so long neglected.” The fact 

that BART was the first new rail transit system in 20 years “is a terrible indictment of what we have 

been doing in this country.” 

Representative Jones agreed such things were needed, but said, “If we fret over the mechanics of it, 

then we will be lost in a dismal swamp of indecision.” 

The next questioner was Representative Abzug who wanted to clarify the voters’ role in approving 

the bond issue in 1962 for construction of BART. Stokes pointed out that the vote was helped by 

the fact that it occurred “when the property base was lowest.” Representative Abzug asked, “Do 

you think they would support this kind of financing in 1973?” he replied, “No, ma’am. Absolutely 

not.” 

In that case, Representative Abzug asked, could the system be extended without the local option 

from Highway Trust Fund revenue. Stokes replied, “That is my point 100 percent. That is why I 

am here.” He clarified his point:

I am not arguing for a railroad, Ms. Abzug. Let me make this very clear. The choice of the 

kind of bucket you carry people in is the simplest choice once you have established what the 

problem is and how many people are to be carried in what period of time. I am not arguing 

for rail. There will be buses and systems of other types which your legislation has made 

possible, but the choice of what you carry the people in is the simplest choice there is, once 

you find out what the problem is . . . . 

I am favoring highway funds for that local system to make that choice. If San Francisco 

says, as they have in the last 4 years, “We do not want any more freeways,” we have to do it 

on some other basis so they then will not be penalized. They will have some benefit of the 

money that they themselves have paid into this fund. 
680 

Representative Yvonne Brathwaite Burke (D-Ca.) concluded the questioning by asking if BART 

had any plans to reduce fares. Stokes explained that the State legislature had directed the MTC to 

study the feasibility of free fares in the Bay Area. This was, he said, “a fine goal to work toward, 

once society accepts the premise that the funds for the operations and for the increased patronage 

that will certainly result, comes from some source other than the transit system itself.” [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 113-131] 

(BART, which had been heavily promoted in the 1950s by downtown business interests in San 

Francisco, would expand to 104 miles with 44 stations serving 5 lines. The original system 

described by Stokes would be completed at a cost of $1.6 billion. BART has not been able to pay 

operating costs from ticket receipts. One of the hopes, as expressed during Stokes’ testimony, was 

that BART would reduce congestion by providing an alternative to the automobile. In a book on 

urban public investment, Alan Altshuler (the former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation) 

and David Luberoff summarized the outcome. 

Only about one-third of those using San Francisco’s new BART system, for example, had 

previously driven, and they were replaced on parallel highways within months by motorists 

who had previously been deterred by congestion. [Altshuler, Alan, and Luberoff, David, 

Mega-Projects: The Changing Politics of Urban Public Investment, Brookings Institution 

Press, 2003, p. 194] 

(San Francisco had been one of the earliest cities to reject freeways. By the late 1930’s, city 

officials were considering an extensive network of limited-access roads totaling nearly 70 miles. 

The plan included the Embarcadero Freeway from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (U.S. 

40/50) to the north end of the Embarcadero where a connecting freeway would carry traffic using 

the Golden Gate Bridge (U.S. 101). After World War II, the city launched a comprehensive originand-destination traffic survey, conducted in cooperation with BPR’s ongoing traffic studies to select 

locations for Interstates in metropolitan areas around the country. 

(In 1951, after public hearings and debate, the city adopted the Trafficways Plan of limited access 

roads, including an elevated freeway from the 1st Street ramp off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay 

Bridge along the Embarcadero. Criticism of the Embarcadero Freeway began because the elevated 

structure would obstruct the historic Ferry Building, then undergoing renovations, prevent 

construction of a park near the building, and block the view of San Francisco Bay. 

(According to historian Herbert Marshall Goodwin, Jr.’s study of California’s freeway system, the 

opposition grew in November 1955 when the San Francisco Chronicle “began a concerted attack 

on the Division of Highways in general and the Embarcadero Freeway in particular.” [Goodwin, 

Jr., Herbert Marshall, California's Growing Freeway System, University of California, Ph.D Thesis, 

1969, University Microfilms International edition, part 2, p. 425] 

(Opposition continued, but with city support, the Division of Highways began construction of the 

elevated Embarcadero Freeway in May 1955. The opening of the initial section in February 1959 

intensified the debate. Goodwin summarized the opposition: 
681 

Outraged by the construction of the double-deck freeway, which many San Franciscans 

regarded as a monstrosity, many of the city’s residents, fearing that the proposed freeway 

through their area of town would be equally as ugly, began organizing opposition to all 

freeways planned for the city. Much of the opposition emanated from San Franciscans 

living within the corridors where the Western or Panhandle Park freeways were to be 

constructed.” [Goodwin, p. 438-439] 

(On January 27, 1959, the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco met to 

discuss the proposed Western Freeway (I-80) through the Sunset District. With over 160 freeway 

opponents cheering, the board adopted a resolution opposing construction of the remaining 

freeways in the San Francisco Master Plan, including the remainder of the Embarcadero Freeway

and its link to the Golden Gate Bridge. As justification for ending 15 miles of freeway 

construction, the resolution cited "the demolition of homes, the destruction of residential areas, the 

forced uprooting and relocation of individuals, families and business enterprises" as well as the loss 

of property from the tax rolls. 

(The resolution was one of the most dramatic moves in the early urban freeway battles. Plans to 

build the Embarcadero Freeway link to the Golden Gate Bridge came to an end and construction of 

other freeways in the Bay Area ground to a halt. Stokes was referring to the blocked Interstate 

segments in saying that the city was giving up hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal-aid 

highway funds that it could not use for other transportation options. 

(After sustaining damage in the Loma Prieta Earthquake in October 1989, the Embarcadero 

Freeway was torn down, to great civic joy, when repairs proved impractical. Demolition began on 

February 27, 1991.) 

Mayor John B. Orr, Jr., of Metropolitan Dade County, Florida, represented the National League of 

Cities and the United States Conference of Mayors. In a prepared statement, Mayor Orr said:

We have consistently supported . . . adequate Federal funding for comprehensive 

transportation systems in cities, including Federal support for highways, rail transportation 

and bus transportation. In addition, we have called for operating assistance for public 

transportation. 

The unparalleled success of the Federal-aid highway program had resulted “in distortions and 

inequities in the funding for urban mass transportation program.” Now, Mayor Orr said, “is the 

time to refocus our efforts toward developing a more balanced transportation system, responsive to 

the needs of the nation’s cities.” The question was not highways or transit, but where the 

decisionmaking authority should be. 

Cities had not, he said, received their fair share of Highway Trust Fund revenues. In addition, the 

failure of local transit systems “is due largely to Federal transportation policies,” particularly the 

emphasis on the Interstate System. Only Federal remedies could reverse the decline.
682 

The two organizations favored flexible use of Federal-aid urban system funds. “However, we 

believe that the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act must continue to remain the primary 

source of funding for urban mass transit programs.” They had not taken a position on establishing a 

Mass Transit Trust Fund. While such a fund might be desirable, experience with impoundment of 

highway funds called that assumption into question. The source of revenue was another concern: 

Public transportation systems are operating at substantial deficits now, and it is unrealistic to 

assume they will be able to operate solely from the fare box in the future. That is why we 

have repeatedly called for Federal operating assistance. Mass transit then cannot be 

expected to contribute user fees into a trust fund, as is the case with highway users. 

At this time, we cannot approve or disapprove the creation of such a third trust fund, or of a 

single ground transportation trust fund. Many serious questions regarding the source of 

funds, allocation, intergovernmental relations, and the relationship to UMTA must be raised 

and answered, as well as the very practical one of the time frame involved in creating such a 

new trust fund. 

One option was adding a penny to the gas tax for transit, but this option “would continue to 

perpetuate the constraints upon local governments having full flexibility in the use of their 

transportation funds.” Whatever the source of funds, “Cities must be able to develop their own 

priorities and plan for programs that will meet their own needs.” 

As for the Interstate System:

We do support prompt completion of the Interstate System. However, we expect that funds 

will become available in increasing amounts to meet both urban and non-urban 

transportation needs as the Interstate program achieves its objectives and is completed. Any 

creation of a new Federal-aid system [priority primary] would further delay meeting long 

over-due commitments to our urban areas. 

(In oral testimony, he said, “Our Interstate 95 from the Dade County line to downtown Miami has 

been accurately described as the longest parking lot in Florida, and you are not moving people. 

Unless we develop in these areas, the capacity to move people in some other manner, the highway 

users are not going to be able to use the highways, and the person living in rural Dade County who 

needs to get his crops to market and needs to get himself to the city, who needs, from time to time, 

to get up and see the Dolphins play, has to have a highway over which he can move, and we simply 

do not have enough space to build sufficient highways to move the people if they are going to travel 

in an automobile one at a time.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 132-134]) 

Representative Howard, a member of the Committee on Public Works but not the subcommittee, 

followed Mayor Orr. “Briefly, gentlemen, I want to suggest that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1973, put a massive infusion of Federal aid into the field of mass transportation.” He had, he said, 

introduced the Emergency Commuter Relief Act of 1973, which had been referred to the 

Committee on Banking and Currency. He was testifying before the subcommittee to urge the 

members to include the bill in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. 
683 

He recalled his disappointment when the 1972 legislation failed due to lack of a quorum on the final 

day of the 92nd Congress, not because the Conference Report did not reflect the will of the House or 

Senate:

What I am suggesting is that we authorize a minimum expenditure of $3.8 billion for mass 

transportation in the legislation this subcommittee is considering today. Mass transportation 

has not been given the priority it deserves, and as a result of this, the problem has now 

reached the critical stage.

A portion of the funds, $800 million, would be available for operating expenses over a 2-year 

period on a matching ratio of two-thirds Federal, one-third local. The balance would be available 

for capital grants with a Federal share of 90 percent. “This, as the distinguished members of this 

subcommittee know, is identical to the way we have allocated funds for the highly successful 

Interstate Highway System.”

He cited his own State of New Jersey, where “commuters are subjected to the worst conditions 

imaginable.” He continued: 

Trains are late, many are dirty, and commuters are faced with the daily problem of not 

knowing when they will arrive at work in the morning or at home in the evening. 

Consequently, many persons use their automobiles instead, further crowding our already 

jammed highways, and also further polluting our air . . . . 

If we provide clean trains which operate on schedule, I am convinced that many more 

persons will use this type of transportation rather than using their automobiles. 

Representative Howard emphasized his support for completing the Interstate System, which he said 

was already saving 6,400 lives each year:

I do not feel that we should jeopardize the completion of this system. I feel that mass 

transportation has enough of a priority that it can stand on its own feet and needs not a token 

amount of money which will not cure the problem, but an amount of money that will serve 

the purposes and the needs of the urban and suburban citizens of this country, and so I urge 

that we do what we did last year, in the conference committee, and what the other body did 

in its bill just last week, and adequately provide for surface transportation for all of the 

people of the country. 

His colleagues did not have any questions although Representative Clausen said he would like to 

“associate myself” with Representative Howard’s remarks. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 154-156] 

Manuel Carballo, First Deputy, Transportation Administrator, and Commissioner of Highways of 

New York City also testified on March 19. He opened with a brief statement emphasizing that 

when resources were limited, as they were, “that is when the municipalities should have the most 
684 

voice in determining that their needs in the area of transportation, air pollution, congestion, and 

other factors require them to spend most of their resources in one mode or another, even to the 

detriment of the mode which, under wealthier circumstances, they might wish to pursue as well.” 

Flexibility and local determination were required “if the cities and local municipalities are going to 

meet the needs, and in no way should that flexibility be diminished.” 

His written statement, submitted for the record, explained that the 16-year-old Highway Trust Fund 

had been successful in creating the Interstate System:

But the Highway Trust Fund program has also known failure as well; not in what it failed to 

accomplish, but in what it failed to attempt.

The Highway Trust Fund was, by definition, “one of imbalance and distortion.” The fine highways 

it helped build were congested with too much traffic and pollution because the Highway Trust Fund 

ignored the needs of mass transit. Cities suffered the congestion and pollution without the means to 

address them because, he said, “Cities have neither received their rightful share of the huge 

investment of Federal transportation dollars, nor have they had discretion in the use of the funds 

they did receive to allow local choice on local need.”

As the Senate had done the previous week and as reflected in the Administration bill, the time had 

come “to bring our transportation policy into balance.” The problem was complex and the answers 

not easy, but the “one fundamental and logical solution that all previous attempts and arguments at 

balancing our transportation policy—of establishing an interrelated and intermodal transportation 

plan—lead to, and that is the establishment of a general transportation trust fund and not just a 

highway trust fund.” He did not consider this concept “a revolutionary idea.” It was simply logical, 

“the next step to take in the natural developmental process that began sixteen years ago.” The 

hallmark of such a fund would be the flexibility localities would have in the use of the revenues. 

The city of New York, he said, supported the Senate bill approved the previous week. He cited 

particularly the pass-through of Federal-aid urban funds to municipalities of 400,000 or more and 

the flexibility to use the revenue for rail transit. These measures were “absolutely essential for a 

rational, balanced transportation approach and the viability of our cities.” His one disagreement 

with the Senate bill was that it defined urban areas as those with populations of 5,000 or more. 

This definition, Carballo said, “seriously dilutes the urban system funds available for the truly urban 

areas.” He recommended a minimum population of 50,000. 

The use of Federal-aid urban system funds for the purchase or improvement of rail facilities was the 

most significant aspect of the Senate bill. “The exclusion of rail transit uses severely discriminates 

against our large metropolitan areas, discourages the transportation of passengers within urban areas 

by rail, perpetuates the imbalance of our national transportation approach, fails to consider pollution 

and economic problems, and unduly limits the very purpose of the bill.”

He generally supported the Administration bill, except for “one major flaw,” namely that it did not 

guarantee pass-through to cities of 400,000 or more. The Senate bill was preferable in this regard, 

but neither bill proposed sufficient funds for the Federal-aid urban system. At the proposed levels, 
685 

“even access to urban system funds—in addition to UMTA appropriation—will not suffice.” [sic] 

Even the $3 billion in capital grants and $800 million for operating subsidies in the Senate bill 

would not be sufficient. He called for a funding level of $1.5 billion for the urban transportation 

system. 

During the limited question period, only Representatives Abzug and Harsha addressed Carballo. 

Representative Abzug referred to the discussion of where the money for mass transit should come 

from and the belief by some members of the committee that it should not come from the Highway 

Trust Fund. She acknowledged the importance of completing the Interstate System, but said that 

for other needs, State and local governments could best determine their needs. She asked Carballo 

why he favored the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit, why direct pass-through to 

major municipalities was important, and why UMTA funding was not sufficient. 

Carballo explained that New York was a donor State that received only 81 cents for every dollar 

contributed to the Highway Trust Fund. New York City received an even smaller share of its 

contribution. When revenue was insufficient for needs, any additional funding was welcome. 

Further, opposition to the Interstate System was growing in the city and State, resulting in the loss 

of funds allocated “for the lower [sic] Manhattan Expressway, or the Cross Brooklyn Expressway, 

to the rest of the State, or indeed, for other parts of the country.” Those funds could have been used 

for other streets, such as Broadway, Linden Boulevard, and other boulevards that were in need of 

improvement. He added that “the general climate of opinion with regard to how the Highway Trust 

Fund has been administered . . . often colors the judgment of many of the people in my State with 

regard to the use of Highway Trust Funds in general, urban system or not.” 

He added that highway and transit users were not two different sets of people. In the city, 40 

percent of subway users also drive cars. “Our situation is trying to meet a balanced demand for 

transportation through the city, and in order to meet a balanced demand, we need flexibility in the 

trust fund, and in all other possible fund sources in order to try to meet our needs.” 

The Senate, Carballo said, had correctly directed the pass-through to municipalities rather than to 

“urbanized” areas. Allowing the States to control the pass-through was also a mistake because “the 

State is as distant from the problems of our neighborhoods and communities as are some elements 

of the Federal Government.” 

Representative Harsha began by commenting on a section of Carballo’s statement indicating that 

the city needed $2.3 billion through FY 1977, or $600 million a year, and $132 million for urban 

highway needs. Since none of the bills under consideration would provide all that funding, would 

the city use its flexible Federal-aid urban system funds for mass transit if the Senate prevailed? 

Carballo said he would favor using the bulk of the revenue for mass transit, but the decision would 

be made through the city’s budgetary process by the City Council and Mayor Lindsay. 

Since the city already had insufficient funds for its urban system highway needs, Representative 

Harsha asked if diverting revenue to mass transit would increase the shortfall. Carballo explained 

that the city had made a mass investment of tax revenue in its subway system, as had Chicago, 
686 

Boston, and other cities. Still, New York City had neglected continued investment in the subway 

system “and it is my judgment that the priority should be in the upgrading of mass transit 

resources.” Revenue would still be insufficient, but with the completion of the Interstate System, 

more revenue would become available for mass transit and urban street needs. 

Representative Harsha pointed out that the Interstate System would not be completed until 1980 at 

the earliest, leaving the city with a shortfall during that period. Carballo replied that, “we have had 

a shortfall for the last 40 years, going back to the depression [sic] in every urban need.” Given the 

flexibility to determine its own needs, the city “can choose between one mode and another in the 

way that most meets out local needs.” The city’s judgment might differ from that of other urban 

and rural areas, but that is why “if we are to give any meaning to the principle of home rule or to the 

principle of flexibility, then we must allow a municipality to make its own judgment.” 

That was, Representative Harsha said, his point. Flexibility would lead to even greater shortfalls, 

thus both transit and urban highways would suffer. Carballo expected that in balancing the city’s 

transportation needs, no responsible official “would urge that every cent available under the urban 

system be used for mass transit.” With more revenue, the funds would be split among the modes in 

a ratio decided by local officials.

Representative Harsha commented, “There is no point in arguing the point with you.” Instead, he 

asked how much General Revenue Sharing funding was being used for transportation. Carballo 

explained the arrangement the city and State had made where the State advanced funds to help with 

mass transit and welfare, but the city agreed to use its General Revenue Sharing to reimburse the 

State for the advanced funds. “Well, in this rather indirect and complicated manner, $100 million 

for 2 years would be used as part of an overall program which included increased tolls on tolled 

bridges to keep the fare from rising above 35 cents from its previous level of 30 cents.” 

Approximately $50 million a year for 2 years in General Revenue Sharing was used to subsidize 

fares. With that, Representative Harsha concluded his questions. [1973 Highway Legislation 

(Future Highway Needs), p, 195-204] 

Secretary of Transportation Hughes of Maryland was the final witness on the first day of the 

hearings. He represented at least 17 of the 20 States that had departments of transportation. He 

summarized a policy statement they had agreed on several weeks earlier as saying that they were 

primarily interested in two things: “simplicity and flexibility.” They were divided on flexible use 

of Federal-aid urban system funds: “almost unanimous for highway related public transit, and 11 to 

6 for extending it to rail.” 

They were unanimous, however, regarding the pass-through provision in the Senate bill. The chief 

officers of the State departments “feel that the States should be the responsible agency for 

coordinating transportation within their respective States and urban communities.” Using Maryland 

as an example, Secretary Hughes said the pass-through in the Senate bill “would be chaotic in 

Maryland, and this may be because of our setup in Maryland where we have a unified department of 

transportation, a unified transportation trust fund, and we have flexible use of transportation funds.” 

 The State faced $1 billion in Interstate funds that could not be used because of controversies. It 
687 

was “somewhat ludicrous” if those funds ended up in the urban system for the city of Baltimore 

“alone to use for their—if the rail and if the bus transportation . . . .” 

Representative Roe interrupted to say that based on his experience as an official in State 

government, talk of “self-determination” left “a very nebulous point in my mind when we talk 

about ‘a local unit.’” It was, he said, “utterly ludicrous” to talk of dividing a State into regional 

transportation authorities or agencies and then “you were to plow money back into those particular 

separate units, if they were not coordinated, one could be doing one thing on the mass transit system 

for buses or for railroads, and there would be no coordinated rationale to get a job resolved.” 

Cities such as Baltimore had “more advanced specific problems.” Representative Roe asked, “Can 

we treat those cities the same as we would treat smaller communities within other States?” Should 

not regional problems be coordinated at the State level? Secretary Hughes agreed, saying, “we feel 

that with that kind of responsibility, a direct passthrough [sic] in our instance would be very 

detrimental.”

Representative Abzug asked Secretary Hughes to clarify his views on the pass-through provision. 

He explained that the funds should be passed through to “those who have the responsibility for 

developing the programs and providing the service.” Passing the revenue to a regional coordinating 

group “would not be good.” He added, “It should be to a governmental unit; people who are 

elected and responsible for providing the service.” In Maryland, he said, passing the funds to the 

city of Baltimore “would be bad” because the city was not responsible for public transportation. 

The mass transit project to add rapid rail transit to a northwest freeway that is under construction in 

Baltimore was to be financed one-third from the State’s transportation trust fund and two-thirds 

UMTA.

Representative Roe asked if adding general Treasury revenue to the Highway Trust Fund for 

purposes of pass-through would make sense. Secretary Hughes agreed that the Highway Trust Fund 

needs an influx of general revenue that could be used flexibly. Representative Roe said, “So, in 

effect, wherever that money comes from, the flexibility is the key point here?” Secretary Hughes 

replied, “Exactly.”

In closing, Representative Roe asked about the cost of transit needs: 

I have heard here today, and from what I hear from my own State, even though they are 

talking about $1 billion, it is just a pinch of snuff, speaking relatively, to get at the mass 

transit situation, if it is divided over 50 States.

Secretary Hughes could not estimate nationwide needs. Baltimore’s rail transit system, planned for 

28 miles, with the first two legs of the projected six legs just getting underway, carried an estimated 

cost of $1 billion. 

Representative Roe summarized:
688 

In other words, if the cities are in such terrible condition as has been described . . . it could 

take 50 years to build the mass transit system. Then we are, in my judgment, whistling in 

the dark, because unless we are really willing to make a large Federal involvement of funds 

quickly we are kidding ourselves. We have to put the money to replacing deteriorating 

stock in the bus lines, and this sort of revitalization and capital improvements programming. 

What I am getting at, the battle to be fought could be very misleading to the people of this 

country. 

Secretary Hughes agreed that additional funding would be needed to “make it meaningful.” He 

concluded, “No two ways about that. And this means an additional influx of funds from the 

Highway Trust Funds.” [sic] Representative Roe added, “Wherever it comes from,” and Secretary 

Hughes agreed, “Yes, sir. Wherever it comes from.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 208-214 

(According to a contemporary article in The Baltimore Sun, 326 of Maryland’s 358 miles of 

Interstate highways had been built, with “the most expensive—and most controversial sections” 

remaining on the drawing board. Some of the controversial mileage was in the Washington suburbs 

(extensions of I-95 and I-70S (I-270) between the District of Columbia and the Capital Beltway). 

The bulk of the cost, however, was in Baltimore where Mayor Schaefer was committed to what was 

known as the “3-A system.” It included extension of I-70N (I-70) from the Baltimore Beltway 

through Leakin Park to intersect with I-95 near Washington Boulevard; a highway in the FranklinMulberry corridor (I-170) on the western side of the city; the eastern portion of I-95 under Fort

McHenry to connect with the John F. Kennedy Memorial Toll Road; and extension of I-83/Jones 

Falls Expressway to connect with I-95. 

(Mayor Schaefer’s spokesman said, “He’s committed to a 3-A system and that’s the way he wants it 

to stand.” Secretary Hughes’ spokesman said that if given the option to transfer the Interstate 

funds, he would do so only “if and when it’s demonstrated that currently planned highways can’t be 

built.” Nevertheless, the Highway Action Coalition’s Kramer praised Secretary Hughes for 

lobbying Maryland’s Senators to allow a transfer of Interstate funds to rail transit. Kramer added 

that Governor Mandel also had been “very helpful” in pushing the idea and suggested that, as the 

article explained, he “could be very influential in swinging needed votes in the House, where the 

Maryland delegation, for instance, is split down the middle on the issue.” 

(The first two legs of the transit system Secretary Hughes mentioned were planned with Charles 

Center in downtown Baltimore as the hub. One leg would link downtown to Owings Mills in 

Baltimore County while the other would reach Friendship International Airport (now BWI). “The 

first shovel of dirt for the proposed rail transit system is scheduled to be turned in the fall of 1974, 

with mid-1980 as the ‘optimistic’ deadline for finishing the first 28 miles.” [Hill, Frederick B., 

“Funds for 3-A Road Could Go to Mass Transit,” The Baltimore Sun, March 18, 1973]) 

(That schedule proved to be overly optimistic. Maryland’s General Assembly did not approve the 

State matching funds until 1976 and then only after a struggle that included an 8-day filibuster in 

the State Senate. The funds covered only an 8-mile segment on the Owings Mill line from Charles 
689 

Center to Reisterstown Road Plaza, a popular enclosed shopping mall near the city’s Pikesville 

neighborhood. The segment opened on November 21, 1983, at a cost of $767 million. Secretary 

Hughes, by then the Governor of Maryland (January 1979 to January 1987), participated in the 

ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Charles Center station and briefly operated the train. 

(The 6-mile extension to Owings Mills opened in July 1987 at a cost of $255 million. It was

primarily a surface rail line that, as Secretary Hughes had stated in his testimony, was located in the 

median of the Northwest Expressway (designated I-795 in 1978) from the Baltimore Beltway to its 

terminus. Plans for the Northwest Expressway inside the beltway, with Metro in the right-of-way, 

were scrapped because of citizen opposition. Inside the city, the Metro was extended from Charles 

Center to Johns Hopkins Hospital. With its completion in 1995, the total cost of the single 

Baltimore Metro line was $1.392 billion. 

(The remaining legs of the planned Baltimore Metro remain unbuilt. However, Governor Schaefer 

(1987-1995), the former Baltimore Mayor, initiated construction of a light rail line mainly in the 

former right-of-way of interurban streetcar and commuter rail lines to run from Timonium in 

Baltimore County, past the new Orioles Park at Camden Yards, to BWI. The single-track Central 

Light Rail Line from Timonium to Glen Burnie in Anne Arundel County, 22.5-miles with at-grade 

crossings, opened in April 1992 as the Orioles began playing in their new stadium. Spurs were 

added in 1997, including light rail service to the BWI terminal on December 6. [Scott Kozol’s 

Roads to the Future at http://roadstothefuture.com/main.html] Most of the Central Light Rail Line 

was subsequently double-tracked. The Metro Subway line and the Central Light Rail Line do not 

share a station. A two-block walk separates the Charles Center Metro station from the light rail 

line, which is one block from the Lexington Market Metro station.] 

(Baltimore’s 3-A Interstate network was not completed. On September 3, 1981, at the joint request 

of Governor Hughes and Mayor Schaefer, FHWA and UMTA approved withdrawal of the 3.3-mile 

section of I-70 from just inside the Baltimore Beltway at Security Boulevard to planned I-170. The 

extension of I-83 to I-95 was withdrawn on September 29, 1983, along with I-595, which included 

the former I-170 Franklin-Mulberry corridor and the remnants of the I-70 link to I-95). 

The Hearings Continue

The hearing resumed on Tuesday, March 20, with several Members of Congress presenting their 

views to the subcommittee. Representative Patsy Mink (D-Hi.), who had joined the House in 1965 

as the first minority woman to serve in that body, began by explaining Hawaii’s unique geographic 

conditions, including a population on seven islands linked mainly by air. “If you want to travel 

from Honolulu to the next largest city of Hilo on Hawaii Island, you cannot simply get in your car 

and drive there.” In fairness to the State’s unique situation, she recommended that Congress 

“permit Hawaii’s allotment of Federal highway funds to be used, should the State choose for an 

inter-island ferry system providing truly good transportation within the entire State of Hawaii for 

the first time.” 

She explained that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 had opened the Highway Trust Fund to 

ferryboats, but prohibited the use of funds for operation in foreign or international waters. 

Representative Mink explained that, “Our waters between all our islands are international waters.” 
690 

She urged the subcommittee to adopt a provision included in S. 502 that would except Alaska and 

Hawaii from this restriction. She complimented Senator Inouye for securing the provision that 

would allow Federal-aid highway funds to be used not only for construction of ferry boats but dock 

facilities and all needed appurtenances. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 

215-217] 

Representative David Towell (R-Nv.), a real estate broker who would serve only his present term in 

Congress before losing his relection bid, was next. He urged the subcommittee to include Elko, 

Nevada, in the railroad relocation demonstration program. The Southern Pacific and Western 

Railroad Companies ran 40 trains daily through the city’s business district of 17 rail-highway 

crossings. Elko had developed a relocation plan and gained the support of all parties, including the 

railroads, the State highway department, FHWA, and the FRA. The Senate bill, S.502, included 

Elko, and he encouraged the subcommittee to include the city in its bill. [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 217-223] 

Representative Lawrence Coughlin (R-Pa.), whose congressional district was in the Philadelphia 

area, complimented the Committee on Public Works for its work in 1956 in addressing “one of the 

major requirements of our society by perhaps the most important milestone in American 

transportation history, and that was the creation of the Interstate System.” He continued: 

Now, in 1973, we are presented with another opportunity to respond to the needs of our 

citizens . . . . I speak specifically of permitting the urban municipalities the option—the 

freedom, if you will—to decide for themselves where it is most necessary to commit their 

share of urban system money. 

He encouraged the subcommittee to incorporate Representative Anderson’s bill embodying the 

principles of the Muskie-Baker amendment:

To me, this is not an issue of highways versus mass transit. I recognize the importance of 

highways to rural areas, and to urban areas as well. In particular, I applaud the actions that 

have been taken by this subcommittee in the past to expand the uses of the Highway Trust 

Fund to include construction of fringe parking facilities and improvement of traffic control 

systems.

Yet, in some communities, like my own, an additional expansion of the uses of the Highway 

Trust Fund would benefit both the motorists and the overall quality of transportation. 

Of the rush hour traffic jam, Representative Coughlin said: 

It is a subject of jokes by the Nation’s comedians, but it is not a joke when one considers the 

countless man-hours wasted; it is not a joke when one considers the enormous waste of 

energy, particularly at a time when we are confronted by an energy crisis of yet 

undetermined proportions, and it is not a joke if we look at the byproduct of air pollution. 
691 

He recalled EPA Administrator Ruckelshaus’ testimony before the Senate Committee on Public 

Works that at least 26 metropolitan areas, including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, would need to 

reduce traffic to comply with the air quality standards of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970. The 

deterioration of mass transit systems coincided with the dominance of the automobile. “The 

deterioration of public ground transit has come, really, from a lack of providing the funding which 

comes anywhere close to equaling that of the highway program.” For every 60 cents invested in 

highways, only 5 cents went to public transit or intercity rail:

I am very well aware of the reluctance of members of Congress to enact legislation which 

would in any way endanger the fine features of the highway program; yet, in allowing the 

States the flexibility to use urban funds for a mass transit program, I do not believe, in all 

honesty and candor, that we would be compromising the interests of those who need 

highways. 

He urged that State and local officials be allowed discretion “in using those tax dollars as they see 

fit.”

Representative Roberts engaged Representative Coughlin in a pointed dialogue following on 

whether the use of Federal-aid urban funds for mass transit would affect the highway program: 

Mr. Roberts. Is the gentleman aware that the Highway Trust Fund, as obligated, would not 

pay out until 1990 at the present obligation? 

Mr. Coughlin. The funds that are designated, as I understand it, as urban system funds, are 

not all obligated.

Mr. Roberts. If you take the total Highway Trust Fund and apply it to the obligated funds, it 

would take until 1990 approximately to pay off what we have already scheduled. Now what 

I am trying to get at is, does it make any difference to you whether you bust the trust fund? 

Let’s just lay it on the table; do you want to bust the trust fund, or do you want the money? 

Mr. Coughlin. What I am interested in seeing is taking that portion of the trust fund— 

Mr. Roberts. You want to bust the trust fund? 

Mr. Coughlin [continuing] . . . that is designated as urban system funds and allowing those 

to be used. 

Mr. Roberts. You want to bust the trust fund in paying it out of other funds. Now, we have 

already allocated a tremendous amount of money to assist with these programs, but this 

would not satisfy you. You want to take it out of the trust fund? 

Mr. Coughlin. That portion of the trust fund that is designated as urban system funds. 

Mr. Roberts. The trust fund was set up as a Highway Trust Fund. If you make a will and 

leave the trust to your children, you don’t think we should have the flexibility of destroying 

it?

Mr. Coughlin. I would like to look upon the Highway Trust Fund as a transportation trust 

fund. 

Mr. Roberts. It isn’t. It is a Highway Trust Fund; it is not a transportation trust fund. So it 

stays, you see. We are trying to provide the money, and I am trying to see if this will satisfy. 

 If you just say no, you just want to bust the trust fund, that is the only answer I need. 

Mr. Coughlin. To the extent that is designated for urban areas, yes, sir. 
692 

Mr. Roberts. I have no further questions.

Representative Clausen said that Representative Roberts had “put his finger on the essential issue at 

hand, and . . . then you responded by stating that you thought this was a transportation trust fund.” 

He pointed out that “the law, as written, does not describe it as a transportation trust fund. It is a 

Highway Trust Fund.” He cited an effort to prevent FAA administrative funds from being taken out 

of the Airport and Airways Trust Fund. When Representative Coughlin said he had supported the 

effort, Representative Clausen said:

Then this is precisely what we are attempting to accomplish. Some of us believe in not 

diverting funds from the Highway Trust Fund. Rather, our approach is to move in the 

direction of creating an additional finance vehicle so that you can have that balanced 

transportation system, because it is clearly evident from your testimony . . . that you want 

the Highway Trust Fund to pick up the deficits. You point out that some 60 cents has been 

invested in highways; the reason for this is that they set up a positive method of finance 

where the users pay for the development of that highway system, recognized as the best in 

the world. 

Representative Clausen was committed “to general fund capital outlay to meet the mass transit 

requirements.” 

Representative Coughlin responded that all he was saying was that “our share, whatever is allocated 

to us for the purposes of transportation, should be allowed to be used for the purposes of public 

ground transportation, and not be limited to just building highways we may not need.” 

Pennsylvania would receive about $62 million in Federal-aid urban system funds, which “could be 

a significant contribution to the urban area transportation systems.” Why, he asked, should the 

State’s urban areas not be able to “decide whether they want to use it for highways or concrete or 

other forms of transportation?” 

Representative Clausen said he had no problem with flexibility “if it is going to improve the 

highway system,” but diverting funds to mass transit would have the effect of “drying out the one 

fund that we have depended upon.” 

Representative Roberts interjected that Representative Coughlin seemed to be saying that since 

Philadelphia had all the roads it needed, he didn’t care what happened in other areas that still 

needed roads. “Surely you wouldn’t want to change the trust fund arrangement now simply because 

you’ve got all the highways you need.” He added, “I just want to make this point so your statement 

won’t be clouded by this inference.” Representative Coughlin thanked Representative Roberts for 

the clarification.

Later, while Representative Gene Snyder (R-Ky.) was questioning Representative Coughlin about 

the scope of a transportation trust fund, Representative Clausen interrupted to read the provision in 

the Highway Revenue Act of 1956 (Title II of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956) stating 

“Amounts in the Trust Fund shall be available and provided by appropriation acts for making 

expenditures . . . under the Federal Aid Road Act approved July 11, 1916 and supplemented, which 
693 

are attributable to Federally-aided highways, including those portions of general administrative 

expenses of Bureau of Public Roads payable from such appropriations.” He said that by this 

language, the Highway Trust Fund revenues were confined to highways: 

In other words, if we were to channel all of the funds into the hands of the major 

metropolitan areas, I can assure you there would be no funds ultimately left to meet the 

highway requirements in other sections of the country where the bulk of the accidents are 

occurring. 

Representative E. J. “Bud” Shuster (R-Pa.), who had made a fortune with his own computer 

business and was serving his first term in Congress, suggested that while Philadelphia may have all 

the roads it needs, “in other parts of Pennsylvania we are not so fortunate, and indeed, I would ask 

him if he feels that the rural highway system in Pennsylvania is acceptable?” Representative 

Coughlin did not dispute the claim, but pointed out he was talking only about the Federal-aid urban 

system funds. Representative Shuster pointed out that many rural roads were in poor condition and 

that the chance of being killed in a crash on these rural roads was greater than in urban areas. “I 

feel it is in the best interests of this Nation to get everything we can, do everything we can, to 

protect the Highway Trust Fund so we can have an adequate highway system, and I would enlist 

[Coughlin’s] support in helping rural America get what urban America already has.” [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 223-237] 

Representative Shuster’s comment concluded Representative Coughlin’s appearance before the 

subcommittee. 

He was followed by Representative Bingham, the long-time transit advocate from New York City. 

He recalled that he had last appeared before the Committee on Public Works in 1968, when he had 

said that without a balanced transportation system, “Our cities cannot continue to be the shopping, 

cultural and profession centers they are today if they are inaccessible.” A rapid transit system 

combined with a freeway system was critical to an ideal urban transportation plan, but he had 

pointed out in 1968 that “the nature of present Federal transportation aid is such as to predetermine 

that every community will best be served by a basic reliance on highways.” At a time when mass 

transportation service should be improving, it was instead “deteriorating at a frightening pace,” with 

the Federal Government “largely to blame.” Again, in 1968, he reminded the subcommittee, he had 

said:

What must be done in order to provide for an integrated transportation service is to correct 

the gross inequities which exist between the funds available for highways and those 

available for rapid transit.

Representative Bingham pointed out that those words actually dated to a statement he issued jointly 

with Senator Tydings in 1965. As noted, they had introduced a bill to permit State and local 

officials to use Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transportation purposes as appropriate to 

solve their transportation problem. He had, he said, reintroduced that bill in every Congress and 

was introducing a similar bill on this day “to make all Highway Trust Fund moneys available for 
694 

mass transit at local option, save those funds earmarked for completion of the Interstate Highway 

System.” The bill was similar to the Kennedy-Weicker amendment from 1972. 

To create a more balanced system, however, Representative Bingham favored a general surface 

transportation trust fund based on Highway Trust Fund revenues and general Treasury revenues. 

He was also introducing a bill on this day—one he also had introduced in the previous Congress—

to create such a trust fund. The reasons such a bill was needed in 1973 were the same as in 1965: 

The reasons for encouraging mass transit in relation to highways are the same as they have 

long been. Air pollution—much of it from cars—had reached crisis proportion. With a 

deadline for compliance with air quality standards set by the Clean Air Act of 1970 now 

only 2 years away, and auto manufacturers pleading for exemptions, 67 cities still exceed 

Clean Air Act standards. 

Further, the social and financial costs of highways in cities were far higher than mass transit. 

“Highways divide communities, gobble up scarce housing units, and steal property from city tax 

rolls to a far greater extent than mass transit systems.”

He also cited the “so-called energy crisis,” pointing out that: 

It is estimated that if the use of automobiles in urban areas were reduced just 25 percent, the 

saving of scarce petroleum would be a staggering 1 million barrels a day—the full capacity 

of the proposed Trans-Alaska Pipeline.

He was introducing a bill “with the expectation that it will again be referred to the Committee on 

Ways and Means.” He did not say so, but the implication was that it would die there, as his 

previous bill had. 

He did not favor creation of a Mass Transit Trust Fund, which he considered “a risky and 

inadequate solution.” Revenue for such a trust fund would have to come mainly from the general 

Treasury. Competition for that revenue from other interests meant that “there is little likelihood 

that sufficient funds could be allocated to make such a trust fund effective.” Such a trust fund also 

would limit officials to one solution that would “reduce the flexibility that is needed to create 

balanced transportation systems.” 

He also objected to the separate trust fund because it would leave the Highway Trust Fund 

untouched. As a result, “cities and States would continue to be seduced into building and 

improving roadways just because the money would be there, roadways that add more to local social, 

fiscal and environmental problems than they eliminate.” 

He emphasized that his bill would not require a single penny to be spent on mass transit or impact 

completion of the Interstate System:
695 

It would simply end the “use it or lose it” policy that has forced Governors and mayors and 

county executives to build and spend on roads regardless of the need for bus or rail mass 

transit.

Such a change, he said, did not involve a “violation of public trust,” as some argued. He pointed 

out that six of the eight taxes channeling revenue into the Highway Trust Fund existed before 1956, 

when they were earmarked for the Interstate System. “That network is now 80 percent complete 

and 98 percent under construction, and there is no reason the Congress can not now choose to 

redeploy those funds to meet needs and conditions which have emerged since 1956.” 

He opposed the priority primary routes, which he considered an extension of the Interstate System. 

The new 10,000-mile network was not “justified in view of our other transportation needs and 

limited resources.”

He concluded his opening comments by acknowledging that he had been repeating the theme for 8 

years that States and cities should be permitted choice in the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues 

to develop balanced transportation systems:

There have been times in the past when that notion was dismissed as almost an absurdity, 

but I think there has been a great change in the attitude of many people toward this idea, and 

I hope that in this year of 1973 it is an idea whose time has come, and I hope the committee 

will view it favorably.

Representative Wright began the questioning by asking if Representative Bingham agreed that 

additional revenue, beyond the Highway Trust Fund, would be needed to address mass transit 

needs. Representative Bingham agreed but pointed out that the Ways and Means Committee would 

have to address additional revenue. What the Committee on Public Works could do is open the 

Highway Trust Fund for mass transit purposes. 

Representative Snyder objected to Representative Bingham’s comments opposing priority primary 

routes. He pointed out that in Kentucky, “if you want to go from Ashland to Covington or 

Alexandria, or such as that, you just can’t hardly get there, unless you want to take pony express.” 

Mass transit would not solve the problem, and that is why the priority primary routes were needed. 

Representative Bingham said that he did not object to the construction of rural roads. “My whole 

thrust is that it should be the people in Kentucky who should decide what you need from this trust 

fund, and not the people here in Washington.” 

Representative Snyder pointed out that the 1972 bill had provided that priority primary routes 

would be developed to standards developed by the State highway departments and the Secretary of 

Transportation, not necessarily to Interstate standards. Bingham’s response was that surely the 

committee in 1972 was essentially talking about an extension of the Interstate System, not roads for 

light traffic.

Following this doubtful questioning, Representative Abzug provided a more favorable response. 

After complimenting Representative Bingham and pointing out that the Senate had adopted his 
696 

proposal, she asked him to discuss “the dependence that we have in areas like New York, and it is 

duplicated in other urban areas, of working people to actually go to work in a subway system, for 

example, which desperately needs to be extended and which needs funding . . . .” Representative 

Bingham agreed that in a district such as his, most people commute by mass transit, even though 

many of them own cars and pay highway taxes, “but as far as their essential transportation needs are 

concerned, they can’t use the car.”

Where, Representative Abzug asked, would decisionmaking rest under Representative Bingham’s 

bill. He said that his bill left decisionmaking where it was, whether with the State or urban area, 

but “extends the area, the competence of those decisionmaking bodies, to the point where they can 

use the funds for mass transit purposes.” 

What about Senator Williams’ amendment including $3 billion for UMTA and $800 million for 

operating subsidies? He supported the bill but questioned whether the Committee on Public Works 

had jurisdiction. His bill proposed only that highway funds could be used for mass transit capital 

projects, although he supported Federal participation in operating subsidies. 

Representative Wright pointed out that, “Whether or not this committee has rightful jurisdiction 

over that subject, we have had it thrust upon us in the conference committee by the Senate last year, 

and again this year.” He added, however, that Secretary Brinegar had indicated that President 

Nixon would veto any bill that authorized Federal funds for operating subsidies. Still, some help 

was needed for operating subsidies if people were to be motivated to leave their automobiles home: 

What would be your reaction to some kind of an arrangement where there would be an 

inducement to a State, perhaps in the nature of a credit on their highway program, if they 

had their own option to provide for operating subsidies in their own State? 

Operating subsidies, Representative Bingham replied, were critical because most mass transit 

systems were experiencing deficits. New York City was experiencing “a very severe financial 

stringency” and needs help with operating deficits that he thought should come from the State and 

Federal Governments. “So that is why, in principle, I am for the operating subsidy idea. But I hate 

to see that get mixed up with the question of whether the Highway Trust Fund should be opened up 

for mass transit capital needs.”

Representative Wright asked if his objective was to find money for mass transit “or do you want to 

stop the highway program?” Representative Bingham replied: 

Primarily I want money for mass transit. I think the highway program has been operated in 

a wasteful way at times, and in a way that is not conducive to good environment. I have 

seen wasteful use of the Interstate System moneys out in New Mexico, particularly where an 

Interstate road was being built parallel to a four-lane highway between Santa Fe and 

Albuquerque, but to stop such waste isn’t my primary purpose. 

If we had unlimited resources, we could be arguing about whether these highways are good 

or bad; the point is that we have built a system of highways that are often only marginally 
697 

desirable, when we should have been using the fund more usefully . . . . As I said, “use it or 

lose it” has been the philosophy; if you didn’t use that money for highways you were going 

to lose it, so officials are presented with that kind of a temptation; they tend to spend the 

money. 

Representative Wright said he agreed that more should be done for mass transit, but “I don’t think it 

is necessary in order to advance the cause of mass transit that one attack the highway program as 

though it were a boondoggle or unnecessary thing.” Representative Bingham said:

All I am saying, and all we have been saying for 8 years now, is that the decision of what is 

the most important transportation need, what is the most critical transportation need, should 

be a decision to be made locally and not here in Washington by dint of rigid doctrine. 

Representative Abzug continued her question period by saying that some areas, such as San 

Francisco, had rejected Interstate highways and built transit systems, such as BART, with their own 

financial resources. She added, “I think the Highway Trust Fund is a trust for all people and for all 

kinds of transportation. I’m going to do everything that I can to see that it is.” 

Representative Wright ended the question period by explaining that although highway user taxes 

were collected prior to 1956, as Representative Bingham had stated, “these particular taxes were 

yielding something less than a billion dollars annually, and last year, they yielded in excess of 

$5,700 million.” The Highway Trust Fund was created to support the entire Federal-aid highway 

program, not just the Interstate System. “In other words, it wouldn’t be accurate to conclude that in 

the absence of the trust fund 90 percent of that money would go into general revenue.” 

Representative Abzug summarized her perspective:

These taxes are general taxes, general revenues. It has been suggested by some that they 

belong to the highways, are only for the use of the highways, and therefore cannot be made 

available for general transportation. You don’t agree with that, do you, Mr. Bingham? 

He did not, and that concluded his testimony. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 237-248] 

Representative St. Germain testified in support of an amendment he introduced that would cut off 

Federal funds to any State or local government that allowed its transit authority to transport children 

to and from school in competition with private school bus operators. He asked, “isn’t it illogical for 

the Congress to put private operators out of business, these independent small business men who 

are willing and able to transport our schoolchildren for a reasonable fee, without any subsidy.” If 

they went out of business, the burden would fall on mass transit systems that were already “looking 

for more moneys for subsidies or capital grants and for operating subsidies.” 

Representative St. Germain had incorporated the amendment into the housing bill that had failed in 

1972. In 1973, the Urban Mass Transportation Subcommittee of the House Banking and Currency 

Committee was holding hearings on possibly adding the 1972 mass transit provision to new 
698 

legislation. However, Representative St. Germain asked the Subcommittee on Transportation to 

also include his school bus amendment in the section on “Public Mass Transportation” of the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 248-

254] 

Representative Joe D. Waggonner, Jr. (D-La.) addressed the committee in support of the proposed 

priority primary system, particularly a 323-mile north-south route in Louisiana that would run from 

I-410 in New Orleans to Shreveport. It had been included in the 1972 bill. “It is my fervent hope 

that the committee will again include the provision regarding the priority primary system in the bill 

which it reports out of committee this year.”

He also endorsed a proposal from the 1972 bill that would allow Federal-aid participation in toll 

road construction on a 70-to-30 basis. “Lack of adequate funding and the relatively high cost of 

highway construction in certain parts of Louisiana have precluded a concerted effort to upgrade a 

north-south route in Louisiana.” Such a highway could be built within 5 years with Federal 

support: 

The way in which this program would work is that the States would issue toll road bonds for 

the entire cost of the construction. Then, as sections of the highway were completed, tolls 

would be collected to pay on the State’s 30-percent share and on the interest on the Federal 

Government’s 70-percent share. As soon as the Federal Government share has been paid to 

the State, tolls could no longer be collected and the highway would convert into a free 

highway. 

Since the Federal Government pays its share of highway funds in installments, it would, in 

turn, give the State a period of years to pay for its share of construction costs before the 

highway converted to the free road system. 

Louisiana had been fighting for a north-south highway, preferably on the Interstate System, for 

many years, as Representative Waggonner explained:

I might add that since I came to Congress in 1961, I have been working to obtain 

authorization for a north-south route in Louisiana. I remember in 1965 [sic, 1968] when the 

Interstate System was being discussed at that time, we were able to obtain tentative approval 

for including the north-south segment within the Interstate System.

At the 11th hour, that section of Interstate highway was given to our neighboring State of 

Texas . . . . So, you can see, this is something that I have been working on for some time. 

Representative Waggonner also opposed diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue to mass transit 

systems:

The main argument of the antihighway people is the alleged harmful effects to individuals 

and society as a whole of a continued dependence on the automobile. Their quick and easy 

cure-all suggests that we just quit building and modernizing our highway systems and by so 
699 

doing this will somehow force people and their goods to immediately transfer to mass 

transit. This simplistic solution of doing nothing except transferring all, or any part, of the 

highway funds to mass transit is not the answer either for now or the future. 

It completely overlooks the question of moving freight; and it also overlooks the question of 

how you are going to provide for those utility, public and business services which depend 

entirely on the highway and street network. 

The truth is, it is a relatively small group of taxpayers who actually benefit by mass transit. 

Even if a nationwide mass transit [sic] were built overnight, it would affect only about 2 

percent of the overall problem . . . . I do not think that we should severely cripple a proven 

highway program before completion to hopefully satisfy those who are dedicated to building 

a doubtful and costly transportation system that at best could assist only 2 percent of the 

total problem . . . . I agree that we must find a solution to the problem, but it must be a 

solution that meets the test of overall effectiveness, cost-benefit scrutiny and public 

acceptability by the majority of our citizens.

In response to friendly questioning from Representative John B. Breaux (D-La.), an attorney who 

had joined Congress in September 1972 after winning a special election, Representative Waggonner 

explained that he preferred a north-south toll road to a priority primary toll-free route because the 

toll road could be built faster. On either of the State’s east-west routes (I-10 and I-20), a motorist 

would have to drive 186 miles west to Dallas to I-45 or roughly the same distance east to I-55 in 

Jackson, Mississippi, to find a north-south Interstate linking the two routes: 

There are only three States that do not have major north-south routes, and Louisiana is one 

of them. There is a void that needs filling.

(The other States are Nebraska and Nevada; I-49 now provides the north-south link in Louisiana.) 

Representative Clausen observed that most of the subcommittee members who favored diversion of 

Highway Trust Fund revenues to mass transit “are not here to listen to the other side.” He asked 

Representative Waggonner about the source of the statement that a nationwide mass transit system 

would affect only about 2 percent of the overall problem. Representative Waggonner replied: 

I think the figure is an entirely accurate one. It comes from a man that I have nothing but 

respect for, Mr. Francis C. Turner, who used to be the Federal Highway Administrator. He 

is a man who I found was easy to follow as far as highways are concerned. He is a practical, 

competent man. And those figures have been developed through their association—the 

Association of Road Builders—and from other transportation statistics.

We don’t have that many people riding mass transit, for example. We just had one go broke 

and the Government take it over right here in this area. 
700 

And if you would believe what they have to say, we are still not doing enough, even though 

the Government is putting literally hundreds of millions and eventually billions of dollars 

into the mass transit system, in addition to what we have done in the Interstate program. 

(On January 14, 1973, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) purchased 

the privately owned D.C. Transit, Inc., which served the District and Montgomery County, 

Maryland, and another bus company serving Virginia. Zachary M. Schrag, in his history of Metro, 

referred to the owner of D.C. Transit as the “infamous transit baron O. Roy Chalk.” Schrag wrote,

“Many in Washington speculated that his true interest in D.C. Transit lay in selling off its valuable 

real estate: streetcar barns that could be converted to offices, shops, and even apartment buildings.” 

 The usual mix of declining ridership, increased fares, and deteriorating service undermined the 

company’s finances. When Chalk tried to negotiate for a higher sale price, WMATA condemned 

his companies and took them over. In this way, WMATA, which would build and operate the 

Metro subway, became operator of all public transit in the Washington area. [Schrag, Zachary M., 

The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro, The Johns Hopkins University 

Press, 2006, p. 175-176]) 

Representative Studds, who was one of the pro-diversion subcommittee members cited by 

Representative Clausen, had arrived at the hearing. He had no questions, but responded in this way 

to Representative Clausen’s comments:

I apologize for missing most of your presentation, Mr. Congressman. I have been trying to 

read it here.

As you know, I do not concur in most of your proposals. Some of us are enjoying our 

temporary allegiance with the administration, the phenomenon which has us all somewhat 

puzzled. 

But it is sort of fun. I have a great deal of respect for you, sir. 

And John [Breaux] and I here certainly have an agreement. Congressman Moakley from 

Boston is going to testify tomorrow and if I can serve as an interpreter for Mr. Breaux, he 

can wade through those things and be very helpful in this case. 

Representative Cleveland concluded the short question period by wondering how “a man of your 

stature, statesmanship, and power could have lost that Interstate . . . . Representative Waggonner 

responded, “Well, there was a man by the name of Lyndon Johnson, who was President of the 

United States at the time.” To laughter, Representative Cleveland said, “I am glad you said that. I 

was going to allude to it. As I recall, it went into the district of man named Mr. [George H.] 

Mahon, who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, so you shouldn’t feel too badly.” 

Waggonner said he understood, “but it sure looks like a sore thumb running out there from nowhere 

to nowhere as far as the Interstate System is concerned.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 255-261] 
701 

(This dialogue concerned the 1,500-mile extension of the Interstate System authorized by the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968. On December 13, 1968, Secretary Boyd approved the additions, 

including 125-mile I-27 in Texas from Amarillo to Lubbock (the “sore thumb” mentioned by 

Representative Waggonner). The final section (from 19th to 54th Street in Lubbock) was dedicated 

with a ceremony on September 3, 1992, at the 34th Street overpass. Louisiana received approval of 

the 30-mile south beltline, I-410, most of which would be withdrawn under the Howard-Cramer 

substitution provision in January 1977.) 

ARBA’s Dan Hanson was the next witness, again accompanied by Peltier, Burgess, Johnson, and 

Cone. Peltier, ARBA’s president, told the subcommittee that ARBA’s main objective “is to 

advocate and support those actions necessary for a modern, safe, and soundly managed 

transportation program in these United States.” The country must address needs in other modes of 

transportation, but “must not overlook the basic need to maintain and modernize the system which, 

in terms of vehicle miles, accounts for 99 percent of all movements” in the country. He explained 

that percentagewise, the Department of Transportation’s 1972 needs study documented that “the 

needs were shown to be about 87 percent in the highway field, 9 percent in the urban transportation 

field, and 4 percent in the airport field.” Funding for all modes was clearly below needs. 

 

The 1956 commitment to the Highway Trust Fund had resulted in construction of the Interstate 

System, but “we have lagged in the modernization of the older but very heavily traveled primary 

and secondary roads . . . . This is one facet of the transportation program which deserves immediate 

increased support from the Highway Trust Fund.” 

He agreed that mass transit, as well as highways, needed additional funding: 

It seems appropriate therefore to seek some reliable source of funding for the urban public 

transportation program, again, using the mechanism of a trust fund in order to provide for 

the collection and earmarking of the money. 

The simple fact is that we need substantially higher commitments of Federal-aid than are 

available—for both highways and urban public transportation. It is also a fact that we are 

working under a severe budgetary limitation, set by the Office of Management and Budget. 

This pretty much puts both highways and urban public transportation in the same category. 

This is what the move to divert funds for urban public transportation from the Highway 

Trust Fund is really all about. The urban public transportation program—when you get right 

down to it—is being charged budgetwise up to the Highway Trust Fund. 

This is what is actually happening. About $1 billion per year of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue is being impounded by the executive branch of the Federal Government. At the 

same time, the Federal Government is expending about $1 billion per year—from the 

general fund—for urban mass transit capital grants. The short-term cure is obviously to 

prevent impoundment and to prevent diversion. This will help both programs. However, in 

the long run, the problem is never going to be solved until we lift the current budgetary 

ceiling on highway-urban public transportation. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 263-264] 
702 

Burgess recalled that in 1972, the Committee on Public Works had proposed to decrease funding 

for the Interstate System while increasing authorizations for the Federal-aid primary, secondary, and 

urban systems, partly in recognition of the likelihood that Interstate construction would proceed at a 

slower rate in its final years. ARBA recommended retaining the prior authorization level of $4 

billion a year for the Interstates:

There are numerous obstacles to early completion of this 42,500 mile system, but the lack of 

Federal-aid highway funds should not be one of those obstacles. 

Impoundment was one of those obstacles. Although Congress had authorized $4 billion for the 

current fiscal year, the president had budgeted only $2.6 billion or 65 percent of the total 

authorization: 

We feel very strongly that the practice of impounding Highway Trust Fund moneys must be 

abandoned. Congress has already provided that the level of authorizations must be kept 

within the capability of the trust fund. This problem is covered by the Byrd amendment to 

the 1956 Highway Act, which provides that apportionments may not be made in amounts 

which would result in a Highway Trust Fund deficit. 

ARBA supported the existing Federal-aid categories because they “give needed structure and 

substance” to the program, but recommended that the States be given the flexibility to transfer 100 

percent of funds, instead of 20 percent as at present, among categories. The flexibility should be 

“within, but not between, rural and urban highway systems.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 265-266] 

Johnson explained that since highway needs exceeded the capacity of the Highway Trust Fund, 

“some dividing lines must be drawn.” Other transportation problems, he said, “are better solved 

with other funding, including State and local tax revenues, general revenue-sharing funds, and other 

Federal-aid programs. ARBA was comfortable with the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for 

highway-related transit, such as exclusive bus lanes, without the economic and engineering surveys 

called for in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. However, ARBA supported the UMTA grant 

program at a level of $1 billion year for transit programs: 

This program should be used to assist urbanized areas and smaller communities in the 

purchases of buses, rail cars and facilities for rail transit, as required in each locality. We do 

not believe that this should be a responsibility of the Highway Trust Fund. 

Johnson said that ARBA recognized that operating subsidies were one of transit’s most pressing 

needs, but “we feel that operating subsidies are not an appropriate application of Federal-aid funds.” 

He also expressed ARBA’s concern about the pass-through provision in S. 502, which would alter 

the well-established Federal-State partnership under the Federal-aid highway program: 
703 

The difficulties of establishing “suitably equipped and organized” metropolitan 

transportation agencies are immense. If we are to maintain the same level of professional 

competence which the program now enjoys, “pass-through” will require greatly increased 

staffing in both local and Federal highway agencies. In our opinion, the potential benefits 

are simply not worth the additional staffing requirements and other necessary add-on 

functions. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p.266-268] 

Cone supported the Certification Acceptance provision of the 1972 House bill, which extended 

procedures of the Secondary Road Plan to all Federal-aid projects except those on the Interstate 

System:

This is not a revolutionary plan. It has been used for secondary road projects for 19 years . . 

. . We also realize that adoption of the Certification Acceptance plan will not altogether 

cure the problem of redtape [sic]. We recognize some paperwork will always be necessary, 

particularly to insure compliance with regulations pertaining to protection of the 

environment, equal employment opportunity and occupational safety. 

It must not be an excuse to curtail public involvement. “We understand that Certification 

Acceptance will provide a State with the opportunity to be more innovative in arranging public 

hearings and other public communications. This is what is really needed.” 

He also recommended additional funding to expand the training programs for workers authorized in 

the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970. Modern highway construction has “created an increasing 

demand for skilled workers.” Models for successful training programs had been developed, but 

such programs would have to be scaled back without additional funding in the range of $10 million 

a year instead of $5 million as authorized in the 1970 Act. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 268-270] 

During the question period, Representative Wright asked about the statement that the highway 

system accounts for 89 percent of all movements of people in the United States. He said he knew 

the percentage was high, but not that high. Peltier explained that the percentage related to vehicle 

miles and was taken from the national transportation statistics report put out in 1970. 

Representative Abzug pointed out that these figures “all came from people involved in the business 

of building highways.” She thought they overstated the situation, especially regarding highway 

needs compared to the needs of urban transit: 

I wish also to make the point on this that there are various other, numerous overriding 

considerations which weigh heavily in making highway investment decisions, which are not 

[in] any way reflected in these statistics—effects on the economy, land use, tax base, 

recreational opportunities, transportation needs of the poor and the disadvantaged, social 

impact on communities, neighborhoods, air and noise pollution, and other esthetic and 

ecological and environmental effects.

 
704 

Moreover, the repeated discussion of highway versus transit needs “is not going to take away from 

the problem that there has been no commitment of funds that are needed to deal with the problem of 

the 70 percent of the people who are in urban areas, who merely want to have the option to 

determine whether or not their tax money should go into one form of transit or another.” 

Representative Wright said that Representative Abzug might be right, but the Department’s reports 

are “the best source of information we have.” All he wanted to say was that neither highway nor 

transit needs were being fully met, “and there just flat isn’t enough money in the Highway Trust 

Fund to do either one, let alone both.” He wanted to do something about urban mass transit, but 

“we sure as heck can’t expect to do them both out of that Highway Trust Fund.” 

He asked the ARBA panel about operating subsidies. If subsidies were the most pressing problem, 

how should they be handled? Johnson replied that they should be handled as in the Federal-aid 

airport, highway, and transit programs, which provide assistance for capital improvements, but 

leave maintenance and operating assistance to the State or local governments.

Representative Wright asked for the panel’s comments on an alternative (“I am just thinking out 

loud here”): 

If we are not going to provide money for operating deficits out of the Federal contribution . . 

. would it be an acceptable solution, or even partial solution, to permit a State, at its option, 

if it desired to do so, to utilize perhaps up to one-fourth of its 30-percent matching money 

within its State for operating subsidies?

Johnson, not certain what Representative Wright meant, asked if he meant that “instead of the State 

actually putting up the 30 percent [State share], it would actually be, say, 221⁄2 percent, and the State 

would take the other 71⁄2 percent, or one quarter.” Wright confirmed his understanding and added, 

“it would get the full credit for matching funds and still be eligible for the Federal share of the 

highway dollar.” 

Representative Roe compared the situation with operating subsidies to toll roads: 

Is there anything so different from the point of the Federal Government providing, as has 

been recommended in the Senate, a guarantee of part of the funding for toll roads over a 

period of time, which is obviously based on the point of view of providing an input at a 

given period, so that the State can start to build, collect the tolls, and pay it off. 

Is that any different, side by side, than the point of doing this same type of programing for 

mass transit? Unless we make a substantive investment in mass transit, we can’t get the 

riders on there to generate the income from the farebox to pay the bill. 

So there has got to be some hiatus in between, and some help in between.

When Representative Harsha took his turn, he thanked “Mr. Hanson and that awesome array of 

talent you brought there, for an excellent statement.” He asked if ARBA had any other reasons for 

opposing Federal funding for transit operating subsidies. “Does it tend to discourage efficiency and 
705 

good management?” Peltier agreed that it could lead to “a real problem of accountability” because 

of the difficulty of accounting for the funds: 

But you also have the problem of declaring or determining what is efficient and what isn’t. 

And if you have a subsidy coming from the Federal Government, I think the tendency is not 

to be quite as aware of those things that should be improved. 

Representative Abzug said she was interested in the discussion of flexibility that ARBA had 

endorsed, including the 100-percent flexibility to shift funds among categories. Referring to the 

Kennedy-Weicker and Abzug bills, she pointed out that they provided flexibility for non-Interstate 

funds so that rural and urban officials can decide how to use the Federal-aid funds. “Do you agree 

with those provisions?” 

Hanson replied that they “go far beyond what we are discussing here at the moment.” He 

emphasized that ARBA was talking about flexibility to shift funds among the Federal-aid primary, 

secondary, urban, urban extensions, TOPICS, and other programs. 

But, Representative Abzug argued, all these bills would leave the Interstate System alone:

[We] allow an option, a flexibility, if you will, with respect to the other systems, so that 

those funds can be used as the locality feels its needs can best be met. Then you wouldn’t 

have to sit around worrying about whether you can get a few dollars from A, B, C and D. 

She acknowledged ARBA’s fear of impoundment, which she said was illegal and perhaps 

unconstitutional. She acknowledged that enough money was not available for all needs: 

I have a problem of not understanding this issue, as to how you can object to whatever the 

money is that we do have, that we make it available in a more practicable way and in a more 

meaningful way to localities to determine what it is that suits the needs of their area, which 

is essentially what the issue is that we are fighting about.

I agree with Mr. Wright and with you, there isn’t enough money. But whatever money there 

is, should we not be able to utilize it flexibly? Is that not fair? 

Johnson said he would like to comment without wishing to argue with her. (She said, “Well, you 

should, this is your chance.”) He recognized her reservations about the needs studies and 

acknowledged that every State may believe they do not accurately reflect its needs. “But, as far as I 

know, it is the best thing we have.” He continued: 

I could be wrong, but the study is on a national basis. I realize that cities have problems, no 

question about them [sic], and they need relief, no question about that. At the same time, I 

dare say, there are thousands of communities in this country with no means of transportation 

except highways.
706 

And if the inadequate highway funds, which really percentagewise meet the needs less than 

the funds available for any other mode, were diverted, then you are further hurting the 

poorest financed mode, as I understand it. 

Although the bills Representative Abzug cited excepted the Interstate System from flexibility, 

Johnson referred to the Interstate transfer mechanism that would allow a metropolitan area that 

decided not to build a segment to use the Interstate funds for any other purpose within that area. 

Representative Abzug summarized her view: 

All we are saying is that whatever these systems are, they should be put together for the 

locality to determine, which would maximize the amount of money that is available for their 

needs, how they should be expended . . . . We are not seeking to do anything but seek the 

flexibility that I think would give the State the option to use the funds in a way that would 

be most helpful, given the limitation of the funds, generally, OK? 

The Interstate System, she said, was a separate Federal responsibility:

But from the other point of view, it seems to me that we should agree to these funds being 

made available to areas which want to use them for whatever purposes they determine.

Representative Clausen, in his turn, raised the topic of a Mass Transit Trust Fund. “What would be 

the source of revenue?” The government already was committed to funding capital construction of 

mass transit systems, but the question was how to pay for operation, maintenance, and 

administration. 

ARBA asked for and received permission to submit a response in writing. The statement submitted 

for the record said that after studying the question, ARBA had not identified any method “as the 

clear-cut superior to other methods.” Equity suggested that an Urban Public Transportation Trust 

Fund be financed by a tax related “as directly as possible to the benefits derived from such a 

system.” Since the benefits are widely diffused among residents and business organizations, a 

surtax on corporate and individual income taxes might be considered. General Treasury revenue 

might be a source for the trust fund “if proper safeguards could be established to ensure continuity 

in funding” that would avoid the “stop-and-go” financing that was why trust funds were favored. 

Another option was to increase the gas tax with the new revenue going into the Urban Public 

Transportation Trust Fund. The idea was that the new revenue would benefit highway users by 

relieving congestion. ARBA considered “the equities” of this proposal “somewhat dubious,” the 

“principal disadvantage” being:

[It] would amount to further Federal drain on a tax source which traditionally has been the 

principal source of funding for road programs at the State level. Gas tax increases are under 

consideration in several States, and a majority of States will probably need to increase gas 

taxes within the next few years.
707 

A tax on titles on all vehicles, including transit vehicles, might be “more logical” even though most 

of the revenue would come from highway vehicles. 

A tax on energy also had been suggested as a way of relating energy consumption to the amount of 

tax burden. “To the extent that transit is conservative in the use of energy, transit would enjoy a tax 

advantage.” 

Finally, the benefit of mass transit is primarily related to localities:

The national interest in local transit lines is, simply, a recognition that the problem is too 

often too great to be solved with local taxes. No solution is more rational than a solution 

through local tax effort; however, it fails to be a workable solution, generally speaking, 

because local tax resources are insufficient. An alternative, therefore, would be to increase 

general Federal assistance for local governments, leaving it to local governments to decide

priorities.

ARBA’s statement concluded with the offer to testify in greater detail before the House Ways and 

Means Committee if it wished to explore the mechanics of an Urban Public Transportation Trust 

Fund. 

Representative Roe said he wanted to follow up on Representative Clausen’s comments. “In trying 

to get at the problem of mass transit without the emotion of attempting to solve it out of the same 

pot, there are two things I think ought to be in the records.” First, in building the Interstate System 

on a 90-10 Federal-State matching ratio, the Federal Government was making “an enormous 

investment toward a national goal under a national commitment.” For UMTA capital projects, by 

contrast, the State share was one-third or one-half. “The only reason I bring this into the discussion 

now is not to be acrimonious, but to lay the two things side by side in reality.” The question was 

not whether to break the Highway Trust Fund. “The fact remains that the Federal Government is 

not putting a side-by-side parallel program in mass transit in any of its programming at this point.”

Hanson said that in ARBA’s view, the three modes (urban public transportation, airports, and 

highways) should be funded at the same matching ratio. In response to a question from 

Representative Roe, Peltier said ARBA would support legislation that provided equal programming 

for mass transit, whether from a Mass Transit Trust Fund or general revenues.

Representative Studds was the last to question the ARBA panel. He stressed that he was not 

against roads “and I don’t think anybody is, since we have succeeded in paving over a remarkable 

percentage of my district and our State.” But he asked ARBA to put on the legislative hat of those 

“who have a responsibility to look at the entire picture.” He said that the finding that 87 percent of 

needs from 1970 to 1990 were highway related, while only 9 percent were urban public 

transportation and 4 percent airport “gives us some reason to question in the most general terms the 

rationality of our approach.” He rejected the idea that the world was divided among highway users 

and mass transit users. “I think that is a false dichotomy. We are all both or mixtures thereof.” 

Thanks to actions by Congress, the mass transit choice was decreasing. “We have gradually over 
708 

the years lessened the options that are available to people by the method which we have chosen to 

apportion the money that we have.” 

In the end, the Federal Government did not have the funding to meet all needs by 1990 in the range 

of $680 billion. If not, “we will have to make some tough decisions as to what we are going to do 

with what we do have.” He had to question the rationality of apportioning the available revenue so 

that over 80 percent went to highways. 

Hanson began by pointing out that ARBA members built highways, but also transit systems and 

airport facilities. He continued:

I don’t think any of us sitting here suggest in their wildest dreams that 100 percent of those 

needs can be met by the year 1990. What we did say, I believe, is the fact that those needs, 

when compared with all kinds of potential revenues that are on the horizon, fall grossly 

short of even approaching the 40-percent level.

And we would certainly agree with you wholeheartedly that as we go down that road from 

1973 to 1975 and to 1978, which is a 5-year plan instead of a 20-year plan, that priorities in 

all of those needs have to be met. 

Representative Studds concluded the question period for ARBA by promising a fight: 

You must know that the bill as it is now written is highly controversial. Now, I don’t want 

to argue that Massachusetts is typical—heaven forbid. But, as you know, we have some 

history of insurrection in our State. And I think we will have another one if we try to build 

any more highways in Metropolitan Boston 

He said that among legislators, many thought they had a “real and serious responsibility to look at 

the overall picture and to address ourselves to how that mix will occur.” [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 271-286] 

A delegation from Indiana appeared before the subcommittee to object to diversion of Highway 

Trust Fund revenue to mass transit. Richard A. Boehning, who had become chairman of the 

Indiana State Highway Commission only 11 weeks earlier, began by saying: 

To set the tone of my remarks, I will first advise you of the fact that the State of Indiana is 

the No. 1 donor State with the lowest rate of return of funds from the Federal Highway Trust 

Fund than any State in the Nation. Hoosier motorists now contribute twice as much money 

in Federal motor fuel taxes into the Federal Highway Trust Fund than is returned to Indiana 

for the improvement and construction of highways. Any diversion of these funds would 

worsen the situation by draining even more motor fuel revenues away from Indiana . . . . 

Indiana is running into numerous traffic hazards and roadblocks in the financing of new 

highway construction. Quite frankly, we are looking at a very grim picture. Literally every 

future highway project in the State of Indiana is in jeopardy. 
709 

We have been out of Federal funds for primary and secondary road construction since 

January 1, 1973. Yet 95 percent of the Hoosier highway deaths are off of the Interstate 

System.

We in Indiana are opposed to any diversion of Federal Highway Trust Funds to nonhighway 

related transportation in the new legislation.

We have taken this position because the need for new and improved highways in Indiana 

and the Nation are great and the present combined Federal-State highway financing falls 

short of meeting these needs . . . . 

If highway funds are diverted to the favor of the big city commuters, thereby drastically 

reducing our ability to finance highway improvements, how rapidly will the highway death 

toll have to soar before Congress will respond and return these funds to their intended 

purpose? 

I do not doubt the sincerity of those in Congress and the administration who are advocating 

Highway Trust Funds for mass transit. I simply don’t think the motorist should have to pay 

for it.

(Later as a result of committee comments about recent data, Boehning conceded that Indiana was 

not the number one donor State at the time. He had been using 1969 data. For 1972, Indiana had 

received 60 cents for every dollar it contributed to the Highway Trust Fund, and had received 77 

cents per dollar since the start of the Highway Trust Fund in 1956. “We are not the No. 1 donor 

State apparently at the present time, a position which we most happily relinquish. [Laughter.]” 

Why, he asked, should a trucker in Indiana or any other State have to “pay for the cost of the big 

city dweller to get to work?” Diversion advocates were claiming that highway needs are declining 

while mass transit needs are far greater:

But, at the same time, they are saying “Hoosier motorists, please continue to drive your car 

because we need the funds from the road use taxes to pay for these other things like a new 

$5 billion finger of the New York Subway System, or the $8 billion Bay Area Transit 

System in San Francisco.

He cited a questionnaire that Representative John Myers sent to his constituents, more than 15,000 

of whom said they opposed diversion. 

The question should not be whether to raid the Highway Trust Fund, but how to meet air, rail, 

highway, and water transportation needs over the next 30 years. In thinking about that, Boehning 

suggested three basic points. First, complete the Interstate System:

Some advocates of mass transit are proposing diversion of funds because the Interstate 

program is nearly complete. This just isn’t true. We are just about as nearly complete with 

the Interstate System as we were near to peace in Vietnam for so many years. 
710 

It might be completed in 1978, but given current legislative proposals, completion probably would 

be pushed into the 1980s. “I am seriously beginning to wonder if projects such as this will ever 

become functional and if Congress will ever fund this system to its completion.” 

Second, he recommended that Congress repeal the 4-cent a gallon gasoline tax “or establish an 85-

percent floor as a minimum rate of return for any State on Federal highway funds.” If the Federal 

tax were repealed, giving States the option of increasing their own tax by an equal amount, “I 

guarantee that you would see home rule at its very best.” Projects funded solely with State funds 

can be completed in half the time of Federal-aid projects. “We could then seriously go about the 

business of meeting our transportation needs, the transportation needs of Hoosiers, and without 

constant interruption and redirection which we have experienced recently at the Federal level which 

only jeopardized continuity in planning.” He continued: 

I believe that Congress must be honest, truthful, and fair with the American motorist if it no 

longer intends to use his highway dollars for highway improvements. Please don’t try to 

fool him at the gasoline pump into thinking that his highway user taxes are going to 

highway uses. 

If highways were no longer the answer, then Congress should back off and leave the gas tax to the 

States so they can continue adequately funded highway program. If the program is instead going to 

continue, each State should get a minimum percentage of return on its contribution to the Highway 

Trust Fund. He added:

I am new to this fight over the use of highway funds. It all seems so senseless. We all 

recognize the transportation needs of America, but rather than working together toward a 

solution, it appears as though everyone is at each other’s throat. 

Finally, he suggested “that Congress call a timeout in this transportation financing ball game and 

give very serious thought to a total review of this Nation’s transportation needs, studying new as 

well as existing modes, make a determination as to where Federal responsibility exists and where it 

does not, then respond accordingly, deliberately, and establish a fair, equitable means of financing 

the total overall transportation program.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 

286-295] 

For the record, he submitted a March 19 letter from Governor Otis R. Bowen (R) to Chairman 

Kluczynski. Governor Bowen, a medical doctor who had served in the Indiana House of 

Representatives since 1956 before winning election as Governor in 1972, urged completion of the 

Interstate System as soon as possible, development of an apportionment formula “that would reduce 

the present inequities from heavy ‘donor’ states,” and prevent diversion of Highway Trust Funds to 

other modes “until a transportation plan exists that considers all appropriate sources of revenue,” 

He also called for a review of the Federal role “by identifying programs that are national in 

significance.” If this review resulted in a reduced Federal role, “then Federal taxes should be 

reduced.” He also recommended reducing the Federal gas tax if the Federal Government 

“continues to underappropriate and the administration continues to underrelease the Highway Trust 
711 

Fund,” so that the States could “impose an added gas tax at their level to provide for some of their 

great needs.”

State Representative Stephen L. Ferguson, Chairman of the Committee on Roads and 

Transportation, spoke briefly in support of Boehning’s statement. After citing Indiana’s donor 

status, he suggested a variation of revenue sharing as a solution: 

I believe there should be a floor placed under the amount each State receives in relation to 

its contribution. I would suggest that 75 percent of the money collected in each State be 

returned to the State in the form of revenue sharing and the remaining 25 percent be 

allocated among the States on a formula that would be reasonably equitable and that would 

reflect each State’s contribution to a nationwide system of roads and streets which should be 

the true measure of any Federal program.

He was concerned about the Interstate withdrawal proposal: 

We would like to emphatically state our opposition to a proposal to permit States to use 

their Interstate allocations for projects which make no contribution to the Interstate System . 

. . . It is our position that if a State or urban area has made the decision to delay or not to 

build a portion of the Interstate, and if such deletion doesn’t destroy the concept of an 

interconnected system of Interstate highways, this mileage and its estimated cost should be 

removed from the distribution formula. 

As a State legislator, he also was concerned about the pass-through concept where Federal-aid 

urban system funds would go “to some unspecified unit of local government.” He pointed out the 

potential problem in northwest Indiana adjacent to the Chicago urban area. “If part of Indiana’s 

highway funds is going to be allocated to Chicago for regional transportation purposes, will we 

have any assurance that some of it will be spent on the Indiana side of the State line?” If Indiana 

officials did not agree with how the money was to be used, “do I contact a regional plan 

commission or the mayor of the biggest city or a transportation authority or who?” [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 296-297] 

During the question period, Representative Roe commented: 

What truly is needed in America is the point that both of you have suggested—render unto 

Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render unto God that which is God’s—if we want to build 

our transportation system and we need highways, fine. 

If somebody else needs mass transit and the support of that mass transit system, well, let’s 

give them that, too. 

There should not be a confrontation of nitpicking as to who gets what . . . . The issue is 

whether the 435 Members of Congress are going to stand toe-to-toe and say, we are not 

going to fight with each other, what we are going to do is to do the right thing and provide a 

decent transportation system and put our money where our mouth is. 
712 

Representative Studds concurred but said: 

You again tend to draw the distinction between the motorist and whoever the heck the rest 

of the people are. I would like to point out that there are a good many involuntary motorists 

in the country who, if they had any choice at all, would not choose to drive on those roads 

that are not very safe in a lot of places, as you know. 

Representative Abzug asked, “Do you suggest, for example, that when we have taxes on liquor that 

we have to build liquor stores with them?” Boehning responded that the taxes were imposed on 

highway users to build highways. His point, he said, “is this, if you want to change the theory, then 

do away with the tax and start all over again and tax everyone equally, equitably, as Congress see 

fit.”

Representative Abzug said that the revenue earmarked for the Highway Trust Fund had previously 

gone into the general Treasury:

We can, if we wish to, in this Congress, under this very act, under this very so-called trust 

fund, which is nothing more than earmarked funds—use it for relocation, we have already 

used it for transit in connection with buses, bus lanes and even ferryboats. There really is 

nothing sacred about these funds. 

And Congress can decide that these funds are available for other things . . . . We both have 

our problems. But I do think that we would all benefit, no matter what our position is, if we 

didn’t regard any part of our revenues as sacrosanct. 

The funds “belong to the people.” The problem facing the country was transportation, not 

highways versus transit. The time had come to update the program since 1956 to “use our 

resources, which are vast, and our energies, which are vast, in a way which will satisfy the needs of 

all the people.” Some ways that transportation was conducted “are not as useful as they were 

before.” All she was saying was, “Let each locality decide.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 300-304] 

Charles A. Webb, president of the National Association of Motor Bus Owners (NAMBO), testified 

on behalf of intercity motor bus transportation operators. The association supported the funding 

mechanism established to build the Interstate System “in an orderly manner, toll-free, and without 

tapping general funds required for other important programs.” NAMBO supported the integrity of 

the Highway Trust Fund: 

We are opposed to the use of Highway Trust Fund monies for the purchase of equipment or 

to underwrite the deficits of rail or bus transit systems. We see no reason, for example, why 

taxes paid by the trucking industry or the bus industry for the use of highways should be 

diverted for the construction of subways or to underwrite the operating losses of bus or rail 

transit.
713 

NAMBO favored mass transit, and would support Federal operating subsidies if “efficiency can be 

preserved,” but not by diverting revenue from the Highway Trust Fund. “We believe the pressing 

needs of urban mass transit should be met from general revenues or by creation of a Federal Urban 

Mass Transportation Trust Fund.” However, if Congress decided to divert Highway Trust Fund 

revenues for these purposes, “the intercity bus industry would be entitled to a reduction in its 

special highway taxes.” 

In addition, if Highway Trust Fund revenues were authorized for the purchase of transit buses, the 

funds should also be available for construction of passenger terminals that could serve local and 

intercity bus passengers. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 309] 

Later in the session, Helen Leavitt of Superhighway-Superhoax and the Rational Transportation 

Newsletter appeared before the committee with Yale Rabin, planner and urban specialist with the 

National Coalition on the Transportation Crisis. The coalition, formed in 1968, consisted of 30 

citizen groups from 30 cities who were concerned about the condition of the country’s 

transportation systems.

Rabin explained that as an urban planner, much of his work concerned “the impact of public 

programs on low-income and minority groups.” The decentralization of metropolitan areas over the 

past 25 years “opened new opportunities for improved housing, employment, and schools for 

millions of predominantly white Americans, while restricting both the range of opportunities and 

the quality of life for black and other minority-group Americans who are being relegated in steadily 

increasing numbers to a growing dependence on the diminishing resources of the central cities.” 

The result threatened “to perpetuate the burdens and disadvantages which a long history of racial 

discrimination has produced.” Many urban concerns, accordingly, were a result of “the nature of 

these metropolitan changes.” He continued: 

The polarization is increasing and has resulted, and continues to result, in reduced access for 

inner-city minorities, to growing employment opportunities in the suburbs. 

This reduced access is caused by both the dispersed locations of jobs in relation to black 

central city concentrations, and the dependence for access to those jobs on automobile 

ownership. These, in turn, derive from the transportation policies and programs of the 

Federal Government, and in particular the expenditure of billions of dollars for metropolitan 

area highways which have exerted a major influence on metropolitan dispersal, and have 

undermined existing public transportation systems, resulting in reduced services and 

increased fares.

State highway departments played a major role in this redistribution of population: 

Decisions by Government transportation agencies at the Federal and State levels which 

determine and approve the locations of highways and their points of access have been and 

continue to be made without regard to their impact on the redistribution of housing and 
714 

employment opportunities, or on the comprehensively planned development of metropolitan 

areas.

In implementing these highway programs, agencies of Government have, by providing new 

or improved access, created billions of dollars in new land values, enriching landowners and 

developers, and adding substantially to the tax revenues, and consequently, the amenities of 

 countless suburban municipalities; but these same federal and State transportation agencies 

have failed to take any steps to protect equal access to benefits such as housing and 

employment, benefits made possible through the expenditure of enormous sums of Federal 

funds. 

Federal-aid acts from 1962 through 1970 “contained language expressing the strong concern of 

Congress over the integration of transportation with the comprehensively planned development of 

urban areas, the coordination of highways with other forms of transportation, and the effect of 

highways on the future development of metropolitan areas.” However, these concerns had not “in 

any way affected the single-minded determination of State highway departments, with the approval 

of the Bureau of Public Roads, to build roads whether or not they correspond to the plans developed 

by the municipalities through which they passed.” 

He cited January 1969 regulations requiring public hearings on highway proposals to “include 

consideration of some 23 possible effects of highways, including social, economic, and 

environmental impacts.” He continued: 

After 4 years of operation under these new regulations, there is no record of a single 

instance in which the Department of Transportation, on its own initiative, rejected a 

highway project proposed by a State highway department because of that project’s adverse 

social, economic, or environmental impact. Only in cases where affected citizens have 

challenged proposals in the courts have such projects been halted, and these instances have 

been relatively rare.

One reason for this situation was “the absence in the regulations of any standards by which social 

and economic impacts are to be considered.” He suggested standards providing that a 

transportation proposal must not reduce the mobility of low-income groups, reduce access between 

centers of low- and moderate-income housing and centers of employment, or undermine any 

element of an existing public transportation system. “New transportation system elements should 

complement, not duplicate, elements of existing transportation systems.”

Leavitt began by pointin out that just last week, the Senate had voted 77 to 5 to allow Highway 

Trust Fund revenues to be used for fixed rail facilities in urban areas. Contrary to dire predictions, 

she said, “there was no general or even specific uprising or rebellion among the gasoline taxpaying 

citizens of this country as a result of that Senate action.” On behalf of the coalition, she urged the 

House to follow the Senate’s lead.

She also addressed “a myth” that the Highway Trust Fund had never financed anything but road 

construction: 
715 

A cursory look at the administration’s unified budget for 1974 reveals that Highway Trust 

Fund receipts will total $5.749 billion. Outlays will total $4.7 billion, leaving a $1 billion 

surplus. This surplus, along with the other Federal trust fund surpluses, will simply be 

applied to the budget deficit. In other words, Highway Trust Fund money is now helping 

finance space, defense, and other Federal programs. 

Between 1971 and 1974, the surplus balance from the Highway Trust Fund alone increased 

almost 90 percent from $3.6 billion to $6.7 billion. Over one-quarter of the $505 billion 

public debt is money borrowed from trust funds established for specific purposes, such as 

the highway program. Indeed, Highway Trust Fund taxes are treated as any other tax 

collected, and simply applied to deficits accrued from other programs. 

Fixed-rail systems had been excluded from the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue “on grounds 

that they are too expensive and not necessary when busways can easily be installed.” Recent 

studies, she said, revealed that fixed-rail systems and exclusive busways “cost the same amount, 

that is, to construct and operate.” She introduced an article that she had written with her husband, 

William Leavitt, describing studies that compared the cost of the Shirley Highway bus lanes with 

the Lindenwold commuter transit rail line from New Jersey to Philadelphia: 

It costs just about the same amount to construct and operate an exclusive busway as it does 

to build and run a transit train system, according to two independent studies presented at the 

Highway Research Board Conference held in Washington in January . . . . The authors [of 

one of the studies] conclude that with respect to impact on traffic congestion and parking in 

the central business district, Lindenwold is considerably better, although the impact of 

Shirley Busway is also very significant. On feeder sections Shirley creates less congestion . 

. . . The lower reliability of Shirley, including interrupted schedules due to traffic delays, 

vehicle breakdown or weather, causes lost work hours and customer dissatisfaction. 

Lindenwold scored better on reliability. 

The Leavitt article concluded:

The authors conclude that both types of service indicate that there is a large latent demand 

for public transit. “It is absurd that these new systems which have attracted so many riders 

do not have the funds to provide adequate capacities while numerous parking facilities in 

centers of both cities are heavily subsidized,” they said.

“It is also a paradox that both systems are basically individual projects rather than parts of 

major modern transit networks. This clearly shows the need for creation of a much better 

defined urban transportation policy (including transit, highways, parking, etc.) than our 

cities now have . . . the bizarre technical and operational deficiencies of systems like 

Lindenwold and Shirley indicate that our industry has fallen behind modern transit in other 

countries and requires more attention.” 

In view of this conclusion, the approved Senate measure would best serve taxpayers, especially in 

view of EPA’s estimate that $13.8 billion would be needed “for capital expenditures on public 
716 

transportation improvements by 1980” to meet air quality standards in Chicago, Denver, Los 

Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington. Leavitt added that, “this estimate does not 

include the additional projects each of these cities must plan and implement to meet their clean air 

deadlines.” 

She also recommended “that the Interstate System be declared completed, since much of the 

remaining unbuilt mileage is in urban areas and because that money is needed for alternative forms 

of transportation, which even citizens in sylvan settings such as western Massachusetts and 

Vermont are demanding.” 

That concluded her intended comments, but she added that she had sat through ARBA’s 2 hours of 

testimony and wanted to comment on the observation that the Interstate System “is so very, very 

safe.” The most recent FHWA data, she said, showed that the Interstate System “kills one person 

for every 4 miles of roads.” Representative Roberts interrupted to point out, “You forget how many 

people are riding on them.” She responded: 

That’s the Russian roulette theory. The fact is that for every 4 miles of urban Interstate that 

is built, a person will die. You are comparing the number of times you take your chance on 

this system. Well, I am merely pointing out to you what the statistics reveal.

By this measure, “the rural system ends up being the safest per mile construction with the number 

of people who are killed.” The fact is that a certain number of people will be killed on the roads 

every year. “I’m tired of hearing about how safe the system is and how we keep building more and 

more, but we will be more safely delivered.” 

When she concluded, Representative Roberts thanked her for her concise statement. “While we 

disagree with you, we are delighted to have you.” He asked whether she and Rabin wanted the 

Highway Trust Fund or the dollars. “I don’t understand what difference it makes if you get the 

dollars” for public transit. Rabin replied: 

The trust fund, by its very existence, generates the construction of a highway system whose 

needs are measured completely outside the particular context of total transportation needs. 

Those needs, as has been pointed out by Congresswoman Abzug before, are measured by 

State highway departments or by the Bureau of Public Roads—I was amused to hear 

someone earlier cite Mr. Frank Turner as the source of the figure that only 2 percent of the 

transportation in this country would be affected, or the demand for transportation would be 

covered by public transportation funds. 

I would commend to you people an in-house document which was prepared by the staff of 

BART, in which they very carefully discuss the way in which the trust fund not only 

provides a tremendous impetus for the construction of roads, but has spawned an entire 

bureaucracy and a transportation planning set of theories which makes it almost impossible 

to accurately measure the need for, or the demand for, mass transportation. 
717 

Now, until we reach a point where there is no restriction, that is, it would even be 

unreasonable to pass a bill which says the trust fund should be allocated in the following 

proportions, so much for roads, so much for rail. The only reasonable way in which it can 

be done is to acknowledge that whatever the area, whether it be Indiana, or Metropolitan 

New York City, that area should have the unhindered opportunity to examine its needs in 

the most objective way possible and . . . allocate whatever funds are available for 

transportation. Let’s face it, in 1956 Congress was wrong, and Congress can correct that –“ 

Representative Roberts again interrupted, this time to say sarcastically:

At the last session, in effect, there was a transfer of $300 million in one city, so they could 

use it for another purpose, and you have convinced me completely that I’m all wrong and 

I’ll fight it on the floor of the House if I have to do this. So I really appreciate your being 

here.

Representative Abzug asked Rabin if he thought the Senate had adequately addressed the need to 

integrate transportation with land-use and metropolitan planning. No, he said. To date, 

transportation facilities had become “ends in themselves” that determine development and growth: 

It is not the function of transportation systems to direct development and direct control of 

that development from local governments. It is the function of transportation systems to 

serve, plan, coordinate orderly development, whether that development be of rural Indiana 

or Arkansas, or any one of the great metropolitan areas around the country. What we have 

is just the reverse. We have had the systems planned which have been the “tail that wags 

the dog.” This has to be stopped if an orderly planning process is to be established. 

Representative Abzug mentioned the Senate bill, the Administration bill, the Kennedy-Weicker 

amendment, and the bills she and Representative Glenn Anderson had introduced. She asked if 

Rabin thought these bills moved in the direction we should be going. He agreed. “It absolutely 

does.” 

Leavitt agreed. “I would like to see this committee begin to look at more comprehensive 

transportation planning.” That is not possible when the Federal share for highways is 90-10 

(Interstate) or 70-30 (other highways) compared with 50 percent for transit: 

The problems grow worse; the city planners sit down and wring their hands and tell me 

there is nothing they could do because the funding is not there. 

Let’s face it. If this committee in 1956 had decided that the trust fund taxes would go for 

the purchase of bananas, we would all be eating bananas today, and the banana association 

would be here telling us why . . . we need more bananas because everybody is eating 

bananas. And don’t tell me, “Yes, we have no bananas.” [Laughter] [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 321-330] 
718 

With the hearing stretching into the evening, a AAA delegation headed by J. B. Creal appeared 

before the subcommittee. Creal recalled that AAA had testified before the subcommittee on March 

23, 1972, and would confine his comments to “a few key areas which seem particularly relevant” in 

view of Senate approval of S. 502. He began: 

Mr. Chairman, we strenuously protest the use of Highway Trust Fund money for financing 

the construction of rapid rail transit systems or the purchase of public transportation rolling 

stock. These are not expenses “which are attributable to Federal-aid highways,” as required 

under Section 209 of the Highway Revenue Act of 1956, which established the Highway 

Trust Fund. Use of the Highway Trust Fund for such public transportation purposes goes 

far beyond the intent of those who developed the highway program in 1956, and worked so 

diligently to provide a fair and equitable method of financing its huge cost. 

AAA supported the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1970, which authorized general Treasury 

revenue for urban mass transit. The provision of S. 502 that extended contract authority to $6.1 

billion should be amended “to include a comprehensive study of public transportation needs and 

appropriate levels of Federal involvement.” The information gathered during a comprehensive 

study “could then be used to determine an appropriate level of Federal assistance commensurate 

with the Federal interest.” 

Creal pointed out that, “There are hundreds of thousands of miles of roads, originally built as farmto-market roads, now serving the function of urban arterials” that were deficient. “These roads have

narrow lane widths, poor sight distances, narrow or nonexistent shoulders, which are lined with 

roadside boobytraps consisting of telephone poles, signposts, mail boxes, and other lethal impact 

areas. In view of this “national disgrace,” AAA believed that “we must assign every available 

dollar in the Highway Trust Fund, beyond that required for completion of the Interstate System, to 

correct this condition.” 

At present, he said, public transit programs were supported by general Treasury revenue via UMTA 

and General Revenue Sharing. Adding a third source, namely the Highway Trust Fund, “not only 

places an additional financial burden on the highway user, but is both unreasonable and unnecessary 

in view of the funds already available under existing law.” 

Creal also responded to those who say that such a shift is justified to “reduce air pollution caused by 

motor vehicles and to provide mobility for the old, the young, and the very poor.” He said: 

The 1972 National Transportation Report indicates, on page 222, that major shifts in funds 

from highways to transit would improve transit but would result in increased highway 

fatalities with very little change in air pollution. Thus, the justification for diverting 

highway funds to transit improvements in the name of clean air is, by the Department’s own 

report, without foundation. 

The question of whether transit provides for the mobility requirements of the old, the young, 

and the poor is addressed in another Department of Transportation report, “Economic 

Characteristics of the Public Transportation Industry.” That report states on page 4.67: 
719 

There is no evidence that higher proportions of low income households or higher 

percentages of youth or senior citizens imply a higher demand for bus transit. 

A table on page 4.68 of this report shows that as the percentage of households with incomes 

under $3,000 increases, the demand for bus transit decreases. Significant decreases in the 

demand for bus transit occurs [sic] as the percentage of population 18 years of age and 

under increases, and as the percentage of households where the head of the household is 65 

years or over increases. This data would seem to indicate that the justification for assigning 

more financial resources to transit so as to fulfill the alleged mobility requirements of such 

groups seems unfounded. 

The highway user already was financing exclusive or preferential bus lanes, parking lots to service 

bus or rail passengers, and loading areas and shelters. “We believe it is unfair for the highway user 

now to be asked to pay for the construction of subway systems and rolling stock for public transit.” 

Creal also objected to provisions of S. 502 that authorized the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues 

for equestrian trails and bicycle and pedestrian paths; national forest fire control facilities; shuttle 

buses for National Forests; municipal parking lot bonds; and aid for construction of toll roads. “We 

do not believe the American public wants highway user taxes used for purposes other than 

providing a first-class highway system.” This view was supported by the results of a national 

survey conducted for AAA by Benson and Benson, Inc., in which 64 percent of respondents favored 

restricting gas tax money to highway construction and only 26 percent favored the use of gas tax 

money to subsidize public mass transit. Member groups had conducted polls as well with similar 

results.

Indeed, it was time to get back to basics:

The Highway Trust Fund was established to provide the Federal share of the cost of building 

our primary, secondary, and urban highways, not just the Interstate System. 

AAA believes that highway user taxes should be used exclusively for highway programs, as 

promised by the Congress when the Highway Trust Fund was established. If they are not to 

be used for such purposes, we question the continuation of this tax. 

AAA also was greatly concerned about Section 111 of S. 502 “whereby a State may shift Interstate 

routes without regard to existing mileage limitations.” If the new route costs less than the old route, 

the balance of funds would be shifted to the Federal-aid urban system where, under Section 131 of 

S. 502, they could be used to finance public transit. Creal recommended retaining the original 

mileage and needs formula concept that ensures each State’s share of Interstate fund is based on the 

remaining cost to complete its Interstate mileage:

AAA believes that if a State decides not to build a segment of the agreed upon system, then 

the cost of the entire Interstate System should be reduced and that State’s proportionate 

share of the cost of the system be adjusted to pay for only those segments which are actually 

constructed. 
720 

Altering this concept “will ultimately affect the whole financing structure of the Interstate System 

and jeopardize its orderly completion.” 

On that point, AAA recommended increasing Interstate funding to $4 billion a year instead of the 

$3.25 billion authorized by S. 502. The tendency to reduce authorizations in recent years “has 

brought about a condition whereby the costs of completion of the Interstate System, as reflected in 

the last three cost estimates, is [sic] outstripping the expenditures permitted to be made for 

completion of this system.” The country was, in short, “losing ground.” 

AAA favored a 3-year authorization, as in S. 502, to avoid consideration of another reauthorization 

bill in 1974. In addition, Congress should reduce the number of categorical programs. “We believe 

that a large number of specifically authorized programs unnecessarily impede the individual 

highway departments.” A functional realignment of roads to ensure they are placed in the proper 

functional class and the appropriate Federal-aid system will reduce the need for fund transfers 

among the programs. 

In addition, AAA supported the priority primary concept that would ensure highway user tax 

revenue was put to work “on those roads where the traffic needs are the greatest.” Singling out a 

10,000-mile system of such highways “should bring maximum return on the dollars invested.” 

Finally, Creal briefly referred to the statement by Rabin regarding the surplus in the Highway Trust 

Fund. “I think you gentlemen know that this is simply not the case.” [1973 Highway Legislation 

(Future Highway Needs), p. 330-337] 

Representative Studds commented that as a member of AAA, he was a little disappointed in the use 

of a portion of his $18 dues. He agreed that the original purpose of the Highway Trust Fund was 

highway construction, not public transportation purposes, but “I don’t think that’s the point.” He 

explained:

I suspect the 13th amendment abolishing slavery went far beyond the intentions of the men 

who wrote the Constitution. But I think times change, and heaven help us if our institutions 

and our laws aren’t prepared to change. 

He referred sarcastically to the 1972 National Transportation Report as “my favorite report.” He 

asked if Creal and his companions believe the report’s statement that total highway needs through 

1990 exceed urban public transportation needs by 10 to 1. Charles N. Brady, director of AAA’s 

Highway Department, pointed out that the report was prepared by “a group of professional people 

who have made similar reports for 30 years.” We had substantial needs in 1956, and those needs 

still had not been met. Brady asked, “Are you asking whether we doubt the capabilities of these 

people that made these needs studies, is that your question?” 

Representative Studds pointed out that the report claimed that through 1990, urban public 

transportation would account for 9 percent of transportation needs, with highways accounting for 87 

percent. “Now, do you really believe that is a rational assessment of the transportation needs of this 

Nation?” Brady responded that the current mix of traffic was 92 percent in passenger cars, 6 
721 

percent in buses, and 2 percent in rail. “I don’t think people are going to change that much in the 

next 15 years.” 

Why, Representative Studds asked, had the mix changed so much in the past 20 years. Brady 

replied:

They have changed that much because they have become more affluent, and they have 

moved out of the cities into suburban areas. They have individual homes rather than threestory walkups these days, or four-story walkups that their parents had. They have a little 

more room in the suburbs and I don’t think you’re going to get them to move into more 

congested living or working conditions. 

Representative Studds asked why suburban commuters had moved so dramatically from rail 

transportation to driving to work. Creal responded, “I think Americans are in love with their 

freedom of mobility, and when they’re able to afford it, that’s what they want to do.” This 

statement resulted in the following dialogue:

Mr. Studds. Do you think it might have anything to do with the fact that all the trains have 

disappeared?

Mr. Creal. Possibly. But I think it might also work the other way. The trains may have 

disappeared because they didn’t really want to ride them.

Mr. Brady. I think the locations of their jobs have changed, and the types of things they do 

with their leisure time. They have more leisure time and they travel more and have more 

recreational pursuits than they had in previous years. All these factors enter in. As a matter 

of fact, the home-to-work trip now is less than a third of the total trips that an individual 

makes.

Mr. Studd. It’s also a nightmare. 

Representative Roe pointed out the congestion in New Jersey and asked the witnesses’ help in 

finding a solution. “Can we just double up the cars on top of each other on the highways?” 

Creal pointed out that AAA was not opposed to urban mass transit and conceded that in some cases, 

mass transit, whether bus or rail, was needed. “But we think there are many areas where that 

solution is being brought up as the solution of a problem when it is not.” 

What then, Representative Roe asked, is going to solve the problem? 

Creal suggested going back to the beginning, with decisions on land use: 

I don’t think a builder would build a building on a speculation basis with no elevators and 

no hallways, because he would have forgotten that people have to get up and down and go 

sideways in that building. But seemingly we build buildings, communities, offices and 

stores, and so forth, without any thought to how people are to get there and get away from 

there. I think this is part of the total problem. 
722 

Transportation is considered after the fact. They build a building that will hold a thousand 

people and they say the problem is with the automobile because it’s choking the streets. But 

that isn’t what chokes the streets; it’s the fact they put in another thousand people who have 

to get to one place that has caused the problem. 

Representative Studds wanted to go back to his “favorite report.” He asked the AAA 

representatives to not misunderstand “my hostility.” After all, he paid his dues, owned a car, and 

drove it a lot. His hostility, he said, “is to the contention that highways really do compose [sic] 87 

percent of our future transportation needs.” He said: 

Again and again you cite in here the national transportation report. I don’t think you mean 

to state, but certainly your testimony would lead one to believe, that cars are no more 

contributors to pollution than public transportation is. 

I think you say that to shift funds from highways to transit would result in increased 

highway fatalities with very little change in air pollution, and you nail that down by saying 

that’s the Department’s own report. 

Well, I’m beginning to wonder how much we can rely on that report. 

He also questioned reliance on the other report cited, Economic Characteristics of the Public 

Transportation Industry, that found no evidence that low-income households, young people, and 

senior citizens have a higher demand for transit: 

I don’t know whether you have talked to any senior citizens or low-income householders or 

youth, but that just runs in the face of all rationality, reason, and experience. I mean, do you 

know senior citizens who tend to drive their own cars increasingly as they get older? 

Creal did not want to debate the accuracy of the Department’s reports. “I am citing them because 

that’s the best available information we have.” Representative Studds said he would like to meet 

representatives of the young, poor, and elderly who supposedly rely less on mass transit “as they get 

poorer.” 

Representative Studds also objected to Creal’s statement that asking highway users to pay for 

subways and rolling stock was unfair. He had objected “all along to this single categorization of the 

highway user—we’re all highway users.” But many highway users would use public transportation 

if it were available:

We have a struggling bus system which has threatened to disintegrate altogether because it 

can’t meet its costs, like most of the urban systems in the country. Or say, the poor resident 

of Cape Cod who can’t even move in the summer because of the cars, and we can’t even 

find out whether we have lost the railroad rights-of-way.

I’m just submitting to you that it does not strike me as very rational.

As the question period ended, Representative Studds told the AAA delegation: 
723 

Let me just say again that I’m not going to resign from your organization. I am delighted to 

be a member, and I’m very happy with my car. I wish I didn’t have to spend as much time 

in it as I do. Everyone I know, and almost everyone I represent—I think I speak reasonably 

in their behalf—can question the rationality of this 87 percent figure. 

He again asked if AAA believed it. Creal responded that, “For lack of better data from another 

reliable source, I think we have to say ‘Yes.’” Representative Studds concluded, “OK, thank you.” 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 337-341] 

The final witness on March 20 was James E. Collis, chairman of Transportation Priorities Alliance 

of Fairfax County, Northern Virginia. He recalled that in the 19th century, Fairfax County was 

linked to Washington by three trolley lines that travelled to and from Washington in less than an 

hour at a cost of 10 cents: 

Today, traveling from Fairfax County to Washington, D.C., can take over an hour. It is an 

expensive and nerve-wracking experience for both the traveler and for the unfortunate 

resident who happens to live near the roadway. 

The problem was that transportation “has become too heavily committed to the automobile.” He 

explained that, “If there ever was a classic example of the law of diminishing returns, it is the 

automobile as a medium of urban transportation.” Instead of improving transportation, it becomes 

“more cumbersome, more congested, and more of an environmental and economic millstone around 

our necks.” 

The automobile-based transportation system was inefficient, took up large amounts of space, 

wasted energy, was more expensive than other systems, caused 85 percent of air pollution, had a 

terrible safety record, and excluded millions of Americans who did not own automobiles: 

We are here today to ask for change and progress. We ask that in future planning for 

transportation in the cities that urban mass transit be considered as the primary means for 

moving people . . . . We believe that Congress should discourage further automobileoriented development in urban areas in order to help reduce the number of automobiles 

entering our cities.

A substantial portion of Highway Trust Fund revenue came from people who had no choice but to 

use their automobiles. They would “gain immeasurably by improved public transportation.” 

Congress should not hesitate to use Highway Trust Fund revenue to provide even more support for 

urban mass transit than it had provided for highways for the past 2 decades. 

He specifically urged Congress to block construction of I-66 inside the Capital Beltway. If built to 

relieve congestion, it would quickly be filled with cars from new developments encouraged by its 

construction. “Then, instead of facing some 30 miles of congested highways as is now the case, the 

long-range I-66 commuter will be faced with 50 miles of snail’s pace driving.” He added that 

similar situations must exist all over the country, “and we urge the Congress to grant these cities the 

relief they so urgently need.” 
724 

Representative Harsha began the question period by asking what the Transportation Priorities 

Alliance was. Collis said it consisted of citizens who had banded together to oppose I-66 within the 

Capital Beltway, but had taken on a broader mission. Representative Harsha asked how many 

members were in the group. “We really don’t have a membership,” Collis replied, but added that 

the alliance had a mailing list of about 200 people. So, Representative Harsha asked, “does it 

consist of you and someone else?” Collis conceded “We are not an army.” 

And who, Representative Harsha wanted to know, elected Collis chairman. Collis explained, “I 

was not actually elected.” The governing council had asked him to lead the alliance. What, Harsha 

asked, was the governing council?. “A group active in the organization.” It had 10 or 15 members, 

sometimes 20. Are they elected? No, Collis replied, they are people who chose to take an active 

interest and participate in this type of work.” 

Representative Harsha asked where Collis lived and worked. He lived on Kirkland Street in Falls 

Church and worked in Suitland, Maryland. How did he get to work? “By car.” That concluded 

Representative Harsha’s comments.

Representative Studds asked Collis how he would like to get to work. “I’m looking forward to 

Metro with great anticipation.” Did he use the bus? He used it when he could, but it was 

impractical for getting to and from work. In fact, he had driven to work in Suitland and then into 

the city for the hearing. He had been there all day. Representative Studds complimented him for 

his statement and his patience.

The day’s hearing was concluded by Representative Roberts, who told Collis: 

I just want to say that I disagree with you basically, but you have a very good statement and 

it’s a good one to wind up on. I don’t believe we could have stood some of these others at 

this late hour of the day. 

The hearing concluded at 6:40 p.m. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 341-

345] 

Protesting the AAA Position

The controversy over the Oyster Bay-Rye bridge took another turn on March 16 when the 

Department of the Interior informed the MTA that proposed access roads to the bridge were 

incompatible with use of a 3,100-acre wildlife refuge. The town of Oyster Bay had deeded the 

refuge to the Interior Department in 1968 as part of the plan to block the bridge. 

On March 20, Commissioner Schuler told the Long Island Association of Commerce and Industry 

that he did not think the Interior Department’s decision would kill the bridge. The Department of 

Transportation could determine under Section 4(f) that no feasible and prudent alternative existed 

for the approach roads other than the taking of refuge land. In that case, Schuler thought, the 

Interior Department would change its view by weighing “the social and economic concerns along 

with the environmental ones.” 
725 

FHWA denied that the Secretary of Transportation could overrule the Interior Department. The 

Interior Department owned the land and would have to agree to the use or certify that the use was 

not “inconsistent with the purposes for which such land has been reserved.” 

Over the weekend, a spokesman for Governor Rockefeller indicated he was considering an appeal 

to the White House to persuade the Interior Department to reverse its position. Other options were 

under consideration. [Bender, Judith, “There’s Hope for Bridge Yet: NY Aide,” Newsday, March 

21, 1973] 

The Christian Science Monitor used the battle over the gas tax in Michigan to illustrate how the 

battle at the Federal level could “turn into a bitter legislative and judicial battle.” The Senate’s 

approval of the use of Federal-aid urban funding for mass transit systems was “only a minor step 

toward actual use of these funds for other than highway building and repair.” A similar measure 

might “squeak through the House Public Works Committee, where the chief counsel opposes such 

diversion of funds,” but opposition at the State level remained strong. 

For 2 years, Republican Governor William G. Milliken had been fighting for a limited mass transit 

gas tax against a coalition of business and political interests who wanted gasoline tax revenue 

restricted to road construction: 

The Milliken plan, introduced in early 1971, called for adding 2 cents per gallon to the 7-

cent state gas tax. Three-fourths of this added amount would join the 7 cents going to 

highway construction. The remaining one-fourth, one-half cent per gallon, would go to 

support all forms of mass transit.

The newspaper recalled that the proposal had attracted national attention in April 1971 when auto 

industry executives announced their qualified support. “By qualified, it was found to mean, the 

carmakers backed highway-oriented mass transit only.” They favored exclusive bus lanes, bus 

purchases, and construction of shelters. The concession by Henry Ford II that the funds might also 

be used for experimental mass transit system was qualified by the restriction that operating systems 

could not be built unless they rolled on highways. 

“These concessions were generous,” the article stated, compared with the views of representatives 

of the trucking, petroleum, and construction industries. Despite their opposition, the bill passed the 

State House of Representatives, a step seen by supporters as leading to victory. “Such was not the 

case.”

In the State Senate, the bill was assigned to “the hostile Highway Committee,” whose chairman 

delayed a hearing for 7 months. “When hearings were finally held, supporters had a choice of 

traveling to one of three out-of-the-way communities to present their views. Two of the hearing 

sites were in extreme northern Michigan, and one of these in the upper peninsula.” 

With the hearings held, Governor Milliken had to “agree to a number of strangling compromises” to 

get the bill to the Senate floor. “In final form, the mass-transit portion of the tax could go only to 

bus systems, except for a small percentage permitted for the study of other type systems.” Further, 
726 

the funds would not be grants, but loans that would not be available after July 1, 1975, barring 

additional action by the legislature. The bill also called for a referendum on limiting the amount of 

the gas tax going to mass transit to one-eighteenth of the total charge per gallon. It also prohibited 

use of the funds for bus systems that provide buses for inter-district integration of public schools. 

(A Michigan judge ruled the school amendment unconstitutional.) 

Around the same time, the Michigan Americanism Council launched a petition drive for a 

referendum on repealing the entire mass transit gas tax:

The two referendums, combined with the technically unresolved busing issue threatened to 

keep the mass-transit gas-tax pot boiling in Michigan for another two years. Fueling the 

battle are the state offices of representatives of such national lobbies as the Highway Users 

Federation, construction and petroleum lobbies, and in particular the American Automobile 

Association. [Wargo, James, “Battles Still Loom Over Road-Fund Diversion,” The 

Christian Science Monitor, March 21, 1973] 

As noted earlier, Vice President Agnew had been in Los Angeles on March 21, where he told a 

rapid transit seminar that, “We should give the same advantages to people who use mass transit as 

we give to people who drive.” He suggested “fringe benefits,” such as in Denver, where a bank 

buys bus tokens and sells them at half-price to employees. He supported the President’s proposal to 

divert some Federal-aid highway funds to mass transit, a plan that was incorporated in the approved 

Senate bill:

Only the concurrence of the House is necessary now to provide our states and localities with 

the flexibility they will need to achieve a truly balanced transportation system. [“Transit 

Commuters Wooed by Agnew,” The Washington Star, March 22, 1973] 

On March 28, a small group picketed the Automobile Club of Maryland’s headquarters at 1401 

Mount Royal Avenue in Baltimore to protest AAA’s position on the use of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue for urban rapid transit. Marsha D. Caplan, co-chairman of the Better Air Coalition, said, 

“We want to make people aware of the need to open up the trust fund, and get money for urban 

mass transit.” She also was co-chairman of the “Coalition to Bust the Highway Trust” and 

informed reporters that members of the Maryland Environmental Trust, the Sierra Club, the United 

Steelworkers of American, as well as conservation, anti-expressway, and other groups were 

participating. She accused AAA of advocating an anti-diversion policy “without polling its 

members.”

Inside the headquarters, the reporter found that workers “seemed bemused by the demonstrators,” 

while others “took little notice.” According to William U. Bass, Jr., the Automobile Club of 

Maryland’s vice president, this was the first protest the club had experienced. “We are not against 

mass transit,” he said. “Our position is that [the money to pay for rapid transit] should come out of 

a general fund.” 
727 

Reporter James Dilts of The Baltimore Sun summarized S. 502 as well as Creal’s testimony before 

the House Public Works Committee on March 20. Dilts cited the survey Creal had described 

during his testimony, but added: 

Nevertheless dissident groups of AAA members in three of the most populous states—

California, New Jersey and Michigan—have challenged the leadership of the local 

organizations and their philosophy of transportation priorities. 

The Automobile Club of Maryland had conducted a survey a year earlier that found that 92 percent 

of 9,000 respondents opposed the use of highway user taxes for rapid transit facilities. A poll of the 

club’s 111,000 members “produced nearly identical results” according to a club spokesman. 

Dilts also quoted an article from the club’s magazine, The Maryland Motorist: 

Over the past 30 years, the American public has chosen a low-density living pattern which 

has brought about a dispersed pattern of trip making. There are organized interests at work 

today creating the impression that the American public no longer wants or needs the 

highways necessary to maintain this life style. 

To combat these interests, the magazine urged readers to write their congressional representatives 

and ask them to maintain the integrity of the Highway Trust Fund. [Dilts, James D., “Group 

Pickets AAA on Road Fund Stand,” The Baltimore Sun, March 29, 1973] 

Massachusetts Makes the Case

On Wednesday, March 21, 1973, Representative Kluczynski presided when the subcommittee 

resumed its hearings at 10:03 a.m. in room 2167 of the Rayburn House Office Building. The first 

two witnesses were from Massachusetts.

Representative Moakley began by saying:

Mr. Chairman, 6 months ago to this day this committee voted against allowing cities like 

Boston to choose how best to spend its share of Highway Trust Fund money. That same 

day, September 21, 1972, as a candidate in Massachusetts’ Ninth Congressional District, I 

pledged that if elected to Congress my first priority would be to try to change your mind. 

Of course, I am prejudiced. 

If you allow cities like Boston to decide for themselves how best to spend its share of the 

Highway Trust Fund, no other congressional district in the United States would be as 

immediately and totally benefited as my own.

He said he was not only prejudiced but desperate:
728 

With all due respect, regardless of your decision, the odds are great that no more highways 

will ever be built in Boston. One good lawyer could keep away the cement trucks from 

Boston for at least 15 years. 

All the roadbuilders in America would not stand a chance against one Boston lawyer clad in 

the armor of the Department of Transportation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, 

and the Clean Air Act.

To describe the “Boston-wide epidemic of carsickness” would imply that the subcommittee faced 

“the false premise that your choice is between highways or no highways . . . [or] between rail transit 

or highways.” He continued: 

Your choice is simply whether to allow cities like Boston to spend funds already earmarked 

for its use alone on the transportation mix best suited to meet its particular transportation 

needs. 

To allow Boston that choice, you do not have to lift a single dime from the Interstate 

highway pot nor do you have to commit a single dollar to rail transit. 

Granted, he said, Boston would spend the funds on rail transit, as will “16 other American cities. 

And all for good reasons” 

He summarized the arguments against flexibility:

Mr. Chairman, some think it irresponsible to allow cities a rail transit option. They say that 

all the money that could conceivably be authorized by this Congress for rail transit for the 

next 3 years would barely pay for 1 rail transit system, let alone 17. In fact, they argue, due 

to any likely urban system fund distribution formula and the varying nonrail transit needs of 

those cities likely to be eligible for such funding, allowing cities a rail transit choice offers 

them a false and empty promise.

I disagree. Give Boston a rail transit option and we will build rail transit. Capital grants 

from the urban mass transportation fund and Massachusetts share [sic] of the urban systems 

part of the Highway Trust Fund will supplement State and local money. And rail transit will 

be built in Boston. 

What’s more, give Boston a rail transit option, and the 1970 Clean Air Act standards will be 

met by 1985 instead of 2001. 

He pointed out that 67 cities were having trouble meeting EPA’s clean air standards. Even if they 

had a rail transit option, many could not meet EPA’s deadlines. “But with rail transit, many of 

America’s worst-polluted cities, Boston among them, could show compliance and meet the 

standards, if not the deadlines.” He added that by providing needed flexibility, members of the 

subcommittee who voted for the Clean Air Act “could take pride in the fact that not only did you 

vote for clean air but you went the extra mile to make clean air possible.”
729 

He concluded by saying, “Transportation in 1973 means more than simply roads.” That’s all, he 

said, “anybody is really trying to say.” 

In the short question period, Representative Robert P. Hanrahan (R-Il.), a former teacher, 

administrator, and guidance counselor who represented the Chicago area’s southern suburbs in 

Cook County during his only term in Congress, asked how road needs would be met if diversion of 

Highway Trust Fund revenue took automobiles and their highway user tax revenue off the roads. 

Representative Moakley replied that “we have got to attack first things first.” He explained:

First of all, I think we have to take the automobiles off the road because we know that 

automobiles use up one-fifth of all our energy and I have never heard of anybody tearing 

down a highway to build a house, but they do it conversely. They tear down many homes to 

build highways, and I think if we have less need for the highways, we will need less funds to 

keep them in repair. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 350-352] 

Representative Moakley was followed by Governor Sargent, who was representing his State and the 

National Governors’ Conference, which he served as chairman of its Committee on Transportation 

of Commerce and Technology. He said that the Governors must “daily confront the problems 

which necessitate a new approach to meeting the transportation needs of some of our metropolitan 

regions.” The governors had “concluded that the Federal Highway Act must be broadened . . . to 

give each State substantial flexibility to meet its own transportation needs, in its own way.”

Starting in 1956, the country had “channeled tens of billions of dollars into road construction, and 

we successfully created a superb highway network.” It was “one of the wonders of our age.” The 

country could take “enormous pride” in its accomplishments, but “must also recognize the lessons 

of the past 17 years.” Those lessons were: 

In those years we have learned that expressways are not always the answer; that they 

sometimes cause more harm than benefit . . . . So long as highways ran between urban 

areas, all was well; but then these massive expressways began to march into the heart of our 

cities. They began to tear up neighborhoods and uproot families, and they brought with 

them the commuter [who was] lured away from buses and from trains. Transit has been 

caught in an endless cycle of patronage losses, fare increases, service cuts, and still further 

patronage losses. And what we have got has been, I think, the ultimate irony. 

Despite major expressway construction, the daily crush of commuters now slows traffic to a 

crawl, particularly at peak hours. Yet with our transit systems as they are, the frustrated 

driver can see no alternative but to join that crush day after day. So we are left with the 

inescapable conclusion; highways alone are not the answer to our transportation problem. 

The Governors, therefore, had voted for flexibility. On their behalf, he endorsed the flexible use of 

Federal-aid urban system funds. “This is as it should be.” 

He also discussed the Interstate transfer issue:
730 

The administration, the Senate, and the House in its action last year, have all recognized that 

certain controversial Interstate highway segments cannot and probably should not ever be 

built. At the same time, it is recognized that the States in which these roads were to be built,

still have extensive transportation problems. 

The bills under consideration addressed the problem in different ways. The Administration bill 

“would provide the greatest flexibility” by allowing the State to transfer the funds from a 

controversial Interstate segment to any project eligible in the State for Federal-aid urban system 

funds. The Senate bill would limit use of the funds to urban system projects in the same urban area. 

This option was, Governor Sargent said, “an extremely good one.” In 1972, the House bill allowed 

the use of Interstate funds for alternative Interstate projects. While that was “a genuine step 

forward,” he pointed out that the transportation problem the Interstate System was intended to 

address was still present. While the 1972 House version would be “far better than nothing,” he 

urged the subcommittee to adopt the Administration or Senate approach. 

Governor Sargent said the Governors also supported rural bus service, which was ineligible for 

UMTA funds because it was not urban. “I do not think this makes sense. Whether via the Transit 

Aid or the Highway Act, the Federal Government should help rural bus service.” 

He discussed special bus lanes, as supported by the Administration and the Senate bill. He urged 

expansion of the concept to allow special roads for trucks and emergency vehicles. He illustrated 

the idea by describing his proposal for a special-purpose roadway between downtown Boston and 

Logan International Airport restricted to buses, trucks, and emergency vehicles. “It would serve a 

desperately congested corridor that simply has no room for another six- or eight-lane highway.” It 

would help relieve congestion by taking these vehicles off the parallel general-purpose highway and 

encouraging motorists to take the bus to use the airport. 

These proposals, in the view of the National Governors’ Conference, were steps in the right 

direction. He had to take exception, however, to the Administration’s proposal to pass Federal-aid 

urban system funds through the States to metropolitan areas. He agreed that metropolitan area 

officials should be involved in transportation planning, but the proposal “raises some serious 

questions.” He continued: 

The States have a substantial capacity to conduct such planning. With very rare exceptions, 

the urban areas do not . . . . Now, the demand for participation is as strong in Massachusetts 

as any that you will find anywhere, but I think there is no demand for passthrough [sic]. 

Instead, there is a general recognition that strong executive leadership is needed along with 

participation and that only the State can provide it at the metropolitan scale. 

He concluded by saying his main theme was flexibility:

The needs of Montana are certainly different from Massachusetts. The day has long passed 

when we can build enough highways to handle all potential automobile demand in the great 

cities of America, where population density is high, where new highways would have to 
731 

plow through neighborhoods and parks, and where air pollution is a major problem. We 

must turn to other means than expressways to meet our needs. 

He quoted the opening sentence from Charles Dickens’ 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities: “It was 

the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The same, he said, “can reasonably be said about our 

present transportation system.” The United States has “the finest and most expensive highway 

network the world has ever seen,” but “we are now choking our urban areas, we are paving through 

neighborhoods, displacing families and businesses, destroying parks and wetlands, fouling the air.” 

 The irony, he said, “is that we did not really intend it this way. It is an oversight.” He said: 

We began with the image in our minds of highways sweeping across the countryside, 

between our cities. We acquired, as well, a host of new problems and controversies within 

our cities. It is time to correct this oversight. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 352-356] 

Representative Clausen began the questioning by asking if Governor Sargent’s views fully 

expressed the views of the National Governors’ Conference. Governor Sargent responded: 

Back a few years ago, when it was first suggested that there should be flexibility in terms of 

the use of the Highway Trust Fund, the Governors were very apprehensive about this. They 

felt that this would deprive Governors in rural areas of funds that they were entitled to.

Once it was clearly understood by all of the Governors that what we were really seeking was 

flexibility within the States, so that Montana, for example, could use its funds in its own 

way and Massachusetts could use its funds in its own way, the feeling of the Governors 

shifted to support of flexibility.

Now, I am not speaking for every Governor, but I can say that the Governors’ Conference 

endorsed the concept of flexibility. Some of the details of the various proposals that are 

before you, they have not gone into, but they have supported vigorously the concept of 

flexibility.

When Representative Clausen pointed out that Governor Reagan had a different point of view, 

Governor Sargent acknowledged that he and Governor Reagan “have not always agreed on 

everything,” but he could state that the National Governors’ Conference voted to support flexibility. 

(In later testimony, James A. Moe, California’s Director of Public Works and Director-designate of 

the California Department of Transportation, would introduce a recent letter from Governor Reagan 

to President Nixon expressing concerns about the Federal Government’s response to changes in 

transportation emphasis: 

At no time in history has government had such an opportunity as it now has to fulfill its 

proper role in resolving the transportation issues of the Nation. 
732 

We view with concern some of the trends in national transportation legislation. Two major 

concerns result from recent highway legislative proposals. First, the increase in the number 

of Federal highway programs; and, secondly, the direct involvement of the Federal 

Government in these programs to pass through Federal funds directly to local government 

seriously disrupts and unbalances the distribution of transportation funds within our State. 

(He had three recommendations. First, Governor Reagan recommended completing the Interstate 

System as soon as possible by maintaining a funding level of $4 billion a year, with deadlines for 

completion. Second, he recommended retaining the State as the recipient of Federal-aid highway 

funds because only the State had the capacity to discern local and metropolitan goals and allocate 

resources accordingly. Third, he opposed diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue to other modes 

in all the forms under consideration, including the Muskie-Baker amendment for flexibility in the 

use of Federal-aid urban system funds, Interstate substitution, transit operating costs, purchase of 

bus or rail equipment, or rail capital expenditures. 

(He would not object to creation of a third trust fund to augment State and local financing for the 

heavy initial investment in rail transit systems. Governor Reagan also endorsed elements of 

Secretary Brinegar’s bill, S. 967, namely the consolidation of Federal-aid programs into three 

categories (Interstate, urban, and rural) and State-level certification acceptance to reduce red tape. 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 443]) 

Representative Clausen said he and the other members of the subcommittee agreed on the need for 

flexibility, “but it is a question of the extent of flexibility and this is going to be based upon how far 

the money is going to go, particularly when you consider the amount of funds that are already 

committed and ready for a claim by a given area, a given State . . . .” He wanted to know if 

Governor Sargent’s statements represent the official position of the National Governors’ 

Conference. Governor Sargent replied, “At their meeting in Puerto Rico the Governors, by majority 

vote—I do not remember the exact numbers—voted to support the concept of flexibility in the use 

of Highway Trust Funds.” He added that the flexibility encompassed rail transit. 

Regarding the pass-through provision, Representative Clausen asked if Governor Sargent’s views 

were prevalent among the Governors. Governor Sargent said it was: 

Our feeling is that there has got to be at the State level strong executive responsibility. It is 

also possible in virtually every State to have relatively sophisticated planning so you can 

have an overall plan. As I pointed out in my testimony, if each community is planning itself 

without reference to neighboring communities, you cannot truly have a transportation 

network. 

He was certain, he said, that he spoke for every Governor on this subject. 

Representative Clausen concluded his question period with a long explanation of his views. First, 

he explained the different perspectives on flexibility. The central issue, he said, was that needs in 

the big cities differed from those at the county and statewide level. Unlike city and county officials, 

the Governors represented all communities, large and small, and so were concerned that if a large 
733 

percentage of limited transportation dollars went to rail transit, “there will not be any moneys left to 

complete the Interstate Highway System, which is the most important objective of having created 

the Highway Trust Fund.” 

He had “stated unequivocably that I would commit whatever is realistic out of the general fund for 

the rail mass transit in the metropolitan areas” and would support a trust fund for the operation, 

maintenance, and administration of the system in support of a balanced transportation system. 

However, in view of the “tremendous backlog” of road needs, he said:

We do not believe that we should touch the Highway Trust Fund for other than highway 

related purposes, and the flexibility initiative we took, moving in the direction of 

preferential lanes for buses, for trucks, so as to make them safer, more compatible in these 

urban areas, and I think some of the major cities can do something about rescheduling trucks 

into the major metropolitan areas, as they are doing in San Francisco. 

Trucks, he suggested, should be banned in metropolitan areas during peak periods, but he supported 

“the combination of the Highway Trust Fund, doing its level best to complete the best possible, the 

most efficient, the safest highway system, the airport airways system, and the trust fund committed 

toward the completion of that, and then, subsequently, this third area of funding, and I think this is 

where the Ways and Means Committee is going to have to work with us.” 

He added an explanation of the change in the subcommittee’s name: 

One of the reasons that we moved in the direction of establishing a Transportation 

Subcommittee is because we found ourselves thrust into mass transit without the benefit of 

testimony simply because of the difference in parliamentary procedure between the House 

and the Senate.

The Senate does not have the germaneness rule so they hung title 2 [on mass transit] on the 

legislation last year and here we went into conference without the benefit of any of these 

hearings.

Well, I think it would be wise if we had jurisdiction over both, then we could move forward 

with the coordination of the highway and the mass transit systems . . . . 

He shared these thoughts with Governor Sargent, he said, because “you come from the State that 

seems to be the principal advocate of taking . . . funds away from the Highway Trust Fund, where 

there is a clearly demonstrated need” for road projects. Massachusetts needed to accelerate 

improvement of its primary and secondary roads, “just to make them safe.” However, “if we dry 

that one fund up, we will find ourselves in difficulty in being able to meet the finance requirements” 

for the primary and secondary systems. The answer was “not to go down that road,” but to retain 

the Highway Trust Fund for highways while simultaneously increasing “the funds that we know are 

going to be needed and develop the kinds of positive systems of finance, along with other 

philosophies that have already proven themselves to be successful.” 
734 

Representative LaMar Baker (R-Tn.), a businessman who had served in the State legislature before 

winning election to the House in 1970, asked about the responsibility for selecting projects. 

Governor Sargent stated that the Governors, rather than metropolitan areas, “are better equipped 

with planning resources” to administer the funds. “The Governor is the person who is primarily 

responsible for the transportation needs of his entire State.” Passing the funds through to the cities 

would result in “fragmentation rather than an effective overall plan.” He was not looking for a setaside for transit, but for the option to decide the best mix of highway and transit projects. 

Representative Harsha asked if Governor Sargent had charged “that the Federal Government is 

forcing a portion of the Interstate Highway System on your State that you do not want.” The 

Governor said he had not made such a charge, but “we would like to have the opportunity in our 

State, where we have found that clearly we should not continue with plans that were prepared some 

20 or 25 years ago, to use those funds for other transportation efforts in that metropolitan area.” 

Why, Representative Harsha wanted to know, should Massachusetts “be privileged” to use its 

Interstate funds for other highways or mass transit projects when the other States cannot do it? 

Governor Sargent responded that he was requesting that all the States have this same flexibility in 

the use of funds provided for Interstate highways they did not wish to build. 

Representative Harsha said he was confused since the only flexibility he was talking about involved 

Federal-aid urban system funds. Governor Sargent pointed out the Interstate transfer provisions in 

the Senate bill and the Administration’s proposal. 

Representative Clausen interrupted to point out that in the House, the only Interstate transfer 

mechanism under consideration involved mileage, not the use of the funds for other purposes. The 

committee’s position “was to complete the Interstate Highway System as much as possible, and if 

they do not want it in San Francisco, we transferred it to Los Angeles, to meet the situation there.” 

Acknowledging that proposals existed to use Interstate funds for other purposes, Representative 

Harsha returned to his main concern, namely the charge that the Federal Government was forcing 

Massachusetts to build Interstate highways it did not want. That charge, he said, “does not hold 

water, because the location of that Interstate System was selected by the State Highway Department 

of the State of Massachusetts,” which had applied for the routes. Governor Sargent said that 

Representative Harsha was correct, but added:

Now, back a great many years ago there was a highway network set out for the Greater 

Boston area, including an innerbelt, and so on. It was proposed by the State, proposed by 

the State department of public works. It was essentially approved by the appropriate Federal 

authorities, and now it has become apparent that those plans that were prepared 25 years ago 

would be ruinous in the area, so we want to revise the plans. But I have never charged that 

the Federal Government was forcing us to build the highways. We do have, of course, the 

90-percent Federal share hanging out there as an inducement.

After again asking Governor Sargent to agree that the State of Massachusetts had proposed the 

Interstate highways the Governor now objected to, Representative Harsha yielded to Representative 
735 

Roe, who wanted to express his concerns about the pass-through concept. Noting Secretary 

Hughes’ testimony earlier on behalf of State transportation officials, Representative Roe said:

The thing that would frighten the committee a little bit—it does me, anyway—and I am not 

in favor of a 400,000-population regional agency having sole jurisdiction. I think that is a 

farce. I think there has to be some tighter control, but would that not lead, in part, to a State 

administration maybe favoring a particular area, even though the needs of the people may 

not be greatest there? I am thinking of mass transit, particularly.

Governor Sargent said that Governors had to consider all parts of the State, not just metropolitan or 

rural areas. “I think he has at his disposal more personnel to direct an overall plan than any 

particular city would have. I think that he should be held accountable.” 

Representative Roe was concerned that if it were “only a question of the ‘raiding of highway funds’ 

for so-called flexibility,” the funds available from the Federal-aid system would be inadequate “to 

really do the job that has to be done in mass transit.” Governor Sargent said, “Ideally, if the UMTA 

fund could be increased by tremendous amounts, this would be fine, but I think, also, that flexibility 

in use of the Highway Trust Fund should be there.” 

As Representative Roe’s question period came to an end, he explained that he hoped the Governors, 

at their next conference, would say that “to ‘raid’ the Highway Trust Fund, in effect, and I do not 

mean that unkindly, or to try to borrow from Peter to pay Paul, is not the answer to the mass transit 

problem.” What Congress really needed is for the Governors to say “Cut out the nonsense. We 

need your help now to buck us up to get a mass transit bill through with adequate substance to do 

the job.” 

Representative Wilmer D. Mizell (R-NC) was next. The former major league pitcher (1949-1963, 

with a break for military service) known as “Vinegar Bend” Mizell after his hometown in Alabama

asked for an estimate of transit needs in Massachusetts. When Governor Sargent replied “in excess 

of $1.5 billion,” Representative Mizell asked where the Governor thought the revenue would come 

from. The Governor explained that the State was “taking advantage of every dollar that we can get 

from UMTA, and the State is providing most of the matching requirement.” In addition, he would 

like the flexibility to transfer some Highway Trust Funds to transit. “We do not want to steal from 

any other State . . . but we would like to have total flexibility for the use of whatever funds that 

could be made available to our own State.” 

Representative Mizell pointed out that while he did not have the exact figure, the amount of flexible 

funding under S. 502 was well below the figure Massachusetts needed. Because Congress had been 

involved in funding the Metro subway system in the Washington area, he knew that the original 

estimate had more than doubled. 

With Representative Mizell’s consent, Representative Clausen again interrupted to make a point 

that he said had not yet been addressed. If transit managed to reduce the number of automobiles 

coming into the city, “they are cutting down substantially the amount of dollars in the trust fund that 

we are going to be dependent upon for the flexibility you desire, and our argument is that we have 
736 

to have some sort of financial system to finance either highway or rail.” That, he said, “is the key.” 

 Governor Sargent replied that, “We need more total funding for transportation, but I do not believe 

we should encourage people to commute by automobile so as to maximize highway user tax 

collections.” 

Representative Mizell pointed out that even if all the Highway Trust Funds were devoted to mass 

transit, “it would not get the job done.” Talking about getting this money for transit makes for a 

great speech in the big cities, but the total would be “a drop in the bucket.” By contrast, the 

Interstate System was not just for the people of New York City or Boston, but for people 

throughout the country. “I think it is an injustice to funnel them into a metropolitan area for mass 

transit systems, especially in view of the missing links that we still have in our Interstate System.” 

Did the Governor agree that the Congress had an obligation to complete the missing links? 

Governor Sargent agreed that the Interstate System was “one of the greatest things that we have 

ever done in this country, but “we have gotten into messes where we have tried to run into and 

through the Nation’s large, densely populated cities.” He continued: 

For example, I know that we would not implement the plans of 20 years ago calling for 

eight-lane highways right in the city of Boston. I think we should be able to spend the 

money that is due to Massachusetts, to be able to use it in a different fashion. 

Representative Mizell concluded by agreeing with Representative Roe that the Governor “really 

should recognize the fact that these trust funds are not going to solve the mass transit problems.” 

He urged the Governors to take a hard look at how those needs could be met “rather than just taking 

a token amount of money out of the trust fund and saying, ‘We are going to build urban mass transit 

systems.’” 

 

Representative Hanrahan asked how the Governor would feel if mass transit funds were made 

available with the flexibility to use them for highways. Governor Sargent said he would like to 

have as much flexibility as possible, whether for highways or mass transit funding. Would he, 

Representative Hanrahan asked, use mass transit funds for an expressway in the Boston area if it 

were needed? Yes, the Governor replied, if that were a primary need. 

Regarding controversial Interstates, Representative Hanrahan said that everyone agreed certain 

routes should not be built. He asked the Governor to identify routes that should not be built. 

Governor Sargent cited an example from Boston: 

We have plans that were prepared some 20 to 35 years ago for an inner belt that would 

circle inner Boston, pass through Cambridge, et cetera. I have stopped that highway. I do 

not think it should be built. It would tear apart and ruin some of the finest sections of the 

metropolitan area. We would like to have these funds for other transportation purposes 

within the metropolitan area, and without that metropolitan area throughout the State. 
737 

With his testimony concluded, Governor Sargent thanked the members of the subcommittee and 

said, “I cannot think of a more important committee than the committee before which I am 

appearing.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 356-367] 

More Views

Governor Sargent was followed by a D. Grant Mickle and his HUFSAM associates. He pointed out 

that, “The vast majority of American people rely upon automobiles for their transportation and will 

continue to do so for the rest of the century.” He added that changes in society made roads even 

more important:

Many of our road needs are being created because America’s urban revolution is really a 

suburban revolution. City dwellers are spreading out . . . . Employment is dispersing, too. 

Former “bedroom” communities are becoming employment centers, as well. More residents 

of Westchester County in New York are employed in the county than work outside it. The 

same is true of Orange County on Los Angeles’ rim. The pattern is national. In less than 10 

years, more people will be working in suburbs than in central cities. More than half will go 

daily from suburban homes to suburban jobs . . . . 

Increasingly, transportation must enable people, goods and services to move quickly in 

many directions over large areas. This is the more true because of the growing amount of 

nonwork travel. One out of five trips each day has a work purpose . . . . 

Between now and 1990, the population in our urbanized areas will increase by 60 million. 

Peak-hour accommodation of people commuting in and out of the central city will continue 

to be a vast and important need. But a still bigger need is the development of arteries to 

accommodate circumferential trips.

Land use, economic development, and life styles demand mobility and clearly dictate a 

continued reliance on private vehicles, public highway transit, and the movement of goods 

by truck. 

Contrary to current cliches, the arteries that accommodate traffic do not generate that traffic. 

 Hospitals do not create sick people, pipes do not create water, schools do not create 

children, and adequate highways do not create traffic. Traffic is created by people’s need to 

move about. In less than 20 years, there will be 50 million more people moving about on 

our streets and roads. 

He did not believe “a massive new highway construction program” was needed, but rather an 

emphasis on restoration of the most important urban and rural roads. Completion of the Interstate 

System “as rapidly as feasible” was also essential.

He cited a 1971 poll by Opinion Research Corp: 
738 

A majority approves the present pace of new highway construction. Among people who do 

not approve, more than half believe the pace is too slow . . . . People vote with their actions 

as well as through opinion polls and by the ballot box. Even where other modes of 

transportation are readily available, two out of three workers get to their jobs by auto. This 

is true at the bottom of the economic ladder, as well as of those at the top. 

Mickle agreed with a statement by Carmack Cochran of the American Transit Association that 

transit needs are independent of highway needs. “It is imperative,” Cochran said, “that any dialog 

does not develop into solely a narrow ‘more-transit-means-less-highways’ viewpoint. Transit’s 

overall needs bear little direct relationship to the present funded level of the highway program.” 

Mickle pointed out that the 1972 National Transportation Report estimated total transit capital 

needs at $63 billion (including $50 billion for rail transit) and $593 billion for highways through 

1990. “But even if all transit needs are met, the study shows that the percentage of transit use will 

drop.” He explained: 

Recent experience bears this out, as well. The 16-mile Montreal Subway System, built to 

take care of the crowds expected for Canada’s 1967 Expo, had not increased the percentage 

of transit use. Some bus passengers have shifted to subway. But the rate of auto use had 

continued. 

HUFSAM agreed that transit and highways needed better support, but “the answer does not lie in 

robbing Peter to pay Paul.” 

Mickle also addressed the value of highway investment. He pointed out that the President’s Office 

of Science and Technology had cited the Interstate System “as being among our most cost-effective 

safety measures.” Interstate highways were making cities more accessible than ever. “Despite our 

understandable impatience with congestion—getting in and out of the center of most cities actually 

is measurably faster than it was 10 or more years ago.” In San Diego, for example, “average peakhour speeds have changed from 18 miles per hour in 1955 to 40 miles per hour today.” 

Automobile registrations were increasing rapidly, Mickle said, adding that, “Even so, the 

Environmental Protection Agency announced this month that air pollution is declining.” President 

Nixon had said as much in his environmental State of the Union message (“day by day our air is 

getting cleaner”). “Some of the credit undoubtedly goes to the modern, high standard highways that 

reduce stop-and-go driving—the kind that produces most pollution.” 

HUFSAM emphasized its support for the Highway Trust Fund and the highway user taxes that 

made it possible:

When related to highway use, these taxes are fair. However, if viewed simply as sales taxes 

or luxury taxes, and diverted to purposes unrelated to highway use, they would be highly 

regressive. The handyman who must drive a car considerable distances to his jobs should 

not be taxed more heavily than the executive who travels only from townhouse to office—

unless the tax is used to make driving safer and more efficient. 
739 

Mickle emphasized that the concept of the Interstate System was “that the total system, as 

designated, is in the interest of the Nation’s welfare.” Deletions and substitute routes “should be 

held to a minimum”:

Some deletions undoubtedly will occur and we believe current deadlines for final indication 

of intention to complete or abandon Interstate projects should remain in force. We strongly 

recommend that any cost savings resulting from substitution of system sections be applied 

to accelerate Interstate completion nationwide.

Transit was vitally important, but it should have its own funds independent of highway funds: 

If highway funds were to become available for transit, it is likely that other funds would be 

withdrawn or inadequately supplemented with a resultant loss to both highways and transit. 

All ground transportationwould suffer. We do not believe transit and highways should be in 

competition for dollars at Federal, State, or local level [sic].

He recommended a congressional needs study for transit and that needs should be based on 

federally determined standards. “The lack of guidelines hampered determination of transit needs in 

the recent DOT transportation study.” Mickle continued: 

We also believe current constraints on the use of urban highway funds on such transit aids 

as bus lanes, traffic control devices, et cetera, should be removed. We urge, however, that 

the current language with respect to this be strengthened to require the Secretary of 

Transportation to take into account all possible planning considerations, and that he be 

assured of the full use by mass transit systems of any such project and the continued 

operation of and maintenance for a reasonable time of any equipment provided for. 

The goal of the highway program “should be to provide quality service and its accomplishments 

should be measured by safety and congestion-free standards, not simply by the number of new 

miles constructed. In rural areas, congestion relief might require “new or wider lanes, intersection 

improvements, and added passing opportunities.” In urban areas, “peak-hour congestion calls for a 

new dimension in highway monitoring and operational control,” such as instrumentation for 

continuous surveillance, preferential lanes, and carpooling. In suburban areas, “arterial highway 

capacity should be planned and developed ahead of intensive land development.” 

HUFSAM recommended a functional reclassification of the Nation’s roads as the basis for 

realignment of the Federal-aid highway systems. Federal-State matching shares should be adjusted 

to reflect the relative importance of the systems. The Interstate program would retain the 90-10 

matching ratio, while the ratio of 75-25 would apply to urban and rural principal arterials; 50-50 for 

urban and rural minor arterials; and 30-70 for rural major collectors. The States should have 

flexibility in the use of the Federal funds, but “the graduated matching ratio would encourage use of 

funds on the most important roads.” 

To reduce red tape, HUFSAM recommended eliminating project-by-project review by the FHWA. 

“Rather, the role of the Federal Government should be to review and approve the States’ long-range 
740 

plans and annual work programs.” Although environmental and other requirements were necessary, 

“the total effect is delay and inefficiency.” HUFSAM recommended that Congress call for a study 

of how to streamline project development while protecting the public’s interest in these laudable 

goals.

As the suggestion on red tape implied, the States had gained “competency in highway matters,” but 

so had many metropolitan areas. HUFSAM recommended three steps to increase the metropolitan 

role in planning and implementation: 

1. Encouraging development of single metropolitan area transportation planning agencies to 

coordinate highway, transit, and land use planning. 

2. In support of a real commitment to metropolitan planning, we propose that—whenever there 

are significant changes in community plans—it should be possible to suspend temporarily 

certain federally aided construction programs affected, until these changes can be assessed 

and adjustments made. 

3. Rather than automatic allocation—so-called passthrough [sic]—to urban areas on a 

population basis, as has been proposed by some, we suggest that the States be required to 

develop allocation plans, in cooperation with local authorities, to the satisfaction of the 

Secretary of Transportation.

These steps “should give the metropolitan areas the emphasis and freedom they seek, while 

maintaining equity.”

At the same time, Mickle’s statement emphasized that equity would not be served by the use of 

highway funds for transit: 

We would point out further that the so-called “flexibility” this would achieve is a delusion 

since it only goes one way. There has been no thought of opening Urban Mass Transit 

Administration funds to highways. 

Finally, HUFSAM was in favor of updating the outdoor advertising and junkyard control provisions 

of the Highway Beautification Act of 1965. However, the Highway Beautification Commission 

established by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970, which called for a report in 1 year, had still 

not reported its findings and recommendations. HUFSAM called on Congress to secure this report 

as early as possible in order to consider its recommendations before making any changes to 

highway beautification laws. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 368-376] 

As might be expected, much of the questioning of the HUFSAM team was supportive. 

How long would it take to complete the Interstate System? “We would think that with the proper 

application of the total trust fund money collected, the Interstate highway program could be 

completely funded by 1980.” 

Should mass transit funding come from general funds or a new source of taxes? “We think the 

needs for both transits [sic] and highways are so great that they both cannot be supported from the 
741 

trust fund, and as the Congressman from New Jersey stated earlier, we should not be robbing Peter 

to pay Paul, to provide the transit funding.” 

Do you agree with EPA that within 5 years, most cars on the road will have to be 100-horsepower 

units? “I do not know . . . other than to say that decisions of that kind are generally made in the 

marketplace . . . .” HUFSAM’s Peter Koltnow added, “There might be a long range effect, but we 

have over 100 million vehicles on the road now, and we only add about 10 percent new vehicles a 

year.”

What about a trust fund for transit? “I would like to say that we certainly support that point of 

view, and . . . I have suggested that a special study be authorized by this Congress to look into the 

subject in much greater depth than it has been looked into in the past.” 

Would HUFSAM agree that all the funds authorized for the Federal-aid urban system are needed 

for highways? “I certainly would agree.”

Would HUFSAM support continued funding of highway beautification programs from the general 

Treasury as under past legislation, rather than from the Highway Trust Fund? “Yes, you are 

correct,” although Highway Trust Fund revenues could be used for landscaping within the highway 

right-of-way.

Representative Roe engaged HUFSAM in a dialogue about the pass-through concept, citing the 

example of two counties in New Jersey (Bergen and Passaic) adjacent to New York City that would 

each qualify for pass-through funds. “Surely it would be ludicrous,” he said, to have separate 

county transportation agencies receiving funds and planning projects that also affect New York 

City. Koltnow replied: 

We have testified to the point that there is no automatic passthrough [sic] provision that will 

serve the needs of a typical complex urbanized area. History has shown that the relationship 

between the States and the metropolitan areas in highway matters has a requirement for a 

planning group. In the future, areas that have shown that they can plan cooperatively and 

competently, and handle funds could, through the relationship with Governors, and others, 

become implementation agencies rather than just planning agencies, which they are now.

Representative Roe said he was trying to “blow open” the myth behind the provision in S. 502. If 

the two New Jersey counties proceeded without State oversight, they and New York City could go 

in different directions and “there is not going to be any coordination.” Mickle replied, “I agree 

wholeheartedly.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 376-382 

The HUFSAM testimony completed the morning session, which ended a little after noon. The 

Subcommittee on Transportation resumed the hearing at 2 p.m. Most of the witnesses were protransit or at least not interested in traditional highway construction. For example, the first witness 

was Representative George E. Danielson (D-Ca.), a lawyer, former Assistant U.S. Attorney, and 

State legislator who had won election to the House in 1970 from a district based in Los Angeles 

County. He recommended that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 call for a “study of the 
742 

relationship of car size to many of our current transportation, pollution, and fuel resource 

problems.” He had introduced House Joint Resolution 301 for that purpose: 

The study I propose would describe and define the relationship between automobile size, on 

the one hand and, on the other, the need for additional highway construction, the frequency 

of highway repairs, the lack of adequate parking in urban areas, motor fuel consumption, 

which is directly related to our critical fuel shortage, and, of course, the pollution of the air. 

The need for such a study is urgent, and I do not use the term “urgent” lightly . . . . 

As we continue to allocate federally collected revenues to highway uses we should have 

enough hard facts on the subject so that we can make sound judgments as to whether we are 

using our resources as wisely as possible, or whether we should make changes in our 

policies with respect to the size of motor vehicles. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 383] 

Representative Wendell Wyatt (R-Or.) made a brief statement urging the subcommittee to ensure 

that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 not interfere with Oregon’s initiatives under the 

Highway Beautification Act of 1965. In July 1972, he said, the Oregon Travel Information Council 

had erected the country’s first logo information board. (A logo sign is erected on the highway rightof-way and contains the logos of companies, such as restaurants, gas stations, and camp sights, 

serving motorists at the next interchange.) An agreement with the Oregon Outdoor Advertising 

Association to enter into binding arbitration on just compensation prompted Representative Wyatt 

to tell the subcommittee, “it is anticipated that Oregon will remove all billboards from Interstate 

and primary highways by end of this year, 1973.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 388-389] 

A delegation from Cleveland testified in support of using Highway Trust Funds for public transit 

systems. The Cleveland Transit System (CTS) operated 700 route miles of buses serving 45 

communities and 3 counties, as well as a single 90-mile rapid rail line. The delegation began by 

presenting a statement from Mayor Ralph J. Perk, who was not present. He said that 32 percent of 

Cleveland’s 750,000 residents did not own a car, while 48 percent of the elderly lacked a car. “It 

seems to me that we have a clear moral obligation to improve the mobility of these people.” For 

this reason, “I favor the use of Highway Trust Funds for public transit to allow us to develop a more 

balanced transportation system in the Cleveland region.” The present restriction on the use of the 

funds was having “a distorting effect on local transportation decisions.” He continued: 

At present, a transportation problem in Cleveland must be solved by a choice between a 

highway solution at 5 percent cost to local taxpayers, or a transit solution at 100 percent 

local expense. 

A more flexible approach would “help restore the fiscal vitality of the Cleveland Transit System as 

well as improving our City’s own initiatives in transportation planning and development.” 
743 

Stella G. White, a member of the Cleveland Transit Board, informed the subcommittee of the 

“grave crises eroding urban transportation nationally, and Cleveland Transit in particular.” She 

said:

CTS was established 31 years ago. It is the largest transit system serving an urban area in 

the United States which has sustained itself by operating solely out of the farebox. It has 

never been subsidized . . . . The economic law of diminishing returns has overtaken urban 

transportation in America and new methods of financial transfusions are needed. As 

repugnant as it is to a transit board, we have in the past 2 years reduced service some 27 

percent, laid off staff, and this month increased the basic fare to 50 cents. 

Raising fares and cutting service are self-defeating measures. We had one other 

alternative—close down the system. 

Testimony later clarified that Ms. White was referring only to operating costs; CTS had received 

$22 million in UMTA capital grants. Representative Stanton, who had introduced the panel, said: 

It is not that we have not tried to solve the problem at the local level. We really have. We 

have made a conscious effort to go forward with the program to meet the needs of the 

community at the local level. I had even proposed a tax at the local level to subsidize the 

operation at the local level because I feel strongly about a public transportation system. 

Although Cleveland was ideal for rail transit, “What we really need is capital dollars and a tax base 

to subsidize the operation.” He was sure that with the help of Congress in coming years, “we are 

going to cross this hurdle in Cleveland and solve our transportation problems.” 

Ms. White endorsed Representative Glenn Anderson’s version of the Muskie-Baker amendment, 

H.R. 101. Representative Anderson thanked her for the support of the bill, adding, “I might point 

out that we chose H.R. 101 to number our proposal because Highway 101 traverses our State of 

California from the north to south.” He pointed out that the city of Los Angeles paid more into the 

Highway Trust Fund than it received under the Federal-aid highway program. He said that in view 

of their statement about supporting the system from the farebox, “I did not want them to feel badly 

that they had received some grants in the past . . . .” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 390-396] 

The next witness, Dr. Ronan, again represented the Institute for Rapid Transit, the MTA, and the 

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. (As discussed earlier, he had appeared before

Chairman Minish’s new urban mass transit subcommittee in the morning.) Dr. Ronan stressed that 

his organizations were not opposed to the passenger automobile or the use of buses. They were 

“not in any way part of an antihighway effort” and in fact supported Federal-aid for highway 

improvements. 

He began by addressing the use of Federal-aid urban system funds for public mass transportation 

systems “other than on rails.” If S. 502 had retained this “discriminatory provision intact, it would 

have had the impact of discouraging the transportation of passengers within urban areas by rail.” 
744 

He did not believe such an outcome “would be in the national interest for a variety of reasons, 

including among others economics, air pollution control and the need to conserve energy.” He was 

pleased that instead, S. 502 incorporated the Muskie-Baker amendment. His organizations believed 

that flexible use of Federal-aid urban system funds “should be expanded to include all modes of 

urban public transportation.” If the discriminatory provision were retained, many cities would opt 

for highway development. “Unfortunately, this has been the history of the last 20 years or so 

because funds for rail system improvements and expansion projects were not available from Federal 

sources.” 

Further, such a restriction was inconsistent “with the more progressive and more modern thinking 

regarding the use of urban transportation rights-of-way,” such as combining highways and rail on 

exclusive right-of-way in the highway median. He added: 

The private automobile certainly has its place in the urban scene. To meet the present and 

future needs of our citizens, public transportation improvement projects must be coordinated 

with the use of the automobile through the provision of park-and-ride, kiss-and-ride, and 

other intermodal arrangements. In today’s picture of urban life, this is required to insure an 

effective public transportation system for the entire spectrum of the population. 

Next, he addressed the pass-through concept:

We urge that the act’s definition of areawide metropolitan transportation agencies should be 

broad enough to permit funds to be made available directly to governmental bodies that 

have been duly authorized to construct and operate urban public transportation services even 

though they do not have the power to engage in highway construction. 

The Secretary of Transportation should be allowed to approve funding for any projects that he has 

found were part of a coordinated regional transportation plan. 

Finally, Dr. Ronan addressed “the financial crises involving the operations and maintenance of our 

urban bus and rail systems.” Despite heroic efforts to finance operations from the farebox, they 

“cannot be met by user charges (i.e., passenger revenues).” During 1972, the Nation’s urban transit 

systems experienced a total operating deficit of $513 million: 

 

This is a burden that should not continue to be met alone by the States and their local 

communities. Neither should we continue to resort to such short term palliatives as service 

reductions, deferred maintenance and fare increases. History teaches us that these 

expedients actually deprive those who most desperately need public transit of service and 

continue the downward spiral in ridership that has had such an impact on traffic congestion, 

environmental pollution and energy consumption. 

He added that, “We are convinced that the Federal Government can and should play a role in 

helping stabilize transit finances.” To do so, the Federal Government had several options, including 

“per passenger grants, aid for right-of-way maintenance and funds for maintenance, repair, and 

rehabilitation of equipment.” Dr. Ronan said his organizations were greatly encouraged by the 
745 

widespread support for the Senate bill, S. 502, and the bill introduced by Representative Minish, 

H.R. 5424, because they were “indicative of a national awareness that the Federal interest is well 

served by their intent.” The important thing, he said, was “to authorize such a program and fund it 

now so that we can preserve our existing transit systems as the base upon which to build new and 

improved ones.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 397-401] 

Representative Harsha commented on Dr. Ronan’s objections to the restriction of Federal-aid urban 

system funds to highway-oriented mass transit. Harsha pointed out that revenue coming into the 

Highway Trust Fund was insufficient for all highway and transit needs. Dr. Ronan agreed, but said 

that in looking at total needs, “one has to look also at what is the reality—in terms of scheduling, 

the leadtime necessary, and what are the priorities—in terms of need in order to meet the 

transportation needs.” Looked at that way, total needs become more managable. “If one looks at 

the totality and then says, ‘Let’s look at the amount of money involved,’ he sort of throws up his 

hands” at the impossibility of meeting all needs.

Representative Harsha asked if Dr. Ronan wanted the flexibility to use Federal-aid urban funds to 

pay the operating deficit for transit systems. Dr. Ronan said that he wanted the funds for capital 

purposes only: 

We believe that, certainly, the spirit and intent of the highway program was to build capital 

improvements and not to pay operating and maintenance costs of either highways or rail 

rapid transit systems, or, for that matter, bus systems. What we are urging here is just the 

modest option to allow some of the urban system funds to be used either for highways or for 

mass transportation purposes, whichever is preferable from the local viewpoint. 

Would subsidizing operating expenses, Representative Harsha asked, “put a premium on inefficient 

operation, or at least discourage or lessen the incentive for efficient operation?” Dr. Ronan thought 

the reverse would be true. “I would say now, with some years of experience in this, that the need to 

justify the expenditure of public funds for a transit system imposes upon its managers the need of 

make sure [sic] that there are programs to produce reliability, efficiency, and economy in the 

operation.” He added that the New York subway system, despite “all its vicissitudes” was “a much 

more efficient and reliable system than when we picked it up 5 years ago.”

Representative Harsha asked why the system had to be subsidized if it was so much more efficient. 

Dr. Ronan explained: 

Because of a social determination and a political determination that the fare in New York 

City should not be so high as to discourage ridership and that the labor pool that is within 

the New York metropolitan area should be made as available as possible to employers in the 

region. With the 35-cent fare, we do have a tremendous labor pool living on the subway 

system [sic] available to serve the business and industrial community of New York. 

This policy also serves to provide a means of low-cost transportation to those who could ill 

afford to pay a higher fare. 
746 

Actually, the subway and bus fare, if the transit system were to carry its full cost of 

operation, maintenance, and amortization, would be well over 75 cents. This would be a 

prohibitive cost for most people and so we think the community very definitely benefits 

from the present arrangement. 

 

Even at 75 cents, Representative Harsha wanted to know, wouldn’t the fare be cheaper than driving 

a car? “Actually,” Dr. Ronan replied, “for everyone to drive a car in New York would be an 

impossibility.” Further, the total cost, not only to the individual but to society in the form of 

pollution and amount of land needed for highways “makes the concept of having most of our 

residents drive to and from work an almost unthinkable proposition.” 

Representative Harsha pointed out that the 1972 National Transportation Report claimed that while 

diverting highway revenue to transit might increase ridership, it would not make any appreciable 

dent in pollution while increasing the number of highway crashes and fatalities. He asked if Dr. 

Ronan agreed with that analysis. He did not. Measured per passenger, the automobile is a far 

worse polluter than a bus. As for rail rapid transit, it does consume energy as well, but electric 

power plants “can be built, and, indeed, have been built, which have very minimal air pollution 

effects.” Problems such as where to build such plants could be solved, but the plants were 

becoming increasingly efficient, whether they are powered by nuclear or fossil fuel. [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 403-405] 

Representative Wright, the next questioner, cited several grants totaling $150 million in the last 3 

years, for rail lines such as the New Haven Railroad serving New York City. “And yet, you feel 

that this amount has not really been adequate for you to keep up with the growing demand.” 

Dr. Ronan replied: 

No; it actually is not, Mr. Wright, and to that I should add, to complete the picture, you 

would have to add some $40 million for the New Haven Railroad modernization which 

would bring it, roughly, to the $200 million I mentioned earlier. 

Our problem is we have an enormous job to modernize and to extend our public 

transportation system. For some 30 years in New York City, virtually nothing was done to 

improve the subway system or add any lines . . . . We have all that distance to make up, 

plus the requirement to extend and improve the system to meet future needs. 

Representative Wright pointed out that every transit system operated at a deficit “and unless we can 

see some phenomenal scientific breakthrough, I do not know that we should realistically anticipate 

anything other than that.” And yet, he added, the Secretary of Transportation threatened a veto if 

legislation reached President Nixon’s desk with Federal funds authorized for subsidies. As an 

alternative to the plan the President might veto, he suggested the funding plan he had discussed 

earlier that would give States the option to use up to one-fourth of their matching funds for Federalaid highway projects to assist with operating deficits.
747 

Dr. Ronan suggested that such a plan would be “fraught with certain perils, very frankly.” 

Moreover, he emphasized that he and the organizations he represented were not asking the Federal 

Government to meet the operating deficits of all transit authorities:

Mr. Wright, what we are urging is that the Federal Government pick up a share of the cost 

of operations and maintenance; that it do this under the definable formula and on an 

accountable basis as a Federal contribution toward a service, as it has done in other areas; 

and that this is essential for the financial well-being of the Nation’s transit systems.

He recognized that opponents used such phrases as “a never-ending gap” or “rathole,” but he did 

not think those characterizations were appropriate. A program based on a fixed formula, such as 

per-passenger-carried basis, would be workable. 

Did Dr. Ronan, then, not agree with Representative Wright’s funding idea? Dr. Ronan said he had 

“been groping for” an alternative to “what I would call the deficit approach.” He wanted a fixed 

way for the Federal Government to contribute “to the maintenance of rights-of-ways, which will 

assist the Nation’s transit systems—small and large—in improving service and avoiding fare 

increases.” To do so, the discussion would have to shift from “what I understand to be not only a 

fiscally difficult problem, but an emotionally charged problem in a sense; namely, picking up 

deficits.”

Since additional funding was needed, Representative Wright asked if Dr. Ronan minded if the 

source was not the Highway Trust Fund? 

Dr. Ronan. No. We would be very happy with money, Mr. Wright. I would say, however, 

one other thing here. We are concerned that, while the urban system situation remains in 

status quo, there is a very strong pressure of communities to use the highway’s money [sic]. 

Mr. Wright. If we were to arrange some system whereby a city, at its option, might use all 

or part of those urban funds, so long as it did not disaccommodate the traffic flow, giving it 

that flexibility and that option, would you quarrel with us if it did not perchance come from 

the Highway Trust Fund? 

Dr. Ronan. No. We would not because we are interested in the achievement of our 

objective here. Not the frustration of it which, I repeat is one of our concerns with the 

Highway Trust Fund as it has existed. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), 

p. 406-410] 

Representative Roe, who had worked with Dr. Ronan on metropolitan area transportation programs 

in the New Jersey/New York area over the years, focused his questions on a few “terribly 

important” points. He began by saying: 

What bothers me, and what I have been stressing all through the hearings is, if we were to 

get everything that would be available to the State of New York and New Jersey under the 

criteria and formula established, it would be meager at best as it relates to the dollar volume 

that is needed . . . . 
748 

He recalled the testimony by BART’s Stokes, who had said that BART expected farebox revenues 

to match operating expenses this year, but if the system experienced a deficit in future years, Stokes 

could not say how they would be covered. “If we are to deal in mass transit, we have to have a 

parallel program for substantive national funding, and national commitment has to be made to 

provide the funds in the first place.” He thought S. 502 was “seriously defective in its rigidity” by 

changing the regional criteria from 50,000 population to 400,000 for “the establishment of some 

new nebulous local transportation agency” that would administer urban transit funds. Using New 

York City (population: 7.5 million) and northern New Jersey (population: 3.4 million) as an 

example, he said it was “absolutely ludicrous” to divide the area among regional transportation 

authorities based on populations of 400,000 or more. 

Dr. Ronan responded that what bothered his New York organizations was “what appears to us to be 

a failure to recognize that there are indeed agencies, both planning and operating, that can be the 

recipients of these funds,” such as the Tri-State Regional Planning Commission. It is, he said, 

established and “its judgments are accepted.”

Representative Roe pointed out that in earlier testimony, the Governors of Maryland and 

Massashusetts had said they would not operate the mass transit program if each State had a host of 

small regional agencies as part of the Federal partnership. Dr. Ronan replied that, “Frankly, we are 

moving nationwide toward either the State being the vehicle or a State-created and State-accepted 

regional agency that could receive the funds, being set up specifically to meet the transportation 

needs of an area through a coordinated areawide system using all appropriate modes.” 

The next point Representative Roe wanted to make was that the issue was not simply how to pay 

the estimated $600 million deficit for transit and suburban rails each year: 

Now, why is it so difficult for people to understand this point, that it is not the question of 

providing railroads for passengers alone, as important as that is, but the total economy of 

New Jersey and New York . . . and getting freight, goods, and materials, in and out of areas 

and the economic viability of the region is dependent upon those rails. 

When Dr. Ronan agreed with the point, Representative Roe continued: 

When we are literally trying to take from Peter to pay Paul, the source of the Federal 

assistance funds and particularly the utilization of the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit 

being discussed here today is a nebulous point compared to the order of magnitude of the 

funds needed. 

Opening the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit would not come close to addressing the problem. 

Dr. Ronan said that New York City could absorb every UMTA dollar it could get, but was primarily 

dependent on State and local funding sources. He added, however: 

There is a strong attraction to us in, let us say, $1 billion highway moneys, which are locked 

up because we are not building certain arterial highways and we need all the money we can 
749 

get for urban public transportation projects. We are not going to be building the Lower 

Manhattan Expressway. That is out. The Cross-Brooklyn is gone. And others will not be 

built, at least this is my best judgment of it . . . . Therefore, at this juncture, instead of 

saying to us, “You must take it as highways or nothing;” give us optional use of the same 

amount of money. We will be able to complete our priority highway projects and continue 

the redevelopment of our transit system. 

Finally, Representative Roe asked for Dr. Ronan’s opinion of the Federal Government taking over 

the mass transit program as a national policy. Dr. Ronan pointed out that several European 

countries, including France, Germany, Britain, and the Soviet Union, had made a national 

commitment to urban mass transportation. “I would say, however, that in terms of the planning and 

the program of these, and the operation, I would hate to see the Federal Government endeavor to, in 

a monolithic way, take control of the systems and try to direct them. That would be mayhem . . . 

and an utter catastrophe.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 411-416] 

Representative Glenn Anderson recalled Dr. Ronan’s comment that he was seeking funds that 

would be available regularly, as would be the case if the source was Federal-aid urban system 

funding: 

If you have to get each year or every 2 years out of the general fund, you would be bucking 

every other pressure in the Congress whether it be housing or education or poverty, or 

whatever the problem would be. You would have to fight that each time, together with 

other things, such as impoundments, so you would want something that you could depend 

upon coming in on a regular basis. 

Dr. Ronan agreed, in part because of the long leadtime for construction. “One has to be assured of 

the availability of such funds in advance of committing a project.” That would be possible, he said, 

if regularly authorized Federal-aid urban system funds could be used flexibly. 

Representative Anderson and Dr. Ronan engaged in a brief colloquy to make the point that whether 

urban system funds can or cannot be used flexibly does not change the amount of Highway Trust 

Funds available. As Representative Anderson put it, “If we do not get the flexibility, it will be 

spent. If we do get the flexibility and the same amount will be spent, is that not true?” Dr. Ronan 

agreed, saying he simply wanted the local community to have an option on how the funds were 

spent. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 417-418] 

Representative Abzug picked up the questioning by recalling Representative Wright’s interest in 

helping find funds for transit. One way to help, she suggested, would be to consolidate highway 

funding into three essential systems: Interstate, urban, and rural. The Interstate funds would be 

used as at present, the localities would determine how to use the rural and urban funds. She asked 

Dr. Ronan’s opinion. 

He agreed, saying that he did not want to interfere with the Interstate System. When people spoke 

of the Highway Trust Fund as something of a “moral commitment,” he said, he really thought they 

were talking about building the Interstate System and, later, the urban arterials. “These were add-
750 

ons, and were not really contemplated in the original program authorization. He did not think that 

Representative Abzug’s proposal “runs counter at all to the idea that this is a fund, in trust, for the 

creation of an intercity road system.” In fact, he said, he thought her idea might enhance the 

original concept “by making it more viable.” 

(Contrary to Dr. Ronan’s statement, the urban Interstates had always been part of the program 

advanced in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.) 

Representative Abzug also asked for Dr. Ronan’s opinion on “a direct passthrough [sic] of an 

equitable per capita share to cities of over 250,000 population, pending a determination as to which 

authority, if none is set up or if one is set up, will be responsible for planning and developing an 

integrated system.” Dr. Ronan emphasized reliance on established institutional arrangements where 

they existed to ensure the funds go to an agency that will carry out an agreed-upon plan. The passthrough should recognize “some very important facts of life, namely, ownership arrangements and 

leases, because the subways we operate are owned by the city.” Well-established arrangements 

exist in most major metropolitan areas, and ignoring them to create new mechanisms “is to create 

chaos.” He added, “I think this is very important. Chaos will retard progress.” He said he did not 

want to use the money “to draw organization charts. We want to get this money into action.” 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 419-420] 

Representative Roberts took the final question slot. Citing Dr. Ronan’s comment about complying 

with the “agreed-upon plan,” Representative Roberts said, “This is exactly what the Federal 

Government had” with the Interstate System. “We had an agreed-upon plan with the States and 

with the cities, and a contract therefor.” Any transfer of this contract would constitute “paying out a 

premium to a city for a violation of a contract made.” He said “this is incontrovertible and I think 

this is one of the reasons we object to the reallocation of those particular funds.” He wanted to 

know if Dr. Ronan agreed that “if you take those funds that were allocated on the basis of the 

contract, on the basis of a plan approved by the city, by the State, and by the Federal Government, 

then you are paying the man to break a contract and in one case I was one of those people who 

sponsored it, $300 million to one city.” 

Dr. Ronan agreed that the country had an obligation to complete the Interstate System, but he 

thought that “within the terms of any trust which we may have assumed, certainly we have 

flexibility.” Citing the estimated $1 billion in unbuildable expressways, he said the urban arterials 

“are not going to meet the needs which, a few years ago, some people thought they would.” This is, 

he said, what he was addressing: 

And it does no violation, in all honesty, and I searched my conscience on it, to the concept 

in carrying forward the Interstate System [if] we use the money that would have been spent 

on abandoned urban arterials for transit. 

The Interstate System was “a magnificent concept, well carried through” that has left its “imprinit 

on the national economy.” Now, however, mass transportation needed “the same type of 

congressional backing and emphasis.” 
751 

Representative Roberts yielded time to Representative Abzug for one last question. She agreed 

with Dr. Ronan that Congress had “broadened the trust fund several times—by changes in 1962, we 

permitted it to assist housing relocation from Federal-aid highway construction, and in 1968 we did 

the TOPICS program, which involved traffic operations and safety; we used funds in this area for 

relocation, replacement housing, and further broadened that.” She mentioned construction of 

parking lots, bus shelters, bus lanes, and passenger loading facilities. Just as Congress had 

broadened the concept as needs arose, “I do not think that it is at all in the nature of breaching a 

contract” to allow flexibility in the use of Federal-aid highway funds for rail transit. 

Representative Roberts disagreed, saying that “in none of the cases you indicated was there a 

contract involved, and there is a contract on the trust fund,” but Dr. Ronan’s testimony was at an 

end. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 420-422] 

Carmack Cochran and other representatives of the American Transit Association took Dr. Ronan’s 

place. Unlike Dr. Ronan, they would take an aggressive approach on Federal operating subsidies. 

Cochran cited advances such as the opening of BART, construction of rail lines in Atlanta and 

Miami, and the January opening of the first stage of the El Monte-Los Angeles Express Busway 

(“Local decisionmakers in the Los Angeles area opted for the busway which is the first major 

busway project underway through the authority granted in section 142 of the Federal-Aid Highway 

Act”). 

(The El Monte Busway, built on a narrow strip (13 feet, 6 inches) of I-10 right-of-way (San 

Bernardino Freeway) from I-605 (San Gabriel River Freeway) in El Monte to I-710 (Long Beach 

Freeway), opened for bus-only service on January 29, 1973. At speeds up to 70 m.p.h. and a fare of 

70 cents, the buses cut trip time by about a third along the initial 7 miles. The planned busway was 

completed in 1974, with a 1-mile extension to Union Station added in 1989. [Hebert, Ray, “Buses 

Begin Freeway Runs in Special Lanes,” The Los Angeles Times, January 30, 1973; and Turnbull, 

Katherine F., Effects of Changing HOV Lane Occupancy Requirements: El Monte Busway Case 

Study, Texas Transportation Institute, published by FHWA in 2002, p. 2]) 

Nevertheless, “the transit crisis remains.” Now was “the time to reassess, to reevaluate, and to 

reorder priorities,” beginning with “the guaranteed financial stability of urban transportation.” With 

State and local governments strained to the limit, Cochran said that the Federal Government was 

“the only source having the resources capable of solving the problem.” Even as transit expands 

around the country, “the debate on operating assistance continues, and is now going into its third 

year.” He said that the only thing the debate thus far had proved was that “there is an unlimited 

capacity on the part of the money spenders to think up new reasons for not making good on a broad 

commitment to transit.” 

By now, “all the old arguments against such a program been shot full of holes.” First was the 

argument that subsidies were not needed and then the ledgers were opened. Next was the argument 

that operating subsidies would not work, but the 150 cities functioning with State or local operating 

subsidies weighed in. Then came the call for studies and they were conducted (“needs and 

feasibility are no longer an issue”). Another “critical plateau” was the argument that subsidies 

would not prevent the decline of transit by bringing in more riders, an argument that was refuted 
752 

daily around the country, and even just outside Washington on the heavily subsidized Shirley 

Highway exclusive bus lane experiment. 

(A recent analysis by the U.S. Department of Transportation had concluded that the Shirley 

Highway express bus lanes had reduced automobile traffic on the adjacent full-service lanes by 

3,140 vehicles daily, but was not profitable during its first year of service (July 1971-June 1972) 

based on fares of up to 80 cents a ride. The study found that the express buses were profitable 

during peak periods, but lost money the rest of the day when 10 buses carried only 63 passengers an 

hour. The project lost $17,000 in the last six months of 1971. Although the reduction in 

automobiles saved 1,700 tons of pollution, travel times for automobiles on the Shirley Highway 

were unchanged, possibly because of construction underway to widen the highway to eight lanes, 

according to the study. [“Shirley Bus Plan Cuts Traffic, Loses Money,” The Washington StarNews, February 23, 1973]) 

 

The most recent objection was that local officials could use General Revenue Sharing to alleviate 

the problem. Of 1,000 transit systems surveyed by the association, only 5 had used General 

Revenue Sharing for transit operations (Detroit, Little Rock, New York, Terre Haute, and Wichita). 

 Only 25 percent of publicly owned transit systems had the option to use General Revenue Sharing

since they were based in a city agency. The other 75 percent were independent public authorities 

supported from their own revenue sources from State, county, or city budgets as well as fares. “Our 

survey shows that such governments are opting for other eligible programs.” 

Cochran continued: 

The important point is that an operating subsidy is not a stop-gap measure to prop up 

financial deficits. It is not a case of pouring public funds down a rathole. It can indeed 

breed incentives, improve service, lower fares and reduce the number of automobiles 

congesting our streets and polluting our air. 

The key is the infusion of operating funds. 

State and local governments had reached their financial limits. “To raise property taxes any further 

in most areas is to invite municipal economic chaos—or, at the very least, unemployment for 

incumbent elected officials.” What was needed was a Federal program “to assist the cities in 

continuing present service innovations and to provide the incentive to other cities to institute public 

transit programs.” 

He cited the 1972 National Transportation Report stating that the Department of Transportation 

“supports making [revenue sharing] funds available to State and local governments for general 

public purposes, including operating subsidies, so that a State or local government could determine 

locally how the funds would be used.” In view of that statement, Cochran favored “an allocation 

of operating assistance funds to the States, with appropriate passthrough [sic] to local bodies, based 

upon a formula including the factor of population, revenue passengers, and vehicle miles.” The 

Secretary of Transportation should be able to apply 25 percent of the fund “to promote incentives 

and worthwhile experiments and demonstrations.” 
753 

Details could be worked out, but the “important ingredient now is time.” He said, “let us not get 

hung up on how it is to be done,” because delay risked rising costs, increased fares, and fewer 

riders. “Fares across the country are breaking the 50-cent barrier and the reaction of the riding 

public is predictable.” 

Stanley H. Gates, Jr., the association president, praised the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance 

Act of 1970, which he called “the opening salvo in the battle to restore balance to urban 

transportation.” The automobile had once been “a technological talisman signifying pride, 

prosperity and individuality” but now it was “a vehicle of suffocation—not only in terms of air, but 

in terms of our precious urban land, taking more and more for parking and rights-of-way.” As each 

urban freeway opened, more people took to their cars, “with the general prosperity covering the 

added cost” even as transit experienced fewer riders, less revenue, and higher fares.

In the 3 years since passage of the 1970 Act, several important lessons had been learned: 

First, that when the Federal Government undertakes a multiyear multibillion dollar matching

grant program, it has an incredible effect on the planning and financial decisions of local 

governments. 

Second, that when such Federal intent is spelled out, there are serious local repercussions if 

the necessary funding of such intent is not forthcoming. 

Third, that if mass transit is going to play catchup ball with highways, it had better have the 

benefit of the same ground rules . . . . 

Fourth, that action on behalf of mass transit was initiated in the nick of time.

One problem with the legislation was the conservative release of UMTA funding even as grant 

requests piled up, and President Nixon’s budget continued that problem. 

To equalize the programs, Gates said his association favored an 80-20 Federal-State matching ratio 

to establish equity among highway and transit projects. He chose 80 percent as an average among 

the 90 percent for Interstates and 70 percent of other Federal-aid highways. “It is logical and 

equitable that transit projects be funded on the same basis.” Further, the Federal Government 

should fund the planning process at 100 percent. 

As for the comment about the “nick of time,” Gates said: 

The urban highway decision which had compacted into a short space of time was 

threatening to secure irrevocable dominance of the private automobile—to the detriment of 

everyone—highway builder, local leader, commuter, transit dependent, transit official, and 

planner. 

The awareness of the importance of conservation of urban land and air gave a big push to 

the proponents of a viable transit system for every urban area. 

Now it is a question of not whether to do the job, but rather, how completely we make good 

on our promise to give it all it requires to do it right.
754 

These problems were happening in every State and every city. Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland 

were “in serious trouble.” Unless something happened, public transportation would stop in St. 

Louis on April 1. He concluded: 

We speak to you all as an industry to tell you that whatever I say, or whatever my colleagues 

say, every transit operator in any State in the Union would simply say ditto, and we would 

be talking about the simplest thing.

(The Bi-State Development Agency (called Metro beginning in 2003) was established in 1949 

through an interstate compact between Missouri and Illinois to provide a regional outlook not tied 

to any one municipality, county or State. In 1963, Bi-State issued $26.5 million in bonds to 

purchase the St. Louis area’s 15 private transit operators. To pay off the bonds and cover expenses, 

Bi-State raised fares (from 25 cents in 1963 to 46 cents [sic] in 1973) and cut route mileage by 

nearly half, resulting in a loss of nearly a third of its riders. State, county, and local jurisdictions 

had not arranged for operating subsidies. Yielding to public pressures, Bi-State announced in 1971 

that it would not raise fares or cut service any further. This plan, which The Washington Post called 

“a financial kamikaze course,” resulted in a threat of bankruptcy in 1972 that was averted only after 

a $1.2 million emergency appropriation from Missouri. 

(By early 1973, Bi-State was in default on interest payments on the original bond issue and was 

threatening to shut down on June 30 unless it received $903,000 in emergency payments, with a 

portion of that amount to cover the overdue bond payments. At the time of Gates’ testimony, 

negotiations were underway on a formula payment agreement for rescue by the two States, the city 

of St. Louis, St. Louis County, and 76 suburban municipalities. Elmer W. Belew, Bi-State’s 

executive director, offered a warning. “Come July, we will be back in the same fix unless we get 

additional money over and above the $903,000 that we need right now.” Bi-State would need $13.9 

million in subsidies in the fiscal year beginning in July and $21 million in the next year. 

(In The Washington Post’s words, Belew believed that, “After the deterioration of the last decade, 

Bi-State is at a point where it must either make a strong recovery or die out.” The Post drew the 

conclusion: “Mass transit cannot support itself out of the farebox; through their tax dollars, the 

non-using public must be taken along for the ride.” [Wilson, Andrew, “St. Louis Struggles to Save 

Buses,” The Washington Post, April 1, 1973]) 

SEPTA Chairman McConnon was the final association witness. He applauded Section 142 

(“Public Transportation”) of Title 23, United States Code, and continuation of highway-oriented 

projects such as the El Monte-Los Angeles Busway. However, he recommended expanding it to 

include the purchase of buses and rail equipment as well as the construction of highway-oriented 

mass transit facilities. To do otherwise would be discriminatory:

The exclusion of a rail option would serve to maintain the unacceptable status quo that 

forces State and local governments to opt for highways—just to get Federal funding to solve 

some of their problems . . . . So whether the answer to a particular locality’s needs is buses, 

rail or other fixed guideway systems, we believe the question of which mode would better 
755 

serve a given metropolitan area should be left up to the locale—instead of being 

predetermined by Federal statute.

 

He said the National League of Cities estimated that 50 percent of the revenue generated for the 

Highway Trust Fund came from cities. In 1972, when the Senate’s version of the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act allowed the use of urban system funds for highways or bus or rail transit, the 

association had conducted a survey. The results indicated that the bulk of the funds would be used 

on urban streets. “At best, $25 million would have become available for transit purposes” out of 

the $800 million authorized. He recommended that the Administration’s proposal for funding the 

Federal-aid urban system at $1.1 billion in FY 1974 be increased to $1.5 billion. 

McConnon endorsed the Administration’s version of the pass-through concept. “We recommend 

that funds be distributed to the States on the basis of their urbanized area population. Allocations 

within the States should be made on the same basis.” The association opposed restricting the passthrough to areas of over 400,000 population: 

We urge that each urbanized area have an entity certified by the Governor that is (A) 

capable of developing an areawide transportation plan, (B) predominantly composed of 

local elected officials from units of general purpose local governments within the urbanized 

area, and (C) capable of implementing or assuring implementation of the areawide 

transportation plan through one or more implementing agencies. 

He also suggested a change in the apportionment formula. “An allocation formula that makes sense 

for the highway program, then, is not necessarily appropriate for transit.” He recommended a 

formula based on passenger or vehicles miles. 

The association, McConnon explained, also endorsed the concept of allowing funds for unwanted 

urban Interstates to be used for transit. “Indeed, if we are to be realistic, the only way meaningful 

amounts of highway funds could be made available for transit aid would be through this source.” 

Redesignating the funds within the urban area of the Interstate mileage and their transfer to the 

Federal-aid urban system, with local prerogatives to choose highway or transit alternatives, 

including rail, was the best approach. When local officials decide to use the funds for transit, the 

projects should be subject to UMTA requirements. 

He finished by saying:

In conclusion, we believe that the action the Congress will take this year on several 

proposals affecting urban transportation will cap an 8-year effort to revitalize mass transit—

or at the very least, to preserve it as a viable alternative to the overdependence on the private 

automobile as the primary means of urban mobility.

For the sake of balancing our urban transportation systems between highways and transit, it 

is fortunate that these financial considerations come when the Interstate Highway System 

moves toward the final planning stages. 
756 

It is fortunate, because we are being forced to consider both needs together, and the riding 

public can only benefit by having funds and policy debated in such an atmosphere. 

It is imperative, however, that any dialog does not develop into solely a narrow more-transitmeans-less-highways viewpoint. 

Transit’s overall needs bear little direct relationship to the present funding levels of the 

highway program. 

These needs can be met only with sufficient funds to support all transit operations, improve 

and extend existing bus and rail systems, and help build the several new rail systems now 

being proposed by local areas. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 422-

432] 

During the questioning, Representative Harsha asked the panel to clarify the association’s position 

on the population limitation for pass-through funding. McConnon said, “we would not propose that 

it be limited simply to that particular number of people.” The nature of the area should be taken 

into consideration. For example, he was based in Philadelphia, with a population of 2 million, but 

it was adjacent to two counties with populations over 400,000. “I think an arbitrary limitation, 

strictly speaking, to 400,000 leaves an inoperable condition in areas such as that.” 

In a colloquy with Representative Roe, Cochran said that as an advocate of private enterprise, he 

had come to public funding as essential for transit only reluctantly but as he put it, “you have to 

accept the facts of life.” The basic fact was the transition from private to public transit systems. He 

pointed out that in 44 of the 50 largest cities, “the transit systems are operated as public operations.” 

 As for the remaining six, they would be public by the end of the year. 

Like the transition or not, the goal “must be to get people to use mass transit.” Congress had 

authorized grants through UMTA for capital projects: 

But you can have the finest bus that money can produce, you can make it the most luxurious 

in its appointments and it will not excel the attractiveness of the automobile because the 

automobile is a very fine instrument.

Now, so we have to go further than have capital grants. We have got to do something to 

attract people other than to give them a vehicle or facilities that correspond maybe with 

what they already have in their automobile. 

We have to have exclusive bus lanes. I think that is going to have to come for speed, and 

then we have to give them economy and attractiveness and that means reduced fares.

Now, if we can do that and get more people back on the bus, maybe we can stop, not only 

stop it [the decline in passengers], but we can build back to where we were. But we have to 

have money to do that, and whether it is a new line, an old line serving the area, the 

revenues must be supplemented because today, at this moment, whether it is a public 
757 

operation or a privately owned operation, the revenue from the farebox will not support the 

system.

That means we have to have the subsidy now. 

Representative Burke asked if Congress should anticipate that no matter how large the system or 

how many riders it carries, “we are going to have to put some operational money in.” Cochran 

explained that until the attractiveness of transit, compared with the automobile, diverts sufficient 

riders, transit systems had two alternatives:

One is to enact a law that you cannot drive an auto on certain streets. That is deplorable to 

us now. We want to stay away from that. 

The other thing to do is what I am talking about. We have the capital grants program, and 

that gives us money with which to make our plans. They will all be public, no private 

involved. 

If we can make the fare attractive and make the service attractive, and then the 

municipalities and the governmental agencies, I think must accept this responsibility that we 

have to have speed of operation . . . . 

Then I think we could see a reversal of this thing, and it eventually could become selfsupporting. At least I would like to think that. And I believe that would be so. [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 433-438] 

Later that afternoon, James A. Moe, California’s Director of Public Works since 1968 and Directordesignate of the California Department of Transportation, took his place at the witness table. The 

36-year old had strongly advocated creation of a Department of Transportation, but would serve as 

its first Director only until the end of the year. He wanted to discuss “three elements of overriding 

interest and importance” based on Governor Reagan’s letter to President Nixon (cited earlier). 

To set the context for the Governor’s concerns, Moe said: 

California is changing its transportation emphasis toward a balanced system. We are 

creating a State department of transportation with multimodal responsibilities in 

transportation systems planning and in resource allocation, effective July 1. We have added 

gasoline sales to our sales tax, thus providing over $140 million annually for local 

transportation purposes including transit, effective 8 months ago. Our gasoline gallonage 

tax revenue, which is shared on a nearly 50-50 basis with local government, can be used for 

bus transit lanes and bicycle facilities.

He cited such advances as BART, the El Monte Busway, the use of ramp metering to improve 

traffic flow on Los Angeles freeways, and operational programs to increase vehicle occupancy. He 

added: 
758 

As a leading State in highway development we have pioneered in many areas of 

engineering, maintenance, safety, right-of-way acquisition, displacement of peoples and 

businesses, and environmental concerns. 

All that being said, Governor Reagan’s concerns addressed a simple question: “What is the proper 

Federal transportation response to these changing times?” 

First, Governor Reagan strongly supported completing the Interstate System, but when it was done, 

Congress should rethink the Federal role. Moe said that if redefining the post-Interstate role of the 

Federal Government reduced national revenue needs, “then the Federal gas tax should be reduced. 

This will allow the States the flexibility of increasing their own revenues from this source.” As a 

donor State to the Highway Trust Fund, California was supportive of this approach because it 

would increase the revenue the State would retain for its own needs. 

Second, Governor Reagan opposed the pass-through of funds to local governments, a practice that 

Moe said “seriously disrupts and unbalances the distribution of the multimodal transportation funds 

within our State.” The State, with its ability to administer funds, was in the best position “to 

discern from local and metropolitan areas their goals and directions and allocate available Federal 

and State resources accordingly.”

Third, the Governor opposed the diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenues to other modes, 

including the Muskie-Baker amendment for Federal-aid urban system funds, Interstate substitution, 

transit operation costs, bus or rail equipment purchases, or rail transit capital expenditures: 

Should Congress choose to involve the Federal Government in transit programs to a greater 

extent, then we strongly recommend an adequate program financed, as in the past, from 

general fund revenue. 

We would not have any argument if that should develop into a third trust fund for that 

purpose. 

Based on these three concerns, California supported two key elements of Secretary Brinegar’s bill, 

S. 967: 

(1) The consolidation of the Federal-aid highway program into three categories—Interstate, 

urban, and rural; and 

(2) Recognition of demonstrated State competence by providing a certification process which 

will eliminate much project level redtape [sic]. 

Moe concluded his remarks by saying: 

In summary, the significance of our remarks relate [sic] to the need for a total reassessment 

of Federal involvement in transportation before existing programs are redirected and new 

programs are undertaken. 
759 

Specifically, between now and the next Federal Highway Act, 2 years hence, that is, 1975, 

the Federal role in transportation should be reassessed and those systems of truly national 

significance identified.

In making this reassessment, we believe the desirability of reducing Federal transportation 

taxes should be pursued, so that the States might have increased freedom to augment their 

own user taxes to finance multimodal programs of local-regional levels unique to the 

varying local and regional needs within each State. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 442-444] 

Representative Glenn Anderson began the question period by pointing out that implying a reduction 

in highway needs might result in a lower Federal gax tax was misleading. “I do not think any of us 

are going to see a reduction in the needs of the money.” Moe explained that if the Federal role were 

redefined as suggested by Governor Reagan following completion of the Interstate System, “then 

the Federal taxation should be reduced allowing the States then to meet their needs more capably, 

more responsibly and closer to the people they serve, and have the freedom to increase their State 

level of taxes, if necessary to do that.”

Is California taking this position simply because it is a donor State, Representative Anderson asked. 

 Moe admitted the State’s donor status was a factor, but not a key factor: 

The key reason is, we felt in 1956, when the Interstate System was devised and Congress 

decided to develop a special trust fund for its purpose and to increase the Federal gasoline 

tax in order to fund that program, that they made a commitment to the people to construct 

this system . . . . 

What we are suggesting is that it be completed as quickly as possible, that it be funded at 

least as it has been in recent years, completed as early as possible and then say to the people: 

 We have done the job, we have collected the taxes to do it, and we are reducing that tax to 

the present Interstate level.

He explained that he was suggesting a functional classification of all roads to determine which level 

of government should be responsible for improving them. Then the Federal role would be defined, 

and tax levels reduced accordingly.

Given the $60 billion in projected transit needs through 1990, Representative Anderson asked how 

Moe could suggest getting the funds from the general Treasury “when every year since I have been 

in Congress we have been deficit in spending of over roughly $25- billion a year, and that at this 

present time, with the increasing unemployment and the poverty hitting us, we are going to have 

increased demand on the general fund revenues, particularly since the phasing out of the Vietnam 

war.” In short, how could transit “compete with these four emotional issues?” 

When Moe simply repeated that California opposed the use of Highway Trust Fund for transit, 

which should be funded from the general Treasury, Representative Anderson asked if Moe was 

suggesting increased Federal deficits. Moe replied, “I am not suggesting the level of funding be 
760 

increased at this time. What I am suggesting is that if Congress determines [to] increase the 

funding level, that it be done from the general fund.” 

Representative Cleveland saw a contradiction in Moe’s testimony. The State supported Secretary 

Brinegar’s proposal to consolidate Federal-aid highway funding categories, but Representative 

Cleveland pointed out that the proposal was in the context of flexible use of the funds. He asked 

Moe to explain how California could support consolidation, but not flexibility. 

Moe said he did not support “flexible use of the urban system fund,” but did support consolidation 

of categories. He summarized the growth of programs from four at the time of the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1956 through 1966. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, he said, increased the 

number to 8, while the 1970 Act increased the total to 15. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, 

had it become law, would have increased the total to 35 separate programs. “We strongly feel the 

proliferation into more and more subdivisions of the Federal highway program are constraining to 

the States and provide them less flexibility to meet their own individual State problems.” 

In response to a question from Representative Abzug, Moe explained that the State’s opposition to 

the Muskie-Baker amendment on flexible use of Federal-aid urban system funds at local option was 

based on the Interstate substitution provision in S. 502: 

But this allows a substitution from an Interstate route that cannot be completed into an urban 

system fund or an urban system, and then with the “flexibility” the State would have in 

using that urban fund for rail transit along with bus transit in effect means that Interstate 

dollars would be going into rail systems in some parts of the country. This is what we have 

grave difficulty with.

Representative Burke asked if Moe thought Californians really wanted more highway construction 

or preferred use of highway dollars for other transportation options. Moe said that he was visited 

by groups of citizens every month pleading for advancement of their highway project, but added 

that “in some areas there are those who do not want freeways and would prefer to have 

alternatives.” He continued:

This frustration in California, as you are aware, was the main reason that we pursued 

legislation in 1971 that brought about the requirement for the development of regional 

multimodal transportation plans by 1975, and incorporated in those, working from the 

ground up, the development of a State transportation plan which is to be submitted to the 

State legislature by January 1976. 

This approach, Moe said, would allow the legislature to decide how to allocate funds. 

Representative Clausen, referring to the El Monte Busway, asked if such projects were not the 

quickest way to relieve congestion, namely by using existing right-of-way for exclusive transit 

service. Yes, Moe agreed. “Any scheme or method that will package more people into a single 

vehicle is going to help the congestion problem.” Just getting two or three people per automobile 
761 

would “make a tremendous difference.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 

442-449] 

A panel of union representatives appeared before the subcommittee. Jack Curran of the Laborers’ 

International Union of North America said the panelists were there partly to increase jobs for union 

members. “But our concern includes the quality of their lives, and goes beyond on-the-job 

expectations.” After describing the beneficial role of highways, he recognized that the Nation “has 

a readily apparent dual challenge in the transportation field, readily apparent to all of us who hail 

from or have visited major urban areas.” Although unions strongly supported a Federal role in 

transit, they opposed the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues for that purpose, offering two 

reasons:

(1) The use of Highway Trust Fund moneys for mass transit would weaken the effort to fulfill 

our Nation’s highway needs, which are still great.

(2) The program would fail to provide adequate funding for mass transit. 

To place upon the Highway Trust Fund the burden to finance both highways and mass transit 

would, we feel, do both programs a great disservice. 

Curran said that the unions supported measures such as Senator Williams’ proposal to provide 

general Treasury funds for operating subsidies and increased capital grants, but diverting highway 

revenues was not acceptable:

We urge Congress to seek new sources of funding for mass transit, and to explore the 

establishment of a separate trust fund, modeled on the Highway Trust Fund, to be used 

solely for the development of mass transit systems.

A separate trust fund could provide the substantial resources needed, while remaining free 

of the ups and downs of the annual appropriations process. Local governments would be 

encouraged to undertake the long-range planning necessary to build and improve major 

transit facilities . . . . 

Few doubt today the widespread and urgent need to put mass transit systems on a more 

sound and serviceable footing. We urge the members of this subcommittee to make the 

same kind of commitment to mass transportation in the 1970’s as you gave to the highways 

in the 1950’s, so that more balanced transportation systems can be developed to better 

service the public. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 459-462] 

Curran said that the panel’s ideas for financing a Mass Transit Trust Fund “might cause the raising 

of some eyebrows, but we have considered proposing an extra tax on gasoline, on tires, and the 

other taxable items that are supporting the Highway Trust Fund.” Acknowledging that this might 

not be the best approach, he recommended that Congress hold hearings on financing. The key for 

transit, as for highways, was to have an adequate, continuing flow of revenue that would provide 

the basis for planning systems. 
762 

In response to a question from Eepresentative Clausen, Curran summarized his views in support of 

a mass transit trust fund. He had suggested funding possibilities, but admitted, “I am sure there are 

other people who have ideas about financing and adding to a mass transit fund.” Hearings on the 

topic would be useful in identifying a sufficient revenue source: 

We oppose going beyond that because there just is not enough money in the Highway Trust 

Fund. In order to complete the Federal-aid highway program which has been a successful 

program and includes not only Interstate highways but the ABC roads, the primary, 

secondary, and urban road systems, we cannot dip into the Highway Trust Fund for other 

uses without serious [sic] violating the true purpose for which this fund was set up. 

Representative Abzug was confused by his testimony because it suggested “that if there were a mix 

or a local option for funds other than Interstate, that somehow or other that means there would be 

less money for Interstate. That is not so.” Allowing each area to decide how to use the money 

“does not result in taking away any money.” Curran responded that his broader point was that 

“there is just not enough money in the Highway Trust Fund to provide for the adequate funding of 

two programs.” 

Representative Abzug said she was surprised that the union supported “a separate fund that starts 

from nowhere, at a time when we are having impoundment and cutbacks come out of the general 

revenues.” How could a new trust fund emerge “when the priorities are not in that direction and not 

supported by those who have the most power; namely, the administration?” Curran suggested that 

the fund start with the revenue already authorized for the UMTA program. 

J. C. Turner of the International Union of Operating Engineers, American Federation of Labor and 

Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), added that given a need of $28-$34 billion for rail 

rapid transit by 1980, the Muskie-Baker amendment was talking about an amount, $800 million, 

that “is not really going to do a great deal for rail rapid transit.” Instead of setting “the sights very 

low,” Congress should consider putting a much larger amount in a Mass Transit Trust Fund that 

could secure revenues from a variety of sources, including the highway user taxes Curran had 

mentioned. 

Representative Abzug asked, “You really think we could pass that here and not have it vetoed?” 

She said the time had come to simply let local officials decide how to use the funds they receive. 

“What is wrong with that?” She asked the union representatives to think about that because, “I just 

think it is not practical to propose a new trust fund.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 463-465] 

The next witness was Donald Spaid of the American Institute of Planners and its National 

Transportation Task Force. He said the 3-C metropolitan planning provision of the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1962 was “an important threshold of organization for comprehensive urban 

planning.” Now, in the 1970s, a major task was “to build upon this organizational framework of 

transportation planning, and develop in each metropolitan area the capacity to translate the 

principles of enlightened transportation planning, programming, and joint development into the 

types of local projects that urban communities actually seek.” 
763 

To create a balanced transportation system, “planners and governments at all levels need to be 

provided with a choice of programs and funding.” Restricting funds by mode with a more favorable 

matching ratio “just naturally distorts the choices made locally.” Because of this “forced 

imbalance,” the institute “has been advocating the development of a ‘common fund’ for urban 

transportation assistance.” The current imbalance in funding and matching ratio for highways and 

transit “has complicated and often frustrated the locally controlled process of comprehensive 

planning for urban development.” For urban areas, this imbalance was one reason for the failure of 

the Interstate System.

Spaid strongly endorsed the flexibility provisions of S. 502 and urged the House to adopt them 

because “if we do not provide a funding flexibility we will again be limiting the type of 

transportation systems that are developed and in turn the growth patterns of the Nation.” He also 

endorsed the provisions of S. 502 that increased funding set aside for planning and the pass-through

provision for metropolitan areas. 

The Interstate substitution provision of S. 502 was a “key concept,” he said, because “areas with 

contested Interstates have a tremendous need for increased traffic capacity as evidenced by the 

decision to locate an Interstate there in the first place.” He cited FHWA figures identifying “37 

segments of the Interstate System which may not be built; 459.8 miles at an estimated cost of $5.35 

billion.” He said: 

These cities presently face a difficult dilemma; halting an unwanted urban Interstate 

segment versus rejecting a large Federal grant. Section 111 of S. 502 provides the 

desperately needed alternative for balanced transportation systems.

The institute was “adamantly opposed” to exemptions for Federal-aid projects, such as San 

Antonio’s North Expressway, from environmental statutes. Granting even a single exception would 

increase pressure to exempt additional projects. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 468-473] 

Robert M. Kennan, Jr., counsel for the National Wildlife Federation, appeared after Spaid 

completed his testimony. Kennan called the Federal-aid highway program “this Nation’s largest 

and most expensive continuing public works project” and summarized the result: 

It has encouraged us to consummate our love affair with the automobile. Its offspring 

include mobility, more diverse productivity, energy depletion, pollution, injury, and death. 

He cited the telling statistics: 10,000 new drivers secure licenses and a net total of 10,000 

automobiles are added to the highways every day; approximately 117.6 million motor vehicles use 

100 billion gallons of gasoline; and 54,700 people died on the highways in 1971, with estimates for 

1972 in the 58,000 range. Gas-powered automobiles “contributed 50 percent of the hydrocarbons, 

70 percent of the carbon monoxide, and 30 percent of the nitrogen oxide emitted into the air.” They 

took up precious space for parking, disrupted neighborhoods, destroyed community cohesion, and 

tended to “dominate the fabric and character of our cities.” He asked:
764 

Is this really the kind of urban life we wish to bequeath our children and grandchildren? 

Kennan said the Highway Trust Fund was “the principal reason why we appear to be caught up in 

this vortex of more cars, more concrete arteries, more disruption, and more pollution.” He urged 

the committee to make the maximum amount of Highway Trust Fund revenue available to finance 

all modes of transportation in urban areas. “When planners and politicians are freed from the 

constraints currently imposed by the trust fund, urban transportation decisions will be made on their 

merits.” 

He opposed the priority primary concept because it would “perpetuate the single-purpose Highway 

Trust Fund and make it impossible to place the need for these 10,000 miles of highways in proper 

perspective.” 

He also discussed the “crazy quilt” of public lands programs (Forest Highways, Public Lands 

Highways, Parkways, and forest, public lands, and park roads and trails). Traffic congestion was 

becoming an increasing problem on public lands: 

“Driving for pleasure,” which may have been a legitimate form of recreation 10 years ago, is 

largely an anachronism today. Many more people can enjoy and find refreshment in our 

scenic and natural areas if they are separated from their automobiles.

He asked the subcommittee to redefine the purpose of the “National Scenic Highway System 

Study” proposed by Section 145 of the 1972 conference bill to embrace all modes of 

transportation,” not just highways The subcommittee also should consider whether to replace the 

existing public lands programs with a multimodal public lands transportation program. 

Kennan said he deplored the proposal to exempt the North Expressway from environmental laws. 

“It would be a shameful precedent for similar action elsewhere in the country.” As an example, he 

cited the provision in the failed 1972 Act that would have withdrawn the authority of the courts to 

issue orders that would impede construction of the Three Sisters Bridge between Washington, D.C., 

and Arlington, Virginia. He said of this provision and others affecting District highway 

controversies (to be discussed separately):

It would be contrary to principles of proper planning and public participation in vitally 

important transportation decisions for this committee to attempt to compel the construction 

of any remnant of that antiquated system. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 480-483] 

The final witnesses of the day were John Lagomarcino and Barry Tindall of the National Recreation 

and Park Association. In a formal statement, Lagomarcino acknowledged the “inestimable 

economic and social benefit” of the highway transportation network. He added that this “heavily 

subsidized system . . . has impacted heavily on certain elements of the nation’s physical and social 

environment, particularly in urban and near-urban areas.” He added:
765 

Further, it is now critical, we believe, that our traditional approach to moving people, goods 

and services—particularly the automobile and truck—be re-examined in the context of 

changing physical and social conditions of the nation. Concurrent with this re-examination 

of total transportation needs must be action to utilize all existing sources of funding, 

including the Highway Trust Fund, and a commitment to broaden the base of financial 

support necessary for a total transportation program. 

He cited the importance of Section 4(f) and NEPA, but said they “clearly require only the rational 

approach to physical and social planning that the citizens of this nation have demanded and expect.” 

 The problem was that “NEPA does not require that a project be stopped if the impact is adverse. 

Section 4(f) does not sacrosanctly preserve.” 

The association, Lagomarcino said, opposed the provision in S. 502 that would terminate the 

contractual relationship between the State of Texas and FHWA with regard to San Antonio’s North 

Expressway. He discussed the project’s development at length, but said: 

Such legislation would be a dangerous precedent with serious national ramifications. 

Congress will have begun the task of undercutting, on a case-by-case basis, its own 

environmental safeguards. Will the Congress attempt to substitute its judgement [sic] for 

that of the Department of Transportation and the federal courts in an individual case. 

He objected to the provisions on the Three Sisters Bridge and freeways in the District of Columbia 

as well.

He also commented on sections of Secretary Brinegar’s bill, H.R. 5138. Section 128 (“Bicycle 

Transportation, Pedestrian Walkways and Equestrian Trails”) was intended to encourage multiple 

uses of highway and other rights-of-way, but was “permissive in nature and would not require the 

States to encourage and plan for such multiple use.” The growing significance of bicycles as 

transportation, particularly in urban areas “suggests the consideration of this and related forms of 

transportation should be mandatory rather than permissive.” 

Lagomarcino discussed two related provisions. Section 137 (“National Scenic Highway System 

Study”) called for the Secretary to “determine the feasibility of establishing a national system of 

scenic highways,” with $250,000 to be provided from the Highway Trust Fund for the study. He

pointed out that in 1966, the Department of Commerce (then home to BPR) had released a report on 

this same subject, A Proposed Program for Roads & Parkways, for President Johnson’s Council on 

Recreation and National Beauty. It proposed a 54,511-mile network with 20 percent or almost 

11,000 miles on new location. He said of the report: 

That we are a nation of “restless and roving citizens” is cited as apparent rationale for such a 

program. Economic and other social benefits are also noted. The report states that “driving 

for pleasure” is the nation’s most important outdoor recreation activity (italics supplied).

We have serious reservations about the rationale for such a program and disagree 

completely with the statement of relative importance of “driving for pleasure.”
766 

He recommended changing the title of the section to “Recreation Resource Accessibility Study” to 

examine the “total problem of receation area access for all users.” He said of the proposed study 

that, “Rather than a study limited simply to the feasibility of a scenic highway system (which is 

undoubtedly feasible), we suggest that it also focus sharply on the desirability of such a program.” 

To illustrate the need for such a study, he quoted a passage from pioneer environmentalist Aldo 

Leopold’s 1949 book A Sand County Almanac that ended: 

It is the expansion of transport without a corresponding growth of perception that threatens 

us with qualitative bankruptcy of the recreational process. Recreational development is a 

job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still 

unlovely human mind. [Leopold, Also, A Sand County Almanac, Oxford University Press, 

p. 175-177) 

The related provision, Section 148 (“Development of a Prototype of a National Scenic and 

Recreational Highway Program”), authorized Federal-aid highway funds for the location and 

construction of the “Great River Road” along the Mississippi River. It also authorized a National 

Scenic and Recreational Highway Program. Lagomarcino commented that Section 137 asked for a 

study of a program that Section 148 authorized. Such a program, he said, “is premature” and he 

opposed its enactment. 

Tindall said of the two related provisions that at the very least, “it seems to us that this was a ‘cart 

before the horse’ approach.” That was why reorientation of the Section 137 study was important. 

“We could then come up with some answers about perhaps such things as mass transit, wheeled and 

otherwise . . . .” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 492-499] 

Due to the late hour, Representative Roe concluded the day’s testimony with introduction of the 

association’s proposals. The hearing adjourned at 7:45 p.m., to be continued the next day. 

A Significant Crossroads in the History of Transportation 

When the hearings resumed on March 22 at 10:03 a.m., Representative Koch was the first witness. 

He said that since coming to Congress in January 1969, he had appeared before the Committee on 

Public Works each year in support of funding for mass transit. “And I think,” he said, “in all 

honesty, that the year for mass transit has finally arrived.” He was convinced of a “change not only 

in the country, but also in the philosophy of this distinguished committee and other Members of the 

House toward the need for mass transit.” 

He continued, “We are at a significant crossroads in the history of our nation’s transportation 

program, and I am here to urge the Committee to respond affirmatively in opening the Highway 

Trust Fund to mass transit uses.” The transportation modes were “so closely related that it is no 

longer feasible to treat each separately.” The decline in mass transit was affecting transit users, but 

also motorists who experienced growing congestion as a result. 

In New York City, as elsewhere, “fundamental changes” would have to take place in transportation 

patterns if the city were to meet the stringent auto emission standards of the 1970 Clean Air 
767 

Amendments. “This means that New York City will require considerable financial assistance from 

the federal government for rapid transit construction and improvement so that mass transit offers a 

more acceptable alternative to the automobile.” Unless more people switch to mass transit, the city 

might have to impose restrictions on automobiles in the central city. Citing the Los Angeles area, 

he said that providing viable mass transit facilities was preferable to rationing gasoline.

He recognized that for many years, commuters had little choice but to use automobiles instead of 

mass transit. To address the imbalance, Congress must give State and local officials the flexibility 

to choose the best alternative, be it transit or highways. 

He addressed the view often expressed by highway interests that the revenue in the Highway Trust 

Fund was held in “trust” for highway users. “I would submit that there is nothing more sacred 

about collecting taxes on gasoline than on cigarettes or liquor, the proceeds from which go into the 

General Treasury.” He also pointed out that most of the taxes were not earmarked for highway 

development until 1956. “There is no transgression committed in the Congress broadening the list 

of eligible expenditures to better accommodate today’s transportation needs. He favored creation of 

a National Transportation Trust Fund for all modes of transportation, as reflected in legislation he 

had introduced. 

Representative Koch was concerned about the provision in S. 502 that changed terms in the 

apportionment formula for the Federal-aid urban system. By changing “urbanized” to “urban,” S. 

502 expanded the recipients to include urban places with over 5,000 in population, instead of those 

with a population of 50,000 or more, thus cutting New York City’s share of the funds from $70 

million to $45 million. “I would submit that $850 million is little enough, out of a $6 billion 

budget, to be allocated to urban areas and should not be further diluted by the inclusion of what 

really are small towns.” He also favored the flexible use of funding from the “urban extensions” 

category as well as the Federal-aid urban system category for highways or mass transit at local 

option. 

In addition, he discussed his bill, The Bicycle Transportation Act of 1973 (H.R. 692). Bicycles 

should “be treated as an equal and integral part of a balanced transportation system.” H.R. 692 was 

intended “to afford those who choose the bicycle as their prime mode of transportation or recreation 

a safe and unmolested journey from point of origin to destination.” This goal could not be achieved 

“if the cyclist is forced to share the same roadway as the auto.” The provisions of S. 502, in his 

view, “should be treated as a beginning.” 

The 1972 version of H.R. 692 had been included in the Senate version of the Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1972, but not the House version. The House committee appeared ready to adopt the measure 

until an amendment was added that “was very misleading since although it affirmed the 

committee’s desire to have bicycle lanes and to provide moneys for bicycles, the moneys were to 

come out of the general treasury funds, not the Highway Trust Fund.” This would subject the 

provision to the priority determinations of the budget process, “and I know those moneys would 

never be forthcoming.” The bill also assigned responsibility to the Department of the Interior 

instead of the Department of Transportation “so as to remove any real oversight on the part of this 

committee.”
768 

In 1973, he urged the committee to adopt his proposal to improve bicycle transportation. The 

authorization, only $10 million a year, was “a very small amount” in comparison with the overall 

omnibus measure. 

During the brief question period, Representative Robert H. Zion (R-In.), a businessman associated 

with Mead, Johnson & Co., said he saw a problem. “A lot of folks think that this ‘sacred’ trust fund 

is a huge sack with billions of dollars setting [sic] somewhere that has been impounded, and there it 

is, all this money, we ought to use it for subways or bicycle paths, beautification, or for something 

or other.” It was, he acknowledged, “a lot of dough” equal to about $5.4 billion. But it had to be 

compared with unpaid obligations of $7.6 billion. “In other words, there is no money in the trust 

fund,” which he called “a bunch of IOU’s.” That, he said, “is the problem.” 

Representative Koch said the issue “goes to the heart of the problem,” but he could not agree with 

Representative Zion’s conclusions: 

[Those] are obligations which are incurred as a result of contracts entered into where 

payment is deferred over considerable periods of time. Therefore, $7 billion outstanding 

will not be paid out of the $5 billion currently in the Highway Trust Fund, but will be paid 

over a particular period of time. And I want to emphasize that each year the Highway Trust 

Fund collects $6 billion. 

The $10 million a year he sought for his bicycle program could easily be accommodated. 

Finally, he approved of the inclusion in S. 502 of $3 billion in UMTA funds for capital grants, but 

recognized that operating subsidies remained controversial. To those who argue that automobiles 

were not subsidized, Representative Koch pointed out that “in fact the federal government is

subsidizing automobile ownership and operation to the tune of $1.4 billion a year.” Leaving aside 

funding for the highway program, he calculated the amount by adding tax deductions related to 

automobile ownership and operation. “These are deductions taken on an individual’s tax return for 

interest on auto loans, state and local sales taxes on automobiles, and state and local gasoline 

taxes.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 501-506, emphasis in original] 

(On February 28, Representative Koch had attended the first annual Bicycle Symposium sponsored 

by the National Park Service. It was held at the Marriott Twin Bridges Motor Hotel near National 

Airport in northern Virginia. With 14 lanes of traffic just outside the hotel, few of the 250 

attendees arrived by bicycle. The Washington Post’s Robert Mott, who spotted only nine bicycles 

in the bike rack, was told by one participant, “if you came here by bike, you know that you just 

can’t get there from here.” This acceptance of reality came despite Mott’s characterization of the 

participants as “bicycle fanatics.”

(Ira Hutchison of National Capital Parks told participants about the “sense of satisfaction and even 

righteousness” he saw among bicyclists. (Mott observed, “That turned out to be an 

understatement.”) With 13 million bicycles sold in the United States in 1972 (compared with 2.4 

million automobiles) and an estimated 85 million bicyclists, “the mood was clearly confident, and 

the meeting had the air of a collective pep talk.” The participants even exhibited “a trace of 
769 

sympathy for misguided motorists.” One speaker said, “Since bicyclists are oppressed people, they 

must remember to cycle with courtesy and not with the same arrogance that many motorists 

display.” 

(Representative Koch talked about the bill he had introduced to give State and local officials the 

flexibility to use Highway Trust Fund revenue for bike lanes, shelters, parking facilities, and traffic 

control devices. Marie Birnbaum, representing the Department of Transportation, said the 

Department had supported similar bills and had now introduced a bill that would increase Federal 

funding for bicycling. She said that to be effective, a bicycle network “must be areawide and must 

have continuity,” the characteristic that was missing for the bicyclists attending the conference at 

the Marriott Twin Bridges Motor Hotel. [Mott, Robert, “250 Cyclists Wheel, Deal at 1st Bike 

Symposium,” The Washington Post, March 1, 1973]) 

Representative Shuster, a member of the subcommittee, requested time that he used for a statement 

contradicting Representative Koch’s statements on the Highway Trust Fund. He began, “I come 

before you this morning to implore the committee to preserve the Highway Trust Fund for the 

purpose for which it was created.” He acknowledged the “crying need for mass transit in the big 

cities of America,” but “diverting the Highway Trust Fund is not the proper solution to the mass 

transit problem.” 

He pointed out that highway needs totaled $600 million through 1990, with $300 million identified 

as absolutely essential: 

Yet, in that same period, the Highway Trust Fund is going to generate only $125 billion. 

Where will the balance of $175 billion for just the essential work come from? I don’t know. 

 But diverting money from an already inadequate trust fund is not a logical solution. 

This was not, he said, a case of yet another underfunded program. “The Highway Trust Fund 

represents the hope of rural America, of small town America, to grow and prosper.” 

Citing the importance of improved highways to fewer deaths and injuries, Representative Shuster 

concluded: 

The Highway Trust Fund is already badly overburdened. To open it for another use will 

only compound the problem. It will open us to the justifiable criticism of “robbing Peter to 

pay Paul” as well as the opprobrium of breaking faith with the people by diverting their tax 

dollars for a use not intended. 

During a brief question period, Representative Zion said, “I could not agree with anybody more.” 

He asked about the expenditure of $50 million a year for billboard control, with some advocates 

saying up to $1 billion a year was needed. He asked Representative Shuster if this money could be 

better spent on highway safety. Representative Shuster said that “we all want to beautify America,” 

but he thought we should “put things in their proper perspective.” On that basis, “it would be 

unconscionable for us to spend that kind of money on a beautification program when we could be 
770 

spending it on a program to stay alive.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 

507-509] 

Representative Harold Froehlich (R-Wi.), a one-term Member of Congress making his first 

appearance before the subcommittee, proposed extension of the deadline, July 1, 1973, for States to 

provide schedules for completing Interstate segments during the period of availability of Interstate 

funds. He explained the housing issue that was delaying completion of the social and 

environmental reviews of the Saukville-to-Milwaukee segment of I-57: 

It is thus impossible for the State to fulfill the procedures necessary to designate the 

Saukville-to-Milwaukee segment of I-57 by July 1, 1973, without callously disregarding 

social problems, breaching commitments to local officials, and stirring up a hornet’s nest of 

intense local opposition. 

The alternative was for the State to submit “a contrived, flimsy, dishonest schedule to the Secretary, 

which, in my opinion, could be easily rejected, or simply forfeit our claim to $150 million in 

highway funds.” 

Even if a perfect schedule could be submitted, it would not meet the statutory requirement for 

completing construction within the period of availability of Interstate funds, presently authorized 

through June 30, 1976. Wisconsin did not expect to complete I-57 until 1980. “As a result, 

Wisconsin cannot safely submit its plan to the Secretary until such time as the Congress extends the 

period for completion of the Interstate System to 1980. 

Representative Froehlich continued: 

Wisconsin has not dragged its feet in attempting to claim our share of the 1,500 additional 

miles of Interstate that were authorized in 1968. On the contrary, we have tried to move 

forward with a sense of social responsibility, to minimize the effects of “the Federal 

bulldozer.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 510-511] 

(As noted when Senator Nelson raised the issue on the Senate floor, I-57 was renumbered I-43 in 

1974.) 

Representative Bob Wilson (R-Ca.), who had first won election to the House in 1952, began his 

testimony by saying:

I don’t want to shock you this early in the morning, but I am here not asking for any money 

or for any diversion of the funds of the Highway Trust Fund. 

Instead, he was appearing before the subcommittee in support legislation he had introduced initially 

in 1969 to designate the Interstate System as the “Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.” He 

would support the provision of S. 502 designating a transcontinental “Dwight D. Eisenhower 

Highway,” but “I really believe the whole network . . . should be named after our great late 
771 

President.” His brief written statement referred to “a great Federal program and the great man who 

inaugurated it,” continuing: 

The program to which I refer is the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956; the man, Ike 

Eisenhower. The creation of the Federal Highway Trust Fund was, undoubtedly, the most 

important development in highway financing in the history of this nation. 

The bold adventure that became our highway system involved delicate negotiation, goodfaith compromise, and a vision of an American [sic] fully united and interconnected. 

Geographic isolation and natural barriers were overcome to promote the accessibility of all 

America and all Americans.

The precedent of the Interstate Highway System cannot be forgotten during the coming 

decades when the United States comes to deal with the crisis in urban transportation and the 

impending crisis in airport congestion. President Eisenhower, and the Congress of that 

time, provided us with a blueprint for productive Federal-State cooperation for mutual 

benefit and advancement.

In informal comments, he recalled:

I remember visiting General Eisenhower in Palm Springs the winter after he retired as 

President. I drove from Los Angeles through the busy city clear up to Palm Springs, some 

90 miles, in an hour and fifteen minutes. I remarked at the time that I knew a few years 

before it would have taken me about 3 hours to make that same drive. It was only because 

of the highway fund and the highway system that this fast transit was possible. 

The former President, Representative Wilson said, “deserves to be honored in having this highway 

named after him.”

Representative “Bizz” Johnson, also from California, and Representative Wilson compared their 

experiences on the Interstate System. Johnson recalled his cross-country trips to Washington since 

coming to the House in 1959 on a “very fine Interstate route” that allows the trip to be made “in a 

minimum of time”: 

It is much different than the old highway known as U.S. 40 or trying to follow the old 

Lincoln Highway back in the twenties. In the minimal amount of time, you could leave 

Washington going to California now in about a 3-day trip. It is a pretty good drive. But you 

have to go that part of Interstate 80 through the State of Kansas which is a very good piece 

of real estate to travel over. The speed limit there is 80 miles an hour, and you make up 

some time.

Representative Wilson recalled his drives from California to Washington after winning election in 

1952. Before the Interstates, “about the fastest possible time to cross the United States in those 

days was 7 or 8 days and now you can make it in 3 or 4 days.” 
772 

They agreed that completing the Interstate System as soon as possible should be the first priority. 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 512-514] 

After these brief appearances by Members of Congress, EPA Administrator Ruckelshaus took his 

place before the subcommittee. He explained that in 1970, Congress amended the Clean Air Act to 

mandate attainment of national ambient air quality standards to protect public health by mid-1977 at 

the latest. Traditional air pollution control measures, such as vehicle emission standards and 

stringent stationary source regulations, could help, but most metropolitan areas, including 8 or the 

10 largest, would need transportation control measures as well. He listed common measures: 

“improvements in mass transit, auto free zones, parking surcharges, staggered work hours, 

conversion of fleet vehicles to gaseous fuels, and retrofitting older vehicles.” 

None of the major metropolitan areas “approach the severity of the problems faced in the south 

coast air basin of California.” Under court order, EPA had proposed regulations that would require 

extensive changes in the area’s transportation system and way of life, but in all of the areas, “motor 

vehicle travel must be curtailed.” He continued: 

This comes at a time when intracommunity motor vehicle usage is increasing and continued 

urban growth is occurring, particularly in those areas already experiencing the greatest 

problems. Curtailment of motor vehicle travel will only be possible if adequate alternative 

modes of transportation are made available. Mass transit programs moving people where 

they want to go fast and in an inexpensive fashion can provide the incentive to reduce 

private motor vehicle travel.

Ruckelshaus strongly endorsed the Administration’s proposal to “allow local communities great 

flexibility in planning and delivering comprehensive transportation systems through the use of 

Highway Trust Fund moneys.” He endorsed the Muskie-Baker amendment to allow the use of 

Federal-aid urban system funds as well as the provisions of S. 502 that increased UMTA funding. 

He was, he said, “under no illusion that simply by providing the option of increased funding for 

mass transit, community motor vehicle pollution problems will be solved.” Measures were still 

needed to reduce the use of private automobiles. “Clearly, an integrated approach of providing 

better mass transit service coupled with a regulatory and/or economic disincentive mechanism will 

be needed in many communities.” 

He added that reducing air pollution was “only one aspect of the challenge of a balanced 

transportation system.” He explained: 

Even if we could eliminate all vehicle emissions, we would still be faced with a host of 

transportation related problems, noise, waste of fuel resources, congestion, unemployment 

and underemployment, and physical alienation . . . . 

With sufficient incentives and flexible funding, we could provide buses and commuter 

trains that are fast, safe, reliable, and convenient. Mass transit as a part of a sensible longterm solution to communities’ modern transportation needs must be included as a major 

element in the design of more efficient cities.
773 

Highways would still be needed, but a “balanced urban transportation system will only evolve if 

decisionmakers at the local level have a choice between various modes of transportation to serve 

their citizens’ needs.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 515-517] 

After these brief introductory comments, Ruckelshaus took questions. Representative Cleveland 

questioned the assertion that increased use of mass transit, coupled with a decrease in automobile 

usage would relieve the air pollution problem. He cited the 1972 National Transportation Report: 

On page 222 of that report, they make it quite clear that major shifts in funds from highways 

to transit in these large urban areas would significantly increase transit ridership and reduce 

transit travel time with comparable reductions in highway speeds and in the number of 

residential business dislocations and land taken. Fatalities, however, would increase as a 

result of the increase in the proportion of highway travel on arterial streets and increased 

amount of transit service. And then they go on to say there would be very little change in air 

pollution. 

The people who wrote this report are suggesting that if you switch from automobile to 

buses, you have still got a pollution problem. Obviously, if you switch to electrified rail 

transit you have to produce the electricity somewhere, and if you do it with coal or oil you 

are right back where you started.

He said that EPA was suggesting one thing, namely improved air quality, while the Department of 

Transportation was suggesting another, namely no improvement. 

Ruckelshaus did not see any contradiction:

I am not for a minute implying that simply by providing these funds for mass transit or by 

use of more mass transit systems that all of the pollution problems in a given metropolitan 

area are going to be over. 

In some cases, as Representative Cleveland suggested, shifting people from highways to transit 

“may be substituting one kind of pollution for another.” 

What he was suggesting was that in a place like Los Angeles, “where the problem is hydrocarbons, 

automobiles account for 85 percent of the emissions of this pollution in that area.” For example, 

diesel buses, if reasonably well used as substitutes for the automobile, could help make a difference 

in hydrocarbons. “In every instance, the option of going to rail or bus may not be the best option in 

terms of air pollution, but we are trying to broaden their options so they will not be put . . . .” 

Representative Cleveland interrupted to ask a question based on comments from his constituents in 

Vermont. They were concerned that emissions requirements would increase the cost of an 

automobile even though they rarely, if ever, drove their vehicles in Boston or New York City. They 

asked, “Why is it necessary to have these standards uniform throughout the country” when the 

problem is primarily in urban areas.
774 

Ruckelshaus replied that, “I refuse to take the full blame for the Clean Air Act of 1970 . . . . There 

are extremely stringent requirements put into the act, written in the act by Congress, and also 

stringent deadlines.” He added that hearings were underway on whether the automobile companies 

should be given an extension to meet the 1975 standards. “I am trying to come to a conclusion 

under court order again as to whether they should be given a 1-year extension of time.” 

EPA had considered a two-car approach of “an essentially clean car in the urban area and the other 

for rural areas,” but encountered “tremendous problems with such a strategy.” For example, the 

automobile companies reported that restricting rural dealerships from selling to people living in 

urban areas would be difficult. Despite administrative concerns, EPA was continuing to explore the 

idea and would recommend it to Congress if it appeared to be in the public interest. 

Representative Cleveland’s final question concerned the cost of removing air pollutants. Removing 

some or most was in the public interest, but he wondered if in trying to remove the last 5 or 10 

percent of pollutants, “we may be getting ourselves into a situation where economically and 

practically it is just not feasible.” Ruckelshaus agreed that cost had to be compared with benefits: 

Based on the best information we can get, it is going to take standards as stringent as have 

been set on automobiles or motor vehicle emissions in order to achieve acceptable levels of 

air quality in many metropolitan areas of this country, Los Angeles being only the most 

obvious. 

So while we are putting considerable pressure, both economic and psychological, on the 

automotive industry, I frankly believe that pressure is justified in terms of public health and 

also is probably the only way we are ever going to get action in the production of a cleaner 

engine. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 518-520] 

The next questioner, Representative Johnson, recalled that the Los Angeles area had an efficient 

mass transit system, both rail and streetcars, as well as a bus operation, a few years back “and they 

eliminated all of it, you might way.” He asked Ruckelshaus why the transit system was eliminated. 

 He thought that in the 1930’s, city officials decided to give highways the right-of-way. “So most 

of the system that existed there in the 1920’s and 1930’s, which was one of the most complete in 

the world at that time, has now been paved over.” Ruckelshaus added that, “There was nothing evil 

about it . . . . They had no idea in the 1920s and 1930s of the impact of the automobile.” 

Representative Johnson pointed out that he had met with Los Angeles authorities recently and they 

expected that developing a new transit system would take a long time. “I doubt whether it will ever 

come in time to meet your deadline.” (Ruckelshaus interrupted, saying “I have never for a minute 

questioned that.”) The transit officials were concerned about getting enough people to use the new 

system. “The reason they eliminated it in the first place was that nobody used it. It was a losing 

proposition.” The same thing happened, Representative Johnson said, in the Bay Area: 

We had good rail transportation on the peninsula. We had good electric car transportation 

from the East Bay to San Francisco and throughout the East Bay. We eliminated those; 

even with the construction of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, we provided for a rail crossing, 
775 

and they operated it. The only reason they discontinued was because there was no business 

[sic]. It was a losing proposition. 

A rail line from San Jose to San Francisco was still in operation, but “there are very few people 

riding it.” He worried that BART would not be able to attract enough riders to reduce the use of the 

automobile. “Now . . . it is going to take an awful lot of time [and] I doubt whether the amount of 

diversion that has been asked for will ever be complete.” Citing such EPA proposals as gas 

rationing, he asked Ruckelshaus, “I would like you to give me a general idea how we are going to 

do all of this?” 

Ruckelshaus said he did not mean to suggest that the “relatively simple” legislative changes under 

consideration would solve the complex problems facing the country’s metropolitan areas, 

“particularly the problems as complicated and severe as they are in . . . Los Angeles.” Under the 

Clean Air Amendments of 1970, the Los Angeles area had to meet the ambient air quality standards 

and even after retrofitting, setting up an inspection program, and other measures, vehicle miles 

traveled would still have to be reduced by 80 percent: 

Now, I do not know how to do that, frankly, but the court ordered me to do it [issue a plan] 

by January 15 or I would be in contempt of court. So we were dealing with my freedom. At 

that point I can get very serious about it. 

What we tried to do, in the case of Los Angeles, was to get the people of that community, 

particularly the State and local officials to focus on the magnitude of the problem. And I 

think it is a 20- to 25-year problem to solve it effectively and to come up with some overall 

plans, not separate plans for highways and another plan for rail transportation and another 

for bus transportation, but an overall comprehensive plan for transportation that would take 

into account all of the problems that exist in that basin, including the severe air pollution 

problem. 

He could not say how to get people to use mass transit, but thought that regulatory measures, as 

well as incentives such as mass transit, would be needed. 

Representative Johnson said “we have a very definite obligation in perfecting the Interstate 

System.” Although improving mass transit was a real problem, it could be well taken care of “if 

they will allocate or appropriate sufficient funds from the general fund to get the studies underway 

and to find out exactly what they are going to do. He added, though, “I think the moneys that are 

accruing in the trust fund at the present time are badly needed to continue and complete the 

Interstate System.” 

Ruckelshaus responded that he understood that under predicted funding levels, all Interstate funds 

would be obligated by 1980 and the Interstates completed by 1982. Turning to the Federal-aid 

urban system, however, he said “it is important that local officials not be faced with a choice of 

either building highways because that money is available . . . or doing nothing because he will lose 

these moneys . . . .” Some areas might conceivably want to build more highways, but “I would like 

to be able to look at the choices available without being asked [to go] in one direction or another 
776 

because of the availability of funds. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 520-

523] 

Representative Abzug had tried unsuccessfully to ask a question during Representative Cleveland’s 

time. Now, she tried again, but Representative Kluczynski denied her request and turned to 

Representative Zion for the next question period. 

He was concerned about energy shortages, “particularly when the OPIC [sic] nations can blackmail 

us.” If an oil shortage occurred, would the emphasis on reducing auto emissions increase the need 

for gasoline. For the record, Ruckelshaus submitted an EPA study, Fuel Economy and Emission 

Control (Office of Air and Water Programs, Mobile Source Pollution Control Program, EPA), that

concluded: 

The average fuel economy loss due to emission controls for 1968-1973 vehicles is less than 

8%. This penalty is approximately equal to the penalty associated with the use of 

convenience devices such as air conditioning or automatic transmissions. Despite the many 

statements regarding the loss in fuel economy due to meeting the 1975/1976 standards, no 

significant trend has yet developed in the data available to EPA. 

Ruckelshaus suggested that, “If you are really interested as you ought to be in conserving fuel, it 

seems to me we have to look at those things in the automobile that cause excessive use of fuel.” In 

addition to air conditioning and automatic transmission, he mentioned the weight of the vehicle, 

which averages from 2,000 to 5,000 pounds. 

Representative Zion began to ask a question about the diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenues 

for other purposes before the Interstate System was completed (we are, he said “roughly four-fifths 

finished, with half the cost yet to be spent”), but Representative Abzug pointed out that he had 

already exceeded his 5-minute time limit. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 

523-533] 

Representative Abzug would have to wait because Representative Roe was next. He was concerned 

about the effort to regulate a solution to the problem of air pollution: 

The point I am trying to make is why is it that the administration, and why is it, in fact, that 

the Congress will not make a national transportation commitment. You cannot solve the air 

pollution problem unless we do something on mass transit in this country. I think it is 

unfortunate that the media, the press, the spokesmen for the administration are coming down 

on a point of view that there is going to be some great magic and Hosannah, Hosannah, 

Hosanna, again we solve the problems of America by speeches, providing “flexibility” in 

the urban areas through the so-called special revenue-sharing funds . . . . 

I know there is a strong debate amongst the members on this issue, but I think it is a fraud 

on the American people. It is more razzle-dazzle, here we go. 
777 

Now was the time to come together and say the way to solve this problem of air pollution was to 

develop “a comprehensive mass transit system” to give Ruckelshaus and State and local officials 

the tools they need. “Does it not really seem that the time is overdue for the Nation to make this 

kind of a national commitment to mass transit and to a balanced integrated transportation system?”

Ruckelshaus agreed that what was needed was “a balanced transportation system that provides for 

safe, convenient, inexpensive transportation to the people of this country.” Mass transit may not be 

the answer to everyone’s problems, but local officials ought to have more flexibility in deciding 

how to use the available resources.

Representative Roe, running out of time, quickly referred to the debate over operating subsidies. 

“The minute you mention subsidy everybody runs and hides. But everybody testified to the point 

that they cannot carry the system alone.” It would take 20 years to create a viable system. “Are we 

going to choke to death in the interim?” So many factors that make America great depended on a 

productive transportation system, but “everybody is running for paste and glue and fighting the fact 

that we have got to deal with this issue.” His time was up before Ruckelshaus could respond. 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 534-535] 

Representative Clausen, who observed that preferential bus lanes were seen as a major part of the 

solution, wanted to know what progress was being made on the engines of buses to reduce 

pollution? Ruckelshaus acknowledged that “buses are thought to be big pollutants because you can 

see emissions from the back of the buses and smell their odors.” However, “the diesel engine 

which power [sic] those buses is not nearly as polluting as the emissions from engines with 

hydrocarbons.” That was why diesel-powered buses would be useful in the Los Angeles area. 

“Tremendous strides” had been made in producing cleaner buses. 

Referring to the study showing that emissions devices had about a 7 percent penalty in gas use, 

Representative Roberts said, “The automobile dealers tell us it is 30 to 40 percent.” Ruckelshaus 

replied, “That is categorically false.” 

They compared notes on their own vehicles. Roberts had two identical cars, even to the color, but 

the one without an emission device got 15 miles per gallon while the one with such a device got 

only 81⁄2 miles per gallon. Ruckelshaus said he had a hybrid car that had a little switch that he 

pulled to use propane or gasoline. EPA was suggesting use of such vehicles in Los Angeles and a 

few other areas, but for now, “I can tell you when you run out of gas it is hard to find a propane 

station.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 536-537] 

Representative Kluczynsi recognized Representative Abzug for her 5-minute question period and, 

perhaps by way of apologizing for not recognizing her previously, gave her 2 extra minutes. She 

replied, “I appreciate all the chivalry.”

She asked if EPA had figured out, on a per-passenger-mile basis, how the private car, bus, and rail 

create air pollution. He submitted a table for the record, but told her, “It is clear that the bus and 

automobile are the biggest cause of air pollution.” 
778 

She wanted to clarify that contrary to the implication of some of the questions thus far, none of the 

bills under consideration would divert any Highway Trust Fund revenues from completion of the 

Interstate System. “We are really talking about a local option which has nothing to do with the 

Interstate fund, but rather with the rural and urban funds.” 

Further, she said ideas such as people having two cars, one clean and one unclean, or driving 

around New Hampshire polluting the air, but not the people of New York City, were interesting: 

I think as highways go on and as time goes on, we will be very effective in polluting not 

only New York but New Hampshire as well. And I think that all of us should join together 

in seeking to find a way in which we can really bring the whole issue of transit to a point 

where we pollute nobody . . . . 

Those who are concerned with various industries, such as the automobile industry, the 

highway industry and related byproducts and so on, are going to have to realize . . . that we 

may have to be much more intent upon actually banning automobile travel in certain areas if 

we are to relieve our citizens in certain metropolitan areas from the serious health hazards 

which are created. 

She was pleased that Ruckelshaus had mentioned auto-free zones as one option. She asked if he 

agreed that Congress should pass legislation to give local officials in heavily polluted cities “some 

kind of basis to deal with the problem,” as reflected in S. 502 and the Administration bill. 

He started to reply (“I would like to have the maximum”) but she continued, saying that some 

members of the committee thought “we can get enough relief from the Mass Transit Act.” If the 

bill contained operating subsidies, she asked, what would he recommend regarding that bill? She 

probably meant to ask if he would recommend a presidential veto, but her question was unclear as 

she rushed toward her time limit. He responded: 

I think we ought to be looking at all the subsidies given by Government to various modes of 

transportation and try to even those out. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 537-541] 

When Representative Anderson’s turn came, he wanted to respond to Representative Johnson’s 

comments about the Los Angeles street car system. In contrast to Representative Johnson’s 

favorable comments, Representative Anderson wanted Ruckleshaus to know, “It was not good.” 

His father commuted daily by streetcar and by the time it reached Los Angeles, “it was crowded, 

people hanging on the backs and sides and it was hot. By the time they got to where some of the 

people got off, it became windy and damp.” He attributed his father’s death at 52 to a bronchial 

condition “attributed directly to this daily ride on that ‘good’ Los Angeles streetcar.” He continued: 

It was not a good system. We people talk about the “good old days.” They were not good 

old days. They stopped at every corner. You traveled 40 miles to get there. People got cars 

to get across that area. It was a miserable system.
779 

Ruckelshaus, who had not lived in Los Angeles at the time, said, “I do understand that it was a bad 

system.” By contrast, modern systems, such as one he had seen in Mexico City, could be safe and 

efficient. Cities have a relatively short time to meet air quality standards. “Now the time frame in 

Los Angeles, 1977, is an absolute deadline, ambient standards have to be achieved by then and our 

plan had to focus on reducing the vehicle traffic by 80 percent in the manner suggested.” 

Representative Anderson asked how much would pollution be reduced if the Los Angeles area 

could reduce automobile traffic by 25 percent. Ruckelshaus replied, “It would be reduced 

considerably,” but did not continue when time ran out. 

Representative Burke explained that when EPA proposed drastic measures such as gas rationing for 

the Los Angeles area, many of her constituents asked her, “Now what are they doing as far as 

[asking] the automobile manufacturers to come up with something” to reduce pollution. She asked 

about EPA’s efforts with the industry. 

Ruckelshaus acknowledged that during the 8 days of hearings on the proposal, the attitude often 

was, “Why do you not get Detroit to do something about it?” He explained that the Clean Air 

Amendments of 1970 set strict standards, resulting in the proposal for the Los Angeles area. He 

also had set interim standards to reduce hydrocarbons from automobiles on sale at the time. 

Hearings were underway to determine whether to grant a 1-year extension to the industry. “If we 

grant the extension, then, under the law, we could set an interim standard somewhat higher than the 

1973 standard.” He added that, “If by 1985 every car met the 90-percent reduction in hydrocarbons, 

as mandated by the 1975 standard, you would still have to reduce the amount of travel in Los 

Angeles.”

He said that given a choice between two kinds of standards, Congress elected to go with 

performance standards instead of design standards: 

It says any car produced after 1975 has to have reduced . . . its hydrocarbons emissions 90 

percent over allowable emissions in 1970. They could have set a design standard and said 

you use this kind of technology in the automobiles. We have no authority to dictate 

technology. The only authority I have is to determine whether the technology as it now 

exists can be mass produced by 1975 so as to achieve the performance standards set by 

Congress. 

Representative Burke also asked about the high price of unleaded gasoline, despite predictions that 

it could be produced at reasonable costs. Ruckelshaus said that under the EPA standard, every 

gasoline station must have at least one brand of lead-free gasoline by mid-1974. EPA was 

considering whether to eliminate lead in gasoline entirely. 

When Representative Burke said that people would not buy unleaded gasoline if the price was too 

high, Ruckelshaus pointed out that EPA had also issued regulations so that new cars would require 

lead-free gasoline and “the nozzles on the gasoline pump will not fit into the tank unless they have a 

lead-free gasoline pump.” He explained:
780 

That is the only way to do it. People are not going to voluntarily buy lead-free gasoline for 

whatever reason because they know an individual car cannot have that much effect on the 

atmosphere. It takes governmental regulation to insure that if lead is a health problem that 

lead-free gasoline is made available and used. You cannot do it voluntarily. People will not 

buy lead-free gasoline. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 541-544] 

Representative Burke’s questions concluded Administrator Ruckelshaus’ testimony as the morning 

session ended. 

(When asked about the elimination of the Los Angeles rail and streetcar network, Ruckelshaus had 

said, “There was not anything evil about it.” The area’s rail and streetcar lines had been in decline 

for years. As Dr. Scott L. Bottles’ book on Los Angeles and the automobile explained, the 

industry’s struggles “began immediately following World War I when the high fixed costs 

associated with rampant overcapitalization forced many railways into receivership.” As automobile 

ownership increased, ridership declined while the Depression took an additional toll on the 

industry: 

Only World War II with its rubber and gasoline shortages saved the companies. Although 

ridership and profits improved dramatically during the war years, the recovery proved 

temporary. Income and patronage once again fell following the return to normalcy. 

Angelenos went back to using their cars, while traction executives found themselves stuck 

with even older and more antiquated equipment. 

(As in many urban areas, residents of the Los Angeles area did not view the transit companies “as 

virtuous, responsible public utilities trying to provide a public service.” Dr. Bottles described 

public attitudes:

People in Los Angeles during the first three decades of the century constantly complained 

about the quality of rail transit. From their point of view the railways sought to benefit at 

the public’s expense. In seeking to operate their business profitably, railway officials, in the 

minds of many citizens, deliberately ran too few cars, refused to build necessary crosstown 

lines or tracks into lightly populated areas, ignored the safety of the public, and bribed 

elected officials for favors. Frustrated by inadequate and inefficient service, Angelenos 

turned to the automobile manufacturers to supply them with an alternative means of 

transport. 

(Public attitudes did not improve over the years as the growth of automobile traffic put pressure on 

the transit companies to remove the fixed rail lines that blocked traffic and could not serve shifting 

population centers. It also reduced company revenues, resulting in reduced service on aging, 

inefficient vehicles. By the 1950s, area residents were relieved by the gradual demise of the 

companies. Author Robert C. Post, an expert on the area’s rail lines, described the gradual decline 

of the Red Car interurban streetcars: 
781 

The last trolleys ran from Los Angeles to Venice and Santa Monica in 1950, to Pasadena, 

Arcadia, and Glendora in ’51, to Van Nuys in ’52, to Hollywood and Beverly Hills in ’54, to 

Glendale and Burbank in ’55, to Wilmington and San Pedro and Bellflower in ’58. 

Or, rather, the lines remained in service, but management switched the mode from steel 

wheel to rubber tire on public roadway. 

(The last Red Car line, between Los Angeles and Long Beach, ended service in 1961, followed 2 

years later by city streetcars.

(Recalling the experience, Los Angeles area residents were slow to accept plans for a modern 

transit network. [Bottles, Scott L., Los Angeles and The Automobile: The Making of The Modern 

City, University of California Press, 1987, p, 4, 241-242; Post, Robert C., “The Myth Behind the 

Streetcar Revival,” American Heritage, May/June 1998, p. 96, 98])

When the hearings resumed in the afternoon at 2, Chairman Mahon of the Committee on 

Appropriations was at the witness table. He told the committee that he wanted to address a “narrow 

angle” of the fiscal situation:

We are trying to get better control of fiscal affairs in the Nation.

We are trying to create a better image for Congress, and, of course, we constantly struggled 

toward doing a better job. 

He was concerned about the Williams amendment, the Emergency Commuter Relief Act, that the 

Senate had adopted in S. 502. “This amendment adds $800 million in Federal funds contract 

authority over a 2-year period to initiate a subsidy program for mass transit.” He did not want to 

address the merits of operating subsidies. His concern was with the “granting of contract authority 

as opposed to authorization for appropriation.” 

He described the issue as part of the ongoing struggle with the Executive Branch over congressional 

control of the budget: 

Of the $288 billion budget authority requested this year, $173 billion, or about 60 percent, 

will be handled in appropriation bills. 

The other authority will become available through permanent appropriations such as trust 

funds and interest payments on the debt, authority to spend debt receipts, and through 

contract authority. 

Uncontrollability of the budget is one of the principal reasons why Congress continues to 

lose its grip on the purse strings. 

He urged the members “to seriously consider providing authorization for its annual appropriations 

to fund this program—if the committee in its wisdom decides to accept the Senate amendment.” 
782 

He added that, “there is nothing unique about the nature of the program that requires contract 

authority as a financing mechanism.” He did not think that eliminating contract authority would 

harm the program. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 545-546] 

(As discussed earlier, contract authority permits programs to obligate authorized funds in advance 

of appropriations. For a program involving projects that take multiple years to complete, contract 

authority is critical. The Post Office Appropriation Act for 1923 had initiated contract authority for 

the Federal-aid highway program and it remains a key feature of the program. Among the impacts 

was to give State highway officials reason to do preparatory work on projects that would not go to 

construction until a following year. [America’s Highways 1776-1976, p. 206] That is why 

Representative Mahon had pointed out that “there is nothing unique about the nature of the 

[subsidy] program” that would justify contract authority as a financing mechanism, since operating 

subsidies involved single-year expenditures rather than long-term planning. Transit advocates 

favored contract authority because it minimized the prospect of losing in the House and Senate 

Appropriations Committee what they had gained in the authorizing committee.) 

The next panel to appear before the subcommittee was from AASHO, headed by president Airis. 

He was accompanied by Maine’s David Stevens and Executive Director Henrik Stafseth. Their 

testimony restated the views expressed during their testimony in February before Senator Bentsen’s 

subcommittee. Their views included: 

• The Interstate System should be funded at $4 billion a year until completion. 

• AASHO suggested $1 billion a year for the Federal-aid urban system, with TOPICS 

included rather than as a separate program.

• For Interstate sections that cannot be built, “it may be desirable to construct such sections on 

a different location in order to provide for a connected system of Interstate highways.” The 

cost of substitute sections should be limited to the cost of the unbuilt section. 

• The deadline should be extended to July 1, 1977, for establishing a schedule of expenditure 

to complete Interstate segments. 

• AASHO opposed increased Interstate mileage at least until the current mileage is 

completed.

• AASHO also opposed discretionary distribution of funds, “preferring to see fixed factor 

formulas developed for such distribution.” 

• A 70-30 Federal-State matching ratio was desirable, “in order that the accumulating 

Highway Trust Fund balances can be recycled into their intended purpose . . . .” 

• They recommended consolidated safety categories because “the creation of additional 

categories of funding presents very real difficulties in the administration of a program.” 

• AASHO supported a third trust fund for urban mass transportation to be funded from 

sources other than the Highway Trust Fund. “Until such time as a separate trust fund to 

satisfy these needs is created, the approach taken in title III of last year’s compromise bill 

with funding for transit needs coming from the general fund would appear to be a very 

desirable provision.” 

• Critical highway needs through 1990 totaled $300 billion, or $20 billion a year. “In keeping 

with historic trends in financing, the Federal involvement should probably continue to be in 

the magnitude of one-third of the capital improvement, or $6.7 billion per year.” 
783 

• AASHO opposed the pass-through provision for bypassing State governments in 

distribution of Federal-aid funds. “The flow of funds should be in a direct Federal-State and 

State-local relationship, in order to insure comprehensive and coordinated planning and 

implementation to allow the financial resources at all levels of government to be mutually 

reinforcing, and to identify and pursue common goals and objectives.” 

• States should have the authority to transfer up to 50 percent of funds among categories, up 

from the present 20 percent. 

• All Highway Trust Funds should be devoted to highways. “In other words, there should be 

no diversion.” AASHO opposed “flexibility” that would allow Highway Trust Fund 

revenues to be used for other modes. 

• Project opponents filing lawsuits should be required to post a bond to show sincerity of 

purpose and responsibility of action. 

Stevens said, “the image of the highway builder, and the matter of building highways over the 

world so to speak, and to cover the countryside with asphalt we believe is not warranted.” AASHO 

had been a leader in advocating eligibility for highway-oriented transit activities. Now it was 

supporting a third trust fund for transit that would cover rail transit. In short, “we do see all of the 

needs, even in those States that have highly urbanized areas.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 548-558] 

Representative Cleveland asked if AASHO could suggest revenue sources for a Mass Transit Trust 

Fund. Stevens said that AASHO would support the use of any revenue not currently going into the 

Highway Trust Fund: 

Mr. Cleveland. Am I to gether [sic] that if you were to increase the gas tax, not the present 

tax, but an increase, could go into it? 

Mr. Stevens. The way our policy statement is written and agreed to, yes. 

Mr. Cleveland. Do you have a personal opinion on that? 

Mr. Stevens. I guess I would like to relate the actual position first, if I may, please. The 

way our policy statement is written, an increase in the Federal gas tax earmarked for a third 

trust fund would be within the realm of that, that is correct.

Mr. Cleveland. Does not AASHO also believe that the present source of trust fund is 

inadequate to the highway needs of this country? 

Mr. Stevens. AASHO, of course, would like to see additional moneys go into the Highway 

Trust Fund. 

If Congress decided to finance public transportation projects out of the Highway Trust Fund, 

Representative Cleveland asked if the State highway agencies had the capability to administer the 

projects or should they be turned over to local officials. Stevens said AASHO’s position was that 

all revenue in the Highway Trust Fund should be the responsibility of the State highway agencies. 

Airis added that the State highway agencies had demonstrated their capability through development 

of highway-oriented transit projects:

I would have to talk as Director of Highways and Traffic here in the District of Columbia, 

and you have all heard about the Shirley Highway express bus project, and it was not the 

environmentalists, not some of the other groups now interested in the project, but it was the 
784 

two highway departments, the one from the District, the one from Virginia, and WMATC 

[Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Commission] chairman, with the assistance of Mr. 

Frank Turner who is in the audience who sat down and put that project together. 

When Representative Cleveland pointed out that the State highway agencies were being cast as 

opposed to urban mass transit, Airis replied, “It is entirely untrue.” Representative Cleveland told 

him:

You don’t have to make that point to this committee. This committee is not against mass 

transit. The only thing we are against is having a Highway Trust Fund not doing the job it 

should do. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 558-560] 

Representative Abzug, the next questioner, responded, “I just want to make the point, nobody will 

steal the money from the Highway Trust Fund. We are going to appropriate it or not. I wish I could 

steal some, frankly.” Referring to the transportation needs estimates, she asked: 

If we continue to have the Highway Trust Fund money available for highway purposes in 

our urban areas, are we not saying, “Build the $10 billion worth of highways, whether you 

want them or not, but you will have to scrounge around elsewhere if you want $63 billion 

for mass transportation?” 

Airis said that with needs in both categories, “if anyone attempts to fund both needs out of the 

single trust fund, neither one will be satisfied.” 

The Congresswoman’s response suggested growing frustration: 

We are saying, “You can have your funds, just give us a little bit of leeway and flexibility so 

we can decide that it might be a little healthier for us, it might improve the capacity of the 

people to go to work to make a living, if they had a decent subway, that it might eliminate 

the confusion, and all of these others [sic] things, if we had a different mode in building in 

our part of the system, the urban system, a different mode of transportation than just an 

urban highway.” 

That is all we are saying, and when we talk about this trust fund, to hear you people come in 

here, day after day, and suggest to us that we have to have these highways, even though 

these highways are choking us and killing us, and killing business, I might add, and 

ultimately you are going to kill the business you are in if you keep this up, we are going to 

have to ban automobiles from all kinds of major arteries, we are going to have all kinds of 

restrictions like that, and in the end you are going to kill the whole golden goose. 

It is therefore time to share a little bit, give us a little piece of our own, give us a little 

control over our own money, and I think it is wrong for you to continue to suggest we 

should not have it. 
785 

Airis referred to the needs documented by the Department of Transportation and said, “my point is 

that if there is a definite need for the upgrading of highways to take care of safety among other 

things, it should be done, and it should not be turned into something else which should stand on its 

own feet.” 

Frustrated by this non-answer, Representative Abzug wanted to know why AASHO was suggesting 

that local officials should not be able to determine the best use of the funds. Airis replied, “Well, 

Madam, the trust fund was initiated and evolved for a particular purpose, and it is the position of 

the organization that I am representing here today that it should be used for that particular purpose.” 

His response did not satisfy Representative Abzug, who pointed out that most of the tax revenue 

going into the Highway Trust Fund had formerly gone into the general Treasury and that the 

revenue was now being used for many activities beyond highway construction: 

We have done lots of things besides feeding the gasoline and automobile and concrete 

industry and I think we can do whatever we want in this Congress to appropriate funds that 

belong to the taxpayer and put them to the need [sic] of the taxpayer.

That is not a good argument. It is very unimpressive, and it is not valid. 

When Airis pointed out that all the other uses she had mentioned were highway-related, she replied, 

“They are all transportation or other related.” She continued: 

You even say you should find some money someplace else. You want us to set up a 

brandnew [sic] trust fund, at a time when we just had a big cutback in the proposed budget. 

Where are we going to get these funds from? We are not asking for anything new. We 

want to use the funds that are there in a way that we in the local areas have determined to be 

necessary for our living, for our going forward in life. 

Airis replied that he agreed in general, but not in specifics with Representative Abzug’s statement. 

She replied, “I am not surprised.” 

She said, “I suppose you don’t like a passthrough to the cities.” She thought AASHO was 

inconsistent in wanting States to make decisions but not wanting local governments to do so as 

well. “There is an inconsistency in your planning of flexibility in one case, and your desire not to 

have flexibility in another case.”

Although her time had ended, Representative Abzug could not let this opportunity to speak directly 

to AASHO pass:

I would like to conclude by saying that I think those representing the highways and the 

highway officials, as you all do, should come to realize that this is one country, that 

everybody has many different needs, and that we have to be able to share our problems and 

deal with each other. Otherwise you are forcing the people who are most deprived and who 
786 

contribute the most to these highways in terms of taxes to take drastic steps which in the end 

will make it impossible to have any highways.

I will have to ultimately say, “Let’s declare the Interstate System completed,” because if you 

are not willing to allow us any leeway, in desperate needs we have in transportation, 

desperate needs, we have to fight pollution, to fight Congress, desperate needs to put people 

in the position where they can go to work, then we will have to take drastic steps in our 

localities, so these highways may not get built.

That is all. No further questions. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 

561-563] 

The next witness, General Kreml of the MVMA, said his association “supports the concept of a 

balanced approach to provide for the movement of people, goods, and transportation services 

throughout our Nation.” Highways alone could not serve the country’s growing population, but 

since highway needs far exceeded revenue, the Highway Trust Fund should be restricted to 

addressing those needs. 

Transit needs should be financed from the general Treasury at increased levels as provided for in S. 

502. “In our view, such funding for public transportation from the general fund, combined with 

adequate funding for highways from the Highway Trust Fund, represents a balanced Federal 

commitment for personal and public transportation.” 

Kreml said MVMA rejected choosing between highways and public transportation or the idea that 

“many would have us believe that a dramatic change is in order, and that such change would 

produce vastly improved social and economic environments.” To address air pollution, traffic 

congestion, and crashes, new regulations and standards were being imposed even as the cartraveling public “is being told that they either ‘should’ or ‘must’ be diverted from auto to transit 

use—that additional construction of new rail transit facilities will bring about these hoped for 

changes.”

He said that urban expressways had reduced point-to-point travel times and reduced traffic on local 

roads where buses picked up and discharged passengers, thus improving bus travel time. 

Experience with fixed rail systems contradicted the widespread assumption that they would reduce 

highway traffic. “Those who do shift are generally car-pool riders or former users of other modes 

of public transportation—buses or street cars. Consequently, reliance on rail transit alone will do 

little to relieve motor vehicle congestion—what will, is a balanced approach to highway and public 

transportation improvements.” 

Rising incomes and a desire for more space fueled a continued migration from cities to suburbs: 

These shifts have had a profound effect on transportation requirements. Travel patterns 

have become increasingly diverse—many dispersed origins to many dispersed destinations. 
787 

Thus, only a balanced transportation system, using flexible transportation modes as fully as 

possible, can meet such dispersing travel demands. 

Fixed rail systems, Kreml said, were “limited by their technology to serving a few concentrated 

points of origin and destination.” The lines now being built or extended would “serve primarily to 

aid the well-to-do suburban residents who work or shop downtown.” He added: 

Çontrary to much popular belief, these systems will not serve those suburban or central city 

dwellers who work or shop anywhere but downtown, since they are not adapted to the needs 

of an increasingly dispersed urban population. 

They would do little for the young, the aged, and the handicapped who were often cited by transit 

advocates as beneficiaries. The lines would do little to provide access to suburban industrial plants 

that were supposedly the destination of the inner city poor seeking jobs. 

The public, he said, was becoming increasingly aware of the limitations of transit: 

They have come to realize that such systems cannot provide the door-to-door service, 

privacy, comfort, schedule flexibility, and the capacity to carry goods and people 

concurrently which motor vehicles afford. 

As a result, not only do few commuters switch to rail transit when given the opportunity, but 

more and more people are buying and using motor vehicles because highway 

transportation—by auto, truck, or bus—facilitates the types of trips people desire and those 

that are necessary to provide services, move goods and to carry out other daily activities. 

To address the changing urban/suburban environment, Kreml recommended a research and 

development program to concentrate on the innovative, advanced concepts and systems, regardless 

of mode. Funding should come proportionately from the Highway Trust Fund, UMTA, and other 

programs relating to single modes.

MVMA had studied the history of transportation finance. Although highway users supported the 

Highway Trust Fund, “there is no way to apply the user-charge principle to urban transit without 

taxing those least able to pay.” That is why public transportation programs should be financed from 

the general Treasury. However, the factors that made the Federal-aid highway program successful 

should be applied to public transportation. Those factors, Kreml said, were: 

(a) Clear and understandable statements of goals and objectives; 

(b) Assured long-term funding to achieve its goals and objectives;

(c) Development of an effective Federal-State partnership which encourages a high level of 

competence and cooperation among the Federal and State agencies involved.

Based on these factors, MVMA had adopted a policy supporting two basic concepts:

(1) The use of general funds for needed development of mass transportation systems; and 
788 

(2) The soundness of the user-charge earmarking principle and continuation of the Highway 

Trust Fund for highway pruposes, broadened to include sound highway-related programs.

On that basis, MVMA supported appropriate funding for the Interstate System, rural and urban 

programs, and broadened use of the Highway Trust Fund for highway-oriented public 

transportation, as well as public transportation expenditures at appropriate levels from the general 

Treasury. MVMA opposed the provisions of S. 502 and the Administration’s bill that would allow 

the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues for public transportation. 

The organization also opposed dollar-for-dollar substitution of Interstate allocations to the Federalaid urban system. “We believe the integrity of the Interstate System should be retained.” 

MVMA also was concerned about the developinig trend of allocating funds directly to urban areas. 

It favored development of metropolitan transportation planning units to work with appropriate State 

and local officials, but the Federal-State partnership should be retained. “MVMA suggests that 

moneys should continue to flow through the appropriate State agency in order that this relationship 

be preserved.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 564-569] 

Representative Cleveland agreed with Kreml’s statement about rail transit systems primarily 

serving well-to-do suburban residents who work downtown, but wondered if he could provide 

supporting information for the assertion. Kreml submitted a response for the record indicating that 

“there are significant differences in the use of public transportation for travel to and from work, by 

the poor and well-to-do—particularly their use of commuter trains and subways.” The response 

continued: 

While the use of auto and truck modes by various income groups closely parallels the 

income distribution for all workers, the pattern of commuter train and subway usage is 

vastly different. This travel mode is used by a very small percentage of low income 

workers; a higher than average percentage of middle income workers (those whose incomes 

fall between $5,000 and $7,500); and, a much higher percentage of the upper income family 

workers ($15,000 or more). Only 7.4% of workers who use commuter trains and subways 

fall in the under $5,000 income class, whereas, 16.0% of all workers, 11.8% of auto and 

truck commuters, and 32.7% of bus and street car commuters, fall in that class.

Based on these data, it is apparent that upper income groups are the principal users of rail 

transit for commuting to and from work—not the poor. Consequently, the use of Highway 

Trust Fund revenues for rail transit will not benefit low income groups. Their prime need 

appears to be improved highway facilities—for bus, street car, and private automobile 

travel.

Representative Cleveland asked if MVMA had any thoughts on whether the developers of projects 

such as the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan should be required to produce impact 

statements. Given the size of the development, which Representative Cleveland said would be half 

again as big as the Pentagon, “there ought to be some type of transportation impact statement . . . .” 
789 

Kreml replied: 

Only to say the obvious: That many of the problems which we now as a people look to 

transportation technology to deal with . . . have been made virtually impossible to solve 

because of deficiencies in urban planning, urban zoning, and the enforcement of zoning. 

The technology of transportation is no magical or messianic-type solution which somehow 

can compensate for human failure, or overbuilding, or population, for example, and New 

York has no corner on this, of course. 

I think in many areas—and to some degree in every section of the country, some of our 

people are being led down a garden path by suggestions that these problems, which are 

fundamentally social and economic problems of municipal governmental administrations, 

are going to be resolved by mass transportation. It just is not so. [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 571-573] 

After Representative Wright and Kreml discussed how ramp metering on freeways would operate to 

reduce congestion [p. 573-575], Representative Abzug asked if Kreml would agree that making 

more funds available for mass transit would reduce congestion as well. “It might be a more direct 

way,” she said, “and less complicated than the meter reading; do you think that would help?” 

Kreml regretted that he must answer “no,” a response he considered “tragic.” Proponents of mass 

transit “have nothing but the very highest motivations,” but “we have got off on a fairly typical 

American fixation on an overly simplistic solution for a very complex problem.” 

Comparing the public transportation needs of America’s diverse cities, from New York City and 

San Francisco, with their large populations and social mores, to Miami, Little Rock, or Madison, 

Wisconsin, “there is no quick and simple answer as to what they require, except we all know that 

they need some mix of the various forms of transportation and technologies which are now 

available, plus some modes that we don’t yet have, apparently.” He anticipated “shattering 

disappointment” if “we persist in the belief that somehow we must find a solution now and it must 

be found in some form that can be quickly financed and brought into being.” He feared that the 

attempt would not provide real relief, the taxes and penalties will be regressive and fall on those 

least able to pay, and what relief is provided will be mainly for the upper middle class. He cited 

Detroit’s proposal for a 25-mile subway link to Pontiac at a cost of $35 million a mile. The black 

leadership in the city had stopped it because it would benefit primarily residents of Bloomfield Hills 

and other suburbs, not the minority population. 

Representative Abzug agreed about the need to plan an integrated and balanced system. That was 

why she favored making Highway Trust Fund revenues available for local officials, such as those in 

Detroit, to decide on the best options for meeting their unique needs. “My question,” she said, “is 

simply that you don’t seem to care anything at all about anything except what will help an 

automobile to travel around.” He categorically denied her statement, which reflected “a complete 

misunderstanding” of his testimony. Automobiles were not the entire solution, but neither was 

public transportation the “one simple, simplistic answer.” He added, “As a matter of fact, this is 

just about the antithesis of what is needed by the transportation-deprived people . . . .” 
790 

She responded that in trying to create a balanced transportation system, Kreml’s answer was to look 

to the general Treasury for mass transit. She pointed out that the President had impounded funds, 

was proposing a cutback in the budget, and “therefore we have to try to get funds for that purpose 

out of the existing funds, and one of them is the Highway Trust Fund, and you oppose that.” She 

was not done with her question, but Kreml asked if he could respond to her point. She agreed, and 

he said:

We oppose it on the ground that, of the transportation-denied people in the major cities 

today, virtually all of them are people who are dependent upon the automobile. They are 

using 7- to 13-year-old automobiles, but that transportation is the difference between work 

and food, and no work and relief. 

Until the country was ready to provide the transportation these people really need, “let’s not do the 

regressive thing in trying to help these people.” It was precisely this kind of issue, he said, that 

prompted him to leave “very delightful, enjoyable, and rewarding work at Northwestern University” 

to join MVMA 18 months ago. “I was so appalled at the direction in which our National and State 

policies were taking us.” 

Representative Abzug asked if he supported the automakers’ request for a 1-year delay in enforcing 

the 1975 antipollution standards. He responded that none of the auto manufacturers had the 

technical capacity to produce the equipment to meet the 1975 standards, in spite of the fact that the 

industry had spent $2 billion trying to find a means of doing so. 

Considering how many people’s health would be affected by auto pollution, Representative Abzug 

considered it “ludicrous” that the industry could not find a solution with that kind of money. 

“Maybe we ought to stop building some highways for a while and find some money to do the 

improvement for these automobiles.” With that, her question period was at an end. [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 576-579] 

Kreml’s testimony ended in a dialogue with Representative L. A. “Skip” Bafalis (R-Fl.), an 

investment banker and State legislator serving the first of five House terms. He said that as he 

watched people involved in public transportation, “I find in many cases, people are not qualified to 

develop systems.” He worried that taking money from the Highway Trust Fund might result in 

“spending hundreds of millions of dollars which we will find in a few years have not been properly 

spent.” 

Criteria were available for measuring transportation demand, Kreml replied, and they “must be 

conscientiously applied” in developing plans and allocating money. Transportation planning had 

improved in recent years, but, “yes, mistakes can be made.” He explained:

Where transportation planning has failed in the main, in my view, it was either in 

incompetent hands, and this has happened frequently, I fear, or on the other hand, and this 

has not been at all recognized generally throughout the Nation, transportation has been 

called on, in effect, to deal with problems that are not susceptible to correction by improved 

transportation alone—and one of these is the problem of overpopulation. New York is a 
791 

good example of this, particularly midtown Manhattan, where you have a very serious 

problem of overpopulation. We just don’t have any transportation technology that can 

accommodate this.

Representative Bafalis asked Kreml if he thought State government was capable of developing 

transportation systems without Federal controls. Kreml replied:

No, I don’t. I am sorry to say that I have said that in my testimony. I think the State-Federal 

relationship is extremely important in going back as far as the first Federal-aid program. I 

think this was one of the great successes of our Nation and this Congress that that program 

was so well planned, so well conceived, so well developed, so devoid of scandal, and the 

public got so much return for their money. I am talking about a time that is ancient history, 

but this is a good example, and think it has persisted almost without exception in the 

present-day relationship. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 583-584] 

The next witness, John J. Sheehan of the United Steelworkers of America, favored the use of 

Highway Trust Fund revenues for mass transit. “The Highway Trust Fund program has now 

reached a state in its implementation where it is causing distortions and imbalances to develop in a 

time of rapidly changing transportation needs.” With over a million members, over half of whom 

live in metropolitan areas, the union recognized “that a more effective use of the work force 

depends upon an efficient means of transporting workers to their jobs.” 

The union supported mass transit aid, but the UMTA program “has not been developed to a scale 

anywhere near equal to the needs . . . .” A more integrated financing method was needed. The 

union supported the Senate’s decision to adopt the Muskie-Baker amendment opening Federal-aid 

urban system funds for mass transit. “The urban highway money can make an important 

contribution toward financing a balanced urban transportation system, but it cannot be expected to 

carry the full load.” It will not be a panacea, but will be a very important step.

The Highway Trust Fund, with what Secretary Brinegar had called its “use it or lose it syndrome,” 

restricted the ability to consider the full range of transit options, including fixed rail. Even if the 

Muskie-Baker amendment resulted in most of the funding being used for highways, officials 

“should not be forced, or trapped, into that decision if people could better be served by using funds 

for exclusive bus lanes, new buses, rail cars, or constructing a subway system.” 

As a union representative, Sheehan also encouraged the subcommittee to extend the labor 

protection under section 13(c) of the Urban Mass Transportation Act to transit projects developed 

with Federal-aid urban system funds. 

He also commented on whether such broad use was fair to the highway users who financed the 

Highway Trust Fund. Since half of the revenue came from urban areas, Sheehan said “it seems to 

me that equity would demand that these large donors be given flexibility in their use of the funds.” 

Many of these motorists would prefer commuting by mass transit if it were a reasonable alternative:
792 

Is it equitable to force these drivers to continue to pay into a system which further buries in 

concrete the chances for development of more desirable alternatives?

I think not. 

Further, as BART’s Stokes had pointed out, San Francisco area residents paid into the Highway 

Trust Fund but did not want the expressways it would finance. “They did not use it, so they lost it.” 

This was, Sheehan said, “a tremendously difficult decision to make and one with which cities 

should not have to be confronted.” 

In short, “the real point to be made here is that we cannot talk about urban transportation in terms of 

only one mode at a time—the various forms have to be integrated because their functions and their 

benefits are intertwined.” He added that from the standpoint of equity, “it seems only reasonable 

that auto-use taxation should be available to help remedy this auto-caused problem.” 

He did not favor creation of a Mass Transit Trust Fund, which would result in a repeat of the “use it 

or lose it” syndrome, only for transit instead of highways. “Built-in shutters around specific grant 

programs prevent coordination with other related aid programs.” Instead of pushing “individual 

forms of transportation, irrespective of one another,” he said that the goal “should simply be the 

development of balanced, integrated transportation.” 

In closing, Sheehan said the union’s recommendations would not affect the Interstate or rural 

highway programs. He added: 

A definite relationship can be seen between the emphasis we have placed on the automobile, 

the decline of urban mass transit systems, and the congestion and pollution which plagues 

our cities . . . . Certainly one of the indirect, unintentional, but negative, results of the 

current highway program has been the influence it has had in developing the “automobile 

culture.” Government policy must begin now to create the atmosphere—and practical 

opportunity—for a more realistic public acceptance of mass transportation. By challenging 

the exclusiveness of the Highway Trust Fund’s expenditures, you will be helping to end the 

myth of the exclusiveness of our transportation remedies. [1973 Highway Legislation 

(Future Highway Needs), p. 584-590] 

The question period was brief. Representative Clausen asked if Sheehan was in favor of applying 

the same flexibility to UMTA funds so they could be used for highway projects. He replied, “yes, 

we should not have just the UMTA, and then have the Highway Trust Fund.” The UMTA program 

was established as separate from the Federal-aid highway program “and, therefore, it has its own 

limited purposes. It probably should not be so limited.” 

Representative Abzug commended the United Steelworkers of America for “recognizing that we 

are dealing with a very far-reaching social issue.” She said:
793 

The majority of the people in this country desperately need legislation which will open up 

the fund, to local planning, in an integrated and balanced system, as well as sustaining some 

of the mass transit systems that we have.

She asked Sheehan for the union’s views on the need for a maintenance or operating fund from the 

Highway Trust Fund and/or UMTA for public mass transit systems. He replied that the union had 

not addressed the issue, preferring to focus on the need to “get on with the job of coordinating the 

transit system and not be trapped by the restrictions in the fund, and that is about as far as we went.” 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 590-592] 

Cynthia Wilson of the National Audubon Society began her testimony by opposing the S. 502 

provision allowing San Antonio’s North Expressway to proceed without complying with Federal 

requirements. Aside from the concern about the impact on Brackenridge-Olmos Basin Parklands, 

she was concerned about the precedent:

To vote to allow one State to wriggle out of compliance with both section 4(f) and NEPA is 

a vote against both of those landmark statutes and will be viewed as just that by the people. 

Congress can, if it wishes, overturn judicial decisions, but in doing so Congress seems to be 

saying, “We really didn’t mean it when we voted to protect public parks; that was all 

rhetoric . . . .” One exception will beget another: and this committee could become bogged 

down in a myriad of requests from different parts of the country. 

She cited congressional efforts to force the District of Columbia and Virginia to build the Three 

Sisters Bridge as “a horse of the same color.” She said: 

Further, the bridge is the keystone to the freeway system which includes the ill-conceived 

south leg—which would desecrate the Lincoln Memorial, Tidal Basin, and the whole 

monumental park area. Is nothing sacred? 

The language in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972 “not only deprived the citizens of the 

District of Columbia and Virginia of judicial review, it also would have set a precedent of depriving 

all citizens of judicial review in highway cases.” She urged Congress to stop intervening in these

disputes. 

The society also opposed the “misguided proposal” for a “second generation Interstate System.” 

Wilson supported road improvement for safety, “but deliberately making them bigger just to make 

them bigger is merely inviting more traffic.” The “10,000-mile fiasco” had not been studied and 

did not deserve study. “It is simply a make-work proposal that will compound present problems, 

including the so-called energy crisis.” She added that bringing 10,000 miles of primary highways 

up to Interstate standards would mean “that a vast amount of land will be paved, homes and 

businesses bulldozed, and parklands devastated.” 

Instead, she said, “The time is past due for mass transit—our cities are choked with cars, our land 

has become one vast highway and parking lot, and the air is not fit to breathe.” She favored the 

Muskie-Baker amendment: 
794 

Although the amount of funds is modest compared to the needs, it was an important step in 

the right direction. 

She also objected to “the false argument” that revenue from highway users must be used for 

highway improvements: 

Every citizen who drives contributes to that trust fund and should have a say in how it is 

spent. Most citizens would like to be able to have the opportunity to choose how they get to 

work. Many drive because they have no viable alternative.

We think the highway industry is biting its nose to spite its face by opposing the use of 

Highway Trust Funds for mass transit. 

She told the subcommittee that we must “remove our blinders and change course,” adding: 

Our urban areas are caught in a vicious cycle. As we pave over more and more of our cities 

for roads and parking lots, they become undesirable places to live. People move further into 

the suburbs, then more commuter highways are built for them to drive into the city to work. 

 The time has come to change directions . . . . 

Few members of the subcommittee were present for this testimony. Representative Wright was not 

present at the start and had missed Wilson’s comments about the North Expressway. He told her 

that proponents and opponents were trying to “find some mutually amicable resolution of this 

problem” that would relieve Congress of the responsibility. Both sides had filed testimony for the 

record, “feeling that conversation [during the hearing] may exacerbate rather than relieve the 

problem.” Wilson said she thought that a local solution was the best solution of all. [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 606-609] 

Emilia L. Govan, chairperson of the Arlington Coalition of Transportation, submitted testimony in 

opposition to construction of I-66 inside the Capital Beltway. Her statement supported the use of 

Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit at the local option; the use of Interstate and urban 

system funds for all types of transportation, including capital and operating costs of mass transit and 

the pass-through of federal-aid funds to local jurisdictions in metropolitan areas. She opposed any 

provision that would overturn a court order requiring compliance with Federal law, including the 

provision in S. 502 on the North Expressway in San Antonio and the measure in the 1972 House 

bill on the Three Sisters Bridge. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 609-614] 

Frank Bennack of the San Antonio Light testified on behalf of citizens who were “enormously 

frustrated” by the delays in construction of the North Expressway. They believed that “Congress 

never intended to entrap us with a partially completed project that stands as an expensive, and 

deteriorating monument to waste while snarled traffic causes thousands to lose time from families, 

jobs, and recreation.” He urged the House to adopt a provision identical to Section 147 of S. 502 as 

introduced by Senators Bentsen and Tower. Again, few subcommittee members were present and 

no questions were asked. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 646-660] 
795 

Commissioner Schuler of the New York State Department of Transportation also testified during 

the afternoon session. He outlined the locally oriented policy and planning committees established 

in New York (Niagara Frontier, Capital Distrct, Herkimer and Oneida County, and the metropolitan 

areas of Rochester, Syracuse, and Binghamton). Based on experience with this arrangement, 

Schuler said that the main principle is that “the successful accomplishment of coordinated 

transportation programs requires that the financial resources of all levels of government—Federal, 

State, and local—be mutually reinforcing in pursuit of common goals and objectives.” 

The State was in the best position to coordinate, plan, and implement:

In our view, the automatic passthrough [sic] and earmark provisions of S.502 for urban 

system funds would deny the central role of the State and upset the carefully programmed 

response we and local policy and planning committees have been able to develop to meet 

urban area needs.

The population-based earmarking of Federal-aid urban system would distort the distribution of 

funds among the State’s metropolitan areas. 

Schuler endorsed the Muskie-Baker amendment and the use of Federal-aid urban funds for fixed 

rail capital projects at local option. While most States are progressive and responsive to urban 

needs, he warned that if the pass-through and earmark provisions are enacted, some States may not 

be willing to “continue to provide matching State funds for urban highway programs in which they 

are denied their central role.” 

After citing the familiar disadvantages of the automobile and benefits of mass transportation, 

Schuler said: 

I suggest we are past the time when we can divorce highway or auto travel from public 

transportation. We must use these modes in a harmonious balance to serve our travel needs. 

To the extent that the motorist receives benefits in reduced congestion, cleaner air, lower 

operating and accident costs through the diversion of commuters to public transportation—

benefits which can be considerable if not all readily measurable—the use of Highway Trust 

Fund money for such purposes is justifiable. 

In other matters, he endorsed reducing the number of categorical grant programs, saying it “seems a 

little strange” that the States must “pursue compartmentalized, special programs without exercising 

their capacity to match needs and resources in flexible funding programs.” He also endorsed the 

provision of S. 502 permitting States to relocate Interstate segments based on cost rather than 

mileage, with unexpended funds to be used as Federal-aid urban system funds. He recommended 

extension of the deadlines for submission of schedules for completing the Interstate System. 

In closing, he said: 
796 

I am not a transit advocate, nor am I a highway advocate. I am attempting to be identified as 

being protransportation. Therefore, what I am asking for from this committee is that you 

provide us the funding for transportation solutions, for transportation is the mission of our 

Department. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 660-664] 

Representative Clausen asked Schuler to confirm that in New York, the State provided the 

matching share for Federal-aid highway projects. Would the State continue to provide the matching 

share for projects developed under the pass-through provision? Schuler said that if the the passthrough and earmarking provisions for Federal-aid system funds were enacted, “I would have an 

extremely difficult time in obtaining the necessary funds from our State legislature to match funds 

passing directly through to a municipality. He could not be certain, of course, but he estimated that 

local areas would have to provide the matching funds. 

As with a few other witnesses favoring flexibility, Representative Clausen asked if Schuler would 

support the use of UMTA funds for highways at local option. Schuler said that, yes, he would 

support the option because “we would really like to have today total flexibility for all transportation 

funds coming to the State.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 665-666] 

In response to a request from Representative Abzug to clarify his position on local option, Schuler 

explained that the pass-through and earmark provisions defeated the flexibility “to implement a 

statewide master plan by using the money where the needs are.” As an example, he cited the West 

Side Highway in New York City where community groups are on the project board so their requests 

can be weighed and incorporated in the project if appropriate. Former Federal Highway 

Administrator Bridwell was a consultant on the project and helped direct the planning mechanism. 

“I think, however, the direct passthrough [sic] would destroy that local planning mechanism that we 

already have in place since the State would be taken out of the picture.” 

Representative Abzug asked if New York City received all its Federal-aid urban system funds. 

Schuler replied no, the city had not received its reasonable share because “the administration of the 

city refused to accept the transportation facilities, the highways, that we would want to have put in 

place.” The city had approached its delegation in the State legislature and insisted the routes be 

removed. 

Her point was that aside from the Interstates, she did not think it “so absolutely necessary” for State 

highway agencies “to have the final say” on city streets. The city did not like the State’s plans, so 

the city did not get its funds. “Why cannot there be a direct passthrough [sic]?” She thought the 

city was “entitled to a little home rule, and that is what the provision of passthrough [sic] means.” 

In defense of the State’s actions, Schuler pointed out that while the city did not get its intended $23 

million in Federal-aid urban funds, it did get $17 million in State-funded projects during the past 

season. As for home rule, he said, “there is not a thing that can be done in the city of New York, as 

you know, without a certificate [from the] board of estimate signed by the mayor.” 

In addition, Schuler referred to Representative Cleveland’s comments about the World Trade 

Center during the Kreml testimony. Schuler pointed out that the State had invested $800 million of 
797 

State funds in the city’s public transportation system and expected to invest another $8.1 billion in 

State funds over the next 20 years. “You weigh that investment against concern about the highway 

program from the standpoint of the total transportation investment being made in New York City.” 

That investment level, he said, was why flexibility in the use of Federal funds was important. 

“Earmarking would deny us the opportunity we need to build the system.” [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 666-671] 

(Former Administrator Bridwell was a private consultant based in Columbia, Maryland. With his 

firm, Systems Design Concepts, Inc., Bridwell was associated with projects around the country, 

including the review of Interstate projects in Boston, transportation needs in Portland, and as noted, 

Westway. He also was a key advisor on creating the Maryland Department of Transportation. In 

1981, Governor Harry S. Hughes selected Bridwell to be Secretary. Several Administrators have 

had prior experience in State highway or transportation agencies, but Bridwell is the only 

Administrator to head a State transportation department after leaving office. In May 1984, Bridwell 

left his position and returned to the private sector.) 

The next witness, Linda M. Billings of the Sierra Club, began by summarizing her organization’s 

overall goal:

We think that the goal this legislation should strive for is to achieve a balance between 

providing modes of transportation to supply competing transportation demands and 

restoration and preservation of environmental quality. 

The keys to achieving this goal were to work within existing environmental protections, not erode 

them with piecemeal exceptions; allow flexibility in planning for a wide variety of transportation 

modes, “each with equal proportions of Federal funding”; and making highway planning part of 

transportation and land use planning, rather than simply planning new “schemes for highway 

projects.” 

To break out of “the destructive circle” of problems caused by the highway and automobile, 

“Federal-aid highway legislation should provide incentives for the creation of an institutional 

framework which encourages balanced transportation planning.” She supported pass-through to 

regional agencies that could plan and implement transit and highway projects. “We need to 

encourage the development of governmental capability for resolution of problems close to these 

problems rather than in a sometimes distant State capital.”

Billings endorsed the Muskie-Baker amendment and the use of Federal-aid urban system funds for 

highways or mass transit, including bus and rail, at local option. She said that, “If the Highway 

Trust Fund is to survive, it must adapt.” 

She was particularly concerned about the proposed 10,000-mile priority primary routes included in 

the 1972 bill. “I would urge the committee to join with those concerned with land use, resource 

[sic], recreational planning and the like before you embark upon any new road building programs.” 

Billings added that “the most distressing new development in the highways legislation of the last 

Congress and this year’s Senate bill are the provisions injecting Congress into local highway 
798 

controversies . . . .” The provisions on the San Antonio North Expressway, I-66 in northern 

Virginia, the Three Sisters Bridge, and I-93 through Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire 

were “particularly objectionable because they in effect deny equal protection under the law; a 

practice which is unconstitutional.” Further, congressional involvement was unnecessary because 

“the controversies will be resolved according to the procedures already set forth in current laws, 

which this committee, in particular, has had a hand in shaping.” If Congress is willing to spend so 

much time deciding on the routes of a few miles of controversial highway projects, more will 

follow “and the numbers will get out of hand unless you act now to put a halt to all of this.” [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 671-675] 

John Kramer of the Highway Action Coalition was the next witness. With few members of the 

subcommittee in attendance, Representative Frank M. Clark (D-Pa.), a former police officer who 

had won election to the House in 1954, was chairing the hearing. He interrupted Kramer during his 

opening statement, saying, “We have got several more witnesses, and one of them has to catch an 

airplane.” He allowed Kramer’s statement to be printed in the record as if it had been read in full.

Kramer began by saying that the future of the Highway Trust Fund was “the central issue to be dealt 

with by the 1973 Federal-Aid Highway Act.” The financial plight of mass and intercity transit 

systems gave this issue special urgency. He said that 268 transit systems had halted service since 

establishment of the Highway Trust Fund in 1956, “leaving millions of Americans with little or no 

access to public transportation of any kind.” Most of the remaining systems were expensive to ride 

“and decrepit in service and operation.” Grants under the UMTA program were vital, but essential 

transit needs remain unmet:

Only massive Federal aid will prevent many more transit systems from disappearing—much 

less assure quality service to the rider at a reasonable cost.

He considered it unlikely, however, that Federal support from the general Treasury would exceed 

$1 billion a year at a time when the estimated cost of restoring mass transit to minimally acceptable 

stands by 1980 was between $28 and $34 billion. At the same time, for every $1 spent under the 

UMTA program, nearly $30 dollars was spent under FHWA’s program. In fact, FHWA’s program 

consumed over 60 percent of the total Federal transportation budget compared with “mass transit’s 

meager 6 percent.” Counting State and local highway expenditures, the total came to $21.9 billion 

in 1972, “more than the total Federal, State, and local government expenditures on housing, urban 

renewal, parks, recreation, sanitation, and police and fire protection combined.” 

Kramer urged increased support for mass transit, whether from general revenue “or alternatively, 

support from an additional earmarked 1 or 2 cents of the Federal gas tax.” At this time, “we must 

begin now to shift our national transportation spending priorities away from yet more highway 

construction toward needed public transportation facilities and services.” This shift, in turn, “will 

require making at least some Highway Trust Fund revenues available for public transportation.” 

The Highway Trust Fund, Kramer explained, had distorted local transportation priorities, prompting 

officials to build highways, whether needed or not, because the funding was available: 
799 

Indeed, it was true even in those densely populated areas in which the construction of yet 

more highways would not only aggravate the problems of congestion, but would also cause 

great economic, social, and environmental damage. 

Further, not only have local and State officials had little investment choice, but they have 

also been under very substantial pressure to use all the available highway money for fear 

that their community or State would lose the jobs, income, and other benefits generated by 

these Federal grants.

Local decisionmakers must no longer be “locked into an unresponsive structure” that is “dictated by 

the rigid framework of existing Federal grant programs.” The coalition supported increased 

flexibility in determining the best mix of ground transportation modes. For the same reason, the 

coalition did not support creation of a Mass Transit Trust Fund that would be just as inflexible:

We believe that pending the creation of a ground transportation trust fund, that it is far 

preferable to support highway and mass transit programs out of the existing trust fund and, 

where needed, out of general revenues.

The coalition “wholeheartedly” endorsed the Muskie-Baker amendment adopted by the Senate in S. 

502: 

In summary, the principal consequence of the so-called Muskie-Baker amendment to the 

Senate bill was not to take money away from any highway project that ought to be built—

rather it was to permit cities and States to substitute needed public transportation 

alternatives for highways that ought not to be built. 

Kramer endorsed the pass-through and earmarking provisions of S. 502 so that Federal-aid urban 

funds would be allocated proportionally among urbanized areas and, in the case of the largest cities, 

“made directly available to governmental bodies capable of implementing the program.” 

Kramer also “enthusiastically” endorsed the Interstate transfer/substitution provision of S. 502, with 

only the recommendation that the Federal-State matching ratio for non-Interstate projects be 

changed to 90-10 “so as not to unduly prejudice local transportation decisions in favor of an 

otherwise unwanted Interstate project.” He cited FHWA’s estimate that 37 Interstate segments 

(459.8 miles) at an estimated cost of $5.25 billion (based on the 1970 Interstate Cost Estimate) were 

“subject to intense controversy.” Some of the routes would cause “great environmental, social, and 

economic damage” while others, planned 20 years ago, were simply out-of-date:

These areas do, however, have a tremendous need for increased traffic capacity as evidenced 

by the decision to locate the contested Interstate segment in the area in the first place. But 

eight-lane, limited access super highways, particularly through residential neighborhoods, 

parks, or historic areas, is [sic] not the only way to provide needed mobility. 

He was struck by the congruence of cities with controversial Interstate segments and “major, 

pressing rail transit needs.” This congruence reflected the need for better transportation planning. 
800 

To date, metropolitan planning “has been an empty exercise” because good planning “cannot 

develop in the absence of authority over investment decisionmaking.” Because of the imbalance of 

funding, most areas could not look at the urban transportation program as a whole or see that 

“highways and mass transit are inextricably interrelated and that neither can function effectively 

without the other. 

He also urged reconsideration of Federal hearing requirements. One reason highways proved so 

controversial was that citizens heard about them at the “corridor hearing” stage when the highway 

had already been decided on, leaving citizens with little input into the transportation planning 

process. He pointed out that the problem was illustrated by the fact that the hearing requirement 

was in Title 23 (“Highways”) instead of Title 49 (“Transportation”) of the United States Code: 

They are highway hearings and not transportation hearings . . . . Hearings should be 

required before the decision is made about whether people are going to drive their cars or 

ride some form of public transportation. 

The Highway Action Coalition, therefore, endorsed the provisions of S. 502 that called for annual 

transportation hearings and called on the Secretary to issue guidelines to assure maximum citizen 

participation in the transportation planning process. 

Kramer was concerned about proposals to hamper citizen access to the courts. Federal 

environmental safeguards “must be retained and vigorously enforced,” even if that means citizens 

must go to court to do so. He objected to the Senate’s action in voting to exempt San Antonio’s 

North Expressway from Federal requirements and the House action in 1972 to require construction 

of the Three Sisters Bridge:

We understand that efforts may be made to similarly exempt the Overton Park Expressway 

in Memphis, Tenn., Interstate Route 66 in Arlington, Va., and I-93 through Franconia 

Notch, N.H., from the environmental protection statutes. 

We strongly urge that these efforts be resisted and that Congress refrain from legislating on 

individual highway disputes. 

He also urged Congress to adopt measures to deal with automobile-caused air pollution problems 

and consumption of scarce petroleum. “Lacking a decent mass transit alternative to the automobile, 

millions of us will be facing a gruesome choice: Our cars—or our air.” Mobility is critical, but as 

Ruckelshaus had said, “breathable air is no option.” Kramer endorsed provisions in S. 502 that 

provided emergency assistance to cities having difficulty meeting ambient air quality standards and 

that prohibited new highway construction that would cause pollution levels to exceed Federal 

limits. 

In view of the pending energy crisis, Kramer pointed out that automobiles were “energy gluttons.” 

He was convinced that a transportation system was possible that provided “essential mobility for all 

our people, gives us breathable air, and conserves our scarce petroleum resources.” In short, he 

said, “we could once again make our cities pleasant places in which to live.”
801 

He wanted to address a point that was not in his prepared statement. He had repeatedly heard many 

expressions of concern during the hearing about diverting Highway Trust Fund revenues from 

highways at a time when the Department of Transportation’s own study had identified $600 billion 

in highway needs over 20 years. (Representative Clark interrupted him at this point and allowed 

him to supplement his statement for the transcript as if read; the remainder of his statement was not 

read before the few subcommittee members in attendance.) 

Kramer agreed with Secretary Brinegar that the statistic was not being accurately framed. He said 

that, “for the purpose of this report, the term ‘needs’ is in no way synonymous with the 

‘requirements.’” Secretary Volpe, Kramer said, “used to call it the ‘Transportation Wants Report.’” 

 The total referred only to the estimate of bringing all roads up to a uniform level of service, 

whether the projects are justified, and without consideration of alternatives such as transit. (He 

used the West Side Highway project in New York City as an example. With its $200 million per 

mile estimate, he said the project was far in excess of the city’s proposed Second Avenue subway.) 

The needs report was misleading in another sense, since not all the reported needs are a Federal 

responsibility:

When local roads are dropped from this estimate, the cost for the “needs” is reduced to $400 

billion.

Further, when roads cannot be economically justified, in the report’s own terms, that is, 

roads for which the “costs” exceed the expected “benefits”—the “needs” as submitted are 

reduced to $100 billion. 

Furthermore, 85 percent of these “justified” highway investments are located in urbanized 

areas of over 50,000 population, where the question of alternative transportation modes 

comes into play. 

Kramer considered the more useful information in the report to be the data compiled for 1974 

through 1978 “on needed capital investments developed using alternative criteria relating to funding 

levels and Federal controls.” This analysis showed some shift away from highways. In short, the 

$600 billion in “needs” for highways through 1990 was a weak argument in support of restricting 

the Highway Trust Fund to highway projects and highway-related transit.

Only Representatives Clausen and Cleveland had questions for Kramer. Representative Clausen 

asked his usual question about whether the Highway Action Coalition would support the use of 

UMTA transit funds for highways. Kramer said yes, which is all Representative Clausen wanted, 

but Kramer added that current law did not permit it and that such flexibility could best be achieved 

with a single surface transportation trust fund. 

Representative Cleveland was particularly concerned about the reference to I-93 through Franconia 

Notch in his State of New Hampshire. Was Kramer fully informed on the subject? “Reasonably.” 

Had he been there? No, but he had talked to residents. Had he talked to State highway officials and 

seen their plan and their markup of how they planned to put the highway through the sensitive area? 
802 

He had seen the markup but had not talked to State officials. Had he been on the ground for a view 

of the situation or talked to the people who live there “as I have for 20 years”? No, he had not. 

Having made his point, Representative Cleveland said he did not understand Kramer’s reduction of 

highway needs to $100 billion. Kramer summarized his explanation. Representative Cleveland 

wanted to be on the record as objecting to the statement that these needs are not economically 

justified. He said, “we have had weeks, months, years of testimony before this committee that 

some of these needs are to improve these roads so we will not kill 55,000 people every year on our 

highways.” Bridges needed work, he said, and death traps to be eliminated. “I am surprised that an 

environmentalist, as yourself, falls back on economic justification as an excuse for us to turn our 

backs on needs that we have found in highway safety, in moving people from place to place.” 

Kramer replied, “Quite to the contrary.” He was using FHWA’s own criteria in assessing the needs. 

“We have no differences whatsoever in that regard with this committee.”

In addition, Representative Cleveland asked Kramer to send responses to a series of questions about 

the nature of the Highway Action Coalition, such as the source of money for its operation. Kramer 

replied that the coalition, which was formed in 1971, supported its operations from small 

contributions, typically between $5 and $15: 

For calendar year 1972 the Coalition’s total budget was only $20,000, of which 75 percent 

came from small individual contributions. As a result the three full-time staff members of 

the Coalitions [sic] are paid only subsistence salaries and the organization depends heavily 

on volunteer assistance. 

In response to another question, Kramer said the group did not have corporate or individual 

members, but sent its newsletter, The Concrete Opposition, to about 3,500 people. He said the 

coalition’s mission, accomplished through methods such as testimony before Congress and public 

outreach, was to promote needed public transportation facilities and services as part of a reordering 

of national transportation spending priorities. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), 

p. 684-695] 

The remaining four witnesses rushed through their statements and left with little or no questioning 

by the subcommittee.

Ralph B. Hirsch, Associate Professor of Urban Planning at Drexel University, testified on behalf of 

the Philadelphia Bicycle Coalition. The coalition had been formed in 1971 to promote the use of 

the bicycle as a mode of urban transportation. Professor Hirsch said: 

I believe that the bicycle, inherently nonpolluting, cheap, and fast over short distances, can 

make an important contribution to the solution of those problems of congestion and 

pollution. 

He endorsed Section 123 (“Bicycle Transportation, Pedestrian Walkways, and Equestrian Trails”) 

in Secretary Brinegar’s bill (H.R. 5138). It authorized the use of Federal-aid highway funds for the 
803 

acquisition or construction of separate or preferential bicycle lanes, pedestrian walkways, and 

equestrian trails on or in conjunction with highway and other rights-of-way. Such projects would 

be deemed Federal-aid highway projects subject to the applicable Federal-State matching share. 

Except for maintenance or emergency purposes, motorized vehicles would be prohibited on the 

paths, trails, or walkways. 

Hirsch said that a provision such as Section 123 was needed if the bicycle was going to achieve its 

potential. The provision, however, would be improved if the Federal share were increased to 90 

percent because “the local response would be greatly enhanced, I am sure.” 

He was encouraged by the growing acceptance of the bicycle by transportation planners, but the key 

question was whether the public would use the bicycle for more than recreation. The coalition, in 

cooperation with Drexel University, had conducted a survey for EPA on this subject in 

Philadelphia’s central business district. Most of those surveyed said they were in downtown to 

work (77 percent), and 32 percent owned a bicycle, with ownership decreasing based on age 

(younger responders more likely to own a bicycle). Of those owning a bicycle, 29 percent said they 

were likely to commute by bicycle if safe lanes and secure parking were available (again, the 

percentage decreased with age). For nonowners, 17 percent responded positively to the same 

question: 

Our findings therefore suggest a rather high proportion of motorists who are ready to switch 

to the bicycle mode if the proper provisions are made . . . .

In other cities, depending on climate and terrain, the proportion of bicycle users will very 

[sic], but I believe that the public is ready for a large-scale return to this “humane and 

efficient machine,” as the British engineer S. S. Wilson calls it in his fine piece in the March 

1973, “Scientific American.” 

If such a transformation occurred, bicyclists would be the first beneficiaries. They would be 

healthier and save on commuting costs. But urban centers that are being forced to reevaluate their 

total transportation systems because of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970 also would benefit. 

“The bicycle can help to reduce air pollution at a cost significantly lower than that of most other 

transportation strategies that have been proposed.” Of course, the bicycle also could help preserve 

our dwindling energy resources. 

Representative Cleveland asked if Hirsch had any comments on States such as New Hampshire 

where the climate was suitable for bicycling only 6 or 7 months a year. The prohibition on 

motorized traffic on bicycle trails, Representative Cleveland said, had been put in place to keep 

motorcycles off them, but he wondered about use during the winter by “another group of outdoor 

enthusiasts, and these are people with snowmobiles.” He said he realized that the snowmobile “is 

persona non grata in some areas,” but he thought it made little sense to prohibit snowmobilists from 

using a bicycle path covered in snow. 
804 

Hirsch declined to offer a position, saying that he was primarily testifying on the use of the bicycle 

for transportation rather than recreation. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 

696-698] 

(S. S. Wilson’s Scientific American article, “Bicycle Technology,” described the technical evolution 

of the bicycle. The phrase Hirsch cited was from the summary of the article included below the title 

rather than the article: “This humane and efficient machine played a central role in the evolution of 

the ball bearing, the pneumatic tire, tubular construction and the automobile and the airplane.” The 

article began:

We tend to take the bicycle too much for granted, forgetting the important role it played in 

the evolution of modern technology. The first machine to be mass-produced for personal 

transportation, the bicycle figured prominently in the early development of the automobile. 

Thus in addition to its own considerable direct impact on society the bicycle was indirectly 

responsible for substantial social and economic changes. A remarkably efficient machine 

both structurally and mechanically, the bicycle continues to offer distinct advantages as a 

means of personal transportation, in both developed and underdeveloped countries. 

(As the introductory sentence indicated, Wilson also elaborated on the bicycle’s role in the history 

of the automobile, airplane, pneumatic tires, and tubular construction. 

(After discussing the unique interaction of this “apparently simple device” and the human physique, 

Wilson said: 

Since the bicycle makes little demand on material or energy resources, contributes little to 

pollution, makes a positive contribution to health and causes little death or injury, it can be 

regarded as the most benevolent of machines. 

(In the closing section of the article, Wilson said that worldwide, bicycles “play a role far more 

significant than that of the automobile.” He explained: 

China with its 800 million inhabitants relies heavily on the bicycle for the transport of 

people and goods. So do the countries of Southeast Asia and Africa. Even the U.S.S.R, 

with only about 1.5 million automobiles, has an annual production of 4.5 million bicycles. 

Europe and North America are therefore in a minority in relying so heavily on the 

automobile. The true cost of doing so is becoming increasingly evident, not only in the 

consumption of resources but also in pollution and other undesirable effects on urban life. 

(The bicycle offered the overdeveloped world “a real alternative to the automobile, if we are 

prepared to recognize and grasp the opportunities by planning our living and working environment 

in such a way as to induce the use of these humane machines.” He recommended facilities to 

induce motorists to switch modes: “cycleways to reduce the danger to cyclists of automobile 

traffic, bicycle parking stations, facilities for the transportation of bicycles by rail and bus, and 

public bicycles for ‘park and pedal’ service.” Circumstances were occurring that called for “a 

reappraisal of the hypertrophic role the automobile plays in Western life.” One was “the undoubted 
805 

diminution of fossil-fuel resources and the accompanying increase in fuel prices,” while another 

was “the sheer inequity in per capita energy consumption between automobile-using and nonautomobile-using countries.” He added: 

In these days of universal communication such a situation will appear more and more 

inequitable and a source of resentment. It is inconceivable that 800 million Chinese will 

ever become consumers of energy on the per capita scale of 200 million Americans, and the 

end result must be a gradual reduction of energy consumption in the U.S. To this end the 

bicycle can play a significant part and thereby become a great leveler.

(Wilson concluded his article, “If one were to give a short prescription for dealing rationally with 

the world’s problems of development, transportation, health and the efficient use of resources, one 

could do worse than the simple formula: Cycle and recycle.” [Wilson, S. S., “Bicycle Technology, 

Scientific American, March 1973, p. 81-91]) 

John Hall of the National Forest Products Association testified in support of continuing $170 

million a year for national forest development roads and trails, as was the case in the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act developed without approval in 1972. “Road access is vital to national forest resource 

management activities,” he said. An authorization of $170 million “is a small investment to 

enhance future resource developments and fulfill the many demands placed on the national forest 

resources.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 699-700] 

Mrs. W. L. Lyons Brown of The Garden Club of America testified on several issues. First, she 

recommended eliminating all outdoor advertisements from the Intersate and primary highways. She 

thought that “legislators, outdoor advertising companies, and industry as well as owners of land 

along the highways should work toward this goal,” not just for beautification but for safety. “Any 

billboards [sic] create hazards to driving on superhighways at super-speeds.” 

She also objected to provisions in the 1972 bill and S. 502 that would weaken the Highway 

Beautification Act of 1965 by providing a 2-year moratorium on removal of commercial directional 

signs. “Under the masquerade of being in the interest of the traveling public, this [moratorium] 

would have brought to a halt the implementation of billboard removal” under the 1965 Act: 

After 7 years of waiting, Federal funding had finally been achieved. Secretary Volpe forced 

all States to comply with the threat of a 10-percent penalty of highway funds. All States 

except South Dakota had complied for qualification and by October 1972, 50,000 of the 

800,000 signs, made illegal by the act as they were within the 660-foot limit, were down. 

Now, by March 1, 101,000 signs have been taken down. 

Given the “wide national aversion by the American public to the proliferation of signs on the 

highways,” she considered it “unthinkable to now impose any change to slow down or stop the 

removal program.” As the members of the subcommittee well knew, she said, only a lack of a 

quorum prevented this delay from taking place. “A bolt of lightning” could not have been more 

effective at giving Congress a second chance to kill the proposed moratorium. 
806 

At the same time, she favored modifying the provision permitting billboards beyond 660 feet from 

the edge of a federally supported highway to prohibit all billboards visible from the highway. “The 

reason is to prevent outdoor advertisers from the further affront of the jumbo signs that are 

circumventing the law” just beyond the 660-foot limit. 

Mrs. Brown also was concerned about highway plantings. Highway engineers were not always the 

best judge in selecting “suitable native and hardy plant material.” She suggested that “a separate 

contract should be made for the planting and maintenance apart from that of construction, and that 

some authoritative local advisers should approve the final choices of landscaping.” 

Finally, The Garden Club of America opposed the amendment on the North Expressway in San 

Antonio. “We feel this would create disastrous precedent for the many current freeway disputes 

and would bring you more problems in every State.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 702-708] 

The day’s final witness, NARC’s Frank Francois, was not present. NARC Executive Director 

Richard Hartman read Francois’ brief statement. In it, Francois endorsed many provisions of S. 

502, including increased funding for urban and rural Federal-aid systems, transfer of Interstate 

mileage within a State on a dollar-for-dollar basis, the Muskie-Baker amendment, Federal-aid for 

bicycle facilities, the rural highway public transportation demonstration program, and the 

prohibition of any highway program that is inconsistent with the Secretary’s guidelines for attaining 

air quality standards and any implementation plans approved by EPA for air quality control regions: 

These are significant improvements. They will provide states, regions and local 

governments the flexibility and added resources to cope more adequately with their serious 

transportation problems. 

Francois was concerned about the provision in Section 126 (“Availability of Urban System Funds”) 

of S. 502. It made Federal-aid urban system funds available to any urbanized area of 400,000 or 

more population on an earmarked and pass-through basis if the Secretary found that the 

municipalities within the area have sufficient authority and capability under State law to develop 

and implement projects. NARC supported the principle of designating metropolitan transportation 

agencies because assigning sole authority to the State must end “if transportation planning and 

programming is to reach its potential for guiding orderly regional growth.” He continued: 

Unfortunately, Section 126 would not facilitate better areawide transportation decisions in 

our large metropolitan areas. The earmarking and expenditure of urban system funds by 

large municipalities could reduce existing cooperative planning efforts at the metropolitan 

level. Instead of encouraging a program of projects to be mutually arrived at within the 

context of the local governments [sic] own regional council, urban system projects would be 

annually developed by the state and central city. Their only constraint is that the projects 

would have to be consistent with the Section 134 [of Title 23] planning process. And this is 

not enough; it would only simply compound the problems with the present system. Plans 

would be produced, but others would determine the phasing of their implementation. 
807 

The National Association’s position is twofold. Either return to the original concept in S. 

502 and authorize the development of program [of] projects and location of urban system 

funds by metropolitan agencies in urbanized areas of 250,000 or more, or require that the 

Section 134 planning process must generate an annual program of projects which 

determines the use of the urban funds in the large metropolitan areas. 

He also urged the subcommittee to require State highway agencies to involve the nearly 400 rural 

regional councils in transportation decisions affecting the Federal-aid primary and secondary 

systems. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 710-712] 

Without questions for Hartman, the committee recessed at 8 p.m. 

Concluding the House Hearings

On Friday, March 23, the Subcommittee on Transportation opened the final day of hearings at 10 

a.m., with Representative Harold Johnson presiding. The first witness, Louis R. Lundgren, 

represented the American Institute of Architects. He focused on four major points, beginning with 

program consolidation. The institute favored consolidation, but recommended combining it with “a 

major overhaul of state and local public mechanisms which have been used in our less-thansuccessful attempts to control and shape growth.” Highways can help in controlling metropolitan 

growth, but Lundren asked, “Who here can honestly say that states and local governments have 

made good use of highways as one of the greatest catalysts for controlling growth?” Replacing 

categorical aid with block grants or revenue sharing, “without incentives for metropolitan 

government reform, . . . will only further entrench existing institutions which are not structured to 

cope well with the problems of growth and change.” 

Second, the institute supported the pass-through provision of S. 502 to make Federal-aid urban 

system funds available to metropolitan transportation authorities. 

With the Interstate System nearing completion, the institute offered its long-range proposal for 

“building the public infrastructure, including roads, in a way that would tend to alleviate many of 

the institutional problems and result in a more human environment.” The idea was a Community 

Development Fund that would replace all special funding programs for transportation and 

community development. It would be a funding source for all forms of transportation as well 

infrastructure (utilities, facilities to support social services, as well as other public works.) As 

Lundgren noted, the institute had testified before the House Committee on Government Operations 

in support of the Department of Community Development, which would provide the financial 

linkages needed for the Community Development Fund. 

(Secretary Lynn, after becoming Counsellor for Community Development, began working on a new 

bill to create a Department of Community Development. He and his staff coordinated with OMB to 

determine which elements under Lynn’s jurisdiction would be included in the new department, 

while they tried to find out if Representative Holifield could be counted on for support as in 1972. 

Secretary Lynn’s staff began discussions with the Department of Transportation regarding 

coordination. As Professor Lee explained in Nixon’s Super-Secretaries: 
808 

But before the principals (Lynn and Transportation Secretary Brinegar) met to sanction the 

plans, staff would need to clear the path with lower-level meetings. At first, they assumed 

they would start with Undersecretary Egil “Bud” Krogh Jr., but they ultimately decided to 

work with Theodore Lutz, the deputy undersecretary. 

Plans for introducing DCD at the end of April (or whenever Representative Holifield 

decided) melted away in the policy chaos of Watergate. By the time the counsellorships 

were abolished on May 10, the bill had not yet been introduced. It never was. [Lee, p. 145-

146] 

(Krogh, by then, had been caught in the chaos of Watergate.) 

 

Third, the institute endorsed the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit, including rail 

transit, as provided for in S. 502. Too much reliance on the Interstate System for inter- and intracity transportation was not only inconsistent with the Interstate System mission, but inefficient. “If 

the nation is to meet increasing transportation demands in metropolitan areas, all modes of 

transportation must function together and be supported in a coordinated manner.” 

The institute also encouraged the subcommittee to include the Interstate transfer mechanism from S.

502 “to allow state and local officials to use the funds involved to meet other pressing 

transportation needs in lieu of the disputed Interstate mileage.” 

Finally, Lundgren recalled that the institute had testified in 1972 about “a concerted attack . . . on 

the beautification program.” The type of on-again, off-again implementation that would result from 

a moratorium “would stop the beautification program dead in its tracks . . . [and] will hardly 

encourage the states to persist in their billboard removal efforts.” He also objected to allowing 

directional advertising on billboards that would otherwise be in nonconformance with the Highway 

Beautification Act of 1965. Instead of removing 800,000 current nonconforming signs, this 

exemption “would add as many as 500,000 new signs, for a grand total of 1.2 million billboards 

along our nation’s Interstate and primary roads.” He recommended the use of Department of 

Transportation approved Logo signs to provide information to travelers. 

Further, the institute supported provisions of S. 502 that converted the 660-foot billboard restriction 

to a “visual corridor” that would exclude the jumbo signs being erected beyond 660 feet, as well as 

the provision allowing Highway Trust Fund revenues to be used to pay just compensation for sign 

removal:

Highway Trust Fund financing of the beautification program is consistent with our view that 

this money be used for a wide range of transportation activities and need not be restricted to 

the construction of highways. 

Representatives Clausen and Wright, who were on the Highway Beautification Commission, 

wanted to discuss Lundgren’s testimony on the subject. Representative Clausen said the 

commission’s interim recommendations included the moratorium. During hearings, the 

commission found that everyone agreed on the need for directional signing (“if you could have 
809 

heard some of the stories during the testimony, it is the small—shall we call them ‘mom and pop’ 

type of business enterprises that are almost entirely dependent upon some form of direction in order 

to be located”), but was seeking an “environmentally acceptable” alternative “that will tend to blend 

into the landscape, and yet, at the same time, serve what appears to be a very important 

requirement” of businesses dependent on motorist traffic. 

Lundgren’s associate, Michael Barker (administrator for environment and design), said that “there 

are graphic systems available that can be incorporated in the actual design of the roadscape.” He 

started to explain that the problem was not mom-and-pop advertising but the large chains 

advertising their products, but Representative Wright interrupted to say the 1972 House bill did not 

include a moratorium. Barker tried to say it was not clear, but Representative Wright replied, “It 

was clear to anybody who read the bill.” 

He asked if Barker objected “to a 2-year moratorium on directional signs that give public 

information, when we haven’t got any other sources? Do you object to that? Do you want to 

remove what little information they have before you supply it by some other means?” Barker 

replied, “What is really needed is a legislative mandate to develop alternative means to provide 

necessary information to the traveling public.” 

Clearly angry, Representative Wright asked if Barker was familiar with the responses of the 

motoring public on the subject. When Barker said he was not, Wright continued: 

For your information, the Commission last year conducted two national surveys, because we 

thought, after all, it was more important to the public, for whom presumably we are building 

and beautifying these highways, that their needs be accommodated. These are the people 

who depend upon our highways. 

For your information these motorists indicated very, very clearly, in two separate polls, that 

they need this kind of directional information—not what kind of cigar is best, not what kind 

of soft drink is best. 

Barker explained that he was simply suggesting that roadside graphics would be better than 

allowing “the exploitation of a public investment—highways—in the name of conveying 

information.” Integrated graphics were better than allowing outdoor advertising to “impinge upon 

the public sensibility in terms of the quality of the environment that the public paid for.” 

This response appeared to annoy Representative Clausen: 

This is the reason I asked the question [about the surveys]. You people are professionals in 

the field and you can’t answer some of Mr. Wright’s questions. You make statements that 

you are struggling with this thing. There are many people who are saying maybe we should 

just stop the whole beautification program, simply because we can’t find common 

agreement. We’re asking professionals like yourself to give us some solutions. 
810 

Barker offered to provide some possible solutions, but Representative Wright said he didn’t think 

he’d be able to understand architectural drawings. He was still upset by the claim that the 1972 bill 

included a moratorium: 

I don’t think I could read [an architectural drawing] very well. But I do think I can read law, 

and your allegations are incorrect, in your interpretation of what we wrote into the law . . . . 

We didn’t say that in the law, and it couldn’t be so interpreted in my judgment, or in the 

judgment of those of us who drafted the law, and whose business it is to draft laws— 

Barker, not recognizing that he would be better off agreeing, indicated that his interpretation was 

based on consultation with several environmental lawyers and other groups interested in the 

beautification program. Wright replied that the 1972 House bill was not directed at advertising by 

national brands, so that point was “a little bit farfetched.”

During a discussion of just compensation, Barker again referred to “public investment,” prompting 

Representative Clausen to interrupt because he thought the phrase was used with a negative 

connotation. He explained that the Highway Trust Fund had generated economic growth for 

entrepreneurs around the country. “So the interpretation you put on this thing, I think, should be on 

the positive side rather than on the negative side.” 

Still not able to back down, Barker suggested that “some of the unearned increments from public 

investments accruing to private property owners adjacent to public facilities be recaptured,” 

consistent with the concept of just compensation in the Highway Beautification Act. 

Representative Clausen asked what Barker’s father did for a living. He owned a restaurant in 

Bakersfield, California, with street access. This response prompted Representative Wright to ask if 

Barker thought it would be fair for the government to take a shopping center without compensation 

because the owner had received the equivalent of full value through amortization. Barker 

equivocated, prompting Representative Wright to conclude that “the small guy” put his money into 

it, not the government. 

Throughout the week of hearings, this exchange was one of the most acrimonious with any witness. 

 Representative Wright concluded by saying, “We didn’t intend to be unkind in some of the things 

we suggested.” However, he and Representative Clausen, as members of the commission, “have 

wrestled with this thing for years, have found it a little bit distressing that certain broad statements 

have been made.” Barker replied, “As we see the signs come down along the roadsides, we’ll think 

of you two.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 715-740] 

Later that morning, Harrison Lewis, counsel to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America 

(OAAA), testified on behalf of the trade association of the standardized outdoor advertising 

medium. He began by saying, “First of all, we would like to point out that the OAAA has 

supported the Highway Beautification Act from its inception, and continues to support the act and 

its reasonable implementation by the States.” He continued: 

We would be the first to admit that the act is not perfect and that the act should be amended 

or rewritten in its entirety at some appropriate time.
811 

This was not that time, however. First, the Highway Beautification Commission had not submitted 

its final report; Congress had extended the deadline to December 31, 1973. (As noted earlier, the 

final report, The Priority of Quality, would be submitted on that date.) Further, two court cases 

were pending, State of South Dakota v. Volpe and State of Vermont v. Volpe, that might lead to 

congressional action. 

Finally, change was not urgently needed, even in the case of the jumbo signs being placed beyond 

the 660 foot limit but still visible from the roadway. He believed that “most of the giant boards 

which are going to be erected have already been erected and that there will be no great increase in 

these boards until near the end of the removal program.” In any event, the States had the authority 

to extend the 660-foot limit if they wished to cover the jumbo signs. He thought that a letter from 

the Secretary of Transportation reminding the States of their authority to do so “would probably be 

as effective as amending the Federal law.” 

That was why amendments of the 1965 Act were not needed at this time:

The “band-aid” treatment of making changes every time there is a highway bill creates 

havoc in the States. Every time the Federal act is amended, the State legislatures must 

amend their State law. This is often a very traumatic experience. The control of outdoor 

advertising is a highly emotional subject in every State.

The question of tourist-oriented directional signs also was not urgent. “The Secretary has placed 

the lowest priority [on] removal of these signs and it will be several years before they come down.” 

Moreover, the Federal-Aid Highway Act was not a good vehicle for changes to the Highway 

Beautification Act. “Highway beautification is such a relatively small item in relation to the rest of 

the bill that it cannot receive proper attention and hearings.” If that happened, “inadequate attention 

may be given to the beautification provisions and unwise decisions made.” 

Following Lewis’s brief informal statement, no one had questions for him. [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 781-783] 

In case Congress decided to proceed despite the lack of urgency and the chance of unwise decisions, 

OAAA provided a detailed statement concerning possible amendments. It was 24 pages long 

counting exhibits. The statement emphasized “that it is inappropriate and premature to amend the 

Highway Beautification Act in the 1973 Highway Act,” but if changes were going to occur, OAAA 

had several suggestions. 

Moratorium on directional signs—Inclusion of a 2-year moratorium in the 1972 legislation 

“triggered publicity that completely misinterpreted the letter and purpose” of the provision. The 

Senate had not included the moratorium in S. 502 and such a moratorium was not needed because 

an FHWA Notice dated April 16, 1971 (“Guidelines for Outdoor Advertising Control—Highway 

Beautification Act of 1965”) had placed the lowest priority on removal of such signs. As a result, a 

moratorium was not needed and would “generate considerable criticism of the program as it did last 

year.”
812 

Support for extension of 660-foot control limit—OAAA supported the extension of controls 

beyond 660 feet to eliminate jumbo signs that outdoor advertisers had placed beyond the legal limit 

to continue advertising to motorists. The support was conditioned on payment of compensation for 

any signs removed as a result of the extension. 

Compensation—The Highway Beautification Act of 1965 provided for compensation for lawfully 

erected signs (those erected lawfully under State law prior to enactment of the 1965 Act), but 

OAAA thought the statutory language left “ambiguities, deficiencies and inequities” in practice. 

The problem arose especially for signs lawfully erected after enactment of the 1965 Act but before 

January 1, 1968, when Federal funds became available for compensation, with implementation 

further delayed by a moratorium imposed by the Secretary of Transportation until 1971. “We 

support and urge the adoption of the amendment in the House passed bill of last year which 

recognizes and corrects the inequities and legal problems” regarding these signs.

Directional signs within the rights-of-way of the primary system—OAAA “is vigorously 

opposed to the use of advertising signs maintained by the states on the right-of-way in lieu of 

private signs on private property.” This was a reference to Logo signs that provide road users with 

business identification and directional information for services, often located near interchanges, and 

for eligible attractions. In OAAA’s view, “this activity constitutes an unwarranted and unnecessary 

invasion by the state and Federal Government into the realm of private enterprise.” OAAA did not 

consider Logo signs on Interstate highways as being “in direct competition with the standardized 

structures” its members erected. It opposed them because they excluded local businesses that did 

not have a distinctive sign or trademark suitable for a Logo sign or could not meet State standards 

for signage (such as hours open and days of service). Logo signs also constituted a safety hazard 

along the roadside. OAAA did not recommend an amendment, but if Congress decided to amend 

the 1965 Act, the provision in the 1972 House bill should be adopted. (Under that provision, the 

Secretary may, in consultation with the States, allow directional signs on the right-of-way of the 

primary system, which included the Interstates, provided that such signs were not erected in urban 

or suburban areas in lieu of permitted billboards or where such information is available from such 

billboards.) 

Federal-aid urban system—“The OAAA believes that the specific extension of the Beautification 

Act to the urban system should be accomplished and that this position is consistent with our 

original support of the Beautification Act.” (In his statement, Lewis said that on March 14, 1973, 

Acting Administrator Bartelsmeyer had exempted the entire Federal-aid urban system from the 

requirements of the Highway Beautification Act. Previously, on March 22, 1972, Administrator 

Turner had exempted the urban system except those portions that were formerly on the Federal-aid 

primary system. “These appear to be arbitrary and unwarranted determinations, without foundation 

in fact.”)

Scenic roads—“We support the application of the Beautification Act to any such road or system 

which may be created by Congress . . . .” 

OAAA’s statement concluded by again pointing out that “it is neither appropriate nor necessary to 

make any amendments to the Highway Beautification Act at this time.” [1973 Highway Legislation 

(Future Highway Needs), p. 757-766, plus exhibits through p. 781] 

Carol Parker of Friends of the Earth was the final witness in the morning session. She said: 
813 

When the statistics on the effects of highways on the environment are examined, it is not 

difficult to understand the ongoing campaign to reorder transportation priorities for a more 

balanced transportation system. 

After discussing deficiencies such as urban air pollution, traffic noise, and depletion of energy 

resources, Parker observed that nevertheless, America’s “dependence on the automobile is 

increasing,” leaving the country on “a very precarious course.” She continued: 

Friends of the Earth urges a reordering of the transportation system from the present 

overreliance on the energy-extravagant automobile to other more efficient modes of 

transportation. 

Congress could help achieve a more balanced transportation system by approving legislation 

“allowing Highway Trust Fund money to be spent for bus and rail mass transit, as well as 

highways.” Local officials must have the option to choose the best mix of modes to meet the 

unique needs in their areas: 

The money available from general funds does not come close to meeting the heavy demands 

for rail and bus public transportation. If planners are to give proper attention to the 

combination of transportation modes, their consideration of bus and rail mass transit must 

be more than an academic exercise.

As part of this initiative, local governments should be able to shift money from controversial 

highway segments to other modes that might better meet their needs. The Interstate matching ratio 

of 90-10 should apply to substitute projects “so that alternatives have an equal economic value.” 

Parker recognized that diverting Highway Trust Fund revenue to mass transit would be a major 

battle, but the fight should not overshadow a continuing threat to environmental protection 

safeguards. Friends of the Earth opposed the “disastrous provision” that would exempt San 

Antonio’s North Expressway from NEPA and Section 4(f). It would set “an extremely dangerous 

precedent for further circumvention of the law.” Advocates of the exemption claimed it would not 

set a precedent, but advocates of the Three Sisters Bridge also were seeking an exemption, and 

exemptions might be sought for I-40 through Overton Park, I-93 through Franconia Notch State 

Park, and I-66 in Arlington. “And this could only be the beginning.” 

During the brief question period, Representative Cleveland asked Parker the same questions he had 

asked Kramer. Has she ever been to Franconia Notch? Yes, she had. Had she talked to State 

highway engineers about the plans? No, she was hiking at the time. “In other words, your 

information on Franconia Notch . . . is not information you got personally?” She said she was 

referring to Senator Cotton’s attempts to exempt the highway. Since I-93 was a four-lane Interstate 

leading to Franconia Notch, did she think it would be logical to have just two lanes through the 

park? She thought a number of alternatives, such as running I-93 to the northwest or tunneling, 

were available that would be less environmentally destructive. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 783-787] 
814 

When the afternoon session began at 2:05, again with Representative Johnson presiding, 

Democratic Governor Milton J. Shapp of Pennsylvania (1971-1979) was the first witness. He 

began by saying he would not use his time “to review the urban condition which is further degraded 

by the traffic that daily chokes our cities and their suburbs with automobiles that crawl toward their 

destinations.” He would not recount the “losses in money, time, human energy, our oil supplies, 

environmental decay, and the health of citizens who must breathe the resulting befouled air . . . .” 

They represented “a tragic and needless waste,” but he would not go into them since they had been 

“recited in the media, on the lecture platforms, and in the halls of the Congress almost ad 

infinitum.” Instead, he said: 

While I do not intend to again recite this litany of horror, I cannot stress too greatly, though, 

that we are now in a race against the clock. There is no question in my mind that the answer 

to the urban condition, in part, lies in the development of mass transit on a massive scale. 

The problem is national . . . and it must be solved on the basis of high national priority. 

The Senate had “moved constructively” by opening Federal-aid urban system funds to mass transit, 

including rail systems, and authorizing $400 million a year for 2 years to offset operating losses. 

Governor Shapp estimated these changes would help Pennsylvania by as much as $32 million, but 

he did not come before the subcommittee as a supplicant State unwilling to help itself. The State 

was providing $42 million to meet mass transit operating deficits and $13.5 million to subsidize 

senior citizen fares. The State also was paying $60 million for a long-range program of capital 

improvements. 

The result was that Philadelphia ranked second in mass transit use, behind only New York City, and 

Pittsburgh ranked fifth. “Our mass transit, nevertheless, leaves much to be desired, and we want to 

improve it.” The State would do its share, “but we need Federal help to solve a problem that is 

national in scope and which affects the economic and physical well-being of the entire Nation.” 

He estimated that each mass transit trip cost workers 50 cents, while the cost to those who use 

automobiles for their work trips “is estimated to be three times as great,” or about $125 million 

annually.” He continued: 

Mass transit is the intelligent answer to traffic blight—a blight that becomes worse with the 

development of every new highway that connects our cities together. We need those 

highways, but there will be no balance unless they are complemented by a mass transit 

system that provides efficient and comfortable transportation for our urban millions. 

The problem begins with the gasoline-powered vehicle, and there is every reason to use the 

money arising from the use of the automobile to help to finance alternative transportation so 

that we need not ban the auto from our cities as a final desperate measure.

He urged Congress to adopt several ideas. The matching ratio for mass transit capital projects 

should be the same as for the Interstate System, 90-10. Some States could not provide the full 

match of one-third for mass transit (often split among State and local governments). Changing the 
815 

ratio to 90-10 “would be just as important for mass transit as it was for the Interstate Highway 

System.”

He rejected “invading the Highway Trust Fund,” saying: 

If we have $6 billion a year coming in from taxes on automobiles, it would seem to me that 

we have a self-revolving fund here at the present time that could be used in order to help not 

just the highway system but also a major scale investment in mass transit.

One of the country’s advantages was the presence of many major companies, such as Boeing, that 

had devoted their production lines to equipment such as helicopters for the Vietnam War but could 

now gear up to manufacture mass transit cars. “There is no reason why the skill of the Boeing 

engineers and the skill of their production people and their facilities could not be put to use to build 

mass transit equipment for our cities” if the market grows.

His final point involved the railroad system and mass transit. An inefficient transportation system, 

including the railroad system, increased the cost of every product manufactured in the United 

States. At the worker level, the same was true of the added time and cost resulting from those same 

inefficiencies: 

So if we have an efficient mass transit system, then we can lower the cost to our people for 

getting to and from work. With an efficient transportation, we can cut down some of the 

cost of our products that are now due to our high transportation costs, and I think we’ll find 

the United States would be a much more efficient country, be much more productive, and be 

able to compete more in the world markets. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 787-790] 

In response to a question from Representative Johnson, Governor Shapp said Philadelphia had 

received UMTA funds, but their use was caught up in “a political squabble going on as to whether 

it would be wiser to build a tunnel to connect the Pennsy and Reading Railroads downtown, or to 

use the money that’s allocated for rolling stock for SEPTA. Unfortunately, these political 

squabbles have resulted in a reduction in the amount of money that has been available for capital 

use.” He continued: 

However, Philadelphia has just spent considerable money. We just purchased the year 

before last a whole new fleet of railroad cars that will be augmenting the present system, and 

they have just purchased a whole new fleet of buses that have just started to come in. 

He hoped the tunnel dispute would be settled soon, but said, “we are getting Federal funds in 

Philadelphia for expansion—I should say modernization—of the fleet of equipment that is in use.” 

 

As an example of a potential capital project, Governor Shapp pointed out that the Philadelphia area 

had many abandoned railroad tracks. “It would be possible, with the proper financing—and the 

plans have been drawn—it would be possible to put a [rail] ring around Philadelphia . . . to utilize 
816 

some of the abandoned freight tracks of the railroads, to make a ring around the city which would 

give us a much more efficient, more modern, and I think a speedier way of getting around the city.” 

 

During a discussion of whether rail mass transit systems or passenger rail could be profitable, 

Representative Johnson said, “Maybe one or two of the routes—from Washington to New York, or 

New York to Boston—are probably paying their way, but that’s about it, I think.” Governor Shapp 

said that when Federal operation of passenger rail was under discussion, he had predicted it would 

lose money. “I don’t wish to be vulgar up here, but I said it started out as Railpax and became 

Amtrak, and it is soon to become Exlax. And that’s just about what has happened with Amtrak.” 

He explained:

You see, you can’t put in charge of a railroad, as you have here, people who for the last 30 

or 40 years have been saying passenger service can’t work in the United States and expect in 

a couple of years time to have it working. 

He thought that, “If you give people train service that is modern, high-speed, efficient, and on 

schedules that suit the people, people will go back to trains.” He added, “This has been the 

experience throughout the world.” 

Representative Robert Jones was skeptical about the profitability of passenger rail or metropolitan 

mass transit systems. Governor Shapp cited the Philadelphia-to-New York Metroliner and the 

Trans-European Express, but as for mass transit, he said: 

I’m not so certain the commuter services are going to be profitable in the sense that—at 

least for a long, long time—that you’re going to get any subway or bus line operating as a 

private business and showing a profit in your major cities. That’s the reason we subsidize at 

a State level, and it is the reason I say there should be some subsidizing from the Federal 

level on operating costs. 

Profits had to be calculated not by dollars-and-cents but on the basis of “total social profit.” 

Representative Jones asked about the use of revenue sharing for operating subsidies. When 

Governor Shapp did not embrace the idea, Representative Jones said, “So that leaves the Congress 

to apply itself to subsidies, such as you have revenue sharing available for.” Governor Shapp said 

the problem was that revenue sharing was not really available. He cited comments by Vice 

President Agnew to the National Governors’ Conference in January 1971 that revenue sharing 

would be in addition to funding for existing programs:

What has happened is that we’re getting the revenue sharing, but the programs for our senior 

citizens, for job training, job placement, day care centers, all the rest of it, have been so 

slashed that we have less money to operate with in our States today than we had before. 

So revenue sharing has not turned out to be any additional money, but it has been a 

scramble. Since these programs have been slashed, it has been a scramble in the States even 

to maintain some of the necessary programs.
817 

The dialogue continued: 

Mr. Jones. So you don’t think revenue sharing would be an answer to your transportation 

problems? 

Governor Shapp. No, sir. I think revenue sharing has turned out to be something that is 

going to be very detrimental the way it is being applied at the present time. I might say this 

was the general feeling of most of the Governors who attended the Governors’ conference. 

Mr. Jones. You mean you’re disappointed in revenue sharing? 

Governor Shapp. Very much so. 

Representative Clausen pointed out that Pennsylvania was not unique. The attitude seemed to be: 

“We don’t care where we get the money, as long as we get it, but they always want somebody else 

to raise the money for them.” Governor Shapp started to talk about the separate levels of 

government, but Representative Clausen cut him off. “You don’t have to waste your time. I have 

given speeches on it myself.” 

Instead, he referred to Governor Shapp’s testimony about the cost to workers of transit versus using 

their automobiles. Why don’t the people use mass transit and apply the savings to build a mass 

transit system? Governor Shapp tried to explain that the State’s constitution required a balanced 

budget, but Representative Clausen interrupted to ask why the State does not establish its own 

highway trust fund. The Governor said the State’s constitution prohibited such a fund, although the 

State had established a Transportation Assistance Authority to issue bonds for mass transit capital 

expenditures. 

Representative Clausen asked for Governor Shapp’s reaction to a quote from a future witness who 

was going to say: 

Philadelphia’s Lindenwold Line [to Lindenwold, New Jersey], with its comfortable rail cars 

cruising at 60 miles an hour between stations where ample parking is provided, was 

heralded as providing the alternative that would lure downtown commuters from their cars. 

Instead, auto traffic on the three highway bridges connected [sic] Philadelphia to southern 

New Jersey has increased. 

Governor Shapp replied that while bridge traffic had increased, “so has the transportation on the 

Lindenwold Line.” In fact, the line was being extended at a cost of $32 million to attract “even 

more people.” 

When Representative Wright’s turn came, he began by confirming that Governor Shapp was not 

saying his State no longer needed money for highways. The Governor replied that the State did 

need money for highways, especially after the June 1972 devastation of Hurricane Agnes, which 

washed out many highways and bridges: 

We still have a need for a highway system. But what is happening is, you build more and 

more highways across your States, you get more and more traffic funneling into your cities. 
818 

The things I’m talking about fundamentally here are the needs to move people in and around 

our major cities.

Representative Wright asked the Governor to explain the subtraction that accompanied General 

Revenue Sharing. Pennsylvania received about $100 million in General Revenue Sharing, but 

cutoffs to other programs cost the State some $350 million. Representative Wright asked: 

Can’t you see what’s getting ready to happen, Governor? You fellows have the same play 

you bought [sic] last time, coming up here asking for part of this highway money for mass 

transit, and you think that’s going to be in addition to something else? Can’t you see it 

coming? You’re going to wind up in the same boat you’re in now. You’re not going to 

have enough money for either highways or mass transit. Yet somebody has euchred you and 

other Governors into taking the position that the only place you can get this money for your 

mass transit is out of the highway money. 

Governor Shapp denied saying that the Highway Trust Fund was the only source. He had suggested

that extra funding for mass transit be made available on the same basis as highway funds. Referring 

to the $6 billion in revenue going into the Highway Trust Fund, he thought that the States would be 

getting less than half of that back for transportation needs (he did not explain why). “So we may be 

euchred into getting less, but I think that’s the wrong policy.” 

“I really fear for you,” Representative Wright said. “I fear that the Governors are going to come to 

some consensus that we take this mass transit money out of our highway money and then wind up 

with not enough for either one.” He continued: 

Now, what I’m saying is, I think some [of] you, in your zeal to find the means of providing 

for your undeniable needs for public transportation, are allowing yourselves to be put into a 

position where you are accepting an elusive hope. There just isn’t going to be enough 

money in this fund to do the things you seem to think... 

Governor Shapp pointed out that because of environmental impact problems, the cities were not 

going to be able to build all their Interstates. (“We can’t even at the present time figure out a way to

finish I-95, which is about three-fourths finished.”) At the same time, abandoned rail tracks “could 

be joined together into a mass transit system.” Given that Interstates were arterials for through 

traffic as well as urban highways, “you need the mass transit system more in our cities than ever . . . 

because people coming on through get clogged up with the local traffic.” 

As for operating subsidies, Representative Wright said that he and other members of the Public 

Works Committee had traveled to Europe in December 1972 and found that all of the systems have 

to be subsidized. At the same time, Secretary Brinegar had said he would recommend a veto if the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 included operating subsidies. Governor Shapp hoped that would 

turn out to not be the case because “I think what you’re doing is raising the cost of the American 

people far beyond what you would appropriate for the system.” Representative Wright replied, 

“I’m just looking at it from the art of the possible.” A veto would not benefit anybody. [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 790-801] 
819 

Governor Shapp was followed by Nello L. Teer, Jr., president of AGC. Teer began by emphasizing 

that members of AGC “build both highways and mass transit systems. Therefore, we do not have 

any bias in favor of either of these programs.” Nevertheless, the “proper use of the scarce resources 

of public funds” to meet community needs was of great concern to AGC members. “While we are 

the builders of America, we are concerned about building it right.”

AGC opposed using Highway Trust Fund revenue for “any program not highway related.” By 

collecting the funds from highway users for highway purposes, “the general fund has been spared 

the burden of a large and expensive construction program, and those citizens who do not directly 

use the highways have not been called upon to help pay of [sic] them.” In view of estimated 

highway needs, diverting money from highways to mass transportation “does not solve either 

problem; it only guarantees that both systems will be even more inadequately financed than they are 

at present.” Attempting to fund both modes out of the Highway Trust Fund would be “fiscal folly.” 

Although AGC “strongly supports” adequate funding for mass transportation, current projections of 

transit needs “are really only estimates.” Congress should conduct extensive hearings to determine 

“the actual needs and actual costs of mass transportation similar to those that were held before the 

highway program was begun in 1956.” 

Further, AGC disputed the notion that mass transit would be “cheaper than if we spent the same 

dollars for street and highway improvement.” Teer said: 

Competent studies conclude just the opposite, that rail transit is not cheaper transportation; 

in fact, it is about the highest cost of any mode, and two to three times as costly per trip as 

by a bus system or an auto system which makes use of car pooling. 

Exclusive bus lanes and carpooling were, according to HUFSAM’s studies, among the least 

expensive forms of mass transit. 

“We feel that mass transit has yet to demonstrate that it can achieve all the wonders predicted by 

some proponents in relieving the congestion on our roads and in moving people quickly and 

efficiently.” He cited several examples:

• Montreal launched its $214 million metro system in 1966 “with much fanfare” in time for 

the 1967 International and Universal Exposition or Expo 67 (April 27 to October 29). It 

was expected to reverse “the 14-year downward trend in transit patronage,” but after the 

newness wore off, “mass transit in Montreal today attracts fewer passengers than it did prior 

to the opening of metro.” 

• As Representative Clausen had indicated, Teer cited the Lindenwold Line for not luring 

commuters from their cars as measured by the increased traffic on the three highway bridges 

across the Delaware River.

• The original BART line was serving about half the expected passengers. “Consultants for 

the San Francisco system expect BART to carry only 6 percent of the persons entering and 

leaving downtown San Francisco in 1985, which includes a 36-percent increase in the 

number of present bus riders.” Despite the expansion of BART service, these experts 

expect downtown traffic to increase by 40 percent. “In essence, the percentage of persons 
820 

coming downtown by transit as compared to the percentage by personal motor vehicle will 

remain fairly constant.

The projected benefits of mass transit “are based on motorists switching to transit and reducing the 

demand on freeways.” Experience shows the need for “careful study and thoughtful evaluation of 

mass transit proposals.” Teer continued: 

We suggest that the Department of Transportation give much more consideration and study 

to utilization of the express bus reserved lane, more car pooling, staggered office hours, and 

similar solutions—and less attention to such unproven proposals as automated rail and 

subway systems, dial-a-bus, monorail, and other “pie in the sky” ideas, even though our 

association members would be the builder beneficiaries of all such schemes . . . . 

Improve bus service through better scheduling, make better use of existing technology, and 

add innovative steps such as those introduced in other cities. Rather than tearing down to 

start anew, we should use an evolutionary process that, in a series of steps, builds our 

present and planned highways and streets to their full utilization. 

Safety was a concern. For example, thousands of unsafe bridges were among the $600 billion 

worth of projected highway needs: 

The identifiable cost of critically deficient bridges alone, a very minor part of this total 

highway needs listing, is about the same as the amount of money being presently suggested 

for diversion from the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit. Can we afford to leave the 

unsafe and inadequate bridges, by the thousands, in our highway system because we 

diverted the money raised to improve them into rail transit? I, for one, and the many publicminded businessmen whom I represent, say emphatically no. 

Public officials and communities seeking assistance for mass transportation “have not fully 

explored the consequences of their proposals” to divert Highway Trust Fund revenue and should 

consider “alternatives available to provide a more effective and economical solution.” As an 

example, Teer cited Atlanta, which adopted a general sales tax to support its bus and rail transit 

system, while reducing fares to 15 cents. “More self-help and local contributions before asking the 

rest of the country to contribute to solving their local problems would seem to us to be in order.” 

Teer recognized that mass transit could not operate solely out of the farebox and must have a 

guaranteed source of income. For that reason, “We firmly believe that a mass transit trust fund is 

the best answer to mass transit funding needs, just as the highway and airways trust funds have been 

in those areas.” But one thing was certain. “Taking funds from a successful, well-run system to 

give to a new system would damage both systems.” 

Teer said that AGC supported rapid completion of the Interstate System at the current funding level 

of $4 billion a year. Although inflation of labor rates, materials, and equipment have added to the 

rising cost of completion, “we believe the principal cause of recent cost increases in the highway 
821 

construction industry is the very action which the administration says will curb inflation—highway 

cutbacks.” The AGC supported congressional efforts to secure the release of impounded funds. 

The AGC opposed the pass-through provision, which “would destroy the highly efficient FederalState relationship that had existed for 40 years before the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was 

enacted.” Allowing Mayors and City Councils to decide which projects to develop would not only 

undermine the planning and coordination of State highway and transportation departments, but 

“would invite local politics to dominate transportation planning to the inevitable detriment of both 

highways and mass transit.” States had already adopted standard operating procedures to include 

local officials in the planning of local transportation projects. 

Current Federal-aid highway law included “too many narrow categories.” The funds could be used 

more effectively in a general pot without categorical restrictions. 

When Teer completed his statement, Representative Johnson thanked him and added, “The 

committee is light—it’s Friday afternoon—and they are throughout the United States as of now, 

[and] there are so few of us left here.” The few remaining committee members did not have any 

questions for him. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 801-807, 814] 

A panel representing the American Public Works Association (APWA) was next. APWA’s 

president, Erwin F. Hensch, could not be present, but a member of the board, John J. Roark of the 

North Central Texas Council of Goverments, read the statement. 

In view of environmental considerations and the impending fuel shortage, Hensch pointed out that 

the 1972 National Transportation Report had characterized many of the needs as “low-cost and 

noncapital techniques for improving the efficiency of existing highways and streets.” He said: 

We believe that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 should include financial incentives to 

make low-cost, high-benefit improvements of this type that make more effective use of 

existing facilities while recognizing the total needs of the community.

Total transportation needs greatly exceed available funding:

Therefore, we recommend the appropriation of additional funds through the existing urban 

mass transportation program, or through a separate transit trust fund, to finance buses and 

fixed-rail systems so it will not be necessary to reduce the funds urgently needed to improve 

street and highway systems in urban areas.

Rail transit may be appropriate in large urban areas, but “buses provide the greatest return on 

investments in mass transportation for small and medium size urban areas.” In larger urban areas, 

APWA did not believe capital investment would be best used for passenger-only fixed rail systems. 

 “They should also be employed for the movement of goods both before and after consumption.” 

Further, separate routes and exclusive lanes for buses have been “a significant step forward for 

mass transportation.” APWA recommended continued funding for these activities from the 

Highway Trust Fund. 
822 

At the same time:

We feel that a case could be made for increasing the Federal gasoline and/or automobile 

excise taxes for the purpose of improvement of public transportation systems. Increases in 

Federal gasoline taxes may result in fewer vehicle miles of travel, less traffic congestion, 

and less air pollution, while conserving energy. 

The one negative was that an increase in Federal highway user taxes might have an adverse impact 

on States that might wish to raise State taxes on highway users.

Hensch said he understood the Administration’s desire to control inflation through impoundment, 

but “we feel that Federal budget decisions should recognize the difference between capital

investments and consumable expenditures.” For public works, capital investments do not adversely 

affect the economy “and would, in fact, stimulate the economy. Therefore, it is our opinion that the 

impoundment of funds is not necessary.” 

In addition to urging completion of the Interstate System as soon as possible at $4 billion a year, the 

APWA supported the pass-through principle in general, but was concerned that it was untested. 

Congress should authorize a test of the concept on a limited scale before adopting it for wide 

application. 

Flexibility in selecting urban transportation programs was essential: 

Therefore, we support the transfer of Interstate mileage and the substitution of alternate 

segments so long as the modified routes provide adequate linkages with the remainder of the 

system. 

When Hensch’s statement was done, Roark added a thought: 

We subscribe to the administration’s plan of moving more people rather than moving more 

vehicles on our streets and highways, and recommend that performance statements be 

developed to describe the desired results of the Administration’s objectives. 

Any proposal must satisfy performance criteria, as in this example:

After all of the alternatives available have been considered, the proposed project should be 

the least detrimental to the environment, it should result in the conservation of fuel, it would 

require the least total cost, it would reduce the investment requirements, it would provide 

for speedy implementation, and it would be the most flexible with respect to long term 

which may be subject to change. 

Members of the subcommittee had no questions, but Richard C. Peet, the committee’s associate 

Republican counsel, asked what type of financial incentives the APWA had in mind to encourage 

low-cost, high benefit improvements. Roark pointed out that the 1972 needs study had identified 

carpooling and other low-capital or even noncost improvements that could address many of the 
823 

needs. Cities that were pursuing such activities should receive some sort of financial reward “in 

order that the other cities might join them.” Substantial rewards were appropriate, but beyond 

them, “I think the professional recognition of these cities that take aggressive action should be 

forthcoming.” 

In response to a question from Clyde Woodle of the committee staff, Roark said the APWA 

supported the provision in S. 502 to transfer Interstate funds to the Federal-aid urban system for use 

on eligible highway-oriented activities, but not for acquisition of buses or rolling stock for rails or 

the construction of rail lines. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 814-819] 

Robert E. Gallamore of Common Cause took his place at the witness table. Common Cause, he 

said, “is a national citizens’ organization of over 200,000 members in every State of the Union.” It 

had a range of interests, but in the field of urban transportation, its basic concern “stems from the 

imbalance of Federal transportation spending on highways versus mass transit.” The fund balance 

had improved in recent years, “but mass transit remains insufficiently funded in our view.” 

Common Cause, Gallamore said, applauded the Nixon Administration’s efforts to broaden the use 

of Highway Trust Fund revenues: 

One of our central objectives in broadening the trust fund is to increase local option over the 

spending of Federal funds for transportation . . . . Making the trust fund available for public 

transit would be the first step in reorienting the Nation from its dependence on new highway 

construction and automobile commuting in urban areas. 

Despite the negative consequences of automobile use, “local officials are not free at present to 

choose the form of transportation that makes the most sense for their city.” 

Flexibility was the key issue as the Committee on Public Works developed the new highway bill, 

but another matter was “of the greatest importance,” and that was the way the House of 

Representatives would frame the debate:

Twice in the last 6 months the Senate has voted, in open and recorded sessions, to broaden 

the Highway Trust Fund. The House has yet to allow a clear vote to be taken on that key 

issue. The Nation, we believe, is entitled to a straight vote by the House on the merits of 

opening the trust fund, and we believe this committee has an obligation to facilitate that 

vote. 

Parliamentary procedures should not be used as a device to prevent a vote on the merits of 

broadening the trust fund. 

In other matters, Common Cause rejected the contention that highway user charges must forever be 

used only for highways, calling the idea “logically insupportable.” He explained: 

Individual motorists do not vote to build more highways simply because they must buy 

gasoline for their automobiles. They may never use the new highways, they may prefer to 
824 

travel by bus or rail if those options are available, or they may be better off if other motorists 

were induced to travel by another mode . . . . There is and should be no inviolable “trust” 

between motorists and road construction. 

The Highway Trust Fund was created for the purpose of building the Interstate System, but has been 

used for other purposes from the start. This was not “a moral issue involved here, for there is no 

single public group with which a specific contract to build an unchangeable Interstate Highway 

System was signed.” Moreover, some groups of highway users benefit from the Highway Trust 

Fund at the expense of others: 

Large long-haul trucks and rush-hour commuters are two examples. They do not pay their 

full way. They are subsidized by other motorists, general taxpayers, and neighbors who 

must hear them and breathe their exhausts or move out of the way of their new roads. 

Federal fuel taxes were, Gallamore said, “more appropriately considered as a general sales tax,” 

since that is what they were when they were initiated in 1932. “Another way of looking at fuel 

taxes is as sumptuary taxes on a perceived social-evil—in this case, motor vehicle exhausts.” 

Further, he thought that fuel taxes would be a good place to start if the country wanted to impose 

comprehensive emissions or effluent taxes: 

Therefore, we do not object to the idea of increasing fuel taxes if that is absolutely necessary 

to pay for alternative forms of urban transportation, but we do object to the contention that 

existing fuel tax revenues could not be expended for the same purpose. In fact, we go 

farther and suggest that one reason so many plainly unwarranted highways have been built is 

that the funds were available and the ethos was that they had to be used or lost in building 

new highways. 

He acknowledged that the rural and ex-urban portions of the Interstate System were superbly 

designed for freight and passenger traffic. “No other transport network in the world is their equal.” 

 He continued: 

But somewhere along the line somebody got the idea that new inner-city highways should 

be built the same way as these rural freightways. They could be bored right through the 

centers of cities, with almost the same clearances, land requirements, and speed limits. It 

hasn’t worked. Most of these beautiful freeways wind up like every other road during rush 

hour: clogged with stop-and-go traffic.

The proposed priority primary system, Gallamore said, “also misses the mark.” With improved 

transportation decisionmaking and an end to the use-it-or-lose-it rule, “it is entirely possible that we 

can reduce the share of total Government revenues going to the transportation sector and still 

improve freight and passenger mobility, both rural and urban. 

He had three final points on eliminating obstacles to local initiative and responsibility. First, the 

Federal-State matching formulas for highways and transit should be the same to prevent different 

contribution levels from dictating choice. Second, the procedures for proposing urban freeways 
825 

“are more self-fulfilling prophecy than rational transportation planning” and would remain so as 

long as Highway Trust Fund revenues may be used only for highways. Common Cause supported 

the Interstate withdrawal and transfer mechanism in S. 502 that would allow unneeded Interstate 

Construction funds to be transferred to the Federal-aid urban system for use at local option. With 

that proviso, Common Cause favored completion of the Interstate System. 

Third, Common Cause recommended improved citizen participation in the transportation planning 

process. Gallamore encouraged the subcommittee to include the S. 502 provision on this subject in 

its bill and to provide oversight of its implementation.

In conclusion, Gallamore said that the Interstate System was an appropriate response to the gap in 

highway needs 20 years earlier:

But the view from 1973 is distinctly different. A basic system is already substantially in 

place. Additions to it, new highways, must be weighed, we believe, on their own merits and 

on a link-by-link basis. Other alternatives should be considered, and the funding must be 

flexible.

The concept of a single-mode trust fund, whether for highways, airways, or rail transit, is 

hopelessly outmoded. Transportation opportunities should be viewed regionally and by 

function, that is, by final purpose of the movement, rather than by what kind of equipment 

gets the object from one place to another. 

Broadening the Highway Trust Fund is a necessary step from the point of view of overall 

national priorities, and a proper way to provide the substantially larger sums for urban mass 

transit which we believe to be in the best interest of the general public. [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 819-823] 

During the brief question period, Representative Cleveland asked Gallamore about his reference to 

unwarranted urban and suburban highway projects that had been built. The Congressman was 

aware of the projects that were on hold pending resolution of controversy, but he had never seen a 

list of unwarranted projects that were built. 

Mr. Cleveland. Your statement is very plain, very clear. It says it also lists those that have 

been built— 

Mr. Gallamore. I think that’s right. Some of them have been built over objections— 

Mr. Cleveland. Which are plainly unwarranted. That’s the list I would like to have. 

Mr. Gallamore. I don’t have such a list. 

Mr. Cleveland. What did you base that statement on? 

Mr. Gallamore. I think that is an opinion, which I would state and urge you to consider. 

Mr. Cleveland. Unsubstantiated rhetoric, that’s what I consider it. You don’t have a list. 

You can’t tell us what they are. But yet here you say there are so many, implying quite a 

few, “plainly unwarranted urban and suburban highway projects.” 
826 

After Gallamore offered to provide a list of such projects for the record, Representative Cleveland 

said the fact that numerous highway projects are being held up by controversy “disproves the point 

you’re trying to make here, that those are just being built willy-nilly. I want the highways that have 

been built that are plainly unwarranted.” 

In subsequently submitting the list for the record, Gallamore explained: 

Defining a given highway as “unwarranted” is subject to individual interpretation, so I wish 

to make known the criteria I have applied in preparing the list that follows. Some or all of 

the factors may have been present, but no one condition was in every case necessary or 

sufficient. The final list is illustrative, and based on a balancing of these factors with others 

such as increased mobility, connection of the highway with others in a network, safety, etc. 

The criteria: Was the highway inordinately disruptive of neighborhoods? Were relocation 

problems fairly resolved? Was parkland taken, adversely impacted, or threatened by 

connecting highways? Did the highway substantially aggravate air pollution problems? 

Was the highway overbuilt? Did it take too much land? Was it excessively costly? Should 

it have been a mass transit corridor instead or did it render existing mass transit less 

effective?

SOME “UNWARRANTED” URBAN AND SUBURBAN HIGHWAYS

Highway/City/Comments

I-81, Baltimore 

Park impacts, mass transit alternative

I-95, Baltimore-Washington 

Overbuilt in terms of land taking 

I-93, Boston 

“The “$100,000,000 white elephant”; 

closed to traffic because of impact on local streets

I-93 Central Artery, Boston 

Waterfront impact, enormous cost, mass transit alternatives

Calumet Expressway, Chicago 

Competition with toll road

Eisenhower Expressway, Chicago 

Enormous cost, mass transit alternative, air pollution

Cross-country highway, Cincinnati 

Poorly planned, access problems 
827 

I-84, I-291, Hartford-Manchester area

Land-taking problems, environmental impact 

Full system overbuilt, Houston 

Inadequate consideration of mass transit alternatives,

air pollution problems. System should have been built 

on a smaller scale.

Los Angeles

Classic case of an area that tried to build highways

to overcome congestion and is finding it impossible.

Enormous cost and inadequate attention to mass transit. 

I-40, Memphis 

Built up to Overton Park area 

I-94, Milwaukee 

Environmental and community impacts—via 

other highways now in dispute 

I-40, Nashville 

Relocation problems 

State Route 21, Newark

Passaic to Newark traffic; downtown congestion 

problems, mass transit alternatives

I-278 System, New York-New Jersey

Land-use problems, air pollution, enormous cost, 

mass transit alternatives

Long Island Expressway, New York City area 

“World’s longest parking lot.” 

Enormous cost, mass transit alternatives

Bruckner Expressway, New York City area

Cost, mass transit alternatives, community and traffic impacts

I-95, Philadelphia 

Relocation problems, mass transit alternatives

System, Phoenix 

Overreliance on auto in view of air pollution problems. 

Embarcadero Freeway, San Francisco

One of the classic examples. Construction began then stopped. 
828 

I-295, Southern New Jersey

Competition with paralleling toll road

I-95 System (portions built); I-66 portions, E Street Expressway

Washington, DC

Community impact, air pollution, adverse impact on national 

monuments, mass transit alternative

Theodore Roosevelt Bridge [I-66], Washington, DC 

Above, plus taking of park land 

Gallamore provided the additional comment:

I have not included rural highways many of which, while not unwarranted per se, are 

nevertheless overbuilt. Some rural states were so hard pressed to meet the matching 

requirements for building their Interstates (even with 90-10 funding), that they have not 

been able to keep up with highway maintenance and necessary improvements to local roads. 

 Finally, I have not included roads built with revenue bonds backed by tolls even though 

these highways may have an Interstate designation. An example of an unwarranted toll 

road, in my opinion, is the Masschusetts Turnpike Extension into Boston. [1973 Highway 

Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 828-831] 

Representative Cleveland said he wanted to make sure the hearing record included support for 

continuation and expansion of the economic growth center highway program. He inserted a 

statement into the record for that purpose. The goal of program was to demonstrate the role of 

highways in promoting desirable development of natural resources, revitalizing rural economies, 

enhancing and dispersing industrial growth, encouraging more balanced population patterns, 

reversing migratory trends from rural and small communities to urban areas, and improving living 

conditions. 

He said he had long recognized the potential of highways to spur development. “Anticipation of 

nonmetropolitan highways needs, in fact, has strengthened my opposition to diversion of trust fund 

resources to urban mass transit.” He explained:

The traditional approach of giving priority in improving transportation capacity where 

currently most needed almost inevitably reinforces the trend toward urban concentration. 

Those corridors most in need are those already heavily traveled on the basis of existing 

development. Increase capacity and you generate further development in the same areas and 

again load up the facility.

The economic growth center program shifted economic activity to where population might 

otherwise be “channeled in the interests of broader economic and social objectives.” 
829 

To reverse the “metropolitanization in this country,” the growth center concept should be expanded 

to “harness larger forces” that would “exert leverage on the massive forces of the private economy.” 

 Transportation was one of the basic tools: 

If I read correctly the message of these hearings, there is considerable pressure for 

increasing federal assistance to urban mass transit, through diversion of highway trust fund 

monies or otherwise. 

Yet the resulting temporary improvement in urban transportation capacity which might 

result would merely serve to generate increased concentration and congestion in our cities. 

For every car rider diverted to rapid rail, another would take his place on the highways. 

Absent some transportation stimulus for development elsewhere, we will be in the position 

of continuing government reinforcement of this destructive cycle. 

If we are truly interested in reducing urban congestion, we should be talking not about 

diverting highway funds, but diverting population increase to less-congested areas of the 

country. Growth center highways represent an alternative to the continuing problems we 

otherwise will confront. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p, 833-834] 

E. R. “Mike” Foley, president of the International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turnpike Association 

(IBTTA), was the next witness. Foley was chief engineer of the Division of Bay Toll Crossings, 

California Department of Public Works. IBTTA, he said, was concerned about a provision in the 

1972 House and Senate bills that called for the Secretary of Transportation to study existing Federal 

statutes and regulations governing toll bridges over navigable waters to determine “what action can 

and should be taken to assure just and reasonable tolls nationwide.” 

The Senate had included the measure in S. 502 as Section 147 (“Study of Toll Bridge Authority”), 

but it should not be included in the final bill “since provisions of existing Federal and State law are 

adequate and proper within the regulatory framework and procedures established to assure that just 

and reasonable tolls will be charged.” Foley noted that “no persuasive arguments have been 

advanced as to why this study should be undertaken.” The issue had not been raised during House 

or Senate hearings. 

The Senate Committee on Public Works had modified the provision since 1972 by removing the 

reference to “uniform” toll rates. “While the principle of applying a uniform system of tolls may 

sound appealing, it must be realized that arriving at fair and reasonable tolls for each individual 

structure is a unique determination, based on numerous factors and considerations, many of which 

are local in nature.” He continued: 

Stating other considerations in their broadest terms, there will be unique decisions made 

regarding the local and regional need for the bridge, its potential impact on the area’s 

economy and quality of life, the financing cost and debt retirement schedules, the actual 

construction cost of the bridge, the location of approaches and highway system connectors, 

and the level of operating services required in the public interest at each specific location.
830 

Further, such an effort overlooked the role of toll authorities in providing balanced transportation in 

urban areas. “These local developments have already affected bridge toll rates and have long since 

rendered both futile and obsolete any academic concept of a uniform system of tolls.” Foley also 

considered the study of a method of bridge toll regulation to be inconsistent with the intent of a bill 

that also proposed to give local officials greater flexibility in meeting local needs. “There is an 

increasing number of urban areas in which resources from toll facilities are being applied to extend, 

support, and otherwise assure the public of the availability of the best transportation service.”

With increasing demands for funds, including from the Highway Trust Fund, Foley said:

It is therefore more imperative now than ever that the option of toll revenue financing be 

retained by States and cities in its present form in order to support and make available 

needed transportation facilities and services which otherwise might not be possible. [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 835-838] 

John Auerbach, executive director of the Bicycle Institute of America, appeared before the 

subcommittee only to submit a statement for later consideration. In view of the time constraints on 

a Friday afternoon, Representative Johnson thanked him and put the statement in the record. 

 

The institute supported Section 132 of S. 502 on bicycle transportation, pedestrian walkways, and 

equestrian trails. He commended Representative Koch and others who recognized the changes in 

the bicycle industry and the use of bicycles in recent years. This resurgence was not a “flash in the 

pan.” Auerbach asked where we are going to put the “hundreds of thousands of urban commuter 

cyclists, who use their bikes daily for quick, efficient, and pollution-free short haul transportation,” 

the “hundreds of thousands of physical fitness enthusiasts,” the “millions of parents and children 

who cycle just for fun,” or “the growing millions of ecology-minded adults who see cycling as their 

personal contribution to a healthier environment, or a lessening of the energy crisis”? If Congress 

does not protect “their legitimate needs right now, we are going to put them in jeopardy.” 

He emphasized that the “so-called ‘bicycle lobby’” is not a small special interest group seeking a 

narrowly-defined privilege. “It is 100 million people—half of America, half . . . of your 

constituency demanding a legitimate share of the nation’s road space.” Many States already were 

recognizing this need by providing bicycle lanes on newly constructed facilities. “There is a great 

legislative ferment for bicycles in state capitols [sic] across the country.” The “wave of the future” 

was clear:

Highway building funds are no longer conceived to have the narrow purpose of satisfying 

automotive needs alone. They are no longer so conceived by 24 of our states, or by the 

people, and I respectfully submit that they should no longer be so conceived by the Congress 

of the United States . . . . Bicycles simply must be included in all federal highway planning 

so that matching funds can be made available to the states, who cannot carry the burden 

alone. 

To do so would not require new taxes: 
831 

It is only necessary to recognize the fact that bicycles are here to stay; they are a fact of life 

in America . . . and they are an increasingly important factor on the nation’s roads and 

highways . . . . If we ignore them, they will not go away. If we bury our heads in the sand, 

we will not solve our problems, but will only create new ones. [1973 Highway Legislation 

(Future Highway Needs), p. 839-841] 

Dr. Leslie Logan, president of Arlingtonians for the Preservation of the Potomac Palisades, was the 

next witness. He explained that his 20-year old organization, which represented 8,000 residents of 

northern Virginia, had been “plaintiffs in several successful legal actions which have had among 

their purposes the preservation of the Potomac Palisades and the stemming of widespread freeway 

and bridge construction in the irreplaceable Potomac River Gorge.” (The Potomac Palisades is 

located in the District of Columbia along the Potomac River.) 

Dr. Logan contended that “the so-called Highway Trust Fund should be relaxed from its present 

stringent limitations on three principal grounds.” He continued: 

First, there is a grave need for this relaxation to meet the varied needs of the people, most 

particularly those too young to drive, the aged, the physically handicapped and the poor. 

Second, there are sound administrative and public interest reasons for this relaxation in 

order to give State and local governments the “freedom of choice” needed to develop the 

transportation system most responsive to their individual needs. Third and finally, I 

maintain that balanced coordinated transportation can best be attained, together with the 

conservation of our natural resources and the diminution of deaths by automobile accidents 

if these comprehensive transportation systems under the guidance of State and local 

governments are encouraged by the assistance of funds derived from the so-called Highway 

Trust Fund. 

As for “the so-called Highway Trust Fund,” he said that a “vast misconception has grown up to the 

effect that somehow this fund is a sacred trust and must in law and good conscience be used only to 

construct more and bigger highways.” He added, “this is a completely false notion.” As proof he 

cited Secretary Brinegar’s testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Transportation that many 

of the taxes now earmarked for the Highway Trust Fund had previously been credited to the general 

Treasury.

He also cited a comment by former Secretary Volpe who said after 15 years of experience with the 

Highway Trust Fund, “On the whole, the transportation which has evolved, both consciously and 

unconsciously, represents an uneven fabric ill-suited to today’s needs, and is, itself a major 

contributor to the problems facing transportation today.” Dr. Logan recalled that Secretary Volpe 

had been the first Federal Highway Administrator in 1956. 

Just as President Nixon had called for changing the use of the Highway Trust Fund, Dr. Logan said 

that doing so “would be a giant step” in a constructive direction. 

Finally, he regretted that Representative Kluczynski was not present, but Arlingtonians for the 

Preservation of the Potomac Palisades had a message for him:
832 

Mr. Kluczynski, we appreciate your leadership in solving these crucial problems and we 

heartily endorse the position you announced on February 21. [1973 Highway Legislation 

(Future Highway Needs), p. 841-845] 

Representative Johnson assured Dr. Logan that the message would be delivered to Representative 

Kluczynski, then invited Mrs. Elizabeth Horvath of the Washington Metropolitan Area Citizens 

Transportation Coalition to present her organization’s testimony. Her organization had formed in 

1970 to support “a sophisticated and well-organized transportation system that will be multimodal, 

safe, dependable.” She said:

We note that hardly a day goes by that we are not subjected to the scare tactics of the 

automobile and oil interests constantly warning us of the energy crisis in our country. But 

the shocking fact is that our present system of transportation is excessively wasteful. 

The coalition favored increased bus service, commuter rail from Virginia and Maryland into the 

District of Columbia, and planning and construction of hiking and biking trails. It opposed the 

increase of parking facilities in the District because they take land that could be better used and turn 

it into “an inducement to further use of the private automobile.” In short, “Federal funding of urban 

mass transit systems is essential to meet the transportation needs of today and tomorrow.” [1973 

Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 849-852] 

Professor Hilton Gets Attention

Members of the subcommittee had displayed limited, sometimes only polite interest in the 

testimony on this final afternoon of hearings, but that would change with the next witness, 

Professor Hilton of the University of California at Los Angeles. He had written a monograph for 

the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on the UMTA aid program. It had not yet been published, 

but he asked for the opportunity to let the subcommittee know of his conclusions. He stressed that 

the views he expressed were his, not necessarily those of AEI.

(AEI, usually described today as a conservative think tank, billed itself at the time as “a publicly 

supported, nonpartisan research and educational organization.” It was founded in 1943 as the 

American Enterprise Association, but had changed its name and focus in 1962. It concentrated on 

producing scholarly monographs on issues to help decisionmakers as they decided how to create 

national policy.) 

Professor Hilton’s summary of his monograph was comparatively brief. He explained that 

throughout the history of UMTA, “the principal purpose of the program has been the proliferation 

in major cities of rail systems of the general character of the Bay Area Rapid Transit . . . .” He said: 

Such systems are being promoted in hopes of generating external benefits of three sorts: 

reduction in traffic congestion; reduction in atmospheric pollution; and increase in mobility 

of the poor, the young, the aged, and other groups. 
833 

Although BART was too new for conclusions to be drawn about its success, experience in Chicago, 

Boston, Cleveland, and elsewhere provided enough information “to draw valid inferences on the 

effect of this form of investment.” 

UMTA, for example, financed a CTA rapid transit line in the median of Chicago’s Dan Ryan 

Expressway. The line opened in 1969 at a cost of $43.6 million. By 1972, the line “was handling 

108,600 passengers per day, of whom only 8 percent reported themselves as former drivers . . . .” 

Most had shifted from buses or other lines. Meanwhile, vehicle counts on the Dan Ryan 

Expressway continued to rise. “The average daily vehicle count rose to 144,100 in 1971 and 

159,000 in 1972, demonstrating that at best the rail line diverted the equivalent of about one year’s 

secular [long term] growth of traffic on the freeway in which it ran.” 

As he had said during his appearance on “The Advocates,” experience elsewhere was similar. The 

Skokie Swift rapid transit line in Chicago and the MBTA’s Quincy extension in Boston took an 

estimated 900 to 1,000 vehicles per day off the parallel freeways which average over 100,000 per 

day. With such volumes, “the diversion of under 1,000 is imperceptible, relative to the daily 

variance.” Extension of the Cleveland Transit System’s rapid transit line to Hopkins Airport in 

1969 handled about 1.4 million passengers in its first year “and was thought to have reduced 

patronage of airport limousines by 46.6 percent, of taxicabs by 26.0 percent, and private 

automobiles by 8.2 percent.” Peak hour traffic on parallel I-71 declined about 10 percent. “The 

rapid transit line, however, declined in ridership from the beginning, sinking from 1.4 million in 

1969 to 886,000 in 1971.” 

He continued: 

It should be apparent that facilities which have this small ability to divert drivers cannot 

provide relief from traffic congestion or significant reduction in atmospheric pollution. 

Similarly, they merely replace the most heavily-utilized bus lines in an area, and thus 

provide no new trips. Consequently, they do not add to the mobility of the groups thought 

disadvantaged with respect to present transportation. 

The new lines typically served traffic to and from downtown, “a trip which the urban poor are able 

to make on existing transit lines.” The trip from an urban residential area to a suburban factory or 

service employment was much more difficult:

Partly because inflexible facilities which provide mainly a trip downtown are poorly suited 

to the demands of the present generation of the urban poor, every American rapid transit 

system individually has declined secularly. Rapid transit systems as an industry have lost 

about a third of their ridership since 1929. The principal force in this decline has been a 

tendency to substitute automobile travel for public transit as consumer incomes increase. 

The automobile has made possible a more diffused urban pattern, but almost all other forces 

at work on cities are also for diffusion. 

The conclusion of Professor Hilton’s statement was a striking contrast to those offered by other 

witnesses:
834 

The present popularity of rapid transit lines is inevitably short-lived. The demand is a 

political one, as distinct from a market demand. The political pressure for building of such 

systems arises from a desire to relieve the congestion of vehicles attempting to enter and 

leave central business districts in rush hours, but this congestion is merely an example of 

queueing as a result of non-price rationing of roads. That is to say, the excise [tax] on 

gasoline through which we pay for the use of roads does not serve the function of a price of 

rationing the existing supply. The excise is low enough relative to the total cost of operating 

an automobile that drivers act almost as if the roads were free to them. This results in use of 

automobiles for trips into central business districts, for which buses have their comparative 

advantage, and the queueing phenomenon which is only too familiar. Instead, users of roads 

should be charged by a metering device, so that they would have to pay higher fees per mile 

for rush-hour trips into central business districts than for other trips. Similarly, pollution 

from motor vehicles is the consequence of the government’s failure to engage in price 

rationing of air, which is to say, to institute taxation of pollution. 

By supporting the construction of rail transit lines, Congress was helping to build facilities that “are 

incapable of producing the benefits which are sought of them.” He predicted: 

The rapid transit movement will probably have spent itself by the late 1970’s, and such 

funds as are being put into rail systems currently will be looked upon retrospectively as 

waste. The proposal at hand is worse than simply waste, for it threatens to divert into rail 

systems, which can only decline, funds which could alternatively be spent for beltways, 

which unmix traffic going around cities from that which is going downtown, and serve the 

rapidly growing trips between suburbs. Congress should direct public policy toward 

building of such circumferential facilities, and toward development of variable user charges 

for roads and taxation of noxious emissions, if it seeks to deal with the actual problem with 

which the nation is faced in this area. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), 

p. 853-855] 

These excerpts were from his written statement. As he presented an informal version, 

Representative Clausen interrupted his discussion of the rail line in the median of the Dan Ryan 

Expressway to ask, “Are you saying, then, if the systems were provided, based upon the studies of 

established transit systems, that the people in those areas do not use them?” Profession Hilton 

replied:

Yes, the evidence is quite unambiguous, as I have endeavored to point out in this testimony. 

The experience is very consistent between the systems, that they can take off the roads 

approximately the number of vehicles as the Bureau of Public Roads estimated in 1968, that 

1 to 2 years secular growth will put on to the roads. 

He added that based on experience with the systems built under the UMTA program, “that’s an 

overstatement” because rapid transit systems “typically take off less than a year’s secular growth.” 

Based on experience, “the ability of a facility of this character to divert vehicles is trivial compared 

with the forces for growth in traffic.” He summarized the experience in Chicago, Boston, and 

Cleveland:
835 

This is actually consistent with what we know about the behavior of travelers with respect to 

automobiles and to mass transit. As people go to successively higher incomes, they tend to 

increase their consumption of services related to the automobile more than proportionately 

to the increase in income. They tend to respond to increases in income by either 

approximately staying constant in their demands for urban public transportation, or more 

frequently, having an absolute diminution in the use of it, and tending to substitute the 

automobile for it.

The diffusion of the urban pattern, which reduced the need for trips to and from the central business 

district, made radial fixed rail lines less responsive to needs. In Chicago, for example, about 11 

percent of all trips in 1960 were to the Loop, with the total declining to 8 percent in the early 1970s, 

and projected to reach 5 percent in 1980: 

What this means is that whatever reshuffling one can do on the trips into the central 

business district is unlikely to have a very great impact on the overall transportation 

demands of a metropolitan area. Given the facts that rail transit systems can provide almost 

nothing but the trip into and out of the central business district, they can in a literal sense 

provide only a diminishing portion of a diminishing percentage of trips in a metropolitan 

area. 

Every rapid rail system in the country had been in decline by 1959. For example, the Broad Street 

subway, the principal north-south line in Philadelphia, had lost 62 percent of its ridership since 

World War II. Representative Clausen interrupted to ask why. Professor Hilton replied: 

For several reasons: Because of a decline in the concentration of economic activity in 

downtown Philadelphia, mainly because the areas which it serves have become part of the 

Philadelphia ghetto. The ghetto residents work, amuse themselves, and shop in the central 

business districts less than their predecessors in urban areas did. They have a demand for 

extremely diffused transportation. They tend to work in factories or service employments 

widely over the map, and they tend to shop and amuse themselves in their own 

neighborhoods, where their predecessors did these things in the central business district. 

(At this point, the transcript indicates that a “Miss Loveless” in the audience began to ask a 

question (“Did the city income tax—“) but was stopped by Representative Johnson who said that 

only the witness could speak. Mrs. Barbara May Loveless of Washington would be the final 

witness.) 

Getting back to his informal narrative about the gradual decline of rapid transit systems, Professor 

Hilton said:

Consequently, if you facilitate investment in this form of transit, you will be investing in a 

declining industry, in facilities which can only decline over time, and which accordingly are 

incapable of providing the external benefits which are being sought. 
836 

Proponents, he said, justify rail systems “almost exclusively on the basis of the external benefits 

which it is hoped that they can provide, which is to say, reduction in traffic congestion and 

atmospheric pollution, plus increase in mobility by low-income groups.” If it could provide these 

benefits, “New York would be freer of these problems than other cities” since at least 82 percent of 

rapid transit passengers nationwide were in the New York City area. “I hardly need tell you that 

New York has more of these problems rather than less.” 

In short, the present movement for rapid rail transit would soon be looked upon as “unsuccessful, 

misguided, and purely wasteful.” If the tax on gasoline reflected the social cost of roads, including 

their cost in air pollution; road use was rationed in the center city through metering; and the present 

urban transit monopolities were replaced by a system of owner-operated jitneys, today’s “insoluble 

problems could be dealt with effectively and the waste of the character I have been discussing could 

be avoided.” 

Representative Cleveland began the questioning by informing Professor Hilton that his message 

was “falling on very receptive ears, unfortunately I might say.” Professor Hilton agreed it was 

unfortunate because “I’m a great believer in the adversary proceeding [and] it would be more 

effective if it were falling on hostile ears.” Representative Cleveland agreed and wished more 

members of the subcommittee were present. 

He asked if he understood Professor Hilton to be saying that the current interest in “jazzing up 

urban mass transit, particularly rail transit, comes as a political response” to congestion. “Yes,” 

Professor Hilton replied. Representative Cleveland speculated that “like all political responses, it 

has to be well publicized, aided, and abetted by opinion molders,” many of whom “are caught in 

these traffic-congested areas.” If someone gives these commentators or TV announcers “an idea 

there’s a solution to the problem, they’re going to put the heat on to see the solution is brought 

about.” 

Professor Hilton agreed that this summary was “a very common situation.” For example, the failure 

to price runways based on hours of use resulted in the political call for more airports. “Here it gives 

rise to a political demand either for freeways paralleling existing ones out of cities, or for rail 

transit.” Both would be a waste, but they are presented as alternative solutions.

Representative Cleveland asked if pricing vehicle use to reduce congestion was technically 

possible. Professor Hilton referred to Columbia University’s Professor Wiliam Vickery who “says 

that there are 15 technologically feasible ways, of which he recommends a meter on the vehicle 

actuated from impulses coming from a wire imbedded in the street, with the number of impulses 

varying on the basis of the social cost of driving.” 

Recalling the discussion during the 1972 hearings about the traffic impacts of the World Trade 

Center in downtown Manhattan and the massive Manhattan Landing development on a platform in 

the East River, Representative Cleveland said, “The more money we throw in there trying to solve 

the transportation problem, the bigger and bigger they’re building their buildings, and the more 

people they’re drawing in.” He asked for Professor Hilton’s opinion about requiring developers to 

conduct a transportation impact statement “and to explain to somebody’s satisfaction how you’re 
837 

going to get people in and out of the area?” Alternatively, “do you just build it and then go running 

down to Washington saying, ‘We need more’?” 

Professor Hilton responded that in Los Angeles, impact statements were required. “One has to 

show that one is providing parking facilities for a specified percentage of the people who are 

expected to use them.” He continued: 

The comment I will mainly make about what you said is that the existence of a rapid transit 

system is an incentive to build high rise buildings like that. On the one hand, the rapid 

transit is already there, and on the other hand, it is usually in very bad shape financially and 

such buildings will generate a demand for transit . . . . If a high rise building is built in the 

city, one can’t reasonably expect more than 15 percent of the people using it to use rail 

transit, if that’s available. The other 85 percent will use buses, automobiles, sidewalks—

just to say use the roads. 

That was why he believed that if a rail rapid transit system induced construction of high-rise 

buildings, it “makes a negative contribution to problems of congestion and pollution, rather than a 

positive one.” 

Representative Cleveland pointed out that other witnesses cited poor people without cars as one of 

the reasons for building rail rapid transit, while others had testified that “these proposals are for 

affluent suburbanites, to get them from their hideaways in the hills down into the financial markets 

where they make a lot of money and then go home at night.” Professor Hilton replied:

I think what you have said is perfectly correct, that these facilities do, in general, carry 

people from high-income suburban areas. The urban poor . . . simply don’t want to go 

downtown to the extent to which their predecessors did. 

Systems such as BART and the Metro system under construction in the Washington area “are 

almost certainly regressive expenditures” serving high-income passengers:

Jobs in the central business district come to be concentrated among the higher educational 

levels, partly because the retailing function of the central business district declines. The 

clerical jobs in central business districts decline as the people who do them are replaced by 

computers. What is left in the central business district is . . . the financial community and 

central offices of certain other types of businesses, such as oil companies, for example. 

Thus, the trip tends to reduce in numbers who are making it, but it tends to be more 

concentrated in high-income and educational levels. You run into the problem that the rail 

systems provide almost exclusively the trip downtown, but the trip downtown is taken by 

people who are in successively higher income brackets, and they manifest a tendency to turn 

away from it toward the automobile as their incomes go up. 

In that case, Representative Cleveland asked, is it “a fair inference” that claims by proponents that 

rail lines can be justified by helping the poor cannot be substantiated? Professor Hilton said that the 

inference was “perfectly true,” adding that, “Even existing urban bus systems very imperfectly serve
838 

the needs of the urban poor” because they “tend to generate sufficient traffic density to justify lines 

only on trips into the central business district, which are declining in number.” As he had said 

earlier, employment opportunities for the urban poor are mainly in suburban areas: 

The most unsuccessful series of projects which the Urban Mass Transportation 

Administration has undertaken—and this is an Administration which has produced almost 

nothing but failures, almost nothing it has done has succeeded, with the exception of express 

bus service on freeways—the most unsuccessful category of projects was running reverse 

commutation trips from urban poverty areas to suburban factories and other places of 

employment. The series of projects was so unsuccessful that the General Accounting Office 

studied it and concluded that it was . . . not worth continuing, and that continuing it would 

be a subsidy of operation which would be beyond the statutory authority of the 

Administration . . . . 

Unfortunately, or fortunately, as the case may be, the urban poor’s demands for 

transportation are so diffused that essentially only the automobile, or a jitney system, which 

would be automobiles and buses operated by owner-operators, can serve their needs.

Representative Cleveland said he found the professor’s testimony “quite alarming” because it 

implied that not only should Congress not divert funds from the Highway Trust Fund to mass transit

“but it sounds to me as if you’re questioning whether we should put any money into it.” Professor 

Hilton replied that “saying I question it is an understatement.” He considered it “an inappropriate 

activity of the Government.” He opposed the idea of a Mass Transit Trust Fund because “the 

Federal Government simply should not be in a position of furthering such systems.” He continued: 

They are being furthered, much as the supersonic transport was, by an industry for which the 

private sector of the economy doesn’t develop a demand which will consume their output. I 

would argue the Federal Government shouldn’t facilitate this in any fashion, and further, 

that it shouldn’t try to perpetuate urban transit systems in their present economic 

organization. 

As the decline of rail lines, streetcars, and buses demonstrated, “this industry is failing the market 

test,” a point Professor Hilton illustrated by saying:

When the UMTA program was established in the early 1960’s . . . the industry produced 

about 8 billion rides, and it is now down to about 5.5 billion. So the Federal Government 

has not, to date, been able to arrest this decline. I think one can predict with perfect 

confidence that it will not be able to do this. 

Representative Clausen told Professor Hilton, “I am absolutely amazed at your ability to articulate 

your point of view.” It was too bad that “those people who need to hear this kind of testimony are 

not present today to hear it.” He mentioned Representatives Abzug and Studds, as well as Secretary 

Brinegar, as examples of people who should hear Professor Hilton’s testimony, and challenge it in 

an adversarial situation at a time when “we are at the crossroads of having to make a major 

decision.” He asked Professor Hilton about Dr. Logan’s earlier statement about lifting the 
839 

“stringent limitations now shackling the Highway Trust Fund” to help the young, poor, and elderly 

who do not have cars. 

Professor Hilton agreed that Dr. Logan had identified “a very real problem,” but “the nature of 

urban transit systems in the cities is such as not to serve the transportation requirements of these 

people.” He had already explained the linear nature of rail lines serving central business districts:

The groups which have been mentioned there are very largely groups which don’t go 

downtown very much. The young are going to high schools; the elderly are going to shop or 

to see their relatives; the urban poor, as I have pointed out, are going a very wide variety of 

routes to get to work . . . . Buses meet their needs, somewhat, and they are preferable 

because they adapt to light population density areas better than rail transit does. They are 

slower than rail transit, but most of the people in the groups you mentioned have a lower 

evaluation of time than the people who make the trips from the suburbs into the central 

business districts, so it is less of a handicap. 

These groups, he said, were primarily off-peak users of transit and they often were scared away by 

the fear of crime.

Asked to explain the jitney system, he said:

By “jitney” system I mean a mixture of the functions of a taxicab and bus, and a delivery 

vehicle also, which could effectively be produced by ending restrictions on entry into the 

taxicab industry, and also by liquidating the urban transit monopolies. Something such as 

the Chicago Transit Authority should be liquidated and its buses sold off individually to 

anyone who wants to own them, and then those buses should be operated without restriction 

as to route or fare . . . . This would provide an infinity of trips around the metropolitan area, 

because many people would certify their own vehicles and carry passengers only between 

home and work. 

He added that as another witness had stated, carpools were “the cheapest available method” of 

urban transportation, although getting people together in a carpool was an obstacle. “People tend to 

resist things which restrict their freedom in the trip home from work.” He cited UMTA’s “series of 

disastrous experiences” with subscription bus programs, including one in Flint, Michigan. People 

used the subscription bus in the morning because they wanted to get to work on time, but on the 

way home “they didn’t want to be tied to a schedule, which results also in car pools declining as the 

members of a car poor get into successively higher incomes.” 

Representative Clausen asked about Professor Hilton’s discussion of monopolies and he replied: 

That’s right. We are stuck with basically an organization of transit which the streetcar 

created, which has been perpetuated for no good reason, and which is failing the market test: 

so as I said it becomes successively more unprofitable.
840 

The losses of the transit industry increase essentially exponentially. They almost double 

each year. They will be so great that I can assure you, whatever you may do this time, by the 

1980’s the Federal Government will not be willing either to invest or to bear the operating 

losses of this industry. 

With time running out, Representative Clausen asked for Professor Hilton’s views on the pending 

legislation. Should Congress leave the Highway Trust Fund intact to complete a safe highway 

system or divert funds to mass transit? Professor Hilton replied: 

In the first place, under no circumstances would I put money into mass transit. It is 

essentially pure waste.

The trust fund, as it’s presently constituted, I think can’t be defended either—and I don’t 

want to be here in the position of defending it. Mr. Gallamore’s statement with respect to 

the vicious circle aspect of it essentially is correct. I don’t agree with all his statement, but 

his statement that you have a tax for the use of roads which really doesn’t discourage 

anybody from using the roads, so the public uses the roads, essentially, as if they were free. 

But, then, these funds are channeled into building more roads, and this creates more funds, 

and I think this essentially is correct. But it is not a situation which can be defended. 

What you ought to do is move toward variable-user charges, toward a comprehensive 

system of charging for the use of all roads on the basis of the social cost of using the roads 

at any given hour. This is something which only the Government can do. 

Roads are quite properly in the public sector because there is no way in which a private 

person can collect a fee. Rapid transit will be in the public sector, if at all, only because it is 

failing the market test and hasn’t been economic for investment by the private sector since 

the panic of 1907. I think this dichotomy ought to be recognized.

What you ought to do is move toward what only the Government can do, price roads 

properly, institute taxation of noxious emissions, or alternatively, taxation of vehicles on the 

basis of their polluting characteristics, per year or per mile driven, which would be much 

simpler, and then use what suasion the Government has to try to get cities to legalize jitney 

operations. This has the incidental advantage of being a much cheaper course of action.

In closing the session with Professor Hilton, Representative Johnson admitted he had wondered 

about BART’s prospects, but thought it was too soon to know what would happen. Professor 

Hilton assured him, “Unfortunately, I think the failure of it can be rather accurately predicted.” He 

continued: 

Even more unfortunately, there is no place one could put a rapid transit system in the 

country which would be as favorable geographically as BART. It has one thing working 

very strongly for it, which the Lindenwold Line has also, that it parallels a bridge crossing 

with a toll, which is a discouragement to the use of the automobile. 
841 

As Representative Johnson began to thank Professor Hilton for his testimony, Representative 

Clausen interrupted to ask one more question. Since Professor Hilton lived in the Los Angeles area 

(Palo Alto), which has “the worst environmental situation in the United States because of the 

atmospheric conditions and so forth,” Representative Clausen asked what he would do about the 

area’s environmental situation? The Professor responded: 

Taxation of noxious emissions, which would give the economy an incentive to come up 

with less polluting vehicles. 

However, I would point out that Los Angeles does not have the worst output of noxious 

emissions. New York has a much worse output. That city, as I said, has 82.3 percent of the 

rapid transit passengers. If New York had Los Angeles’ atmospheric properties, it would be 

literally lethal; it would kill people, the concentration of pollutants is so great. 

Thus, rapid transit is not a solution to that problem, either. 

This exchange concluded Professor Hilton’s testimony. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 856-869] 

(On April 12, Representative Cleveland presented excerpts of Professor Hilton’s statement in 

extended remarks for the Congressional Record. Representative Cleveland began:

Mr. Speaker, a curious paradox has developed concerning diversion of highway trust funds 

to urban rail transit. While diversion has lost support in Public Works Committee compared 

with last year, it seems to be gaining support among Members at large.

I believe I know why. The Transportation Subcommittee held a full week of hearings in late 

March and produced a wealth of testimony in support of preserving the trust fund. True, 

there was also the routine rhetoric about congestion, pollution, and the problems of the 

urban poor, but these arguments were decisively refuted. 

At the same time, Members have been deluged by appeals to bust the trust, apparently 

generated by misleading coverage of the issue by the national media, which largely ignored 

the House hearings. 

(Given this misinformation, Representative Cleveland wanted to bring Professor Hilton’s 

“provocative testimony” to his colleagues’ attention. After listing several of Professor Hilton’s 

rebuttals of the usual arguments in support of mass transit, Representative Cleveland said: 

I do not agree with Professor Hilton’s policy recommendations in all respects. He does not 

support the trust fund, but he more strongly opposes diversion. In fact, he opposes any form 

of Federal subsidies for urban rail transit. 

For those who regard trust fund defenders as antitransit, I reiterate my support for urban 

mass transit from general revenues or a separate trust fund. [“Highway Trust Fund: 
842 

Thought-Provoking Presentation,” Congressional Record-House, April 12, 1973, p. 12223-

12225] 

(In June 1974, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research published Professor 

Hilton’s monograph, Federal Transit Subsidies: The Urban Mass Transportation Assistance 

Program, as #17 in its series of Evaluative Studies. Although Professor Hilton was an early critic 

of the UMTA program, he was not alone, if more pessimistic, among academics studying the issue. 

 In March 1974, Professor Smerk completed Urban Mass Transportation: A Dozen Years of 

Federal Policy (Indiana University Press, 1974). Professor Smerk, cited previously for his 1991 

book on the Federal role in mass transportation, discussed “What Went Right and What Went 

Wrong” in Chapter Five of the 1974 book. “There is little doubt that the federal mass 

transportation programs have had solid accomplishments,” the chapter stated, but acknowledged 

that “at any one point in time, progress may appear to be slow or nonexistent.” Under “The 

Shortcomings of the Federal Program,” the chapter included the subheads: 

The Continuing Decline in Ridership and Other Disasters 

The Information Gap 

Little Uptake of New Ideas

Transit as a Shaper of Urban Development 

The Marketing Gap and the Hardware Panacea

The Matter of Image

Lack of Coordination and Integration of Transit 

Management Upgrading

Local Fragmentation

The Need for a Showcase.

(Chapter Six, “Why Do Problems Persist?” began by stating, “It is very difficult to carry through a 

program of improvements to urban mass transportation that will be reflected in rising patronage and 

increased usefulness of mass transportation service to more U.S. citizens.” The paragraph 

continued by discussing the billions of dollars invested in highways and the promotion and 

purchase of automobiles. “There is no doubt that the auto provides a high standard of service, a 

standard that is very difficult for mass transportation to compete with under most circumstances.” 

Professor Smerk continued: 

Moreover, a rising standard of living and dispersed pattern of population distribution—a 

pattern difficult to service with conventional mass transportation—have made the private 

car not only obtainable by a majority of U.S. citizens but also necessary for mobility. 

At the outset, it must be understood that the job of making mass transportation a relevant 

service to an increasing number of travelers is extremely hard to achieve in the present 

situation.

(Like Professor Hilton, Professor Smerk acknowledged that the subscription bus service in Flint 

“had dismal results” and was “a total disaster” showcased by “the howling emptiness of the buses.” 
843 

(The chapter concluded on an upbeat note. “Considering the difficulties, it is, indeed, amazing that 

the federal mass transportation programs have seen even the modest success so far enjoyed.” 

[Smerk, 1974, p. 203 and p. 234 on Flint, p. 218 on what went wrong, p. 249 and p. 265 on 

persistence of problems]) 

The three remaining witnesses presented their testimony with little interaction by the members of 

the subcommittee. Frederick Tyler of the National Student Lobby supported the use of Federal-aid 

urban system funds for rail transit and Representative Koch’s bill to fund bicycle path construction. 

“More and more people, especially students, are using bicycles as a means of travel because of the 

inexpense [sic], nonpolluting aspects, and enjoyabiliy of the ride in fair weather.” Tyler was 

pleased to see that Representative Wright was a cosponsor of the Koch bill, which was “a fine 

instrument to begin to allow extended use of this remarkable vehicle.” He recommended that 

Congress call for a study of the engineering of bicycle paths to ensure they are designed for safe 

use, especially in urban areas and along primary roads. He also recommended that “no legislation 

place restrictions on the location of bikeways and that the funds for the projects come from the 

Highway Trust Fund.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p.869-870] 

Thomas (Tommy) Hale Boggs, Jr., counsel for the International Snowmobile Industry Association, 

was the next witness. His father was the late Representative Hale Boggs, who had added the 

Highway Trust Fund to the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. As Representative Clausen noted, 

Representative Boggs’ wife, Corrine C. (Lindy) Boggs, the witness’s mother, had won a special 

election on March 20, 1973, to fill the vacancy created by her husband’s death. He joked, “She 

might be a member of this committee. I think we have one spot on here,” to which Boggs 

responded, “I had better hurry up and testify before—[Laughter].” 

 

The snowmobile association, Boggs told the subcommittee, enthusiastically supported Section 132 

of S. 502 for the construction of bicycle paths, walkways, and equestrian trails. The multiple uses 

of road rights-of-way and access to national recreational resources that were presently underutilized

would be encouraged by the provision, which could be improved in several ways. First, Section 

132 expressly excluded snowmobiles from these taxpayer-funded trails: 

Aside from the inherently discriminatory aspects of such a provision, we believe that it will 

(1) fly in the face of the Highway Act’s policy of achieving an equitable distribution of 

highway funding burdens and (2) impose inherent limitations on the usefulness of lands 

within rights-of-way as a national recreational resource.

Boggs pointed out that snowmobilers pay taxes on the gas used in their vehicles so they do 

contribute to the Highway Trust Fund. “One of the long standing complaints of users of off-road 

recreational vehicles is that the substantial fuel taxes they pay every year are used—not for the 

funding of recreational vehicle facilities—but for the construction of roadways which, in some 

instances, they are forbidden even to cross.” If Section 132 became law with its restriction on 

snowmobiles, “it will be even more difficult to explain why Highway Trust Fund monies can fund 

trails for hikers, bikers and horsemen, who pay no fuel taxes, but not for snowmobilers, who pay 

substantial fuel taxes but receive little benefit.”
844 

What made this injustice more frustrating was that in northern States, snow would make hiking and 

biking trails impassible except by the one vehicle prohibited to use them. “The spectacle of these 

trails sitting unused when millions of snowmobilers are searching for places to enjoy their sport and 

when snowmobilers are being killed due to the lack of safe places to cross over roads is not one 

which we would care to see.”

On behalf of the association, Boggs recommended three changes in Section 132. First, the blanket 

prohibition “should be eliminated in favor of a provision granting to the cognizant state or local 

agencies the right to plan and utilize the trail facilities in such a manner as to achieve the maximum 

recreational benefits for their publics.” Second, a portion of the Highway Trust Fund calculated to 

equal the amount contributed by motorized off-road vehicles should be set aside “for the financing 

of off-road vehicle trails, crossing areas and related facilities on unutilized portions of highway 

rights-of-way.” 

Third, as an alternative to the second recommendation, Section 132 could be modified so that as 

with gax tax revenue from recreational boats, an amount equivalent to the contribution of off-road 

vehicles to the Highway Trust Fund should be credited to the trust fund established under the Land 

and Water Conservation Fund Act of 1965 so that snowmobilers’ gas tax revenue “might be of 

more direct benefit to snowmobile recreation.” He pointed out that his firm also represented the 

boating industry and was familiar with how the contributions from recreational vehicles were 

calculated. He “would recommend the same treatment for offroad [sic] vehicle fuels which are not 

now included under the present Highway Act.”

Representative Clausen acknowledged the issue Boggs had raised and asked for his thoughts on 

whether bicycle trails should be financed from the Highway Trust Fund or the general Treasury. 

Boggs favored using the Highway Trust Fund if Section 132 were modified to permit use of trails 

by snowmobiles at State option, but otherwise would prefer the gas tax revenue be included in the 

Land and Water Conservation Fund. 

Representative Cleveland commented that “it does seem odd” that the Senate provision specifically 

excluded motorized vehicles: 

They are bicycle paths, of course, but you can’t bicycle on them at the time your people 

would be using them. That is in the winter where there is snow. So I think the committee is 

going to have a problem in the language, because if during the summer, when the bicycles 

are out, I suppose if they wouldn’t want motorcycles threading their way in and out between 

the bicycles—at least I assume that was the genesis of this language in the Senate.

Representative Clausen observed that he could understand that bicyclists might not want 

motorcycles using the trails, but Representative Cleveland pointed out that “the snowmobile people 

are standing in a slightly different situation here.” Boggs commented, “There is probably no real 

environmental impact of any consequence with snowmobile use as there would be with other types 

of vehicles, because you have impacted snow that’s being used.” 
845 

Mr. Cleveland. Some of my constituents feel they are very detrimental to the environment 

and constitute noise pollution. 

Mr. Boggs. I mean—by the environment, I mean the impact on trails, not those who are 

listening to the vehicle. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway Needs), p. 870-876] 

(Upon joining Congress on March 20, 1973, Representative Lindy Boggs became a member of the 

House Committee on Banking and Currency. She would serve in the House until January 3, 1991, 

after deciding not to seek reelection. 

(In 1966, Tommy Boggs joined a lobbying and law firm established in 1962 by James R. Patton, Jr. 

 The firm changed its name in 1973 to Patton, Boggs, and Blow, citing its three senior partners, and 

is now known as Patton Boggs LLC.) 

Following Boggs, Representative Johnson gave Mrs. Loveless, who had interrupted Professor 

Hilton, an opportunity to make a brief comment. She began:

My only comment that is appropriate at this point should be an apology. I was so excited 

over the man’s testimony—it happened to coincide with what I felt—and I must have 

forgotten for a moment that there was a more appropriate way to bring out my point. 

Representative Johnson joked, “You woke the Chairman [himself]. He was asleep at that time,” 

prompting laughter according to the transcript. 

Asked who she represented, Mrs. Loveless said she was representing herself when she spoke up: 

The comment that I made for the record at that time was why did the dispersion occur on the 

use of rail transit in Philadelphia. I am not in a position to say conclusively that as a result 

of the city income tax being imposed [in 1939] on the people who work in the city of 

Philadelphia, if this caused them to not work there. I don’t know, I haven’t done any studies 

at all.

I just wanted to mention it, incidentally, that this tax was imposed—a city income tax was 

imposed in Philadelphia and that was the point I wanted to make. I don’t know if it’s 

causal, but it did happen. 

Representative Johnson replied, “Very good, Mrs. Loveless. We are glad to have you explain what 

your emotions were at that time. [Laughter.]” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future Highway 

Needs), p. 876] 

Before adjourning the subcommittee at 5:50 p.m., Representative Johnson entered a statement for 

the record. Early passage of the legislation was “extremely important for the continued progress 

toward meeting the nation’s transportation needs, maintaining the economy, and reducing fatalities 

and accidents on our highways.” Prompt completion of the Interstate System on the basis of current 

deadlines at a level of $4 billion a year was “an item of major and immediate interest.” He 

explained:
846 

The Highway Trust Fund was designed to provide sufficient revenues for the construction of 

an adequate national highway system. It seems only right that the Interstate System should 

be completed before any additional use is made of the Highway Trust funds. 

Until then, a comprehensive reassessment should be made of Federal transportation funding and 

programming. “It is important that we resist further expansion of programs until this study can be 

made.” 

In the meantime, “Flexibility in meeting the national transportation needs can be accomplished best 

by reducing Federal funding and program involvement, thereby permitting states to address their 

individual state and local transportation concerns directly.” Federal programs should be 

consolidated into three categories, Interstate, urban, and rural. With many States, including his own 

California, creating departments of transportation, funds should continue to be funneled through the 

States. “By passing funds through directly to the cities, regional and statewide plans are 

occasionally disrupted.” 

If the comprehensive review indicated that “the Department of Transportation should play a 

diminished part, then the consequent Federal taxes should likewise be reduced.” At present, “the 

current inequity” inherent in the donor-donee relationship should be corrected by quaranteeing each 

State a minimum return of 85 percent of its contribution to the Highway Trust Fund. He illustrated 

the problem by pointing out that California, the largest contributor to the Highway Trust Fund, 

received only a 67.1 rate of return. 

Representative Johnson hoped that in the future, “a single basic matching ratio should be 

established for all Federal programs so that priorities do not become distorted because of the 

percent of Federal financial participation in the program.” He thought that a 70-30 ratio would be 

satisfactory to all parties.

He wholeheartedly supported mass transit, but “it is my strong belief” that funds for it should come 

from the general Treasury, not the Highway Trust Fund. Highway needs were so immense that they 

required “all available funds from the Highway Trust Fund.” 

He opposed impoundment, but said that if it continued, “it seems only fair to me that our Federal 

highway taxes should be reduced if the Administration continues to withhold any portion of these 

funds, or when the Congress refuses to appropriate funds at or near the authorized levels.” 

Finally, he endorsed maintaining a funding level of $170 million for forest roads “The proposal to 

reduce the authorization to $75 million would significantly restrain a valuable and promising 

program which has demonstrated is [sic] worth to the nation.” [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), p. 876-878] 

Elsewhere on March 19-23 

While the House Subcommittee on Transportation held its weeklong hearing, transportation issues 

continued to evolve elsewhere. Some of the week’s events have been cited earlier, such as Vice 
847 

President Agnew’s speech in Los Angeles predicting that the automobile could turn into a 

“monster” if cities became too dependent on it; UMTA Administrator Herringer’s testimony 

opposing Federal operating subsidies; the New York Assembly, for the second week in a row, 

lacked the votes for Governor Rockefeller’s $650-million bi-State transit package; In other news: 

Governor Shapp had mentioned problems on I-95 in Philadelphia. Efforts to complete I-95 through 

Philadelphia in time for the Bicentennial celebration in 1976 were hindered by a dispute between 

Mayor Frank Rizzo and Secretary of Transportation Jacob G. Kassab over a sludge removal 

contract that was needed for construction of the I-95 link to the new Girard Point Bridge, a doubledecked cantilevel bridge that would carry the Interstate across the Schuylkill River:

The state wants a contract awarded to move 400 million gallons of sludge to an Army Corps 

of Engineers spoils site in the Ft. Mifflin area. The Rizzo Administration, Kassab said, 

wants to move the sludge to Chester County farmlands. 

The city refused to issue a permit to the American Dredging Company to move the sludge to a 

lagoon near the fort. Mayor Rizzo said the proposal to move the sludge from one lagoon to another 

lagoon was “totally unacceptable.” During a press conference on March 20, he threatened to ask for 

a grand jury investigation unless the Secretary agreed to the Mayor’s plan to dispose of the sludge 

on a Chester County farm owned by the King Ranch. The fear was that Delaware Bay could be 

endangered by the State’s plan to dispose of the sludge on an Army Corps of Engineers spoils site 

in the Fort Mifflin area. Mayor Rizzo’s refusal to issue city permits for the sludge removal was

holding up the I-95 project, while Secretary Kassab said he would “do all in my power to 

consummate” the contract. [“Rizzo to Seek Jury Probe of Delays in Linking Girard Point Span, I95,” Philadelphia Bulletin, March 20, 1973] 

At the EPA hearing on whether technology existed for the automobile industry to meet 1975 air 

quality standards, American Honda Motor Company said it could do what Detroit said it could not. 

 Honda would have “no problem” producing 500,000 Civics in 1975 that met U.S. standards 

without using the trouble-prone catalytic converter. The vehicles would use a regular piston engine 

with two combustion chambers for each cylinder instead of the usual one (known as a “compound 

vortex controlled combustion engine”). All major U.S. automakers had told EPA the previous 

week that they were trying to meet the standards with a catalytic converter, but had experienced 

repeated test failures. Without an extension of the deadline, U.S. automakers faced a “business 

catastrophe.” [Fialka, John, “Honda Has a Better Idea,” Washington Star-News, March 20, 1973] 

John McBee, FHWA’s Division Engineer in West Virginia, announced that he could not approve 

additional contracts for the Appalachian Development Highway System route between Charleston 

and Danville because the Kanawha Regional Traffic and Arterial Study Committee refused to say 

whether the State’s plan to build the route via Marmet, instead of Davis Creek, was in compliance 

with the area’s transportation plan. Highway Commissioner William S. Ritchie warned that $100 

million in construction contracts could be delayed by the impasse. McBee took no position. “That 

is a local matter that will have to be resolved on a local level.” [“Appalachian Highway Dispute 

May Cripple County’s Plans,” Charleston Gazaette, March 22, 1973] 
848 

On March 23, Under Secretary of Transportation Krogh was in Chicago to speak before the 

Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry’s transportation committee. At a press conference 

in the Palmer House, he discussed the Administration’s pass-through provision for Federal-aid 

urban system funds: 

It is essential that it be passed by the end of April. If our proposal is accepted and passed, 

Chicago will receive nearly $59 million directly. I would like to point out, however, you 

would first be required to establish a suitable metropolitan transportation agency to make 

local regional transportation decisions. 

He indicated that a six-county transportation district that was under consideration would meet 

Federal requirements. The goal, he explained, was flexibility. “These federal funds would be used 

for such urban transportation projects as highways, bus lines, parking lots, or the purchase of buses 

or capital investments in rail transit.” He cautioned that the funds would be retricted to capital 

improvements and could not be used for operating subsidies. Krogh also praised Chicago’s 

Representative Kluczynski for switching his position on the use of Highway Trust Funds for mass 

transit. [Wolfe, Sheila, “Road Funds Tied to Area Transit Unit,” Chicago Tribune, March 24, 

1973] 

In Spokane, “The State Highway Department took a harder line this week against late protesting 

environmentalists in the continuing controversy over projected U.S. Interstate Highway 82.” The 

department’s district engineer, Thomas Gray, said I-82 would not be routed along Rattlesnake 

Ridge, but would follow the valley floor as determined after public hearings over the past 2 years. 

“The Parker to Prosser corridor has been fixed. You don’t drop back and go over that decision once 

made.” The State would lose funds for the route if the final schedule could not be certified to 

FHWA by July 1. [“Route of Interstate 82 Decided by Department,” Spokane Spokesman-Review, 

March 23, 1973] 

Meanwhile, on March 21, the Stop I-57 Environmental Alliance filed suit in Federal Court in 

Madison, Wisconsin, to block I-57 between Milwaukee and Green Bay (from the Saukville 

interchange north of Milwaukee to Bellevue south of Green Bay). The suit, filed on behalf of 

farmers who claimed I-57 would be detrimental to their livelihoods, sought to prevent any further 

action on the route, including approval of the final environmental impact statement by the Council 

on Environmental Quality. [“I-57 Project Runs Into Roadblock,” Milwaukee Journal, March 22, 

1973] 

On Thursday, March 22, Wisconsin highway officials released the 600-page final environmental 

impact statement for the 80-mile segment of I-57 between Milwaukee and Green Bay. After 

controversy erupted in 1971 over the proposal to locate I-57 in the State Route 57 corridor, 

Governor Patrick Lucey had asked the State to consider following the U.S. 141 corridor. The new 

statement proposed that by following U.S. 141, I-57 would not affect historic sites, parks, 

conservation areas, or key wildlife habitats. [“I-57 Plan Supported by Report,” Milwaukee Journal, 

March 23, 1973] 

An editorial in The Wall Street Journal on March 22 titled “Detroit’s Feet to the Fire” began: 
849 

If the auto industry wins a year’s extension in meeting the 1975 emissions standards, 

environmentalists would view the decision as a calamity. They would see it as a symbolic 

setback to their cause, one they will predict will lead to an unraveling of the government’s 

efforts.

But at this point a year’s grace granted Detroit by the Environmental Protection Agency 

would neither have a significant impact on the environment nor relieve pressure on the 

industry to produce both cleaner and more efficient vehicles. In fact, by insisting on their 

symbolic victory, the environmentalists risk substantive defeat. 

In interpreting the “technological feasibility” of meeting the standards, Administrator Ruckelshaus 

“is not going to do anything that would close down the auto industry.” The editorial encouraged 

him to approve the 1-year extension because, contrary to conventional wisdom, the extension would 

“plunge the automakers deeper into this contest, recognizing that the public will not stand for 

anything less than a total demonstration of good faith on their part.” It concluded, “Having had its 

feet to the fire and toasted to a turn, Detroit now has its mind wonderfully concentrated on the 

problem at hand whether it likes it or not.” [“Detroit’s Feet to the Fire,” The Wall Street Journal, 

March 22, 1973] 

The same day the editorial appeared, Mayor Lindsay was in Washington testifying during the EPA 

hearings on the requested extension. He warned that an extension of the deadline could result in a 

private car ban and gas rationing for commercial vehicles in midtown Manhattan. The standards, 

he said, were “concerned with public health,” not in sparsely populated areas, but in areas such as 

New York City where emissions “endangered public health.” The Times summarized the 

consequence of a delay:

For midtown New York, where most mileage is from current models, a year’s suspension of 

the 1975 standards and a continuation of 1974 standards, Mr. Lindsay said, would mean “a 

reduction of only 20 per cent in carbon monoxide (in the atmosphere) from 1970 levels,” 

but enforcement of the 1975 standards would mean a 52 per cent reduction. “It is 

undeniable, then,” Mr. Lindsay said, “that the public health depends heavily on timely 

compliance . . . with the 1975 emission standards.” 

When Mr. Ruskelsaus said he found these figures “startling,” Mayor Lindsay reminded him 

of the special situation in midtown New York. Taxicabs, he said, are responsible for 40 to 

45 per cent of the emissions and about half the cabs are replaced each year. 

Mayor Lindsay told the EPA hearing that New York’s transportation plan, to be submitted in mid 

April, was based on the assumption that the automobile companies would he held to the 1975 

standard. He expected the plan to require all current vehicles to be fitted with the most advanced 

exhaust emission control systems, eliminate the sale of leaded gasoline, and require inspection of 

all cars once a year. Whether the standards were extended or not, “the cost to the city and its 

residents will nonetheless run into billions of dollars,” but if EPA approved the extension, “the 

consequences . . . . could destroy our economy.” [Kenworthy, E. A., “Lindsay Links Economy to 

1975 Emission Rules,” The New York Times, March 22, 1973] 
850 

(When Governor Rockefeller submitted the plan on April 17, the Times said it included such 

features as “a selective ban on midtown taxi cruising, drastically reduced midtown parking, 

staggered work hours and days, tolls on all East River and Harlem River bridges, after-hours 

deliveries to stores and factories and the installation of fume-control devices only on heavy-duty 

trucks.” The plan included retrofit of existing passenger cars with fume-control devices, but the 

Governor said he would not enforce this part of the plan because “the reliability of the catalytic 

mufflers now contemplated for use is highly questionable, as is the capacity to produce and install 

these mufflers within the needed time frame.” He added that the cost “poses serious social 

questions as well” because most of the cars needing the devices were owned “by those least able to 

afford expensive modification to their automobiles.” [Bird, David, “Governor Offers a Clean-Air 

Plan,” The New York Times, April 18, 1973]) 

On March 22, The Washington Post’s editorial cartoonist Herblock addressed the U.S. auto 

industry’s efforts to meet the EPA standards. Smiling Japanese automakers stood by their cars, 

labeled Honda and Mazda, while a chubby bald man, labeled “U.S. Auto Industry Anti-Pollution 

Efforts,” demonstrated his emissions control plan by holding (a) a tea strainer on (b) the exhaust. 

He asked the Japanese executives, “Open the Hood and Look Inside? You think I’m a Mechanical 

Genius or Something?” [Herblock, The Washington Post, March 22, 1973] 

State highway officials in Alabama would have to reroute I-59 to save a concrete bridge across Five 

Mile Creek near Bessemer just 100 yards off U.S. 11. The bridge, which convict labor built in 

1915, had been accepted for the National Register of Historic Places. James Walker of the West 

Jefferson County Historical Society explained that all the materials in the bridge had been made 

locally. “The bridge is significant because there is no other place that all the ingredients for the 

manufacture of steel and concrete can be found in one location.” Following the listing in the 

National Register, Walker had received a letter from Highway Department Director Ray Bass 

indicating the Interstate would be rerouted to preserve the structure. 

A news account of the decision explained that, “The bridge had originally been scheduled to be torn 

down because it is not adequate to handle projected traffic loads when the interstate is completed. 

An access road was scheduled for the area of the bridge . . . and the bridge was too small for the 

road.” Walker said the historical society planned to build a picnic area near the bridge. [Gray, 

John, “I-59 Access Road Rerouted to Save Bridge,” Birminghan Post-Herald, March 20, 1973] 

According to an editorial in The Rutland Herald in Vermont, Senator Muskie had spoken at 

Wellesley College “the other day.” He said one way to dislodge urban commuters from their

automobiles would be to make mass transit free. This approach was the reverse of the proposal 

some cities were considering of using taxes and tolls to make automobile use prohibitively 

expensive. The editorial concluded, “Muskie is probably aware it will take more than the offer of a 

free ride to get many Americans to leave their cars at home as long as they have a dollar for 

gasoline and there’s fifty square feet of bare highway. Americans love parades, even the bumper to 

bumper variety.” [“Free Mass Transit?” Rutland Herald, March 22, 1973] 

An editorial in The Minneapolis Spokesman tried to identify a middle ground for the Twin City’s 

Interstates between “the extreme opponents of any more highways at all, and the even more 
851 

unreasonable stances of the big-highway lobby.” First, the Interstates already started should be 

completed. “The most urgent” were I-35E from downtown St. Paul to the southern junction with I35W; I-35W from Trunk Highway 280 to I-94; and I-494 between Trunk Highways 5 and 100. 

As for the Interstate segments not underway, the debate over the routing of the northwestward link 

of two segments of I-94 was timely. Citizens could not understand why it had to parallel U.S. 12 

instead of occupying the right-of-way of the existing highway. “Highway engineers can, as we all 

know too well, be pigheaded and arbitrary about their decisions.” They should “understand that if 

they reject reasonable proposals and ignore reasonable objections, they may face costly litigation.” 

But in the case of highways underway, “the community should support them, as it is in the 

community’s self-interest to do.” [“A Middle Ground on Highway Issues,” Minneapolis 

Spokesman, March 22, 1973] 

While the Committee Drafts the House Bill

On March 1, 6, and 7, 1973, the Subcommittee on Transportation of the House Committee on 

Public Works held hearings on 1973 Highway Legislation (Highway Safety). Many of the 

witnesses also testified before the subcommittee’s hearings on Future Highway Needs, but one who 

hadn’t was William L. Sacks of the Highway Safety Foundation, an independent nonprofit research 

organization. Sacks, testifying on March 1, began by “imparting some of the basic social and 

economic philosophy that is inherent in your legislation.” He said:

The first thing we have to admit and realize is that traffic accidents and their consequences 

are byproducts. They are a secondary result of a highway transportation system whose 

purpose is the service of mobility. 

Taxpayers had received great benefits for their investment in the highway transportation system:

Thus, when we look at the annual costs of traffic accidents, measured in over 60,000 lives, 

over 3,800,000 injuries and extensive property damage that, all taken together in crudest 

terms, drain our human material, energy and time resources of $46 billion per year, we have 

to be shocked but not surprised. Most of all, we must be realists when we discuss those 

investments required to curtail this carnage.

He took no comfort in the slight dip in fatalities or the fatality rate, which he attributed mainly to a 

dip in employment. With employment increasing, so would traffic deaths.

He added:

One of the unfortunate aspects of sitting here and testifying today is that in 1970, at hearings 

before this very committee, many of the same points were brought out. And yet we come 

today and reference essentially the same factors, the absence of lines, the spear guardrails, or 

the unprotected railroad crossings, the hazardous locations created by [worn out, 

dilapidated] stop signs . . . . Things are not much different. I think what we have seen is a 
852 

lack of movement toward achieving the goals of which we had a pretty common 

understanding 2 years ago. 

He recommended “spreading of the investment, putting the investment, not at one point in space, 

but all over, in lots of small amounts at thousands and tens of thousands of locations.” 

Too much focus had been placed on the driver: 

To date, highway safety has been pretty much a one-way street. The driver has been asked 

to “toe the mark,” be a good boy, behave, act rationally. He is not told how to do this, but 

he is told it’s his responsibility.

This act can begin to make highway safety a two-way street of “give and take.” And I think 

we all know that when we give we are most apt to receive. We create a two-way 

communication that says: “I’m doing my part, now you go ahead and do your part. 

In short, the government should say, by its actions, that: “Your life isn’t worth a $25 stop sign.” 

[1973 Highway Legislation (Highway Safety), Hearings Before the Subcommittee on 

Transportation of the Committee on Public Works, House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 1st

Session, Report No. 93-3, p. 51-60] 

On March 26, Representatives Blatnik and Harsha joined Sacks on a 2-hour bus tour of Washington 

area highway hazards. Thomas Crosby, a Washington Star-News staff writer accompanying the 

tour, described the scene: 

Will Sacks was talking nonstop and his voice became excited yesterday as he looked out the 

bus windows and described Washington area highway hazards during an inspection tour for 

two veteran congressmen.

Sacks . . . pointed out dangers seldom noticed by the average driver—faulty guardrails, poor 

pavement markings and drainage ditches that will flip a misguided car.

He showed the congressmen a railroad-crossing sign totally obscured by a bush near Jones 

Mill and Jones Bridge Roads; faded yellow median lines and erroneous traffic signs along 

Cloppers Road in Montgomery County and artistic but unsafe stone guardrails along George 

Washington Parkway in Virginia. 

Sacks said the people who designed roads and roadsides needed better education. At present, he 

told the two Congressmen and reporters on the bus, “You can find better guidelines in a good 

cookbook than in a highway standards manual.” 

Representative Blatnik told a reporter, “It’s hard as hell to make people aware” of the need for 

highway safety. “What bothers me the most is we repeat the same old mistakes (in building 

highways and installing traffic signs) over and over again.” He thought that “a major lack of 

communication” existed among engineers about what was needed to improve highway safety. 
853 

Representative Harsha, predicting 80,000 fatalities a year by 1980, said, “There is a great inertia in 

getting these things done.” He was, however, optimistic that his Highway Safety Act would be 

approved and that it would help reduce the deadly toll. [Crosby, Thomas, “Congressmen Given a 

Look,” Washington Star-News, March 27, 1973] 

While the Committee on Public Works developed its Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, 

Engineering News-Record reported that, “The dispute between President Nixon and the 

Democratic-controlled Congress over spending levels and priorities appears headed for a 

showdown.” The Nixon Administration wanted to hold funding levels down to fight inflation as it 

implemented phase 3 of the New Economic Policy the President had announced on August 15, 

1971. He ended the phase 2 wage-and-price stabilization program by lifting the mandatory program 

and setting a voluntary limit of 1 percent on the average increase in prices each company could 

make without government approval. 

The lifting of mandatory controls unleased pent up demand for wage and price increases. On 

March 6, the Cost of Living Council reimposed mandatory controls on the 23 biggest oil companies 

covering crude oil, gasoline, heating oil and other refinery products, excluding natural gas. 

[Cowan, Edward, “Oil and Gasoline Prices Put Under Control Again; Farm Curbs Also Weighed,” 

The New York Times, March 7, 1973] 

With the President trying to hold down deficits, congressional views on what, if anything, to do 

varied. Representative Ford, the Republican leader, predicted vetoes. “It’s a presidential

responsibility to see that funds are not spent wastefully, and there are historical precedents to justify 

the President’s actions.” The House Majority Whip, Representative John J. McFall (D-Ca.),

countered that the Administration was trying to depict the President as riding herd on the wild-eyed 

spenders in Congress. “The real issue here is whether one man shall rule or whether our system of 

balanced powers shall continue.” 

Senator Ervin was developing legislation that would force President Nixon to release $12 billion in 

impounded funds and require congressional approval for any future impoundments lasting more 

than 60 days. Other Democrats were considering a counter-budget to revamp spending priorities 

while staying within the Administration’s $268-billion ceiling. “A long-term solution has been 

introduced by Sen. William Brock (R-Tenn.) in a bill (S.40) that would provide Congress with an 

integrated budget procedure that would rationally limit spending and set national priorities.” 

Another option was to attach provisions the President opposed to bills he needed and would not 

want to veto. For example, the Senate’s version of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 included 

anti-impoundment language that could result in a veto. The Administration supported many of the 

bill’s provisions, but the article pointed out that the construction industry opposed some provisions, 

particularly the Muskie-Baker amendment. As the House prepared to release its bill, “the outcome 

of the trust fund diversion issue is still too close to call.” Other highway legislation, including 

Representative Harsha’s Highway Safety Act and the version introduced by Senator Bentsen faced 

“tough sledding in view of the Administration’s attempts to reduce categorical grant-type 

programs.” Both bills, the article stated, “will probably also be opposed by the Administration.” 
854 

The article listed “legistion that bears watching,” including:

• Impoundment (S.3) –A challenge to the President’s impoundment practices, it would require 

him to commit some $12 billion in impoundments within 60 days or receive congressional 

approval for continued impoundment. 

• Land use control (S.268, S.294)—Similar to 1972 proposals, these would provide aid to 

states to develop land use programs with possible sanctions against those that fail to adopt 

guidelines. 

• Energy policy and conservation (S.70, S.419)—Top priority measures to develop a national 

energy policy through research and long-range planning for energy use. 

• Metric conversion (S.100, H.R. 1234)—The Senate version would make metric the only 

legal system, with total conversion within 10 years, while the House measure makes 

conversion mandatory for government but voluntary for private industry.. 

• Airport development (S.38, H.R. 2695)—A veto prone measure that has passed the Senate 

and would boost the federal share of airport development from 50% to 75% for all but the 

country’s largest airports.

• Highways (S.502)—An $18 billion, three-year measure that opens the Highway Trust Fund 

for public transit and prohibits the Administration from impounding highway funds, heads 

for a major battle on the House floor. 

Other legislation listed as part of the battle between the Administration and Congress included bills 

on flood control, converting space and defense technology to domestic uses, ending restrictive work 

rules and building codes to increase productivity in Federal housing programs, increased flexibility 

for private pensions, limiting export of softwood lumber and timber while investigating spiraling 

lumber and plywood prices, and demonstration projects on solid waste disposal and recycling. 

[“Spending Disputes Dominate Congress’ Legislative List,” Engineering News-Record, March 29, 

1973, p. 8-9] 

(Economic historian John Steele Gordon said of the New Economic Policy:

On August 15, 1971, President Nixon acted decisively, if not necessarily wisely, to solve the 

increasing economic problems that confronted the country . . . . Within two years they were 

abandoned, and inflation, now unchecked by any link to gold, continued unabated around 

the globe. As a result, interest rates soared as lenders demanded protection against the 

rapidly falling value of the dollar and other currencies . . . . Meanwhile, the American trade 

balance continued to deteriorate. [Gordon, John Steele, An Empire of Wealth: The Epic 

History of American Economic Power, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 384-386]) 

The Senate Public Works Committee approved Senator Bentsen’s Highway Safety Act of 1973 on 

March 29. It authorized $935 million over 2 years, mostly from the Highway Trust Fund. As noted 

earlier, the funds would help States eliminate railroad-highway grade crossings, improve signs, 

correct hazardous locations, and replace deficient bridges. For the first time, the bill would allow 

the funds to be used on State roads that were not included in a Federal-aid highway system. 

[“Highway Safety Funding Clears Senate Committee,” The Wall Street Journal, March 30, 1973] 
855 

That same day, the House Banking Subcommittee on Urban Mass Transportation voted to authorize 

$800 million over 2 years in general Treasury funds for mass transit operating subsidies with a onethird local matching requirement. The measure also increased capital grant aid from $3.1 billion to 

$6.1 billion, but with an 80-20 matching formula instead of the current one-third local match or the 

Administration’s recommended 70-30 ratio. [“House Banking Unit Votes $800 Million MassTransit Funds,” The Wall Street Journal, March 30, 1973] 

Representative Mario Biaggi (D-NY), a former policeman who was elected to the House in 

November 1968 to represent the Bronx, had introduced the measure as a parallel to the Senate bill. 

This measure, he said, was “imperative” because mass transit had reached “crisis level” in many 

cities. Highway projects were “creating many more problems than they solve” and were the main 

reason for air pollution. The time had come to change priorities. “Over the long-run, mass transit 

costs will turn out to be significantly lower than those required to perpetuate highway construction 

and maintenance.” If the best points of highways and mass transit were treated as complementary, 

he said, a unified and efficient transportation system would be possible. [“Mass Transit Funds 

Urged,” The Journal of Commerce,” April 3, 1973] 

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Senator Hart of Michigan, who had voted for the Clean Air 

Amendments of 1970, held a news conference to announce that he supported reevaluation of the 

tough emission standards for 1975 model year automobiles. He had “a hunch that the public health 

and economy might be better served by a more flexible time-frame.” Applying cost-benefit 

considerations to the standards, he said, would not help because “no one knows” how to calculate 

the value of the health benefits. Although he had voted for the legislation, he now said, “I’ve 

always been uncomfortable with the idea that Congress is competent to fix federal standards.” 

Lower cost options, such as parking restrictions in heavily populated areas, might be more 

productive. 

Senator Hart told reporters that he had not discussed his new views with auto industry executives in 

his home State. They had, he told reporters, been “dragging their feet” on emissions control and 

said their own “myopia” was responsible for the “crisis we find ourselves in today.” He added: 

It might be justifiably said that had the auto companies in 1970 been more highly thought of 

in regard to fairness, integrity and consumer concern, the Clean Air Act may have passed in 

a more moderate form.

He also had not discussed his revised position with Senator Muskie, one of the legislation’s 

strongest backers. 

Senator Muskie agreed with Senator Hart about the myopia of the auto industry, but not 

reevaluation of the standards. In a speech to the Environmental Writers Association he said that in 

view of the industry’s poor management and stalling tactics, Congress might have to dictate how 

clean-air engines should be designed: 

The harsh truth is that German and Japanese auto companies apparently have developed 

more new control technology and have contributed more to the protection of America’s 
856 

health than have General Motors, Chrysler and Ford. Apparently, American auto companies 

have decided to substitute politics for engineering, and public relations for technological 

progress.

The industry’s call for a 1-year extension of the 1975 model-year deadline demonstrated that 

Congress had made a mistake in expecting the automakers to solve their own problems: 

In light of this reluctance, Congress must consider what alternative engine systems are 

available, what their possibilities and limitations are, and how much it would cost. In this 

connection the Congress would have to consider imposing standards of engine design, 

performance and fuel economy, and we will need to examine the arguments for improving 

the competitive structure of the industry. [United Press International, “Hart Urges 2d Look 

at Auto Rules,” The Washington Post, March 30, 1973] 

On March 30, The Washington Post published reporter Peter Braestrup’s inside look at how 

Representative Wright, “chief House foe of administration-backed proposals to tap the federal 

highway trust fund for mass transit,” was promoting an alternative “consensus” measure to 

accomplish his goal: 

His aim is to split the “Bust-the-Trust” coalition, which includes Transportation Department 

lobbyists, environmentalists, big-city mayors, and the money-starved transit industry. 

Representative Wright began by targeting the “closely-divided” House Rules Committee, which 

would have to clear a vote on a “bust-the-trust” amendment before the Public Works Committee’s 

bill reached the House floor: 

In letters to Rules Committee members, Wright in effect said that they need not clear a bustthe-trust amendment since Wright’s alternative package would take care of urban rail and 

bus transit needs without touching any of the $6-billion-a-year federal highway money.

He planned to push his “consensus” bill when the Public Works Committee met the following week 

to draft the bill. It would include, according to Braestrup: 

• A new 10,000-mile “junior interstate” system to succeed the present $3 billion a year, 

41,500-mile [sic] interstate expressway program, now 80 per cent complete.

• “Permissive substitution” by states of mass transit facilities for federally-subsidized urban 

highways, but with the transit costs paid out of congressional appropriations, not the 

highway fund. 

• Another $1 billion a year, as approved by the Senate (and the administration) for purchase 

of buses and subway facilities—also out of general revenues. 

• No counterpart to the Senate-approved plan under which federal funds could be shifted from 

disputed interstate segments to build urban roads or transit. 
857 

The Administration was promoting flexibility in the use of urban dollars from the Highway Trust 

Fund as part of its campaign to keep down overall Federal outlays. Its supporters argued that 

Representative Wright was promising transit supporters “more than he could deliver.” 

Braestrup noted that on March 13, the Senate, had approved “flexible” use of $850 million in 

Federal-aid urban system funds. “But in the House, ‘pro-highway’ sentiment—and lobbying—is 

stronger.” Backed by industry lobbyists, Representatives such as Wright and Ford believed that 

non-highway uses of the Highway Trust Fund revenue would jeopardize Federal-aid highway 

programs. They anticipated that Representative Wright’s bill would prevail and that the Committee 

on Public Works would not adopt “bust-the-trust” measures such as those in the Senate bill, S. 502. 

Supporters of diversion, such as Representative John Anderson, planned to offer a Senate-style 

“bust-the-trust” amendment on the House floor but first they would have to get it past the Rules 

Committee:

“We expect to lose in committe [sic] and hope to win on the floor” said John Kramer, chief 

lobbyist for the environmentalist Highway Action Coalition, which has teamed up with the 

administration, Common Cause, several unions (including the Auto Workers and 

Teamsters), the rail transit industry, big-city mayors, and some governors . . . . Right now, 

according to Capitol Hill sources, Kramer, Transportation Secretary Claude Brinegar and 

their allies are at least 25 House votes short of “Busting the trust” in a floor battle, partly 

because of tardy lobbying by the White House. [Braestrup, Peter, “Highway Trust Backer 

Pushes Alternate Plan,” The Washington Post, March 30, 1973] 

Braestrup did not say so, but the Administration was working on a variety of fronts at the time. On 

March 25, Democrats and Republicans on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee had agreed 

unanimously with the President’s proposal to limit spending in FY 1974 to $268 billion, although 

Democrats on the panel suggested that “Congress should make major reallocations [within] the 

Administration’s proposed expenditure total.” They also recommended more stringent wage-price 

controls. Their suggestion was reinforced by a Department of Agriculture report that a “market 

basket” of foods cost a typical family 2.5 percent more in February than in January. The biggest 

increases were in beef, pork, poultry, and fresh vegetables. 

The Administration moved to curb the skyrocketing cost of new housing by increasing the timber 

supply from National Forests and seeking a voluntary agreement with Japan to hold down its 

purchase of American timber. [Dale, Edwin L., Jr., “Joint Unit Backs Spending Ceiling Sought by 

Nixon,” The New York Times, March 25, 1973; Robbins, William, “Farm Food Prices Up 2.5% in 

Month,” The New York Times, March 26, 1973; Associated Press, “U.S. Acts to Curb Cost of 

Housing,” The New York Times, March 27, 1973] 

On March 26, CBS Evening News, with Roger Mudd substituting for anchor Walter Cronkite, 

included a segment on the future of the Highway Trust Fund. After an introduction, the segment 

stated:
858 

In 1956, Congress set up the highway trust fund to finance what was to become the biggest 

public works project in American history; the 42,500-mile $80 billion interstate highway 

system. The fund operated entirely outside the regular federal revenue structure. Instead, it 

was financed by special automobile user taxes—on tires, trucking tonnage and particularly 

by a tax on gasoline, which is now up to 4 cents a gallon. With the passage of time, 

construction costs went up, but fund revenues kept up with them. And now the interstate 

highway system is in large part completed.

But in the meantime, we’ve come to regard new highways as a mixed blessing. They’re 

very big with truckers and tourists, but they also glut our major metropolitan areas with 

traffic congestion and air pollution. 

The segment asked “whether we’re to continue blindly going on building more highways as usual, 

or whether the growing problem of congestion and pollution, and now impending gasoline 

shortages as well, have finally gotten through to us.” [Quoted in Congressional Record-House, 

April 18, 1973, p. 13114] 

On March 27, President Nixon vetoed the $2.6 billion Vocational Rehabilitation Bill, saying: 

This bill is one of several now before the Congress which mask bad legislation beneath 

alluring labels. Their supporters would have the American public believe that each of these 

bills would further an important social cause, but they neglect to warn the public that the 

cumulative effect of a Congressional spending spree would be a massive assault upon the 

pocketbooks of millions of men and women in this country. They also fail to warn us that 

simply throwing money at problems does not solve anything; it only creates poor legislation 

which frequently misses the target.

George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, urged Congress on March 28 to roll prices back to 

December levels to ensure labor’s cooperation in President Nixon’s phase 3 wage-price 

stabilization effort. “Testifying before the House Banking Committee, Mr. Meany was indignant 

about rising food prices but carefully stopped short of saying he would withdraw his support for 

Phase 3, as he did for Phase 2 a year ago.” [Cowan, Edward, “Meany Proposes a Price Rollback to 

Late ’72 Level,” The New York Times, March 29, 1973] 

On March 29, consumer and women’s groups called for a boycott of meat the following week. 

[Lissner, Will, “Consumers Rally for Meat Boycott,” The New York Times, March 30, 1973] 

That evening, President Nixon addressed the American people on the Vietnam War and domestic 

issues: 

For the first time in 12 years, no American military forces are in Vietnam. All of our 

American POW's are on their way home. The 17 million people of South Vietnam have the 

right to choose their own government without outside interference, and because of our 

program of Vietnamization, they have the strength to defend that right. We have prevented 

the imposition of a Communist government by force on South Vietnam. 
859 

Turning to domestic issues, he said: 

Tonight I ask your support in another battle. But we can be thankful this is not a battle in 

war abroad, but a battle we must win if we are to build a new prosperity without war and 

without inflation at home. 

What I refer to is the battle of the budget--not just the battle over the Federal budget, but 

even more important, the battle of your budget, the family budget of every home in 

America. 

One of the most terrible costs of war is inflation. The cost of living has skyrocketed during 

and after every war America has been engaged in. We recognized this danger 4 years ago. 

We have taken strong action to deal with it. As a result of our policies, we have cut the rate 

of inflation in half from the high point it reached in 1969 and 1970. And today, our rate of 

inflation in the United States is the lowest of that of any industrial nation in the world. 

But these positive statistics are small comfort to a family trying to make both ends meet. 

To help, he was imposing price ceilings on beef, pork, and lamb effective immediately. [Cowan, 

Edward, “Nixon Sets Meat Price Ceilings at Both Wholesale and Retail; Asserts Costs ‘Should Go 

Down,’” The New York Times, March 30, 1973] 

The President’s action was met with skepticism, as reflected in a series of Times articles on 

Saturday, March 31. The opening paragraphs read: 

Members of Congress from both parties and spokesmen for the meat packers and 

supermarkets voiced disapproval today of the ceilings on meat prices announced last night 

by President Nixon in a reversal of policy. Critics contended either that the ceiling was too 

limited to stop inflation or that it would cause new shortages of meat. [Cowan, Edward, 

“Meat Price Curb Evokes Criticism from Congress,” The New York Times, March 31, 1973] 

In the midst of widespread confusion in the meat industry today, packers, wholesalers and 

livestock feeders said they expected President Nixon’s new ceiling on beef and pork to keep 

supermarket prices at their current high levels and do nothing to bring them down in the 

future. They said that if prices of live cattle and hogs, which are not controlled by the 

President’s order of last night, rose any further, they expected shortages of popular cuts and 

slowdowns in packing plant production. Some industry observers said they believed the 

ceiling would become a floor. [King, Seth S., “Processors Doubt Prices Will Fall,” The 

New York Times, March 31, 1971] 

“He’s freezing prices while they are at all-time high levels.” “Stabilization is not enough. 

Prices are too high now.” “He should have done this long ago.” “I’m not buying. I’m just 

looking at the prices and laughing.” Their reactions varied. Their tones ranged from open 

anger to quiet resolve. But on the front lines of inflation—in the redolent aisles of the 

nation’s supermarkets—housewives and shoppers said with striking uniformity yesterday 

that they were not satisfied with President Nixon’s imposition of price ceilings on meat. 
860 

[McFadden, Robert D., “Few Shoppers are Pleased by the Meat Price Ceilings,” The New 

York Times, March 31, 1972] 

Millions of homes had received the April 1973 issue of Reader’s Digest, which contained Ann 

Dear’s article, “We Should Open Up the Highway Trust Fund Now.” Dear began by describing 

how a change in the bus schedule had stranded a widow in Knoxville and how a Philadelphia 

student supporting a wife and child had to pay 7 percent of his income to get from his suburban 

home to the city. These stories illustrated the deteriorating service and high fares that forced 268 

mass-transportation companies out of existence since 1954, with 20 more “teetering on the brink of 

bankruptcy.” Surviving companies had sustained deficits of a half-billion dollars in 1972 alone. 

The number of vehicles had declined by 25,000 since 1950 while passenger rides were down by 10 

billion over that period: 

“These passengers aren’t lost,” says the American Transit Association. “Most are riding in 

from suburbia, one to a car, and sitting bumper-to-bumper on the most magnificent 

highways money can buy.” 

The alternatives to this scenario, Dear wrote, were clear. “We can continue to be plagued by everincreasing traffic jams, or we can create efficient public transportation—modern subway and bus 

systems, high-speed commuter trains—to move millions of workers to jobs and assist the one 

quarter of our population too poor, too old or too handicapped to own a car.” She quoted former 

Secretary Volpe as saying that unless we turned to mass transit, we may see “our urban-circulatory 

systems strangled by traffic and choked by smog, rendering even our great highways useless . . . .” 

The problem was the Highway Trust Fund. She cited Kelley’s The Pavers and the Paved as 

explaining that when a new highway opened, it increased traffic, which put more money into the 

Highway Trust Fund to build more highways. He said, “The self-perpetuating circularity of the 

process may appall economists and transportation planners, but it delights industries dependent on 

highway construction for profits.” The result was investment in the past 5 years of a “lopsided” $10 

billion in urban highways and only $1.1 billion for public transportation. 

Cities were left with a difficult choice, as illustrated in San Francisco. When the city decided not to 

extend the double-decked Embaradero Freeway “and spoil their picturesque waterfront” in 1964, 

the city lost $270 million in Highway Trust Fund money. Now it would like to use that money for 

BART, “exactly the kind of transportation flexibility that countless other cities desperately need.”

In 1972, the Cooper-Muskie amendment to allow flexible use of Federal-aid urban system funds 

“was soon under severe attack” by HUFSAM, with its 50 staffers and $3 million-a-year budget, and 

TRIP, which launched a $500,000 public-relations campaign in support of the Highway Trust Fund. 

 “When Mobil Oil Corporation, in a notable split with the highway lobby, called for improved mass 

transit and even Trust Fund abolition, TRIP urged industry groups to protest these ads.” 

The Highway Action Coalition, Dear said, had fought back. “Largely because of HAC’s efforts,” 

the Cooper-Muskie amendment passed the Senate in 1972 before battle shifted to the House “where 

the highway lobby is traditionally far stronger. As many as 50 full-time highway lobbyists swarmed 
861 

through the House office buildings.” The Committee for Action, a contractors’ organization, 

contributed $150,300 to more than 60 political candidates “and donations also flowed from 

truckers’ groups.” 

Meanwhile, “HAC fought back with only 12 volunteer lobbyists and funds so low its staff of three 

had gone unpaid for two months.” The League of Women Voters, Common Cause, and the 

American Public Health Association were among the groups that the Highway Action Coalition 

brought into the fight: 

No one was more persuasive than Transportation Secretary Volpe, ironically the nation’s 

first highway administrator in 1956, who tirelessly telephoned and buttonholed 

Congressmen. Soon the ranks of public-transportation supporters in the House swelled to 

200. But a series of parliamentary maneuvers engineered by the highway interests kept the 

issue of opening up the Trust Fund from coming to a vote. 

After the conference committee “wrangled to an unsatisfactory compromise,” Dear wrote, the 

legislation died on a quorum call. 

Now, as “opposing forces clash on the same battleground this year,” Dear had suggestions for what 

readers could do: 

If we want an end to traffic jams, poor bus service and antiquated rail systems, we can: 

Try to make certain that our local officials direct their planning to balanced

transportation needs—and not to highways alone. (Maryland is now the only state 

with a trust fund under which all transportation-related taxes can be used for various 

transportation modes on a needs basis.) 

Write to the Highway Action Coalition, 1346 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Washington, 

D.C. 20036, to learn how your community can work for balanced transportation. 

Tell your Senator and Congressman that now is the time to let the Highway Trust 

Fund be used for public transportation. As Secretary Volpe said during last year’s 

legislative battle: “This isn’t a raid on the highway fund—it’s a ray of hope for 

better mobility for all Americans.” [Dear, Ann, “We Should Open Up the Highway 

Trust Fund Now,” Reader’s Digest, April 1973, p. 191, emphasis in original]

(Other articles in the issue included “TV Violence IS Harmful,” “Time to Get Tough with 

Terrorists!” “What You Should Know About Your Automobile Dealer,” “Henry Kissinger: 

Peacemaker,” “Survey: How Women Really Feel About the ‘New Feminism,’” “The San Andreas 

Fault: California’s Earthquake Laboratory,” “Cooking to Cut Calories,” “Why the Soviet Union 

Can’t Feed Itself,” “Where Have All the Fathers Gone,” “The Sinister Warlord Behind Asia’s Drug 

Traffic,” “We’re Running Out of Gas – Needlessly,” “Is America Saying No to Growth?” 

“Yugoslavia: Time Bomb in Europe,” and “Beating Those Blue-Collar Blues.”) 
862 

As the House Public Works Committee completed work on its bill, other voices continued to worry 

about the outcome. An editorial in The Los Angeles Times described the Muskie-Baker amendment 

as “a modest proposal” that was “being fought tooth and nail by the highway lobby—the politically 

potent coalition of builders, material suppliers, oil companies and others who have a valuable 

vested interest in road construction.” Through their efforts, the Highway Trust Fund “has come to 

be regarded . . . as something sacred and indivisible, not to be shared even in the smallest way, not 

to be diverted regardless of compelling need.” The House committee was expected to defeat the 

amendment, which meant “this essential measure can be rescued only if it is adopted by a vote on 

the House floor.” With energy shortages looming, it was “not simply desirable but urgent [to 

support] a comprehensive program to develop urban mass transit systems as alternatives to the 

automobile.” The Muskie-Baker amendment was “an essential start in that development. It must 

not be allowed to fail in the House.” [“Will the Highway Lobby Get Its Way?” The Los Angeles 

Times, April 3, 1973] 

In The New York Times, columnist Tom Wicker again turned to the subject. He began by saying, 

“New or renewed rail transit is an idea whose time has come, despite the highway lobby’s 

propaganda.” He cited BART; the Lindenwold Line from south New Jersey to Philadelphia that 

began in 1969 “and now carries 42,000 riders daily, 40 per cent of whom are former automobile 

commuters”; plans for subways or rail lines in Atlanta, Baltimore, Buffalo, Miami, and 

Washington; the CTA’s updated electrified rail line to Skokie; and Governor Sargent’s decision to 

halt construction of urban superhighways in favor of transit: 

And rail transit does not require all that space for eight or 16 lanes of concrete, huge 

cloverleafs, and acres of downtown parking. Above all, rail transit can bring communities 

full cycle to the solution of a problem described as follows by Gov. Francis Sargent of 

Massachusetts:

“We found that we had defeated our own purpose, and that we have been caught in a 

vicious cycle. More cars meant more highways, which meant more traffic jams, 

more traffic jams meant the need for more highways, which meant more traffic 

jams—and the need for superhighways. The result today? Miles and miles of 

bumper-to-bumper traffic, creeping along hopelessly crowded highways. The side 

effect? Billions of dollars spent, more and more cities torn apart, more and more 

families uprooted and displaced. Worst of all—failure to solve the problem that 

started it all: how best to get from one place to another.” 

Nothing, Wicker said, “in the murky world of public affairs seems clearer than that at least part of 

the massive Highway Trust Fund ought to be made available to communities that prefer new or 

renewed rail transit to more superhighways.” The Senate and the Nixon Administration supported 

the Muskie-Baker amendment in 1973 as they did the Cooper-Muskie amendment in 1972, and the 

need is apparent:

Yet, when the House debates the matter later this month, it may well reject the idea; last 

year, it did not even vote on it. That is primarily because the highway lobby has pictured 
863 

this limited step as the beginning of the end for highway construction and has succeeded in 

rallying representatives of rural states and areas against it.

The key was Speaker of the House Albert, who had “effectively sided” with the highway lobby in 

1972 in the Rules Committee finding that the amendment was not germane. “But in this session, 

reforms have increased Mr. Albert’s potential strength, and personnel changes have given him more 

power over the vital Rules Committee than any Speaker has had in years.” His support could help 

clear the parliamentary difficulties to bringing the amendment to the floor for a vote. “With that 

stroke, the Speaker could gain new standing among the urban members who have been the least 

impressed with his leadership.” [Wicker, Tom,”Two Tracks vs. Eight Lanes,” The New York 

Times, April 3, 1973] 

On April 3, the Senate sustained President Nixon’s veto of the vocational aid act by 60 to 36. The 

vote, 4 short of the number needed to override the veto, meant that House action would not be 

needed. The bill was dead. The Times described Senate Majority Leader Mansfield as being 

“obviously thunderstruck” by the vote. “The President’s in the driver’s seat—at least for the time 

being.” [Hunter, Marjorie, “Senate Sustains Nixon Fund Veto by a Margin of 4,” The New York 

Times, April 4, 1973] 

As mentioned earlier, Governors Rockefeller and Cahill dedicated the $700-million twin towers of 

the World Trade Center on April 4. A statement from President Nixon was read predicting that the 

twin towers would be “a major factor in the expansion of the nation’s international trade.” [Prial, 

Frank J., “Governors Dedicated Trade Center Here; World Role is Cited,” The New York Times, 

April 5, 1973] 

The House Committee’s Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 

On April 3, the House Public Works Committee began an unusual 3 days of public votes to 

complete its Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. In its most critical vote the first day, the committee 

voted 29 to 8 to defeat Representative Glenn Anderson’s version of the Muskie-Baker amendment. 

The committee preferred Representative Wright’s consensus measure to allow up to $700 million 

to be used for mass transit, with the transit funds to come from the general Treasury rather than the 

Highway Trust Fund. 

The next day, an account in The Wall Street Journal explained:

Pro-highway forces in the House, who yesterday blocked the transit amendment, have 

proposed instead that cities be allowed to substitute mass transit systems for highways, but 

pay for them out of general revenues rather than the trust fund. They hope this provision 

will be enough to persuade the Rules Committee that a floor vote on the fund-busting 

amendment isn’t needed to aid transit systems.

On April 4, the committee rejected, 27 to 8, an effort to repeal the Highway Beautification Act of 

1965, but also rejected by voice vote a proposal to eliminate the 2-year moratorium on removal of 

billboards from the bill. 
864 

The following day, the House Committee on Public Works reported out a 3-year $18 billion 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. 

Proponents of the Anderson amendment called the Wright substitute a “Rube Goldberg 

contraption” and Representative Anderson called the measure “a sham, designed to pay lip-service 

to mass transit, while continuing to construct more and more highways in areas desperately needing 

alternatives to the automobile.” He planned to introduce the amendment when the bill reached the 

House floor, subject to a ruling by the Rules Committee that the measure is germane. 

Representative John Anderson, the senior Republican on the Rules Committee, said the committee 

was evenly divided, with one member, Representative Clawson, in doubt. 

The vote was expected in a week. The Washington Post summarized the situation:

The Illinois Republican said getting such a rule depends on the leadership and the 

administration, which supports the trust-busting amendment. He said the Speaker is 

remaining “neutral” in the fight, which allows the trust-busters to try to change the vote of 

two of the Speaker’s men on the Rules Committee, Rep. Gillis Long (D-La.) and Rep. Clem 

McSpadden (D-Okla.). 

Asked what he would like the President to do, the Illinois Republican said, “I would hope 

the White House would do what they did last year when they had Secretary of 

Transportation (John) Volpe personally call many Republican members of the House.” 

John Kramer said backers were about 16 votes short of passing the provision on the House floor. 

Others thought the deficit was as high as 40 votes. He was concerned by reports that the Rules 

Committee decision might be delayed until after the Easter recess because the delay might cause a 

loss of momentum. 

In The New York Times, reporter David Rosenbaum estimated the measure was 15 to 40 votes short 

of floor passage, with Republican Leader Ford one of its strongest opponents. Although the Rules 

Committee was evenly divided, supporters were “hoping that the House Democratic leadership will 

exert enough pressure on the committee to win favorable action this year.” Representative Wright’s 

consensus measure “was most likely a futile gesture” because the President would “almost certainly 

not make the money available from the general treasury.” Rosenbaum added: 

The Public Works Committee spent three days writing the bill in public session. It was the 

first times in years, perhaps ever, that the committee has voted on the provisions of a major 

piece of legislation in public. 

The committee had adopted Representative Abzug’s amendment prohibiting the President from 

impounding UMTA funds, but rejected her amendments, taken from the Senate bill, to provide 

funds for mass transit operating subsidies and the pass-through proposal for providing funds to 32 

large cities for expenditure rather than by the State highway agencies. [Russell, Mary, “$18 Billion 

Highways Bill Approved by House Group,” The Washington Post, April 6, 1973; Rosenbaum, 

David E., “Road Bill Bars Mass Transit Use,” The New York Times, April 6, 1973] 
865 

Title I of the committee’s bill was the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. Its many provisions 

included: 

• Authorized an additional $8 billion for construction of the Interstate System. The bill 

approved use of the 1972 estimate to apportion the funds. The time for completing the 

Interstate System was extended to June 30, 1979. 

• Authorized separate amounts for rural and urban portions of the Federal-aid primary and 

secondary systems: $700 million for the rural primary; $400 million for rural secondary; 

$400 million for urban primary and secondary extensions; and $700 million for the Federalaid urban system. Authorizations included $150 million for economic growth center 

development highways, $33 million for Forest Highways, and $16 million for Public Lands 

Highways.

• Established a policy that following completion of the Interstate System, increased emphasis 

would be placed on acceleration of other Federal-aid systems to bring them up to standards 

and increase their safety to the maximum possible no later than 1990. 

• Encouraged the Secretary of Transportation and agencies within the Department to make 

drastic reductions in paperwork and interagency decision procedures. 

• Expanded certification acceptance procedures that would allow the Secretary to accept a 

certification from a State highway agency that it would comply with State requirements for 

project development on all Federal-aid systems, except the Interstate System, to satisfy the 

provisions of Title 23 and that final decisions would be in the best overall public interest. 

Projects were to be inspected upon completion and the Secretary may rescind his approval 

of certification if necessary.

• When toll roads included in the Interstate System end toll collection, Interstate construction 

funds could be used for construction, reconstruction, or improvement of the roads. 

• Modified the Highway Beautification Act to extend outdoor advertising controls beyond the 

present 660-foot limitation from the edge of the highway right-of-way to cover signs visible 

from the main traveled way that were “erected with the purpose of their message being read 

from such main traveled way.” According to the Committee’s report, the goal was to 

“prevent the mushrooming of giant billboards which are now being erected beyond the 660 

foot limit to circumvent the intention of the Beautification Act.” Beyond 660 feet, 

permitted signs would be those containing directional information, official signs, and 

notices of specific interest to motorists, such as those advertising rest stops, campgrounds, 

food service, gas and automobile service, lodging, natural wonders, and scenic and historic 

attractions. Only three such signs per mile were to be permitted. Signs not in conformity 

with State law were to be removed no later than 5 years after they become nonconforming. 

Extended the Secretary’s authority to provide standards for Logo signs to the primary 

system as well as the Interstate System.

• Federal-aid system funds could be used for highway public transportation purposes, 

including exclusive bus lanes, traffic control devices, and passenger loading areas and 

facilities. When sufficient right-of-way was available, it could be used to accommodate rail 

or other nonhighway public mass transit programs as long as it did not impair highway 

safety or potential highway expansion. Interstate construction funds could be used for 

construction of exclusive or preferential bus, truck, and emergency vehicle routes. 
866 

• In distributing Federal-aid urban system funds, States shall apportion amounts to 

incorporated municipalities over 400,000 population based on the ratio of that population to 

all urbanized areas in the State.

• If local officials wanted to use Federal-aid urban system funds for fixed rail facilities or 

purchase of passenger equipment, including rolling stock for mass transit, the Secretary 

could approve the activity as a contractual obligation for payment from the general 

Treasury. The equivalent amount of urban funds would be returned to the Highway Trust 

Fund. 

• Routes and schedules for public mass transportation systems financed under the Act would 

be set in accordance with the metropolitan planning process. The Secretary was prohibited 

from approving any project unless he was assured that the mass transit system would have 

adequate ridership to fully use the proposed project. The funds could not be used for school 

buses. Further, the funds must be supplementary to and not in substitution for funds under 

the Urban Mass Transportation Act. 

• Any highway not on the Interstate System may be designated an economic growth center 

development highway. The program would now be a permanent program rather than a 

demonstration project. 

• Added Section 145 (“Federal-State Relationship”) to Title 23 to specify that the 

authorization of Federal funds or their availability for expenditure shall in no way infringe 

on the sovereign rights of the States to determine which projects shall be federally financed. 

 “The provisions of this chapter provide for a federally assisted State program.”

• Federal-aid system funds could be used to construct, in conjunction with Federal-aid 

projects, separate or preferential bicycle lanes, bicycle traffic control devices, shelters, and 

parking facilities to serve bicycles and bicyclists. Funds authorized for Forest Highways, 

forest and public lands development roads and trails, parkways, Indian reservations, and 

Public Lands Highways could be used for constructing bicycle routes in conjunction with 

such trails, roads, highways, or parkways. No motorized vehicles would be permitted on the 

trails except for maintenance purposes and, when snow conditions permit, snowmobiles.

• Authorized $100 million a year for special highways connected to the Interstate System in 

portions of urbanized areas with high traffic density. Federal share not to exceed 90 percent.

• Authorized $300 million a year, FYs 1974-1976, for carrying out the priority primary route 

program. The Secretary would select 10,000 miles of high traffic sections of the primary 

system for priority of improvement. A report to Congress on route selection and their 

estimated cost would be due on or before July 1, 1974.

• Authorized $58,670,000 to reconstruct the Alaska Highway from the Alaska border to 

Haines Junction in Canada and the Haines Cutoff Highway from Haines Junction to the 

south Alaska border.

• Authorized $20 million a year from the Highway Trust Fund for construction of Federal-aid 

system segments of the Great River Road along the Mississippi River, as well as $10 

million a year from the general Treasury for portions on Federal lands. 

• New Hampshire would be permitted to repay all Federal-aid funds paid on account of 

certain sections of Route 101 prior to the collection of tolls. The funds would remain 

available for other projects in New Hampshire. All restrictions on toll collection would be 

ended following repayment.
867 

• States that had constructed or acquired toll bridges on the primary system and ended toll 

collection may use primary funds on it.

• The Secretary would report to Congress by July 1, 1974, on a study of existing laws and 

regulations governing toll bridges over navigable waters to determine what action could and 

should be taken to assure just and reasonable tolls nationwide.

• The Secretary also would report to Congress on a full and complete investigation to 

determine the feasibility of a national system of scenic highways linking and making 

accessible recreational, historical, scientific, and other similar areas of scenic interest and 

importance.

• Required the Secretary to withhold further action on I-287 between Montville and Mahwah, 

New Jersey, and the Corporation Freeway in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, until corridor 

hearings were held.

• Amended the Howard-Cramer Interstate substitution provision by eliminating the 200-mile 

limitation to supplement substitute Interstates; additional mileage for substitute routes 

would be open-ended. Further, the Secretary was to give “preference, along with due regard 

for interstate highway type needs on a nationwide basis,” to routes in States in which other 

routes were or hereafter are withdrawn and extension of routes which terminate within cites 

served by a single Interstate route, to provide traffic service entirely through such cities. 

• Upon the joint request of a Governor and the local governments concerned, the Secretary 

may withdraw approval of an Interstate route if it is not essential to completion of a 

connection system and the State does not plan to construct a toll road in the corridor. The 

mileage was to be made available for designation in another State. If responsible local 

officials prefer a public mass transit project involving fixed rail or purchase of rolling stock, 

the Secretary may approve it as a contractual obligation for use of general Treasury funds. 

Any such project would be subject to assurances that the public mass transportation systems 

would have adequate capability to fully utilize the proposed project. 

• Authorized $75 million for a report evaluating the public mass transportation portion of the 

1972 National Transportation Report. 

• Authorized Federal assistance for construction of ferry boats operating in international 

waters among the islands in Hawaii and from Alaska to the State of Washington. 

• Directed the Secretary to expedite action on the environmental impact statements for a 

highway bridge project at the Raritan River on State Highway 18 in New Jersey and I-66 in 

Arlington and Fairfax Counties, Virginia. 

Title II was the Highway Safety Act of 1973. It authorized funds out of the Highway Trust Fund for 

the FHWA and NHTSA safety programs and for eliminating hazards at rail-highway crossings. 

Funds for bridge reconstruction and replacement would come from the Highway Trust Fund for 

projects on the Federal-aid systema and from the general Treasury for projects off the systems. It 

also authorized: 

• Pavement Marking Demonstration Program 

• Pavement Marking Research and Demonstration Program

• Drug Use and Driver Behavior Highway Safety Research

• Projects for high-hazard locations 
868 

• Program for the elimination of roadside obstacles 

• Highway safety education programming and study 

• Citizen participation study

• Feasibility study—National Center for Statistical Analysis of Highway Operations

• Pedestrian safety study

• Manpower training and demonstration programs 

• Incentives for compliance with highway safety programs

• Highway safety research and development

• National highway safety advisory committee

• Underpass demonstration project in Anoka, Minnesota 

• Highway safety needs study

• Driver education and evaluation program 

• Curb ramps for the handicapped 

• Rail-highway crossings demonstration project on 10 rail-highway projects in 10 specified 

cities.

Title III was the Urban Mass Transportation Act. It increased the Federal share of UMTA capital 

grant projects to 80 percent and increased contract authority from $3.1 billion to $6.1 billion. It 

also provided that no funds authorized under the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, as 

amended, shall be impounded or withheld from obligation. 

The legislation also included Title IV (“Prohibition of Discrimination on the Basis of Sex”) and 

Title V (“Inapplicability of Time Requirements”).

One thing missing from the bill was the provision relieving San Antonio’s North Expressway from 

its status as a Federal-aid highway project. If the Senate provision did not become law, the House 

provision adding Section 145 (“Federal-State Relationship”) to Title 23 may have bolstered Texas’ 

legal argument in court. It would have allowed expressway proponents to argue that the State, not 

FHWA or the courts, had the sovereign right to determine which projects are federally financed. 

However, the legislative history is unclear on the intent behind this provision. 

In releasing the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, the committee described growing highway 

needs and the importance of mass transit, but explained why it rejected bust-the-trust proposals: 

Proposals that have been made to stop highway construction and to use the Highway Trust 

Fund for mass transit do not provide an acceptable answer to the urban areas’ needs for 

transportation of persons, goods, and services. We must continue to provide our urban areas 

with the modern system of highways and streets that are their very lifelines—because in all 

of our major urban areas, due to economic, geographic, and populations [sic] reasons, 

highways will continue into the foreseeable future to serve as the principal means of 

transportation for people, and the sole means of transportation for most or all goods and 

service functions. 
869 

The committee had increased funding for the Federal-aid urban system “while at the same time 

liberalizing the criteria for providing public mass transportation facilities, such as special bus lanes, 

traffic control devices, passenger loading areas, shelters, and parking facilities, all from the 

apportioned highway funds.” It added: 

The Committee recognizes that bus mass transit is now, and will undoubtedly in the future 

continue to be, the major part of all mass transit (it is 3⁄4 at present), and because of its 

operational flexibility is eminently suitable for utilizing the vast capital investment 

represented by the nation’s highways and streets. A healthy urban transit program can only 

be achieved in concert with a healthy urban highway program . . . . 

By inducing some persons to leave their autos at home during rush hours, transit buses can 

make an enormous contribution to relieving urban “rush-hour” traffic congestion. However, 

while we must give this part of the highway program increasing support, the highway 

program must continue to play the predominant role even though it is recognized that by 

itself it cannot possibly solve all of our urban transportation needs. That is why the 

Committee has reported a bill which authorizes a program designed to assist both types of 

transportation needs. 

The highway portion of the bill would “bring substantial relief to urban congestion problems” and 

reduce air pollution and petroleum energy requirements by allowing traffic to move freely without 

stop-and-go and prolonged idling that waste gas and increase emissions. “Conversely, stopping the 

highway program will only serve to increase and intensify these and other problems for the cities.” 

[Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, Report of the Committee on Public Works, House of 

Representatives to Accompany S. 502, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, House Report No. 93-118, April 

10, 1973, p. 4-5] 

The committee’s report included additional views by 13 members on impounding of funds 

authorized for the UMTA capital grant program. They said the provision was unnecessary because 

the committee’s authorization for UMTA was identifical to the Administration’s budgetary 

requests. In other words, they said, “there is absolutely no need for this type of anti-impoundment 

prohibition.” This provision, if approved, “may well turn out to be the straw that broke the camel’s 

back.” By throwing down the gauntlet in this way, “we may find that we have sacrificed the game 

to make a point.” They meant that after all the committee’s hard word, this provision alone may 

provoke a veto. “Is the gain worth the risk? We submit not!” [Federal-Aid, Rpt. 93-118, p. 107] 

Representative Studds offered additional views on the transfer of Interstate funds, with the 

concurrence of Representatives Abzug, Burke, Grover, and Glenn Anderson. The success of the 

Interstate System, Representative Studds wrote, “has blinded some of us to the need for continued 

expansion of alternative forms of urban mass transportation such as improved rail, subway and bus 

systems.” He continued: 

It is a false dichotomy to say the public is divided into highway users and mass transit users, 

because in the majority of cases there is no available alternative means of transportation to 

the private automobile. 
870 

Highways will “continue to be vitally important to our future growth,” but stronger emphasis must 

be placed on mass transit, “the stepchild of transportation, which must be made at least a co-equal 

partner in our future development.” 

Many urban Interstates were planned 20 years ago, but cities often were unwilling to give up on the 

money and the jobs the money would bring “regardless of whether or not the project is the best 

answer to the locality’s particular transportation needs, and regardless of the environmental and 

social implications of the project.” He had introduced an amendment that would allow the funds 

for a deleted Interstate segment to be used for other highway and transportation needs in the 

urbanized area where the deleted segment was located:

My amendment recognizes that affected urban areas do have a tremendous need for 

increased transportation capacity, as evidenced by the decision to locate the contested 

Interstate segment in that area in the first place. But eight-lane, limited access superhighways (particularly through residential neighborhoods, parks, or historic areas) are not 

the only way to provide needed mobility. In many instances, as in Massachusetts, better 

mass transit, whether bus or rail or improved local road systems, is certainly more 

appropriate. Giving local and state officials the option of using these Interstate funds to 

satisfy other transportation needs in lieu of the disputed segment, therefore, is a logical and 

necessary step.

Representative Studds recalled Governor Sargent’s testimony that he had decided not to build $1 

billion worth of Interstate highways in Boston, but pointed out that “the transportation needs that 

those expressways were intended to meet still remain.” The House’s job was “to create the 

mechanisms whereby these transportation needs can be met in a manner compatible with 

community preferences and fiscal responsibility.” He continued: 

Regrettably, the Committee bill does not meet these requirements. The Committee bill 

would require us to take an additional amount of dollars from the nation’s treasury equal to 

those expressway dollars not used for Interstate Highway construction in metropolitan areas 

. . . . Accordingly, if the House passes the Committee bill as is, we would be appropriating 

another $5 billion for transit purposes to match the $5 billion in Interstate funds that would 

be returned to the Trust Fund. Not only is such a proposal unfair and inequitable to those 

states such as Massachusetts from which revenues were raised, but this creates several 

problems that this House must recognize.

First, could the Congress authorize a Cabinet Secretary to obligate “from general revenues under an 

open-ended authority without specific action by our appropriations committees”? Given the budget 

battles, “I believe fiscal integrity requires that such funds be appropriated in specific amounts, 

instead of in such a haphazard open-ended fashion.” Second, the measure would add to red tape by 

requiring the States to transfer the funds back to the Highway Trust Fund and then seek general 

revenues in an equal amount. Third, “I see no purpose in setting up a situation that practically 

demands back-door impoundment of funds.” Since the returned highway funds would be used 

elsewhere, “it is most likely that the President would instruct the Secretary, in order to maintain his 
871 

spending ceiling, to issue no such approvals.” The measure would, therefore, effectively impound 

the funds rather than make them available for alternative transportation purposes. 

He and his cosigners preferred a measure that would allow each urban area to use the Interstate 

funds from the Highway Trust Fund “to meet its legitimate transportation needs . . . consistent with 

the overall national need,” whether for the Interstate highway or alternatives. [Federal-Aid, Rpt. 

93-118, p. 108-110] 

Representatives Studds also wrote in opposition to priority primary routes, again with the 

concurrence of Representatives Abzug, Burke, and Grover. The bill set initial funding at $900 

million for 3 years “but clearly implied is a future commitment far in excess of this sum.” He 

believed the measure should be deleted: 

Every single mile of highway on this newly designated system is currently eligible for 

Federal assistance. The only thing that this provision accomplishes is that it ties the hands 

of the states by requiring the construction of this new system rather than permitting them to 

select projects in accordance with their own transportation priorities. 

The Interstate System had been authorized “after a great deal of study and at a time when this nation 

was sorely in need of a high level highway network.” By contrast, the priority primary system had 

not received extensive review or evaluation. The 1968 Highway Needs Report had mentioned a 

“Federal-aid intermediate system,” but it did not contain “any justification on economic or social 

grounds” for the idea. It recommended studies of the concept but they had not been undertaken. 

Representative Studds and his cosigners opposed the system: 

What is now needed is added flexibility in our transportation programs so that the diverse 

problems faced at the state and local level can be resolved in the manner most suited to local 

needs and priorities. This new program, however, would move in the opposite direction . . . 

. What is now required is sufficient latitude to meet the different needs found in different 

states. [Instead, this] new program would require construction of a designated 10,000 mile 

system. It is unwarranted and should be eliminated from the proposed legislation. 

[Federal-Aid, Rpt. 93-118, p. 111-112] 

Representative Abzug, with the concurrence of Representatives Studds and Burke, provided 

additional views on operating subsidies for mass transportation. By including $3 billion in the bill 

for capital grants and loans under the UMTA program, the committee had partially recognized the 

great need for urban mass transit. To meet those needs, operating subsidies were “essential.” 

Receipts from the fare box could not support public transportation; local governments already were 

providing over $400 million in local taxes for the purpose each year. Even Senator Randolph, she 

said, recognized that “the most acute transit need is operating subsidies.” 

Fairness was one reason for Federal operating subsidies: 

Presently, we provide an operating subsidy to automobiles of $1,400,000,000 annually in 

the form of tax deductions for auto sales taxes, State and local gasoline taxes, and interest 
872 

on auto loans. Surely we can afford to balance this somewhat by providing some subsidy 

for mass transit operations as well.

The subsidies would come from the general Treasury, not the Highway Trust Fund, and would be 

available in rural and urban areas for bus as well as rail operations. “It would provide much-needed 

support and would, in the long run, aid automobile and truck users as well as those using mass 

transit.” [Federal-Aid, Rpt. 93-118, p. 120] 

Representative Abzug, again with the concurrence of Representatives Studds, Burke, and Glenn 

Anderson, also provided supplemental views on the availability of Federal-aid urban system funds. 

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970 had established the system “to best serve the goals and 

objectives of the community as determined by the responsible local officials,” but “existing law 

does not carry out that laudable intent.” Present law made all the funds available to the State 

highway agency, did not require apportionment among the State’s urbanized municipalities on a fair 

basis, and gave local officials “only a consultative role in determining how the funds shall be spent 

in their areas.”

She was pleased that the bill included her amendment to “earmark” Federal-aid urban system funds 

for municipalities over 400,000 population. “This should prevent situations such as that in the State 

of New York, where the City of New York has not received one penny of urban system funds in the 

last two fiscal years.” (In response to a question from Representative Abzug during the 

committee’s hearings, Commissioner Schuler had acknowledged that the city had not received its 

reasonable share of urban system funding because “the administration of the city refused to accept 

the transportation facilities, the highways, that we would want to have put in place.”) Under the 

bill, “decision-making rests solely in the hands of State highway officials.” She had proposed the 

pass-through measure, under which “the 32 cities of the United States with over 400,000 population 

would receive their share of urban system funds directly from the State’s urban system 

apportionment if they have sufficient authority to develop and implement projects on the system.” 

This amendment would give officials of larger cities a guarantee of “actual control over the funds 

proportionally attributable to them.” 

Her measure would not affect the Interstate, primary, secondary, or urban extensions, “nor would it 

alter the relationship between State and local officials with regard to those systems.” Instead, it 

would satisfy the intent of the Federal-aid urban system, while ensuring State officials a continuing 

role in decisionmaking through the planning process. [Federal-Aid, Rpt. 93-118, p. 121-122] 

Representatives Grover, Abzug, Studds, Stanton, and Burke offered minority views in support of 

Representative Glenn Anderson’s amendment embodying the Muskie-Baker amendment. 

“Presently, urban areas can only use urban system funds for highway and related construction 

projects.” The Anderson amendment “merely permits the urban areas to use their funds in a manner 

they feel will solve their transportation needs.” Many areas would continue to use Federal-aid 

urban system funds for highways, while others may use all the funds for rail transit systems or a 

combination of modes. 
873 

The amendment did not break faith with highway users. Mass transit would benefit highway users 

“by increasing the usefulness of highways by attracting commuters off those roads.” The “sanctity 

that surrounds the Trust Fund” was already diminished by the use of its funds for ferry boats, 

housing for displaced residents, and other nonhighway purposes. In any event, many of the taxes 

had been in effect before 1956 and were deposited in the general Treasury for governmental 

purposes: 

Finally, it should be abundantly clear that our amendment is not anti-highway, nor is it antirural America. It simply gives urban officials the option of using the highway funds they 

presently receive to build or purchase a mass transit system, as well as construct highways. 

[Federal-Aid, Rpt. 93-118, p. 123-125] 

The House Rules Committee Acts

For transit advocates and environmental organizations, the next critical action was the House Rules 

Committee decision on whether the House would be able to vote on Representative Glenn 

Anderson’s amendment on the use of Federal-aid urban system funds. Times reporter David 

Rosenbaum found that despite the 1972 ruling that the measure was not germane, pro-transit forces 

were optimistic:

The House Rules Committee is under new leadership this year, and the new majority leader, 

Representative Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. of Massachusetts, is, to quote one highway lobbyist, 

“a mass transit freak.”

Thus, the transit advocates are convinced they can get their proposal to the House floor for a 

vote this year. Whether they can win there is another question. 

The vote was, by all accounts, going to be close but “the smart money is favoring the highway 

forces.” If the House did not adopt the Anderson amendment, the issue would go to conference 

with the Senate – “a conference that is likely to be one of the most fractious of the year.” 

Rosenbaum continued: 

Asked how he thought the bill would come out in the end, a key Senator replied: “I’ll tell 

you this. There’s no compromise way out. The conference will take weeks—no, make that 

months. I just don’t know what will happen.” [Rosenbaum, David, “Highway Funds Spur 

New Fight,” The New York Times, April 8, 1973] 

A Times editorial began, “The Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives is about to 

meet a severe test.” Referring to the Rules Committee’s 1972 decision on the amendment, the 

editorial said, “There is a strong possibility that the same sort of maneuvering will be tried this 

year.” When Representative Glenn Anderson tries, as he did in 1972, to secure a floor vote on his 

amendment, “It will be up to the Speaker [Carl Albert], through his influence on the Rules 

Committee, to permit or prevent a floor debate on this amendment.” 
874 

The test for Speaker Albert and his Democratic leadership team was two-fold. First, with President 

Nixon “already committed to the relief of the big cities’ transit riders, a Democratic Congress can 

hardly afford to offer them another helping of parliamentary dodges.” Second, “and even more farreaching,” the Democratic leadership’s actions would show whether they take their congressional 

reforms “seriously enough to allow the House to debate a matter of great substance.” The editorial 

concluded: 

The least that should be expected of the Speaker, whatever his own view, is that he will 

throw his political weight on the side of simple fairness: the right of the people’s 

representatives to vote on a matter of such obvious importance as the uses of the Highway 

Trust Fund. [“Test for Speaker Albert,” The New York Times, April 12, 1973] 

Engineering News-Record agreed that a House floor vote would be close, with highway supporters 

in the lead. Diversion advocates acknowledged they were 15 to 30 votes short: 

A spokesman for one major highway user group confirmed reports that the Department of 

Transportation push for diversion under new Secretary Claude S. Brinegar lacks the punch 

provided last year by his predecessor, John A. Volpe. Nevertheless, transit advocates appear 

committed to a battle. “The $3-billion transit appropriation doesn’t mean a damned thing,” 

says one, “because the Administration would never spend it.” [“House Committee Bars 

Road Fund Division,” Engineering News-Record, April 12, 1973, p. 36] 

On April 12, the House Rules Committee rejected, 6 to 8, a motion by Representative David T. 

Martin (R-Ne.) permitting points of order that would have blocked a vote on the Anderson 

amendment. Had the committee accepted Representative Martin’s motion, Representative Glenn 

Anderson could have introduced his amendment on the House floor but it would have been ruled 

not germane to the bill without a vote. According to an account in The Washington Post: 

The expected fight in Rules Committee dissolved when Speaker Carl Albert moved from a 

position of “neutrality” to support for allowing the Anderson amendment to go to the floor 

for a vote. [Representative] Wright said, “I think in general (Albert) feels as I do, but I think 

he would take the position that this is an issue that ought to be decided on the floor.” 

Representative John Anderson called the vote “a critical breakthrough . . . for the millions of 

Americans who ride bus and rail systems each day. For the first time we will have a straight up or 

down vote on mass transit.” The account continued: 

But he warned mass transit supporters “the main battle is still to be fought on the floor of 

the House. The highway lobby is enormously powerful and they will be working 

assiduously to defeat us.” 

John Anderson called “the continued strong support of the Administration . . . pivotal” and 

asked supporters of mass transit to contact rural area congressmen and “explain to them that 

this is no raid on roads. We are not taking funds from inter-state highways or from 
875 

programs to build and improve rural and secondary roads.” [Russell, Mary, “Highway Fund 

Amendment Will Go to Floor of House,” The Washington Post, April 13, 1973] 

With consideration on the House floor nearing, media speculation about the fate of the Anderson 

amendment intensified. A Los Angeles Times editorial pointed out that, “All indications are that the 

vote will be close.” The highway lobby was vigorously opposing the amendment. “If the lobby 

once more prevails, then hopes across the nation for a chance to develop adequate public 

transportation facilities will once more be thwarted.” Readers did not have to look far for proof of 

the need. “The inadequacy of public transportation in Southern California, and the traffic 

congestion that is a concomitant, is a daily proof of the need for the money that the Anderson 

amendment would help provide.” 

The outcome, the editorial suggested, might turn on the votes of the California delegation. “That 

makes it all the more difficult to understand the opposition to the measure by some area 

congressmen.” It explained:

In this group are Jerry L. Pettis (R-Loma Linda), James C. Corman (D-Van Nuys), John H. 

Rousselot (R-San Marino) and Victor V. Veysey (R-Brawley). Leaning toward opposition 

are Clair Burgener (R-Rancho Santa Fe), Del Clawson (R-Downey) and Carlos Moorhead 

(R-Glendale). The voting inclinations of these men on the Anderson amendment cannot be 

said to represent their constituents’ needs. If the amendment is to pass, and the interests of 

Southern California are to be served, some will have to change their minds by voting time 

on the House floor. [“Vital Votes on the Highway Fund,” The Los Angeles Times, April 16, 

1973] 

According to Engineering News-Record, transit advocates were bolstered by the Rules Committee’s 

vote. They “claim they are close to victory in their fight to open up the Highway Trust Fund for 

public transit.” The vote had been a “a dramatic turning point for transit force who just last week 

felt they lacked 15 to 30 House votes” to pass the amendment. Representative Glenn Anderson 

called the vote “a major victory” but cautioned that “the main battle remains on the floor of the 

House.” 

John Kramer said that “last minute lobbying was apparently responsible for the Rules Committee 

decision.” He explained:

“We’ve been picking up steam all week . . . . And now we have the votes.” Kramer’s 

optimism seemed to be borne out by the tight-lipped gloom pervading the pro-highway 

camp. A spokesman for the Highway Users Federations [sic] said, “We have nothing to 

say.”

Although the House was scheduled to begin considering the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 on 

Tuesday, April 17, no one could be certain the vote would come before Congress began its 10-day 

Easter recess on Friday, April 20: 
876 

“I wouldn’t mind if we carry it over,” says Richard Cook, who is directing the White House 

lobbying on behalf of the diversion amendment. “Time works for us now.” But Cook 

cautions that “the victory in Rules has been exaggerated. It’s going to be very, very close on 

the floor. I wouldn’t bet either way right now, but the best arguments are on the side of 

those who favor breaking up the trust fund.” 

According to Cook, the White House will begin applying political pressure on undecided 

Congressmen just before the floor vote. [“Transit Forces Expect House to Tap Road Fund,” 

Engineering News-Record, April 19, 1973, p. 15] 

On April 17, the day House consideration of the Federal-Aid Highway Act was to begin, Secretary 

Brinegar issued a statement in support of flexibility in the use of Highway Trust Funds for the 

Federal-aid urban system. Representative Anderson had offered “a much-needed amendment” and 

“if it is fully understood it will receive the needed support for passage.” This flexibility was 

essential because “today in many urban areas additional highways may be low on the transportation 

priority list.” The Anderson amendment gave cities “an option that must come if we are to achieve 

a balanced transportation system.” 

The Secretary emphasized that the Anderson amendment did not affect the Interstate System or 

rural highways. It would not affect the amount of urban system funding or “require anyone to spend 

one cent on public transportation. It simply offers a choice.” He explained: 

The Federal Government requires States and metropolitan regions to engage in 

comprehensive transportation planning in line with local needs. We must now loosen the 

strings somewhat to allow them flexibility in carrying out those plans. We must get away 

from trying to decide in Washington just how each State should apply the capital funds it 

receives.

The Anderson amendment would provide real flexibility while helping “to achieve a balanced 

transportation system without any increase in President Nixon’s budget proposals.” He urged the 

House to adopt the measure that was already in the Senate bill.

Whatever the outcome, an editorial in The Washington Post said, “the cause of flexibility in urban 

transportation has already had an impact in the House.” The first sign of change was the Public 

Works Committee’s vote. “The committee rejected the Anderson amendment, 29-8, but did 

approve a measure fashioned primarily by Rep. Jim Wright (D-Texas) which comes remarkably 

close to serving the same goals.” In adopting Wright’s proposal, the committee “has thus accepted 

for the first time the concept that cities should have the flexibility to devote a given quantity of 

federal aid to rail transit instead of roads.” The Wright provision was “a serious attempt to help the 

traffic-choked big cities without diverting money from the highway trust fund to projects which 

don’t use roads.” The measure, however, was flawed: 

Aside from the administrative intricacies involved, the committee approach has only one big 

flaw—but that appears to be a fatal one: there is no guarantee that the mass transit aid from 

general revenues would really be available. The contract authority could all too easily be 
877 

withheld, limited or stretched out by either the executive branch or the appropriations 

committees; this has already happened to the existing program of mass transit grants. Given 

the current state of the budget, the committee bill could thus enable cities to not build roads, 

but give them little help in building anything else.

In contrast . . . the Anderson amendment is simple and sure. It would avoid the fiscal 

pitfalls and administrative snarls, by authorizing another use of trust-fund monies which—

as the recent appellate court decision underscored—are virtually immune from 

impoundment. This feature should make the Anderson amendment especially appealing to 

advocates of fiscal sanity and bureaucratic sense.

The vote by the Rules Committee, “pushed by Speaker Carl Albert, has paved the way for a direct, 

up-or-down vote on the Anderson amendment.” The committee’s decision gave the House a 

chance to “consider the alternatives squarely on their merits.” If they do, they will approve “the 

Anderson amendment as a timely and useful reform.” [“Getting the Highway Fund on the Right 

Tracks,” The Washington Post, April 17, 1973] 

The Washington Star-News also endorsed the Anderson amendment: 

With the nation facing a fuel shortage, on top of its auto-exhaust pollution troubles, about 

everyone in Congress is speaking kindly of mass transit these days. But this week we’ll see 

how deep the commitment goes, for the House will vote [on] a Senate-approved proposal to 

make just a small portion of the highway trust fund available for financing urban bus and 

rail transit systems.

We hope the House, which refused to concur with the Senate last year on a similar plan, will 

give its assent this time around.

Many House members, especially from rural districts, would have a hard time voting for the 

amendment:

There is a powerful core of resistance to using the highway trust money—derived from 

levies on road-users—for non-highway purposes. But the times demand it. The trust fund 

is incredibly opulent, while the problems of swelling auto use inflict ever-larger social costs 

that cannot be alleviated simply by building more highways with every last penny of 

highway revenues. 

The Highway Trust Fund “has a partial obligation to other concerns,” such as air pollution caused 

by cars and the “fossil-fuel shortage, which must be remedied in large degree by mass transit.” In 

view of “the astonishing dimensions of the country’s energy problem,” House members should bear 

in mind the advantages of the bus over the car. “And a great many auto commuters would gladly 

switch to public transit if adequate service were available.” Indeed, if rural areas experience 

gasoline shortages, “it will be due in some measure to the lack of sufficient mass transit, which 

forces millions of urbanites to rely excessively on automobiles.” 
878 

Urban areas needed flexibility “to use a portion of their regular federal highway funds to help 

finance mass transit, and cover its operating losses in some cases.” The editorial concluded: 

To achieve this, the House will have to approve amendments that are contrary to the wishes 

of its Public Works Committee, and in line with the Senate’s approach. We hope a majority 

in the House can summon the foresight and determination to do that. [“The House’s Transit 

Test,” The Washington Star-News, April 18, 1973] 

With House debate about to begin, rifts in the transit community were threatening the outcome. 

According to The Wall Street Journal, Boston, New York City, and Chicago were among the big 

cities supporting the Anderson amendment, but “there’s little lobbying by interests in Atlanta and 

some other cities.” In some circles, transit people were actively opposed:

“Our coalition is in shambles” over the issue, a transit lobbyist moans. The split in transit 

ranks is a major reason why prospects for cracking open the trust fund this year are regarded 

as slim.

 

Potential beneficiaries publicly supported the Anderson amendment, but their actions were mixed: 

The Institute for Rapid Transit, a rail-system group, is pushing hard for the fund raid. But 

while the American Transit Association, whose membership includes most U.S. bus and rail 

systems, is pushing on an official basis, its members are split in terms of vigorous lobbying 

on Capitol Hill.

The big-city U.S. Conference of Mayors is much stronger in support of diversion than the 

affiliated National League of Cities, whose members include many smaller cities with big 

road needs. And even the cochairmen of the Conference’s transportation committee don’t 

agree—Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley wants the trust fund opened, but Mayor [John] 

Briggs [of Phoenix] doesn’t. 

Washington lobbyists for these groups, and for the National Governors’ Conference, which 

is on record as supporting the trust fund diversion, are lukewarm. “They’ll make the phone 

calls, but it’s obvious it isn’t a priority,” says a lobbyist for an environmentalist group. 

The reason for the split was that some transit systems wanted operating subsidies more than capital 

funds. “While the operators of such systems admit that their capital requirements are huge, they 

argue that their needs for operating funds are more imminent, and they can’t depend on states to 

keep giving them the subsidies they need.” 

Allen S. Harden, chairman of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, had said in a letter 

to the Georgia Department of Transportation that the Highway Trust Fund was not “the best or most 

reliable source” of transit funding. “MARTA isn’t advocating nor is it lobbying for the opening of 

the highway trust fund to finance urban mass transit projects.” Harden’s letter provided 

ammunition for Representative Ronald B. “Bo” Ginn (D-Ga.), a member of the Public Works 

Committee serving his first term, in opposing the Anderson amendment. The Journal added, “A 
879 

transit lobbyist says that Baltimore and Los Angeles people have elected to ‘play it cool’ on the 

trust fund issue, rather than pressing Congressmen to back it.” 

Some transit interests thought “little is to be gained and much lost from cracking the fund.” While 

the amounts involved were relatively small, “balking city and transit officials believe the diversion 

plan would mean they couldn’t bring further pressure for increased federal general-revenue 

sharing.” They also feared that State rather than local officials would decide how the funds would 

be used. “And they feel that transit interests would lose out often.” 

Further, transit interests “aren’t keen on challenging the defenders of the trust fund.” One urbaninterest lobbyist said, “We’re going to have to work with these highway guys for a long time. Why 

should we alienate them, especially in a hopeless cause?” A head-count in the House showed the 

measure was trailing. [Karr, Albert R., “Chances of Diverting Highway Trust Funds Periled by a 

Split in Mass-Transit Ranks,” The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 1973] 

Robert Cahn, the journalist who had served on the Council on Environmental Quality, was more 

optimistic, seeing the coming fight as at least unpredictable. It was a “modern-day David and 

Goliath confrontation” pitting the HUFSAM Goliath against the Davids in the Highway Action 

Coalition. HUFSAM was “a well-oiled propaganda machine” that could draw on lobbying support 

from its powerful member organizations. “Many of these supporters also operate independently to 

pass out campaign contributions to members of Congress from both parties.” Cahn made a point 

that was rarely made:

This 20th century Goliath is not a bad guy—just big and powerful. He insists his cause is 

just because it isn’t fair to shift taxes collected from auto or truck users for highway building 

to some other cause. But his propaganda sometimes confuses the issue and makes it appear 

as if rural roads and all road building would be slowed by the David forces. 

The Highway Action Coalition, the David in this clash, was backed by environmental and other 

groups, but: 

It scrapes together each day’s operating funds from $5 and $10 checks. It operates with a 

staff of 81⁄2 workers and total budget of about $22,000 a year . . . . Armed only with their 

propaganda and the dedicated enthusiasm of youth, Mr. Kramer and Miss [Linda] Katz have 

patiently trod the halls of congressional office buildings and executive offices. 

Their goal was to open the Highway Trust Fund for transit: 

Mr. Kramer and Miss Katz and their helpers have had amazing success. They converted 

former Secretary of Transportation John A. Volpe, a former federal highway administrator, 

from a doubter to a vigorous trust-busting booster. Last year, he spent many hours seeking 

congressional votes. Mr. Volpe brought President Nixon into the fold. 

The Senate “was turned around” and the idea was “finally making inroads on the House.” Cahn 

described the coalition’s campaign: 
880 

Amid boxes and crates in their “field” headquarters—a friendly congressman’s tiny supply 

room—Mr. Kramer and Miss Katz plan strategy for the next move in the campaign. At this 

writing they have just succeeded in getting a group of 38 Democratic and Republican 

members of Congress to form a bipartisan committee to seek votes from uncommitted 

colleagues. The White House lobbyists are beginning to stir. 

In this battle between David and Goliath, reality had to be acknowledged: 

But even if they lose this battle, the Highway Action Coalition and their supporters will 

continue the fight. 

And yesterday’s gloom, when the “head count” in the House was 25 short of victory, now is 

brightening. [Cahn, Robert, “Playing ‘Davids’ to the Highways’ ‘Goliath,’” The Christian 

Science Monitor, April 18, 1973] 

New York was especially concerned about the pending legislation. Theodore Kheel, the coalition’s 

chairman, was interviewed by journalist Gabe Pressman on New York City’s WNEW about the 

future of the city’s transit system. He predicted that subway and bus fares would have to increase to 

60 cents in 1974. The $200-million subsidy from the city and State would be exhausted while the 

MTA would be negotiating a new contract with the Transportation Workers Union. “It will take 

$400 million for the ensuing two years to keep the fare at the 35-cent level and that money just isn’t 

available.” He added, “There is nothing on the scene that I know of that will prevent the fare from 

going up by 25 cents, or possibly more, by the first of the year.” Mayor Lindsay had appealed to 

Governor Rockefeller regarding the same concerns. 

A spokesman for Dr. Ronan, the authority’s chairman, responded to Kheel’s comments: 

Dr. Ronan has been campaigning actively to get Federal funds for mass-transit operations. 

He is hopeful that he will be successful. We have no present plans for a fare increase. [“A 

Transit Fare Rise to 60 Cents During ’74 is Foreseen by Kheel,” The New York Times, April 

16, 1973] 

For his part, Governor Rockefeller had not abandoned his vision of a bridge across Long Island 

Sound between Oyster Bay and Rye despite opposition from the Department of the Interior. 

Talking informally with reporters, he was asked if the bridge would be built. “Yep,” he replied. 

Given Interior Department opposition, how could that be? “That’s up to me. You’ll find out as the 

scenario unfolds.” [Madden, Richard L., “Governor Says U.S. Opposition Won’t Stop L.I. Sound 

Bridge,” The New York Times, April 7, 1973] 

In an extension of remarks on April 17, Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt introduced into 

the record a positive article about highways. The article “is timely and highly germane to the 

current debate on the 1973 Federal-Aid Highway Act.” He endorsed the article’s “conclusion that 

the highway program must be continued and our present uses of the network substantially 

improved.” 
881 

The article, “Mass Transit: Rail or Bus?” was by former Federal Highway Administrator Frank 

Turner and appeared in American Road Builder, ARBA’s magazine. It consisted of excerpts from 

Turner’s recent talk to the Road Gang. Remarks to the Road Gang are usually off-the-record, but 

that rule had been waived for Turner’s talk, “one of his first since retiring last June as Federal 

Highway Administrator.”

Turner began: 

Recent newspaper articles seem to have attempted to bring on a fight between the so-called 

“highway lobby”—classified as the “bad guys”—and the “good guys,” classified as 

environmentalists, the Highway Action Coalition, Big City Mayors, and the “public.” If 

there is such a thing as a “highway lobby” it is in my opinion the vast majority of the public 

which daily uses and is dependent upon an effective highway transportation system for 

virtually every part of its very existence.

I may have been under a mistaken impression for many years, because we in public service 

always thought that as public officials, we were representing the “public,” and I mean all of 

the public, and not just one or another special interest group whether for or against highways 

as a large general question or a particular stretch of road from point “A” to point “B.” 

However, a number of individuals and groups, by self-appointment, have decided that only 

they represent the public. One might properly ask: who appointed them protectors and by 

what qualifications and training are they to be adjudged of more competence and devotion 

to the overall public interest than those who have dedicated their whole lives to trying to 

improve the lot of their fellowman [sic]? I will stack up my own service and devotion to the 

public interest against any and all of these self-chosen “public ombudsmen.” 

This was not a time for name-calling or a fight about how to decide major questions, “especially the 

highway program which is so vital to our country, its present, its future, and generations, yet 

unborn.” However, one side “offers simplistic solutions contrived by critics whose only training is 

from reading the accounts of some erstwhile prophet of doom and whose knowledge of the subject 

(highways) is derived from having skimmed a few articles and books by others who have done 

equally shallow research and study.” Those who advocate for highways must always base their 

arguments on “facts—and nothing but facts, and objective analysis of those facts.”

The critics’ main argument was “the alleged harmful effects to individuals in our society of a 

continued dependence on the automobile, particularly in our urban areas . . . .” 

Their quick and easy cure-all suggests that we just quit building and modernizing our 

highway systems and by so doing this will somehow force people and their goods 

movements to immediately, and with certainty, transfer itself to mass transit, which usually 

means, in their terms, a fixed rail network feeding into and out of the central business 

district (CBD).
882 

This “simplistic solution” overlooked freight movement as well as utility, public, and business 

services that depended on the highway and street network. Moreover, the “assumed benefit” during 

rush hour “would turn out to be of negligible amount.” During rush hour, which was all the critics 

cared about, if rail transit “by some magic” suddenly appeared in our cities and ran on time with 

complete safety, “you would have affected only about two percent of the problem.” Turner 

continued: 

I don’t believe it’s good business to severely cripple a proven highway program to hopefully 

satisfy those who are dedicated to building a doubtful and costly transportation system that 

at best could assist only two percent of the problem. 

That’s why I am opposed to diverting highway monies to mass transit activity and “busting 

the highway trust” in order to provide the revenues for that kind of solution. It simply won’t 

work. 

Without doubt, daily commuters deserved “a fair, reasonable and workable solution,” one which 

was “readily available” since “it revolves around the use of buses as the major mass transit 

movers.” Better use of the street network was the key. Significant increases in the bus fleet and 

carpooling, encouraged by limiting CBD parking to carpools, would work. A network of minibuses carrying 10-12 people that could be rented for commuting was another way to reduce singleoccupant vehicles during rush hour. The Shirley Highway exclusive bus lanes demonstrated 

another option. “I believe the public would accept car pooling, and other innovations of the kind I 

have suggested, over other proposed costly and less efficient solutions, if the facts were made 

known to them.” 

Turner added: 

Why do I so strongly favor a highway type solution to the problem? Because in my analysis 

of all the facts, I can come to no other conclusion. Also, I am confident others will do the 

same if they will but go through the same exercise and put into the equation all of the facts 

that those of us in the highway planning operations have been doing for many years. 

The highway program must be continued and the way we use the resulting highway network 

must be substantially improved. Diversion of resources needed for the highway program to 

other partial or “no solution” schemes will only waste our inadequate resources. 

In the 92nd Congress, he said, “the Administration committed itself completely to ‘busting the 

highway trust.’” Their failure in the 92nd Congress had only strengthened their determination to do 

it in the 93rd Congress. “I sincerely hope that the effort will fail again because it simply is not the 

best approach.” In the major cities that presently have rail systems, “common sense requires that 

consideration be given to their continued operation—at least until or unless something better and 

less costly is found.” Federal funds were available from UMTA for the seven rail transit cities. For 

most other cities, however, “rail networks cannot effectively nor economically compete with bus 

mass transit and at the same time meet the changing character of our cities—especially the trending 

away from dense center city core areas which were typical of the past century.”
883 

A solution for urban congestion was needed, Turner concluded: 

But it must be a solution that meets the test of overall effectiveness, cost-benefit scrutiny, 

and public acceptability by the majority. Also it must be fundable, be possible of being 

made available quickly, while providing a maximum of flexibility to meet the unknown and 

variable needs of the future. 

We cannot allow the crusading emotionalism of any individual group—on either side of the 

issue—to force upon the American public an unwise course of action just simply to win an 

argument. [Extension of Remarks, Congressional Digest-House, April 17, 1973, p. 12831-

12833, reprinting Turner, Francis C., “Mass Transit: Rail or Bus?” American Road Builder, 

January-February 1973, p. 6-11] 

Appeal on Impoundment

In August 1972, the U.S. District Court had ruled in favor of the State of Missouri in its suit against 

then-Secretary Volpe and OMB Director Casper W. Weinberger for impoundment of Federal-aid 

highway funds. The Justice Department had appealed the ruling. 

In a 2-1 decision on April 2, 1973, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit, 

ruled that the case should have been mooted in August 1972 because 4 days before the June 19 

hearing, Secretary Volpe had informed Missouri that it would be entitled to obligate all the funds 

originally apportioned for FY 1972. As a result, nothing remained for Secretary Brinegar to do to 

correct the harm claimed by plaintiffs. 

At the same time, in view of the Secretary’s admission that further controls would be imposed as 

deemed necessary, the Appeals Court found that the basis for declaratory and injunctive relief 

remained in place because:

[The] provisions of Federal-Aid Highway Act do not expressly or impliedly authorize 

Secretary of Transportation to withhold authority from states to obligate apportionment of 

highway trust funds for reasons related to prevention or control of inflation, and that 

defendants would be enjoined from withholding authority from Missouri to obligate its 

apportioned funds. 

Judge Donald P. Lay, writing for the majority, summarized the government’s argument in support 

of withholdings: 

The essential theses upon which the Secretary defends his authority . . . turns on three 

arguments: (1) that appropriations acts are permissive in nature and do not provide a 

specific mandate that the funds authorized to be apportioned must be expended; (2) that 

there exists no vested right by the states in the appropriated funds until such time that the 

Secretary gives his approval; and (3) that the [sense of Congress] language of Section 101(c) 

[of 23 U.S.C.] is precatory [a wish or advisory suggestion that does not have the force of a 
884 

demand or a request that must be obeyed] and although expressing Congress’ “desire” and 

“policy” that highway funds not be impounded, the terms of the statute are not mandatory. 

We find these arguments unavailing. 

Regarding the lack of a mandate to expend funds, the Appeals Courts found that while a general 

appropriations act “may be viewed as not providing a specific mandate . . . this does not a fortiori

endow the Secretary with the authority to use unfettered discretion as to when and how the monies 

may be used.” (A fortiori is a form of argument that because one fact exists, another fact that is 

included in it or analogous to it and is less improbable, unusual, or surprising must also exist.) As 

for the discretionary nature of the Secretary’s project approvals under 23 U.S.C. 106(a), the court 

found that “we fail to see that this provides a basis for finding that the Secretary has lawful 

discretion to withhold his approval of projects for reasons not contemplated within the Act.” 

Even if the Justice Department were correct in arguing that the sense of Congress provision in 

Section 101(c), as provided for in Section 107 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970, was not 

binding, it was beside the point. “The fundamental issue is whether the Secretary possesses direct 

or implied authority to exercise contract controls for the reasons advanced here.” Having already 

concluded that the Secretary did not have such authority, the Appeals Court found that Section 

101(c) “merely corroborates what . . . the statute as a whole already provided—that apportioned 

funds are not to be withheld from obligation for purposes totally unrelated to the highway 

program.” 

The ruling also dismissed the Secretary’s observation regarding the significance of the decision by 

Congress to adopt a sense of Congress provision rather simply passing a law prohibiting the 

Secretary from withholding obligation authority. “We deem this argument another straw in the 

wind” since “there is no way of ascertaining why these various bills [providing a statutory 

prohibition] were not enacted.” The legislative history behind the failure to pass these bills “is of 

no assistance in construing” the intent of the Federal-aid law. [479 F.2d 1099] 

On April 25 the Justice Department said it would appeal to the full Circuit Court for reconsideration 

of the three-judge panel’s conclusions. [“U.S. To Appeal Decision Limiting Impoundments,” The 

Washington Star-News, April 25, 1973] 

The Justice Department recognized that the Missouri case was only the first major test of 

impoundment authority in the struggle between President Nixon and Congress, but others were 

pending. In February, a suit had been filed in Federal district court to block impoundment of $300 

million from the Rural Environmental Assistance Program of the Department of Agriculture and the 

Federally Assisted Code Enforcement Program of the Department of Housing and Urban 

Development. Representative George E. Brown, Jr. (D-Ca.) had filed a class action lawsuit seeking 

an order requiring the EPA to allocate all the money due to his State under the Federal Water 

Pollution Control Amendments of 1972. 

On May 10, 1973, Georgia asked the U.S. Supreme Court to order the Department of 

Transportation, EPA, and OMB to stop impounding funds for highways, education, and pollution 

control. FHWA officials expected additional suits in Kansas and South Carolina. 
885 

That same month, Judge Oliver Gasch ruled in a New York suit that EPA must allocate the full $18 

billion authorized by Congress in the 1972 water act instead of only $5 billion under the 

impoundment. Because this funding (unlike highway funding) was subject to a subsequent 

appropriations act and a grant application, Judge Gasch added that, “If EPA doesn’t approve grants, 

then it doesn’t have to spend any money . . . . It is clear . . . that allotment is not tantamount to 

expenditure or even commitment of the funds.” 

Gasch’s ruling prompted Engineering News-Record to suggest that the “dam holding federal 

spending . . . may be cracking under a flood of anti-impoundment action.” In addition to recent 

court rulings, the magazine noted that “the Senate passed a bill sponsored by Sen. Sam Ervin, Jr., 

(D-N.C.) prohibiting the President from impounding appropriated funds.” A comparable bill, 

introduced by Appropriations Committee Chairman Mahon, was under consideration in the House 

Rules Committee. [“Court and Congress Act to Stop Impoundments,” Engineering News-Record, 

May 17, 1973, p. 35] 

On May 18, 1973, the full 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied the Justice Department’s request 

for a rehearing. Initially, the Justice Department said it would appeal the ruling to the Supreme 

Court, but decided in August not to do so. With challenges continuing, the Nixon Administration 

intended to continue fighting for its authority to impound funds. One “high FHWA official” told 

reporters that, “We’ll fight it out in another circuit, and when we get a good decision we’ll be 

prepared to go all the way to the Supreme Court.” 

Knowledge of FHWA’s intention tempered any elation the States felt regarding the decision not to 

appeal the Missouri ruling. As an ARBA spokesman said, “every state that wants to go this route 

will have to file a separate suit against the government.” [“Highway Impoundment,” Engineering 

News-Record, August 23, 1973, p. 15] 

Dilemmas at a Time of Decision 

In April 1973, the House Committee on Public Works released Urban Transportation: Dilemmas 

at a Time of Decision, a 44-page staff report of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Review, 

which Representative Wright chaired. The introduction explained: 

It is an understatement to declare that there is uncertainty about the most prudent course for 

the Nation to pursue in improving urban transportation . . . . Urban transportation is caught 

up in the whirlpool of the Nation’s apparently shifting values and aspirations. There is no 

straightforward and obvious way to answer the question of how the public is best served. 

The values and aspirations included the “public’s clear preference for the freedom and privacy of 

the personal automobile,” concern about the environment, the emerging energy crisis, population 

distribution, land use policies, and the transportation needs of the young, elderly, and handicapped. 

Trying to plot a precise course “may be a foreboding task” that the staff would not undertake, but 

they did not want to suggest “that the momentum of the past should necessarily constitute an outline 

for the future. Still, there may be some clues” that the staff hoped to identify. [Urban 
886 

Transportation: Dilemmas at a Time of Decision, Staff Report, Subcommittee on Investigations 

and Review, Committee on Public Works, U.S. House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 1st

Session, Committee Print 93-6, April 1973, p. 1] 

The first section of the report, on “The Decline of Public Transit,” began: 

Most arguments about the various modes of urban transportation have been rendered 

academic by the relentless preference of the public for one mode—the private automobile. 

The preference has been expressed at the expense of the four major modes of urban public 

transit—bus, subway and surface rail, trolley coach, and, to a lesser extent, the commuter 

train.

The evidence for this statement was easily found in the 1972 National Transportation Report, which 

documented that almost 94 percent of all urban passenger miles of travel took place in a private 

automobile. [Urban Transportation, p. 1] 

 

Declining revenue for transit had taken its toll: 

The ATA [American Transit Association] reports there were 261 fewer privately owned 

transit systems on December 31, 1971, than on the same date in 1959. Increasingly, the 

communities served by deficit-plagued private operators have had to buy them out rather 

than face a total loss of service . . . . Public transit is, in fact, becoming a service provided 

by the local community with revenues derived not only from the fare box, but from a variety 

of taxes and subsidies. [Urban Transportation, p. 2] 

Even as public bus service experienced economic problems, Federal, State, and local officials were 

“emphasizing bus transportation as a more efficient way of utilizing limited street and highway 

capacity.” The Shirley Highway reversible-lane express bus project was one example. [Urban 

Transportation, p. 3] 

The increasing public ownership of mass transit prompted local officials to search for revenue to 

supplement fare receipts:

Sources of transit aid in the Nation are varied and include a cigarette tax in Massachusetts, 

higher gas and electric rates in New Orleans, a 1 percent sales tax in Atlanta, a special 

property tax in Toledo, dedicated parking meter revenues in Baton Rouge, and a payroll tax 

in Portland. Additionally, there are sales and other general taxes in several cities, tax relief 

or rebates to public operators in at least 15 States, and reimbursement to public operators for 

discounted fares for school children and senior citizens. The State of California recently 

added a 5 percent sales tax to gasoline, with the revenue to be distributed to cities and 

counties mainly to meet public transit needs.

The report asked: “can the public be expected in any sense to opt away from urban use of the 

private automobile and back into the buses, subways, and street cars ridden with such regularity in 

the 1940’s and 1950’s?” As long as people had “free choice and the absence of external 
887 

constraints, the prognosis is not a favorable one.” Although increasing congestion was the 

country’s likely future, some “constraints or limitations” were developing that might curb the 

public’s preference for the private automobile. The restraints could be loosely grouped as: 

(1) congestion and hence delay for motorists, (2) the costs to the individual of driving a 

private vehicle, (3) public policy, and (4) to an as yet unmeasurable extent, possible 

changing individual values. 

The report quoted C. Kenneth Orski of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and 

Development as offering some hope: 

Some of the romance is out of our affair with the motor car. For the first time we are on the 

threshold of conceding that perhaps there are limits to how far we should allow the auto to 

encroach on our lives. [Urban Transportation, p. 7-8] 

The staff acknowledged that accomplishing the needed changes would be a “monumental” job: 

Urban transportation problems have resulted because of a complex and interactive set of 

forces associated with increased authomobile ownership, dispersal of residential and 

employment locations, freeway construction, escalation of public transit fares, and the lack 

of innovation in the transit industry to adjust to these changes. [Despite energy, 

environmental, and other factors] transportation planners see little to interrupt the basic 

forces that have created present urban transportation conditions. [Urban Transportation, p. 

9] 

With the number of vehicles per family increasing, congestion in central business districts slowing 

buses as well as private automobiles, and the growth of suburban living, mass transit faced a 

challenge in attracting riders, especially beyond the morning and evening peak periods. Professor 

Irving Kristol of New York University, according to the report, predicted that the decline of the core 

city was likely to continue: “. . . whatever turn events take, there is one eventuality that is too 

utopian to expect in the 20 years or so ahead of us. This is the revival of the central city as the 

nucleus of American urban civilization.” If Professor Kristol proved to be correct, the impact on 

mass transit would be significant:

This poses a dilemma for any public transportation system that relies on high capacity 

hauled over fixed routes into a CBD. Historically, rail systems generally have required a 

highly concentrated city center to serve, as recognized in a recent Department of 

Transportation review of rail and bus transit operations . . . . 

The study identified factors that were “considered conducive to rail rapid transit,” such as:

High central-city density.

Large downtown employment. 

Intensely developed central business district. 

Linear urban development with high density corridors. 
888 

Existing corridors of high volume surface transit usage providing a built-in demand for 

rapid transit.

The staff did not want its finding to be construed “as demonstrating the nonfeasibility of CBDoriented mass transit systems.” The problem was that about 50 percent of daily riders used mass 

transit during peak commuting periods “when streets and freeways often are choked with traffic.” 

This fact suggested that “the only conceivable way congestion in some areas can be controlled is to 

get commuters into higher occupancy buses, subway and commuter trains, and even car pools.” 

[Urban Transportation, p. 10-11] 

Still, some positive trends existed. For example, young people, including young adults, “appear to 

be opting toward motorcycles, motorbikes and bicycles to a degree unprecedented in recent years.” 

Americans had purchased 13 million bicycles in 1972, with about half of them bought by persons 

15 years and older (up from 20 percent just 5 years earlier). “While a good share of bicycle 

popularity clearly is related to recreation, there has been an increase in bicycle commuting reported 

in a number of cities and particularly on college campuses.” [Urban Transportation, p. 12-13] 

Further, some traditional highway supporters seemed to understand the need for change, as reflected 

in comments by Mobil Oil Company and Henry Ford II, as cited earlier.

Still, if people were to be persuaded to leave their private automobiles, “a significant part of the 

inducement under present conditions seems to be some calculated preference in time saving 

balanced in favor of public transportation.” Public officials were “acting accordingly” by 

“rationing” road space by providing exclusive lanes for buses and carpools, applying “peak period 

pricing or congestion pricing” for parking in heavily congested areas, and trying to end free parking 

in central business districts and government office buildings. “All programs to save time (eliminate 

congestion) are successful only to the extent that some price is paid or some transfer or trade-off 

effected.” 

The highway had become the issue: 

But as we enter an era in which the highway itself is becoming an object of public 

opprobrium in some of our big cities, it is important to remember that congestion is not new. 

 Serious congestion preceded the massive Interstate and urban highway construction 

programs which began on a large scale in the late 1950’s.

At the time the Interstate program was authorized in 1956, the Nation was trying to cram 

some 63 million motor vehicles onto a total road system designed to handle only about half 

that many. To single out subsequent urban highway construction as the cause of congestion 

is thus to comment without the benefit of hindsight. 

The report stated that, “It can be argued very persuasively that without the highway construction the 

Nation has undertaken in recent years that we would today be bogged down in urban congestion of 

an unimaginable scale.”
889 

Ultimately, individuals make their choice among urban transportation modes “based on a 

combination of factors relating to speed, comfort, convenience, and perceived economic costs.” 

Although the “interplay of forces within the free market” made the private automobile the dominant 

urban choice, some commentators claimed the choice “has been aided by a series of hidden 

subsidies and transfers and that perceived economic costs do not reflect true economic costs.” 

[Urban Transportation, p. 15-17] 

Among the true economic costs were the energy shortage and environmental impacts, including air 

pollution. The EPA’s proposals for traffic control measures were an example of efforts to alter the 

factors of the free market: 

Nowhere has the staff encountered any measure of optimism that the contemplated plans 

will accomplish what they hope to accomplish. There is an underlying question of what 

weight the public gives to cleaner air if it must be achieved at the expense of individual 

mobility and convenience. [Urban Transportation, p. 22] 

The staff found that State and local officials had many options, but warned against “the pitfalls 

inherent in any approach that is too doctrinaire or rigid.” State and local communities “appear to be 

in the best position to create the meaningful modal and land use programs required in the real 

world.” [Urban Transportation, p. 23] 

To what extent, therefore, should the Federal Government “participate in a broad range of programs 

and on what basis should Federal aid be granted?” Should aid be provided in categorical programs 

by mode, as at present, or in a single transportation fund or single urban fund as Secretary Volpe 

had proposed in 1972? The Highway Trust Fund was at the core of these questions: 

Do the best interests of the motorist who pays gasoline and other user taxes into the trust 

fund lie solely with the use of that fund for highway construction and safety? In the broad 

context in which the citizen must judge his overall welfare can it truly be said that the 

highway user would be better served by the application of at least a share of those moneys to 

other urban transportation issues? 

. . . . The issues involved are not only ones of economic self interest and the historical 

preference of the urban traveler. They are philosophical and moral as well, and intertwined 

with fundamental questions of what a democratic society wants for itself.

The moral argument “persistently raised in the Congress” was that the “inviolability of the trust for 

highway purposes” was a matter of “keeping faith with the taxpayers whose revenues comprise the 

fund.” Because this view was “so clearly a matter of conscience for so many,” the only way to 

resolve it was through “free and open debate in which the Congress examines the basic premise of 

the fund in light of the economic, environmental, and social realities of the mid 1970’s.” The 

question about the 1956 law, the staff said, was not about the original purpose of the Highway Trust 

Fund “but whether that law should be changed.” 
890 

Even if the Highway Trust Fund continued to generate predicted revenues despite the 

environmental, political, and social forces working against automobile use, “the trust fund does not 

emerge as an adequate source for all such transportation investment.” The report continued: 

The basic issue is really to what extent and in what direction the Congress at this time 

wishes to influence the course of urban transportation development. Diversion of Highway 

Trust Fund moneys to urban transit or other urban transportation uses would appear to have 

more symbolic than real meaning—given the staggering dimensions of all funds that may 

ultimately be needed. The impact of wise expenditures, however, cannot be minimized. 

Public opinion on the choices Congress makes was a matter only of conjecture. “The staff can only 

wonder how fully the public really understands the underlying issues and trade-offs that are 

involved.” [Urban Transportation, p. 30-34] 

The emergence in recent years “of a new kind of serious thinking about urban transportation” had 

generated ideas for reducing congestion, inducing people to embrace mass transit instead of their 

private automobiles, and “merging the various modes into balanced systems that best serve a 

metropolitan area.” Still, the staff found “caution at all levels about promising success for any of 

the approaches or programs now advocated.” There were “many cross-currents, many 

imponderables.” The modern affluent society had “a momentum of its own” that would not be easy 

to turn around. “We are experiencing an accelerating tempo of social change amid passionate 

advocacy of new national objectives.” In this context, unresolved questions “abound” and 

dilemmas can be found “at every turn.” 

On the final page of the report, the staff warned that “there is no such thing as a free ride.” It 

continued: 

More and more the elected official is placed in the position of having to compromise one 

objective to achieve another, to weigh one set of values against another. Some of the tradeoffs are chilling and harsh. Major decisions are bound to antagonize large and vocal 

segments of the populace. 

The public had its views, as did technicians, scholars, government administrators, and special 

interest groups, on how to “unravel complex issues.” However, “ultimately the task is one of the 

Congress and other elected bodies weighing all empirical data against the backdrop of the Nation’s 

values, goals and aspirations and exercising judgment to determine what best serves the people.” 

With “many hazards and uncertainties” ahead, the staff suggested “there is no better time to 

confront the issues than the present.” [Urban Transportation, p. 43-44] 

The U.S. House of Representatives was about to do just that. 
891 

The House Debate

Although EPA had announced on Wednesday, April 11, that it would grant the automobile industry 

a 1-year delay in meeting the 1975 deadline for producing non-polluting vehicles, the Clean Air 

Amendments of 1970 called on the States to meet ambient air quality standards regardless of what 

the Big 4 automakers did. April 15 remained the deadline for State submission of detailed 

transportation control plans to EPA for reducing air pollution. According to a survey reported by 

The New York Times on Sunday, April 15: 

Most of the nation’s big cities, including New York, appear unlikely to be able to meet 

prescribed Federal standards for clean air by the deadline of May 31, 1975. 

Thirty-eight cities in 21 states and the District of Columbia face a special problem because 

of heavy automobile traffic. Even if all the other sources of air pollution are brought into 

conformity with the standards—and it is by no means certain that this will happen—these 

cities will be left with excesses of two pollutants generated by automobiles . . . . But checks 

with those cities by The New York Times showed that only a few of the problem areas were 

prepared to submit “transportation control plans” that appear to meet the standards.

Even if Detroit could produce nonpolluting cars by the original deadline, the effect in these 

big cities would be slight because only new cars would be properly equipped. The older 

models, making up 90 per cent of the auto population, would still be spewing out 

unacceptable amounts of carbon monoxide and oxidants. [Hill, Gladwin, “Most Big Cities 

Fail on ’75 Clean Air Deadline,” The New York Times, April 15, 1973] 

Business Week concurred with the Times assessment that the States were finding “the job horribly 

complex.” The magazine explained:

The problem, in a nutshell, is what to do about the automobile, a major source of urban air 

pollution. The answer, underlined in public hearings on the plans across the country, is that 

the days of free-wheeling car use in many American cities are numbered. Some restrictions 

are inevitable no matter how fast the automobile industry is able to produce nearly 

pollution-free cars.

Pittsburgh’s plan was typical. It called for regular inspection of auto emission systems, special 

express bus systems to reduce central business district traffic, and limits on the number of cars on 

days when air pollution threatened to exceed Federal standards:

In some states, even stricter measures are envisioned. In Colorado, the state health 

department may recommend gasoline rationing for Denver. “If we have to meet the 

standards by 1975,” says Gerald Wood, air pollution control director for the Colorado 

Health Dept., “that’s the only way we can do it.” The problem in Denver is that automobile 

engines literally “burn dirtier” at the city’s mile-high altitude . . . . 
892 

Some idea of what those controls will probably be like is told by the weighty documents 

going to EPA this week: 

• Regular inspection of all car and truck exhaust systems is a staple of plans for New 

York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. By June, 1974, for example, all cars 

registered in Chicago will be required to meet certain emission standards.

• “Retrofitting of old cars with catalytic converters to reduce pollutant levels in 

exhaust emissions is another basic approach. In New York City, Environmental 

Protection Administrator Herbert Ellish estimates that 5-million vehicles will have 

to be retrofitted, at an average cost of $200 a car.

• Higher inner-city parking fees and elimination of many parking spaces are virtually 

certain. Chicago’s plan, for example, calls for eliminating 3,000 parking spaces on 

city streets.

• Upgrading of mass transit facilities, including reservation of freeway lanes for 

express bus service and improvement of rail transit systems, is another almost 

universal formula. 

The magazine cautioned:

But nightmare solutions like banning traffic completely from central cities are not likely to 

come about. Many states are submitting plans to the EPA that theoretically would produce 

the mandated air pollution reductions by 1975. At the same time, most states will ask for 

two-year extensions to meet the standards. Says one EPA official: “Chances are good that 

the Congress will wait until all the transportation plans are in before deciding whether to 

extend the deadline.” 

Still, transportation controls, the magazine said, “are inevitable,” quoting Administrator 

Ruckelshaus: “Even by 1985, approximately 10 U.S. cities will continue to require controls on 

transportation and vehicle use.” 

How to finance these measures was unclear. Ellish said, “Financing methods are not part of New 

York’s plan. But as it stands now, the combined public and private costs for implementing our plan 

will probably exceed $2-billion.” [“The Urban Drive to Restrict the Auto,” Business Week, April 

14, 1973] 

On April 16, Senator Muskie opened a 3-day hearing in what the Times called “a counterattack 

today against the auto industry’s effort to win a reduction in the auto emissions standards set by the 

1970 clean air act.” Senator Muskie, chairman of the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of 

the Committee on Public Works, said: 

In most cases the industry argues that they cannot produce and guarantee cars which comply 

with auto emission standards set forth in the law, and they argue that even if they could, 

those standards are not necessary [to protect public health]. I want to know why not. I want 

to know what the industry has done in the past three years. I want to know what 

commitment the auto industry is willing to make to the American people.
893 

Senator Randolph warned against seeing EPA’s 1-year extension “as setting the stage for 

weakening the clean air act.” He criticized the Big Four for not “seriously exploring” alternative 

technologies such as those employed in other countries. As examples, he cited the diesel engine 

that Mercedes Benz had developed and Honda’s stratified charge engine. 

Senator Muskie was particularly upset about a Chrysler Corporation advertisement in the March 13 

issue of The New York Times: 

It said that Congress, in setting such stringent standards, had “acted on the assumption” that 

“motor vehicles were a real threat to health.” Mr. Muskie said that Congress had not acted 

on any assumption of its own because it was not made up of scientists and doctors but that it 

had followed the advice of the United States Public Health Service.

He said Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Robert F. Finch and Dr. Lee A. Dubridge, the 

President’s Science Advisor, had proposed the standards for 1975 model cars during a White House 

meeting with auto industry executives on November 20, 1969. 

The Times speculated that the industry would not receive a sympathetic reaction from the 

subcommittee:

The support given Mr. Muskie by the subcommittee members present indicated that the 

industry would probably have a hard time persuading Congress to lower the standards for 

carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. However, Congress would probably be amenable to 

lowering the 1976 standards for nitrogen oxides. The environmental agency believes that 

this standard is unnecessarily high for health protection. [Kenworthy, E. W., “Muskie 

Defends Car Fume Rules,” The New York Times, April 18, 1973] 

As Members of the House of Representatives opened The Washington Post on the morning that 

debate began on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, they could read about Mayor Walter E. 

Washington’s “tough anti-pollution plan” for the District of Columbia to meet the 1975 standards:

The proposal approved by Mayor Washington yesterday . . . calls for a regional expenditure 

of $52 million on 1,300 new buses, the opening of exclusive bus lanes on a number of city 

streets, the establishment of a computer-controlled car pooling system for the region, the 

reciprocal enforcement of parking ticket violations through metropolitan Washington, a 

program of annual automobile inspections and a requirement that cars manufactured 

between 1968 and 1975 be outfitted with special anti-pollution devices.

The District’s plan is based on a reduction of 25 per cent in the number of commuters 

driving into the city by car. The effort to reduce automobile commuting is certain to be the 

most controversial aspect of the plan adopted by the mayor. 

The District’s plans also included such measures as: 
894 

• A ban of commuter on-street parking in downtown. “Details of how the ban on commuter 

street parking would be accomplished are not spelled out. The plan allows—but does not 

require—the imposition of a parking tax on commuters who use commercial lots.” 

• Truck deliveries would be prohibited during peak periods. 

• Elimination “to the extent feasible” of free parking for federal employees and employees of 

private companies as well as a restriction on the construction of additional parking spaces of 

private interests.

• The District’s highway department also was studying a plan to restrict on-street parking in 

residential neighborhoods to residents of those neighborhoods. 

The District had been working with officials in Maryland and Virginia on a joint plan. Just a few 

days earlier, a regional committee working out the proposal had backed off two controversial 

elements—a surcharge on commuter parking and a ban on daytime truck deliveries. The committee 

had adopted these proposals in December 1972, but they drew strong opposition from business 

interests. Instead, the regional committee recommended that each jurisdiction pursue its own 

solutions. 

Mayor Washington’s plan, which required City Council approval, was undercut by Maryland 

Governor Mandel’s decision to ask EPA to allow the Maryland suburbs to delay their implement 

anti-pollution policies until 1977. According to Thomas M. Downs, administrative assistant to Lt. 

Governor Blair Lee III, Administrator Ruckelshaus’s decision to delay the automakers’ deadline 

was the reason. His decision threw the State’s plans “all out of whack,” he said. “It knocked us out 

of the ballgame.” 

The regional committee’s plan also had been set back a week earlier when Virginia Governor 

Lynwood Holton asked EPA to delay until 1977 the retrofitting of 1968-1974 cars and a proposal 

that gas stations install equipment on pumps to prevent gas from escaping into the air. The 

Governor doubted that the technology was available for either purpose. Governor Mandel, as the 

Post noted, “went much further toward scuttling the regional effort yesterday [April 16] by seeking 

a delay not only on the installation of antipollution devices but also on imposing restraints on 

automobile commuting and on requiring annual inspections.” [Scharfenberg, Kirk, “Weaker Air 

Rules Proposed,” The Washington Post, April 12, 1973; Scharfenberg, Kirk, “Mayor Asks Clean 

Air Plan,” The Washington Post, April 17, 1973] 

Representative Ray J. Madden (D-In.), a lawyer from Gary, Indiana, who had entered the House in 

1943 and was serving his first term as chairman of the Rules Committee, began the debate on the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 by introducing House Resolution 356, which set the rules of the 

debate. The resolution allowed 2 hours for the debate, with the result that the Congressional 

Record of the debate is expanded with extended remarks not delivered on the House floor. 

Representative Madden, for example, inserted his explanation of the resolution in the record and 

yielded his time. In these remarks, he explained:

The powerful lobbies who have been pressuring Members of Congress to ignore the 

deplorable and congested traffic congestion of our metropolitan cities are ignoring the urban 

taxpayers of this Nation who have contributed billions to the highway trust fund. 
895 

The homeowners and citizens of the urban areas are overburdened with property taxation, 

sales taxes, license taxes—city, county, and State, and so forth. They should not be denied 

the opportunity to share in this multibillion-dollar highway trust fund to which they have 

contributed and over the years been denied any returns for their local communities. 

Every metropolitan city in the United States is undergoing similar bumper-to-bumper truck 

and automobile congestion and with insufficient funds to even initiate a program of 

curtailing this devastating problem of traffic congestion.

In describing the approved rules of debate he concluded: 

It should also be in order to consider without the intervention of any point of order as an 

amendment to section 123 of the committee amendment in the nature of a substitute the text 

of the proposed amendment as set forth on pages 125 and 126 of the minority views 

accompanying House Report No. 93-118. 

This was a reference to Representative Glenn Anderson’s amendment based on the Muskie-Baker 

amendment.

Representative Madden yielded time to Representative James H. Quillen (R-Tn.), a newspaper 

publisher who had entered the House in 1963 and served on the Rules Committee. He summarized 

the Rules Committee’s resolution, including the reference to the Anderson amendment. 

Representative Quillen added, “I am opposed to this amendment for several reasons.” He cited the 

backlog of highway needs, noting that the Highway Trust Fund did not have enough revenue to 

meet them. Diverting the funds to transit would mean “even less money remaining in the trust fund 

for highway purposes.” He said, however, “I have no objection of [sic] the rule—the matter should 

be fully debated and the diversion amendment defeated.” [Congressional Record-House, April 17, 

1973, p. 2850-2851] 

The Rules Committee resolution was approved by voice vote. 

Representative Wright then introduced S. 502. Although it retained the Senate bill number, the 

Committee on Public Works had substituted its own bill for the Senate version. Representative 

Wright described S. 502 as “one of the big bills to come before the Congress this year” because of 

the Nation’s dependence on roads: 

We have tried to bring to the House a bill that recognizes the imperatives of highway 

construction and the imperatives of the cities of the United States both for highway 

construction and for development of rapid mass-transit programs.

Considerable progress had been made since 1956 on the Interstate System. “We have 

demonstrated, for example, that modern, well-engineered highways definitely do save lives.” The 

problem, he said, was that the country had “only barely been able to keep pace with the fantastic 

growth in numbers of automotive vehicles in the United States.” That number, he said, had grown 
896 

from 63 million in 1956 to 113 in 1973. With a population of 200 million people, “This means 

there is more than one automobile for every two persons, man, woman, or child.” 

The bill should be completed expeditiously: 

Many of the States have been frustrated in the orderly construction of their highway 

program by the inability of the House and the Senate to make an agreement until the final 

day of the last session of the last Congress.

He summarized the highway and mass transit provisions of the bill. Regarding Federal-aid urban 

system funds, he pointed out that the difference between the Senate and House bills was that the 

Senate bill used Highway Trust Fund revenues for rail mass transit while the House bill proposed to 

provide general Treasury revenues. He mentioned the Anderson amendment that would change the 

House bill to be consistent with the Senate version. “It seems clear to me that actually we do more 

for both highway and urban mass-transit in the committee bill than would be done under the 

amendment which will be offered by the gentleman from California.” Representative Wright also 

referred to the House provision on Interstate substitution, which took mass transit substitute funding 

from the general Treasury. 

The Public Works Committee had “striven to provide a workable means to help cities to convert 

these daily automobile commuters into users of their mass transit systems.” The highway funds, 

regardless of highway system, could be used for express bus lanes, fringe parking for people using 

transit, and local public transit in highway median strips without charge for the land. The bill also 

authorized $75 million for “a long-needed national study of mass transit needs, including methods 

of financing, fare structures, and possible means of operating subsidization.” 

In short, “the lion’s share of this bill” was directed at cities. The preponderance of remaining 

Interstate work and one-half of other Federal-aid system funding would be used in cities. Counting 

other programs, “it is clear that approximately two-thirds of all the moneys coming out of the trust 

fund under the committee bill will go to the urban areas of the Nation.” To that, the bill added 

general Treasury funds for transit. “I do not see how by any stretch of the imagination anybody 

could conclude that this committee had not been more than amply fair with the cities of this land.” 

Although Representative Wright intended to discuss highway safety next, Representative John 

Anderson asked him to yield time. When Wright agreed, Representative Anderson said: 

I rise to my feet because the gentleman just expressed a belief that surely no one could 

believe that the great Committee on Public Works of the House could be less than fair with 

the cities of this country because of the mass transit provisions he has just described. 

I wonder if the gentleman really wants this House to believe that we are doing the same 

thing for the cities of this country if we give them advance obligational authority or contract 

authority subject to appropriations from the general fund of the U.S. Treasury, if doing that 

constitutes the same thing as telling them that the $700 million which is available here and 

now— 
897 

The yielded time expired and Representative Abzug made a point of order that a quorum was not 

present. Before a count could be taken, Representative Wright proposed to close the day’s debate, 

and that was agreed to. [Congressional Record-House, April 17, 1973, p. 2851-2852] 

The introduction of the Public Works Committee’s version of S. 502 took about 15 minutes. 

When debate resumed on April 18, Representative Harsha took the floor. He was granted 

permission to extend his remarks in the record. 

He began by discussing Federal-aid urban system funding. He said that even Representative Glenn 

Anderson and proponents of his amendment admitted that not all of the $700 million authorized in 

the bill for the system would be used for mass transit. No one knew how much would be. 

Whatever amount it turned out to be would not be sufficient to meet mass transit needs. Since not 

enough urban system funding was available to resolve urban highway or rail transit needs, he said 

that obviously “there must be something else behind this desire to open the highway trust fund for 

mass transit.” 

To answer this puzzle, he referred to the Administration’s Transportation Revenue Sharing Act of 

1971, which would have taken $2 billion a year out of the Highway Trust Fund for any 

transportation activity, including operation and maintenance of mass transit systems. “In other 

words behind the scenes the plan is to divert the highway trust fund money not only for construction 

of mass transit facilities but to use it for subsidizing transit fares and operating and maintenance 

costs.” The funds “could even be used to finance the development of the SST.” The goal, as 

reflected in the Department’s 1972 National Transportation Report, was to divert Highway Trust 

Fund revenue to operating subsidies. That was, he said, “the ultimate effort” behind the Anderson 

amendment and the Administration’s support for it: 

Needless to say, an effort to subsidize mass transit operating and maintenance costs would 

be a never-ending one which would surely and quickly take all of the funds, and more, in the 

highway trust fund. 

To back up his point, he quoted Professor Hilton’s testimony that the popularity of mass transit 

would be short lived, that the demand for it was primarily political rather than market-based, that 

rail mass transit would not relieve the problems of the poor, young, or aged, and that in retrospect, 

funds used for rail transit would be considered a waste. 

Further, the Nation’s railroads were in trouble, as symbolized by the collapse of the Penn Central, 

itself a 1968 merger of the failing Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad. The 

Penn Central’s plan to abandon 800 miles of track and plans of other companies to abandon 5,000 

miles of their track would throw “an inordinate burden on our already overburdened highway 

system and leaves the highway system as the sole source or method of moving goods and services.” 

 At a time when everyone was concerned about inflation, especially in the cost of food, the scarcity 

of transportation options would increase the cost of goods. “The food prices will continue to 

climb.”
898 

He had another reason to oppose the Anderson amendment: 

It makes little sense to me to spend a large portion of funds, diverted from highway 

improvements, and jeopardize the mobility of 95 percent of the traveling public for the 

benefit of 5 percent . . . . When you jeopardize the movement of goods and services into 

and out of a community you jeopardize as well the community services, such as 

ambulances, police, emergency vehicles, et cetera, both in the central business district and 

the entire metropolitan area. This, Mr. Chairman, does not seem to be a prudent investment. 

Mr. Chairman, word has reached me that spokesmen for the administration have been 

contacting Members of Congress, suggesting that diversion of highway trust fund moneys 

will have no impact on the Federal-aid highway program. They argue, I am told, that the 

diversion which would be authorized by the so-called Anderson amendment would apply 

only to cities; that only $700 million of the $6 billion annual revenues of the highway trust 

fund would be involved; and that diversion would in no way reduce authorizations for other 

highway programs. 

I take issue with this view.

He pointed out that the1972 report estimated that $600 billion would be required to meet essential 

highway needs by 1990, while the Highway Trust Fund would take in only $135 billion during that 

period, “a sum less than half of the amount needed to finance even the essential needs set forth in 

the report.” 

He also rebutted a “second fallacious argument made by mass transit proponents,” namely that 

“there is a surplus of money in the highway trust fund which is just sitting there doing nothing and 

which could be fruitfully utilized by the cities for mass transit purposes.” He explained that at the 

close of fiscal year 1973 (June 30, 1973), the balance would be $5.4 billion: 

Arrayed against this, will be unpaid obligations in the amount of $7.7 billion. The cash 

balance in the highway trust fund would undoubtedly be less and the obligations more if the 

$2.6 billion of funds presently impounded by the administration had been released. What 

this means is this: If the highway program were to be closed out tomorrow, there would not 

be enough money to liquidate obligations already incurred, let alone finance other programs. 

He concluded from these remarks that “it does not take a mathematician to see that any diversion of 

trust fund moneys for nonhighway purposes will further aggravate an already difficult situation.” 

He added that, “In the long run, as surely as night follows day, the pressure will increase for yet 

more money to be diverted to the cities for both mass transit and for their diversion-starved 

highway programs.” Eventually the funds would have to come from rural highway programs, 

possibly even the Interstate program since “there is only one trust fund available and its revenues 

are limited.”

He then turned to Title II of S. 502, the Highway Safety Act of 1973. Pointing out the Nation’s 

reputation for responding to a crisis, he said: 
899 

The great American plague is here and threatening to brutally annihilate over 56,000 men, 

women, and children this year alone. The plague I am talking about will kill 1,000 people 

on our Nation’s highways this week. And not only will it kill, but it will maim as well, 

without regard to age or position in society. 

He quoted former Arizona Governor Howard Pyle, who was president of the National Safety 

Council: 

If we continue this present rate of highway deaths during the remainder of this decade about 

600,000 persons will lose their lives, over 20 million will be seriously injured and the 

economic waste will approach 200 billion dollars. 

The action program in Title II was aimed particularly at the two-lane rural roads that were 

“underdesigned for the traffic they now carry.” The evidence of the Interstate System showed that 

well-designed highways did make a difference. He quoted William L. Sacks of the Highway Safety 

Foundation as explaining why the Interstate highways were so safe:

The answer is not complex. On the Interstate System the driver is essentially relieved of 

making and executing all decisions with respect to pedestrians, crossroad traffic, signals, 

opposite direction passing and midblock points of access and egress. His decisions with 

respect to passing, destination recognition, roadway entrance and departure, closeness of 

adjacent vehicles, etc. are all greatly simplified. For the most part, superior pavement 

markings are found on the Interstate System, not only between the lanes but along the edges. 

At-grade railroad crossings are essentially non-existent. Although many mistakes were 

made, the higher design standards with respect to curves and hills, lane widths and shoulder 

widths, eliminated many potentially hazardous locations. 

Representative Harsha estimated that if the provisions of the Highway Safety Act of 1973 were 

enacted, “there is wide agreement that the number of lives saved will be substantial,” as much as 

8,000 to 10,000 lives annually. His remarks concluded: 

Ladies and gentlemen, knowing these facts, you must act affirmatively on this legislation. 

We cannot let 20,000 Americans die because of our reluctance to act—and act now. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13097-13099] 

Representative Mizell, again in extended remarks, supported S. 502 and denounced efforts to divert 

Highway Trust Fund revenues: 

Again this year, just as last year and in the last several years, efforts are being made to stage 

a massive raid on this trust fund . . . . The leaders of this trustbusting effort have as their 

goal a reallocation of this fund to finance urban mass transit systems as well as highway 

construction, but the effect of this dilution of resources would be to make impossible the 

adequate financing of either the highways or the rapid transit systems. 
900 

If successful, the Muskie-Baker amendment and its House companion, the Anderson amendment, 

would allow $2.5 billion in Highway Trust Fund revenues to be used for mass transit systems over 

the next 3 years. This proposal is “most distressing” because Congress was “literally the keepers of 

a public trust, which we as a body assumed 17 years ago with the creation of this fund.” He 

explained:

The foundation of that trust was that we would employ highway user taxes to benefit 

highway users, by constructing a system of Interstate highways that would—and has-greatly 

improved America’s transportation capabilities.

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 would “expand this work to include construction of 10,000 

miles of primary roads to connect with the Interstate network and make it more easily accessible 

from more places.”

Certainly more needed to be done for mass transit despite the funding made available through the 

Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964. S. 502 added $3 billion “to help meet our responsibilities 

and our goals for mass transit.” He added: 

Raiding the trust fund for additional revenues will not provide the solution to the mass 

transit problem. It will not significantly improve mass transit systems in America’s major 

cities; there is not enough money in the fund to do that. But it would significantly impair 

the highway construction and maintenance effort we have already begun and which we seek 

to expand. 

He urged his colleagues to “protect the highway trust fund, to keep it intact, and to keep faith with 

the millions of Americans who have paid the highway user taxes that have sustained this fund.” He 

concluded: 

There can surely be a peaceful coexistence of mass transit systems and highway systems 

without jeopardizing the efforts we are making with the current legislation to provide 

adequately for both. 

This, my colleagues must agree, is the most responsible and realistic course for us to follow. 

 [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13099] 

Representative Clausen, in his extended remarks, addressed what he called “a total lack of 

understanding of what we need in the way of a balanced national transportation system.” He did 

not need to extol the virtues of the Interstate System, he said, but to eliminate the financing 

mechanism that made it possible “would destroy the concept and bring about a serious reduction in 

our transportation capability.” Further, “our long-run economic potential would be severely 

reduced at a time when we can least afford it.” 

He refused to accept the view that supporters of the Highway Trust Fund were unsympathetic to the 

need for mass transit, including rail transit. However, he pointed out “all the very narrow limits of 

the benefits from rail mass transit.” It would benefit only the largest of metropolitan areas. It 

carried only people, primarily commuters, and did nothing to move freight and other utility, public, 
901 

and business services that were “absolutely essential” to urban life. Recognizing these limits, he 

supported taking funding for rail mass transit systems from general Treasury revenue: 

This approach preserves the integrity of the highway trust fund while recognizing the need 

our major cities have for financial assistance when they make the decision to go ahead with 

a rail transit system.

Actually, in my judgment this approach does not go far enough. I have suggested a third 

trust fund for urban area transportation systems to complement the existing highway and 

airports and airways trust funds. 

Diverting Highway Trust Fund revenue would be “totally irresponsible” in view of the documented 

“staggering backlog of highway needs” through 1990 compared with estimated highway user tax 

revenue:

I can assure every Member of this body that funds diverted for rail mass transit will not 

reduce in the least the ultimate highway needs we are going to have to fulfill.

After discussing provisions that would benefit northern California, he said he favored 

“transportation systems that are coordinated, integrated, and balanced to bring about a more 

balanced population pattern in America.” He discussed his concept of “reverse migration” that the 

Federal Government could foster “through the establishment of a program of fiscal and institutional 

decentralization and the revenue allocation formula revisions that will make it possible.” With 70 

percent of the population living on only 2 percent of the land, congestion is inevitable, as are 

“poverty, crime, drugs, youth rebellion, ecological abuses.” The solution, he said, was “the 

decentralization of our growing population . . . and industry to achieve a better balance of both 

population and resources.” Dispersal “could prove to be the geography of our survival.” 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13099-13102] 

After Representative Clausen concluded, Representative Cleveland addressed the House in 

extended remarks. He regretted, he said, that the record of the committee’s week of hearings had 

not yet been printed and was not available to the Members of the House. He was particularly 

impressed by Professor Hilton’s testimony and, as noted earlier, had made it available to his 

colleagues by inserting extensive excerpts in the record on April 12. 

Supporters of the Anderson amendment would make “forceful arguments in favor of rapid transit, 

invoking considerations of balance, flexibility, fairness, State and local prerogatives, pollution, 

energy and the like.” However, “if the past is any guide, none of this rhetoric will justify invading 

the trust fund for two fundamental reasons.” First, highway needs far exceeded revenue projections 

for the Highway Trust Fund. Second, whatever the transit needs may be, highway users should not 

“foot the bill.” He said, “I am not about to see the New Hampshire farmer help pay the commuting 

cost for the affluent New York suburbanite.” 

He quoted Senator Harrison Williams who had acknowledged during the 1972 debate that: 
902 

I understand and agree that the Highway Trust Fund is not large enough to include the 

extensive needs of all rail systems. The problem can only be dealt with by increasing the 

contract authority, under the Urban Mass Transportation Act. 

Representative Cleveland pointed out that Senator Williams had sponsored a measure in 1972 to 

use general Treasury funds to increase UMTA funding and provide operating subsidies. “But this 

was opposed by those who sought to pry open the trust fund.” When the House-Senate conference 

rejected the idea, Senator Williams had described his Senate colleagues as “sadly misguided,” 

adding: 

I would suggest soul searching on the question of whether the effort was to aid mass transit 

or to break up the trust fund. Sadly, it seems to me the majority of the Senate conferees 

chose the latter course. 

To emphasize this point, Representative Cleveland quoted Senator Weicker’s comment, “Let us 

clear this highway trust fund off the highway and get America moving again.” As this comment 

suggested, “we again will hear misinformed statements about the mythical huge surpluses in the 

trust fund, dangers of ‘paving over America’ or chopping up the country with superhighways.” 

This view ignored overall highway needs, including the need to improve existing highways and 

increase highway safety.

As for transit needs, Representative Cleveland quoted the exchange in 1972 between Representative 

Schwengel and Theodore Kheel of the Highway Action Coalition. Asked how much New York 

City needed for its transit systems, Kheel had replied he could not provide a precise figure, but “I 

think there is no limit, really, on our true needs.” Mass transportation had been neglected since 

World War II, Kheel said, to such an extent that “the needs that we have are frightening.” 

Representative Cleveland added, “They certainly are frightening to those of us fighting to preserve 

the funding for highways.” He cited estimates by Governor Rockefeller’s Special Commission on 

the Financing of Mass Transportation, which found that the the tri-State metropolitan area had “run 

up to $13.6 billion for operating deficits and $7.3 billion for capital improvements through 1985.” 

As for the argument that rail transit benefited the poor, the aged, and the infirm, he cited 

information about the New York subway system and the new system in Atlanta, concluding: 

Thus our urban transit systems, or one of our oldest and one of our newest, benefit the 

affluent. It is not fair to the highway users who pay their money into the trust fund with the 

understanding the money is to build safer, more attractive and better roads, along with safety 

and highway-related transit facilities, to shoulder this cost.

The problem was the failure of metropolitan areas to plan transportation systems for their 

development. One possibility was that development around subway stations would overwhelm the 

facility’s benefits, “thereby generating demand for further costly improvements.” Development 

also took place without regard to the availability of transportation equal to the added demand. For 

example:
903 

In New York City, the World Trade Center is expected to create a nightmare of congestion, 

according to a March 20, 1972, article in the Wall Street Journal entitled: “Critics Say 

World Trade Center Will Complicate Mass-Transit, Pedestrian Snarls in Manhattan.” 

According to the article, Mr. Theodore Kheel said of the Port Authority which is developing 

the Trade Center:

This is going to be a great irony, that any agency created to solve our transportation 

problems winds up creating one of the worst traffic jams in history.

I see even greater irony in his attempts to use the trust fund to bail out New York. No 

wonder, again in his words, “there is no limit, really, on our true needs.” 

The Federal Government should not dictate local development patterns, but “we have a right and a 

responsibility to [ensure] that local plans meet national policy objectives and that those locally 

formulated plans are followed.” For that reason, he had urged exploring the idea “that any funding 

of urban mass transit be accompanied with a more meaningful and explicit ‘impaction’ statement, a 

position supported by testimony at our hearings.” He was confident that “such an inquiry will 

support the case that diversion is not justified.” 

In support of his position, Representative Cleveland offered the following evidence:

The Highway Users Federation has calculated that for the average commuter trip to the 

central business district—10 miles in our major metropolitan areas—the economic cost of 

the automobile trip with average occupancy is two-thirds to three-quarters that of rail transit. 

 This drops dramatically with increased car occupancy. Bus costs, with facilities supported 

partially by the trust fund, are half those of rail because “buses share highway capital, 

maintenance and operating costs with automobiles and trucks.” 

He concluded that abandoning the “trust” concept behind the Highway Trust Fund “would represent 

a tragically misinformed step backward.” The inevitable massive diversion to rail transit that would 

result, he said, “would shortchange our accumulated need for primary, secondary, and highway 

safety improvements without appreciably benefiting the urban commuter.” [Congressional RecordHouse, April 18, 1973, p. 13102-13104] 

Representative Hammerschmidt began his extended remarks by summarizing the experience in 

1972 when the legislation was lost on the last day of the 92nd Congress. He said, “we convened the 

93d Congress strongly committed to discharging our responsibility in this priority item of 

unfinished business.” S-502, as amended by the Committee on Public Works, “strikes a balance in 

allocating revenues to various programs and projects designed to fulfill congressional responsibility 

toward keeping a growing country on the move.” Because highways would continue to serve as the 

principal means of transportation for years to come, it was “in the best interests of the entire Nation 

that we further advance our modern system of highways.” 
904 

He said that the day before, he had placed former Administrator Turner’s Road Gang speech in the 

record to help his colleagues gain “a fuller understanding of this complex matter.” 

S. 502, Representative Hammerschmidt said, is “a well-balanced and comprehensive program for 

advancing national transportation.” He urged its approval. [Congressional Record-House, April 

18, 1973, p.13104-13105] 

Representative Broyhill of Virginia opposed diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenues: 

Therefore, diverting the proceeds of a user tax to the construction of facilities which do not 

provide benefits to the users that correspond to the proportionate use which they make of 

them would undermine the very foundation of the user tax-trust fund concept. 

Such diversion also would involve the credibility of government, in a very real sense. 

Unless we keep faith with those who pay the user taxes, it will be extremely difficult for us 

in the future to justify the imposition of other user taxes for special purposes which might 

seem appropriate at the time.

In short, if we tell a large segment of the American people that we are going to use specific 

taxes which are imposed on them for specific purposes—and we establish a trust fund to do 

so—then we should live up to that bargain. 

I submit that it would be dishonorable to do otherwise. [Congressional Record-House, 

April 18, 1973, p. 13106] 

His comments were followed by short statements on provisions of S. 502. Representative Stanford 

E. Parris (R-Va.) endorsed Section 145 of S. 502, which directed the Secretary of Transportation to 

complete the environmental impact statement for I-66 inside the Capital Beltway. Despite the great 

need for this highway, the final miles of I-66 had been delayed for 17 years. “Balanced 

transportation for the National Capital area is going to require a thorough mix of modern urban 

highways and adequate and economical rapid transit for commuters and visitors alike.” Completion 

of I-66 would be an important addition to the Interstate System. He was pleased that the Senate had 

included a similar measure in its version of S. 502 and he urged his colleagues to retain the 

provision in the House version. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13106] 

Representative Howard supported the provision providing for constructon of exclusive or 

preferential bicycle paths. Given the tremendous increase in bicycle use, “we will begin to rely 

more and more on those means of transportation which use ‘people-power’ as their primary energy 

source.” He acknowledged “the tremendous work” on this subject by Representative Koch, who 

had demonstrated “foresightedness in supporting this environmentally progressive legislation. “I 

think it is appropriate to recognize his energy and determination [by] accepting this amendment 

today.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13106] 

Representative Chalmers P. Wylie (R-Oh.), a former local and State official from Columbus who 

had initially won election to the House in 1966, was the first to speak in support of the Anderson 

amendment. It was, he said, “an amendment whose time has arrived.” It would provide the 
905 

flexibility to State and local officials “that I feel is essential, but it does so in a way that does not 

jeopardize the Interstate program nor the rural highway programs.” He addressed the main issue: 

In supporting this amendment, I do not believe that I can be accused of breaking any trust 

with citizens who pay gasoline taxes. Payment of gas tax can in no way be viewed as a vote 

for more highways. After all, you only have the opportunity to vote when confronted with a 

choice, and for most Americans, given the inadequacy of existing mass transit, their only 

choice of transportation is the automobile. Enactment of the Anderson amendment will help 

insure that taxes that are paid into the highway trust fund are used effectively, and frankly 

that is far more important than just insuring that more and more highways get built. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13106-13107] 

Representative Barrett, who represented Philadelphia, supported S. 502, commending the Public 

Works Committee for including provisions that increased assistance for urban areas. “The most 

glaring defect in the bill, I believe, is the absence of the so-called Anderson amendment, or as it was 

called in the Senate, the Muskie-Baker amendment.” It would help address the country’s “greatest 

transportation need at this time.” When the Interstate System was completed, the Highway Trust 

Fund “should provide the revenue for all modes of transportation.” 

Urban areas needed the flexibility afforded by the Anderson amendment: 

They could devote [urban system funds] totally to highway related needs or could commit 

part of it for urban mass transportation, such as subways or buses or could, in fact, use all of 

it for urban mass transportation needs.

As I stated earlier, I believe this is a first step, using the great amount of the massive funds 

in the Federal highway trust fund for our total transportation needs. 

Although he supported S. 502, he regretted that the Public Works Committee had addressed mass 

transportation, which he pointed out fell within the jurisdiction on the Committee on Banking and 

Currency, which he chaired. “I understand the situation with which the Committee on Public 

Works found itself, particularly since the Senate had approved amendments to the Mass 

Transportation Act as part of the highway bill.” Still, the committee should have yielded to the 

Committee on Banking and Currency: 

The Committee on Banking and Currency has reported to the House H.R. 6452, the Urban 

Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, which goes further than the provisions of title 

III of the bill presently under consideration. I would hope that the House will shortly

consider this bill also.

He said he had examined European mass transit systems in November 1972, finding that the 

European countries supported mass transit with capital grants and operating subsidies: 

No such commitment exists here. But, I believe, that the action we take on this bill, if it is 

to include the Anderson amendment, and the action the House will take later on H.R. 6452, 
906 

the Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, will begin to totally commit our 

Federal Government to providing the needed assistance for urban mass transportation. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13107] 

Representative Shuster, in his extended remarks, wanted to clarify what was under consideration: 

Some people would have us believe that the main reason for the highway program is to feed 

the insatiable appetite of a munificent malevolent monster known as the highway lobby 

which seeks to pave over America. I think this represents a grave misunderstanding. 

He was referring to the documented highway needs in comparison with estimated income: 

So here we come to the first misconception: Rather than being the rich bag of money ripe to 

be tapped for other purposes, the fund does not even contain enough money to finance our 

highway system’s most critical needs.

Another misconception involved who needed highways. Some people thought only rural people 

needed them:

That may be true for some of the 40 largest cities with populations over 400,000, although I 

doubt it, but what about the 200 smaller urban areas who badly need highways. The 

transportation needs study tells us that of the $600 billion projected needs, fully $240 billion 

are located in urban areas.

The report also gives another insight into who needs highways. For the Nation, 93 percent 

of all passenger-miles traveled were traveled in highway vehicles—automobiles and buses. 

In urban areas, contrary to what you might think, that figure rises to 98 percent. Even in our 

largest cities, where bus and rail mass transit is available, mass transit still accounts for only 

5 percent. Who needs highways? The cities do. 

What, he asked, is the urgency to spend this money for highways? He pointed out that in 10 years 

of fighting in southeast Asia, U.S. forces suffered 45,000 combat-related deaths while in 1 year, the 

Nation experienced 56,000 deaths on its highways. “The tragedy of all this is 50 percent of those 

lives can be saved” by improved highways: 

We have a huge highway system literally boobytrapped with dangerous hazards, rail 

crossings, unsafe bridges, poor pavement markings, excessively narrow lanes, rigid and 

bulky roadside obstacles just waiting for their next victims to stray off the roads. These 

must be eliminated. But that takes money, a lot of it. We need every penny we can muster 

to make our highways safe, because in reality, it is not pavement we are buying; it is human 

lives. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13107-13108] 

As a result of a parliamentary inquiry by Representative Abzug, the Chairman of the House 

Committee of the Whole (the parliamentary nature of the House in debate) explained that the House 

was in general debate and that Representative Wright had used only 15 minutes of his 1 hour of 
907 

debate and that Representative Harsha also had not used any of his 1 hour of general debate. This 

discussion indicated that virtually all the statements delivered thus far were entered into the record 

rather than delivered. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. p. 13108] 

Representative Blatnik introduced the Federal-Aid Highway of 1973, calling it “one of the finest 

pieces of transportation legislation that the Public Works Committee has ever reported for this 

body’s consideration.” Speaking of the highway and mass transit programs, he said: 

There is no question in anyone’s mind that there is a need for both programs. There is no 

question in anyone’s mind that these programs must be properly funded and carried out. 

The committee—always a strong advocate and supporter of a comprehensive national 

transportation planning program—has had the unique opportunity to consider both of these 

programs side by side. It has reached the conclusion that they can and will work together; 

that they are an integral part of the future transportation development of this Nation . . . . 

Step by step, over the years, we have found ways to implement and enlarge upon the 

development of our transportation program for this Nation. This bill is another giant step in 

that direction

It is not a be all or an end all, but it is a way by which our transportation needs can be met 

for the present, and it lays the groundwork for future planning for our cities greater 

development of both our highway and mass transit programs. [Congressional RecordHouse, April 18, 1973, p. p. 13108] 

After introducing the committee’s summary of the bill, he yielded time to Representative 

Kluczynski, who called the legislation “the most comprehensive transportation measure ever 

brought out of the Committee on Public Works.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 

p. 13110] 

Representative Wright yielded time to Representative Harold Johnson. He praised the Interstate 

System, which he said had “proved its worth in lives saved and in accidents prevented.” It also had 

been “the basis in many areas of the Nation for economic growth and development of those areas.” 

He called it “one of the great national highways in the history of the world and its effectiveness 

increases with each day of use.” He recalled that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 had 1972 

for completion of the Interstate System: 

Due to circumstances beyond the control of any individual or group, such as rising 

inflationary costs and executive impoundment, that date has come and gone. We now, in 

this legislation, hope to give the final impramatur [sic] to the completion of the system.

He praised S. 502 for turning attention to other systems and road needs, including special urban 

high density routes connecting to the Interstate System. The committee, he said, “has covered the 

spectrum of all anticipated future highway needs.” Indeed, S. 502 “takes us from the remotest rural 

section to the heart of our great metropolitan areas.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 

1973, p. 13110] 
908 

Members followed with brief statements in support of aspects of S. 502, followed by 

Representative Cleveland, who was upset by “the misleading coverage accorded the real issue 

before us today which we have gotten from the national media.” He referred particularly to the 

“paradox” of support for the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for urban rail transit. In 1972, the 

Senate had voted, 48 to 26 to divert the funds. In 1973, the Senate voted 49 to 44 in support of the 

Muskie-Baker amendment. Referring to the increase in nays, he said: 

However, at the same time we have this dramatic proof that people who are exposed to the 

facts are increasingly against diversion, but at the same time that is going on, there seems to 

be increasing support for diversion. I believe misleading press coverage is the explanation. 

He supported free speech and protection of the press from harassment and intimidation: 

We in the Committee on Public Works had an open markup session. I was disappointed, 

however, because although there was good press coverage of our markup session on the 

highway bill that we are discussing now, there was almost a total lack, almost a total lack, of 

press coverage of full hearings wherein we developed the facts, the facts that undergirded 

much of what we were doing in the markup session. 

His specific target was the CBS Evening News broadcast of March 26, anchored by Roger Mudd. 

Representative Cleveland called it “a one-sided account of the dispute” and said, “I filed a protest 

last Friday seeking correction under the fairness doctrine.” He also had written to CBS, and its 

local affiliate, WTOP. Although WTOP had offered him airtime to rebut the CBS report, he had 

not been satisfied by the response from CBS. His letter to Gordon Manning, Senior Vice President 

for CBS News, had said: 

Material compliance with the fairness doctrine would in my judgment dictate action on your 

part prior to House action now scheduled for Tuesday . . . . 

He particularly wanted to remind Manning of the paradox of the declining Senate support for 

diversion reflected in the 1972 and 1973 votes on essentially the same amendment. He also took 

exception to statements that he considered “dead wrong” or that constituted “the omission of 

substantial material fact.” For example, he said:

Continuing, your report stated: “But in the meantime, we’ve come to regard new highways 

as a mixed blessing. They’re very big with truckers and tourists, but they also glut our 

major metropolitan areas with traffic congestion and air pollution.” 

Comment: This appears to suggest that the future uses of the trust fund are to consist solely 

or mainly of new highway construction. (Later the report talked of “whether we’re to 

continue blindly going on building more highways as usual, or whether the growing problem 

of congestion and pollution, and now impending gasoline shortages as well, have finally 

gotten through to us.”) This utterly ignored the other eligible needs of the federal-aid 

system, including the reconstruction, widening and relocation of existing roads, and a wide 

range of other needs such as highway safety, urban traffic improvements and facilities in 
909 

support of bus transportation. Thus the omission of substantial material fact represented 

misleading reportage.

Further, he told Manning that the Committee on Public Works’ hearings, “which you apparently 

ignored,” included testimony that rail transit would not substantially relieve congestion:

Rather, the riders for new or expanded rail mass transit lines come largely from competing 

bus lines. The normal growth in traffic more than offsets any diversion from cars to rail in 

our metropolitan areas. Moreover, the same hearings produced testimony to the effect that 

the existence of a rail transit facility reinforces pressures for urban concentration in highdensity development, generating demands for even more transportation of all modes, of 

which only a small proportion is met by rail transit. In short, it can serve to worsen 

congestion. 

The CBS report, further, cited the Nixon Administration as favoring trust-busting, but contained 

“no mention” of the Administration’s needs report showing $600 billion in needs through 1990 

compared with estimated revenue of $135 billion during that period. 

In conclusion, the fairness doctrine called for:

At minimum, a good-faith effort to set the record straight in terms of the broadcast in 

question would include a correction concerning the purpose for which the trust fund was 

established, a balanced enumeration of currently eligible uses, citation of the degree of 

demands on the trust fund in relation to anticipated revenues, an indication that there is 

contrary evidence concerning the diversion potential of rail transit, the implications of 

transit for increased urban congestion, and the relation of pollution to that congestion, and 

the potential for alleviation represented by buses. 

He pointed out the additional paradox that support for diversion was declining among members of 

the Committee on Public Works, who had the advantage of knowledge gained through hearings 

over the years, “while support seems to be growing among House Members at large . . . who do not 

enjoy the advantage of the knowledge I have gainied from 10 years of service on the Committee.” 

They may well “be swayed by press reports or constituent views in turn reflecting those news 

reports.” He said:

In view of the proportion of the public deriving its entire ration of news from the electronic 

media, I look for correction by CBS which is—as your promotional copy has it—“Where 

the listeners are.”

His letter to Manning concluded by pointing out, “I do not register this complaint lightly. At the 

same time, I do not intend to remain silent in the fact [sic] of any journalistic selling of the 

subways.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13113-13114] 

Having yielded “as much time as he may consume” to earlier speakers, Representative Wright 

yielded “5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York.” Representative Abzug said that the 16-
910 

year old Highway Trust Fund had some successes, such as the Interstate System, “but it has also 

known some failures.” It was, “by definition, when one considers modern-day transportation, one 

of imbalance and distortion.” It had addressed “one major transportation problem” while it “created 

and aggravated others.” Balance must be restored:

While it is not easy to solve this very complex problem, there is one fundamental and 

logical step toward a solution establishing an interrelated, intermodal transportation plan. 

That can begin with our looking upon the highway trust fund as a general transportation 

fund. It is not a revolutionary idea, but it is a logical one.

As a matter of fact, I think it is the next step to take in the natural developmental process 

that began 16 years ago.

The amendment to be offered by Representative Glenn Anderson addressed the “major point of 

difference” by permitting urban area officials “to ask the State officials who control those funds to 

permit them to buy mass transit equipment instead of building roads.” This option would not affect 

funding for rural roads or the urban extension funds, which would still be reserved exclusively for 

highways.

At this point, her 5 minutes ran out, but Representative Wright yielded 5 additional minutes. 

She emphasized that the Anderson amendment would not affect the amount of funding any State 

received:

All that it changes is the uses to which these funds may be put. If, as the provision provides, 

there is $700 million now being proposed for a flexible use, it is the same $700 million 

which these very same urban systems are presently entitled to. It is their share of the 

highway trust fund. It is not anybody else’s share, and it does not take any money from 

anybody else. 

She disputed the claim that because the funds came from an account in the Treasury known as the 

Highway Trust Fund they should not be used for any purpose other than the construction of roads. 

She pointed out that most of the taxes had been in existence long before 1956, with revenue applied 

to general government purposes. Further, the funds were now being used for diverse purposes such 

as housing relocation, ferry boats, land acquisition for parking lots, and the training of State and 

local highway employees. “The fact is that the trust fund is presently being used—and properly 

so—for various aspects of our Nation’s transportation needs.” The Anderson amendment “is 

entirely consistent with this existing policy.”

She did not agree that Representative Wright’s substitute was “every bit as good as the Anderson 

amendment.” She recalled that while the Rules Committee was considering S. 502, Representative 

Morgan F. Murphy (D-Il.) said of the Wright substitute, “You are offering us a piece of pie that will 

never be baked.” (Representative Murphy was a lawyer from Chicago serving his second term as a 

member of the Rules Committee.) She explained:
911 

We are all aware of the administration’s budget cutbacks, and Congress itself has recently

taken steps in the direction of imposing an overall budget ceiling. In the face of those facts, 

it is folly to think that an additional $700 million from general funds is going to be made 

available by the Department of Transportation. 

As for the much-touted “contract authority,” it is of no help if the DOT refuses to enter into 

contracts altogether. Finally, the anti-impounding provision of existing highway law, which 

was the subject of the recent decision in the Missouri State Highway Commission case, 

applied only to money available “for expenditure upon any Federal-aid—highway—

system.” Under the terms of the Wright proposal, an alternative mass transit project is not a 

part of any of the Federal-aid systems. In short, the promise of the Wright proposal, well 

intentioned though it may be, is entirely illusory. If it is enacted into law, I do not expect 

that our urban areas will ever see one penny of that alternative money. [Congressional 

Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13115-13116] 

Representative Glenn Anderson began formal debate on his amendment. After praising the hard 

work of members of the Public Works Committee on the bill, he said: 

With the inclusion of the amendment which I intend to offer this act, I believe, will become 

landmark legislation, but without that amendment the bill will fail. It will fail a very 

important part of America, the urban centers, where most of our people live and work. 

He described the pending amendment as “very simple,” affecting only Federal-aid urban system 

funds. To counter “the many rumors that are afloat,” he wanted to say what the amendment would 

not do. It would not affect the Interstate System. It would not affect the Federal-aid primary or 

secondary systems. No State would get less Federal-aid highway funds if the amendment passed, 

nor would any State or county be required to spend a single penny for mass transit. He continued: 

[Some] may even contend that the amendment breaks faith with the user when the [trust] 

fund was established in 1956. I contend, however, that mass transit will benefit the user by 

increasing the usefulness of our highways, by attracting the commuters off those roads. 

I know of what I speak, because I have an area where during the time when people go to 

work in the morning and come home in the evening, our freeways and our interstate systems 

are all but worthless; no one can get anywhere on them. 

I want to get those marginal commuters, the one-to-a-car drivers—we call them the one-toa-car syndrome—we want to get them, if possible, into mass transit, so people going to and 

from other areas can get across the city.

As for the “sanctity” of the Highway Trust Fund, he expanded on Representative Abzug’s list: 

I want to say that the sanctity of the trust fund has been somewhat diminished when we 

recognize that trust fund moneys have been used to purchase ferryboats, construct homes, 

move businesses displaced by highway programs, build police barracks, purchase 
912 

ambulances, salvage archeological sites in conjunction with highway projects, purchase 

automobiles for driver training, pay the salaries of clerks in traffic courts, and purchase 

computer time for traffic courts and, of course, two-thirds of the entire highway safety 

program is paid from the trust fund. 

Mr. Chairman, when one considers these wide varieties of uses of highway trust fund 

moneys, none of us are affected by my proposals, but when one thinks of those, then I am 

sure it makes my amendment most appropriate, since my amendment makes the highways 

and transportation systems most workable for the highway user. 

It would save energy and reduce pollution. It would increase the usability of land instead of taking 

land off the tax rolls. 

He was skeptical that general Treasury revenue would be available for substitution as proposed by 

Representative Wright. He said, “you know and I know there is not any money lying around in the 

general fund.” He explained:

If my amendment is not adopted and even if the President signs the order, do you think the 

Secretary of Transportation would be allowed to approve any contract authority for mass 

transit and thereby force either more deficit spending, new additional taxes, or a fund cut in 

necessary programs?

He took exception to the frequent references to $600 billion in highway needs through 1990. One 

third of that amount was for locally funded roads off the Federal-aid systems. Only about $100 

billion in needs “are truly justifiable, and 85 percent of this is located in the urban areas of 50,000 

or more population where transit might be preferable to building yet more highways.” 

He said he could “go on and on,” but with his time limited, he concluded: 

I know you have been getting loads of letters. Almost every day I get letters from various 

radio and television stations that have endorsed my program. You have seen in the last 2 or 

3 days where the two main Washington papers, the Washington Evening Star and the 

Washington Post, both endorsed the position, and the Los Angeles Times and the New York 

Times and labor pretty widely supported it. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, 

p. 13117-13118] 

Representative Annunzio of Chicago spoke in favor the amendment, beginning: 

During my many years in the Congress [beginning in 1965 at the start of the 89th Congress] I 

have always believed that one day we would reach the brink of disaster in the urban areas of 

America as far as the mass transit problem is concerned. Today that brink has been reached. 

 

The problem is greater than it has ever been because of the mass production of automobiles. 

 Already approximately 94 percent of all travel in urbanized areas is by automobile. Our 

cities, States, and main thoroughfares are jammed, bumper to bumper. Our cities, as a 
913 

result, are severely polluted, and if you are caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic, you can 

actually see the smog and feel the irritation in your eyes and your lungs. 

The problems, including fuel shortages, would only get worse as the urban population doubled in 

just a few decades:

The problem of moving people and goods around and through our urban areas is already 

critical. Unless we make provisions to meet and solve the urban transportation snarl, it will 

grow progressively worse. 

True, highway users paid the taxes credited to the Highway Trust Fund: 

But it is these same taxpayers who want fast and efficient transportation to and from work, 

less crowded highways and freeways, less traffic, less congestion, and less air pollution. We 

can resolve the problem by giving the commuter a choice—an efficient mass transit system 

as well as an efficient highway system . . . . We would be taking a long step forward toward 

resolving our transportation problem, which affects every American, by passing the 

Anderson amendment . . . . 

Mr. Chairman, I feel priorities have changed in transportation since the enactment of the 

highway trust fund in 1956. History shows us that if transportation is to be viable, it has to 

adjust to the times; and I cannot stress too strongly that the time for a new start is now.

Although the United States had “the finest highway system in the world,” the time had come to 

build “an equally fine mass transit system.” He concluded: 

We have the know-how, we have the technology, we have the resources, and we must 

demonstrate to the American people today that we have the will and the desire to resolve 

this problem and the way we can resolve this problem is to support the Anderson 

amendment . . . . [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13118-13119] 

Representative Clausen, who was orchestrating the debate, took his time to counter the argument of 

“my good friend from the southern part of my own State of California. He pointed out that 

supporters of the Anderson amendment “make light of the ‘sanctity’ of the highway trust fund, 

asserting that it has already been breached, and, therefore, it may be further breached for rail mass 

transit purposes without violating any trust. He recalled some of the items cited in this argument, 

such as ferryboats and archaeological salvage:

To begin with, all of the uses cited are highway related. That is an important point. 

Comptroller General’s decisions, as well as decisions of the legal counsel of the Department 

of Transportation, have carefully defined over the years what kinds of expenditures may be 

made under the authority of the Highway Revenue Act of 1956. It has consistently been 

held that the language of the act that they must be “attributable to Federal-aid highways,” 

not “related to” or “provide benefits” to Federal-aid highways, means what it says.
914 

The fact that expenditures are attributable to transportation is not enough. They must be 

attributable to highways on the Federal-aid system.

Buses, he pointed out, are highway vehicles and “are taxed as contributors to the highway trust 

fund.” Rail transit is neither highway oriented nor a contributor to the fund. 

In setting up programs, Congress does not allow funds to be switched among them, say between the 

Departments of Defense and Health, Education, and Welfare. If the Anderson amendment, which 

proposed just such a switch, were approved, “Think of the fiscal management mess we would be 

creating.” Of course, he acknowledged, Congress could change the “arttributable to Federal-aid 

highways” language of the Highway Revenue Act, but “the authority for doing that does not rest 

with the Committee on Public Works,” but with the Ways and Means Committee.

Representative Clausen also addressed the argument that since the Highway Trust Fund is simply a 

crediting device within the general Treasury, the funds are really general funds that may be used for 

other purposes than highways. “The definition of highways as contained in the statutes” covers a 

variety of activities related to highways. “There is no mention, specific or implied, of use for 

anything attributable to rail mass transit.” He continued:

But leaving aside arguments and discussions of the legalities and philosophy of “busting the 

highway trust,” the more important question is how can we best assist cities to solve 

pressing problems of congestion. The committee feels that diverting critically needed 

highway and street improvement funds to rail mass transit will, in the long run, only 

compound the problem. That is the reason it proposed separate authorization and funding 

for mass transit as an addition to the highway program, rather than an “either-or” solution. 

We feel that even if the “trust-busters,” or their well-intentioned supporters who simply 

want a solution to city congestion, are successful in securing adoption of the amendment, it 

will prove to be an illusion and a hollow victory. Diversion will not provide the amount of 

relief that is needed. What little relief it does provide will have to be given at the expense of 

needed street and highway improvements. 

Finally, he addressed the concern that the President would impound the general Treasury funds for 

mass transit:

It would seem unlikely that the administration would do so. Both the amount of funding 

and the source of funding—the General Fund—was proposed by the Secretary of 

Transportation in a letter dated February 21, 1973. 

What is more, the President has consistently stated in communications, the administration 

wants a mass transit program exactly like the one included by the committee in title III of 

the bill before us. Budget documents also convey this intent. Under the circumstances, it 

seems incredible to suppose that the authorization contained in title III would be 

unacceptable to the administration, or that if approved by the Congress, that the President 

would impound the funding provided which he, himself, proposed. [Congressional RecordHouse, April 18, 1973, p. 13119-120] 
915 

Representative Wylie engaged Representative Clausen in a colloquy. Would the Anderson 

amendment compel any urban area to spend 1 penny on urban mass transportation? No. Did the 

amendment simply provide the flexibility urban areas need? Yes, but so did S. 502, with the 

difference being only the source of funding. Is payment of taxes into the Highway Trust Fund a 

vote for additional Interstate highways? No, a variety of facilities, such as exclusive bus lanes, is 

needed. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13120] 

Representative John M. Zwach (R-Mn.), a teacher, farmer, and State legislator in his third House 

term, argued against the Anderson amendment from a Minnesota perspective. He praised S. 502 for 

taking care of mass transit “without destroying the integrity and the need for the trust fund moneys.” 

Many of his State’s roads were two-lane roads incapable of carrying heavy trucks:

Our railroads, Mr. Chairman, are in a complete crisis. We cannot transport our farm 

products to the markets. The eastern dairy area needs our corn. There are no railroad cars to

move that feed into that area. We have an ocean of it to move, and so we need this trunk 

highway money very, very badly. We need it to bring the products of the sea out there to 

produce the best and cheapest food in the world and move it back into the Members’ cities. 

Let us not now, until we have some roads out in the agricultural producing area, break open 

this trust fund. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13121] 

Representative William E. Frenzel (R-Mn.), a former State legislator whose district included 

suburban Minneapolis, differed with Representative Zwach on the Anderson amendment: 

This proposal fits the trend toward increased local government decisionmaking. In addition 

to being consistent with the President’s concept of “The New Federalism,” the amendment 

is consistent with the administration’s, and DOT’s, well publicized position on financing 

mass transit.

The notion that transit needs should be met from the general Treasury “is a pious thought, but the 

House knows that no funds will be appropriated for this purpose.” He explained: 

New spending programs simply will not be funded this year. I do not challenge the 

committee’s good faith, but I do point out that its transit alternative brings no hope 

whatsoever. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13121-13122] 

Representative Harsha took his turn to comment on the Anderson amendment. He said “there is 

nothing sacrosanct about the figures we put in the authorization, and there is no assurance that they 

will be released” by the Nixon Administration. Given the Administration’s commitment to mass 

transit, “I would assume they would honor the contract authority as much as they would the trust 

fund expenditures.” 

He pointed out that the Department of Transportation’s own 1972 National Transportation Report 

“states that the diversion of large sums of money from highway improvements to mass transit will 
916 

have little—very little—change on air pollution.” He said, “let us not delude ourselves into 

thinking that we are curing the pollution problem by diverting highway trust funds to mass transit.” 

Representative Harsha also disputed the energy benefit. According to the 1972 report, the average 

passenger car contains 1.9 people, which works out to 22.8 passenger miles per gallon of gasoline 

(assuming 12 miles to the gallon). The average number of passengers per bus mile is 2.58 (keeping 

in mind that buses operate throughout the day, not just on jammed commuter routes during peak 

hours in major cities) or 10.3 passenger miles per gallon (at 4 miles per gallon for each bus). He 

asked:

Where did the savings in fuel go? Our public buses are using twice as much fuel per 

passenger mile. What are we doing to our energy supply problems by using buses? 

He asked his colleagues to consider Professor Hilton’s testimony on how much automobile traffic is 

diverted to mass transit. He cited the professor’s comments that in reality the changes were 

“imperceptible relative either to the daily variance or to the growth in vehicle counts.” He 

continued: 

There are long-term solutions to the energy crisis. Rapid transit will not be a major factor.

Representative Clausen pointed out that the cities with the most extensive rail mass transit, such as 

Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco, still had “a major congestion problem.” 

They needed “the highway-related public transportation system to supplement the rail mass transit 

systems.” He added:

The only point I am attempting to make is that we will need every dollar we can allocate 

from the highway trust fund to develop the highway-related public transportation system, 

which will help most of the urban communities in the country, large and small alike . . . . 

The Wright-Clausen alternative [i.e, the provision substituting general Treasury funds for 

urban system funds] to the Anderson amendment is designed to provide the desired 

flexibility and the positive financial commitment to both mass transit and a safer, more 

efficient and functional national highway system for both urban and rural America alike. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13122] 

Representative William G. Bray (R-In.), whose tenure in the House began in 1951, said the issue 

wasn’t whether highways or mass transit were needed. “Many of those speaking on this subject 

have ignored one of the prime issues in this legislation,” namely the use of the dedicated Highway 

Trust Fund: 

To adequately understand the purpose of the highway trust fund and the method in which it 

should be handled, it is necessary to go back and study the congressional history and the 

creation of the highway trust fund. I was on the floor when this highway trust fund was 

debated. At no time was there any suggestion made that this money was to be used for any 

other purpose than—“the highway trust fund.” 
917 

On April 27, 1956, the legislation that created the highway trust fund, H.R. 10660, which 

ultimately became Public Law 94-627, the Highway Act of 1956, was being debated on the 

floor of the House. The late Honorable Dan Reed of New York, then Republican chairman 

of the Committee on Ways and Means stated— 

. . . It is important to emphasize that the bill provides for the establishment of a 

highway trust fund . . . The existence of this fund will insure that these receipts will 

not be diverted to other purposes. 

And, our late, highly respected colleague, Mr. Hale Boggs of Louisiana, at that [time] a 

Democratic member of the Ways and Means Committee, clearly stated the purpose of this 

legislation:

. . . this bill . . . establishes the highway trust fund which dedicates most of these 

funds to highway construction and for that purpose only . . . . Thus, for the first 

time, the American motorist will pay these taxes with the assurance that he will be 

the direct beneficiary of every penny which he pays and he will pay with the 

knowledge that every cent derived from these taxes will be devoted exclusively to 

his personal convenience and safety . . . . 

By “every moral and legal standard,” the revenue should be used for the original purpose set out in 

the 1956 legislation: 

If this body desires that this highway tax be discontinued, repeal it. Thus place any other tax 

to care for mass transportation that is proposed, but let us not misuse a trust fund. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13122-13123] 

(Representative Bray’s recollection was incorrect. Representative Daniel A. Reed (R-NY), who 

served in the House from 1919 until his death in 1959, was Chairman of the House Ways and 

Means Committee in the 83rd Congress when Republicans controlled the House and Senate 

(January 3, 1953-January 3, 1955). When Democrats gained control of both Houses in the 84th

Congress beginning January 3, 1955, he lost his chairmanship to Representative Jere Cooper of 

Tennesee, who was chairman during the 1956 debates. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 was 

Public Law 84-627.) 

Representative LaMar Baker, the Transportation Subcommittee member, supported the public 

transit measures in S. 502. “The logic of the situation is that there is not enough money in the trust 

fund, and the trust fund is not generating enough money to do both jobs.” The bill provided $3 

billion from the general Treasury along with contract authority for mass transit. “It becomes a 

contractual obligation of our Federal Treasury if the urban government decides that this is what it 

wants to do.” The “point of wisdom” was to “follow the course which has been so completely 

thought out and worked out, as it is set out in this bill.” 

Representative Glenn Anderson interrupted to ask Representative Baker where the money from the 

general Treasury would come from:
918 

If they did that—which I doubt—where would they get the additional money? Would they 

get it from additional taxes? Would they get it by cutting out some of the services we are 

cutting out right now? Or would they go into further deficit financing to pay for that 

contractual authority out of the general fund? 

Representative Baker yielded to Representative Harsha to answer the question, but he simply 

summarized the bill’s provision. Representative Anderson interjected that “the money to pay the 

contractual authority would have to come out of the fund,” but Representative Harsha said he had 

not yielded time. He continued, “The money for mass transit comes from the general fund. So 

there is no total overall expenditure above what is in the bill.” 

Representative Anderson restated his question: 

If we do take money out of the general fund, where there is not any money today, will we 

then have to provide more deficit financing, or will we increase taxes, or will we cut some 

of the other programs, like education, health, and pollution, which we are cutting today, 

before there is a deficit.

Representative Harsha answered:

Getting the money out of the general fund is just like money for housing or anything else. 

We do not have to increase taxes to do it, because the overall spending of the budget is not 

affected by reducing highway funds. 

The exchange continued until Representative Harsha cut it off: 

Mr. Anderson of California. That stays over in the highway fund and does not come out. 

Mr. Harsha. The gentleman knows it is a unified budget. Every expenditure, whether it 

comes out of the trust fund or the general fund, is reflected in that budget. So there is no 

additional spending in our proposal over what the gentleman’s proposal would do. 

Mr. Anderson of California. Yes, there is. 

Mr. Harsha. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. 

Peyser). [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 12123] 

(Representative Baker, who served in the 92nd and 93rd Congresses, would serve as Regional 

Representative to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation, 1981-1985, during the 

Reagan Administration.) 

Representative Peter A. Peyser (R-NY), who represented Irvington, a suburb of New York City, 

said that New York City had “two desperate needs,” namely money for mass transportation and 

money for highway construction and reconstruction. If the Anderson amendment were adopted, he 

asked, “does this take money away from the construction of highways?” Yes, Representative 

Wright answered, it would take money from highway construction in the area to the extent that the 

area chose mass transit alternatives. Under the bill, money for mass transit “would come in 
919 

advance obligational authority out of general revenues, and the equivalent amount would remain in 

the trust fund for redistribution to all other cities” that could use it for highway construction.” 

If New York City decided to use the funds for mass transportation, “is that money then guaranteed 

to New York City, that they will get that money?” Representative Wright could not provide an 

absolute guarantee since he could not guarantee that the funds would not be impounded. He said

that half the highway funds appropriated for the previous year had been impounded while only a 

small amount of transit funding had been impounded ($20 million out of $980 million). “So it 

appears to me on the basis of the record that one has a better chance to get that money out of 

general revenues than one would out of the trust fund.” 

Is an action pending, Representative Peyser asked, “to challenge the authority of impounding 

highway trust funds?” Representative Wright replied: 

Mr. Chairman, there is, and there are also actions pending challenging the authority of the 

President to dismantle other programs and to impound other funds. There is also contained 

in this bill an anti-impoundment feature that applied to mass transit. [Congressional 

Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13123-13124] 

Representative Veysey, a member of the Public Works Committee from Brawley in southeastern 

California, said he had introduced legislation that was “perhaps the most acceptable answer to all 

interests.” He described H.R. 5816, which he had introduced on March 19, 1973: 

My legislation would allow use of the trust fund for mass transit—only if such 

transportation systems are highway oriented. My bill, H.R. 5816, would open the highway 

trust fund to facilitate the fullest and the most rapid development of bus mass transit, 

including the purchase of rolling stock—again, other than rail . . . . 

Mr. Chairman, specifically, my legislation would prescribe that urban and urban extension 

sections of the highway trust fund shall be available to construct highway oriented mass 

transit systems, related facilities, and to purchase buses or rolling stock other than rail. 

It also will open the interstate highway trust funds to encourage such highway-oriented mass 

transit systems, but excluding the purchase of rolling stock.

Finally, it specifies that all such rolling stock purchased for mass transit must meet 

standards prescribed by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act. 

First, he could not support Highway Trust Funds for rail transit, which he called “a long term 

project at the best” at a time when southern California needed “immediate relief.” Second, the cost 

of rail transit would dwarf highway-oriented transit systems and would be prohibitive on a costbenefit ratio. Third, opening the Highway Trust Fund to rail transit would “significantly dilute the 

impact such funds will have on immediate, rifle-shot attention to developing sophisticated bus mass 

transit systems.” He added, “We cannot afford to waste years toying with multibillion-dollar fixed 

rail schemes” when buses could “be put to work tomorrow.” Finally, H.R. 5816 was consistent 
920 

with the views of millions of Americans who wanted to restrict the Highway Trust Fund to its 

original purpose. 

Representative Veysey concluded by saying his bill was “the immediate and practical answer to 

providing vital funds for mass transit . . . to reduce smog and congestion now, and save the 

grandiose, science-fiction approaches to mass transit until we can breathe again in our cities.” 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13124] 

Representative Bingham, the longtime champion of opening the Highway Trust Fund to mass 

transit, recalled his long fight, dating to 1965. “The reasons for more mass transit in relation to 

highways are the same today as they long have been.” He listed the reasons, including air pollution, 

energy consumption, and division of communities as well as the loss of tax base: 

There are, of course, several ways of encouraging a more balanced transportation system 

through Federal assistance. I personally feel that creation of a general surface transportation 

trust fund, consisting of the current highway trust fund and such moneys from general 

revenues as the Congress might see fit to add is the best solution because it would assure a 

sufficiently large quantity of funds to meet the extensive need for development of our 

transportation systems and it would provide maximum flexibility in the use and allocation 

of those funds among various transportation modes. 

He had introduced a bill for that purpose in the 92nd Congress and was introducing it again, 

although he noted that “it will be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means,” where he implied 

but did not say it would die. 

Another option was to create a separate public transit or urban mass transit trust fund, but that was 

“a risky and inadequate solution for several reasons.” First, the funds would mostly have to come 

from the general Treasury where competition with other needs would limit the amount available. 

Second, the trust fund would further restrict local officials in use of the funds, as was the case with 

the Highway Trust Fund. He noted one other objection: 

Finally, with the highway trust fund untouched, cities and States would continue to be 

seduced into building and improving roadways just because the money would be there—

roadways that add more to local social, fiscal, and environmental problems than they 

eliminate.

He supported the Anderson amendment which “would simply end the use-it-or-lose-it policy that 

has forced Governors and mayors and county executives to build and spend on roads regardless of 

local needs for bus or rail mass transit.” 

The funding in S. 502 for mass transit consisted of “empty promises.” There was “absolutely no 

assurance” that the funds would be forthcoming. “With the Federal Treasury overburdened as it is 

to meet social needs here at home, the highway trust fund is the only sure source of funds for mass 

transit, and the only source of funds sufficiently large to provide significant aid.” [Congressional 

Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13124-13125] 
921 

Representative Jones of the Public Works Committee said he supported “proper development of a 

complete and balanced transportation network for the United States.” That goal, however, could 

not be reached “by diversions from the highway fund.” The “staggering backlog of road-related 

needs” meant that the Highway Trust Fund did not have enough funds to meet its present 

responsibilities while attempting to “properly service rapid transit requirements.” He continued: 

In establishing the highway trust fund, the Congress made a commitment to all the people 

that those who were going to use the highways would pay for them . . . . We can justify the 

user taxes only to the extent that the payer receives an adequate return for his special tax. If 

a trust fund is put to other purposes, the user tax which supplies it is either discriminatory or 

too high. 

The motorist came close to “completely paying for his transportation through the user taxes which 

build the roads and his private investment in automobile and fuel.” He would be “severely shortchanged” by diversion: 

Diversion of highway user taxes in face of the legitimate highway improvement needs 

would be a failure of the Government to fulfill an obligation to the vast motoring public 

which has participated in the fund with the promise of improved roadways. 

Those who urge a diversion in the highway trust fund for rail transit in an effort to realize 

fiscal goals or economy suffer the greatest of illusions. They completely ignore the total 

costs associated with construction and operation of such systems in an effort to temporarily 

solve a vexing problem—serving a need while restraining new expenditures. 

To those who promote diversion for mass transit, he suggested: 

The rapid transit case should be presented on its own merits and funds should be made 

available from general revenues to service these urgent requirements.

Diversion would “leave the public with neither adequate rail transit nor adequate roads.” 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13125] 

Representative Moakley, the first term Congressman from Boston, began his comments: 

Mr. Chairman, 7 months ago, almost to the day, this House voted against allowing cities like 

Boston to choose how best to spend its share of highway trust fund money. At that same 

time, September 21, 1972, as a candidate in Massachusetts Ninth Congressional District, I 

pledged that if elected to Congress, my first priority would be to try to change your mind. 

Of course, I am prejudiced. 

If you allow cities like Boston to decide for themselves how best to spend its share of the 

highway trust fund, no other congressional district in the United States would be as 

immediately and totally benefited as my own . . . . If you give Boston the green light on rail 
922 

transit, over 5 billion transportation and transportation-related dollars will be generated in 

Metropolitan Boston during the next decade—and most of that money will be spent in my 

district.

He added that he was not only prejudiced but “also desperate,” explaining, as he had during his 

testimony in March: 

With all due respect, regardless of your decision, the odds are great that no more highways 

will ever be built in Boston. One good lawyer could keep away the cement trucks from 

Boston for at least 15 years. All the roadbuilders in America would not stand a chance 

against one Boston lawyer clad in the armor of the Department of Transportation Act, the 

National Environmental Policy Act, and the Clean Air Act.

Boston, in short, was experiencing an “epidemic of carsickness.” He could describe the symptoms, 

“but such testimony would be based on the false premise that your choice is between highways or 

no highways . . . [or] between rail transit or highways.” Instead: 

Your choice is simply whether to allow cities like Boston to spend funds already earmarked 

for its use alone on the transportation mix best suited to meet its particular transportation 

needs.

The Anderson amendment would not take one penny from the Interstate System or dictate that a 

single penny be spent on rail transit. But if given a choice, Boston and 16 other cities would spend 

the funds on rail systems. 

He recognized that some “think it irresponsible” to divert funds because “all the money that could 

conceivably be authorized by this Congress for rail transit for the next 3 years would barely pay for 

one rail transit system, let alone 17.” They argue that given the non-rail needs in those cities, 

“allowing cities a rail transit choice offers them a false and empty promise.” He disagreed because 

the Federal-aid urban system funds would supplement UMTA, State, and local money to build rail 

transit. The result would impact each city’s ability to meet air quality standards:

Regardless of whether you grant those cities a rail transit option, many of them still will not 

meet Environmental Protection Agency deadlines. But with rail transit, many of America’s 

worst-polluted cities, Boston among them, could show compliance and meet the standards, 

if not the deadlines. 

By providing these cities a rail transit option, those of you who voted for the Clean Air Act 

could take pride in the fact that not only did you vote for clean air but you went the extra 

mile to make clean air possible.

Representative Moakley said that he had purposely “tried to avoid rhetoric or tell the pollution, 

energy and urban environment horror stories you have heard before.” But he had a point to make: 
923 

In closing, I would simply like to point out that the most significant and perhaps the pivotal 

point in the long fight to allow cities a rail transit choice occurred earlier this year here in 

the House. It happened when the House Public Works Subcommittee on Roads changed its 

name to the House Public Works Subcommittee on Transportation. 

And I think that is all anybody is really trying to say. Transportation in 1973 means more 

than simply roads. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13126-13127] 

Representative Samuel H. Young, a Republican lawyer from Chicago serving his lone term in the 

House, supported S. 502 in general, but endorsed the Anderson amendment, saying: 

I believe that such use of the trust funds is highly consistent with the original purpose of the 

trust—the promotion and implementation of rapid and safe transit from one place to another 

in this country. 

If we are to enjoy the continued use of the automobile in metropolitan areas, if we are to 

relieve the congestion that plagues our cities, and if we are to meet air pollution standards of 

the future, we must immediately upgrade and expand our urban mass transit systems. If we 

do not take this step, our only alternative is to restrict the use of the automobile in the 

central city.

Mass transit was continuing its decline. In his own congressional district, the city of Evanston in 

the Chicago urbanized area was about to lose one of its two mass transit alternatives, the Evanston 

Bus Company: 

Approval of the Anderson amendment to open up the trust fund would give Evanston the option of 

using its share of trust funds to aid the busline, and thereby relieve the highway traffic congestion in 

the city and surrounding areas. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13127] 

Representative Heckler also supported the Anderson amendment. She began by explaining: 

I recently had the privilege of serving as moderator on the public television program “The 

Advocates.” This nationally televised public debate addressed the question: “Should 

highway funds be diverted to mass transit at the option of the individual States?” The points 

brought out in that forum were to the points being made on the amendment that is before us 

today. The debate on TV was as intense as the debate in this Chamber. 

While viewers of this program do not have the benefit of electronic balloting, they are 

invited to mail their votes to public television and the results are announced the following 

week. I am delighted to report that this nationwide poll gave a resounding “Yes” to the 

question on diversion of highway funds. In fact, the tally was 74 percent “yes” against 26 

percent “no.” That was the vote of the people. 

The Anderson amendment, Representative Heckler said, “is a very realistic attempt to solve a 

problem . . . . Public transportation must be helped.” 
924 

She resisted “the dictum” that public transportation funds must come from the general Treasury: 

I suggest that we must look upon highway users in their larger role—that of transportation 

users. They have a direct interest in unimpeded mobility in all modes of surface 

transportation . . . . Let us give a choice to the commuter, so we can open up the highways 

for those who have no choice—such as the truckers and the bus lines. 

The amendment, she argued, did not break faith with highway users: 

The calling-in of a debt is not a breaking of faith, and I submit that despite our highway 

system’s very obvious benefits over the years since the enactment of President Eisenhower’s 

Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, our overreliance on highways has created some very 

serious problems to go along with the benefits. If indeed 97 percent of all traffic movement 

of individuals within the cities is performed by highways, roads and streets; and if indeed 94 

peercent of all traffic is carried by automobiles and trucks within our urban areas, then I say 

that is a problem—not something to boast about. It is a fact of life that must be changed. If 

the highway user has paid his excise taxes and helped cause this problem, then I say it is not 

breaking faith if we ask him to pay excise taxes to help solve the problem.

As for those $600 billion in highway needs through 1990, “the highway needs study assumes 

utilization of highway transportation by all segments of our society.” That was “a callous disregard 

of the hundreds of thousands of the elderly, the very young, the poor and the handicapped—for 

whom access to an automobile is either far-fetched or impossible.” These people were “prisoners 

of our own prosperity” in our auto-oriented world and yet their lives were “disrupted by noise 

pollution and highway landtakings. Their health is endangered by the killing poisons of 

accumulated exhausts.” She did not think such a future was worth $600 billion. 

The Anderson amendment, small as it was, “represents Federal legislation at its finest.” It was, she 

said, “one of the most carefully-crafted pieces of legislation in history.” She was clear on what its 

passage would mean:

We will have obligated ourselves to the principle of solving transportation problems with 

transportation money; we will firmly declaim a national set of transportation priorities for 

the Nation; and we will allow those who know their own local problems best to choose the 

solutions most appropriate for their own people. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 

1973, p. 13128] 

(As of February 3, “The Advocates” had received 1,509 “votes” from 45 States and the District of 

Columbia, with 92.7 percent favoring the proposal, 5 percent opposing it, and 2.3 percent 

expressing other views. [Federal Highway Act of 1970 and Miscellaneous Bills, Hearings, 

Subcommittee on Roads of the Committee on public Works, United States Senate, Part 1, 91st

Congress, 2nd Session, S641-95, p. 482]) 

According to the Congressional Record, Representative Bingham then discussed his amendment to 

strike the priority primary system from S. 502:
925 

This is in effect a coming extension of the Interstate System. But there is a big difference. 

When the Interstate System was authorized it was authorized only after intensive and 

extensive studies. The same studies have not been made for this extension of the Interstate 

System.

He pointed out that the 1968 Highway Needs report mentioned the proposal but indicated additional 

study was needed.

Representative Bingham’s characterization of the priority primary proposal prompted an exchange 

with Representative Wright:

Mr. Wright. This is not an extension of the Interstate System. 

Mr. Bingham. I said it had been so characterized, and I should like to stand on that 

statement.

Mr. Wright. But that is a characterization. Is it not?

Representative Bingham agreed that the committee had removed the provision calling for the routes 

to meet Interstate standards, “but the fact is that the chances are this will build into an extension of 

the Interstate System, and there is no telling how much it is going to cost in the long run.” He 

suggested:

Why not just go ahead with the Federal primary system, and develop that to the extent we 

need to? Why do we have to come in with an additional amount for a new system which 

has not been thoroughly studied, which has not been recommended by the national highway 

needs report, which is opposed by the administration? It is just another foot in the door for 

what will amount to, I am convinced, in the end, an extension of the Interstate System. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13128] 

Representative Wright announced that he had no further requests for time. The Anderson 

amendment was ready for final consideration. 

Representative Anderson spoke in support of his proposal to open the Federal-aid urban system 

funds to rail transit. It was, he said, “a very simple amendment” that affected only a small portion 

of the Federal-aid highway program. In view of the concerns expressed about the amendment, he 

wanted to list the things it did not do. It did not affect the Interstate System or the primary and 

secondary systems. It did not add or delete a single penny approved by the Committee on Public 

Works. No State will get less money if the amendment passed. 

He also responded to Representative Harsha’s comments about contract authority: 

He said that under the Anderson amendment it would be “either/or,” and under the 

committee bill it would be “both.”

My contention is that under the committee amendment it would probably be “neither” 

because this contractual authority is a kind of gimmick, trying to tell us that we are going to 

get money from somewhere without touching the highway trust fund. They say it does not 
926 

come from the highway trust fund, but also they will not admit it has to take money out of 

the general gund—a fund in which there is not sufficient money today to meet our current 

needs. They say that yes, it is earmarked for that; they try to give you a sleight of hand— 

Representative Wright asked Representative Anderson to yield: 

Mr. Wright. Mr. Chairman, I really take exception to the gentleman’s remarks about sleight 

of hand, pretending and things like that. Does the gentleman know that 90 percent of the 

money which is provided by this Congress comes out of the general revenue? Since when is 

that second-class money?

Mr. Anderson of California. Mr. Chairman, as long as the gentleman admits the money for 

their proposed contractual authority is going to be paid out of the general fund— 

Mr. Wright. Of course it is.

Mr. Anderson of California. I want to make that clear. 

Mr. Wright. What is wrong with that? Ninety percent of the money Congress appropriates 

come out of the general revenue. Is that second-class money? Has anybody ever turned it 

down? [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13136] 

With Representative Anderson’s time expired, Representative Shuster spoke in opposition to the 

amendment. He had three reasons. First, the Highway Trust Fund did not generate enough money 

to meet critical highway needs. He said the 1972 National Transportation Report had concluded 

that $600 billion would be needed to complete highway programs through 1990 and “of that 

amount approximately $300 billion is absolutely essential.” Since the Highway Trust Fund would 

generate only $125 billion during that period, “only 41 percent of the funds needed to complete the 

critical portion of our highway program” would be covered. 

Second, the Highway Trust Fund did not generate enough money to meet urban highway needs:

The proponents of this amendment would have us believe that they speak for urban 

America. I do not doubt that they speak for a large portion of the 32 largest urban areas of 

America, those areas which represent over 400,000. 

He, however, represented one of the 211 urban areas that had fewer residents. He believed that 

“most of the smaller urban America does not want the highway trust fund to be raided, because we 

need our highways in smaller urban America.” 

Third, additional funding was needed for highway safety:

I would suggest it is up to us in this Congress to stand up and be counted and to fund this 

program to protect the highway trust fund so we can save 25,000 American lives. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13136-13137] 

Representative Kluczynski rose in support of the Anderson amendment. He began: 
927 

There is probably no one in this House that has been a more vocal and ardent supporter of 

the highway trust fund over the years than I have. I still believe it is the most successful 

mechanism ever put forward for financing a program and I believe the highway program is 

one of the most successful Federal-aid programs ever conducted by the Federal 

Government. I also believe that the highway program is still of vital necessarily to this 

country and it will be for years to come. 

His hometown of Chicago had “one of the finest freeway networks of any city in the world” as well 

as a fine transit network:

The transit system is, however, in trouble. No longer can we rely on the fare box to keep the 

system solvent. Increased costs of labor, equipment, and maintenance have made it 

impossible to operate in the black. Outside financial help of some kind is essential. 

The Anderson amendment, which affected only a small portion of the funding authorized by S. 502, 

was not “the total answer but it will be a help in moving toward some solution to the problem of 

decreasing mass transit patronage and even in some instances complete loss of transit service.” 

Combined with the authorizations in Title III, the funds freed by the Anderson amendment will help 

“improve these conditions in our cities and bring balance into the total transportation picture.” 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13137] 

Representative Breaux opposed the amendment. He disputed the three main arguments he said 

were used in its support, namely that the surplus in the Highway Trust Fund could be used for mass 

transit, that the amendment would provide substantial relief for cities, and would not affect the 

allocation of funds to any State. “These arguments continue to be made when in fact, all three have 

little basis in fact and are subject to serious question.” 

After explaining that the surplus in the Highway Trust Fund was committed to ongoing highway 

projects, he said that only a portion of the $700 million authorized for the Federal-aid urban system 

would be used for mass transit: 

So it is unfair to hold out to the cities that such an amount will be used when in fact it will 

not. There is no question that this is solely an effort to break open the highway trust fund. 

Even the cities that wanted to use all or most of the funds for mass transit could not use the 

authorization “as a satisfactory base for a major rail system because they have no idea of what will 

be in store after 1976.” 

As for the argument that the Anderson amendment would not affect allocation of Federal-aid funds 

to any State, Representative Breaux said:

It seems to me that if we begin to fund both highways and mass transit from the urban 

system fund, pressures will be exceedingly intense in future years to increase the 

authorizations for the urban system, to meet the total transportation needs of the cities. 

Since funds in the highway trust fund are limited, it is obvious that the increased 
928 

authorizations for the urban system would be at the expense of authorizations for the rural 

systems and could even cause extension of the date of completion of the Interstate System . . 

. . 

In the long run, all States would suffer under the Anderson amendment, particularly the 

larger more rural States. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13138] 

Representative Stephen D. Symms (R-Id.), serving his first term in the House, also opposed the 

diversion of funds from the Highway Trust Fund. No one, he said, would deny urban needs, but the 

revenue in the Highway Trust Fund was needed for highways: 

To divert it to some other use at this time would cripple the highway system, and would not 

begin to supply the amount of money needed by our cities anyway. The sensible thing is to 

finish our highway system with the funds provided for that purpose, and work out a new and 

realistic program to build transit systems in the cities.

Rural States would suffer “a considerable loss” if the Anderson amendment were approved. For 

example if cities used the funds for mass transit, they will neglect their highways. “You cannot 

spend the same dollars twice.” If highways begin to decline in the next few years, Congress would 

be right back where it started, trying “to solve the problem by sharing some more of the highway 

trust funds.” 

He also was concerned about the precedent. “Once we establish the principle that it is all right to 

steal a little from the trust, it will be easier the next time to steal a little bit more.” Given growing 

urban needs, “they will be back for more next time.” He concluded:

We need to build transit systems, and we need to finish our highway system. The trust fund 

moneys are not adequate to build the city systems. Let us not destroy our road system by 

spreading our money so thinly that neither job is finished. [Congressional Record-House, 

April 18, 1973, p. 13138] 

Representative Zion, the Indiana Representative serving on the Transportation Subcommittee, also 

opposed the Anderson amendment, citing the commitment Congress made in 1956 to highway 

users:

They said, “You people out there using the highways, paying your taxes for highway use, 

put your money into a special fund and we are going to give you the best transportation 

system in the history of the world.” 

This was a firm commitment that was made by the Congress of the United States. We said, 

“We are going to provide safe and dependable highways.” We have not done too well in 

this regard because of inflation and impoundment, and a few other things. We have not kept 

our commitment . . . . 
929 

And here is something that has not been touched on. This system is about 80 percent 

completed. A highway system that is 80 percent completed is about as effective as a chain 

with three or four missing links. It is practically useless.

Let us take, for example, the stretch of I-64 between St. Louis and Louisville. Sure, there 

are some great, big beautiful four-lane highways, beautiful bridges, and there are some well 

decorated landscapes, but it does not do you much good if it does not go anywhere, does not 

start anywhere, and does not end anywhere . . . . And until we finish these missing links, 

until we have an unbroken chain, it is not going to do us much good. 

Considering the amount of transit needs discussed in the recent hearings, the amount affected by the 

Anderson amendment “is really a drop in the bucket.” Mass transit had a problem, no doubt, “but 

we have at least an equally serious problem in moving the completion of our Interstate System and 

the rest of our ABC system.” He concluded: 

The fact that we are doing such an inadequate job does not, in my opinion, justify doing a 

worse job of saving lives on the highways by adopting this amendment. [Congressional 

Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13138] 

Representative Burke supported the amendment by her Los Angeles colleague. “We in Los 

Angeles know how desperately we must have a balanced, multi-modal transportation system to 

serve the complex needs of our people.” Los Angeles County alone had 7 million people, a 

population greater than 42 States, and nearly 5 million registered vehicles, more than 44 States. 

“We need to have assurance that Federal funds will be available to develop alternative means of 

public transportation.” The Anderson amendment “would be responsive to the area’s transportation 

needs.” 

The adverse consequences of the automobile were well known. “Accordingly, it is short-sighted to 

rely on one mode of transportation and the Anderson amendment provides our local officials with 

greater flexibility by which to meet the communities’ transit needs.” [Congressional RecordHouse, April 18, 1973, p. 13139] 

Representative Spark M. Matsunaga (D-Hi.) said: 

Mr. Chairman, today, April 18, will go down in congressional history as a day of confusion. 

A distinguished British parliamentarian who served in the British Parliament for 40 years, 

and who became known as Back Bench Hamilton, after 40 years of service in the Parliament 

made this observation: If you cannot refuse, confuse. 

It seems that the opponents of the Anderson amendment have taken a lesson from Back 

Bench Hamilton, for, judging by the arguments they have made, there is more of an attempt 

to confuse the issue than to elucidate. 
930 

He emphasized, as had other supporters of the Anderson amendment, what it would not do, then 

said:

What the Anderson amendment would do, Mr. Chairman, is to permit the State and local 

officials, who bear the immediate responsibility for coordinating an areawide transportation 

system, to make a choice of diverting some urban highway funds to other, higher priority 

transportation uses. 

Representative Matsunaga said that he had introduced amendments in previous years to give Hawaii 

the same flexibility the Anderson amendment would give the Nation: 

Mr. Chairman, the Anderson amendment if adopted will help Hawaii; it is my firm 

conviction that it will also help America, in a most meaningful way.

State and local officials in Hawaii and every other urban area of the country are now 

required to develop comprehensive transportation plans related to local needs. It is time that 

they were given the flexibility they need to pursue the goals set forth in those 

comprehensive plans in a realistic way. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 

13139] 

Representative John Anderson said of the Members who opposed the amendment offered by his 

colleague from California, “I commend each of them on their presentation even though I think they 

were wrong.” He would explain their two key errors.

First, the estimate of $300 billion in essential highway needs through 1990 was overstated: 

The fact is that the same report points out the estimate of the economically justified highway 

investments is roughly $100 billion, of which the Federal share equals $70 billion, and this 

is the figure that ought to be compared with the $135 billion in the projected trust fund and 

not the $300 billion. 

He also disputed arguments about the surplus in the Highway Trust Fund: 

Now it is true that there are $7.7 billion in outstanding obligations. The fact of the matter is 

that most of the $7.7 billion in outstanding obligations will be paid over the period of 2 

years. During the same 2-year period $12 billion will flow into that fund, so that money 

plus the $5.4 billion currently on hand will be more than enough to meet the current 

obligations of the fund. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13140] 

Representative John F. Seiberling (D-Oh.) also supported the Anderson amendment. His family’s 

fortune came from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, which the Representative’s 

grandfather, Frank Seiberling, had founded in Akron. The company had been among the clients 

Representative Seiberling had represented during his years as an attorney. He began: 
931 

Mr. Chairman, it would be heresy for a person from Akron, Ohio, to proclaim that he did 

not support Federal aid highway legislation, and I am not about to commit any such heresy. 

I have supported it and will continue to support it. But that is not enough. There is 

probably not one single official of one single tire company who would publicly admit that 

he is in favor of the Anderson amendment. Yet if you talked with them privately, many 

would concede that we cannot go on as we are going, trying to build ever more highways to 

solve our transportation problems. The reason is simple; we have discovered that we can 

build automobiles faster than we can possibly build highways. 

From Akron to the New York City to Washington, people were beginning to understand this fact. 

“Yet today mass transit is on the verge of disintegration in Akron, Washington and many other 

cities.” Without adequate funds for mass transit, cities would never be able to solve their traffic 

problems: 

One of the reasons we have such horrendous traffic problems in our urban centers is that the 

Interstate Highway System funnels tremendous numbers of automobiles in and out of the 

city, yet it is impossible to make enough space in city streets to take care of them, unless we 

simply tear down huge areas of the inner city and turn them into streets. 

So if we are going to have a successful use of our highway system and our streets and our 

system of automobile transportation, then we are going to have to provide some way to end 

this congestion, and the way is to provide mass transit. It is not at all illogical to take the 

money out of the highway trust fund because the highway trust fund is one of the reasons we 

have the problem in the first place. I submit that those who wish the automobile to be the 

convenient and useful thing that it has been and can be are going to have to make some of 

that money available for mass transportation in those cities that need it.

He cited the growing energy crisis. It meant that “we can no longer afford to be almost totally 

dependent on the automobile.” 

Representative Wright interrupted to ask Representative Seiberling if he was aware that S. 502 

included $3 billion in new contract authority for the UMTA mass transit program. Representative 

Seiberling said he was not only aware of it but had intended to commend the Committee on Public 

Works for its proposal: 

However, to provide, as the bill does without the Anderson amendment, that all money for 

mass transit must come out of the general revenue, is to postponing [sic] a decision which 

we should take now. Let us “bite the bullet,” and tell the country, in the most tangible 

possible way—by cash on the line—that we are going to reduce our Nation’s overdependence on the automobile. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13140] 

Representative Abzug wanted “to clarify some misstatements which have been made with respect 

to the impact of this amendment.” First, she said that the Anderson amendment was not limited to 

urban areas with a population of 400,000 or more: 
932 

The Anderson amendmend addresses itself to what are known as “urban system” funds. 

Urban system funds are spent in areas of 50,000 population or more. Also, in States where 

there is no urbanized areas of 50,000 or more, the largest urban area would be eligible for 

these funds. 

Therefore, we are actually speaking of flexibility for localities which are very large in 

number across this country and whose total population is 120 million people.” 

Another misstatement was that “we do not need the Anderson amendment because the committee 

bill has a very interesting proposal by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Wright) which says we can 

get our $700 million out of general funds.” She pointed out that, “We have had a great deal of 

difficulty getting any appropriations here in the Congress,” but she stated that to get the $700 

million out of general funds, “an equivalent $700 million in the Highway Trust Fund will be selfimpounded by us.” She explained her idea: 

We will not be able to use that $700 million. It will be effectively impounded. We cannot 

use those moneys. We cannot use them for anything—not for schools, not for housing, not 

for any of our needs. And, because of this double-funding feature, we might get a tax 

increase to boot. 

By her calculation, “we are putting up $1.4 billion in order to get $700 million.” That was fiscally 

irresponsible. In contrast, supporters of the Anderson amendment were merely recognizing “the 

reality that $700 million which is already committed to the urban system areas” should merely be 

left to them to determine how it should be spent. 

The fact that much more than $700 million was needed was not “an argument against our using the 

$700 million already available to us in the best way possible.” With more and more of the 

population living or working in urban areas, “the use of the private automobile as a basic form of 

transportation in our urban areas has become increasingly inefficient and damaging to our 

environment.” Representative Abzug said that the “the future of transportation in our urban areas 

must be in the form of such modes as bus and rail transportation.” She added, “We simply do not 

have room for all the cars.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13140-13141] 

Representative Murphy, the skeptical Rules Committee member from Chicago, recalled that 

congestion “used to be a rare occurrence, a weekly annoyance.” Now, of course, it was a daily 

experience:

Highway officials suggest that we build more highways and widen existing ones. But is this 

truly an acceptable or adequate solution? What happens when additional highways are built 

and widened and problems of congestion and pollution continue to plague us? Should we 

not seek alternative solutions now while time remains for experimentation and research. 

Should we wait until the maze of freeways permanently destroys the physical appearance of 

our urban areas. 
933 

The Anderson amendment, he said, was “a direct, flexible, foolproof method of legislating for the 

needs of all people.” By contrast, S. 502 contained “an inherent flaw,” namely that “locales would 

be hesitant to return highway trust funds because there is no guarantee that an identical amount of 

general funds would be available for mass transit.” Representative Murphy concluded: 

I do not profess to know all the answers to our urban transportation crisis but I do know the 

first step toward a sane solution—the Anderson amendment. 

He yielded to a question from Representative Shuster: 

Mr. Shuster. Mr. Chairman, what that means is that if a dollar out of the urban system is 

spent for mass transit, that is one less dollar that can be spent in the urban system for 

highways; is that not a fact?

Mr. Murphy of Illinois. What I was saying is this— 

Mr. Shuster. May I ask the gentleman, is that not a fact?

Mr. Murphy of Illinois. Mr. Chairman, it is contributing to the people in the major cities in 

any event, the citys like New York or Chicago. That is our money, too. There is nothing 

involate about the trust fund. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13141] 

Representative Shuster, yielded additional time, asked where Representative John Anderson got his 

statement that essential needs amounted to only $100 billion through 1990. Representative 

Anderson said the information came from a letter dated April 18 from Secretary Brinegar, who 

stated that “the cost of justifiable highway investments is well below $300 billion. The estimate of 

economically justified highway investments in the Report is roughly $100 billion, of which the 

Federal share equals $70 billion.” 

That letter objected to the provision of S. 502 calling for the use of general Treasury funds for mass 

transit rather than revenue from the Highway Trust Fund. Secretary Brinegar objected for three 

reasons. “First, the bill offers the possibility of short term flexibility at the price of maintaining the 

long term rigidity of the program.” Highway funds would remain available only on a “use it or lose 

it” basis. “This rigid, stifling approach to the use of Highway Trust Funds is clearly not consistent 

with the needs of modern America.” 

Second, the bill was “grossly inequitable to urban areas,” which provided about half of the revenue 

in the Highway Trust Fund. S. 502 asked urban residents “to pay twice if they choose mass transit 

in preference to highways; once through the substituted general funds provided by the bill, and a 

second time in highway taxes that they cannot use in the fashion they believe will best solve their 

local transportation problems.” 

Third, S. 502 established “a complicated procedure for funding mass transit, as opposed to the clean 

and simple approach of the proposed Anderson amendment.” This complicated procedure was 

“particularly troubling and inconsistent” with the provision of S. 502 declaring that “drastic 

minimization of paperwork” to prevent unnecessary delays should be a national policy. 
934 

Secretary Brinegar also addressed Representative Harsha’s claim, based on the Treasury 

Department’s most recent report on the status of the Highway Trust Fund, that it would have a 

balance of $5.4 billion at the end of FY 1973 with $7.7 billion in outstanding obligations. “The 

numbers are right, but the conclusion is wrong.” The Secretary suggested that a mortgage was an 

appropriate analogy, since the homeowner does not have to have all the money on hand to pay the 

entire mortgage, but needs only the amount due each month. The homeowner can use any 

remaining funds available that month for other needs: 

Similarly, the Trust Fund has both income and outlays. Cash is only required when bills 

come due, not when obligations are incurred. Most of the $7.7 billion in outstanding 

obligations will be paid over the next two years. During this period, there will be almost 

$12 billion in additional receipts to the Trust Fund. That money plus the $5.4 billion 

currently on hand will be more than enough to cover current obligations, as well as any 

additional outlays required. 

Secretary Brinegar concluded that the arguments offered by Representative Harsha did not justify 

rejection of the Anderson amendment. “Our urban areas’ desperate needs, on the other hand, 

require the meaningful long term flexibility which the amendment offers, and which the Committee 

bill does not.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13144-13145] 

Representative Shuster responded to Representative Anderson that the cited information “is 

nowhere in this comprehensive report, and if the gentleman can show this House where it is is, I 

will be happy to eat this book.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13142] 

The record of the debate did not show a response. 

Representative Koch said he knew some Representatives understood the need for the Anderson 

amendment, but were concerned their constituents would think the amendment would take money 

away from their rural districts:

May I urge these Members to vote for the amendment and educate their constituents on what 

it really means. We in the urban areas have stood with people in rural areas time and time 

again. It time for you to stand with us. 

The inadequacies of the Nation’s mass transit systems “are adversely affecting auto drivers—as 

well as transit riders.” Increasing transit use would benefit motorists by making trips “both faster 

and safer.” He added:

If more people do not willingly switch to mass transit in coming years, the city may find 

itself forced to restrict auto traffic in the central city if it is to meet the Federal air quality 

standards. It would be better for everyone if mass transit were improved and those who by 

choice could use public transportation did so, leaving the roads to those who need to drive 

their private cars.
935 

For too long, urban areas had been forced to choose highways even if mass transit would have 

better met their needs. The time had come to give those urban areas the flexibility to make their 

best choice. “If the cities want highways, as those who oppose the amendment would have us 

believe, then highways will be built.” In that case, he asked, “What then is to be feared in providing 

this option?” 

He rejected the highway lobby’s argument about “trust,” saying: 

I would submit that there is nothing more sacred about collecting taxes on gasoline than on 

cigarettes or liquor, the proceeds from which go into the General Treasury . . . . There is no 

transgression committed in the Congress broadening the list of eligible expenditures to 

better accommodate today’s transportation needs. 

He concluded: 

We are at a significant crossroads in the history of our Nation’s transportation program, and 

I urge the House to respond affirmatively in passing the Anderson amendment. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13142] 

Representative Wylie also supported the amendment. As a member of the Urban Mass 

Transportation Subcommittee, he said, “I am now persuaded that the problem of urban mass transit 

is much more serious than whether we construct additional Interstate highways.” With 80 percent 

of the Interstate System open at a cost thus far of $49 billion, he said, “The more serious problem 

now facing the Nation in this regard is providing funds for urban mass transportation systems.” He 

pointed out that his constituents agreed. He had sent 160,000 questionnaires to his constituents that 

included a question on diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue to mass transit: 

To date, we have received somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 responses. 

Approximately 70 percent of those responding have answered “yes” to this question. This is 

the most persuasive argument I have heard. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, 

p. 13142] 

Representative Lionel Van Deerlin (D-Ca.), a journalist before and after his years representing a 

San Diego district in the House (1963 to 1981), said he was in complete support with the Anderson 

amendment. He said that only the closed rule on this issue adopted by the House Rules Committee 

in 1972 had prompted him to vote against the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, “even though I 

recognize its provisions are urgently needed.” 

He acknowledged the arguments on both sides, but thought that critics of the Anderson amendment 

were overlooking the fact that “at most only a small proportion of trust moneys would be siphoned 

off for bus and rail transit—a maximum of $700 million a year against a total annual authorization 

of $5.5 billion.” This would leave “plenty of money” for highway development, “even in the highly 

unlikely event that local governments chose to use all the urban system funds available to them for 

nonhighway purposes.” 
936 

Since no one could guarantee that general Treasury funds would be made available to substitute for 

Highway Trust Fund revenues, he said it was “fair to use the gasoline tax to pay for transit since the 

proliferation of automobiles is after all the primary reason we have such a crying need for 

alternative modes of transportation today.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 

13142-13143] 

Representative Myers, whose quorum call had killed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, said he 

was not opposed to a balanced system of transportation: 

But to use the analogy we are only talking about home rule that has been used now . . . I 

wonder if the sponsor of the amendment and Mr. Van Deerlin would appreciate it if when 

they drive from here to California they would go through Indiana and if the Government 

should decide that we will spend all the money on railroads, if they would appreciate it if 

they would have to park their car across the State line and go across Indiana in a railroad 

car. I do not think they would really appreciate it. 

Supporters of balanced transportation would not want “to have to leave their car in the suburbs and 

ride through city on a questionable means of transportation.” [Congressional Record-House, April 

18, 1973, p. 13143] 

Representative Ginn(D-Ga.) said the Anderson amendment “suffers from one fatal fallacy.” The 

fallacy was that it “seems to be founded upon the assumption that there is an unlimited supply of 

money in the highway trust fund.” He said that unfortunately, this was “just not so.” Under S. 502, 

urban system funds not used for highway needs would be returned to the Highway Trust Fund for 

use elsewhere while under the Anderson amendment, the money used for mass transit would be lost 

to the Highway Trust Fund for other highway uses: 

So the Anderson amendment in effect would only apply to a handful of cities—and it would 

not give them anything they cannot get otherwise out of the committee bill—and it would 

penalize all the other cities and small towns through the country.

In my opinion, to divert funds from the highway trust fund would be like putting a screen 

door in a submarine. It does not make sense. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 

1973, p. 13143] 

Representative Coughlin, whose base was in Philadelphia, supported the Anderson amendment: 

To those of us who know them, rush-hour traffic jams are no joke. The wasted man-hours, 

to say nothing of the aggravation, are no joke. Yet we insist on providing funds—and the 

committee bill does this—that can be used only to build more highways in urban areas that 

are already strangling with traffic. This is ridiculous.

The Anderson amendment was an opportunity to fight pollution and save energy. We should do 

more than just talk about these problems, he said, “we should put our money where our mouths 

are.” He asked his colleagues to “permit those of us from urban communities to decide for 
937 

ourselves how our transportation dollars—our tax dollars—should be spent.” [Congressional 

Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13143] 

Representative William Jackson “Jack” Edwards (R-Al.), whose district was based in Mobile, also 

supported the Anderson amendment “for many reasons.” One of the most important was “the 

potential effect which this amendment will have on the energy crisis now bearing down on us.” He 

explained:

We have seen that our energy needs, our national defense, our balance of trade and 

payments, the strength of the dollar, and the health of our national economy all lean on each 

other. If one is weakened, so are the others. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, if it 

contains the Anderson amendment, provides us with a good opportunity to deal with the 

energy problem in the area of transportation, which accounts for nearly half of the U.S. 

petroleum consumption. 

Exclusive emphasis on highway building could severely aggravate an already teetering 

energy balance. The question has to be asked: What good are more and more highways if 

we do not have the fuel needed to travel on them? 

Highways, he said, “are the threads which hold together the economic and social fabrics of our 

Nation.” They are “the concrete conveyor belts for goods, services, people, and ideas.” The 

threads, however, “are fraying in some areas and the time has come to give serious consideration to 

what continued emphasis on highway construction may do to America, if other means of surface 

transportation are not factored into the transportation equation.” 

The convenience of the car was “more illusion than fact” in many cities. “The root problem is that 

our demand for personal mobility has run headlong into the national commandments for pollution 

control and energy conservation.” The alternative to allowing mixed use of the Highway Trust 

Fund today “may be inflexible constraints on the free and unfettered use of the private car 

tomorrow.” 

Representative Edwards emphasized that the Anderson amendment would not affect Interstate 

funding. He said he had received a letter from Secretary Brinegar a week ago making this point 

clear:

In response to the inquiry from your office, I can assure you that the proposed Anderson 

Amendment would not impede the Interstate and rural highway programs. We would not 

support the amendment if it did, for we are unequivocally dedicated to completing the 

Interstate program and to continuing improvement of the rural highway system. 

The amendment applies only to the urban portions of our highway programs, and gives to 

local urban officials, at their option, some flexibility. It absolutely does not affect the level 

of authorizations, nor does it affect the formulas by which funds are distributed. 
938 

I am aware of your great concern for I-65 and I-10, in addition to the rural highway system, 

and can assure you that the “urban” amendment would in no way operate to delay or impair 

these highways.

With that point clear, Representative Edwards said, the real question was whether to accept the 

Wright or Anderson approach. The “compelling difference” was that Representative Wright 

substituted general Treasury revenue for Highway Trust Fund revenue if urban officials decided to 

use Federal-aid urban system funds for rail transit systems:

This is a burden the taxpayer of the country ought not to have to bear. The Anderson 

amendment makes the same amount of money available to the cities without using general 

fund money and without causing the cities to lose one dime of Federal money to which they 

would otherwise be entitled. 

He concluded by pointing out that “the goal of transportation is to move people and goods in the 

most efficient, economical way.” Highways can achieve that goal in many areas of the country, but 

in others, “the noose of traffic congestion, pollution, and energy waste is tightening, and the 

development of mass transit would appear to be the answer.” [Congressional Record-House, April 

18, 1973, p. 13143-13144] 

 

Representative Marvin D. Mathis (D-Ga.), the news director of WALB-TV in Albany, Georgia, 

before entering Congress in 1971, said he agreed with Representatives Wright and Ginn about the 

need for highway construction: 

The principal city in the district I represent has more than 80,000 people, and yet there is no 

four lane highway access to the city of Albany.

Georgia had many other highway needs in its rural areas, but Representative Mathis emphasized 

that he was speaking for cities:

The cities I represent are not as large, or course, as New York, Chicago, Boston, or many 

other major cities in this Nation. But, Mr. Chairman, my cities have transit problems just 

the same as the big cities, and their problems are not going to be solved by destroying the 

Highway Trust Fund. 

He sincerely hoped the Members of the House would listen to the debate on both sides of the 

question, although many of his colleagues were not on the House floor. “I feel this amendment 

deserves the attention of all of us.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13144] 

Representative John Anderson, referring to the April 18 letter he had received from Secretary 

Brinegar, said, “I do not accuse the members of the Committee on Public Works of bad faith” in 

drafting the mass transit provisions of S. 502. The Secretary had referred to the “complicated 

procedure” in the bill for funding mass transit; he favored “the clean and simple approach of the 

proposed Anderson amendment.” Representative Anderson said: 
939 

They want the Anderson amendment adopted so that they can administer this program 

consistent with section 109 of the very same bill that says that highways and mass transit 

programs, in order to prevent unnecessary delays, shall be carried out with a minimum of 

paper work. The provisions of the committee bill simply do not meet the test of their own 

section 109 of the bill. 

He introduced the Secretary’s April 18 letter into the record. 

The House, Representative Anderson said, “ought to listen to the people in the Department of 

Transportation who administer the highway program when they plead with this House to adopt the 

Anderson amendment.” [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13144] 

Nearing the end of the day’s debate, Representative Bizz Johnson of California said he opposed the 

Anderson amendment: 

I just want to say to the Members present tonight that we went over this very carefully with 

our State highway engineers, the State highway and public works department, the State 

highway commission, and also the Governor of our State, and they are in opposition to the 

Anderson amendment, and they so testified. 

The State’s experience and its “very fine highway program” proved “that they know what they are 

doing, and what the provisions of the committee bill allow them to do in solving our mass transit 

and highway problem in the State of California. [Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 

13145] 

Representatives Harsha and Wright brought the debate to an end for the day. Representative 

Harsha wanted to respond to Representative John Anderson’s comment that the House should listen 

to those who must administer the program in the Department of Transportation. He said he was not 

surprised that Department officials say “the Wright amendment is cumbersome and difficult to deal 

with.” He explained:

They have been trying to destroy this program for years, and they have tried, as a matter of 

fact, to terminate the Federal aid to highway program. They sent legislation up here on the 

Hill and had it introduced in behalf of the administration, which would terminate the 

Federal aid program as of January 1, 1972. They want to do completely away with it. So 

why would they not put up every argument that they could, and that is what they have done, 

of course. 

Representative Wright said he had only one question: 

Do you remember revenue sharing? You thought it was going to be a good thing. You 

thought revenue-sharing assistance was going to be “in addition to” rather than “in lieu of” 

everything else. Do you want this same sucker bait a second time? There is not enough 

money in the highway trust fund to fund both programs. We will not be able to do it. And 

the administration will use this money as it chooses to attend to your problems. 
940 

Think. Think for yourselves before you bite that Department of Transportation sucker bait a 

second time. 

With that, Representative Wright’s time expired and the Committee of the Whole under Chairman 

Udall came to an end. Speaker Albert resumed the chair of the Whole House and “reported that the 

Committee [of the Whole] had under consideration the bill (S. 502) . . . [and] had come to no 

resolution thereon.” With agreement that Members would have 5 days to revise and extend their 

remarks, the debate ended. The key vote was set for the next day. [Congressional Record-House, 

April 18, 1973, p. 13145] 

The Showdown

On April 19, readers of The Washington Post learned about the heavy lobbying underway on both 

sides of the issues. The Post focused on Representatives from the Washington area, such as two 

freshmen, Representatives Holt of Maryland and Parris of Virginia. They were, the article said, “as 

freshmen hardly movers or shakers in the U.S. Congress.” What they had in common is that they 

were “among a dwindling group of congressmen undecided” on the Anderson amendment. 

“There has been much coming and going in the offices of lobbyists on both sides of the issue.” 

They were among a small group of freshmen Representatives who had joined Secretary Brinegar for 

breakfast a few days earlier to hear why the Nixon Administration favored the amendment. In 

addition, “Staffers in the Transportation Department say Mrs. Holt’s requests for information on the 

issue are being handled with great and solicitous care.” The two also had been visited by 

contractors and road builders while receiving special attention from the Highway Action Coalition. 

 

More senior Representatives, such as Maryland Representatives Lawrence J. Hogan and Gilbert 

Gude, both Republicans from the Maryland suburbs near Washington, reported “getting less 

attention from lobbyists on the issue.” Representative Hogan of suburban Prince George’s County, 

was “an ardent opponent of opening the trust fund.” He had received a few calls from mass transit 

advocates trying to change his mind, but none from highway supporters who knew they could count 

on his vote. He said, “Everytime I drive down a pothole in Prince George’s County, and we got a 

million of them, I say we ought to keep the Highway Trust Fund.” 

Representative Gude, whose district was in suburban Montgomery County, was “equally ardent 

about opening the trust fund up.” He had received few letters on the subject: 

Gude is one of a bipartisan strategy group of about 40 congressmen pushing for opening up 

the trust fund. As for proponents of keeping the trust fund closed, Gude said, “They 

probably don’t write me because they’ve written me off.” 

Virginia’s Republican Representative Broyhill, who represented the suburbs of Arlington, opposed 

the Anderson amendment. He said: 

The idea of saying you have to raid a highway trust fund for another purpose is 

dishonorable. I have been for mass transit before the environmentalists ever discovered that 
941 

there was an environment. I’ll provide the funds for mass transit without going to an 

improper source.” 

Representatives Holt and Parris saw the issue in less absolute terms. Representative Holt said, 

“This is one I’m really reserving my opinion on.” She added, “I believe we ought to have a 

balanced transportation system. It seems to me that buses are the answer. And if you have buses 

they have to have something to run on.” 

Representative Parris acknowledged, “That’s a real tough one,” adding, “To be frank with you I’m 

still vacillating.” He did not have any qualms about tapping the Highway Trust Fund for rail 

transit:

What Parris said he is concerned about is whether Fairfax, Prince William and Alexandria, 

the jurisdictions he represents, would ever get to use the money for mass transit even if the 

fund were opened. 

His support of the move to open up the fund, he said, depends on whether provisions can be 

written into the bill mandating that the local jurisdictions get the money directly and the 

Virginia Highway Department be bypassed. Given a choice Parris said, the state highway 

department would probably use the money to continue to build highways and would 

probably continue to favor rural areas over Northern Virginia. [Denton, Herbert H., “Rival 

Lobbies Woo Area Congressmen,” The Washington Post, April 19, 1973] 

Readers that morning of April 19 also could read about President Nixon’s special message to 

Congress on energy policy. In remarks on transmitting the message to Congress, he said, 

“America’s energy demands have grown so rapidly that they now outstrip our energy supplies. As a 

result, we face the possibility of temporary fuel shortages and some increases in fuel prices in 

America.”

By the time President Nixon arrived in the White House on January 20, 1969, the Nation was in a 

widely recognized energy crisis. Historian Daniel Yergin described the situation: 

The number-one concern was the rapid increase in oil imports. The Mandatory Oil Import 

Program, reluctantly established by President Eisenhower a decade earlier, was laboring 

under mounting strain, creating controversies and gross disparities among companies and 

regions. Its loopholes and exceptions were very lucrative to those who had figured out how 

to capitalize on them, and all too visible . . . . 

The American oil and gas industry was already in a deep trough; the number of drilling rigs 

had declined steadily since 1955, hitting its lowest levels in 1970-71—little more than a 

third the level of the mid-1950s. 

Independent oil companies wanted the quotas to remain in place, but politicians from oilconsuming States and oil users and consumers wanted the quotas lifted “so they could get cheaper 

supplies.” Nixon retained the quotas: 
942 

With supply problems becoming chronic in the early 1970s, the phrase “energy crisis” began 

to emerge as part of the American political vocabulary, and in limited circles, there was 

agreement that the United States faced a major problem. The central reason was the rapid 

growth in demand for all forms of energy. Price controls on oil, imposed by Nixon in 1971 

as part of his overall anti-inflation program, were discouraging domestic oil production 

while stimulating consumption. 

As the crisis rippled through the natural gas and electricity industry, demand continued to surge in 

early 1973. Yergin described the President’s special message on energy policy, April 18, 1973, as 

involving “a far-reaching” decision: 

He was abolishing the quota system. Domestic production, even with the protection of 

quotas, could no longer keep up with America’s voracious appetite. The Nixon 

Administration, responding to political pressure from Capitol Hill, immediately followed up 

on its abolition of quotas with the introduction of a “voluntary” allocation system, meant to 

assure supplies to independent refiners and marketers. Those two acts, coming one on top 

of the other, perfectly symbolized how circumstances had changed: Quotas were meant to 

manage and limit supplies in a world of surplus, while allocations were aimed at distributing 

whatever supplies were available in a world of shortage. [Yergin, Daniel, The Prize: The 

Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, A Touchstone Book, Simon and Schuster, 1993, p, 

589-590] 

President Nixon said that in response to this “serious challenge,” what was needed was “decisive 

and responsible action to increase our energy supplies, action which takes into account the needs of 

our economy, of our environment, and of our national security.” He was ending quantitative 

controls, establishing a National Energy Office, accelerating leasing of oil fields in the Outer 

Continental Shelf “and increasing our ability to prevent oil spills,” maintaining the coal industry, 

and urging passage of legislation to remove regulation of the domestic natural gas industry, permit 

the licensing of new deepwater ports and open the way for the Alaska oil pipeline, and begin the 

research on new forms of energy for long-range needs.

“Each of these steps,” he said “can help us meet our energy needs and meet those needs without 

sacrificing our environment or endangering our national security, so that we can continue to build a 

better life for all of our people in this country.” 

In the special message to Congress, he began:

At home and abroad, America is in a time of transition. Old problems are yielding to new 

initiatives, but in their place new problems are arising which once again challenge our 

ingenuity and require vigorous action. Nowhere is this more clearly true than in the field of 

energy.

As America has become more prosperous and more heavily industrialized, our demands for 

energy have soared. Today, with 6 percent of the world’s population, we consume almost a 

third of all the energy used in the world. Our energy demands have grown so rapidly that 
943 

they now outstrip our available supplies, and at our present rate of growth, our energy needs 

a dozen years from now will be nearly double what they were in 1970. 

After outlining the steps he was taking to improve energy supplies, he discussed the need to 

conserve energy:

The abundance of America’s natural resources has been one of our greatest advantages in 

the past. But if this abundance encourages us to take our resources for granted, then it may 

well be a detriment to our future. Common sense clearly dictates that as we expand the 

types and sources of energy available to us for the future, we must direct equal attention to 

conserving the energy available to us today, and we must explore means to limit future 

growth in energy demand. 

Individual citizens could help in their day-to-day activities “by turning out lights, tuning up 

automobiles, reducing the use of air conditioning and heating, and purchasing products which use 

energy efficiently.” 

Government at all levels “also had an important role to play, both by conserving energy directly, 

and by providing leadership in energy conservation efforts.” At the Federal level, he was 

establishing an Office of Energy Conservation in the Department of the Interior “to coordinate the 

energy conservation programs which are presently scattered through the Federal establishment.” He 

was directing the Department of Commerce to work with EPA and the Council on Environmental 

Quality “to develop a voluntary system of energy efficiency labels for major home appliances.” 

The General Services Administration would consider energy efficiency in procuring housing for 

government agencies, while the Federal Housing Administration would update its insulation 

standards. Meanwhile, EPA would soon release the results of its fuel efficiency testing of 

automobiles. 

He added:

There are other ways, too, in which government can exercise leadership in this field. I urge 

again, for example, that we allow local officials to use money from [the] Highway Trust 

Fund for mass transit purposes. Greater reliance on mass transit can do a great deal to help 

us conserve gasoline.

President Nixon concluded his message by saying, “Nations succeed only as they are able to 

respond to challenge, and to change when circumstances and opportunities require change.” Today, 

the need for action was urgent, and he hoped Congress would “act with dispatch” on his legislative 

proposals: 

But in the final analysis, the ultimate responsibility does not rest merely with the Congress 

or with this Administration. It rests with all of us—with government, with industry, and 

with the individual citizen.
944 

When we have been confronted with national challenges in the past, the American people 

have done their duty. I am confident we shall do so now. 

The front page article about the President’s message in The New York Times described it as being 

“devoid of major surprises.” [Cowan, Edward, “President Offers Policy to Avert an Energy Crisis,” 

The New York Times, April 19, 1973] 

Representative John Anderson had mentioned the President’s energy message during the debate on 

April 18. He had said: 

I take this very brief portion of time to reflect on the fact that this is the day when we have 

received from the pen of the President of the United States a very long-awaited energy 

message.

He recalled Representative Wright’s speech the day before stating that 98 percent of people traveled 

by car in the great cities and that the Nation included 113 automobiles serving a population of 210 

million:

I thought of that when I read the passage in the President’s energy message which is entitled 

“Conserving Energy”: 

We as a Nation must develop a national energy conservation ethic. 

The President, Representative Anderson pointed out, had called for approval to use Highway Trust 

Fund revenue for mass transit: 

We in the Middle West are faced with the very real prospect of gas shortages this summer. I 

saw in the Washington Post this morning an advertisement for one of the major oil 

companies in the Nation saying that yes, there is a very great likelihood of shortages of 

gasoline for periods of time during the summer of 1973. 

He supported, therefore, what Representative Glenn Anderson was trying to do “to open up to a 

limited extent the trust fund to the extent that we can begin a conservation of energy policy in this 

country as the President of the United States has recommended in his message today.” 

[Congressional Record-House, April 18, 1973, p. 13121] 

Representative Seiberling had also mentioned the President’s message during the debate, citing the 

same passage as Representative Anderson about developing a national energy conservation ethic: 

Last week the Science and Astronautics Committee’s Task Force on Energy published a 

report of its findings. I was most gratified to be a member of that task force. I hope all 

members will read it. If they do, I believe they will begin to get a clear picture of the 

elements of the energy crisis. It is real, it is here, it is going to get worse, and it is going to 

be years before it gets better.
945 

In simple terms, it means we can no longer afford to be almost totally dependent on the automobile. 

This is, in fact, the logical time to start moving in the other direction. If we authorize local 

communities to take the money from the highway fund for mass transit, we will not only be making 

funds available for an urgent need, we will also be sending a message to the Nation that the 

Congress itself is developing an energy conservation ethic. [Congressional Record-House, April 

18, 1973, p. 13140] 

(The Committee on Science and Astronautics formed the Task Force on Energy to conduct a 

thorough investigation of energy research and development (R. & D.) in the United States. The task 

force conducted its review in 1971 and 1972, with hearings in May 1972. Task Force Chairman 

Mike McCormack (D-Wa.) transmitted the report, Energy Research and Development, on January 

3, 1973: 

The Task Force has identified what it considers to be the four most important aspects of 

energy R. & D. policy. These are (1) the immediate need for a significant increase in energy 

R. & D.; (2) organizational reforms required in government to effectively deal with energy 

R. & D.; (3) the importance of environmental protection and energy conservation; and (4) 

technological opportunities that should have the highest R. & D. priority. 

(On the subject of “Conservation in Transportation,” the report said that transportation accounted 

for about 25 percent of total energy consumption, and as much as 40 percent “of all indirect energy 

costs are included, such as those associated with the manufacture of automobiles or the construction 

of highways.” Gasoline consumption accounted for 68 percent of energy used in transportation. 

(Iincreasing the efficiency of automobile engines was one way to conserve motor fuel. “Current air 

pollution requirements are working at cross purposes, and the difficulties are great for developing 

an engine that is both efficient and acceptably non-polluting.” Another option was to change the 

pattern of automobile use: 

It is now conventional wisdom to prescribe a changeover from automobiles to public mass 

transportation. Before this change can be made by other than compulsion, much more needs 

to be known about the qualities of mass transportation that would attract automobile users. 

Careful systems analysis approaches are needed in studying the entire transportation system, 

taking into account preferences of our citizens. 

(Adopting land use policies “that get people to live closer to their work” was another alternative for 

reducing energy requirements associated with transportation. Yet another approach was to reduce 

business travel “by improving communications technology enough for salesmen and other business 

travelers to communicate electronically rather than face-to-face.” 

(The transportation section of the report concluded: 

Increasing efficiency and conservation of energy in transportation is a goal that would result 

in saving large amounts of fuel and is worthy of greatly increased R. & D. expenditures. 

[Energy Research and Development, Report of the Task Force on Energy of the 
946 

Subcommittee on Science, Research, and Development of the Committee on Science and 

Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, 92nd Congress, 2nd Session, Serial EE. 

December 1972, p. v, 222]) 

On April 19, 1973, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole to continue debate on 

S. 502, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, with Representative Udall again serving as 

chairman. He summarized the agreement from the day before that debate on the Anderson 

amendment would be limited to 30 minutes, with each speaker on the subject limited to 5 minutes. 

He then called on Representative Glenn Anderson to discuss his amendment. He wanted to address 

the three main arguments the opponents had made. “First, opponents contend that it would result in 

a bankrupt trust fund.” Nothing, he said, “could be further from the truth.” The amendment would 

allow highway or transit use of the $700 million authorized for Federal-aid urban system funds. “If 

$700 million would bankrupt the trust, then your argument should be directed against the 

committee-approved bill—not my amendment.” 

The second argument used against the amendment was “that rural areas will suffer as a result of my 

amendment.” The fact is, he said, that the vote on this day would affect only urban areas, not rural 

areas:

Vote “aye” and your rural-primary and secondary highways will continue to be funded with 

$1.1 billion trust fund money per year. Vote “nay” and they will be continued also—it 

makes no difference to your area—it only affects the cities of 50,000 or more. 

Third, Representative Anderson addressed the argument that his amendment would break faith with 

highway users. He said: 

If building police barracks, paying salaries of traffic court officials, building businesses and 

homes of those displaced by highway construction and purchasing ferryboats does not break 

the faith—then, certainly, taking steps to alleviate highway congestion, to benefit those who 

truly need the highway, is not breaking the faith.

He urged the House to vote “yes” and allow State and local urban officials “to meet their local 

urban transportation needs by building highways—if that is what they want—by buying a bus—if 

that is what they want—by construction of a rail system—if that is what they want—or a 

combination of the three.” He had confidence in State and local officials to decide. [Congressional 

Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13224] 

Representative Silvio Conte of western Massachusetts said that as a member of the Transportation 

Appropriations Subcommittee, he had become convinced “that our urban transportation crisis 

cannot be solved just by building more roads.” The crisis could be solved “only through the proper 

combination of highway and mass transit capital investment.” The transportation systems in many 

urban areas were “on the verge of collapse” while urban mass transportation systems were 

“deteriorating.” As the number of automobiles increased by 5 million a year, “urban traffic 

congestion, and air pollution, and the Nation’s gasoline shortage grow worse.” He said: 
947 

The answer is a program that caters to local needs and that allows flexibility in achieving a 

balance between urban highways and mass transit facilities.

As for the Wright proposal contained in S. 502, it was “not a compromise; it is a travesty.” He 

explained:

The highway trust funds that are refused then go back to the trust fund to build another road, 

heaven knows where. 

Calling the proposal “backdoor spending,” he asked, “Where will all the money to support this 

compromise come from? What programs will we have to cut?” He continued: 

The time has come for a change. The trust fund must be given the flexibility to deal with 

the transportation needs of today and tomorrow. The “backdoor spending” of billions of 

dollars to save the sacred cow status of the highway trust fund is not the way to do it. 

He urged the House to “face up to its responsibility . . . and open up the highway trust fund for 

urban mass transportation facilities.” [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13224-

13225] 

Minority Leader Gerald Ford also requested time to address the Anderson amendment. Referring to 

the “very important step” Congress had taken in 1956 to ensure construction of the Interstate 

System, he pointed out that “we have not completed the highway program and there is no real 

surplus in the highway trust fund.” He cited a statement by President Eisenhower’s in 1956: 

A sound Federal highway program I believe can and should stand on its own feet with 

highway users providing the total dollars necessary for improvement and new construction. 

(President Eisenhower made this statement in the letter transmitting his highway proposal to 

Congress on February 22, 1955. Although Congress rejected the bond-based financing proposal, 

developed by General Lucius Clay and his committee, the President’s letter was the first step in the 

process that resulted in creation of the Highway Trust Fund in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1956. [Eisenhower, Dwight D., President’s Message, National Highway Program (Message from 

the President of the United States Relative to a National Highway Program), February 22, 1955, 

84th Congress, 1st Session, House Document No. 93, p. III-VI.]) 

Representative Ford also quoted Secretary Volpe’s statement in 1969 that “the integrity of the 

Highway Trust Fund must be preserved without question” in view of the intent of Congress and 

President Eisenhower in approving the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. 

The Anderson amendment, Representitive Ford said, sought to “violate the trust fund concept 

because rolling stock and operating equipment under no stretch of the imagination can be construed 

to be highways.” He said: 
948 

Let me make this observation: I challenge any one of the Members to go down to a gasoline 

station and stand there and ask the people who buy the gas and pay the tax as to whether 

they think they are going to pay that tax for rolling stock and operating equipment. They 

believe they are paying that tax for the construction of highways . . . . 

I said last year, and I repeat now, once the mass transit people get their nose under the tent 

with operating equipment, the next step is operating subsidies. Operating subsidies, we 

know from experience in our major metropolitan areas, are a bottomless pit.

As evidence, he cited a letter from officials in his hometown of Grand Rapids who “let the cat out 

of the bag” by saying: 

There would also be available to the metropolitan area about $125,000 yearly that would 

help take some of the burden off the local areas to provide sufficient funds to operate the 

transit system.

Representative Abzug asked Representative Ford to yield for a comment, but he declined because 

he did not have sufficient time. He concluded: 

Mr. Chairman, again let me say that once we break faith, once we let them get their nose 

under the tent, the diverters [will] go from operating equipment to operating funds and, 

believe me, that is a bottomless pit. We ought not to let this kind of diversion from the trust 

fund to take place. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13225] 

Chairman Udall recognized Representative John Anderson, who wanted to read a portion of a letter 

dated April 17 from Secretary Brinegar. In response to a point “just made,” Representative 

Anderson read: 

Does the Anderson/Grover amendment reduce the Federal commitment to complete the 

Interstate System?

Answer: The Anderson/Grover amendment in no way reduces the Federal commitment to 

complete the Interstate System. Funds authorized for the Interstate System cannot be used 

for any other purpose under the bill reported by the Committee. The Anderson/Grover 

amendment does nothing to change this. 

For opponents of the amendment, Representative Anderson said, the word “diversion” had become 

a code word “suggesting that those of us who proposed the Anderson amendment are 

recommending a breach of trust; that we are breaking faith with the taxpayers of this country.” He 

said the amendment was not a diversion, but simply a way of giving local officials the flexibility to 

decide if building urban highway systems or mass transit was the better option. 

He said “it is of enormous significance” that the vote on the Anderson amendment would take place 

on the day after President Nixon’s message to Congress on energy policy in which he reaffirmed his 

support of the Anderson amendment: 
949 

I am told that at the joint leadership briefing on that message yesterday morning, in response 

to a query he said: 

Yes, we must examine the role of the automobile in American society if we are 

really serious—if we are really serious—about developing a conservation-of-energy 

policy in this country. 

The passage of the Anderson amendment would indicate to the Nation that Congress is 

aware of the problem and that we are willing to act in a decisive manner.

He added that the Members of Congress “represent simply a gaggle of constituencies,” each with its 

own unique needs. To those who ask why they should support the amendment when they represent 

districts without rail transit, he said, “I would appeal to those of that persuasion that the problem of 

maintaining adequate mass transit in the cities of our land has a real and a very fundamental 

meaning for all of us, whether or not we live in an urbanized area.” 

He concluded: 

We are asking for an affirmative vote on this amendment so that we can begin to do now 

what the President suggested yesterday in the very opening paragraph of that energy 

message when he said, “Old problems are yielding to new initiatives.” The time has come 

now to seek a new initiative to solve the transportation problems of this country. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13225-13226] 

Representative Harsha was not convinced, saying “it strikes me as being very peculiar” that the 

cities with rail transit systems that are supposedly the panacea “for all of these ills” are the very 

cities “which have all of the traffic ills we hear about.” Boston, Chicago, New York City, and 

Philadelphia, all of which have rapid rail transit, “have the highest congestion and traffic tieups in 

the country.” Rail transit had not solved their problems, and “neither is the Abzug-Anderson 

amendment the solution to the problem.” 

He challenged Secretary Brinegar’s statement that only $100 billion in highway construction 

through 1990 could be economically justified: 

He is trying to assert economic justification contrary to law. He is prohibited by the very act 

that created the Department of Transportation from using economic justification. 

Furthermore, if he applies the same tests of economic justification for mass transit, he could 

not spend even $1. By no method that I know of can we economically justify the 

construction of mass transit systems.

(The Department of Transportation Act of 1966 stated in Section 4(b)(2) that nothing in the act 

could be construed to authorize, without appropriate action by Congress, the adoption, revision or 

implementation of (A) “any transportation policy, or (B) any investment standards or criteria.” 

When the 1966 Act was revised and recodified by Public Law 97-499 on January 12, 1983, 
950 

Congress added Section 305 (“Transportation investment standards and criteria”), which directed 

the Secretary to “develop standards and criteria to formulate and economically evaluate all 

proposals for investing amounts of the United States Government in transportation facilities and 

equipment.”) 

Representative Harsha pointed out that while testifying before the Subcommittee on Transportation, 

Secretary Brinegar had referred to the need for $300 billion, 93 percent of which represented 

improvements to existing highways, not new highways. Most of those highways had been built as 

long as 40 years ago, with 80 percent of the construction in 1930 or earlier, “so we are not talking 

about building new highways but we are talking about trying to make those we have safer and 

improve and resurface them.” He urged his colleagues to “not be deluded by the Anderson-Abzug 

amendment into thinking that we are going to start constructing new highways.” Instead, this 

amendment jeopardized “the preservation of the present system” and the safety of the traveling 

public. 

He also urged his colleagues to “not be deluded by the statement that we will not be taking anything 

away from the highway trust fund for rural highways.” He explained:

The fund has limited revenues. If we take anything away from that fund for any purpose 

other than highways, that reduces the availability of funds for highways . . . . We cannot get 

2 quarts of milk out of a 1-quart milk bottle. We cannot use the highway trust fund to cover 

both programs. 

He offered one final observation: 

The Department of Transportation’s needs report states that major shifts in funds from 

highways to mass transit would improve transit but would result in increased highway 

fatalities. Furthermore, such shifts would result in very little improvement in pollution 

levels. In fact, that report estimates that for the period 1968 to 1990, the diversion of large 

sums to rapid transit would result in higher carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon levels. 

Obviously, if there is little or no change in air pollution, there will be little or no saving of 

fuel or energy because it is the consumption of fuel that causes air pollution. 

I certainly do not want the responsibility on my head of increasing highway fatalities by 

diverting highway funds from safety related programs. 

Do you? 

He urged his colleagues to defeat “the Anderson-Abzug amendment.” [Congressional RecordHouse, April 19, 1973, p. 13226] 

Representative Boland, a Democrat who had first been elected to Congress in 1952 representing a 

district based in Springfield, Massachusetts, said he had supported the Interstate System when 

President Eisenhower recommended it. “I support it today,” he said, calling it “the most remarkable 
951 

network of highways anywhere in the world.” But the end of construction was nearing. “And it is 

time—it is past time—that this Nation turn its attention, to a balanced transportation system.” 

He recalled Representative Wright’s statistics about the growth of the automobile. “But, Mr. 

Chairman, automobiles are choking and strangling our cities—giving rise to problems of pollution, 

energy, mobility of people—18,000 to 19,000 of those killed by automobiles struck down on our 

city and town streets.” 

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1970, he said, had created the Federal-aid urban system in “a 

dramatic shift of emphasis.” Now, S. 502 increased funding for the system to $700 million. The 

“nub of the question” was whether to “remove the constraints, presently imposed upon funds which 

have been earmarked under the Federal-aid urban system.” It did not affect the Interstate System, 

reduce funding for rural highways, or prevent completion of urban highway systems, but “merely 

adds the option of mass transportation to those options which already exist for urban funds, and for 

urban funds only.” 

Representative Boland referred to Representative Kluczynski’s change of position as “an act of 

leadership and statesmanship,” and said that Representative Wylie had demonstrated those same 

characteristics in supporting the Anderson amendment, which he opposed in 1972. The 

amendment, he said, was “a simple appeal” for flexibility. “Surely, nothing could be more 

reasonable.” He continued: 

And beyond that, Mr. Chairman, it is an appeal—a plea for those who do not have cars—

those who are being strangled by cars. It is an appeal, for the poor, the disadvantaged, the 

elderly, the young—for those who must get to work—for those who seek opportunity—who 

desire an education.

He had received “considerable mail on both sides of this issue with the weight tilted against my 

position,” but a careful reading of the mail “convinced me that there is considerable confusion on 

what this amendment does.” He emphasized to his colleagues that the Anderson amendment 

affected only the Federal-aid urban system, not any other element of S. 502, and certainly not the 

Interstate System. He said of the flexibility offered by the amendment, “Let us leave it up to the 

urban areas to make that decision. Surely, they are entitled to this judgment.” [Congressional 

Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13226-13227] 

Representative Rostenkowski, the Chicago Democrat who served on the Ways and Means 

Committee, inserted extended remarks in the record at this point. He wanted to “associate myself” 

with the remarks of Representatives John Anderson and Boland in support of the Anderson 

amendment. He cited a survey by National Opinion Research Corporation, which found that 57 

percent of the American people “thought we should limit automobile traffic in downtown areas,” 

while 66 percent of those living in cities of a million or more “thought it a good idea.” The 

Governors’ Conference “overwhelmingly favored mass transit alternatives to highway building.” 

He cited Governor Sargent’s decision to ban highway construction in favor of improved public 

transportation in Boston. 
952 

“It is clear that changes have occurred in the Nation’s thinking about highways since the interstate 

highway system and the highway trust fund were conceived, almost 20 years ago.” At the time, 

“the gap between perceived highway needs and existing roads was clear,” but “the view from 1973 

is distinctly different.” The idea of a single-mode trust fund “whether for highways, airways or rail 

transit—is outmoded.” He added: 

Broadening of the highway trust fund is a necessary step from the point of view of overall 

national priorities, and a proper way to provide the substantially larger sums for urban mass 

transit which I believe to be in the best interest of the general public. [Congressional 

Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13227] 

Chairman Udall recognized Representative Wright, but Representative William Jennings Bryan 

Dorn, the Democrat from South Carolina, asked his Public Works Committee colleague to yield 

time. Representative Dorn said he opposed the Anderson amendment. The Highway Trust Fund, 

he said, “has served our Nation well,” allowing it “to build the greatest transportation system in the 

world.” It “must be retained in order to complete this great highway system by 1979,” as well as to 

improve the Federal-aid primary, secondary, and urban systems and reduce the tragic death toll on 

the Nation’s roads. He was concerned that, “If we scatter this fund in the wind, it will help no one 

area, but will injure the Nation as a whole.” 

Representative Dorn wanted to respond to Representative Glenn Anderson’s claim that his 

amendment would not affect allocation of Federal-aid funds to any State. On the contrary, the 

amendment “would have substantial effect on the distribution of Federal-aid funds to the States and 

even delay the date of final completion of the Interstate System.” At present, funding for the 

primary, secondary, and urban systems was carefully balanced among rural and urban needs, as 

reflected in the findings of the 1972 transportation study “which indicate equal highway needs in 

urban and rural areas.” 

If, under the Anderson amendment, urban system funds were used for mass transit, the “orderly 

balance between rural and urban highways would be lost.” To reattain the balance, future 

authorizations would be biased in favor of the urban system. The long-term result would be “to 

drain funds away from the Interstate System and the rural system, a situation I believe we should try 

to avoid.” [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13228] 

Representative Wright next yielded time to Representative James C. Corman (D-Ca.), whose

district was based in Los Angeles. He said: 

Mr. Chairman, there is a growing concern in this Nation about the lack of public 

transportation in metropolitan areas. Nowhere is the problem so acute as in los Angeles. 

Compared to any other metropolitan area in the Nation, commuter distances are greater and 

public transit is the least efficient. Dependence on the automobile pollutes our air, 

diminishes our overburdened energy supply, and imposes tremendous commuting costs to 

residents of Los Angeles. 
953 

Air pollution, traffic congestion and urban freeway blight must be significantly reduced with 

less reliance on highways and the automobile as the main means of commuter 

transportation. Los Angeles has a crying need for reliable public transit as soon as possible 

and I take no issue with this obvious and pressing public need. 

Despite this litany of problems, he opposed the Anderson amendment. 

An “unusual coalition” saw “the highway trust fund as the only immediate available source of 

funds.” He cited one member of the coalition: 

The President, never adverse to shifting the cost of Government to regressive taxes, sees 

breaking up the fund as a way to fund an expensive public facility without increasing the 

Federal deficit or reforming the Federal tax structure.

If the fund did indeed have a surplus, “we should repeal the expensive, regressive gasoline tax and 

thereby benefit those who pay this ‘special’ tax which strikes the middle and lower income 

taxpayers harder than any other group.” Representative Corman considered the gas tax “the most 

regressive tax collected by Government.” It was “both high and regressive,” but “its virtue is that it 

is a user’s tax.” Using highway tax revenue for mass transit “would be the reverse of a user’s tax” 

because highway users “would be more heavily taxed to absorb the cost of a mass transit plan that 

would be available to all.” 

The effort “to bust the highway trust fund” would further compound the inequity because “this 

source of funding to finance mass transit projects would single out a special group to absorb the 

costs.” He added:

It should be noted that how one pays for something in no way effects [sic] how much it 

costs. It a transit system in Los Angeles is to cost $3 billion to provide, that will be the cost 

whether it comes from gas taxes, the fare box, property or sales tax or general funds. 

Funding for mass transit “should not come from the fare box” since that would make the fare so 

high “that there would be few customers.” That was the case in San Francisco where general 

revenue paid for construction of BART but basing ticket prices on the fare box keeps them 

“relatively high” to cover anticipated operating costs. “If fares are higher than low-income 

segments of the population can reasonably afford, the working poor will obtain no relief.” He also 

rejected property taxes to pay for transit, as had the voters of Los Angeles in 1968 and 1970: 

As public transportation is a public responsibility it is imperative that the taxpayer think 

through the various alternatives, both as to the method of mechanically moving people and 

whose pocket the dollars are to come from.

We need an adequate public transit system in Los Angeles to reduce air pollution, conserve 

our energy supply and reduce commuters [sic] time and expenses. But it will cost billions. 

Those billions should be collected fairly and spent widely. Using gasoline taxes is not fair. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13228-13229] 
954 

Representative Wright wanted to “get one thing straight again.” The Anderson amendment had not 

been originated by Representative Anderson of California or Senator Muskie: 

The inventor of this approach is the Department of Transportation. For 2 long years DOT 

spokesmen have been trying to hard sell this Congress on the idea of taking one fund and 

pretending to make it serve two purposes. 

In pushing that approach they are applying against the Congress an age-old technique, 

divide and conquer. They are throwing one bone to two dogs and trying to make us fight for 

it. Now, my friends in the Congress, if we fall for that trap we deserve the moniker of the 

biggest suckers of the year.

Completion of the Interstate System did not mean the end of the Nation’s highway needs. While 

every town “depends directly upon highways for its lifeblood,” relatively few “can benefit by rail 

transit.” He warned:

Let me assure the Members that if they vote “aye” today on this amendment that will not be 

the end of it. It may be the beginning of the end for the highway program as we now know 

it in this country.

This diversion attempt is a plan that has been in the process of germination in the 

Department of Transportation for 2 years. The Department of Housing and Urban 

Development spokesmen are publicly clamoring to laddle out [sic] of the money from the 

highway trust fund for urban housing projects. 

Where will it end?

Every year, he said, the country adds 10 million vehicles to its total number. “Where are we going 

to put them all, in safety?” In fact, highways “are used more frequently by more Americans than 

any other service the society provides.” 

S. 502 had been more than fair to the cities. “Almost three-fourths of all the authorizations 

contained in this bill already go to the cities, and about two-thirds of those out of the trust fund go 

to the cities, although the cities only contribute about half of the funds.” The bill contains $3 

billion for UMTA’s mass transit programs, and allows the use of general Treasury revenue to 

substitute for urban system funds from the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit projects. “Since 

when,” he asked, ”is money out of the general revenues considered some kind of second-class 

money?” 

The “crux of it” was that S. 502 “does not violate the trust fund.” [Congressional Record-House, 

April 19, 1973, p. 13229] 

Representative Johnson of California also opposed the amendment. Like Representative Wright, he 

pointed out that more than half of Highway Trust Fund revenue authorized by S. 502 went to cities, 

while $3 billion in general Treasury revenue also went to the cities, which were getting “the lion’s 
955 

share” of all authorizations. “There are other parts of the United States, outside the big cities, that 

need help too. [sic]” Under the Anderson amendment, the entire country would have to “give up a 

portion of its trust fund moneys to give the big cities yet an extra slice out of the bill.” Despite all 

the funding from S. 502 that would go to cities, “still they are not satisfied.” He continued: 

What they really appear to want is not money for mass transit—which the committee bill 

gives them—but to bust the trust fund. I am perfectly willing to help them with their 

legitimate needs, but I am not prepared to take money out of the trust fund—which belongs 

to the country as a whole for highway purposes—simply to satisfy their apparently insatiable 

demands. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13229] 

Representative Robert McClory (R-Il.) from the Chicago suburbs supported the Anderson 

amendment. “I am convinced that my position is consistent with the best interests of the highway 

users—those who travel by automobile and who pay the taxes for such automobile use from which 

the highway fund has been established.” Allowing the use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for 

urban mass transit would relieve “the highways for the benefit of the motorists who must and will 

continue to use the highways for their transportation.” [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 

1973, p. 13229-13230] 

Representative Frenzel supported the amendment, too: 

It no longer makes any sense to force local officials to make transportation decisions based 

for the most part on what Washington is willing to fund or not fund. 

This inflexibility had played a significant role “in deflecting transportation planning at the local 

level away from mass transit development,” with enormous social and economic costs. The 

Anderson amendment was “the only realistic hope” for developing mass transit systems at this time. 

 Trying to get the funds from the general Treasury would “fly in the face of this administration’s 

determination to keep the lid on new spending programs not in the budget.” [Congressional 

Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13230] 

Representative Michael J. Harrington (D-Ma.), whose district was based in Salem north of Boston, 

said he had advocated eliminating the Highway Trust Fund “in favor of a general transportation 

fund to deal with highway construction, railway needs, urban transit, airport improvement, and 

maritime requirements in a comprehensive overall plan.” He recognized that such a transformation 

was “a political impossibility at this time,” but the Anderson amendment was “a positive step in the 

right direction.” S. 502 recognized “many of the demands on our transportation system,” but 

without the Anderson amendment, “it will not provide the flexibility that is so urgently required in 

the use of funds in our urban areas.” [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13230] 

Representative Milford, the freshman Democrat from Waco, opposed the amendment. He began: 

Mr. Chairman, today I have witnessed as many of my colleagues have sought, for seemingly 

noble and worthwhile reasons, to say to the American motorist: “I am sorry, but what I have 
956 

been telling you for years no longer applies”—or, in short, “My word is good until I change 

my mind.” 

Back home in my district, the 24th of Texas, our folks operate under what, at times in this 

body, seems to be an outmoded form of logic. If they give you their word, you can count on 

them keeping it from then on—without hesitation, without reservation, and without 

changing to accommodate themselves. 

That logic “seems pretty valid to me” and he did not intend to violate the “trust” concept behind the 

Highway Trust Fund: 

We are not free to simply say to the motorist of our Nation, “even though you paid this 

money into this trust fund for the specific purpose of building the world’s finest highway 

system, we have decided that we’re going to use it for something totally unrelated.” My 

dear colleagues, this is not our prerogative.

Such a change, he said, would be a “psychological precedent” that would be “not only unfair to our 

people—it is dangerous for our Nation.” [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13231] 

Representative Harold D. Donohue, a Democrat who since 1947 had represented a district based in 

Worcester, Massachusetts, urged expeditious approval of the Anderson amendment: 

Mr. Chairman, from every ordinary standard of good judgment and prudent financing, it 

impressively appears that the highway fund is large enough to permit this type of reasonable 

“sharing”: that there is an imperative current need throughout the country to resolve a 

veritable plague of traffic tieup frustrations; and that the wholesome benefits of mass transit 

improvement and pollution correction will fall equally on highway users as well as everyone 

else. In fact, we might as well ask who, these days, is not a highway user? 

The Anderson amendment was “a substantial and equitable solution” to the problems facing the 

Nation’s cities. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13231] 

Representative Frank J. Horton (R-NY) of Rochester also thought “it is time that we adapt to an era 

of changed transportation needs.” Opposition was strong “to the construction of new and wider 

swatchs of concrete through and around our cities, parks and suburbs.” With 60 percent of the total 

Federal transportation budget going to highways and only 4 percent to mass transit, the emphasis on 

highways continues despite all the evidence of the harm they do, especially in urban areas. 

He understood those who urged Congress to consider the “trust” involved in the payment of 

highway user taxes:

The fact is that these taxes should be used not only to improve highways but also to 

compensate for the social, economic, and environmental costs which are brought on by 

highways and their users. One way to serve the interests of the motorists is to ease traffic 

congestion by providing convenient alternative means of transit. 
957 

Given approval of the Anderson amendment by the Senate and the Nixon Administration, “the 

House remains the only roadblock to a modest effort to open up the trust fund.” He hoped that, “at 

long last, the public interest will prevail over the vested interest of the very vocal opposition.” 

[Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13231] 

Representative Jones of the Public Works Committee introduced for the record an article “on the 

need for maintaining the integrity” of the Highway Trust Fund from the April issue of the American 

Road Builder. The article, “Bust of Trust Fund Would Be a Double Failure,” explained that “an 

unlikely assortment of allies has banded together in yet another raid on public funds for 

advancement of rail transit.” If they are successful in raiding the Highway Trust Fund, the first 

failure would be reflected in the “higher death rates, lost time, and greater inconvenience and cost 

which will result from delays in completion of an adequate highway system for which he is paying.” 

 The second failure would be “the breach of trust”with the citizens “in the obligation to devote taxes

imposed on a specific group of users to purposes related to their enhancement.” 

Already, a citizen “may rightly feel his government has failed him” because of “the delays and 

stretchouts in the highway construction program by the past two Administrations.” The incomplete 

Interstate System and “the vast catalog of unfilled highway improvements are mute testimony to the 

fact that there is no surplus in the Highway Trust Fund.” 

The article sketched the historical trends that led to the Federal-aid highway program and, in 1956, 

the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and creation of the Highway Trust Fund: 

We can justify the user taxes only to the extent that the payer receives an adequate return for 

his special tax. If a trust fund is put to other purposes, the user tax which supplies it is either 

discriminatory or too high. 

Despite “the staggering backlog of road-related needs,” recent Administrations had “refused to 

commit the resources of the fund to their intended and required use.” Instead, highway users had 

“suffered through curtailments, impoundments, freezes, and deferments.” Diversion of highway 

user tax revenue “would be a failure of the government to fulfill an obligation to the vast motoring 

public which has participated in the fund with the promise of improved roadways. 

Mass transit needs, the article stated, were real. Ridership had decreased from 17 billion in 1950 to 

7 billion today. Municipal subsidies had increased 300 percent in the past decade. Even as urban 

population increased, “268 transit systems have ceased operations in twenty years.” The article 

stated that, “Those who urge a raid on the Highway Trust Fund for rail transit in an effort to realize 

fiscal goals or economy suffer perhaps the greatest illusions.” They ignored total construction and 

operating costs “in an effort to temporarily solve a vexing problem—serving a need while 

restraining new expenditures.” 

Motorists who come closer “to completely paying for his transportation” through user taxes and 

private investments would be “severely shortchanged” if the raiders of the Highway Trust Fund 

were successful: 
958 

The transit case should be presented on its own merits and funds should be made available 

from general revenues if the requirements are as urgent as the trust busters would like for 

you to believe. 

Because of the limitations of the trust fund, if the raiders have their way, the public is going 

to find it has neither adequate rail transit nor adequate roads. 

The lure of the rail will again prove to be more of a promise than a reality. [Congressional 

Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13231-13232] 

Representative William J. Randall (D-Mo.), from Jackson County, Missouri, opposed the Anderson 

amendment. “I am totally opposed to the invasion of the trust fund, first and foremost because it 

violates a trust or a commitment many many years ago.” He also opposed the amendment because 

of the “staggering” highway needs facing the country. However, “an additional and very interesting 

reason” why he opposed the Anderson amendment was the Nation’s railroad crisis. With thousands 

of miles of railroad trackage being abandoned, pressure on the highway network was going to 

increase, not decrease. “But if we let any of the money from the highway trust fund to be diverted 

there will be no way to bring these Federal-aid primary and secondary roads up to acceptable 

standards to handle the new loads that cannot now be handled by farm-to-market roads.” The result 

would be increased food prices, which was another reason to oppose diversion. 

He joined others in pointing out that the large cities with the most extensive mass transit systems 

“have the worst traffic pileups and traffic jams of all.” The fact that a moving vehicle emitted less 

carbons than a vehicle stuck in traffic “should be reason enough to continue to support the highway 

program and oppose diversion of funds to any type of transit system.” [Congressional RecordHouse, April 19, 1973, p. 13232-13233] 

Representative Donald M. Fraser, a Democrat representing Minneapolis, provided the final 

comment in the published record of the debate before the vote on the Anderson amendment. He 

quoted from the President’s message the day before on energy policy: “If present trends continue 

unchecked, we could face a genuine energy critis.” Representative Fraser said:

Some of us, I know, feel that the crisis is already upon us, but it is clear that the problem 

will only become more intense if we continue to rely as heavily as we do now on the 

automobile to move us from our homes to our jobs and back again. 

Even if energy were not a factor, this amendment “would be necessary solely on transportation 

grounds.” He said, “One historian recently discovered that traffic during peak periods in New York 

City actually moved faster in 1900 than it does today.” The Anderson amendment would give local 

urban officials “a tool to use land in a more rational way and to transport people in a safe, efficient 

and economic manner.” [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13233] 

With debate time expired, Chairman Udall called for a vote. The Anderson amendment was 

defeated with “ayes” totaling 190, “noes” of 215, and 28 not voting. The defeat by a 25 vote 
959 

margin demonstrated that the Highway Action Coalition’s lobbying efforts had not been successful 

even in reducing the predicted spread. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13233] 

(The Los Angeles Times had identified seven Representatives from California who were expected to 

vote against the Anderson amendment. Of them, two voted aye (Representatives Burgener and 

Pettis). As expected, Representative Clawson, Corman, Moorhead, Rousselot, and Veysey voted 

against the amendment. The eight-member Maryland delegation, cited by The Baltimore Sun, split 

evenly. Representatives Gude, Long, Mitchell, and Sarbanes supported the amendment while 

Representatives Byron, Hogan, Hold, and Mills voted against it.) 

Finishing the 1973 House Bill

With the critical vote completed, the House moved on to other amendments. 

Representative James. M. Hanley (D-NY), whose district was based in Syracuse, offered an 

amendment to repeal Section 138 (“Allocation of Urban System Funds”) of S. 502. Section 138 

“earmarked” Federal-aid urban system funds for incorporated municipalities having populations 

over 400,000 based on the municipality’s population as a percentage of the State’s overall 

population. “If the provisions of the bill prevail, we will have removed from State jurisdiction the 

ability to determine need, in allocating these funds.” New York would receive $77 million each 

year, but $55 million would be earmarked for New York City and Buffalo. Only 32 cities in the 

country had populations over 400,000, while all other cities “would enjoy what is left from the pie.” 

The National Association of Counties and the Governors’ Conference, he said, opposed the 

provision. 

Referring to the fight over the Anderson amendment, Representative Hanley said: 

We have heard a great deal today about the need to provide flexibility in the use of 

transportation funds . . . . I believe that section 138 of this bill militates against the principle 

of flexibility by earmarking exclusively for the largest cities in States their share of the 

urban systems pie. We tread on dangerous ground when we talk in terms of shares, as they 

relate to transportation needs . . . . Either we favor flexibie use of urban systems funds or 

we do not. 

Representative Wright expressed the Public Works Committee’s opposition to the Hanley 

amendment:

The purpose of the section, which was offered in the committee by the gentlewoman from 

New York (Ms. Abzug) was not to deprive other cities of their rightful shares, but simply to 

let those large cities of 400,000 and more—and there are 32 of them in the country—know 

in advance how much of that money on a percentage basis rightfully ought to be theirs, in 

order that they might make some advance, long-term plans. That is the whole purpose . . . . 

The idea behind establishing the figure at 400,000 was basically the thought that cities of 

that size probably need to have advance knowledge so that they can make long-term plans 
960 

for their public hearings and otherwise accommodate all the other provisions of the law, and 

thus not have separate and interminable delay in the completion of particularly knotty and 

cumbersome highway problems. 

Representative John Hall Buchanan, Jr. (R-Al.), from Birmingham, introduced a rival bill that 

instead of striking Section 138 would “improve it to include all urbanized areas of 400,000 or more 

and to provide a passthrough [sic] formula for such areas.” He pointed out that Secretary Brinegar 

supported the provision, as did the Senate in its bill. By changing the language from “incorporated 

municipalities” (i.e., the 32 cities with populations of 400,000 or more) to urbanized areas that 

include incorporated municipalities and their suburbs, Representative Buchanan’s amendment 

increased the number of cities that would receive the “earmarked” funds: 

I would call this a “fair play to cities” amendment or an equal rights amendment to that 

majority—majority, if you please, of Americans who live in such urbanized areas. 

It is one of the saddest but truest facts of life I know in this country that in this growingly 

urban Nation of ours many of the larger cities have been consistently discriminated against 

by their State governments in those areas where the State government has exclusive control 

over such Federal funds. 

This has been the case in my own city of Birmingham, consistently through a series of 

administrations. We got our interstate money last, and only after a sustained fight to receive 

it. It was uneconomic, unjust and unwise, but it happened. 

We do not get our fair share of urban systems money, although we are the largest city and 

our people are entitled to it as a matter of their rights as citizens of Alabama and of the 

United States.

Representative John H. Rousselot (R-Ca.) asked if the State highway agency would be bypassed by 

the amendment. Representative Buchanan replied:

The effect of my amendment would be to provide the same kind of passthrough [sic] 

formula, to provide their fair percentage to urbanized areas, as is true in revenue sharing and 

many other programs where we have found it wise to do so. The gentleman is correct. 

Representative Wright opposed the Buchanan amendment, which he said “would go a very 

dangerous step further” than the Hanley amendment. “This would utterly destroy the Federal-State 

partnership that has existed since the beginning of the highway program.” The Governors’ 

Conference opposed the amendment when the Public Works Committee considered it, as did 

AASHO:

We should stop and think before we destroy the very precious and very delicate FederalState relationship that exists within this program.
961 

Representative Harsha pointed out that because of the metropolitan planning requirements of the 

law, “no project would be built in any municipal area without the concurrence and cooperation of 

local officials . . . . There is no need for this amendment.” He admitted that he had not objected to 

Section 138 when Representative Abzug introduced it in committee “because I did not fully 

understand it, I am frank to admit.” Now that he understood it, he said: 

It deprives States of their rights under existing law to apportion funds on the basis of need 

and priorities. 

He urged adoption of the Hanley amendment. 

Representative Abzug spoke in support of Section 138: 

This will provide our major cities with stable sources of funding and will allow them to 

develop adequate, comprehensive plans for a balanced transportation program—without 

affecting the prerogatives of funding available to smaller communities. The committee has 

in the past been a staunch and reliable advocate of the interests of such smaller 

communities, and it has in no way let them down by adopting this provision. 

She pointed out that 35 million people lived in cities with populations of 400,000 or more. About 

$188 million of each year’s apportionment would go to thse cities, leaving $512 million for smaller 

cities and metropolitan areas:

In the 30 States which do not contain any cities of over 400,000 people, this provision will 

have no effect whatever on the amount or manner of distribution of urban system funds. In 

the remaining 20 States—plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico—the provision will 

only assure that the large cities receive their fair share of the funds, in much the same way 

that each State is guaranteed its fair proportion of funds. 

After additional debate, the House rejected the Buchanan amendment. The Hanley amendment

stripping S. 502 of the earmarking provision for Federal-aid urban system funds was adopted, again 

without a recorded vote. Representative Abzug demanded a recorded vote on the Hanley 

amendment but was refused. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13233-13240] 

Representative Milford offered an amendment to strip contract authority from the UMTA funds 

authorized by S. 502: 

This amendment simply channels the appropriation of general funds through the 

Appropriations Committee—instead of granting blank check contracting authority . . . . I 

think that there may be some misunderstanding on the part of some Members of the House 

as to what “contractual authority” really means. It means that if you pass this bill in its 

present form, you have committed the U.S. Treasury to spend $3 billion. There will be no 

annual review, no way to modify or change—even if we should encounter a national 

emergency a year later.
962 

Most important, this House will once again be a participant to back door spending. We will 

be committing a sizable sum of money without taking into consideration the overall 

spending needs of this Nation . . . . This is a contract drawn by the Federal Government 

which must be lived up to with the House having no real say in how much money can be 

spent under such a contract. 

Representative Harsha opposed the amendment, saying: 

The committee, in its wisdom, tried as best we could to provide the mass transit facilities 

needed in this country. We felt that the urban mass transit program should include contract 

authority, and if we can provide contract authority out of the trust funds for highways, we 

can, with equal logic, provide additional mass transit funds by contract authority. 

Representative Stanton of Ohio agreed with Representative Harsha: 

Mr. Chairman, we have just lost a battle to open up the trust fund. As one who voted in 

favor of opening up the trust fund, I accept that defeat. I think that it is the will of this 

House not to open up the trust fund, but I ask the Members in the name of fairness not to 

deny us the one chance we have of funding for mass transportation in the United States. If 

we are denied this contractual authority then you will deny us everything, because the fact of 

the matter is we who know the House, if we were thrown to the position of going through 

the normal appropriation process the cities will not be meeting their needs, and getting the 

guarantee that was offered by the leadership of the House Committee on Public Works. 

Representative Wright said “I emphatically agree with every word that has been spoken by the 

gentleman from Ohio.” He added:

It would break faith with our earlier expressions in debate today and upset the balance that 

we have created in order to serve mass transit. Mass transit does need help, and it needs it 

now, and the only way cities can get it in a timely fashion is by contractual authority.

Representative Robert N. Giaimo of the Appropriations Committee, a Democrat from New Haven, 

Connecticut, strongly supported the Milford amendment: 

And to my friends who voted for the Anderson amendment, as I did, I say to them that I 

wish they would think about what is really happening to the budgetary processes in this 

country. 

If we in fact had congressional appropriations for highway funds, I would be willing to bet 

my bottom dollar that we would have received some money today for mass transit. 

But the fact is that what is occurring in this country is that we go around wringing our hands 

and saying that Congress is losing control to the executive. We are told that the executive 

branch is taking over, and Congress is becoming powerless . . . . 
963 

But what do we do? We lament over loss of control of the Federal budget, and we worry 

about the power of the Appropriation Committee. My figures are accurate. I know, that 

approproximately, 50 percent, of the taxpayers’ money that is spent today does not go 

through Congress and does not go through the appropriations procedures. 

My chairman of the Committee on Appropriations will tell us that. What do we do? We 

authorize revenue-sharing funds over which Congress has no control. We authorize trust 

funds, the highway trust fund, the airport trust fund, the social security trust funds, over 

which the Executive has control and Congress has none . . . . 

I will admit that in the old days the Committee on Appropriations of both the House and 

Senate were pretty tough in giving out money. It was then that contract authority and trust 

funds and back-door spending come [sic] into being—during the thirties and the forties in 

this country. 

But the pendulum has swung the other way, and we are now giving away the one great 

power that the House and the Congress have, and that is control over the taxpayers’ money . 

. . . I say that if Congress really wants to regain its power from the executive branch of 

Government, we had better cut out this business of back-door spending, because that is what 

all of these various modes of expenditure are really called. Get the power of the purse back 

here in the Congress; this is the only effective leverage that we have and which really 

justifies our existence as an institution.

Chairman Mahon of the Appropriations Committee said the vote on the Milford amendment was 

critical because it would reveal “what Members in this House want: Better control of the purse and 

greater power in the hands of Congress.” He told his colleagues, “We should not be in favor of 

abdicating to the Executive. We should stand on our two feet and have a greater role in running 

this country.” 

He understood the need for mass transit, but the provision in S. 502 was unsatisfactory: 

It says for 3 years we have $3 billion for mass transit in contract authority. All right, 

suppose the Executive does not obligate the money, next year what do we do? For 3 years 

we are locked in because next year the issue will not come before us. We can lambaste the 

Executive about not contracting for these projects, but the issue would not be before us for 

review . . . . It is like revenue sharing in which for 5 years we have abdicated our control 

and have walked out of the picture and turned it over to the Executive. 

Members of Congress sometimes speak of the President’s abuse of power. “Of course if we give 

the power away how can we expect him not to use it?” He was “disappointed that the Committee 

on Public Works would want to take away from the House the right to act annually on such matters 

through the regular appropriation process.” 
964 

Discussion of the Milford amendment concluded with comments from Representative Wright, who 

explained that “this is at the very heart of the balance between highways and mass transit that we 

sought so painstakingly and so arduously to achieve.” He said: 

The only way that we can be absolutely certain that a city which exercizes the option to 

forgo a given strip of urban highway and substitute mass transit, is to give the Secretary of 

Transportation the right at that moment, at that time when the decision is made on the part 

of the city, to grant to that city advance obligational funds in order that the city would have 

necessary assurance to make that decision.

I stood here in the well [of the House floor] earlier today and argued as passionately as I 

could to reject the Anderson amendment, which would have taken this money out of the 

trust fund. But with equal fervor I believe I must plead with the Members not to break the 

faith that we expressed in good conscience to the cities when we said, “If you will leave our 

trust fund intact and guarantee the highway program, we are going to give you an alternate 

system that is just as good.”

The Milford amendment was rejected. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13240-

13243] 

The House quickly approved Representative Clausen’s amendment to increase authorizations for 

American Samoa from $500,000 to $1 million a year. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 

1973, p. 13243] 

Representative Bingham introduced his amendment to eliminate the priority primary roads from S. 

502. The Congressional Record did not include Representative Bingham’s comments during the 

debate on the amendment; they were revised and printed as an extension of remarks. He said, “This 

is in effect a coming extension of the Interstate System.” Unlike the Interstate System, which was 

the result of extensive studies, no such studies had been conducted for the priority primary roads. 

When Representative Wright pointed out that the program was not an extension of the Interstate 

System, Representative Bingham acknowledged that the committee had removed the provision 

calling for the routes to be built to Interstate standards. He added, however, that “the chances are 

this will build into an extension of the Interstate System, and there is no telling how much it is 

going to cost in the long run.” By extrapolation, he estimated it would “run as much as $10 billion 

before we get through.” 

Pointing out that the Nixon Administration opposed the measure, he asked, “Why not just go ahead 

with the Federal primary system, and develop that to the extent we need to?” He said the new 

priority primary routes were “just another foot in the door for what will amount to, I am convinced, 

in the end, an extension of the Interstate System.” 

Representatives Breaux and Hammerschmidt spoke in opposition. Representative Breaux said:
965 

The gentleman is making something out of this section which it is not. Namely, it is in no 

way a second generation interstate system nor is it in any way a system which has to be built 

to interstate standards.

This was the basis for much of the confusion about this section last year when it contained 

reference to interstate standards. The section has been rewritten in this bill to completely 

eliminate the reference to standards so that there will be no confusion on this point. The 

effect of these changes is merely to allow the system to be built to normal primary system 

standards. 

Representative Hammerschmidt emphasized that these 10,000 miles “serve about one-sixth as 

much travel as the present interstate system on about one-fourth as much highway mileage.” They 

should be improved “to high standards taking into consideration the heavy traffic volumes they 

handle.” Inclusion of the measure in S. 502 was “a means of accelerating and upgrading the quality 

of key primary routes already on the Federal-aid system.” 

The House rejected the Bingham amendment. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 

13243] 

With little debate, the House adopted an amendment by Representative Roberts that would allow 

the donation of property needed for a Federal-aid highway project. [Congressional Record-House, 

April 19, 1973, p. 13243] 

Representative Zion introduced an amendment to “provide flexibility to the States so as to enable 

them to implement the beautification provisions or to expend such sums for highway safety 

improvements of the Federal-aid system.” He added, “In other words, Mr. Chairman, this can be 

called the posies or people amendment.” S. 502 included $30 million for landscaping: 

Experience with this program has been abysmally bad. Very few of the plants that have 

been bought and paid for have survived. Landscape gardeners have told me that they feel 

guilty taking tax money for plantings that will die for neglect, or fall victim to the Statefinanced mowing machines. They rationalize that somebody is going to get this gravy, so it 

might as well be them.

He pointed out that S. 502 included $150 million to purchase bullboards “in spite of a survey that 

shows there is no widespread dissatisfaction with billboards.” He added that “in good conscience I 

cannot abide [a] $150 million expenditure for billboards at a time when we cannot afford to finish 

highway construction that is so badly needed.” 

As for $45 million in S. 502 to hide junkyards, he asked: 

How silly can we be? We need to recycle these offending materials. Do you think by any 

stretch of the imagination we can plant enough geraniums or jonquils—even $45 million 

worth—so that the junkyards are going to appear to disappear? 
966 

With the 2 millionth person likely to lose his or her life on the Nation’s highways in 1974, he asked 

if Congress should spend millions of dollars “for bushes and flowers at the cost of legs and arms 

and heads, and lives?” He continued: 

What do we want here, Members of the House? Live bushes and dead bodies, or safe 

highways and healthy families?

Every buck we spend to plant bushes could be spent to improve a guard rail and prevent the 

impaling of a family on its blunt end. We have identified in our committee bridge 

approaches that end smack-dab up against an abutment. We have in our committee files 

literally hundreds of pictures of twisted steel and broken bodies wrapped around inflexible 

signposts. 

So instead of planting posies, we can replace these lethal traps with breakaway signs. Every 

Member of this body has death traps in his district, just waiting to crush some family into 

shapeless pulp. 

Representative Wright opposed the Zion amendment: 

The gentleman from Indiana makes a simplistic argument which at firsthand sounds 

reasonable, of course. Safety is more important than beauty. I do not think there is any 

quarrel with that . . . . What I am saying is that each has its rightful place. Where there are 

eyesores and physical drabness that make the highways things of drudgery instead of things 

of serene reflection and beauty, we should and we could make them more attractive for the 

American traveling public.

He urged the House to “get things in balance.” S. 502 included $1.2 billion for safety, and 

considerably less for beautification. “So let us not take that money away and put it on safety also, 

because we can do both. We can have both safe highways and beautiful highways.” 

Representative Harsha, citing his longstanding interest in highway safety, agreed with 

Representative Wright. “I think we have adequate measures in the highway safety sections of this 

bill.”

The House rejected the Zion amendment. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13244-

13245] 

Representative Burke introduced a substitute for Section 120 (“Control of Outdoor Advertising”) of 

S. 502, which she said “might well be referred to as the Lady Bird Johnson amendment since I read 

in the newspaper yesterday that she has been lobbying for it.” It would retain the provision on 

outdoor advertising in the Senate version of S. 502. Representative Burke pointed out that 49 

States “have programs underway to remove signs that direct you to Joe’s Broiler or Snookley’s Nut 

Stand.” Those signs were being replaced by Logo signs approved by the Secretary of 

Transportation. 
967 

The House version of S. 502 would place a moratorium on the Secretary’s authority to remove 

nonconforming signs until December 31, 1974. Secretary Brinegar had said the moratorium would 

disrupt progress and force States to treat directional and nondirectional signs separately and 

piecemeal. The new test, whether a sign provides “specific information in the interest of the 

traveling public” would require court interpretation, “and each State must reevaluate its program to 

fit the new criteria, wasting much money and duplicating efforts.” 

The House bill also would remove the Secretary’s power to approve uniform informational signs in 

the public interest. It added food services, camp grounds, gas stations, rest stops, and others to the 

kinds of signs companies could erect (presently natural, scenic, and historic signs, for sale or 

property signs, or to advertise a business conducted on the premises) and it would allow six 

directional signs per mile:

We were going in the direction of limiting them to 1 per mile, but this bill would permit a 

total of 1.2 million billboards, an increase of 400,000 new signs. 

She recognized that the Highway Beautification Commission had included these recommendations 

in its interim report, but pointed out “that the interim report was just that and that the Commission 

was extended to provide further study.” 

Representative Wright began his response: 

It is with some trepidation that I rise in opposition to the eloquent, attractive, charming, 

intelligent lady from California. She made such a beautiful appeal. This may be her maiden 

speech on the House floor, and I congratulate her on it. I thank her for the magnificent and 

articulate statement.

Compliment over, he said he disagreed with everything she had said. He pointed out that Congress 

created the Highway Beautification Commission “because obviously” the Highway Beautification 

Act “has not been administered in a popular way.” He explained that all the bill did was distinguish 

“between signs that simply advertise and those that give useful directional information.” The 

public clearly supported the distinction according to recent polls showing that “a large majority, 

better than two-thirds of the American public, do not want them to take down all the signs that tell 

them where they can find these traveler-oriented services—and certainly not until there is some 

other type of such directional information provided.” He continued: 

All we say is, leave those until last; take down first—and I guarantee there are plenty of 

them to be taken down—the expressly commercial signs which merely advertise national 

products. 

He also addressed “some very wrong information spread about,” continuing: 

I saw Mrs. Johnson last night. Contrary to published misinformation, she is not lobbying 

against this highway bill. I visited with her. Somebody gave her wrong information. 
968 

They said our bill would authorize the erection of 1.2 million signs, including 400,000 new 

and additional signs. This bill in and of itself does not authorize the erection of a single new 

sign.

He explained that “somebody apparently concocted that outlandish figure” by multiplying the 

maximum number of signs by 200,000 miles of highway covered by the Highway Beautification 

Act (the Interstate System and Federal-aid primary highways) “and said, ‘We are going to have 1.2 

million signs.’” Representative Wright called this assertion “ridiculous.” 

Representative Seiberling supported Representative Burke’s amendment, which he said, “does what 

a lot of the more progressive States are trying to do to clean up our highways, so that we can end 

efforts to subvert the purpose of the 660-foot limitation.” He added: 

Mr. Chairman, we are approaching the bicentennial of the founding of the United States, 

and it seems to me that one of our objectives by 1976 should be to eliminate the unsightly 

clutter of commercial signs we have allowed to develop along our highways and restore 

America the beautiful.

Representative Harsha recognized that the “very articulate” Representative Burke was “very sincere 

in this effort,” but he pointed out that her amendment would take funds out of the Highway Trust 

Fund for beautification: 

This committee of the House has, ever since we have inaugurated the beautification 

program, gone on record as opposing the use of trust funds for highway beautification. We 

have always opposed any further diversion of the highway trust fund for beautification 

purposes. 

The House rejected the Burke amendment. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 

13245-13248] 

The House also rejected an amendment offered by Representative William F. Walsh (R-NY), a 

former Mayor of Syracuse (1961-1969) serving his first term in Congress, that would have modified 

the formula in S. 502 for apportioning Federal-aid primary funds. Instead of using total State 

population in the apportionment formula as under current law, Section 112 factored in only rural 

population. He pointed out that, “The rural primary system serves all of the people of a given State, 

urban and rural, whether for travel or for the movement of goods.” The apportionment formula 

“should continue to reflect this broad purpose and include all of a State’s population in the 

calculation.”

Representative Harsha explained that, “under S. 502, there is an equal division between urban 

money and rural money.” Since Federal-aid primary and secondary funds could be spent only in 

rural areas, the Public Works Committee changed the formula to reflect this change. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13248-13249] 

The next few amendments were introduced with the support of the Committee on Public Works. 
969 

Representative Ginn proposed to double funding for construction training programs. The FederalAid Highway Act of 1970 had included $5 million a year from the system categories for the 

Secretary “to develop, conduct and administer highway construction training, including skill 

improvement programs.” Representative Ginn said: 

The initial success of the highway construction training program has indicated the merit of 

expanding this program. A doubling of the annual dollar effort, from $5 million to $10 

million, would be highly desirable. 

With the Public Works Committee’s support, the House adopted the Ginn amendment. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13249] 

Representative Ogden R. Reid offered an amendment concerning the proposed Long Island Sound 

Bridge. Representative Reid, whose family owned the New York Herald Tribune, had been elected 

to the House in 1962 as a Republican representing a district based in Westchester County. He had 

switched to the Democratic Party on March 22, 1972, because he could not support President 

Nixon’s reelection. His amendment added the following provision to Title 23, United States Code, 

Section 109 (“Standards”): 

(k) The Secretary shall not approve any project under this title which would significantly 

affect the highway system of a contiguous State without the concurrence of that State.

Representative Reid referred to the addition as the Reid-Wolff-McKinney amendment, saying it 

was “designed to protect the rights of States when they would be significantly or adversely affected 

by the construction of a federally aided highway or connection in contiguous States.” He pointed 

out that the Senate had included the same provision in its version of S. 502. 

At present, a State could build a facility that could significantly affect another State without that 

State’s concurrence:

A clear case in point is the proposed bridge over Long Island Sound between Rye, N.Y., and 

Oyster Bay, N.Y. While this federally aided span would be located solely within New York 

State, it will join Interstate 95 less than 2 miles from the point at which I-95 crosses into 

Connecticut and becomes the Connecticut Turnpike, and it will become the major conduit 

for traffic between all of Long Island and New England. 

Representative Reid pointed out that according to the environmental impact statement, the bridge 

would handle 16 million vehicles a year by its fifth year of operation. “Obviously this 

tremendously increased volume will heavily impact the State of Connecticut, since much of the 

generated traffic will originate in, terminate in, or pass through that State.” The New York 

legislature had voted against the project in 1971 and 1972, while the Connecticut legislature had 

also disapproved the project. “So has the Governor of Connecticut, whom I talked with this 

morning and who has written a very clear and persuasive statement as to why he does not feel this 

particular project is desirable at this time.” The two Senators from New York and the two from 

Connecticut supported the amendment. 
970 

The bridge would cost an estimated $274 million, including about $72 million in Federal funds: 

For this money we could probably build 25 modern hospitals. I for one believe it is far more 

important to provide adequate health care and education for our citizens than to save 10 

minutes driving to Mineola. 

Representative Lester L. Wolff (D-NY) explained the “particular significance” of the amendment:

For the past 6 years a battle has raged in New York over the proposal to build a bridge that 

would extend from Oyster Bay on Long Island to Rye, N.Y. The bridge would have an 

obvious and immense impact on New York, particularly on the entire Long Island Sound 

area. In its proposed path lie valuable wetlands at both ends of the bridge, shoreline and 

beach areas and the irreplaceable resources of the sound itself. 

Considerable opposition had developed in New York communities, but Connecticut residents, “who 

at this moment have no say whether the bridge will go through or not, have unmistakenly and 

repeatedly expressed their opposition ever since the proposal was first aired.” He explained that it 

would add “countless additional cars and trucks” onto the Connecticut Turnpike and Merritt 

Parkway, “aggravating an already tremendous congestion problem and increasing levels of air and 

noise pollution for Connecticut residents who have no say in the matter.” 

Representative Angelo D. Roncallo (R-NY), an attorney and local official serving his lone term in 

Congress, rose “in complete support of this amendment and in utter opposition to the Long Island 

Sound Bridge.” He said its approaches “would destroy one of the most naturally beautiful areas of 

Long island” by cutting through “areas as yet untroubled by pollution, areas replete with wildlife, 

much of them Federal parkland.” The bridge posed a threat not only to natural resources, but “to 

the peace and tranquility, and indeed the very character, of our communities.” He continued: 

In addition to the approaches at issue today, some means would have to be constructed to 

connect the bridge with major existing north-south routes. I can promise you that unless this 

amendment is passed, we will soon see before us a request for funds to build an Atlantic 

Expressway across the south shore of Long Island, which would destroy and remove from 

the tax rolls some of the most valuable business property we have and create a “Chinese 

wall” dividing our communities in half. Other roads would have to be built or widened to 

feed the bridge, creating more traffic problems and further reducing the green areas we have 

left.

He said he had been working against the Long Island Sound Bridge since his days as a town 

councilman in Oyster. He added: 

The answer to the transportation problem in Long Island lies in improved and expanded 

public transportation, not in more traffic-producing roads, especially in this time of concern 

about our environment and dwindling energy resources.
971 

Representative Harsha opposed the amendment. “This amendment is both unwise and 

unwarranted, and it is not restricted to just an area in this country; its application is nationwide.” 

The amendment, if adopted, would “undermine the status of the Federal-aid highway program, and 

its effect would be to give each State what amounts to a veto for highway projects in adjacent 

States.” He continued:

The only restriction is that it must have a “significant effect.” Who makes the determination 

as to what is a “significant effect”?

The procedures required for the approval of highway projects are already long and arduous. 

There are some 23 steps to go through to get a highway program to the construction stages. 

In addition to that, it takes anywhere from 4 to 6 years from the initiation of a highway 

project to its completion.

To superimpose yet another hurdle, particularly a hurdle of this kind, would for all practical 

purposes, Mr. Chairman, doom many projects to oblivion. We are trying to cut out the 

redtape, to alleviate the redtape, and get out of the bureaucratic mess we are in.

He argued that the affected State “can make its views known,” but the “only thing it does not have 

is a veto.” 

Representative Reid pointed out that under the amendment, if the Secretary of Transportation 

determined that a project would not “significantly affect” the highway system of a contiguous State, 

“the matter would be moot.” If he found that the project would significantly affect the neighboring 

State adversely, “then and only then is it clear that the Secretary must seek concurrence of both 

States.” He added, “I believe that is only fair.” 

Representative Harsha said the Secretary’s decision would be “subject to interpretation, and any 

citizen in any court can challenge it.” Further, the amendment was aimed not only at the Long 

Island Sound Bridge but projects nationwide, all of which would be subject to similar challenges in 

the courts. 

Representative Wright suggested modifying the amendment to indicate that the Secretary “in his 

judgment” would make the decision on significant impact. Representative Reid accepted the 

change, but Representative Harsha remained concerned. He did not know what Representative 

Wright was “trying to get at, but I am concerned that this language does not remove the probability 

that somebody could challenge this judgment as being capricious, over extended, and not in the best 

interest of solving the environmental issue here involved.” Instead of opening “a can of worms,” he 

would prefer to limit the amendment to the Long Island Sound Bridge. 

Representative Wright explained that he was trying to render the amendment “less menacing and 

more palatable,” saying that this change “would improve it to the extent it would stipulate the

Secretary as the one to make the judgment, and not some self-appointed critic.” 
972 

In view of these concerns, Representative McKinney offered his pending substitute amendment that 

stated, “The Secretary shall not approve” project documents for the Long Island Sound Bridge. He 

said he wanted to discuss “something that really disturbs me.” Most Members of Congress, he said, 

think they live in a democracy:

Let us look at the monstrosity we created in New York. We, the Congress of the United 

States, did it. We turned around and produced a Metropolitan Transportation Authority 

which is in essence responsible to no one. 

The legislatures of two States voted against the bridge and no one voted funds for it, “but it still can 

be built because this autonomous agency can go ahead with its own bonding and build its own 

bridge.” 

He explained his objections to the bridge: 

The bridge will be so tall and so big, at 61⁄2 miles long, that standing in New Haven 35 miles 

away, it will overpower the entire landscape.

It is just an absolute travesty that we should take our one recreational body of water and our 

major national asset and fill it with this bridge.

On top of that we have the very distinct possibility that we will bring all of the traffic in the 

State of Connecticut to a complete and utter halt.

Representative Harsha announced that he accepted the substitute amendment. 

The House approved the McKinney amendment as a substitute for the Reid amendment. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13250-13253] 

Representative Thomas F. Railsback (R-Il.) introduced an amendment directing the Secretary of 

Transportation to study the feasibility of including a route from Chicago, Illinois, to Kansas City, 

Missouri, in the Federal-aid primary system. He explained that his amendment “would be in 

addition to the Georgia to Kansas City feasibility study included by the Committee on Public Works 

in its bill.” Representative Harold L. Runnels (D-NM) introduced an amendment to Representative 

Railsback’s amendment, adding a route from Amarillo, Texas, to Las Cruces, New Mexico. The 

House approved the Railsback amendment with the Runnels addition. [Congressional RecordHouse, April 19, 1973, p. 13254-13256] 

Representative Peter H. B. Frelinghuysen, Jr. (R-NJ), whose ancestors had served in the national 

legislature since Colonial days, introduced an amendment that would strike a provision of S. 502 

affecting I-287 from Montville to Mahwah in New Jersey. Section 140(a) prohibited further action 

on 22 miles of the route “until new corridor hearings are held.” (Section 140(b) called for a similar 

restriction on the Corporation Freeway in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but was not affected by 

the amendment.) Representative Frelinghuysen said: 
973 

Prohibiting construction . . . would mean the remaining road could not be built without 

additional, new hearings. In my opinion there is no justification for such an intervention on 

the part of the Federal Government. No case can be made for further delay over a badly 

needed interstate highway.

Because of the area’s geography, “there is no easy alternative to the approved alinement.” He 

added: 

Any alternative would have a severe and adverse environmental effect. In addition, an 

environmental impact statement on the approved alinement is expected any day. I would 

suggest we keep our nose out of New Jersey’s business, and not try to delay further what 

needs to be done with respect to the completion of a crucially important circumferential 

highway. 

Representative Roe, who had introduced Section 140(a) in committee, said he “would not present 

such an amendment that affects my district directly if I did not believe our cause was just and fair to 

our people.” He acknowledged that a hearing had been held on the project, but that was 7 years 

ago, before enactment of NEPA, and the State had not held formal design hearings: 

Mr. Chairman, my people in the State have begged and cajoled and got on their hands and 

knees and asked for justice. They had the Department of Transportation to listen to them. 

[sic]

What do they want to do? They want to speak on an issue that affects them. I listened all 

day for 2 days to the battle on mass transit and to the battle for people to be heard and the 

right for people to speak in America on issues that affect them. That is what this issue is 

about. The cause is just. We are simply saying to give the people of my district in my State 

the right to speak and to be heard. 

What is so terrible about that?

Representative Harsha opposed the amendment, saying that all Section 140(a) did was require a 

corridor hearing: 

The people of New Jersey want to be heard on this matter. They want to make their voices 

heard. There is nothing new about this provision. We had it in last year’s bill, and passed it 

last year; the same provision.

Something else bothered him: 

Significantly enough, it seems to me that the gentleman is discriminating in his amendment 

when he offers to strike out one section . . . and is not suggesting that the same thing be 

done with the other portion of this section [affecting the Corporation Freeway].

 
974 

Representative Wright also opposed the amendment. The House rejected it. [Congressional 

Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13256-13257] 

Representative Clausen proposed an amendment to Section 126 of S. 502 permitting the use of 

Federal-aid funds for bicycle transportation. His amendment limited the amount to be expended for 

this purpose to $20 million a year: 

It places an expenditure and/or obligation ceiling on an otherwise open-ended authorization 

that I believe would be difficult if not impossible to administer. 

This will help the Secretary of Transportation and the State and Federal agency 

administrators to more effectively establish guidelines and regulations for the 

implementation of the provision. 

Representative Howard, speaking in support of the amendment, said that “it is understood that the 

Department of Transportation will administer this in such a way that all States should have an 

opportunity to get some funds for bicycle path use.” The Secretary would ensure “that all States 

participate in the program if they wish.” The House adopted the amendment limiting total 

expenditures on bicycle transportation. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13257] 

Representative Neal E. Smith (D-Ia.), who served in the House from 1959 to 1995, introduced an 

amendment that would add Section 149 to S. 502 on “Use of Interstate System Right of Way.” It 

amended Title 23, United States Code, Section 111 (”Agreements Relating to Use of and Access to 

Rights-of-Way—Interstate System”), which required Interstate project agreements to include “a 

clause providing that the State will not permit automotive service stations or other commercial 

establishments for serving motor vehicle users to be constructed or located on the rights-of-way of 

the Interstate System.” 

The Smith amendment added the phrase: “except the State Highway department may permit the 

construction and operation of small food service establishments in rest stop areas.” He explained, 

“I believe the amendment acts as an anti-crime amendment by permitting the States to put 

coffeeshops at rest stops to encourage the presence of people.” 

Representative Wright supported the amendment, which the House adopted without further 

discussion. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13257] 

Representative Wolff introduced another amendment to Section 126: 

My amendment broadens this section to include, not only bicycle transportation, but 

equestrian trails. Very simply, my amendment would allow use of highway funds for the 

development and improvement of equestrian trails in connection with Federal-aid highways. 

He pointed out that the Senate bill included a nearly identical measure:
975 

The House bill should not differ from the Senate version on this point, it is important that 

we give due consideration to the safety and convenience of equestrians and motorists alike 

by allowing for the development of equestrian trails [sic]. 

In making this small addition to the House highway bill, we are supporting and encouraging 

a recreational activity enjoyed by countless Americans, one that complements and promotes 

a healthy, active citizenry and a wholesome environment. 

The House rejected the amendment. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13257-

13258] 

Representative Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey, Jr. (R-Ca.) proposed to amend Section 126, which 

presently prohibited snowmobiles from using trails and walkways “except for maintenance 

purposes and, when snow conditions permit, snowmobiles.” The amendment added the phrase 

“and State and local regulations” after the words “snow conditions.” He explained that, “all this 

amendment does is permit State and local governments to ban snowmobiles from the trails created 

under this bill.” He suggested that “it is appropriate that we let State and local governments deny 

snowmobiles if they wish to do so. 

Representative Wright indicated he had no objection to the amendment, which the House adopted. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13258] 

The House next took up consideration of Title II, the Highway Safety Act of 1973. Representative 

Gray introduced an amendment prohibiting the Secretary of Transportation from promulgating 

uniform safety standards unless specifically provided for by law following enactment of the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. He explained that 18 safety standards were in effect “which are 

more or less the rules of the road in conducting the safety program,” including standards on driver 

licensing, driver education, and emergency medical services. “In many cases, it has taken a long 

time to get the proper State legislation to conform to these standards,” but the Secretary had 

proposed in August 1972 to reduce the 18 standards to 9: 

Much of the material in the new standards is different than the old ones. They have entirely 

different headings and in one case the proposed new standard No. 1 is not in the category of 

a standard at all, but makes the safety program, in effect, a Federal rather than a State

program.

Representative Gray said his amendment would merely keep the program moving “with the present 

standards until this new condensation of the standards is properly reviewed by the public and the 

Congress.” The House adopted the amendment. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 

13262] 

Representative Teno Roncalio (D-Wy.) offered an amendment on highway safety on Indian 

Reservations. He said it did “nothing more than provide machinery whereby the chief of the tribal 

council can make application for additional funds when the safety or the lack of safety on roads on 

the reservation warrants it.” 
976 

With support from the Public Works Committee, the House accepted the amendment. 

[Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13263] 

The House then considered Title III of S. 502, amending the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 

1964. Representative Harsha introduced an amendment to strike Section 302 (“Impounding of 

Funds”), which provided that the sums authorized by Title III were not to be impounded or withheld 

from obligation by any member of the executive branch of the Federal Government. Referring to 

the $3 billion authorized by the bill for mass transit, he said he was concerned that the bill as 

drafted would require the entire amount to be obligated immediately upon enactment of the 

legislation. “I do not think anybody who has any sense of fiscal responsibility intends that situation 

to occur.” He continued: 

Mr. Chairman, the administration has taken a very definite stand on infringement of its 

prerogatives in dealing with expenditures of funds from the national budget. We have been 

advised that if the language in the bill prevails the way it is that the bill would be subject to 

a veto. I would much rather have a bill than just an issue to debate in the coming months . . 

. . 

President Nixon on behalf of the U.S. taxpayer has chosen to bite the bullet. He has taken it 

upon himself to assure there will be no tax increase and in doing that we must not react 

irresponsibly for [sic] forcing him to spend money that will insure a tax increase. President 

Nixon has the courage of his convictions and unless we provide him the necessary flexibility 

he will veto this legislation. Too much is at stake to risk a veto—adopt my amendment. 

Representative Blatnik opposed the amendment. He acknowledged some of Representative 

Harsha’s points, but said, “I feel that to be that rigid as he suggests in removing any limitation on 

impoundment would be wrong.” Impoundment, he said, “has presented serious obstacles all over 

America,” but explained:

I would suggest to the gentleman from Ohio that perhaps in conference we can come to 

some form of modification on this subject. Maybe the way it is in the bill it is too rigid. I 

for one would be against a total impoundment, but I would not oppose a certain amount of 

flexibility in the committee’s provision dealing with Presidential impoundment.

Representative Abzug opposed the Harsha amendment as well. She said she questioned the need 

for a provision against impoundment “for I believe that impounding by the Executive is 

impermissible unless the applicable statute specifically permits or authorizes it.” Recent court 

action supported her view as did William H. Rehnquist’s memorandum in 1969 when he was 

Assistant Attorney General. He had written: 

With respect to the suggestion that the President has a constitutional power to decline to 

spend appropriated funds, we must conclude that existence of such a broad power is 

supported by neither reason nor precedent. 
977 

She believed that Rehnquist was correct, but “the open-ended nature of UMTA funding led me to 

propose section 302 just to make the intent of Congress ‘perfectly clear.’” She explained: 

What this provision does assure is that the administration may not withhold or refuse to 

obligate funds available under UMTA for any reasons other than those specified by law. 

It is designed to make sure that these funds are not impounded at some future date, because 

of reasons not directly related to this program, reasons such as “the status of the economy” 

or “inflationary pressures.” 

She acknowledged that some members of the Public Works Committee had argued that the 

provision was not needed in view of the Administration’s support for mass transit: 

I am pleased to know of the administration’s commitment; if it is carried out as stated, then 

this provision will not come into the picture and all will be well. I note, however, that in 

1977, we will have a new administration, and I want to protect this program against any 

attempt on its part to impound funds that Congress has decided should be spent. Also, this 

administration impounded a third—$300 of $900 million—of the UMTA funds in fiscal 

1972. 

After a brief discussion of the general issue of impoundment, the House rejected the Harsha 

amendment. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13264-13266] 

Representative Abzug introduced her amendment on “Assistance for Operating Expenses,” the 

measure the Senate had approved for its version of S. 502. She said of S. 502 that it “recognizes 

what we have all known for a long time—the close relationship between highways and mass 

transit.” She continued: 

It has long been obvious to anyone who has sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic that every 40 

cars in front of him could be replaced by a single mass transit vehicle. The committee has 

acted on the evidence of this by taking an appropriate step of recommending an additional 

$3 billion for mass transit capital expenses, but it has failed to do all that must be done by 

declining to include operating assistance in its bill.

Her amendment authorized $800 million divided over 2 years for operating subsidies, with the 

funds allocated on a formula based on three equal factors: population, revenue passengers carried 

by the local transit system, and vehicle miles of that system. 

Representative Abzug summarized the three goals of the plan: 

First, it will stop the spiral of higher fares, service cutbacks and dwindling ridership that 

plagues so many transit systems.

Second, it relieves the unbearable financial pressure on local governments who are hardpressed to find new revenues to support their transit systems . . . . 
978 

Third, by offering Federal funds based largely upon vehicle miles and revenue passengers, it 

creates a powerful incentive for an efficient and attractive service operation.

She continued: 

These days, no one in his right financial mind expects mass transit to pay for itself out of the 

fare box—just as highways are not paid for exclusively by means of user taxes. One of 

every four dollars spent for highways comes from the same source as most local mass transit 

operating assistance—the burdensome, regressive property tax . . . . Mass transit gets 

people out of their automobiles only if it costs them less out of pocket; this cannot be 

assured unless we provide funds for operating assistance. 

Representatives Biaggi and Howard briefly stated that they supported the amendment. 

Representative Wright, however, opposed it: 

I think most of us on both sides of the aisle on the committee really have to oppose this 

amendment for one very simple and straightforward reason. On the very first day of our 

public hearings, the Secretary of Transportation, Mr. Brinegar, testified before our 

committee. Very clearly and unequivocally, he stated that if this bill should contain 

operating subsidies out of the Federal Treasury for mass transit, he would recommend a 

Presidential veto of the entire bill.

To avoid a veto, the House must reject the amendment. 

Representative Clausen also opposed the Abzug amendment, saying that the Nation’s urban mass 

transit systems were in trouble because of “rising operating costs, failing ridership, and other ills.” 

Since they “are not able to make ends meet,” the House was being asked not only to increase capital 

authorizations for mass transit but to provide operating subsidies. He pointed out that Secretary 

Brinegar had said “it is by no means clear that either the causes or the solutions to those deficits are 

simple enough to be addressed by the type of subsidy grant provisions being advanced.” As the 

Secretary had pointed out, just five systems were responsible for 70 percent of the operating deficits 

(Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia), with New York’s losses amounting 

to half the total.

Questions had to be asked about what caused the operating subsidies: 

Realistically, the establishment of fare structures, routes, manpower levels and wage rates 

are local problems and can best be solved at the local level. By providing operating 

subsidies, we would, in effect, be relieving local areas of the pressure that is required to 

make the tough decisions that are necessary for efficient operation of mass transit systems . . 

. . 

Surely, if we establish the precedent of providing $400 million a year to divide up among 

the Nation’s transit systems, we will not arrest the basic causes of the galloping deficits, nor 
979 

will we, unless we earmark the funds for those systems which operate the least efficiently, 

do much to relieve their deficit problems. 

After all, local governments created the deficit by their choices in “earmarking local tax revenues 

and the funds they receive under Federal revenue sharing for other purposes.” He concluded: 

I do not believe the operating deficit problem can be solved by the creation of yet another 

Federal subsidy program. The only lasting solution can come from local initiatives, local 

pressures, and local trade offs. 

The House rejected the Abzug amendment on operating subsidies. [Congressional Record-House, 

April 19, 1973, p. 13266-13269] 

With no amendments pending on Title IV (“Prohibition of Discrimination on the Basis of Sex”) or 

Title V (“Inapplicability of Time Requirements”) of S. 502, the House turned to the overall bill. 

The Congressional Record of the debate contained several statements that may not have been 

delivered on the House floor but added to the record later. For example, Representative Tennyson 

Guyer (R-Oh.), who had been public affairs director for Cooper Tire and Rubber in Findlay before 

winning election to the House in 1972, emphasized the good faith backing the Highway Trust Fund: 

Why should we break the faith and spirit of the act by diverting these funds to other 

purposes? If moneys are allowed to be taken from the highway trust fund, it would be like 

the camel in the tent—just the beginning of a takeover. This will only set a precedent for 

Congress to take moneys from other in trust funds [sic] such as the airport fund or social 

security. Perhaps even our pension would not be safe from similar actions.

He supported mass transit, but funds for it should come from the general Treasury, not a fund 

earmarked for highways:

The words above the Speaker’s dais read: “In God We Trust.” 

I subscribe to their meaning and their spirit. Let us also learn to trust one another as well, 

and a good beginning would be to honor the word, “trust,” and the measures men of good 

faith have made by revering deeds done in trust. [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 

1973, p. 13269] 

Representative Gene Taylor (R-Mo.), who had run an auto dealership in Sarcoxie, Missouri, before 

being elected to the 93rd Congress and joining the Public Works Committee, called the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1973 “a comprehensive response to the current transportation needs of the Nation, 

and a measure in harmony with the Public Works Committee’s record of studied attention to the 

evolving needs of the traveling public.” He said he had received a letter, dated April 12, from 

former Administrator Rex Whitton concerning the bill. After recounting Whitton’s rise from chain 

man for a highway survey team in Missouri to Federal Highway Administrator and the many honors 

he had received along the way, Representative Taylor introduced the letter into the record: 
980 

Dear Congressman: 

I am hopeful that you find it possible to support House Bill HR-6288 introduced by Jim 

Wright of Texas and Don Clausen of California. It is my firm belief that the Interstate 

program and the Road program, both Rural and Urban, needs are much greater than the 

Trust Fund will provide. Therefore it seems to me that it is entirely implausible to consider 

spending Highway Trust Fund money for building rail transit or for the purchase of busses 

[sic]. It seems most logical to me that general funds should be used for rail transit and bus 

purchase.

After the Interstate System is complete, and I certainly feel that it should be completed at the 

earliest possible date, the Trust Fund should then be used in its entirety to improve, 

reconstruct and rehabilitate our primary, secondary and urban roads. 

Again I am most hopeful that you see your way to support the above-mentioned bill 

 Sincerely,

 Rex M. Whitton 

Representative Taylor asked his colleagues to consider “the wise counsel of Rex Whitton on the 

subject of ‘busting the trust.’” [Congressional Record-House, April 19, 1973, p. 13270-13271] 

Finally, the Committee of the Whole concluded its work, Chairman Udall stepped down, and 

Speaker Albert resumed chair of the House for a vote on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. 

First, he asked if anyone demanded a separate vote on any amendment adopted in the Committee of 

the Whole. Representative Abzug demanded a recorded vote on the Hanley amendment repealing 

Section 138 of S. 502 on allocating Federal-aid urban system funds attributed to incorporated 

municipalities with populations of 400,000 or more. She had inserted the provision in the bill, but 

the Hanley amendment had been approved during the debate on the House floor without a recorded 

vote. She had been refused a recorded vote at the time, but in this final moment of debate, the 

House approved the amendment by a vote of 292 to 93, with 48 members not voting. 

The House then approved the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 by voice vote. 

Representative Wright sought unanimous consent for designation of House members to participate 

in a conference with the Senate to reconcile differences in the two versions of S. 502. Speaker 

Albert, hearing no objection, appointed Representatives Wright, Blatnik, Kluczynski, Johnson of 

California, Stanton, Harsha, Cleveland, Clausen, and Snyder. [Congressional Record-House, April 

19, 1973, p. 13275-13276] 

Reaction to the House Bill

The banner headline across the front page of the April 20 edition of The New York Times concerned 

former Attorney General Mitchell:
981 

Mitchell Now Says He Heard Bugging Plot at Three Meetings in 1972, But Rejected it.

Below it was another article headlined: 

Mass Transit Aid Barred as House Votes Roads Bill

Calling the vote a “major defeat for traffic-clogged cities,” Marjorie Hunter told readers that the 

House, by a vote of 215 to 190, had decided against using Highway Trust Fund revenue for the 

purchase of buses or construction of rapid rail systems: 

The House passed the massive three-year highway construction bill by a barely audible 

voice vote, with many members already racing toward airports to begin a 10-day Easter 

recess.

Senator Muskie termed the vote disappointing, saying, “Coming only eight days after the news that 

clean cars will be delayed for one more year, the House vote could have serious consequences for 

many of our nation’s urban areas.” 

Hunter added that urban forces lost “still another battle” when the House approved the Hanley 

amendment striking the provision earmarking Federal-aid urban system funds for New York City 

and 31 other major cities: 

But it was the proposal to divert highway trust fund money into mass transit that provoked 

the major debate, with both sides trotting out their best orators, as members of the powerful 

highway lobby awaited the outcome in the corridors outside the chamber. [Hunter, 

Marjorie, “Mass Transit Aid Barred as House Votes Roads Bill,” The New York Times, 

April 20, 1973] 

Still on the front page, a few articles below Hunter’s story, the Times reported on the provision 

affecting the Long Island Sound bridge. Since the provision linked the use of Federal-aid highway 

funds to approval by Connecticut, the Times pointed out that it “would leave New York State the 

option of paying the full cost of the approaches—estimated at $70 million—or abandoning the 

Westchester County-Long Island project.” The bridge, estimated to cost $168 million, was to be 

financed by bonds issued by the MTA. Approval by Connecticut, the article pointed out, was 

unlikely since Governor Thomas J. Meskill and the General Assembly had “consistently opposed 

the bridge,” while the New York legislature had twice voted to prevent construction of the bridge, 

with Governor Rockefeller overriding the bills.

The Times said that Governor Meskill declined comment on the House vote until he had a chance to 

review the measure, which was similar to the provision in the Senate bill. He had sent a message to 

the State’s House delegation outlining his opposition to the bridge because it would result in 

increased traffic, higher noise levels, and decreased air quality while putting open space at risk and 

adversely impacting the ecology of Long Island Sound. 
982 

Governor Rockefeller also declined comment on the provision until he had evaluated it. The Times 

pointed out that when the Department of the Interior had blocked plans for the project just a month 

earlier, the Governor had said he would build it anyway. He had declined to say how. “That’s up 

to me. You’ll find out as the scenario unfolds.” [“House Votes to Tie Up L.I. Bridge Aid,” The 

New York Times, April 20, 1973] 

A few days later, Governor Rockefeller called the vote on the Anderson amendment “a tragic 

error.” He said the vote “flies in the face of the transportation needs of urban America” and 

“exacerbates the fuel and energy problems of our nation and could be desperately wasteful of the 

country’s resources.” [“Rockefeller Scores Vote in House on Highway Fund,” The New York 

Times, April 24, 1973] 

The vote on the Anderson amendment was the lead item in much of the coverage of the House 

action. “The House,” Mary Russell’s article in The Washington Post began, “rejected attempts by 

the Nixon administration and urban congressmen to open up the Highway Trust Fund for mass 

transit uses.” She informed readers that:

The trust fund issue, which the House Democratic Study Group called “the major 

transportation, environmental issue of the 93d Congress,” has been fought out by two 

powerful opposing lobbies for more than a year.

Road builders, concrete, truck, auto interests and state highway officials were opposed by a 

conglomeration of big city mayors, several major unions, environmentalists, transit groups 

and the Nixon administration. 

Despite the Nixon Administration’s support for the Anderson amendment, “many Republicans 

defected” by voting against it. “The vote divided more along urban-rural lines than party lines.” 

Representative John Anderson said the defeat was “the result of a massive lobbying operation on 

the part of highway interests who successfully obfuscated and confused the issue.” He added, “We 

simply were unable to refute the inaccuracies and scare tactics they used to convince other members 

that this was a raid on roads.” 

A spokesman for Secretary Brinegar told reporters that the Secretary was “disappointed” but was 

“hopeful something could be worked out in conference to give flexibility to the trust fund the 

administration feels is essential.” The spokesman expected “a hard, tough, conference.” [Russell, 

Mary, “House Closes Road Fund to Mass Transit,” The Washington Post, April 20, 1973] 

Representative Wright said, “It was the biggest bill to come before Congress and the Public Works 

Committee was sustained on every point.” He added that the vote was “a good augury.” An ARBA 

spokesman said, “We’re very gratified with the House action. We hope that the conference 

committee will go along with the decision.”
983 

Transit backers were “privately” pessimistic. “We are very disappointed,” a Highway Action

Coalition spokesman said. “It just appears that we were not able to generate the kind of grass roots 

pressure on rural congressmen that the highway users and contractors did.” 

Despite Administration disappointment, the White House’s chief lobbyist on the bill, Richard 

Cook, said he was optimistic about the long-term prospects for opening the Highway Trust Fund to 

transit:

Congress is going to need a real jolt before they move. That will come when Environmental 

Protection Agency regulations close down city after city to traffic, and the gasoline shortage 

causes a crisis for commuters. Then they’re going to wonder what hit them. [“House 

Defeat Defeats Highway Trust Fund Diversion Again,” Engineering News-Record, April 26, 

1973, p. 8] 

UMTA Administrator Herringer told reporters that the Administration was disappointed by the vote 

on the Anderson amendment, but added that subsidies should remain a local concern. He cited the 

1-percent sales tax approved by voters in Atlanta as an example. He was in Chicago to address a 

rail transit conference of the American Transit Association. He told the association that buses are 

and would continue to be “the mainstay of most mass transit systems.” Research into improved rail 

transit was continuing: 

Our work on rail vehicles and systems also occupys [sic] a position of high priority in our 

overall research and development programs. In particular, two four-car trains of dual-power 

gas turbine-electric commuter cars will be tested in 1974 and 1975. These cars can operate 

together with similar cars or with straight electric cars, splitting off at the end of electrified 

track and operating to the end of a line. 

UMTA also was testing an urban tracked air cushion vehicle for passenger-carrying use. He 

cautioned, however, that “We must be careful that we do not stimulate the demand for new, 

expensive systems beyond the ability to finance them.” [Lewin, Robert M., “Development of 

Urban Mass Transit Seen No Threat to Commuter Rails,” The Journal of Commerce, April 26, 

1973] 

The Christian Science Monitor, in an editorial, said the House “was wrong last week when it failed 

to open the Highway Trust Fund to mass transit use.” The “fierce floor debate preceding the vote” 

provided only part of the reason for the “wrong decision” since the objections could be answered 

easily:

Opponents of the so-called Anderson amendment . . . argued it would open the door to a 

larger “diversion” of road funds in the future, that operating subsidies would be asked for 

next. The answer to this of course is that Congress still can draw a line against larger 

outlays or operating subsidies whenever it wants; the amendment would not have wiped out 

Congress’s power of decision. 
984 

But most of the arguments against opening the trust fund to mass transit were not openly 

raised on the floor. Many members of the House were concerned that, as with revenue 

sharing as it has turned out, the mass transit funds might not represent “new money,” or an 

actual increase in available revenue, but would be offered “in lieu of” funds already 

available to them.

Another element in the turndown is the basic conflict between the rural and urban blocks in 

Congress—which seems archaic in these times when cities melt into suburbs and what 

farmers are left are hard to tell from city folk with the farmers’ mechanized, businesslike 

operations. 

Then there’s politics. Lobbyists for the trust fund—roadbuilders and automakers and 

oilmen—can contribute heavily to campaigns, and did last fall. The Highway Action 

Coalition, which headed the drive to open the trust fund for mass transit, had no money for 

campaigns. The trust protectors ran a heavy last-minute lobby effort. 

Given “the American love affair with the automobile,” the auto industry “scarcely needs 

protection.” Auto sales were high, while auto industry executives were among the highest paid 

businessmen in the country. 

The editorial stated that “the opening of the Highway Trust Fund for mass transit use would not in 

itself have directly affected the health of the roadbuilding or automaking industries.” It continued: 

It would have indicated a change of emphasis, a weighing of the need for individual and 

thus often wasteful auto use against the clear logic of a more efficient mass transit 

alternative. 

The irony was that many Republicans and conservative Democrats “who argue for freedom of local 

choice on other issues, contradict themselves on this one.” 

As other observers had pointed out, the Monitor expected a tough conference to reconcile 

differences in the two bills:

We hope the Senate backers of funds for mass transit fight doggedly. If this fails, we hope 

the coalition that seeks to redress the federal government’s unbalanced support of 

roadbuilding comes back next year with even greater fervor. [“A Wrong Decision,” The 

Christian Science Monitor, April 24, 1973] 

The Washington Star-News began its editorial:

The praiseworthy campaign to give cities the option of using a limited number of their 

federal highway trust fund dollars for mass transit opened this year on a wave of optimism. 

It very likely died, at least for this year, with last week’s smashing pro-highway victory in 

the House. 
985 

Technically, the editorial stated, the decision could be reversed in conference, but for three reasons, 

the prospects were “exceedingly slim.” First, the vote was “more conclusive than anticipated.” 

Second, the Senate conferees probably would not “engage in the same sort of last-ditch fight that 

dragged on to an impasse in the 92nd Congress.” Finally, “in a canny maneuver,” the bill’s sponsors 

had included “a lot of transit money.” They also allowed local officials to reject highway funds, 

which would be returned to Washington, and replaced by general Treasury funds for transit 

projects. The “big flaw” was that while Highway Trust Fund revenues were assured, “the promised 

substitute aid” would be “subject not only to the vagaries of annual appropriation but to the 

additional threat of presidential impoundment.” 

The editorial hoped the conference would lead to further gains for transit:

Barring a near-miracle, however, it seems likely that cities will have to look elsewhere than 

the highway trust fund for transit dollars. And with the new highway legislation binding for 

three years, a renewed attack on the trust fund hardly seems imminent. [“Sacred Highway 

Dollars,” The Washington Star-News, April 24, 1973] 

An editorial in The Los Angeles Times attributed the vote to “Selfishness Over Highway Funds.” 

The conference, of course, could reverse the House’s decision: 

Certainly it is in the public interest for it to happen, and the greater the public demand for 

this sensible form of federal transit support, the better the prospects for a reversal of the 

House action. 

Coming just a day after President Nixon’s message on energy policy, the House vote was in 

contrast to the call for a reexamination of energy use. “Highway trust funds . . . are an obvious 

source to help finance these expensive [transit] systems.” The editorial listed the southern 

California members who voted against “the interests of their constituents” (Representatives 

Clawson, Corman, Rousselot, Veysey, and Craig Hosmer): 

It is up to the joint conference committee to show better judgment than these men showed. 

The highway trust fund diversion plan can and should be adopted. [“Selfishness Over 

Highway Funds,” The Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1973] 

Representative Corman responded in a letter to the editor a few days later. In voting against the 

Anderson amendment, he said, “I had in mind the crying need for public transportation in urban 

areas like Los Angeles.” He questioned where the billions of dollars needed were to come from. 

“The President, never averse to shifting the cost of government to regressive taxes, sees breaking up 

the fund as a way to fund an expensive public facility without increasing the federal deficit or 

reforming the federal tax structure.” If the Highway Trust Fund had sufficient surplus funds to pay 

for mass transit, “we should repeal the expensive, regressive gasoline tax it imposes.” 

He pointed out that in 1968, Los Angeles voters had rejected a proposed 89-mile rapid transit 

system that was estimated to cost $2.5 billion. “The proposed half-cent sales tax as a method of 

financing was unacceptable to the people of Los Angeles.” Developing a funding source for mass 
986 

transit “must be accomplished so that no special group pays the bulk of the cost.” The gasoline tax 

revenue in the Highway Trust Fund “hits hardest at the middle and lower-income motorists.”

The needed billions “should be collected fairly and spent wisely,” he said, concluding: 

I believe the House of Representatives reached the fairest and most equitable solution to this 

problem last week. Included in the Federal Aid Highway Act was a provision that would 

grant to the Urban Mass Transit Administration an additional $3 billion. This money will 

be available to urban areas for mass transit projects. 

A reader, K. A. Sutherland of Ontario, California, took exception to the inclusion of Representative 

Rousselot in the list of Members of Congress who voted against the interests of their constituents:

Will you please explain what gives you the right to so stigmatize honest men who may have, 

as did Rep. John Rousselot (R-San Marino), asked their constituents via a questionnaire 

exactly how they felt on the question? I for one am getting awfully sick and tired of 

politicians taking money out of my pocket on the pretext of taking care of one specific need 

and then when the money is no longer needed for that purpose continuing to rob me for 

something else. Granted that rapid transit is a problem; if it were to be considered “on its 

own merit” and financed on that basis, perhaps it would find more public support. 

[“Selfishness Over Highway Funds,” Letters to the Editor, The Los Angeles Times, April 28, 

1973] 

Representative Wright, on April 26, predicted that the conference committee would approve the 

House’s decision to provide general Treasury revenue for rail mass transit, according to Mary 

Russell of The Washington Post: 

Wright, author of the House bill, predicted little difficulty in getting the conferees to accept 

the general revenue formula for mass transit. However, other sources, and Representative 

[Glenn] Anderson, predicted that the Senate conferees would hold out for some trust fund 

money for buying buses, but not subways or rails. 

Senator Randolph, a “wheels on the road” man, was expected to push for the compromise of 

allowing Highway Trust Fund revenues to be used for buses. 

Representative Wright predicted instead that “the most meaningful difference” would prove to be 

the Senate bill’s funding for operating subsidies. In view of the veto threat associated with the 

funding, “Wright said yesterday he would try to work out a compromise on this point.” 

Russell reported that two other expected points of contention were the 10,000-mile priority primary 

system (“Senators say it is unnecessary and too expensive”) and the House moratorium on removal 

of direction signs (“Senate conferees are expected to want the beautification campaign continued”). 

 [Russell, Mary, “Road Trust Fund Predicted as ‘Safe,’” The Washington Post, April 27, 1973] 
987 

On April 20, readers of the front page of The New York Times may have glanced to the right of the 

article about the Long Island Sound bridge vote and seen the headline: 

Nixon Seeks $2.3-Billion in a New Urban Aid Plan

The article began:

WASHINGTON, April 19—President Nixon sent to Congress today a proposal for a $2.5-

billion-a-year program for locally controlled urban development, designed to replace a 

number of similar programs administered by the Federal Government. 

The proposal, called the better communities bill, is the first of four special revenue-sharing 

proposals that the President has said he would seek to have Congress pass this year in hopes 

of fundamentally stirring Federal-state-local relationships. 

The new program would replace seven Federal programs, including grants for urban renewal, model 

cities, neighborhood facilities, water and sewer grants, open space and historic preservation 

rehabilitation loans and public facilities loans. 

President Nixon had discussed the measure in his March 8 State of the Union Address on 

Community Development: 

The Better Communities Act [that he said he would submit] is intended to replace inflexible 

and fragmented categorical grant-in-aid programs, and to reduce the excessive Federal 

control that has been so frustrating to local governments. 

Rather than focusing and concentrating resources in a coordinated assault on a set of 

problems, the categorical system scatters these resources, and diminishes their impact upon 

the most needy. Excessive Federal influence also limits the variety and diversity of 

development programs. Local officials should be able to focus their time, their resources 

and their talents on meeting local needs and producing results, instead of trying to please 

Washington with an endless torrent of paperwork. 

He had submitted similar legislation in 1971 but, “Congress failed to enact it.” Now, as part of his 

New Federalism initiative, he thought the revised measure “will deserve rapid approval by the 

Congress.” The bill would ensure that no city received less money for community development 

than it received under the categorical programs being replaced. All the activities eligible under the 

categorical programs would be eligible for funding under the Better Communities Act, he said, but 

“it would be up to local leaders to determine how that money will be spent.” The new program 

would minimize red tape and eliminate matching shares.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Lynn, the President’s counsellor for community 

development, took the lead in developing the legislation. Lynn, in announcing the bill on April 19, 

said:
988 

The time has come to reduce Federal control, red tape and reviews. These supposed 

safeguards have all too often not contributed to better community development but instead 

have debilitated local resources and energy that rightfully should be directed toward the 

needs of the community. [Kovach, Bill, “Nixon Seeks $2.3-Billion in a New Urban Air 

Plan,” The New York Times, April 20, 1973] 

As Professor Lee pointed out in his book on Nixon’s “Super-Secretaries,” congressional Democrats 

and Mayors “promptly complained to the press that the bill was a conservative and anti-city 

subterfuge for cutting urban financial aid.” 

Although Lynn attributed the opposition to politics, he had not secured a committee hearing for the 

bill before the counsellor experiment came to an end a few weeks after he released the bill. 

Professor Lee said, “A compromise version of community development revenue sharing was 

ultimately signed into law by President Ford on August 22, 1974, about two weeks after Nixon 

resigned.” [Lee, p. 143-144] 

In April 1973, hopes for a Department of Community Development that would include FHWA and 

UMTA programs also collapsed. As noted earlier, the proposal had made it further in the 92nd

Congress than any of the President’s other reorganization proposals. Representative Holifield’s 

committee had recommended its passage, but the bill never made it to the House floor for 

consideration. One of the first steps counsellor Lynn took was to assess prospects for the measure 

in the 93rd Congress. Professor Lee summarized an internal memorandum on the subject: 

Could House Government Operations Committee Chair Chet Holifield’s (D-Calif.) support 

be counted on again? That “may depend upon the positions that the Administration takes in 

other matters,” including a consumer protection agency and atomic energy policy. Senate 

Government Operations Committee Chair Sam Ervin “has not been particularly interested in 

the DCD proposal in the past,” and his degree of cooperation might be linked to his fight 

with the administration on impoundment. The chairman of the committee’s reorganization 

subcommittee, Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn.), “has been generally ineffective in the past” 

and his cooperation might be linked to some federal projects back in his home state. Two 

weeks later, OMB reported that “apparently Holifield intends to reintroduce the DCD bill as 

the Committee reported it” in 1972. The latest on Ribicoff was that he was “at best, 

indifferent to DCD.” 

In anticipation of release of the bill, Lynn and his staff debated how best to promote the legislation, 

such as downplaying OMB’s role in view of its conflict with Senator Ervin on impoundment. He 

initiated low-level meetings with the Department of Transportation regarding transfer of transit 

programs to the new Department, working with Theodore Lutz, the Deputy Under Secretary, 

instead of Under Secretary Krogh, who was facing Watergate and Pentagon Papers problems. 

Meetings between Lynn and Secretary Brinegar on the transit issue had not yet taken place when the 

plan collapsed: 

Plans for introducing DCD at the end of April (or whenever Representative Holifield 

decided) melted away in the policy chaos of Watergate. By the time the counsellorships 
989 

were abolished on May 10, the bill had not yet been introduced. It never was. An August 

1973 memo by [Michael] Raoul-Duval [who oversaw transportation issues on counsellor 

Lynn’s White House staff] demonstrated the political, organizational, and policy sea change 

that had taken place during the previous one hundred days. Having become a [Domestic 

Council] staffer, he presented a summary of the Nixon administration’s ongoing plans “in 

the field of Community Development.” He did not mention DCD. [Lee, p. 144-146] 

The Washington Observer column in Engineering News-Record commented on the impact of 

Watergate on transportation policy: 

The Watergate wrecking ball has knocked down more than the White House administrative 

structure. The campaign and crimes scandal also caved in the policy shell for housing and 

urban renewal, transportation, foreign trade, and such areas as environmental compliance. 

The President’s rebuilding efforts so far have attracted no new faces, and the machinery to 

fill key staff vacancies itself is slowed.

With the departure of H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, President Nixon had given Vice 

President Agnew “a large voice in domestic policy making and a likely renewed role as urban 

contact man while assuring everyone that Agnew was not taking Ehrlichman’s place.” The 

President also had brought in General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., as Haldeman’s temporary 

replacement:

But both these moves may matter less in coming months than the fact that he wiped out the 

super cabiner level domestic counselors [sic] and opened more direct lines of 

communication with each cabinet member.

(On May 2, the President announced the appointment of Vice President Agnew as vice chair of the 

Domestic Council. [Lee, p. 186]) 

The magazine speculated that Secretary Brinegar would be a beneficiary. “Brinegar—crippled by 

the loss of under secretary Egil Krogh, who admitted a supervisory role as a former White House 

aide in the burglary of a safe in the Watergate-related Pentagon papers case—moves out of the 

shadow of James Lynn, still Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary but no longer urban 

development counselor [sic].” 

The article concluded:

Kenneth Cole, chief staff man for the weakened domestic counsil, still must prove he has 

the influence Ehrlichman had with the President. It is an immediate concern because the 

Administration’s Better Communities Act, calling for urban development revenue sharing, 

is being held hostage in congressional committee until a new federal housing program is 

sent to Congress. [Washington Observer, “Watergate Fallout Slows Government 

Machinery,” Engineering News-Record, May 17, 1973, p. 7] 
990 

Norbert T. Tiemann

On April 13, 1973, the White House announced that President Nixon had selected former Nebraska 

Governor Norbert T. Tiemann, 48 years old, to be Frank Turner’s successor as Federal Highway 

Administrator. 

Born in Minden, Tiemann had interrupted his studies at the University of Nebraska in 1943 to enlist 

in the U.S. Army. After serving in the Philippines and Okinawa, he returned to the country and 

completed college in 1949. He worked as a county agricultural agent (1949-1950) before being 

recalled to service during the Korean War, serving in Germany (1950-1952). Returning to civilian 

life, he was director of industry relations for the National Livestock and Meat Board in Chicago 

(1952-1954). 

In 1949, Tiemann married Lorna Bornholdt of Wausa (population about 750 at the time) in the 

northeast corner of Nebraska. They had four children, a son and three daughters. 

When his father-in-law died in 1954, the family asked “Nobby,” as he was known, to take over the 

family-owned bank. His success in operating the small-town bank led to his election in 1965 as 

president of the Nebraska Bankers Association. He also served three terms as Mayor of Wausa

(1956-1962). 

In 1966, he decided to seek the Republican nomination for Governor, running against the 

establishment’s choice, Val Peterson, a former Governor (1947-1953) who had served in the 

Eisenhower Administration. Professor Frederick C. Luebke of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln 

described Tiemann’s advantages: 

Tall and handsome, obviously intelligent, self-confident, vigorous, articulate, witty – 

Tiemann at forty-two years of age was a remarkably attractive candidate, an appealing 

alternative to the aging Peterson. He won the Republican nomination with a margin of 

15,000 votes. 

His Democratic opponent, Lieutenant Governor Philip Sorenson, 34 years old, had more political 

experience but Luebke explained:

In Nebraska, when both political parties offer fresh, strong, and attractive candidates for the 

governorship, the Republican is likely to win, given the majority of Republican voters in the 

state.

Both recognized that taxation was the most important issue facing the voters in 1966, the result of 

two measures on the ballot that year:

One was a referendum spearheaded by Omaha interests to repeal an income tax law passed 

in 1965 and scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 1967; the other was an initiative 

sponsored by the Nebraska Farm Bureau to amend the state constitution so as to prohibit the 

state government from levying property taxes, leaving such harvest to local governmental 
991 

units such as counties, cities, and school districts. Not unexpectedly, the voters approved 

both, thereby temporarily depriving state government of about two-thirds of the revenue it 

needed to provide the services citizens expect.

Tiemann won the election with 62 percent of the popular vote, giving him the top State post at a 

time of fiscal danger that he intended to confront despite the weak role of past Governors: 

Traditionally, Nebraska governors have not exercised their political power to influence the 

legislature, determine public issues, or lead their party. This has been particularly true since 

the inauguration of Nebraska’s unique nonpartisan unicameral legislature in 1937. Lacking 

the bridge-building capacity between the executive and legislative branches afforded by 

political parties as in all other states, Nebraska governors have preferred to limit themselves 

to their administrative role . . . .

In his inaugural address on January 5, 1967, Governor Tiemann signaled that he would take an 

activist role by submitting a revenue bill that would balance a sales tax with an income tax. In 

April, the Unicameral approved the “laws that were remarkable in their range and impact” and that 

provided the revenue the State needed to function. 

Late in the legislative session, Governor Tiemann sought authority to enter into bonded 

indebtedness to pay for highway construction: 

The problem became acute for Nebraska after the enactment by Congress of the Federal Aid 

Highway Act of 1956 . . . . The problem for Nebraska was that ever since 1875 its 

constitution limited state indebtedness to $100,000. A century later this penny-wise, poundfoolish provision sometimes worked to the fiscal disadvantage of Nebraska taxpayers.

During the campaign, Tiemann had proposed to raise money through bonds that would be retired by 

revenue from a motor vehicle or fuel tax. 

In June 1967, the Unicameral approved the plan to allow bonds to be issued if backed by a threefifths vote of the legislature. Motor vehicle license fees and fuel taxes backed the bonds for 

highway construction. Voters subsequently approved the measure 

Professor Luebke quoted a Nebraska resident as saying Governor Tiemann had dragged the State 

“kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.” His leadership, the professor said, “was 

unprecedented in its activist or dynamic qualities.” He continued: 

But without the activist leadership of Governor Norbert Tiemann, Nebraska’s ship of state 

might well have lost its course between the Scylla of sclerotic traditionalism and the 

Charybdis of reforms that reached farther than the voters were willing to tolerate . . . . 

Tiemann had been willing to take risks more daring than those of any of his predecessors . . 

. . . [Luebke, Frederick C., “Tiemann, Taxes, and the Centennial Legislature of 1967: 

Beginning Nebraska’s Second Century,” Nebraska History, Fall 1990, p. 107-119] 
992 

Marvin L. Nuernberger, who was appointed State Engineer in 1968, said of the bond vote: 

In 1968, the people thought the state highways were in poor shape and that there ought to be 

a way to improve them. Therefore, the bond issue won and became part of the massive 

bundle of highway legislation that was developed and passed in 1969. The enactment of 

this total highway package permitted Nebraska to become progressive in the planning and 

construction of an integrated network of highways, roads, and streets. [Koster, George E., A 

Story of Highway Development in Nebraska, Nebraska Department of Roads, 1986, p. 80] 

Governor Tiemann’s accomplishments in the area of roads included the first broad reorganization 

of the Department of Roads; issuing the first bonds for highway construction, establishing a 20-year 

plan for expressway construction, initiating the first mandatory driver examinations and motorvehicle inspection programs, and closing the Omaha Gap on I-80. [America’s Highways 1776-

1976, p. 195] 

The price of bold leadership, in Governor Tiemann’s case, was defeat when he ran for reelection in 

1970. His Democratic opponent, businessman James J. Exon, would serve as Governor from 1971 

to 1979 before entering the United States Senate (1979-1997). 

At the time of his nomination to be Federal Highway Administrator, Tiemann was Vice President 

for Corporate Finance of First Mid-American, Inc., an investment bank in Lincoln. He also served 

as president of the Coalition for Rural Development (1971-1973). 

Upon learning of the nomination, the Lincoln Journal said it was “good news not only for the 

former Nebraska governor but for Nebraskans and all those who care about good highways.” The 

newspaper said:

That Tiemann has a deep appreciation of road needs and insight into how to meet them was 

demonstrated during his tenure as governor. Tiemann should face challenges aplenty in his 

new assignment. Decisions must be made about expansion of the Interstate System. 

Differences must be reconciled between the executive and legislative branches over 

highway spending. The future of the Highway Trust Fund—shall it be used only for roads 

or for other means of transportation?—needs to be determined. [“Tiemann a Good Choice,” 

Lincoln Journal, April 16, 1973] 

On May 15, the Senate Committee on Public Works held a confirmation hearing. Senator 

Randolph opened the hearing by complimenting Governor Tiemann as “a perceptive human being 

[who] knows that he approaches a new job in a time when the program he will direct is in a state of 

transition.” While the highway program must still facilitate movement, “it must do so in a manner 

that is consistent with the other goals of contemporary American society.” The pending highway 

legislation “will indicate new directions for the highway program.”

In brief opening comments, Tiemann pointed out that he had served as Governor “in difficult years 

as indicated by the tax reform bills.” The result had been adoption of 15 of 19 major legislative 

proposals by a legislature “that the press called hostile.” To pass them, he had to “establish a good 
993 

working relationship with the individuals in the legislative branch.” He hoped to establish a similar 

relationship with the members of the House and Senate Public Works Committees. 

He said he would ask Deputy Administrator Bartelsmeyer to stay on. In addition, “I will ask Frank 

Turner to be my ex officio mentor, to be my strong right arm.” 

Highway safety would be a top priority, as it had been in Nebraska. Some of the measures, such as 

mandatory driver testing and car inspection had not been “a politically popular thing to do” in his 

State. “Nevertheless, in the pursuit of safety it was mandatory.” 

He described himself as “one of the original antitrust busters,” adding: 

I have learned since that time that now the Federal highway program must interface with all 

other modes of transportation, that as we are nearing the end of the interstate construction—

I think you will recognize it in the House bill and Senate bill presently in conference—that 

there is about a 50-to-50 split between rural and urban highways in the funding levels. 

It seems to me that as we phase out the Interstate System, we are beginning to get to the end 

of that, that we have to recognize that the level of funding for urban mass transit must be 

increased. I don’t think there is any argument as to the need for funding the mass transit 

system.

I think the sensitivity comes in how do we fund it. It seems to me that here’s an area that 

could be very well compromised—and men of good will can sit down and decide how this 

can be solved. 

Senator Bentsen began the questioning with the key question. “Do you favor the utilization of the 

highway trust fund for rail mass transit or not?” Tiemann replied “Yes,” but clarified that he meant 

all transit, not necessarily rail transit. 

Senator Randolph followed up by asking Tiemann’s view as an individual, not a member of an 

Administration that favored the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues for rail transit. “I am asking 

for your personal feeling about this problem.” Tiemann replied: 

Yes; Senator. I am on record as having given testimony during my tenure as Governor 

against the diversion of any funds at all from the trust fund. It is earmarked for highway 

construction and it should be that way. I continue to feel that way personally. 

However, as I indicated earlier, the administration’s viewpoint is counter to that and being a 

member of that administration I will follow that mandate. However the public trust, if I am 

confirmed, that is placed in my hands means I follow the letter of the law.

Senator Clark of Iowa asked what Tiemann considered a realistic target date for completing the 

Interstate System. He replied that 1980 appeared to be the present expected completion date, but “I 

guess I have to hedge my answer more to say it is impossible to tell you how we can be completed 
994 

because of the literally hundreds of court cases pending.” As a result, “I think probably it is not 

realistic to come up with a solid date at the moment with all of these variables at issue.” 

Would Tiemann favor extending the Interstate System after it is completed? The States, Tiemann 

replied, would continue to have highway needs, whether they are called an extension or not. Those 

needs probably could better be met by continuation of the 70-30 programs than the 90-10 Interstate 

program. 

Senator Clark also asked about impoundment. Tiemann replied, “I agree with the administration’s 

position,” adding that with inflation and the economy as they were, “the priority of fighting 

inflation probably takes precedence over highway building.” 

Senator Randolph said “there has been a tendency, I think, for the Federal Government at times to 

go beyond its constituted authority.” He asked if Tiemann thought “the States can more readily 

accept and frankly commit themselves to action rather than to wait on the processes of the Federal 

Government?” 

Tiemann said he agreed with the premise:

One of the mottos around our office was “The quicker you cut redtape, the faster you will 

cut the ribbon.” We very often had a battle with the Federal Highway Administration as to 

who is causing all the redtape. You can cut the redtape in the area where you have the 

responsibility. I think the Federal Highway Administration is moving very quickly in the 

reduction of redtape. 

He cited certification acceptance as an example of reduced red tape. “I think we will eliminate a 

great deal of redtape—that is one of the high priorities, the elimination of redtape.” 

After the session, lasting from 9:55 to 10:33 a.m., ended, the Committee on Public Works 

unanimously approved the nomination. The Senate confirmed his nomination on May 16. 

Secretary Brineger administered the oath of office to the new Federal Highway Administrator on 

June 1, 1973, with Tiemann’s daughter Mary holding the Bible. In his first message to FHWA 

employees, he said “I am very glad to be here” and that he hoped “to personally know as many of 

you as possible in the months ahead. He said: 

I am acutely conscious of the splendid traditions of the Federal Highway Administration and 

its predecessor agency, the Bureau of Public Roads, and the fact that my predecessors in the 

position of Federal Highway Administrator have all been men of dedication and integrity. 

Noting that he was not an engineer, he explained that he would “rely heavily” on Deputy 

Administrator Bartelsmeyer and had asked former Administrator Turner “for his advice and 

counsel, so I will be receiving excellent guidance from these two top professionals.” He concluded: 
995 

Working together, we will not only continue the fine work FHWA has done in the past, but 

go on to new achievements in the future. [“Norbert T. Tiemann Sworn in as Federal 

Highway Administrator,” FHWA News, June 1973, p. 1] 

Tiemann’s first interview as Administrator was with Lee Stillwell of Scripps-Howard Newspapers. 

 “The good old days of highway building are gone,” Tiemann said, “when highway building 

provided the only method of transportation.” Stillwell wrote: 

Tiemann . . . has made clear to his engineers and aides that they must realize highways no 

longer can be built in straight lines from one point to another without considering side 

effects. The public and federal law demand protection for the environment. “And we go 

along with that,” Tiemann said . . . . 

Tiemann said he believes his agency’s future will be determined to a large extent by the 

final form of the Federal Highway Act now in a conference committee to iron out 

differences between House and Senate versions . . . . 

Tiemann said he supports this flexibility idea President Nixon has proposed but which the 

House version of the highway bill would reject. The automobile is the most successful form 

of transportation ever invented, Tiemann said, but it has been so successful that it has 

caused urban problems—air and noise pollution in addition to traffic jams. Other means of 

transportation must be used, he said, noting that rapid rail transit isn’t economically feasible 

for most cities but that rapid bus transit is, especially where exclusive bus lanes are created.

Urban traffic problems cannot always be solved by new highways, so Tiemann intended to 

encourage people to promote carpools. About one-third of cars could be taken off the streets during 

commuter hours in this way. He also mentioned research underway to develop electronic 

equipment to give buses priority at stop lights; to widen intersections and cut off bottlenecks; and 

an experiment in the District of Columbia to use computers to adjust traffic flow. 

Tiemann acknowledged that environmental considerations were still new, but said that highway 

officials should have a “deep commitment to preserving our environment.” The article concluded 

with a quote from Tiemann: 

“Voltaire said, ‘The only way to compel men to speak good of us is to do it,’ and the only 

way to get public opinion on our side in this matter is to prove beyond a doubt that we are 

attaching the highest importance to environmental considerations. [Stillwell, Lee, “Transit 

More Than Roads, Highway Chief Says,” Pittsburgh Press, June 18, 1973] 

Tiemann’s first speech was on June 18 to WASHO. He said that unlike most of his predecessors, 

he was not an engineer:

However, in my former role as Governor of Nebraska, I worked very closely with the State 

Department of Roads, and I think I have a pretty good idea of how engineers think, and of 

how a highway department functions. My own background, in addition to the 
996 

administration of state government, has been in the field of financial management, and I 

hope that the experience gained in both sectors will prove useful in carrying out my new 

duties. 

As he had said during his confirmation hearing and his greeting to FHWA employees, he planned to 

depend heavily “on the experience of your good friend Deputy Administrator Ralph Bartelsmeyer” 

and had asked former Federal Highway Administrator Frank Turner for his advice and counsel. “I 

think you will agree that I will be getting some excellent guidance from these two top 

professionals.” 

Based on his experience as Governor of a rural State and as president of the Coalition for Rural 

Development, he assured WASHO that he would not ignore rural road needs while working to 

address urban problems. “This is especially so in those States or areas which have lost most or all 

of their rail transportation, and which have no interstate or intercity bus service.”

At the same time, the WASHO States included many urban areas with critical transportation 

problems “and it is essential to our national well-being that these problems be solved.” He pointed 

to a key problem: 

The automobile is the most popular and successful form of transportation ever invented, and 

it appeals greatly to our American sense of freedom by giving us the ability to come and go 

when and where we please. It has been the principal factor in our 20th Century economic 

and social lifestyles.

Sadly, however, it has become TOO successful in our cities—to the degree where it is now

defeating its purpose. As a result, we have arrived at a point where we must reduce 

dependence on private cars in urban areas—particularly during the rush hours—and 

convince commuters to either form carpools or use public mass transit facilities.

Rail rapid transit might work in the largest cities, but “because of population or geographic 

characteristics, rail transit is not economically feasible for most of our cities.” Bus rapid transit, 

including exclusive bus lanes, offered a better solution, especially when combined with 

sophisticated electronic equipment that gave buses priority at traffic signals. 

Cities needed the funds to make decisions to address their individual needs. For that reason, 

Administrator Tiemann said, the Nixon Administration “put a high priority on increased flexibility 

in the use of Highway Trust Fund monies.” Efforts to open Federal-aid urban system funds to 

flexible use had been met with “a great deal of misunderstanding and confusion.” He emphasized 

that how one area decided to use the funds would have no effect on rural expenditures or 

expenditures in other States. With the conference committee underway, “at the moment we do not 

know what the final outcome will be.” 

He also emphasized environmental considerations. “This is a matter of Federal law, of course, but 

it also is as it should be—as highway officials we SHOULD have a deep commitment to preserving 
997 

our environment.” Measures to address environmental concerns, including air and noise pollution, 

were here to stay:

What it all means is that there will be no return to the procedures, methods, and 

philosophies of the past in the highway program. We are in a new era, one in which we 

must regard highways differently than we once did. 

Further, they could no longer think of transportation modes as “independent entities, each with its 

own constituency and indifferent to the problems and the needs of the others.” He explained: 

The point is, we must now think in terms of overall TRANSPORTATION planning, and the 

role of each mode in that plan. The modes cannot be competitive in our highly complex 

society of today—and tomorrow—instead, they must be complementary.

Still, “human nature is human nature, and long established ways of thinking and acting are not 

easily changed.” However, steady progress was being made, as reflected in the fact that 22 States 

had created departments of transportation modeled on the Federal Department. (His home State 

was one of the exceptions, and remains so today.) 

He said in closing that his primary goal would be “to establish a close and harmonious working 

relationship with State highway officials.” With the Interstate System winding down, State and 

Federal officials needed to have meaningful discussions on the direction of the highway program, 

“keeping in mind always its context in regard to our larger total transportation objectives.” 

The Conference Committee Convenes

The 16 members of the conference committee–9 from the House, 7 from the Senate—planned to 

start work on Wednesday, May 9. Mary Russell of The Washington Post said, “It promises to be a 

long and difficult job, because the two bills are vastly different.” Despite the urgent need for the 

funds, the conferees knew “the Nixon administration is raising the threat of a veto if the conference 

product is a budget-buster.” Russell highlighted the key issues. The Muskie-Baker amendment 

opening Federal-aid urban system funds to rail transit; the Senate provision authorizing mass transit 

operating subsidies; the Senate’s pass-through of urban system funds directly to cities and its 

“earmarking” of funds for larger cities; the House’s priority primary programs for feeder roads off 

the Interstate System; and funding for highway safety. 

She recalled 1972, when conferees deadlocked over the provision allowing Highway Trust Fund 

revenue to be used for rail transit: 

This year, Wright says he expects more of a compromise atmosphere, because the Congress 

is under pressure from the states. The makeup of the Senate conferees might make that 

compromise a bit more difficult, however. 

Attempts were made to have nine Senate conferees, five who opposed Muskie-Baker and 

four who supported it. But a 1972 reform adopted by the Senate Democratic Caucus says a 
998 

majority of Senate conferees on any bill should represent the majority view of the Senate. 

Under pressure of this reform, a compromise was worked out so that the Senate will have 

seven conferees, four in favor of Muskie-Baker and three against.

The House will have nine conferees, only two of whom supported the Muskie-Baker 

language when it was beaten on the House floor. 

There is little chance that the Muskie-Baker amendment to bust the trust will be accepted, 

because there are easily 10 votes against. But some compromises, perhaps providing mass 

transit funds for buses, or even rail rolling stock, might have to be worked out. 

Russell pointed out that Representative Wright has proposed a compromise on transit operating 

subsidies. “In effect it allows states to use what they put up as their share of highway matching 

funds for operating subsidies, without losing the Federal share.” 

The Administration, she noted, supported the Muskie-Baker amendment, “but violently opposed the 

operating subsidies, and let it be known that if the bill contained operating subsidies, the President 

would veto it.” Morever, the 3-year House bill authorized total funding of $25.6 billion or $3 

billion a year more than the Nixon Administration wanted. (The Senate’s $18 billion over 3 years 

was within Administration targets.) Russell continued: 

[The Administration] is concerned about the backdoor spending provided by the House bill 

from general revenues, sources say, and it worries about a recent court ruling against the 

impoundment of highway trust funds. 

Sources said if the bill is too loaded down with spending items like the priority primary 

system, the safety money and anti-impoundment language, it might be vetoed anyway. 

John Kramer and other advocates for the Muskie-Baker amendment “are delighted at the prospects 

of a veto. Kramer explained:

“I’m absolutely convinced a veto would be sustained” by Congress. “Then, given another 

go-around maybe we can pick up the 13 votes we need in the House to pass some form of 

Muskie-Baker.” 

Representative Wright suggested opening the conference to public observation. “It might be a good 

idea,” he said, but it would be unusual. He acknowledged that not all conference participants, 

particularly Senator Randolph, might agree. “They may be highly amenable to it or they may have 

huge problems I don’t know about.” Senator Muskie indicated he unequivocally supported a vote 

to open the conference. [Russell, Mary, “Public Session is Sought for Highways Bill,” The 

Washington Post, May 7, 1973] 

The conference would not be in public. 

Although some transit advocates hoped for a bill that would provoke a veto, they also mapped a 

strategy for the conference. According to the Washington Observer column in Engineering News-
999 

Record, they were “turning their attention to salvaging provisions of the legislation that passed the 

first time around.” “There are quite a few bargaining points left,” Robert Coultas of the Institute for 

Rapid Transit said. Both bills included $3 billion in authorizations for UMTA’s capital grants 

while the Senate bill included the Muskie-Baker amendment and $800 million in operating 

subsidies: 

Conferees are expected to delete quickly both Senate provisions to avoid a veto threat. But 

transit lobbyists can still push for a bill pending before the House Rules Committee that 

would provide both the $800 million in subsidies and the stipulation that the federal share of 

UMTA capital grants be increased from the present two-thirds to 80%. However, they will 

have to overcome strong Administration objections to operating subsidies and any increase 

in the federal formula above 70%. [Washington Observer, “Transit Advocates Map Plans to 

Salvage Programs,” Engineering News-Record, May 3, 1973, p. 7] 

The Washington Star-News said the issue of Federal subsidies was “about to explode in a 

showdown fight on Capitol Hill.” In Washington, WMATA had taken over the region’s bus lines 

and found one thing was unchanged: “Bus ridership and bus revenues both are continuing to 

decline, much as they did in the days of private management.” New York City’s problem with 

transit subsidies was “in a class by itself,” with deficits approaching “the horrendous magnitude of a 

quarter of a billion dollars.” What was clear in these locations and virtually everywhere else was 

“the clear, unvarnished evidence that most transit operations, unless fares are raised so high that 

few people would ride buses and trains, simply cannot survive from fare-box revenues alone.” 

For conferees on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, the “toughest decision will come on the 

campaign to authorize, for the first time, a new program of federal transit operating subsidies.” 

Given the Nixon Administration’s “adamant objections, the prospects are not bright.” 

Metro and other public authorities might consider sales-tax subsidies, as in Atlanta, to cut its fares 

or simply cutting fares to increase ridership. “The philosophy” behind such measures was that 

“increased transit ridership is worth its high costs as a tool of urban development to decrease traffic 

congestion,” among several benefits. Nevertheless, where these efforts had been tried, “revenues 

flowing from more ridership [have not] offset the losses incurred by fare rollbacks and the higher 

costs of operation.” Still, it was an idea worth considering “and it is at least conceivable that such 

actions may be forced in the future by such environmental pressures as air pollution and fuel 

shortages.” 

As a result, “it is high time that the issue of transit operating subsidies moves to the front rank of 

urban concerns.” State legislatures may want to take up the issue:

But the logical, compelling first source of relief for urban areas everywhere is a federal 

program of operating subsidy assistance, augmenting the responsibility Congress already has 

assumed to share in the local costs of building and equipping mass transit. 

The Administration had complained that subsidies “would reward inefficient transit operations and 

assume an essentially local burden.” The editorial responded: 
1000 

In truth, the initial proposals invited such criticism. A compromise version that will be 

available to the House-Senate conferees this week, however, would require a dollar-fordollar matching of local tax funds, establish tighter criteria for need and redefine the 

money’s use. By those means the federal government can avoid a disproportionate share of 

the burden, while recognizing the clearly demonstrable need to help. Both goals should be 

met. [“The Fight for Federal Bus Subsidies,” Washington Star-News, May 6, 1973] 

Railway Age magazine saw a possible compromise in the wake of the House’s defeat of the 

Anderson amendment: 

But all is not despair for rapid transit men. The House-passed highway-aid bill and the 

Senate version now go to a conference committee where an important quid pro quo may 

take place. The Senate version, as all men know, contains a provision siphoning $850 

million annually from trust fund monies to rail rapid and bus urban systems. If the Senate 

recedes from this provision, say House Public Works Committee sources, thus allowing no 

diversion, the House will go along with another Senate bill provision which channels $800 

millionl a year from general funds to defray operating subsidies of urban mass transit 

systems.

Such a quid pro quo would make life harder for Secretary Brinegar:

In any event, the House defeat of the diversion amendment, offered by Rep. Glenn 

Anderson (D-Calif.) was a stunning defeat for Mr. Brinegar who made an all-out attempt to 

secure House passage of diversion. If the tradeoff of diversion for operating subsidies takes 

place in conference, Mr. Brinegar’s highway problems may just be beginning. 

[“House/Senate Transit Tradeoff?” Railrway Age, May 14, 1973] 

Frank Reid of Better Roads was frustrated by the public debate. In his April 1973 editorial “What 

Next Mr. President,” he said that “Alice in wonderland” thinking was “running rampant” in 

FHWA:

Evidently charged with supporting your raid on the Highway Trust Fund, they have come up 

with a new twist . . . The Trust Fund is not really a trust. Why not? Because a long while 

ago, before 1956, that is, no trust fund existed and there was a gas tax! Not only was the gas 

tax not earmarked, it went directly into the General Fund. 

FHWA’s thinking, Reid explained, was that since half the funds in the Highway Trust Fund had 

once gone into the general Treasury, “it is a ‘reasonable’ assumption that half the present Fund be 

eligible for some General Fund use such as Mass Transit schemes.” He told “the President”:

Now try that one on for size. They are really reaching to justify your raid. That kind of 

thinking could wipe out every earmarked tax we have on the books. 

Reid cited the growing highway needs in the country: 
1001 

There’s an old saying that you can’t get blood from a stone; well it is becoming increasingly 

apparent that soon we will not be able to get this needed money out of the Trust Fund, at 

least not in amounts great enough to do the job. [Reid, Frank, Editorial Viewpoints, “What 

Next Mr. President . . .,” Better Roads, April 1973, p. 21] 

The following month, Reid began his editorial: “The Highway Trust Fund is, as usual, in hot 

water,” with mass transit advocates eying road-user tax funds for their mode: 

This same problem crops up session after session. It is obvious that, whatever its merits, the 

Highway Trust Fund lacks unquestioning support in the Congress. 

He said that Representative Harsha had explained the problem during a speech to ARBA’s meeting 

in Houston: 

Representative Harsha laid it on the line to the convention delegates . . . . Congressional 

supporters of the Trust Fund have had little support from the highway industry over the past 

several years. He stated that each year it gets harder and harder to combat the constant 

stream of well organized opposition presented by the anti-highway lobby. 

He warned, in effect, that if the highway industry did not stop sitting on its collective hands 

then the next battle could well be lost by default. He urged all present to write to, or call 

their respective legislators . . . to tell the positive side of the highway story.

Reid not only endorsed the idea but had been propounding it for months, urging the highway 

community to makes its case to local newspapers and organizations, as well as legislators “and do it 

before we face those critical votes and before people get backed into corners with anti-highway 

opinions.” He stated the point in italics:

It is long past time for the highway industry to come out swinging, to land the first punch 

for a change. 

He concluded: 

Once again . . . there must be a concerted effort on the part of all highway people to tell the 

highway story and tell it now, tell it tomorrow and tell it the day after that. Then and only 

then will the public and their elected representatives have the true highway picture before 

them when the next vote on the Trust Fund comes up. 

The job is yours, get out and do it. [Reid, Frank, Editorial Viewpoints, “There is a Strong 

Highway Story: Tell it Now!” Better Roads, May 1973, p. 17] 

Rethinking the City

On May 16, Secretary Brinegar was in Los Angeles to address the Los Angeles Chamber of 

Commerce’s National Transportation Week Luncheon at the convention center. Acknowledging 
1002 

that he’d been the Secretary for only about 100 days and his experience was limited, he said he 

would “like to offer some comments on the major transportation issues before the Nation as I now 

see them.”

The Department of Trransportation, he said, had an annual budget of about $8 billion and slightly 

over 100,000 employees. “Our career staff people are, by and large, a dedicated and hard working 

group.” The Federal-aid highway program took over half the Department’s dollars, while the FAA

comprised over half the employees. The Department’s role was to ensure the modes of 

transportation “are working efficiently and cooperatively, [because] when the demands and the 

service are in fair balance, our Nation can move its freight and its people smoothly and at low cost.” 

The Nation’s 1972 transportation bill was about $200 billion, with 80 percent going to highways 

directly or indirectly. Whether the expenditures met the Nation’s needs was the question: 

Though clear-cut answers are hard to come by, there is growing evidence that it did not and 

that the resource allocation is out of balance . . . . I believe that our long-term concentration 

on highways and automobiles—to the point where we now have 3.4 million miles of the 

former and 100+ million of the latter—is no longer appropriate. Highway growth properly 

served to tie the country together over the past 30-40 years. But inertia and vested interests 

now make the needed shift of direction most difficult. However, I believe that the priority 

demands of the 1970’s and 1980’s—led by problems of urban congestion, an energy 

shortage, and air pollution—give us little option but to find the way to make this shift.

The need for such a shift was evident “during the so-called ‘rush’ hours” that might better be called 

“congestion hours.” So much money had been spent on interstate transportation from city-to-city 

that moving within the cities “got lost somewhere in the shuffle.” With so much of the population 

in urban areas, “we can no longer avoid facing the issue.”

The UMTA program was the Department’s major response to urban congestion: 

To illustrate what we are doing, during the calendar year 1972 we approved 133 separate 

grants to 61 urban areas. The major project effort is in support of bus purchases—with our 

capital grants now being used to purchase nearly 85% of all transit buses built in the U.S. 

The Department also was trying “to provide a small measure of flexibility in the way that Federal 

highway trust fund dollars can be used.” Accomplishing this goal “has proven to be a difficult task, 

largely, I think, because of misunderstandings about our proposal and because of inertia in the 

existing system.” The Administration’s proposal for allowing local choice in the use of funds 

apportioned for urban areas had “caused many cries of protest, especially from those closely related 

to highways.” He said: 

Charges that we’re out to “break the trust,” that we’re endangering the interstate highway 

system, and that we’re neglecting the Nation’s critical highway needs have been regularly 

heard in Washington in recent weeks. 
1003 

The controversy is most unfortunate, because when the smoke clears and the trust fund issue 

is looked at in a longer-term perspective, I’m quite certain that it will be widely understood 

to be a timely idea and entirely consistent with the broad purposes to which trust fund 

monies can be properly used. 

The Muskie-Baker amendment, he explained, had passed the Senate by 5 votes while the 

comparable Anderson amendment had failed in the House by 25 votes. The conference committee 

was underway, but “I’m not optimistic.” He added: 

If we lose we will have to seek an alternate way—including possibly consideration of some 

restructuring of the future make-up and objectives of the trust fund. 

Although many questions surrounded urban transportation, he cited two: 

1. How much longer can we continue to think of urban transportation planning as being 

separate from urban land use planning? 

2. Who are the proper local community agencies to take the lead in developing and 

implementing coordinated transportation and land-use planning. 

On the first question, he said that transportation systems “both shape urban centers and, in turn, are 

then shaped by the changes.” A freeway serves existing development but also causes shopping 

centers and housing areas to be developed: 

Without a coordinated land-use-transportation planning effort we can find ourselves not 

eliminating urban congestion by adding new transportation systems, but rather sadly finding 

that we’re now forced to cope with a higher and more complex level of congestion. 

“Congestion rises to meet capacity” may indeed be a perversion of one of Parkinson’s laws 

that will forever haunt the too-narrow urban transportation planner. 

(Parkinson’s law, which Cyril Northcote Parkinson revealed in a humorous 1955 essay, is usually 

stated as: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”)

On the second question, Secretary Brinegar said he had been observing local agencies:

My early analysis suggests that the better ones have agencies with at least these common 

characteristics: the agency’s boundaries cover the relevant urban area; its charter comes 

from the state and gives it, as a well-defined metropolitan unit, considerable clout; it is 

involved both in planning and implementation; and it has widespread community support, 

backed by an adequate staff and a first-rate top executive. These characteristics may be no 

guarantee of success, but without them you surely run a risk of failure. 

He turned to the issues facing Los Angeles which, as he noted, was his home. “I’m looking forward 

to returning to Los Angeles when my Washington adventures are over.” As he traveled around the 

country and reviewed analyses available in the Department of Transportation, one thing had become 

clear:
1004 

I’ve concluded that the Los Angeles area probably faces the most serious transportation 

problem of any major urban area in the Nation. Our extraordinary concentration on 

development of a freeway-suburban culture has driven us to a level of dependence on the 

automobile and its associated urbanization that, to an outsider, is almost beyond belief. 

Let’s face it—we’re “hooked” on the automobile and don’t know how to break the habit . . . 

. The answer: offer some transportation alternatives to the automobile. 

He suggested three actions. First, “Take this entire matter very seriously.” The EPA’s pressure to

enforce the Clean Air Act would “continue unabated no matter how much you want it to go away.” 

The “feet to the fire” approach would continue “and I recommend you be prepared to deal with it.” 

Second, “step-up this area’s coordinated land-use and transportation planning effort and strengthen 

the implementation authority.” Washington could not solve the area’s problems, but if area 

officials developed “comprehensive, community-supported proposals we stand ready to help—and 

quickly.” 

Third, “let’s start offering alternatives to the automobile right now.” The San Bernardino Busway 

was a start, but much more needed to be done: 

I’m not talking about expensive and long-term programs, but rather about aggressively 

pursuing such low-cost ideas as (1) providing really high-quality, reliable rapid bus service 

on exclusive or reverse bus lanes on a great many freeways and arteries (coupled, of course

with expedited movement of these buses through down-town [sic] traffic), (2) offering 

special freeway and parking privileges for car pools, (3) providing special parking lots in 

outlying communities to serve as “staging areas” for bus service or car pools, (4) developing 

a schedule of staggered work hours to balance the freeway load more evenly, (5) getting 

companies to provide free bus passes in lieu of free employee parking, and (6) permitting, 

and possibly subsidizing, the use of taxi-like limousines or small buses that can offer home 

pick-up and delivery services for groups of commuters that live near one another. Though 

some may think it “unthinkable,” I suspect that before long a few cities—and Los Angeles 

may be one—will even be looking at the possibility of licensing the use of freeways, with 

the fees higher—like movie theaters or long distance telephone calls—during prime time. 

We may even be on the way to recognizing that good public transportation is such an 

essential key to urban survival that, like schools and fire protection, it must be made 

available free to all comers and supported by general or special taxes.

Some of these ideas might work for Los Angeles, while others might not. Secretary Brinegar said 

he had directed UMTA Administrator Herringer “to give ‘special handling’ to applications from 

Los Angeles.” He urged local officials to work with him: 

For example, we have on hand computer programs that can help lay out and monitor car 

pooling arrangements, and we can share with you the results of a great variety of public 

transportation experiments now underway in other major urban areas. 
1005 

Secretary Brinegar concluded with a bit of advice from “a newly-minted Washington bureaucrat” 

who still felt deeply about Los Angeles: 

Mark Twain once wrote: “Nothing so needs changing as other people’s habits.” To 

strengthen—and perhaps save—Los Angeles the time is urgently upon us when we must 

change a great many of our habits, but especially those of the over one and half million who 

daily drive back and forth to work in the solitary splendor of their personal automobile. 

Reporter Ray Hebert, writing in The Los Angeles Times, called Brinegar’s speech a “scolding of 

Los Angeles—by a person who knows the region” (a resident of Rolling Hills, as Hebert noted) and 

“one of the severest criticisms to come from the federal level about the area’s failure to build 

another type of transportation system.” 

Hebert quoted the Secretary as saying, in a news conference the same day, that UMTA had about $1 

billion available for grants each year. “Some of this money is available to Los Angeles. But I have 

not seen an application yet. Very little is coming to Los Angeles.” The Southern California RTD, 

which was responsible for developing the area’s transit system, took exception to this statement. A 

spokesman pointed out that UMTA funds had helped pay for the San Bernardino Busway as well as 

downtown minibuses. However, Hebert pointed out, those funds were requested during Secretary 

Volpe’s tenure. [Hebert, Ray, “L.A. Must Break Auto Habit, U.S. Official Says,” The Los Angeles 

Times, May 18, 1973] 

The May 1973 issue of Nation’s Cities, published by the National League of Cities, contained an 

editorial that asked the question: “Time to End the Highway Trust Fund?” Since creation of the 

Highway Trust Fund in 1956, “there have been some minor changes in the highway program, [but] 

it has failed to keep pace with the growing transportation needs of an urban nation.” The Federalaid highway program, including the Interstate System, was “unmatched by any other federal 

domestic program,” but “its success has produced acute distortions and inequities in the availability 

of transportation, particularly in urban areas.” 

Cities pay about 50 percent of the tax revenue credited to the Highway Trust Fund, “yet they 

continue to receive a disproportionately small amount of the funds required to meet critical urban 

transportation needs.” Local governments had made a strong financial commitment to their 

highway and transit networks, including $500 million a year to subsidize transit systems. “But local 

resources alone are inadequate to reverse the trends established by federal policies. Only federal 

remedial action can change these trends.”

The Nixon Administration supported flexibility in the use of federal-aid urban system funds, but 

opposed mass transit operating assistance “in spite of mounting evidence that reduced fares and 

subsidized systems have resulted in dramatic ridership increases.” It continued: 

All parties continue to fail to provide the means for adequate city participation in the 

allocation and control of highway resources. Cities have proposed earmarking Urban 

System funds to assure an adequate and dependable flow of funds. But decisions regarding 
1006 

the highway program still remain in the hands of state highway officials, whose traditional 

reticence to address the full range of city transportation needs is well known. 

What cities needed was assurance “of an adequate and dependable flow of funds to plan, design, 

and put in place total, comprehensive, and balanced transportation systems.” They must have the 

flexibility to use these funds to develop an integrated transportation system, not just a highway 

network. If Congress did not modify the program based on this urban need, “then the cities must 

evaluate their continued support of the Highway Trust Fund” when “allocations, uses, and control 

remain so blantantly [sic] biased against cities.” City residents must insist “on a new plan better 

suited to their complex needs. [Pritchard, Allen, “Time to End the Highway Trust Fund?” Nation’s 

Cities, May 1973, p. 8] 

The nature of urban vehicles was in flux, according to John Hirten, special assistant to the Secretary 

of Transportation. On his daily commute, he had been test driving a four-seat Suzuki weighing 

1,000 pounds, which had not yet been licensed for sale in the United States. The little car was 

capable of 50 to 60 miles per gallon. He told a national conference of import car dealers that, “in 

our urban areas, the 4,000-pound, 250-horsepower, 15-feet-long gas eating behemoth will soon be 

as extinct as the dinosaur.” 

The optimum urban vehicle would “be not only safe but sensible and appropriate for our urban 

areas.” It would not be enough for the vehicle to be small and cheap or expensive and chic. 

“Safety, high performance and appropriateness will be the keys to the future American market.” It 

might have an alternate or dual power source “but it seems clear that the engine will have to be 

innovative, and that patch-up fixtures won’t do the job.” [Ewing, Charles, “The ‘Urban Vehicle’,” 

Washington Star-News, April 27, 1973] 

 

Robert J. Donovan, associate editor of The Los Angeles Times, interviewed John Portman, an 

architect and entrepreneur who had designed and built Peachtree Center in Atlanta, the 

Embarcadero Center on the San Francisco waterfront, and was developing Renaissance City in 

Detroit:

Portman’s thesis is that people no longer can count on using automobiles in the future as 

they have in the past and that cities must, therefore, either take a new form or cease to 

function. 

The form he favors is a city containing numerous self-sustaining communities, built on a 

scale where people could walk to work, walk to the store, walk to church, walk to the 

theater and use their cars only on occasion. These various communities would be tied 

together within the city by a rapid transit network.

Was such a scheme practical? “It has to be. Necessity will make it practical,” he replied in 

reference to the energy crisis:

You are not going to take away the automobile from people, because people are going to 

want maximum freedom of movement. However, the principle is not to take away the 
1007 

automobile but to conserve the use of the automobile by, among other things, keeping the 

wife away from the steering wheel for every move she makes . . . .

The situation is no better in the suburbs. The suburb is the creature of the wheel, and the 

wheel has caused exploitation of the land by giving access to the far reaches . . . . So I think 

an approach would be to try not through rationing gas so much but through creating in our 

planned development and in the restructuring of our cities total communities which would 

be pedestrian-oriented—pedestrian villages, if you will—cutting down on the frequency of 

the use of wheels and looking more and more to maximum movement of people through 

rapid transit systems, people-movers and other devices. 

The cause of traffic was that “no part of the city is self-sustaining, so that everyone is moving in all 

directions trying to make it all work.” The problem was not the automobile itself, but that it “is 

being used indiscriminately now because our whole environmental development since World War 

II has been based on the wheel.” Society needs to use the wheel “in a different way and begin 

planning on the basis that people are bipeds.” 

He acknowledged that Los Angeles was not friendly to pedestrians. “L.A. is the sole creature of the 

wheel. I can’t think of any place you would walk in L.A.” He hoped the area would develop a 

mass transit system “and would develop within its network various coordinate, self-sustaining 

centers to take care of people’s needs.” What was clear was that “the endless spreading out of Los 

Angeles is no longer feasible and that the city will now have to double back on itself with an 

orderly redevelopment of older sections and the creation of a true core.” [Donovan, Robert j., “‘Put 

Cars in Their Place, Put People on Their Feet and Put the City in Order’,” The Los Angeles Times, 

May 4, 1973] 

On May 23, Secretary Brinegar announced a new concept in transportation planning for cities of 

more than 50,000 population. The announcement explained:

Called the Unified Work Program, metropolitan areas with more than 50,000 population 

may consolidate and coordinate all transportation planning activities when funding requests 

involve more than one modal administration of the Department of Transportation. 

“This is consistent with President Nixon’s desire to streamline the functions of Government 

and facilitate the flow of needed funds to local governments,” Secretary Brinegar said. “It 

also enables the local governments to set their own priorities, and at the same time avoids 

duplication of efforts to gain the necessary funds to carry out these programs.” 

An areawide agency, such as a council of governments or regional planning commission, would 

prepare a statement of transportation planning activities for the coming year. This document would 

be the basis for funding requests to elements of the Department of Transportation: 

It should contain all specific highway, mass transit, aviation, railway and port and harbor 

activities, as well as such transportation support factors as socio-economic impact, 
1008 

population estimates, alternative courses of action, public involvement (specially early 

enough in the process to influence courses of action as well as decisions), etc. 

During a speech on June 1 to officials of the State departments of transportation meeting in 

Williamsburg, Virginia, Secretary Brinegar said his Department’s goal was “to bring all the modes, 

and all our planning for their development, under the umbrella of a coordinated national 

transportation policy. His remarks repeated some of his comments in Los Angeles, including his 

emphasis on flexibility in the use of Federal-aid urban system funds: 

The outcome of our bill is in doubt. The principle has been accepted, though not the 

funding. But whatever emerges from the Conference Committee, I believe there is a 

growing awareness (1) that overdependence on the motor vehicle may now be working 

against, rather than for, an efficient, comprehensive national transportation system; and (2) 

that a failure to willingly pursue alternatives to the car today may lead to involuntary 

restraints later, as cities become totally saturated in traffic or as the fuel shortage takes on 

crisis dimensions. 

I find we are near a showdown situation between our transportation indulgences on the one 

hand, and our environmental preservation and energy conservation goals on the other. 

Looking ahead, we may expect some slight modifications in the EPA specifications, but no 

real weakening of that agency’s position. So we must accept the fact that improvements to 

the cleanliness of the internal combustion engine or an alternative is essential to the future 

of the motor vehicle in Amerca; and, further, that some relative change in the role of the 

motor vehicle in the urban environment is equally essential if our cities are to survive and to 

thrive. 

He told the State officials that they could not decree what is best for their urban or rural 

communities. A responsive agency at the State level could “coordinate state and local 

transportation objectives into an overall program.” Theirs was “a creative, constructive, pacesetting role, in enriching and extending the process by which transportation needs at all levels can 

be met.”

He added: 

Think “intermodal” should be your watchword. 

Bicycle Boom Continues

The third annual Congressional Bike-In on Monday, May 7, 1973, was, according to The 

Washington Post, “One Huge Flop,” largely “from lack of support.” Only 8 of the 35 

Representatives who had promised to participate showed up. They had their choice of 50 bicycles 

brought to the site for the occasion: 

Then eight members rode a slow, wobbly mile with a large escort of motorcycle police and 

turned back after completing only half the route. 
1009 

The congressmen showed a lot of interest in being filmed by TV cameramen—some of 

whom ran faster than they cycled—but not too much enthusiasm for the pleasures of the 

open roads round Capitol Hill. 

Representatives Koch and Peyser, the event’s two sponsors, had issued a statement saying, “We are 

pleased by the large turnout of members . . . .” One of Peyser’s aides conceded that was 

misleading:

But at least this ride was more legitimate than last year. We got them out of the Capitol 

grounds this time. Last year the TV cameras were right there and they never left the parking 

lot.

The two sponsors led the small group “riding side-by-side in a low-slung tricycle built for two.” 

Flanked by the motorcycle police, the small group rode along East Capitol Street “with mock cheers 

of encouragement by bystanders.” 

One of Koch’s aides explained why they turned back short of their objective, Lincoln Park. 

“They’re afraid if they overdo it there’ll be some coronaries.” After the ride, while the participants 

posed on their bicycles for photographers, Representative Heckler arrived “wearing clog heels.” 

She hopped on a bicycle for the shot. She explained, “My secretary didn’t put it on the schedule. 

But I’ll be there next year on time and wearing the proper clothes.” [Saar, John, “Congressional 

Bike-In Proves One Huge Flop,” The Washington Post, May 8, 1973] 

Despite the annual failure of bicycle riding members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the 

bicycle boom was continuing. National Geographic magazine for May 1973 included Noel 

Grove’s article, “Bicycles Are Back—and Booming!” along with articles on the Volga river in 

Russia, bats, Mexico City, and Camargue, France. Grove wrote that, “like millions of other 

Americans, I have mounted again the toy of my youth and found it an exhilarating new 

transportation tool.” Unlike in years past, more bicycles were purchased in 1972 for adults than for 

children. “By sheer weight of numbers, they are slowly gaining acceptance in American traffic.”

The big difference in recent years “stems from America’s discovery of Europe’s lightweight, 

multigeared machines.” American manufacturers had belatedly adopted the concept with superlight 

models. A Schwinn spokesman told Grove, “Seventy percent of our production now is in 10-

speeds, which are ridden mostly by adults.” 

Aside from bicycling’s value in the transportation mix of cities and the resulting energy and 

pollution benefits, the bicycle was valuable for health reasons: 

Just how good is that exercise? For the answer I went to the man most credited with 

launching the boom in adult cycling. When noted heart specialist Dr. Paul Dudley White 

was medical consultant to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he prescribed a sport that was 

rejected by his patient but adopted by millions. “I suggested bicycle riding, but he preferred 

golf,” said Dr. White in his Boston office, where at 86 he still sees patients four days a week 

. . . .” 
1010 

Although pleased at the thought of millions of pairs of pumps flexing on bicycles in the 

United States, the sprightly octogenarian is greatly concerned for cyclists’ safety. “I’m in 

favor of bicycling, but not on the same streets with cars,” he said. 

In fact, bicycle accidents had soared:

The National Safety Council estimates that bike-related injuries totaled some 40,000 in 

1972. Fatalities rose to almost 900, nearly double the number a decade ago. 

Grove described his visit to Davis, California, “where a network of bikeways has become the model 

for bike-conscious municipalities.” On “many a broad tree-lined avenue, two of the four lanes are 

marked for bicycles.” He crossed his “first bicycle interchange, a concrete arch across the 

thoroughfare, with curved ramps at each end to feed cyclists onto roadside trails.” Davis illustrated 

“that the bicycle can help loosen the snarls and irritations of urban transportation.” 

Grove quoted Marie Birnbaum, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s bicycle program officer:

Highway statistics show that 43 percent of all urban work trips by car in this country are of 

four miles or less. If we could get that many people on bicycles, think of what it would 

mean to our traffic problem. As for parking, you can put 40 bicycles in the space required 

for two cars.

In conclusion, Grove said, “With bikeway construction and ecological concern marching hand in 

hand, America’s bicycling boom could harbinger a whole new era in transportation.” [Grove, Noel, 

“Bicycles Are Back—and Booming!” National Geographic, May 1973, p. 671-680] 

On February 25, Secretary Brinegar and Secretary of the Interior Rogers C.B. Morton had 

announced a national conference on “Bicycles U.S.A.” for May 7-8 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 

at the Department’s Transportation Systems Center. The conference would cover a broad range of 

problems, including safety and the shortage of bikeways: 

“The bicycle has many desirable qualities as a transportation vehicle,” Secretary Brinegar 

said. “It is inexpensive to buy and operate, provides door-to-door service, is clean, quiet 

and non-polluting. At the May meeting, we will explore methods of making the bicycle 

safer and more effective for urban travel.”

Secretary Morton said, “We at Interior are interested in expanding and improving public 

bikeways in our scenic parklands and urban landscapes to help meet the needs of the 

increasing number of Americans who bicycle for health and recreation . . . .” 

About 250 bicycle enthusiasts, urban and highway planners, bicycle manufacturers, and government 

officials attended the conference. Special Assistant Hirten opened the conference with an 

exhortation: 
1011 

It is incumbent upon us to get past the stage of talking about the revival of the bike as if we 

were trying to convince ourselves that it really is a viable mode of transportation. Rather, I 

think it is time to concentrate on the disadvantages of a bicycle and try to find ways of 

overcoming those disadvantages. 

The goal, he said, was for the bicycle to take its “rightful place in the multi-modal mix.”

The bicycle boom had exceeded the ability of cities and towns to accommodate the new road users

safely. “We are trying,” conference chair Birnbaum said, “to upgrade the status and safety of the 

bicycle as a form of transportation.” 

Robert Rieber of the California Highway Patrol illustrated the scope of the safety problem by saying 

that his State led the Nation in the bicycle boom and in bicycle accidents. He estimated that 25,000 

bicyclists would be killed or injured in California in 1975. “This is a real sobering thought before 

we put bicycles in urban areas.” Solutions were hard to find, as The New York Times reported: 

Such comments [as Rieber’s], along with suggestions that cyclists should be confined to 

special “bikeways” away from motor traffic, irritated a number of the participants, who 

believe that the automobile should be forced to accommodate to the bicycles.

“We must make the roads and streets safe for bikes,” said Bill Wilkinson of the National 

Parks [sic] Service. “We must move to infringe on motorists.” 

Some speakers blamed bicyclists for the safety problem and urged police officers to force them to 

obey traffic regulations. Bicyclists were urged to wear helmets, ride on the right, and practice 

“defensive bike riding.” 

The central safety issue was the mix of bicycles and automobiles. From a practical standpoint, 

separate paths might be too expensive; a study of a bike network for Atlanta indicated it would cost 

$20 million. Lanes marked only by a painted stripe would be much less expensive, but they, too, 

had their opponents. Friends of Bikecology opposed “white lines or signs along the road’s edge, 

which do little more than lull both cyclists and motorists into a false sense of security.” 

Commuters and recreational bicyclists also disagreed on how to establish routes. Commuting 

bicyclists favored straight, direct, level routes, while recreational bicyclists were more concerned 

about the surroundings and the absence of cars. Most commuters accepted the presence of 

automobiles, but some argued for banning cars from downtown. 

Bicyclists complained that Interstate highways did not include provisions for cycling paths. W. P. 

Walker, acting chief of FHWA’s Highway Design Division, responded in an interview that FHWA 

was not against bike paths. “They’ve got to realize that to support a program, you’ve got to take 

from somebody. Cyclists are probably unable to support financially a national system of paths.” 

For the future, some speakers advocated a nationwide bikeway system similar in length to the 

Interstate System. Others favored bicycle-transit linkups. For example, buses might include a bike 
1012 

trailer and subway stations would have bicycle storage facilities. Planning was underway for such 

facilities along the BART system. [Reinhold, Robert, “Federal Officials Study Pedal Power as One 

Alternative to Piston Power,” The New York Times, May 9, 1973; Stewart, Colin, “Future of 

Bicycling Lies With Auto,” The Christian Science Monitor, May 19, 1973] 

(On September 18, 1990, the U.S. Department of Transportation renamed the Transportation 

Systems Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in honor of former Secretary Volpe: The Volpe 

National Transportation Systems Center.) 

Following the conference, an editorial in The Washington Post summarized the discussions and 

concluded: 

It is hoped that what the Boston conference set in motion will, like a 10-speed going 

downhill, keep moving on its own power. The basic sensibleness of the bicycle is clear, 

especially now when fuel shortages, pollution and excessive traffic are threats. There is also 

the personal reward of bicycling—a way to get rid of the flab that countless lazy Americans 

sit through life with. What all this adds up to, for the Department of Transportation, is an 

opportunity for leadership in helping the nation make the best of the bicycle boom. 

[“Coping with the Bicycle Boom,” The Washington Post, May 29, 1973] 

On May 10, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a notice in the Federal Register of 

proposed safety standards for bicycles sold in the United States except racing bicycles, which were

meant for adult use. FDA developed the proposed standards in accordance with the Federal 

Hazardous Substances Act of 1960 as amended by the Toy Safety and Child Protection Act of 1969. 

 The standards included increased use of reflective surfaces for nighttime visibility; slip-resistant 

pedals; elimination of sharp edges and placement of gears to minimize injuries; elimination of 

front-wheel brakes as the only way to stop; and reducing the maximum spread of hand-brake levers. 

FDA based the standards on voluntary recommendations adopted by the Bicycle Institute of 

America. John O’Connor, FDA’s product-safety expert, said, “Most of the well-known bikes meet 

every requirement but the side reflectors.” The estimated cost per bicycle was about $2, and even 

that low price was expected to decline as volume increased. [Spivak, Jacob, “New Safety Rules for 

All Bikes Sold in U.S. to be Proposed by Government Tomorrow,” The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 

1973] 

(Functions under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act shifted to the Consumer Product Safety 

Commission (CPSC) when it began operations on May 14, 1973. The CPSC published the final 

rule in the Federal Register on July 16, 1974. The Bicycle Manufacturers Association and others 

had questioned whether bicycles should be regulated under the Child Protection Act, which allowed 

for regulation of any “toy or other article intended for use by children.” The CPSC recognized that 

many bicycles, especially lightweight touring bicycles, were purchased by adults for commuting, 

touring, and other recreational activities. However, children and adolescents could and often did 

use these bicycles. Therefore, the CPSC decided to promulgate the regulations under the Act. 

[Title 16, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 1512—Requirements for Bicycles, Federal Register, 

Vol. 39, No. 137, July 16, 1974, p. 26100] 
1013 

Proponents were optimistic about the bicycle provisions in the Senate and House versions of the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. Representative Koch was continuing to promote legislation that 

would make the bicycle “a viable alternative to the automobile within the city” and crack the 

Highway Trust Fund. The Christian Science Monitor pointed out that similar measures had been 

included in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972, but were not enacted when that bill failed: 

Bike proponents hope—and forecast—that it has a fairly good chance of becoming law this 

year.

In addition to Representative Koch’s proposals pending approval in the highway bill, 

Representative Bell planned to reintroduce his bill to require installation of bicycle racks at Federal 

buildings, while Representative Myers intended to introduce his bill to give abandoned railroad land 

to the Interior Department for use as bicycle trails. Representative Koch, while awaiting action on 

the 1973 highway legislation, was considering a broader bill that would require studies of the 

feasibility of establishing a nationwide system of bicycle paths, perhaps connecting National Parks. 

Much progress had been made already in establishing bicycle paths, he said, “but it is far from 

realizing the tremendous impact that bikes could have on our major urban areas.” The best way, he 

was convinced, was to tap the Highway Trust Fund so its funds could be used to pave roads for 

nonpolluting bicycles instead of polluting automobiles. [Hey, Robert P., “Bicycle Bids for Role as 

a Serious Mode of Transportation,” The Christian Science Monitor, May 15, 1973] 

Meanwhile, Back in Washington 

While the bicycle was one option for addressing the continuing energy crisis, the President’s Oil 

Policy Committee was considering other options. Deputy Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, 

who chaired the committee, indicated in early May that he favored a reduced national speed limit on 

Interstate highways to conserve gasoline. This idea would be among the recommendations the 

committee submitted to President Nixon. 

Although the Federal Government had provided much of the funding for construction of the 

Interstate highways, the States built, owned, and operated them. Each State set speed limits on its 

segments, with 70 m.p.h. a common limit, but speeds were as high as 80 m.p.h. in some western 

States. A limit of 50 m.p.h., Simon said, “isn’t impractical.” According to government officials, 

reducing the speed limit from 70 to 60 m.p.h. would raise gasoline mileage by 20 percent, while a 

reduction to 50 m.p.h. would add 5 to 10 percent to the savings. [“Nixon Aide Favors Nationwide 

Speed Limit on Interstate Roads to Conserve Gasoline,” The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 1973] 

(The original Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge carrying the Capital Beltway (I-95/I-395) across 

the Potomac River was the sole exception to Federal ownership of Interstate highways. BPR built 

the bridge under special legislation, which did not address ownership. After it opened on December 

28, 1961, BPR and its successor, FHWA, retained the title but the bridge was operated by 

Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. The bridge was demolished in 2006 following 

completion of a new Woodrow Wilson Memotial Bridge that is owned by Maryland and Virginia.) 
1014 

House and Senate conferees on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 were making slow progress 

on the difficult issues facing them. However, on May 17, conferees agreed on a compromise on the 

“earmarking” issue for Federal-aid urban system funds. The Senate had earmarked the funds 

attributable to cities with a population of 400,000 or more while the House had not included 

earmarking in its bill. According to Representative Wright, the conference chairman, conferees had 

tentatively agreed to earmark funds for urbanized areas of 200,000 population or more. In return 

for the House accepting the earmarking, the Senate had given up the pass-through provision of its 

bill that would have passed the funds through the State highway agencies to the cities. 

Representative Wright also indicated that the closed-door conference had “agreed in principle” on 

the Senate provision for holding public hearings when transportation planning takes place in urban 

areas. The House, he said, had not included the provision in its bill because of the fear that it would 

add to red tape delaying projects. He added that he had instructed House and Senate staff to try to 

work out an agreement on funding for highway safety programs. The Senate had proposed $450 

million a year, while the House had allocated $1.4 billion in its bill. 

While conferees sought compromises for the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, Senator Randolph 

and the Committee on Public Works were addressing the funding problem created when the 1972 

legislation had failed. Without authorizations or approval of the 1972 Interstate Cost Estimate, 

FHWA had been unable to apportion funds to the States for Interstate Construction or the other 

Federal-aid highway programs. The States were experiencing a financial crisis as a result. 

On March 6, the Senate had approved Senator Baker’s Concurrent Resolution 6 allowing the 

apportionment of Interstate Construction funds, but the House had not acted on a similar measure. 

Now, the Public Works Committee had approved Senator Randolph’s bill to avoid further 

disruptions in the highway program. Representative Wright said that House conferees “think it is a 

disservice to do it piecemeal like that. We think the most earnest efforts to get agreement on his 

bill should continue.” [Russell, Mary, “Hill Conferees to Earmark Share of Urban Road Fund,” The 

Washington Post, May 18, 1973] 

 

Regardless of Representative Wright’s view, the Senate took up S. 1808 on May 23. Senator 

Randolph described it: 

Its provisions are straightforward. This bill—S. 1808—authorizes the Secretary of 

Transportation to apportion among the States $1 billion in obligational authority for the 

Interstate System. It also authorizes expenditures of $500 million for the primary, 

secondary highway systems and the urban extensions of these systems. 

The reason for the bill also was simple: 

It is estimated that by the end of this month—only a few days from now—22 States will 

have exhausted their ability to award Interstate contracts. Many will have depleted their 

funds for other highway systems as well. 
1015 

According to an AASHO survey, 22 States would have exhausted their Interstate funds by the end 

of May; 24 would have exhausted primary funds; 22, secondary funds; and 18, urban extensions 

funds. 

The crisis would be resolved with passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, but that was 

dependent on completion of the conference committee: 

The Senate-House conference on this legislation began on May 9. Since that time, we have 

met on 9 days with substantial results. Agreement has been reached on more than 60 items 

on which there are differences between the two bills. We are at the point, however, of 

considering the major issues on which there are substantial differences and on which the 

conferees have strong feelings.

The Congress will adjourn tomorrow for the Memorial Day recess and it will be at least a 

week before we can meet again. Even then, Mr. President, I do not anticipate that speedy 

resolution of the difficult questions before us will be achieved. Meanwhile, there is growing 

uncertainty throughout the country among those in the States who must execute the highway 

program and among those in industry whose economic viability is dependent on an onging 

Federal-aid program. At the present stage, there can be no assurance that it will not be 

several months before a general highway bill is enacted.

He acknowledged a key argument against S. 1808, namely “that the deepening financial crisis will 

compel the Senate and House conferees to expedite the completion of their work.” He did not agree 

with that idea. “Frankly, I do not believe that we should be forced to develop legislation of such 

scope and importance under those conditions.” Conferees, he said, were acting “constructively and 

thoughtfully,” adding: 

This is the correct approach and one that should be taken in an atmosphere free of the 

pressure generated by the prospect of the highway program coming to a halt. 

This bill provides relief to the highway program, but it does so in a way that does not 

remove the incentives for the conferees to reach agreement on all features of the FederalAid Highway Act of 1973. 

Senator Stafford also spoke in support of the bill, pointing out: 

The construction season has already started in many States and is starting in others. But, we 

still do not have a comprehensive bill. The bill, S. 502, is in conference and I hope that we 

will be able to reach agreement soon on that measure. But, we have major differences still 

to be resolved and we must not penalize the States and the American public because we 

have been unable to reach agreement so far.

The funds authorized in S. 1808 “are well within the limits of funding that have already been agreed 

upon by the conferees” and would not upset any of the issues under negotiation in the conference.” 
1016 

Senator Baker pointed out that S. 1808 was similar to his Senate Concurrent Resolution 6 that the 

Senate had approved on March 6: 

This bill, while relatively modest in its scope, would assure that every State will soon 

receive a share of its fiscal 1974 highway funds, thus preventing the increased disruption of 

our national highway construction program . . . . 

The conferees were making “good progress,” Senator Baker said, and “with some luck and a 

continuation of the current spirit of conciliation among the conferees,” they might complete work 

“within a week or two.” The country, however, could not afford even a week’s delay: 

But we must recognize that even a delay of that magniture would undermine the highway 

program in many States preparing for the spring and summer construction season. 

And we must also recognize that many important issues remain unresolved. The funding of 

mass transit is one. So is the House’s proposal for a new priority primary highway system, 

and proposals relating to interstate transfer and highway safety. Any of these issues could 

delay final resolution of the conference for additional days or weeks. 

Senator Bentsen said he had not supported this approach earlier in the year since as chairman of the 

Transportation Subcommittee, he had pledged to press for “a speedy resolution of all the 

construction questions” in the legislation. Conferees had exhibited “a spirit of cooperation,” and he 

did not want to imply criticism of them in supporting S. 1808. They were, however, “facing some 

hard facts.” Despite resolving many issues, the hard ones remained in dispute, including “the 

question of the use of the trust fund for rail mass transit, the question of the priority primary system 

in the House bill, the question of whether we should provide operating subsidies for mass transit 

companies and the question of the transfer of interstate mileage.” The conferees were not going to 

“have any easy time resolving these difficult matters.”

Approval of S. 1808 would not lessen pressure on the conferees since it would authorize the release 

of only about one-third of FY 1974 funds and no funds for the Federal-aid urban system, the use of 

which was a point of dispute. “The funds contained in this bill will not be adequate for the year, 

but they will allow the States to have some money in time for their spring letting of contracts.” He 

would work hard to complete the conference report, but “I do not believe that we can afford to treat 

the States in a cavalier manner or hold all of the highway funds hostage to provisions in this bill 

which may well cause considerable difficulty.” 

The Senate approved S. 1808, without a recorded vote, but action in the House was uncertain. The 

Wall Street Journal said, “The House hasn’t considered the proposal, but its highway specialists are 

considered less enthusiastic than the Senate about approving it.” The State highway agencies were 

pressuring Congress to release at least some funds while conferees debated the 3-year bill:

The pressure could force the House to go along with the Senate, but opponents of diverting 

the trust fund for transit want to keep the pressure on legislators. They want to encourage 
1017 

passage of a measure that would mainly extend highway funding and, in effect, shelve the 

trust-fund diversion issue. 

The Washington Observer of Engineering News-Record also thought the measure was “in trouble” 

in the House. Prospects “are not good,” the column said, because “key House members object to 

the bill, fearing it will remove some of the urgency from House-Senate conferees’ efforts to 

hammer out a new highway bill.” Representative Wright thought, “The bill would be 

counterproductive.” [Washington Observer, “Stopgap Highway Authorization is in Trouble,” 

Engineering New Record, May 31, 1973, p. 7] 

The problem facing the States was illustrated in early June when Oklahoma’s letting schedule for 

highway projects did not include a single project financed under the Federal-aid highway program, 

the first time that had happened in 10 years. The State highway commission’s chief planning 

engineer, Verne Bradley, said he was hopeful Federal-aid funds would be restored by August under 

the pending highway legislation before Congress. [“Federal Road Funds Spent,” Oklahoma City 

Times, June 4, 1973] 

As May ended, the House-Senate conferees were considering the proposal to lower Interstate speed 

limits even though neither the House nor the Senate had included such a provision in its FederalAid Highway Act. Senator Randolph had introduced a proposal to cut speed limits by 10 m.p.h., 

but not below 55 m.p.h. Representative Wright acknowledged that the proposal “may be outside 

the scope of the conference,” which was limited to the two versions of the 1973 Act, but that they 

might seek special permission from each House to include the measure. 

Secretary Brinegar had asked the States to lower speed limits voluntarily, but he did not think the 

Federal Government had jurisdiction under current law to require such a change. The conferees 

were also considering how to require the States to lower their own speed limits. Representative 

Wright said that one option was withholding Federal-aid highway funds from States that failed to 

lower their speed limits in accordance with the law.

The conferees had still not resolved how to address the Muskie-Baker amendment in the Senate 

bill. However, Representative Wright informed reporters that conferees were considering an 

“innovative” proposal stemming from President Nixon’s New Federalism programs. Under this 

proposal, the States would get back what they put into the Highway Trust Fund and could use the 

money for any purpose they wished, including construction and operation of mass transit. 

Massachusetts was awaiting congressional action on the Interstate transfer mechanism. On June 4, 

Secretary Altshuler told the State legislature’s Joint Committee on Transportation that the chance of 

building the highways scrapped by Governor Sargent was “virtually nil,” even after the Governor 

leaves office. Secretary Altshuler explained that the final word on the Interstates would come from 

Governor Sargent because under current law, the States had until June 30 to inform the U.S. 

Department of Transportation which routes it intended to build. Governor Sargent was delaying the 

submission while anticipating that the new legislation would allow the Interstate mileage to be 

traded in for mass transit projects. 
1018 

House Chairman Raymond F. Rourke, Democrat from Lowell, was skeptical about Secretary 

Altshuler’s prediction. The environmental movement, Rourke predicted, would be dead in 5 years 

“if we can wait that long.” The secretary explained that general opposition to the highways, plus air 

quality requirements and energy problems would make it very difficult to revive the highways. 

Further, “Congress is anxious to wrap up the interstate program.” [“Road Moratorium Seen 

Permanent,” Quincy Patriot Ledger, June 5, 1973] 

Governor Sargent was in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, for the annual meeting of the National Governors’ 

Conference where he chaired the Committee on Transportation, Commerce and Technology. On a 

committee proposal, the Governors recommended that financing for mass transit operating 

subsidies come from the general Treasury, not the Highway Trust Fund. They were already on 

record as supporting flexible use of Highway Trust Fund revenue for highways or transit. The 

Governors also urged Congress to give “top priority” to passage of the new Federal-Aid Highway 

Act. They also denounced impoundment of Federal-aid highway funds. 

The Governors considered measures to address the energy crisis. They called for a firm energy 

policy, a mandatory petroleum allocation program, and reduced speed limits to “discourage high 

powered cars” that increased gas consumption. They also thought that automobile registration fees 

could be used to promote less fuel consumption. 

They heard from S. David Freeman, director of the Ford Foundation’s energy policy project, who 

recommended increasing the Federal gasoline tax to encourage conservation. The additional 

revenue “could be devoted to energy research and development on building and maintaining public 

transportation.” However, Governor Sargent’s committee rejected the idea. Governor Mike 

O’Callaghan (D) of Nevada, said the committee had “wisely avoided the pitfall of raising the 

gasoline tax.” He said such an action would be “deadly—giving the national government more 

money to be impounded.” Governor Reagan said he “agreed completely” with Governor 

O’Callaghan and suggested that tax policies should be directed to encourage positive action. 

[“Governors Urge General Funds for Transit Use,” Transport Topics, June 11, 1973] 

An “Innovative” Proposal 

House and Senate conferees had yet to deal with the biggest question before them, the MuskieBaker amendment. On June 14, Senate conferees formalized the “innovative” proposal 

Representative Wright had mentioned to reporters on May 31. 

The new language would allow States to keep 20 percent of the revenue they contributed to the 

Highway Trust Fund and could use it on any surface transportation project they wanted. A 

percentage of the 20 percent would be earmarked for big cities, which could use the funds to build 

rail transportation and subsidize operating expenses. Since the funds would not go into the 

Highway Trust Fund, using the revenue for rapid rail transit would not technically be diversion. 

The Senate conferees also offered to deduct $400 million a year from authorizations for the Federalaid urban system and the same amount from the rural primary and secondary systems if the House 

conferees agreed to the block-grant approach. Engineering News-Record explained:
1019 

The intent of the Senate conferees is to circumvent the House prohibition on any diversion 

to transit spending by providing the flexible funds from trust fund sources, but not from the 

fund itself. 

The idea, if adopted, would allow conferees to avoid a decision on the Muskie-Baker amendment. 

The seven Senators endorsed the New Federalism approach and warned their House counterparts 

that this was the last compromise. If the House conferees did not accept it, the Senators would 

declare the conference to be deadlocked. Four of the House conferees were absent from the 

session; those present asked for time to consider the proposal. [Russell, Mary, “Proposal Would 

Give States 20% of Gas Tax,” The Washington Post, June 15, 1973; and Washington Observer, 

“Highway Bill Stalemated Despite Senate Compromise Offer,” Engineering News-Record, June 21, 

1973, p. 7] 

On June 19, The Los Angeles Times reported that the tie-breaking vote on the House side would 

have to come from one of the five conferees who had opposed the use of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue for rail mass transit. The decision, the newspaper predicted, would turn on the votes of two 

House conferees from California, Representatives Clausen and Johnson. Representative Johnson 

told reporter Paul Houston, “I have not made any decision on it.” He added that, “Our state 

highway people have been in opposition” to diverting Highway Trust Fund revenue to transit. 

Houston was unable to reach Representative Clausen for comment. 

John Kramer of the Highway Action Coalition agreed that the Senate proposal was the Senate’s 

final effort to reach agreement:

“If it’s accepted by the House conferees, it will probably be accepted by the full Senate and 

House. But if it’s not accepted, I suspect the conference will be hopelessly deadlocked. 

Congress will have to pass a continuing resolution (funding the highway program after July 

1 at current levels), and the issue will be fought on the floor all over again.” [Houston, Paul, 

“California Votes Could Unlock Highway Fund,” The Los Angeles Times, June 19, 1973] 

On June 18, House conferees meeting behind closed doors voted 5 to 4 to reject the Senate’s 

compromise proposal. The following day, Representative Johnson denied that the House conferees 

had rejected the proposal by Senate conferees. They had discussed it and he had informed his 

House colleagues that he was “inclined to be against the Senate compromise.” He continued to 

oppose opening the Highway Trust Fund to transit. The House conferees were working on a 

compromise to present to their Senate counterparts.

Houston reported that Johnson said: 

“It’s contrary to our state position . . . to the position of our governor, the state Highway 

Department, the Highway Commission,” he said. “There are more people in our state who 

agree with my way of thinking than yours,” he told reporters for the Times and the 

Sacramento Bee, two papers which have published editorials in favor of opening the trust 
1020 

fund. “I have to look out for the rural areas to make sure they’re all right, too. I’m not 

going to give everything to the cities.” 

Representative Clausen, again, could not be reached for comment. 

Although the vote by House conferees was not formal, it “dealt a severe blow” to the idea of 

opening the Highway Trust Fund. With the conferees expected to propose additional transit funds 

from what Houston called “the government’s beleaguered general fund—not from gasoline tax 

revenues,” the Senate was likely to reject the new House proposal. The conference, he said, 

“appears to be hopelessly deadlocked.” [Houston, Paul, “Highway Fund Use for Mass Transit 

Dealt Severe Blow,” The Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1973] 

An editorial in The Los Angeles Times on June 20 singled out Representative Johnson as holding 

the key when the conference met again the following day. Noting that he had said he would vote 

against the proposal, the editorial said: 

If he does, the measure probably will be dead. That might mean little to Johnson’s rural 

constituents, but for the large population centers of the state it would mean a great deal. 

[“Last Chance for Transit Aid,” The Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1973] 

The House conferees rejected the Senate proposal on June 21 and offered a counterproposal that 

would have allowed $100 million of Highway Trust Fund revenues to be used to purchase buses, 

but not for rail transit. Cities wanting to build rail transit would have to get the funds from the 

general Treasury. Representative Wright told reporters that the conference sessions ended in angry 

disagreements. “Some of the senators don’t care how much is available for mass transit. They just 

want to bust the trust fund.” [“Road Bill Bogs Down on Hill,” The Washington Post, June 22, 

1973] 

EPA Strikes Again

On January 15, 1973, when EPA announced radical transportation control measures for the Los 

Angeles Basin, it did so under court order. In all, 38 cities would require such measures to meet 

Clean Air Act mandates. As Russell Train pointed out in his memoir: 

To develop such plans, each tailored to the different circumstances of these cities, was a 

stupendously complicated task and a time-consuming one. Nevertheless, the Natural 

Resources Defense Council secured a federal court order requiring EPA to proceed with 

issuing the necessary rules. [Train, p. 175] 

EPA invited the areas to submit plans for achieving ambient air quality goals.

Administrator Ruckelshaus, who had announced the Los Angeles plan, had resigned on April 28 to 

accept the President’s nomination to head the FBI. On July 26, the President would nominate 

Train to shift from the Council on Environmental Quality to EPA as Administrator. He received a 

quick confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Public Works. The committee 
1021 

approved his nomination, but Senators William Scott and Clifford Hansen put “holds” on Senate 

floor action. Train wrote: 

The rules of senatorial courtesy require that such holds be respected for a reasonable period. 

 Hansen never explained his action to me, but I understood it was done at the behest of the 

coal-mining industry, a strong factor in Wyoming. The industry presumably looked upon 

me with a jaundiced eye, given my support of coal mine health and safety legislation as 

under secretary of Interior and CEQ’s sponsorship of legislation requiring the reclamation of 

strip-mined sites. As for Scott, I called on him in his Senate office once or twice, but he 

remained adamant in his opposion. I concluded that it was almost entirely ideological. 

The Senate finally confirmed Train as EPA Administrator on September 10, by a vote of 85-0: 

After the vote, I visited Nixon in the Oval Office. The meeting was brief and we remained 

standing the entire time. I asked whether he would swear me in at EPA. He replied, “That’s 

probably the very worst thing I could do for you!” And, of course, he was right. [Attorney 

General] Elliot Richardson swore me in at an outdoor ceremony at EPA headquarters with 

Bill Ruckelshaus standing by—lending me legitimacy, I hoped, in the eyes of the EPA 

troops. [Train, p. 157-158] 

With EPA leadership in transition, Acting Administrator Robert Fri, EPA’s first Deputy 

Administrator, held a press conference on June 17 to announce transportation controls for 17 urban 

areas to achieve air quality goals of the Clean Air Amendments. The plans, as Fri explained, relied 

heavily on increased use of mass transit and carpools. “We are basically attacking the problem by 

asking people to change their habits—their long-standing and intimate relation to the automobile.” 

He added that in addition to reducing air pollution, “a move to mass transit . . . will make our cities 

more livable.” 

EPA approved a New York State plan for New York City that The Wall Street Journal described:

. . . eliminate on-street parking in the Manhattan central business district; establish exclusive 

bus lanes on major streets and highways; restrict daylight truck deliveries to stores, factories 

and businesses; limit taxicab cruising in midtown Manhattan, and establish annual 

inspection and maintenance requirements for cars and light trucks. 

The EPA-approved plans for northern New Jersey and the Los Angeles Basin were, as Fri said, 

more drastic than Congress intended. California had not submitted a plan for the Los Angeles area, 

leaving EPA to create a plan on its own: 

The EPA plan proposed for Los Angeles . . . doesn’t say in so many words that all auto use 

would be prohibited. However, it does call for limits on gasoline sales, beginning May 1, 

1977, sufficient to meet the air quality standard. Because of 78% reduction in air levels of 

carbon monoxides and an 87% reduction in photochemical oxidants, the major smog 

ingredients, are needed, the gasoline sales ceiling would have to be set at zero, Mr. Fri 

explained.
1022 

In addition, Los Angeles would have to achieve a 60% cutback in use of diesel-powered 

vehicles by 1977, the EPA plan proposes . . . . 

EPA intended to ask Congress to modify the legislation so such severe restrictions would not be 

needed:

As an interim target, though, the agency advocates a 30% reduction in auto use, which in 

turn would lower the number of days when the air quality standards are violated by between 

75% and 90%, Mr. Fri said. 

Thus, the EPA believes that Los Angeles-area residents still should have to comply with 

other features of its proposed plan. These include: limiting gasoline sales to the 1972-73 

level, starting July 1, 1974; establishing bus and car-poor lanes, starting Dec. 1, 1973; an 

immediate ban on construction of new parking spaces, starting Jan. 31, 1974, and fitting 

existing road vehicles with the latest emission control devices. 

The plan also would restrict motorcycle use: 

Starting in 1974, it would hold local motorcycle registrations at 1973 levels on the ground 

that the technology for controlling motorcycle emissions is currently lacking. Starting May 

1, 1974, two-stroke motorcycles, “the worst polluters,” would be totally barred in the Los 

Angeles basin during the “smog-prone daylight hours” of summer months . . . . 

The EPA also urged “immediate and large-scale purchases of additional buses to serve the 

Los Angeles area along with stepped-up feasibility studies of rail transit.

Regarding the EPA plan, the editorial in The Los Angeles Times cited earlier, said of Representative 

Johnson’s position in the conference: 

Johnson could still change his mind and, in the larger interests of California, he should. 

Tomorrow’s vote will come one week after the Environmental Protection Agency warned 

clearly that Los Angeles and other urban areas must soon develop mass transit systems, 

because unlimited automobile use is on the way out. Federal funds are essential to that 

development. California’s congressmen above all should understand the urgency of that 

need. [“Last Chance for Transit Aid,” The Los Angeles Times, June 20, 1973] 

For northern New Jersey, home for commuters to New York City and Philadelphia, the State had 

not submitted its compliance plan in time. Fri announced an EPA plan that applied many of the 

same techniques to the area as to the Los Angeles Basin “with the major exception of a total 

gasoline cutoff”: 

The objective there is to achieve a 57% reduction in hydrocarbon emissions and a 43% cut 

in carbon monoxide emission, compared with 1972 levels, the agency said. 
1023 

Northern New Jersey gasoline distributors and retailers, for example, would be required to 

freeze overall gasoline sales at the total amount sold in the area during the year ended June 

30, 1973, with specific gasoline distribution patterns to be decided by the state. In addition, 

motorcycle limitations similar to the ones in the Los Angeles plan would be applied; bus 

and car-pool lanes would be established for most three and four-lane streets and highways, 

and “construction, modification or enlargement of any parking facility in the area” would 

require environmental clearance. 

The plans for 17 other urban areas were less drastic.

Fri explained that EPA would submit legislative proposals to Congress to allow metropolitan areas 

more time to comply with air quality standards:

There are signs that Congress will agree to such amendments once the EPA has completed 

public hearings and adopted final regulations under the present law, Mr. Fri suggested. 

Even if the clean air requirements are relaxed, however, the law seems certain to continue as 

a powerful force in reshaping the country’s dependence on the automobile. [“EPA Plans 

Curbs on Transportation in 17 Urban Areas,” The Wall Street Journal, June 18, 1973] 

Train, in his memoir, summarized the broader problem: 

The plans EPA came up with contained a variety of control techniques. They required 

gasoline stations to install sealing devices on their tanks to prevent fuel evaporation and 

owners to get periodic inspection of their vehicles to determine whether they met emission 

standards. Many plans required changes in traffic patterns, such as designation of one-way 

streets to reduce emissions by achieving a smoother flow of traffic. Other requirements 

called for exclusive lanes to encourage car pools and use of public transportation. Most 

controversial of all were requirements that discouraged car use by restricting opportunities 

for parking or by imposing parking surcharges. 

Taken individually, these various elements were not all that unreasonable. What aroused 

public and congressional outrage was that such local requirements should be imposed by the 

federal government. I inherited an uproar when I moved into the EPA administrator’s office 

in September 1973. [Train, p. 175-176] 

In Los Angeles, Tom Bradley defeated Mayor Sam Yorty on May 29. Even before he was sworn 

into office on July 1, Mayor-elect Bradley was in Sacramento seeking cooperation from State 

political leaders on his plan to bring rapid transit to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times reported: 

Bradley, who has made construction of a rapid transit system the top priority in his new 

administration, said after the meetings that his goal of breaking ground on a transit system in 

18 months may have been unrealistic but he appeared optimistic that a system could be built 

within four years. 
1024 

In an address to the State Assembly, he referred to the disillusionment the public felt for political 

leaders in the wake of the Watergate revelations:

They don’t really make that distinction as to whether or not we come from the state or the 

federal government or the city. If the air is polluted they blame us in government . . . . If 

our streets are clogged with automobiles to the point where we can hardly travel on the 

freeways and highways, they don’t blame city hall, they blame all of us. 

Despite the Mayor-elect’s professed optimism, the nature of any help from the State was unclear: 

Both the Assembly and Senate are considering a number of bills involving rapid transit, 

among them two proposals to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in June, 1974, 

and bills to provide funding as well as agencies to implement and build the system. [Shuit, 

Doug, “Bradley Campaigns in Sacramento for L.A. Transit System,” The Los Angeles 

Times, June 15, 1973] 

On July 2, the new Mayor was on hand to greet riders of a subscription bus service arriving aboard 

seven buses at Atlantic Richfield Plaza in the city’s financial center. Most of the 230 passengers 

were employees of Atlantic Richfield Company, an oil company that operated service stations under 

the ARCO brand. The Southern California RTD operated the new service, which cost commuters 

$40 a month: 

Bradley, on hand when the buses started arriving at 7:45 a.m., called it his first official act 

on his first working day as mayor. The city’s chief executive said he hoped to encourage the 

same kind of specialized commuter service for City Hall workers and employes [sic] at 

other major Los Angeles firms. 

“This is a great idea, but it’s only an interim step,” he cautioned. “This sort of thing can 

work out. But we expect to build a rapid transit system. We simply have to move—to get 

people from their homes to their jobs.” 

Atlantic Richfield, as a spokesman explained, was encouraging its employees to make greater use 

of mass transportation to reduce congestion, improve air quality, and conserve fuel. The company 

was subsidizing its commuters by paying $15 a month for each. [Hebert, Ray, “Bradley to Push 

Subscription Buses as Interim Mass Transit,” The Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1973] 

Two weeks later, Judith Kinnard of The New York Times interviewed Mayor Bradley:

Surrounded by unpacked boxes cluttering the new offices two weeks after his inauguration, 

the city’s first black Mayor talked about his dreams for the next four years. “Number one, I 

want to see us build a rapid transit system,” he said. “Then I want to see some kind of 

revitalization of some of these communities.” 

He was going to try to bring people together to achieve these goals, but an aide admitted that 

“building a rapid transit system is going to be a monumental job,” Kinnard explained: 
1025 

The new Mayor will be trying to influence a life-style long wedded to the automobile and 

the equally long-standing skepticism toward rapid transit that has resulted from more than 

two decades of ineffectual studies and plans. 

As Kinnard mentioned, Mayor Bradley had visited Sacramento and Washington even before taking 

office in search of help:

“I did not go asking for dollar amounts or even specific programs,” he said. “I just wanted 

them to know that we’re going to come in with such programs and set the climate for a 

working relationship.” 

Although he professes optimism, the Mayor has backed off his campaign promise “to break 

ground within 18 months” and has adopted an attitude of caution in devising a plan. The 

plan will be developed in two phases: an immediate response to meet the strict air quality 

regulations recently imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, and a longer-range 

plan coordinated with the county government for a rapid transit system. 

Even as he considered his options, Mayor Bradley was “lobbying to break the strong Federal and 

state highway trust funds to permit the use of bulging gas tax revenues, now limited to highway 

construction, for rapid transit.” Kinnard continued: 

In California, a constitutional amendment is considered necessary to open the fund. 

However, Mr. Bradley plans a court challenge to the original legislation of 1938 by arguing 

that the definition of “roadway” could be expanded to include rapid transit . . . . 

Mayor Bradley’s efforts come at a propitious time. They coincide with the tarnishing of the 

freeway dream of safe, swift automotive transportation that was born in the winter of 1940 

with the six-mile $6-million construction of the first leg of the Pasadena Freeway. 

[Kinnard, Judith, “Mayor Seeks Los Angeles Mass Transit,” The New York Times, July 15, 

1973] 

(On December 30, 1940, Governor Culbert Olson dedicated California’s first freeway, the Arroyo 

Seco Parkway. "It is proper and timely," he said, "for us to pause a few moments to ceremonialize 

and celebrate an achievement so extraordinary as the completion of this, the Arroyo Seco Parkway . 

. . . Now that we have it, and it all looks so rather simple, so obviously necessary, so wholly 

practical, some will ask, `What is there so wonderful, or so bold about it?' Oh yes—but it takes 

courage to do a thing the FIRST time, no matter how simple and obvious it may appear AFTER it is 

done. And this, fellow citizens, is the first Freeway in the West. It is ONLY the first. And THAT 

is its great promise to the future--the promise of many more freeways to come." In 1954, the State 

changed the name to the Pasadena Freeway.)

While Mayor Bradley was taking the oath of office on July 1, the California Department of 

Transportation (originally nicknamed CALDOT) was officially opening for business. Governor 

Reagan summarized the agency’s goals:
1026 

It will be the purpose of the Department of Transportation to help assure that California’s 

transportation needs are solved through the greatest possible coordination and cooperation 

between all levels of government.

He listed the objectives:

• To resolve the differences that may exist or develop about the various transportation 

alternatives available.

• To eliminate fragmentation to transportation planning and provide a more efficient, 

unified approach to transportation problems in all areas and involving all modes of 

moving people and goods. 

• To hear and resolve, on a logical and fair basis, the legitimate concerns the people 

have about the impact of transportation facilities and rights-of-way on the 

environment. 

The State, he pointed out, had almost 15 million vehicles of all kinds, including 12.5 million cars 

and trucks. By 1990, Governor Reagan said, “we must be prepared to accommodate a projected 20 

million vehicles.” He pointed out: 

Because California has more people and vehicles than any other state, we have been a 

principal contributor to the federal highway fund. We are—in the jargon of government—‘a 

donor state.’ We send about $200 million more a year to Washington than we get back for 

our own transportation needs. 

As a result, CALDOT had a “big job cut out for it in the area of financing.” For one thing, it would 

have to be the lead advocate in seeking a greater return on the State’s contribution to the Highway 

Trust Fund to address needs through 1990: 

We will need $40 billion to maintain, improve and expand our network of highways, streets 

and roads, $15 billion for mass transportation systems and $5 billion for air facilities.” 

[“Calif. Gets its Own DOT,” The Journal of Commerce, June 29, 1973] 

(At the time, California received Federal-aid highway apportionments equal to .59 percent of its 

contributions to the Highway Trust Fund. Since creation of the Highway Trust Fund, the State’s 

rate of return equaled an accumulated .81 percent. [“Comparison of Estimated State Payments into 

the Highway Trust Fund and Federal-Aid Apportionments from the Fund, Fiscal Years 1957-1974,” 

Table FE-221, Highway Statistics 1973, Federal Highway Administration, p. 90] 

Ray Hebert reported on the opening: 

For the public, it could mean fewer battles over whether a freeway is needed and fewer—or 

perhaps no—attempts by state highway engineers to build them where they are not wanted. 

With CALDOT taking over, effective today, the state Department of Public Works, the 

master agency behind California’s highway building program since 1921, has been wiped 

out. And the state Division of Highways, the mammoth state-wide agency directly 
1027 

responsible for the freeway-highway system, has been cut back to a Sacramento-based 

headquarters office.

In Los Angeles, for example, the big Division of Highways complex is now a state district 

transportation office, one of 11 throughout California. Since 1940, the 4,000-employe [sic] 

office here has been responsible for planning, designing and building more than 550 miles 

of freeways in Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura Counties. As the world’s largest regional 

freeway network, it has been praised and condemned. 

CALDOT officials wanted to make clear that the new organization was not just a name change: 

“People have a right to wonder if it isn’t that—just a change in name,” said James A Moe, 

new state director of transportation and CALDOT’s first chief. “But most of us are eager to 

get into broader transportation ideas—not just freeways and highways. The new department 

is the outgrowth of many people waking up to the fact that times are changing.” 

The new agency planned to deemphasize freeways and find new ways to move people. Rail rapid 

transit, buses, carpools, even experimental concepts such as high-speed air-cushion and 

magnetically levitated vehicles, would be considered as an alternative to freeways.

Despite some skepticism on that point, Moe said CALDOT would give a greater voice to the 

public, instead of allowing the Division of Highways, as in the past, to make virtually all decisions 

regardless of community feelings. Highways and mass transit would be considered complementary 

systems, not separate modes. For example, CALDOT announced “a plan to run buses against the 

normal flow of traffic on the Hollywood Freeway,” a plan “patterned after high-capacity reverseflow bus runs in Boston, New York and other cities.” CALDOT also was considering expansion of 

exclusive bus routes based on the San Bernardino Busway model. 

The future of controversial Los Angeles area freeways could be resolved through CALDOT’s new 

“Bottom up” approach to transportation planning. Ideas and decisions would “flow upward from 

the community to the transportation district and then to Sacramento”: 

Local authorities and citizen groups could convince freeway planners that the incomplete 

Slauson-Marina Freeway, for example, should not be finished. Or that it should be given 

top priority. Conceivably the long impasse over routing the Long Beach Freeway through 

South Pasadena could be broken. Under CALDOT, the California transportation plan’s 

strength, Moe explained, will hinge on the quality of plans produced at the regional level, 

including priorities, financing and the capability of implementing them.

Moe recognized that one of CALDOT’s potential problems was internal: 

At the outset, CALDOT will have a major problem—diehards and skeptics within the old 

Department of Public Works and Division of Highways who regard freeways as the only 

way to move people. These are the “old pros” who, Moe pointed out, were told to build 

freeways and highways and have been doing it successfully for many years. 
1028 

Now they are balking at the changeover because, as another CALDOT official explained, 

“they are being told that what they were doing is no longer important—that they have 

another job to do.” 

Even before CALDOT opened its doors, the Department of Public Works had conducted an internal 

education campaign to smooth the transition: 

A different attitude already is evident among many of the new department’s 18,500 

employes [sic]. New younger middle management experts with broader views are partly 

responsible, but some veteran freeway engineers are catching the fever, too. [Hebert, Ray, 

“New State Agency Downgrades Freeways,” The Los Angeles Times, July 1, 1973] 

Long Island Sound Bridge

Robert Moses, New York State’s master builder of roads, parkways, and bridges, had long favored 

the Long Island Sound Bridge. In a 1970 memoir of his life in public works, he said the crossing 

had “long been a cherished project of mine, stemming from Jones Beach, the suburban parkway 

program, and the growing congestion of the Triborough East River bridges and their approaches.” 

He cited several reasons:

First: The main objective is to provide an adequate bypass or cut-off to keep cars out of 

New York City and the immediately adjacent suburbs—cars which are bound elsewhere, 

don’t belong in the middle of town, clog the three Triborough East River bridges and their 

approaches, waste energy, time, and money, and make effective traffic control impossible . . 

. . 

Second: The route arrived at is the best possible. It taps the southward and westward 

streams of inbound cars driving to and from Long Island and not destined for the Bronx, 

southern Westchester, Queens, and western Nassau. It represents the continuation of the 

Wantagh-Oyster Bay Expressway, now terminating just south of Oyster Bay, over the Sound 

and straight through Westchester to the Tappan Zee Bridge . . . . 

Third: A crossing further south in Westchester and west in Nassau would be enormously 

expensive, take many houses, provide no adequate approaches, and complicate the trip to 

the Tappan Zee Bridge. A crossing further east, from Connecticut to Suffolk, would involve 

a bistate treaty approved by Congress and would present numerous other difficulties. 

Fourth: The interests of Westchester and Nassau Counties can be assured by representation 

of these two agencies in the membership of the proposed new authority. 

Fifth: Title to the crossing after retirement of its bonds should be in the state, which could 

eventually reduce tolls.

Sixth: After some forty years of experience with parks, parkways, expressways, beaches, 

and recreation, I am not astonished at opposition on the part of those who want isolation and 

privacy, with approaches not too close by, who object to being disturbed, discommoded, and 

inconvenienced, and who seek indefinitely to prolong the old days and privileges . . . . After 

all, the good citizen must look ahead to coming generations, anticipate future needs, and be 

ready, however reluctantly, to sacrifice something for his neighbors, his grandchildren and 

the state.
1029 

He estimated the bridge, with parks, landscaping, and local approaches, would cost about $160 

million. To those who questioned the need, he said: 

The Sound crossing should be regarded as more than a road over water. It is a giant link in 

the recreation system extending from Bear Mountain over the Bear Mountain Bridge, across 

northern Westchester to Rye, over the sound, and through Bayville to the Jones Beach 

Tower.

He was confident the bridge would be built: 

To sum up, the Bayville-Rye Crossing is not an imposition, intrusion, and unexpected 

catastrophe flashed on uninformed homeowners. This crossing constitutes the only practical 

means of bypassing the overloaded parkways, expressways, and East River bridges. It is no 

eyesore to destroy the Sound. The metropolitan bridges we have built in recent years, 

including the Verrazano-Narrows, are our finest works of architecture and engineering. 

History repeats itself. Before long, as has happened over and over again, the opponents will 

calm down and claim they were always in favor of the improvement. [Moses, Robert, 

Public Works: A Dangerous Trade, McGraw-Hill Book Company, p. 1970, p. 262-273] 

The problem for Moses was that on March 1, 1968, his power base, the Triborough Bridge and 

Tunnel Authority, had become part of the MTA under Dr. Ronan. Moses had expected that he 

would be kept on, but Governor Rockefeller engineered his departure. To placate the ousted power 

broker, Dr. Ronan offered Moses a post as consultant to the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel 

Authority at a salary of $25,000 a year. Moses, who would retain his limousine, chauffeurs, and 

secretaries, would be in charge of “coordinating” the authority’s construction program and have 

“primary responsibility” for the Long Island Sound Crossing. 

Moses biographer Robert Caro described the disappointment Moses felt at this offer. Despite 

misgivings, he had publicly supported Governor Rockefeller’s plan on the theory that Moses would 

retain power under the new organization: 

Analyzing the offer only deepened the humiliation. “Coordinating” Triborough’s current 

construction program was a meaningless phrase: that program consisted only of a relatively 

minor reconstruction of the Cross Bay Bridge and the adding of a second deck on the 

Verrazano—and those projects were already under way. The Sound Crossing would be a 

great project, but no one knew when it would start—and it would probably not start soon. 

And that was only one project—one for a man accustomed to directing dozens. “Don’t take 

all Bob’s toys away,” Moses’ wife had begged the Governor. Well, the Governor hadn’t. 

He had left him one—or, to be more precise, the promise of one. 

The offer was “a slap in the face. But there was no other offer.” He accepted and all he could do 

now was wait for Governor Rockefeller to give the go-ahead for the Long Island Sound Crossing. 

The years passed, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972—and still the project wasn’t approved: 
1030 

There were various excuses from Rockefeller’s office—in 1969, the bond market was soft 

and the issue couldn’t be floated at feasible rate; in 1970, there was a gubernatorial 

campaign, and, with the affected sections of Long Island and Westchester up in arms against 

the bridge, the Governor didn’t want to be put on the spot; in 1971, it was financing 

problems again; in 1972, a legislative campaign and the Governor didn’t want to damage 

Republican chances to hold control of the Legislature—with each delay, Moses was assured 

that next year would be the year the big project got under way. 

Moses was fooled by the fact that Rockefeller himself wanted the great bridge built. He was 

fooled by the fact that the Governor promised publicly as well as privately that Moses would 

be the one to build it . . . . He was fooled most of all by the fact that it was simply 

inconceivable to him that he would not be allowed to build it: he had conceived it, chosen 

its precise location and the routes of its approach highways, he had directed the planning 

and blueprinting, he had, in a sense, since it was Triborough’s money that would back the 

bonds that would pay for it, raised the money for it . . . . It was his bridge! To let someone 

else build it and take credit for it would be an injustice of an enormity he seemed unable to 

grasp. It look a long time for realization to sink in. 

Gradually, Moses began to realize that Governor Rockefeller wanted the bridge but was probably 

waiting until Moses was too old to build it:

It gradually became clear to Moses that the Governor and Ronan weren’t going to give him 

any job—that, despite all their promises, they were not, ever, going to give him anything to 

do, and that they were just waiting for him to grow old and die or go quietly away 

somewhere. [Caro, Robert A., The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, 

Alfred A. Knopf, 1974, p. 1142-1143, 1147] 

On June 20, 1973, Governor Rockefeller cancelled the Long Island Sound Bridge. He said: 

In recent years, the people of our state and the country have gradually come to adopt new 

values in relation to our environment and evidenced a willingness to forego certain 

economic advantages to achieve these values.

The Rye-Oyster Bay bridge has become a lightning rod in this period of evolution. 

Therefore, after a thorough review of all the factors . . . I have come to the conclusion that 

we should cease our plans to build the Rye-Oyster Bay bridge.

In this period of change that we as a state and as a society are experiencing, people are 

beginning to question whether all growth is automatically good—beginning to look at the 

quality of life as well as the quantity of our Gross National Product. 

He added:

Although the bridge would bring many real benefits and fill some real needs, obviously it 

would lead to large-scale disruption of existing patterns of life.” 
1031 

He ordered the MTA to halt planning for the bridge and to withdraw applications pending with 

FHWA for funds for the approach roadways. 

Having killed the bridge project, Governor Rockefeller added that the State “must continue to 

grow.” The State, Governor Rockefeller said, should “concentrate our efforts on extending and 

improving our mass transit systems to better serve the needs of the people on an economical and 

efficient basis, while at the same time undertaking necessary highway projects throughout the state 

that do not involve ecological problems.” He intended to recommend a “major, full faith and credit 

bond issue” to expand the State’s mass transit systems. [Clines, Francis X., “Rockefeller Halts 

Efforts to Build L.I. Sound Bridge,” The New York Times, June 21, 1973; Isaacs, Stephen, “Rocky 

Bows to Critics, Bars Bridge Over Sound,” The Washington Post, June 21, 1973; “Long Island 

Bridge on Long Island Sound Killed by Rockefeller,” The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 1973] 

Just a month earlier, New York City was confronting the possibility of what The New York Times

called a “Fare Disaster,” namely an increase to a 60-cent bus and subway fare. Dr. Ronan voiced 

the concern, which the Times said “dramatically points up the long-neglected inadequacy of the 

region’s mass transit system and the baling-wire fiscal arrangements that have kept them rolling 

along, however haltingly.” The State and city made a “modest, one-time commitment” 2 years 

earlier for subsidies to keep the fare at 35 cents, but that commitment would end with 1973. If the 

fare did increase to 60 cents, the change “would impose extraordinary burdens on low-income 

workers, especially those living in two-fare zones, and risk crippling the city economy.” A regional 

payroll tax might help, as would an increase in bridge and tunnel tolls to discourage use of private 

automobiles. Another solution was in Washington: 

Efforts must be redoubled in the Congress to break open the Highway Trust Fund and to 

divert some of this available money to mass transit needs. 

One thing was certain: 

The time for deliberate discussion has almost run out, but not quite. It is imperative for this 

city, this region and this state to develop a permanent transit subsidy scheme that will avoid 

recurring fare-rise crises and assure adequate levels of service. [“Fare Disaster,” The New 

York Times, May 21, 1973] 

Following Governor Rockefeller’s announcement that he would pursue a bond issue for mass 

transit and some highway projects rather than build the Long Island Sound bridge, the Times

warned:

The need is pressing; but precisely because of the new public attitudes which he has so 

eloquently cited, he will have no better luck this time than he had two years ago if, once 

more, the price of a meager improvement in mass transit is to be an unbalanced outlay for 

highway construction . . . . If he is serious on this point and on the evils of “large-scale 

disruption of existing patterns of life,” he will call for a far more balanced bond issue than 

the last one. This will be all the more vital if Congress fails to authorize the use of Highway 
1032 

Trust Funds for anything but continued catering to the automobile—and the contractors, 

suppliers and labor unions that flourish in its service. 

The Governor had announced a special session of the State legislature for July. If he wanted to 

“ward off a disastrous fare increase,” the Times advised him to ask the legislature “to come up with 

a fair and fixed formula for state and local aid to both subways and commuter railroads—and to put 

it high on the agenda.” [“Better Mass Transit,” The New York Times, June 25, 1973] 

On June 28, Times reporter Frank J. Prial published a “News Analysis” concluding that the 

“dramatic and significant breakthrough” claimed by Governors Rockefeller and Cahill in November 

1972 “was no breakthrough at all.” The agreement allowed the Port Authority of New York and 

New Jersey to spend $650 million for rail improvements, including rail links between Manhattan 

and Kennedy International and Newark airports. In addition, the agreement had repealed the 

covenant that prevented the Port Authority from becoming involved “in any deficit rail mass transit 

projects other than PATH, its own commuter line.” As reflected in a recent Port Authority bond 

issue, the authority was interested only in profitable lines, not support for deficits on mass transit 

lines. [Prial, Frank J. “Mass Transit Barrier,” The New York Times, June 28, 1973] 

Dr. Ronan warned on July 11 that a 70-percent increase in fares would be needed in 1974 and 1975 

to makes up for deficits in commuter rail operations on the Long Island Rail Road and 

PennCentral’s Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven Divisions unless a $93 million public subsidy 

were obtained: 

Such a fare increase, he said, would be “unconscionable,” “catastrophic” and “a disaster.” 

He added that “D-Day,” when public funding had to be assured—or else—was early in 

January . . . . 

Dr. Ronan noted that President Nixon on June 30 urged Congress to enact legislation that 

would allow localities to tap the Fderal highway trust fund for mass-transit construction. He 

wrote the President, he said, asking him to go another step and support a Federal operating 

subsidy for mass transit . . . . Dr. Ronan said that the M.T.A. was not recommending the 

form of governmental subsidy needed to make up operating deficits. He added, however, 

that “in our judgment, there’ll be no Federal funds without matching local funds.” 

According to Dr. Ronan, “We’ll take the money from any place, local, state, Federal or the 

United Nations.” He was not in favor of using bond issue funds to cover operating deficits.

He described mass transit as absolutely vital to the city and the region and said: “It’s time to 

stop talking about transit deficits. We don’t talk about a Police Department deficit, but we 

need the subways as much as the Police Department.” [Burks, Edward C., “Ronan Warns of 

70% Commuter-Fare Rise by ’75,” The New York Times, July 12, 1973] 

Dr. Ronan was referring to a June 29 statement in which President Nixon had announced new 

energy conservation measures to address one of “the most critical problems on America's agenda 

today.” The new steps included: 
1033 

First, I am appointing John A. Love, Governor of Colorado, to direct a new energy office 

that will be responsible for formulating and coordinating energy policies at the Presidential 

level. 

Second, I am asking the Congress to create a new Cabinet-level department devoted to 

energy and natural resources and a new independent Energy Research and Development 

Administration. 

Third, I am initiating a $10 billion program for research and development in the energy 

field, which will extend over the next 5 years. 

Finally, I am launching a conservation drive to reduce anticipated personal consumption of 

energy resources across the Nation by 5 percent over the next 12 months. The Federal 

Government will take the lead in this effort by reducing its anticipated consumption by 7 

percent during this same period. 

These new measures were necessary, he said, because the Department of the Interior had estimated 

that the Nation’s energy supply would fall short of demand by 1, 2, and possibly 5 percent. This 

threat required public and private sector changes and the involvement of “every single American.” 

Small “alterations in our present living habits” could make a big difference. For example, raising 

the thermostat of an air-conditioner by just 4 degrees could save 15-20 percent in its use of 

electricity. The Federal Government would purchase or lease automobiles that “provide good 

gasoline mileage.” He continued: 

Just as the Government can obtain energy-efficient automobiles, private citizens can do the 

same. Nearly three-quarter [sic] of the gasoline used in America is consumed by 

automobiles. 

Those who drive automobiles can also assist by driving more slowly. A car traveling 50 

miles per hour uses 20 to 25 percent less gasoline per mile than the same car traveling 70 

miles per hour. Carpooling and using public transportation will result in further fuel 

savings. 

In order to help reduce driving speeds, I am today taking the additional step of writing to 

each of the Nation's Governors, asking them to work with their State legislatures to reduce 

highway speed limits in a manner consistent with safety and efficiency, as well as with 

energy needs. 

I also continue to urge the Congress to pass highway-mass transit legislation which would 

provide States and localities flexibility to choose between capital investment in highways or 

mass transit. Diversion of some commuter traffic from single occupant automobiles to mass 

transit will result in significant energy and environmental benefits and, at the same time, 

permit the highways to be operated in the efficient manner for which they were designed. 

Energy conservation is not just sound policy for the country, it is also good economics for 

the consumer. Changing to a more efficient automobile, for example, could produce 

savings of as much as 1,000 gallons of gas in the course of a year. A savings of 1,000 

gallons of gas equals a personal savings of approximately $400. 
1034 

His June 29 letter to the Governors explained that the Federal Government would do its share, but 

the success of the Nation’s conservation efforts rested “primarily in the hands of the American 

people.” He continued: 

Nearly three-quarters of the gasoline used in America is consumed by automobiles. Thus, 

significant gasoline savings will be realized if the American people will change their driving 

patterns. It is estimated that a car traveling at 50 miles per hour consumes 20 to 25 percent 

less fuel per mile than it would at 70 miles per hour. Consequently, I am asking Americans 

voluntarily to reduce the speed at which they drive this summer. 

 

As part of this effort, I urge you to work with your legislature on reducing highway speed 

limits in your State, taking into account the objectives of mobility, safety and energy 

conservation. I would also urge you to consider the various actions being taken by the 

Federal Government to save on the energy it uses, and to adopt as many of these measures 

as are appropriate for your own State. 

On July 20, Governor Rockefeller announced his plan for a $3.5-billion bond issue to finance mass 

transit operations and highway projects, as well as to provide $183.8 million in State aid to 

subsidize the 35-cent fare and commuter rates for 2 years. Localities would have to provide 

matching funds, with New York City responsible for $150 million a year, to avoid a fare increase. 

The bond money, if approved, would be used on a 60-40 ratio favoring mass transit ($2.1 billion) 

over highways ($1.4 billion). The highway money, however, would be used to match Federal-aid 

highway funds, thus increasing its value based on the Federal-State matching ratio for Federal-aid 

highway projects. The referendum 2 years earlier that voters had rejected called for a 54-46 split in 

favor of mass transit:

The difference this time, the Governor asserted at a news conference at his West 55th Street 

office, is that the city voters have a threatened 60-cent fare awaiting them if the plan is 

rejected.

He proposed that the Federal Government pay for all rising transit costs after the 2-year period. 

Reporters asked why he was proposing such a large bond issue with only $183 million to subsidize 

mass transit operations:

“It isn’t just to save the fare,” he replied, but to build “an adequate transportation system” 

for the entire state to help travelers and business. He also said environmental factors, such 

as the need for cleaner air, had influenced the proposal. 

State law prohibited the use of bond issue revenue for transit operation subsidies. “Therefore, the 

Governor proposes to tap the bond fund for $183.8-million and use it in place of construction 

money already in the state budget. That money would be transferred to the state’s general fund and 

could then be used to subsidize mass transit.” 
1035 

If the State legislature approved the measure promptly, it would be put before the voters in 

November. [“Clines, Francis X., “Governor Asking a Bond Issue of $3.2-billion for Transit Plan,” 

The New York Times, July 21, 1973] 

Dealing with an Impasse 

With FY 1974 about to begin on July 1, House and Senate conferees felt the pressure as States ran 

out of Federal-aid highway funds and had no expectation of additional funds becoming available 

the following week. In addition, Congress was about to embark on its July 4 recess, reducing the 

prospects of resolution any time soon. 

The pressure on “deadlocked House-Senate conferees,” Mary Russell wrote in The Washington 

Post on June 26, “is strengthening the position of mass transit forces in the conference.” This was 

“a dramatic shift” from the start of the conference when “the prospect of many concessions to mass 

transit was dim.” Although a majority of Senate conferees supported the Muskie-Baker 

amendment, only two of the nine House conferees supported the measure. The others said they 

supported mass transit, but were “against breaking the trust fund.” 

Six weeks into the conference, several factors were shifting momentum toward mass transit. The 

highway lobby, Russell said, might be more flexible because of its fear that highway construction 

“could come to a standstill if a new bill is not reported out.” Further, with the fuel shortage likely 

to worsen through the summer and EPA calling for restrictions on the use of automobiles, prohighway conferees were having a harder time defending their preference for “spending a great deal 

of money to build more highways.” 

After weeks of showing “no inclination to make a large concession on the major point,” the 

Senators had offered the “revenue sharing” turnback of gas tax revenue as “a final offer” based on a 

suggestion offered earlier by Representative Clausen. The offer had several positive features. It 

sidestepped the issue of “busting the Trust” that pro-highway, pro-transit, and pro-environmental 

forces had been debating. In addition to letting the States decide how to use the money, the offer 

“lets states out from under the civil rights and environmental controls which had held up some 

projects” since State-funded projects generally were not subject to NEPA, Section 4(f), or other 

environmental measures.

The House conferees rejected the “final offer” without a vote. All the Democrats on the House side 

favored it except Representative Johnson. The four Republicans opposed it, “so the proposal lost 5-

4” if a vote had been taken. The House conferees offered to allow $100 million in Highway Trust 

Fund revenue for the acquisition of buses, “but the Senators angrily rejected this, saying it was no 

concession at all, and after Thursday’s meeting [June 21] both sides walked away in a huff.” 

Several outcomes were possible, Russell indicated. The House could pass the interim funding bill, 

S. 1808, it had resisted. The conferees could break up and start the process of moving a new bill in 

their separate Public Works Committees. “Or someone in either body could move to instruct the 

conferees to adopt a particular position and the move, if passed, would be binding on the 

conferees.” None of the options was attractive:
1036 

But the House conferees in particular are feeling the pressure to get a bill out now, since it 

appears the longer they go on, the less support remains for their position. 

The Nixon Administration had held firm in support of the Muskie-Baker amendment but “has not 

pushed hard” for it. It had primarily been interested in reducing funding levels: 

In response, the conferees have tentatively trimmed the authorization—almost $9 billion a 

year in the House bill and $7 billion in the Senate bill—to about $5 or $6 billion a year over 

the three year period.

The Administration’s position “complicates the House conferees’ position,” Russell said: 

In any case, the ball is now in the court of the House conferees, and time is running out. 

[Russell, Mary, “Transit View Gains in Road Bill,” The Washington Post, June 26, 1973] 

Two days later, on June 28, Russell reported that the House conferees had decided to try to pass the 

Senate’s interim funding bill, S. 1808, through the House quickly via suspension of the rules. 

Representative Wright acknowledged that the conferees were “temporarily at an impasse,” saying 

the situation reminded him of “two partially blind people looking at an elephant,” with neither 

willing to retreat from his views. (He was referring to the story, originated in India, of blind men 

feeling parts of an elephant and drawing different conclusions about the nature of the animal as a 

result – the elephant is like a wall, a snake, a spear, a tree, etc.) He continued:

Everybody these days is playing brinkmanship or maybe we should call it blinkmanship. 

The House and Senate are playing it with the President over the Cambodian bombing funds 

and the Senate and House are playing it over the highway bill. 

Despite earlier opposition to an interim bill, Representative Wright was willing now to advance it 

because he did not want to impose a penalty on the States that were running out of Federal-aid 

highway funds. [Russell, Mary, “Interim Road Bill Aim of Hill Parley,” The Washington Post, June 

28, 1973] 

Engineering News-Record also reported that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 faced “a slow 

death” in committee. Unless agreement can be reached, “some Washington observers believe that 

the three-year highway authorization bill may be scrapped and sent back to both houses of Congress 

for another go-around.” According to an unnamed ARBA official, “If they can’t reach agreement, it 

pretty much kills the bill. We’d have to start all over again.”

Such an outcome was “no longer considered unthinkable.” Barring a major concession, 

“reconciliation of differing House and Senate provisions for public transit funding could be 

impossible.” Senator Bentsen said, “We’ve had our 23rd or 24th meeting. And it’s starting to take a 

toll. We’ve all got other important work to do.” 

The Senate’s proposed revenue sharing-like concept was “still alive but just barely.” Senator 

Bentsen said of the proposal: 
1037 

It wasn’t our last offer, but it was a very major effort that resulted from a good deal of 

compromise. We’ve given it back to the House with a major concession—we have agreed 

to exclude new rail transit construction. The money can still be used, though, for 

improvement of existing systems, modifications and maintenance. It covers everything 

short of the construction of a totally new system.” 

Representative Wright said the House conferees were still considering the modified proposal, but 

he was not optimistic:

You could still buy transit rolling stock, maintain it and provide operating subsidies under 

the Senate plan. We face a practical problem—the President has said he will veto any bill 

containing operating subsidies. 

John Kramer and other transit advocates felt that the continuing stalemate was working in their 

favor because they thought they could secure additional votes if conferees sent the bill back to the 

House and Senate for additional instructions: 

“We know we can hold our own in the Senate,” says Kramer. “And with the fuel shortage 

and difficulties many areas are having in meeting air quality standards, we may be able to 

pick up enough new votes to carry the House.” Kramer says that his group will press 

sympathetic congressmen to bring up a motion that, if approved by a majority vote, would 

send the highway bill back to both houses and effectively kill it as it now stands.

But Wright says that conferees are a long way from sending the bill back to Congress. “If 

we couldn’t resolve our differences we could offer to resign and ask for new instruction,” he 

says.

In the meantime, he was ready to ask the House to approve S. 1808. “This,” Senator Bentsen said, 

“would go a long way toward relieving the crisis atmosphere.” [“New Road Bill Faces Slow Death 

in Committee,” Engineering News-Record, June 28, 1973, p. 20] 

On June 28, Representative Wright introduced S. 1808 on the House floor. The bill contained one 

variation from the Senate bill. S. 1808, as approved by the Senate on May 23, “authorized to be 

appropriated $500,000,000” for the Federal-aid primary and secondary system and their extensions 

within urban areas for FY 1974. The House corrected this language to read: “authorized to be 

appropriated, out of the Highway Trust Fund.” 

Thinking the measure noncontroversial, Representative Wright introduced S. 1808 under 

suspension of rules that allowed Speaker Albert to declare the bill passed in the absence of 

objection. However, Representative Harold R. Gross (R-Ia.) rose for a point of order, namely that a 

quorum was not present. When the Speaker asked Representative Gross to withhold his point of 

order, Representative Gross refused, pointing out that he wanted to comment on the bill. The 

Speaker had to concede that a quorum was not present. A call of the House was ordered. When 

400 Representatives had recorded their presence by electronic device, the Speaker said a quorum 

was present and the House could continue its work. 
1038 

(Representative Gross was generally characterized as a frugal watchdog of Federal funding. Eric 

Redman, who observed Representative Gross while working for Senator Magnuson during the 91st

Congress, described his first observation of the Representative in terms that almost any 

contemporary observer would have agreed with: 

I had heard of H. R. Gross and his dilatory tactics, but I had never seen him in action. The 

diminutive Republican is a fiscal conservative who has built his reputation (and his career) 

on the notion that the best way to save the taxpayers’ money is to slow down the 

proceedings of the House to such a great extent that only a trickle of legislation can pass . . . 

. Employing every conceivable partiamentary trick, Gross requests quorum calls, rises 

repeatedly on points of personal privilege, and worst of all, demands roll-call votes on each 

substantive issue instead of permitting the timesaving voice vote. [Redman, Eric, The 

Dance of Legislation, A Touchstone Book by Simon and Schuster, 1973, p. 244]) 

The Speaker, acknowledging his error in not recognizing Representative Gross, vacated his action 

under suspension of the rules. He recognized Representative Wright for 20 minutes.

Representative Wright explained that the interim highway funding measure was needed to help the 

34 States that had exhausted their Federal-aid highway funds or would do so within 30 days. He 

explained his decision to advance S. 1808: 

Last night at 10 o’clock after 2 months of long and intensive negotiations it became evident 

to the conferees on the House and Senate sides that we were at least temporarily deadlocked. 

 After having made enormous progress on more than 70 provisions of the bill theretofore in 

disagreement, we have reached an impasse on remaining sections of the bill. Rather than 

penalizing the States for our inability to agree, rather than putting the House and Senate 

under the pressures of having to agree on something they might not want to agree to, rather 

than putting small contractors out of business and people out of work, and rather than 

making the Northern States which have short building seasons lose completely their entire 

year’s highway construction, we thought the decent responsible thing to do was to pass this 

interim bill which will hold them for 30 to 60 days. 

Hopefully, during that time we can hammer out upon the anvils of mutual compromise and 

understanding the kind of long-range bill that both the House and Senate will approve and 

appreciate.

Representative Glenn Anderson said that on behalf of those seeking additional flexibility for transit, 

he hoped S. 1808 would be the only stopgap measure that would be needed: 

We do not want to be obstructionists . . . . We feel the conferees are making headway, but 

we want them to work out their differences in good faith, and we want to remind them that a 

[sic] mass transit is in dire need, and we are going along on this one extension. We hope in 

the Members’ conference they realize the plight and the needs of those of us in the city. 
1039 

Representative Abzug said she was speaking on behalf of most members of New York’s 

congressional delegation and many other House members “as to the dissatisfaction we feel at 

having to pass a continuing resolution at this time.” She thought the Senate conferees had “offered 

a number of compromise proposals which to me seem eminently reasonable and not at all violative 

of the position of the House, yet our conferees have rejected each one.” Since the House vote on 

April 19, she said, the energy crisis had become more critical and EPA had warned the Nation’s 

large cities “that they must drastically reduce the amount of vehicle travel within their borders.” 

She was willing to consider S. 1808, “but we may not be so willing if any additional extension of it 

is asked later on.” 

She recognized that the States needed the funds for their highway programs, but she added, “we 

must realize that our cities and our suburbs are pinched too. They too are desperately in need of 

funds for their transportation systems.” 

Representative Wright, as was often the case with Representative Abzug, did not appreciate her 

remarks. He replied that, “The House conferees have not been intransigent or wholly unyielding.” 

He continued: 

During the first 3 weeks of the conference we did resolve more than 70 different points in 

disagreement. There existed a spirit of compromise and understanding on both sides. 

During the past 4 weeks, House conferees have offered several substantive proposals in an 

effort to compromise the remaining disagreements. We feel, quite frankly, that we have 

been more reasonable and conciliatory than the Senators. No doubt they feel they have been 

more so than we. I think it really unfair to take a position that either the House or the Senate 

has been totally stubborn. 

We have had difficulties, and I must say it has been extremely frustrating to me as chairman 

of the conference to have been unable to have persuaded our colleagues to find an avenue on 

which we can walk arm in arm on the remaining four or five items in disagreement. 

He thought most House members “would agree that it would be ridiculous to hold the States 

hostage to our inability to agree.” The “only reasonable thing” was to give them enough money for 

a limited period “during which time we will continue our efforts to find a solution to the long range 

problem.” 

Representative Gross rose to offer the comments that had prevented the House from dispensing 

with this noncontroversial bill under suspension of rules. He said he appreciated the Speaker’s 

decision to return the bill for consideration and to Representative Wright “for his explanation of it,” 

adding: 

When it was first called for consideration I had no idea of the nature or content of the bill, as 

was the case of many other Members of the House. I had absolutely no idea of what we 

were considering for there was no bill available on the House floor. 
1040 

I support the bill. I think it is a reasonable extension, and again I thank the gentleman for 

his explanation. 

Representative Wright thanked Representative Gross, who had voted for the Federal-Aid Highway 

Act on April 19, for his support and added, “Surely I would agree that the gentleman and all 

Members of the House are fully entitled to understand what is involved in the bill.” 

Representative Harsha also spoke in support of S. 1808. He reiterated the point about States 

running out of money and the impact it would have on taxpayers who would lose their construction 

jobs. Further, because of inflation, the longer the delays took, the more the projects would cost. 

Formalities out of the way, he wanted to address Representative Abzug’s comments in somewhat 

stronger terms than had Representative Wright: 

Mr. Speaker, contrary to what the gentlewoman from New York said, and it always amazes 

me how one not in attendance at a conference can know so much about the transactions in 

that conference. Not one of the suggestions or proposals by the other side has been in such a 

form that we could accept it, because each one totally violated the position of the House on 

the issue of rail transit. As a conferee on that committee from the House, I feel it is my 

responsibility to sustain the House position as much as possible. There has not been one 

offer of compromise from the other body that would not do violence to the House position 

on invading the Trust Fund. 

The House conferees, he said, had offered several compromises to resolve the issue, “each time 

going a long way from the House position.” He urged his colleagues “not to be misled by the 

accusations of those who were not privy to the conference and who do not in substance know what 

they are talking about.” 

In summarizing the contents of S. 1808, he explained: 

We have deliberately left out the urban systems and mass transit; retaining that issue for 

ultimate resolution by the conference committee we are not jeopardizing the House position 

in any way by this action, but we are trying to alleviate almost sure unemployment and stop 

breaking up the continuity of the highway construction program. 

Representative Clausen, who also served on the conference committee, said:

I want to state to the Members of the House that last night the House and Senate conferees 

met together informally in one of the most constructive and productive sessions of the entire 

conference. We had an opportunity to elucidate on our own particular views as to what our 

individual objectives on transportation policy might be. Mr. Speaker, I want to put to rest 

the fact that, while we have differing points of view, we are a long way from being, in my 

judgment, at an impasse. With the pressure of time, we felt that this was a better part of 

wisdom to move toward passage of this interim bill.
1041 

Another conferee, Representative Cleveland, agree that the House and Senate conferees had 

“worked in a spirit of compromise and accommodation” for the most part: 

But I regret to say that this spirit has been totally lacking regarding the principal difference

before the conference: Diversion of highway trust funds for rail mass transit. On this issue, 

the Senate has been totally unyielding. From the beginning, Senate conferees have insisted 

that the House agree to the diversion for rail transit. 

The House conferees, by contrast, had offered “a momentous concession,” which he described: 

We have provisionally agreed to the authorization of $100 million a year or even more over 

the term of the bill for capital investment in buses. This represents a major departure from 

past policy regarding use of trust fund revenues and reflects the good-faith willingness of 

House conferees to go the limit in pursuit of reasonable compromise. 

Senate conferees had refused to recognize “the magnitude of our concession.” Instead, they “insist 

on a complete cave-in by the House side.” This “unyielding attitude” confirmed what he had 

believed all along, namely “that the proponents of diversion are bent ultimately on nothing less than 

massive diversion of highway funds for rail systems in a comparatively small number of large 

cities.” In his State of New Hampshire and many others, “mass transportation means four wheels 

on a highway.” Bus transportation was the only mass transit alternative, which is why the House 

conferees had “gone the limit in making available the financing for bus transportation under urban 

system funds.” He continued: 

This is as far as we can conceivably go in keeping with the mandate of this body in its 

rejection of the Anderson amendment. If the Senate side insists on diversion and total 

surrender of the House position, I foresee a deadlocked conference with consequent losses 

of highway, highway safety, and urban mass transit programs in this country. 

After other House members endorsed the bill, Representative Abzug engaged Representative 

Wright in a colloquy on whether Federal-aid urban system funds were covered in the bill. No, he 

said, they were not. She asked if “there is any proposal that is intended to take care of that in the 

interim?” He explained that Senators Randolph, Muskie, Bentsen, Baker, Stafford, and Buckley, 

who had drafted S. 1808, said that the funds covered in the bill “are the categories in which States 

are running out of money.” He added, “That is the reason for the coverage of those categories in 

this bill.” He hoped the conferees could reach agreement in 30 days to allow all the categories to 

proceed on a long-term basis. 

Representative Abzug asked if the Senate conferees had not responded to the House proposals and 

“that there have been no compromise proposals at all?” Representative Wright replied that “the 

other body has in good faith offered several proposals” but they were not acceptable to the House 

conferees. The House, in turn, had offered proposals that were not acceptable to their Senate 

counterparts: 
1042 

I believe the gentlewoman is ill-informed if she concludes in any sense that the Senate 

conferees have been more yielding than the House conferees. I believe the reverse is true.

He did not think the House wanted “a long diatribe today about why the House is right and the 

Senate is wrong,” nor did he want “to pick arguments.” He wanted to “make peace” and try to 

“harmonize two divergent positions,” but for now he simply asked Representative Abzug and the 

House “to pass this bill, so that the States will not suffer during the remainder of the time” the 

conferees needed to resolve their differences on S.502. 

With the debate winding down, Representative Kluczynski spoke in support of S. 1808 while 

commending Representative Wright for his leadership of the conference. “Contrary to what some 

may be saying, the conference has been very productive and we have now reached that point in 

conference where the most important points are being considered.” He was confident that “a 

satisfactory” solution would be worked out, but in the meantime, he urged the House to approve S. 

1808. 

With that, Speaker Albert returned to Representative Wright’s original request to suspend the rules 

and pass the bill. He said, “The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor thereof) 

the rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed. [“Apportioning Funds for the 

National System of Interstate and Defense Highways,” Congressional Record-House, June 28, 

1973, p. 22089-22092] 

Although both Houses had approved S. 1808, the House version differed from the Senate version in 

adding the phrase “out of the Highway Trust Fund” to the section authorizing funds for Federal-aid 

primary and secondary funds and their urban extensions. For S. 1808 to become law, the Senate 

would have to approve the House version. 

Later that same day, Senator Randolph offered the House bill for consideration in view of the minor 

amendment. After summarizing the bill, he discussed the conference that had begun on May 6: 

Our first meetings in conference were productive and agreement was reached on a number 

of points in the bill. In recent weeks, however, little progress has been made. We reached 

this plateau in our negotiations when the conferees turned their attention to the most 

controversial issue in the bill. 

Based on experience in the 92nd Congress, “members of the Senate Public Works Committee knew 

that completion of a new highway bill would be a long and arduous task.” As a result, he had 

introduced S. 1808 to ensure the States would be able to continue their Federal-aid highway 

programs in FY 1974. The amounts in the bill were “within the limits of authorizations which have 

been agreed to by the conferees at this time.” 

He recalled that the Senate had passed S. 1808 on May 23, but that the House Public Works 

Committee had been reluctant to consider the bill. “Their feeling was that we might soon reach 

agreement on S. 502, thus obviating the necessity for an interim financing measure.” He did not 
1043 

share their optimism at the time, which is why he had introduced S. 1808, and the situation in the 

States had deteriorated since then. Without S. 1808, the pot would run dry: 

The conferees met again last night to discuss the Federal-aid [sic] Highway Act of 1973. 

We explored the issues remaining to be resolved and the House conferees at that time 

informed us of their willingness to take immediate action on S. 1808. 

He pointed out that the bill did not authorize Federal-aid urban system funds: 

It would be improper to include urban highway funds in this bill since the structure and 

financing of the urban system is a central feature of the mass transit controversy.

Senator Baker also urged passage of S. 1808. He took the time to summarize the history of 

legislative efforts from the start of the 93rd Congress. The House, he explained, had not acted on S. 

1808 immediately following Senate passage “because they believed that a final resolution of S. 502 

was possible prior to the end of the fiscal year.” He continued:

The conference has met on some 20 occasions and we have resolved many of the provisions 

that were in dispute. However, we have been unable to resolve the most significant issue: 

The issue of urban flexibility in the use of highway trust funds for both highways and masstransit purposes. 

In an effort to resolve these differences, the Senate conferees developed a new approach that 

built upon a suggestion that had been made by several of the House conferees. This new 

section would return 20 percent of the gasoline taxes collected nationally to the States for 

any transportation purpose. 

Last evening, the conferees met for several hours at and following dinner. That discussion 

was most constructive and valuable. But, frankly, it become clear that we could not reach 

agreement on the Senate’s compromise, or any other variation that was suggested last 

evening. 

He believed that the Senate’s June 21 offer “represents a reasonable compromise between the two 

bodies,” but with the July 4 recess about to begin, resolution would not be possible before the start 

of FY 1974 on July 1. “Pending that resolution, the adoption of S. 1808 means a fresh flow of 

Federal-aid funds to the States to allow highway programs to continue.” He did not know if the 

conferees would need 1 week or 1 month or longer, but he was confident that “a spirit of 

compromise” would eventually result in a 3-year bill.

After a few additional comments, the Senate voted to adopt the House amendment to S. 1808. 

[“Funds for National System of Interstate and Defense Highways,” Congressional Record-Senate, 

June 28, 1973, p. 22082-22084] 

That same day, June 28, Secretary Brinegar addressed the National Broadcast Editorial Association 

in Washington. In discussing the Federal-Aid Highway Act, he relied mostly on language he had 
1044 

used in his speech to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. At the time of that speech, he was 

not optimistic about prospects for the bill. On June 28, he said: 

The controversy is most unfortunate, because when the smoke clears and the trust fund issue 

is looked at in a longer-term perspective, I’m quite certain that it will be widely understood 

to be a timely idea and entirely consistent with the purposes to which trust fund monies can 

be properly used . . . . 

A Conference Committee is now working on a compromise bill. They’ve had some 30 

meetings and have yet to find the way out. The worsening energy situation has made our 

position more understandable day by day, so perhaps we may win this one yet. The Senate 

has stood tough, for which I give them my thanks. 

On July 6, 1973, President Nixon signed the interim bill, S. 1808, without comment. FHWA 

apportioned the funds from Public Law 93-61 among the States on July 11. 

The Antipollution Charade

Throughout June, State and local officials, as well as the auto industry and EPA, were trying to deal 

with the impacts of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970. Any hope of relief in the courts ended

when the Supreme Court upheld a 1972 U.S. District Court ruling in Sierra Club v. Ruckelshaus. 

The 1970 Act required States with heavily polluted air to submit plans to EPA for improving 

ambient air quality. The Sierra Club maintained that EPA regulations did not take into account the 

intent of the law to prohibit approval of a State air pollution plan that would allow deterioration of 

air quality in areas that exceeded national standards. This assertion was based on the law’s 

declaration of purpose “(1) to protect and enhance the quality of the Nation’s air resources so as to 

promote the public health and welfare and the productive capacity of its population . . . .” 

In a ruling issued on May 30, 1972, District Court Judge John H. Pratt agreed with the Sierra Club, 

stating that the law’s mandate to “protect and enhance” reflected the congressional intent to require 

not only improvement of air quality but prevention of degradation. (344 F. Supp. 253 (D.D.C. 

1972)) The court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the EPA Administrator from approving 

State implementation plans “unless he approves the State plan subject to subsequent review by him 

to insure that it does not permit significant deteriorating of existing air quality in any portion of any 

state where the existing air quality is better than one or more of secondary standards promulgated 

by the administration.” The District Court directed EPA to issue regulations for the prevention of 

significant deterioration of air quality in clean air areas.

The District Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s opinion. (4 ERC 1815 (D.C. Cir. 

1972)) After hearing oral arguments, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision, by a tie vote with 

one justice not participating, in Sierra Club v. Fri (as the case was renamed following 

Administrator Ruckelshaus’s departure) without a written opinion. (412 U.S. 451 (1973)) 

In Massachusetts, for example, officials and business representatives were concerned about EPA’s 

proposal for the area. When the State did not submit a plan, EPA prepared a plan that, among other 
1045 

things, banned on-street parking in downtown Boston, closed Main Street in Springfield to all 

vehicles except trucks and buses, imposed a surcharge on downtown parking ($4 a day in 

Springfield, $5 a day in Boston), a sticker system dividing vehicles inside the Route 128 Boston 

area circumferential into five groups, with each group prohibited from driving 1 day a week during 

periods of excessive air pollution, and two emission-control devices for motor vehicles at a cost of 

$50 and $200 each. An EPA spokeman said, “A lot of state business and government officials 

don’t think we’re serious, but a lot of people are going to be surprised.” 

Frederick P. Salvucci, transportation assistant to Mayor White, thought the parking surcharge was 

“too drastic,” the stickers “unenforceable” and devices “unfeasible.” The plan was so unlikely that 

he thought EPA might really be anticipating the granting of an extension until 1977, as permitted by 

the law. Raymond Rodriguez, administrative assistant to Secretary Altshuler, said that “even with 

a two-year extension, it is going to be very difficult to meet the federal standards in Boston.” 

William F. Chouinard of the Boston Chamber of Commerce was less diplomatic. EPA’s plan was 

“laughable,” he said, and not likely to be implemented. If it were, it would mean “a cessation of 

activity in downtown Boston.” [Carden, Lance, “Clean-Air Rules Stun Bay Staters,” The Christian 

Science Monitor, June 15, 1973] 

As EPA continued to roll out its plans, they took on increasing appearances of absurdity. The plan 

for Fairbanks, Alaska, banned more than five minutes of idling after October 1, 1974, to keep 

motorists from running their engines to keep the heaters on. Public off-street parking facilities 

would be required to have “interior car heaters and electrical head bolt heaters for warming 

engines.” [“EPA Would Cut Idling in Fairbanks, Alaska—By Vehicles, That Is,” The Wall Street 

Journal, July 9, 1973] 

The U.S. Conference of Mayors was in San Francisco for its 41st annual conference beginning June 

16. At a press conference on the opening day, four mayors criticized EPA’s plans. Mayor Kenneth 

A. Gibson of Newark, New Jersey, said, “I question whether we can do these things unless we come 

up with adequate mass transit to carry people.” Mayor Norman Y. Mineta of San Jose, California, 

said, “Until there is some alternate means of transportation, you just can’t go ahead and ban 

something,” referring to motor vehicles. Mayor Daley of Chicago told reporters that EPA had not 

discussed the plans with the mayors “and now they’re trying to put the burden on cities,” despite 

granting a 1-year postponement for the auto industry. 

Mayor Henry W. Maier of Milwaukee said, “The real issue is when is the Secretary of 

Transportation going to speak out and declare a moratorium on highway building? When is he 

going to get the highway trust fund broken so cities can use the money for operating costs for mass 

transportation?” The country, he said, faced a “national emergency” and “it’s about time he speak 

up and take a forceful stand.” [McBee, Susanna, “Mayors Hit U.S. Plan to Cut Traffic,” The 

Washington Post, June 18, 1973] 

Editorial writers understood the problem. The Washington Star-News said:

The clean-air ideal that Congress embraced so enthusiastically three years ago is coming 

into hard collision with the fact that its attainment—on the schedule envisioned—simply 
1046 

may not be possible. Developments emerging last week from both the Supreme Court and 

the Environmental Protection Agency reinforce that view. 

The court’s rulling “that air quality cannot be allowed to deteriorate significantly anywhere in the 

country” even affected “the great unpolluted expanses” of the country. If rigidly enforced, the 

ruling would “serve virtually to paralyze growth in underdeveloped areas that are seeking new 

industry.” 

As for EPA’s plans, “some major cities have only the dimmest prospect, or none at all, of meeting 

the air standards set for the year after next.” The plans contemplated an “astounding reduction of 

traffic” in 18 areas “and a 60 percent cutback in driving in northern New Jersey.” These plans 

“could exact intolerable economic penalties and prove politically indefensible.” 

The only good news was: 

Fortunately, the acting EPA chief, Robert W. Fri, seems to have no delusions about all this. 

In presenting the highly restrictive plans, Fri said he was “not sure these are the results that 

Congress intended,” and that he will “explore with Congress the desirability of extending 

the deadlines for these areas that are so deeply affected.”

The Star-News editors considered that “the wise course.” The goal should be “to achieve the final 

high objectives with the least possible economic damage.” [“The Clean-Air Collision,” The 

Washington Star-News, June 19, 1973] 

The Washington Post agreed, saying of the Supreme Court ruling: 

The Supreme Court ruling has sparked less temperate calls for congressional intervention by 

some industry spokesmen, who charge that a national non-degredation policy will 

compound the energy crisis, perpetuate urban pollution (by keeping the polluters from 

moving elsewhere) and paralyze rural areas as well (by blocking economic growth). Such 

protests contain some wisdom and a lot of wishful thinking. 

Regarding EPA’s urban plans, the Post cited the same quote from acting Administrator Fri about 

what Congress intended. The question of feasibility needed to be faced “right now.” The plans 

were, as city officials pointed out, “intolerable unless people have real alternatives to private cars.” 

The editorial continued: 

There is no better argument for expanded federal aid for mass transit, including some form 

of the operating subsidies which the Nixon administration has so stubbornly opposed. Nor 

will funding alone do the job; the routes and service of many transit systems will have to be 

overhauled, especially to meet the needs of suburbanites. 

Since these limitations had never been tried, “it is almost impossible to say” whether they would be 

“effective and acceptable” in any given city. What was clear was that “even with all the 

investment, innovation and civic effort possible,” most areas could not meet the deadlines and 
1047 

would require legislative relief. “But it should be limited, temporary, and a last resort.” [“The 

Costs of Cleaner Air,” The Washington Post, June 26, 1973] 

The California public, for one, was “in a mood to accept drastic steps to reduce air pollution 

provided these steps stop short of prohibiting them from driving their cars,” according to a poll by 

Field Research Corporation. Mervin D. Field summarized the results:

Measures that get a majority of support are the installation of car antipollution devices, even 

if these are quite expensive, and the building of mass rapid transit systems, even if these 

were to increase taxes.

The public is not inclined to favor measures that would reduce their driving or make it more 

difficult, such as gas rationing, drastic slowdown of freeway construction or setting aside 

freeway lanes for exclusive use of high-speed buses. [Field, Mervin, D., “Public Against 

Driving Curbs, Survey Finds,” The Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1973] 

Gladwin Hill, the environmental reporter for The New York Times, concluded that, “The nation’s 

campaign against air pollution has seemingly taken on some aspects of soap opera, with dire and 

sometimes implausible exigencies materializing almost by the day.” After mentioning some of 

EPA’s proposals imposing “restrictions of varying stringency,” Hill wrote: 

The situation has a certain aura of unreality. Drastic reductions in auto traffic would 

paralyze almost any American community. This aura of unreality is reinforced by candid 

acknowledgments of Environmental Protection Agency officials that many of these 

“proposals” are of doubtful practicality. 

In this “unusual governmental charade,” Federal bureaucrats “whose job is to administer laws rather 

than give opinions on them” were “obliquely” saying: 

• They are telling states with big-city automobile smog problems to get down to brass 

tacks with pollution control plans. 

• They are telling citizens that the crunch has come when air pollution abatement 

requires not merely expenditure of money but also some changes in accustomed 

patterns of life.

• They are telling Congress that the Clean Air Act, as conceived back in 1970, needs 

some revision, particularly in deadlines. 

The deadlines for stationary sources, such as factories, were “relatively easy technologically,” Hill 

said. “Most industrial establishments, in collaboration with state authorities and E.P.A. regional 

offices, have worked out compliance programs.” Automobiles were another matter: 

Congress, in setting a 1975 deadline, was in a sense shooting in the dark, because the 

technology for controlling car fumes was not fully known, and data on automobile 

contributions to big-city smog were incomplete.
1048 

One discovery since 1970 was that vehicle emission controls had not been developed as quickly as 

hoped, resulting in a 1-year extension. A second discovery was that even if emission controls were 

available, some cities would still be short of compliance by 1977. “Two-year extensions given a 

score of cities by the E.P.A. under the law were knocked out by a Federal Court ruling this year that 

they had been granted without sufficient evidence of necessity.” 

The problem was that “only a limited number of ways of reducing big-city auto smog quickly” 

existed “and most of them entail radical reductions in the amount of auto travel.” Hill continued: 

Thus E.P.A. officials, sworn to administer the law, have had to go through the motions of 

formally “proposing” certain measures that seem unlikely to materialize. The E.P.A. has no 

authority to force a community to institute any particular traffic-management measure. Its 

authority relates to results: if a city’s smog gets too bad, the E.P.A. can step in, as it did in 

Birmingham, Ala., in 1971, and even shut down industry. 

States and cities were expected to formulate their own solutions, but where that was not possible, 

EPA “imposed” plans that, Hill said, “consist in general of workable helpful measures, laboriously 

custom-tailored by the agency’s technical experts to fit a community’s particular situation.” 

However, the “big imponderable” was how long these plans would take to achieve the desired 

results. Evidently, the 1977 deadline would be missed. “Los Angeles, for instance, with the worst

auto-smog problem, figures it can have things well under control by 1980, but not much before 

that.” [Hill, Gladwin, “Antipollution Charade: The E.P.A. Drastic Proposals,” The New York 

Times, June 25, 1973] 

Editorial reaction continued. An editorial in The Baltimore Sun began:

Automobiles in cities throughout the world have become a scourge. From Tokyo to 

Baltimore to Rome, ugly commercial strips, profligate use of land for streets and parking 

lots, traffic congestion, noise, and air pollution by health-damaging photochemical smog 

and carbon monoxide are some of the ugly byproducts of too many of these machines within 

cities. A problem of growing importance is the gasoline shortage, as automobiles consume 

about 10 times the fuel per passenger mile as the most efficient forms of public transit.

EPA had proposed a new plan for Baltimore on July 11 that included restrictions on automobiles in 

downtown, installation of emission control devices, and a sharp reduction in gasoline supplies. 

Traffic control measures included new buses, exclusive lanes for buses and carpools, limits on onstreet parking, a permit system for off-street parking, and creation of a computerized carpool 

service. Additional measures included installation of devices to capture escaping vapors from gas 

delivery trucks and underground storage tanks. EPA also proposed adding catalytic converters to 

cars produced between 1968 and 1975. 

The editorial said that all the problems caused by the automobile were “why we would applaud this 

week’s proposals by the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce auto traffic within the 

Baltimore metropolitan area by 65 per cent of anticipated levels in the year 1977—if the proposals 

made any sense. The trouble is that they do not.” Even EPA’s Regional Administrator Daniel J. 
1049 

Snyder III had admitted the proposals were “impractical.” EPA, the editorial said, should not be 

blamed; it had to comply with the strict provisions of the Clean Air Amendments of 1970. “Given 

these constraints, it is virtually impossible to produce a practical plan.” 

A better approach would involve coordination among Federal, State, and local governments: 

Some elements of a concerted approach might include a state land use plan, more generous 

support of urban mass transit by the federal government, a move by the auto industry and 

consumers toward smaller cars, expansion of plans for metropolitan area rail transit, and 

possible move by the U.S. automobile industry to the low-pollution stratified charge engines 

designed by Japanese companies.

The problem was that coordinated plans such as this one “will take time, and it seems clear that 

Congress must ease the timetable on the Clean Air Amendments.” [Associated Press, “Baltimore 

Faces Clean-Air Orders,” The Washington Post, July 12, 1973; “Coping with the Automobile,” The 

Baltimore Sun, July 13, 1973] 

The Christian Science Monitor picked up on Hill’s description of the EPA plans as a “charade.” 

Congress, after all, “may decide that emergency steps” may be impractical and that long-range 

plans, such as building rapid transit systems, may require extension of the deadlines: 

A further point is that the plans put the burden of inconvenience on the user of the 

automobile. The development of smaller cars, cleaner engines, would have made much of 

the proposed auto-use cutbacks unnecessary. The government also, by pushing highway 

construction and frustrating the maintenance or expansion of urban mass transit, helped 

create the situation from which the auto-dependent public will have to extricate itself with 

considerable inconvenience. 

Inconveniences would not have to last long before rapid transit networks ‘would regain the 

familiarity they once had before American affluence produced the massive exhaust problem.” The 

editorial concluded: 

Still, in the absence of a comprehensive federal program to vitalize mass transit systems, the 

EPA’s plans seem unrealistic. Congressmen should be forewarned that the public will not 

take lightly to massive inconvenience caused principally by a too prolonged government 

attachment to highway construction, oil, and auto interests. [“Ban Your Car?” The 

Christian Science Monitor, July 13, 1973] 

William K. Stevens began his article on the subject in The New York Times with a visit to 

Lexington, Massachusetts, “Birthplace of American Liberty.” But on Massachusetts Avenue and 

Bedford Street in this city “where the American Revolution began, other signs are more 

prominent.” They read: “Chevrolet,” “Buick,” “Shell,” “Exxon,” “Shopping Center,” and “Motel.” 

Stevens said:
1050 

Cars. The material basis of the free-and-easy, go-where-you-want character of latterday 

American culture. Agents of the ordinary citizen’s liberation from the strictures of 

geography. Life for most Americans rests as much today on the internal-combustion 

revolution of the 20th century as on the political revolution of the 18th. 

Now, however, America’s “automobile-based way of life is being directly challenged by official 

action.” Faced with limitations imposed by EPA, “There appears to be no doubt that many 

Americans are viewing this prospect with, at the very least, considerable skepticism, and, at the 

most, outright defiance.” He added, “Few observers expect that the restrictions will be applied as 

proposed.” 

The automobile, like any technological innovation, “has its bad side as well as its good.” The bad 

included deaths and injuries in crashes, traffic jams, automobile graveyards, and “Freeway spaghetti 

that disfigures cities.” Nevertheless, by “whatever combination of industrial self-interest, 

salesmanship, public policy and citizen preference, the automobile and the highway constitute today 

the primary means by which most Americans move about.” Stevens continued: 

To Samuel Eliot Morison, the historian, the internal-combustion engine was “the material 

key to the Great Change”—that abrupt conversion of life in this country, early in this 

century, from old-fashioned, horse-drawn and rural to modern, motorized and urban. So 

fundamental was the change and so pervasive the influence of the auto, that it was easy, 

until now, to take it for granted. 

Citing the Field poll in California, Stevens said that while Americans understand the downside of 

the preference for the private automobiles, “they do not stop driving.” Auto sales continued at 

record levels, with 5 million sold during the first half of 1973. Over 111 million people had drivers 

licenses. Highway travel accounted for 98 percent of all trips, with 85 percent of those trips in an 

automobile. Eight of 10 people commute by car. Stevens explained, “‘Without a car you’re 

nowhere,’ they say in Phoenix. Or, ‘A car isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.’” 

He added, “For better or ill,” America’s urban and suburban settings were “based on, and brought 

about by, the automobile.” In Lexington, Stevens saw another sign: “Fight pollution, ride a horse.” 

He added:

But since there are few horses around shopping centers, the sign was affixed to the bumper 

of a car spewing out hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. [Stevens, 

William K., “Nation Dependent on Cars is Resentful of Curbs Planned as Pollution Check,” 

The New York Times, July 15, 1973] 

On July 16, EPA announced that it had approved 1-year suspension of 1975 emission standards to 

27 auto manufacturers, in addition to the extensions approved for the major manufacturers in April. 

 The firms included Alfa Romeo, BMW, Citroen, Daimler-Benz, Ferrari, Fiat, Isuzu Motors, 

Mitsubishi, Nissan, Peugeot, Porsche, Renault, Rolls-Royce, Toyota Motor Company, Volkswagen, 

and Volvo. They had, EPA said, made “good faith” efforts to meet the standards. The cars met

interim standards for 1975 models that were likely to need catalytic converters in California and 
1051 

included advanced engine changes in other States. [“EPA Grants a Delay in ’75 Emission Rules to 

27 More Car Firms,” The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 1973] 

Conference Breakthrough

The cover of the July 23 issue of U.S. News and World Report carried several headlines:

WATERGATE: Who’s Telling the Truth?

HOW REAL IS THE DANGER?

A Sick Dollar

Rampant Inflation

Credit Squeeze

Erratic Stocks

Speading Shortages 

NOW, AN “EPIDEMIC” OF LEGALIZED GAMBLING

Inside, the magazine featured an interview with Secretary Brinegar on “Ways to Break the Traffic 

Jams.” The first question was about the best way to clear up traffic congestion. The Secretary 

replied:

What we need to do, most of all, is to offer people a better alternative to driving their own 

cars. For the immediate future, in most cities, the answer is expanded and improved bus 

systems, with parking lots on the edge of town and plenty of convenient distribution points 

inside the city . . . . Of course, the great virtue of this approach as a fairly quick solution to 

the congestion problem is the fact that the highways are there already, and you don’t have to 

wait years for some new system to be laid down. 

What about rail lines or subways? Because of their high construction costs, only about a dozen 

cities could support them: 

Building a subway system, no matter how beautiful or fast it is, is not going to solve traffic 

problems unless something is done to control the way a city grows. And cities will not be 

reshaped overnight. That takes decades.

That was why steps such as improved bus service, increased carpooling, staggered work hours, and 

other efforts to balance traffic were so important.

Q. Does any city in the country have a decent bus system? 

A. No, but they’re getting better. 

UMTA funding was helping, recently passing “the 4-billion-dollar mark in contributing federal 

funds to capital improvements.” Secretary Brinegar added, “The downtrend in ridership has, at last, 
1052 

been reversed.” UMTA was undertaking research on ways to improve service and increase 

ridership. 

Should public transportation be provided fare-free? In larger cities, that may be possible because 

mass transit “is going to be looked upon increasingly as an essential public service, like schools, 

fire departments and what have you.” In that case, should the Federal Government provide 

operating subsidies: 

The Federal Government is very reluctant to step in and help a community cover its 

operating losses. That would raise some large problems. If the Federal Government were to 

pay for operating losses, I’m afraid it would end up having to judge the operating efficiency 

and fare practices of hundreds of local transportation systems around the country. We don’t 

believe that’s our role. 

Q. Do your plans call for any increase in federal funds for urban transportation systems? 

A. Yes. In addition to the Urban Mass Transportation grant program we have also tried to 

introduce an element of flexibility in the allocation of some of the highway-trust-fund 

money, particularly the 20 per cent or so that goes to the cities. We would like to give local 

people the ability to use that money in a variety of ways, not just for roads. 

If Congress approved the proposal, most of the funds, Secretary Brinegar said, “would still go for 

urban highways.” Highways had “done wonders in moving people and freight, but we’re worried 

about extending this trend another 10 years.” That was why the Highway Trust Fund should be 

available for buses, exclusive bus lanes, special traffic control systems, “and, if a community 

wanted it, to help finance rail transit.” 

What about special taxes on motorists, particularly during peak periods? “We may come to that—

although I believe it would be a local and not a federal tax.” As with movie theaters, which charge 

less for lightly attended afternoon shows, congested areas may find such taxes necessary. “The 

freeways and expressways have the capacity. It’s just that about three or four hours a day they are 

enormously overloaded.” 

Would it be politically feasible to charge to use freeways that would no longer be free?

They never were “free.” Aside from the cost of construction and operation, which is paid 

for with taxes, the highways have generated high social costs. Damage to the environment, 

noise, and disruption of communities have been ignored much too long. [“Ways to Break 

the Traffic Jams,” U.S. News and World Report, July 23, 1973] 

Even as this interview appeared on newsstands around the country, House and Senate conferees 

announced a breakthrough on the 3-year Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. On Thursday, July 19, 

they had tentatively agreed on a compromise on the main issue, the Muskie-Baker amendment. The 

Washington Post reported: 
1053 

Under the compromise agreed by the conferees, the House version of the bill will be in 

effect for fiscal 1974. In fiscal 1975, $200 million of the $850 million urban share of trust 

fund money may be used to buy buses rather than building highways, and in fiscal 1976 the 

trust fund money may be used for buses and rail mass transit.

While the compromise settles the main point at issue, the conferees still must settle some 

major points, including whether to allow operating subsidies for rail mass transit, whether to 

build a priority primary system of roads to connect with the present interstate system and 

whether to include highway safety provisions in this bill or a separate one. 

Conferees also had tentatively agreed to allow urban areas to delete unwanted Interstate segments 

but retain an equivalent amount of general Treasury revenue for rail or bus mass transit or highway 

projects. 

In a joint statement, Senator Bentsen and Representative Wright called the compromise “a 

significant breakthrough.” [“Accord on Highway Bill Frees Funds for Transit,” The Washington 

Post, July 20, 1973] 

On Friday, conferees worked out the remaining details. Conferees included $2.6 billion for 

Interstate construction in FY 1974, $3 billion a year in FYs 1975 and 1976, and $3.25 bullion in 

FYs 1977 to 1979. They authorized $2 billion over 3 years for highway safety programs. 

They authorized $100 million in FY 1974 for priority primary routes plus $200 million in FY 1975 

and $300 million in 1976. Subject to approval by the Secretary, the States would select high-traffic 

sections of the Federal-aid primary system for improvement to supplement the service provided by 

the Interstate System. The Secretary was to report to Congress by July 1, 1974, on the initial 

selection of priority primary routes and the estimated cost of completing them.

 

Conferees agreed to allow withdrawal of controversial urban Interstate segments, with the option of 

using an equivalent amount for highways or transit. Transit funds, however, would come from 

general Treasury revenues, not the Highway Trust Fund. 

In addition to the compromise on the Muskie-Baker amendment, conferees agreed to provide $1 

billion a year through FY 1976 for transit capital grants at an 80-20 matching ratio. They decided 

to drop the Emergency Commuter Relief Act, with its $800 million over 2 years for rail transit 

operating subsidies, because they did not want to risk the threatened veto of the bill. 

The final bill would not contain the pass-through provision allowing urban officials to administer 

Federal-aid urban system funds, but did “earmark” funds for urbanized areas of more than 200,000 

population. This “earmarked” share would be allocated based on one of two methods: (1) the ratio 

of the population of each urbanized area over 200,000 population to the population of all urban 

areas over 5,000 population in the State or (2) by a formula developed by the State and approved by 

the Secretary of Transportation. In either case, allocations must be “fair and equitable” to

incorporated municipalities of 200,000 or more population within these urbanized areas must be 

“fair and equitable.”
1054 

The bill also set aside one-half of one percent of all apportioned Federal-aid system funds for 

transportation planning in urbanized areas. These funds were to be made available to metropolitan 

planning agencies that were to be established to conduct the 3C transportation planning required by 

the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1962 for urban areas. 

On behalf of House conferees, Representative Wright said, “I think we got an even break. The 

Senate agreed to our formula on Interstate transfers, and there’s a lot more money in there than the 

urban system.” As for the compromise on the Muskie-Baker amendment, he speculated that “at 

most, $125 million a year in urban systems funds will be requested for transit.” 

Speaking for the Senate conferees, Senator Bentsen said, “We have a good compromise of the 

opposing views, and made a great effort to scale down spending out of concern for the national 

economy.” 

John Kramer was delighted: 

We got three-quarters of what we wanted. We wanted to change the atmosphere in which 

urban transport decisions are made—to be sure public transportation alternatives are 

available to cities. That’s happened. We also wanted to change the national transportation 

spending priorities. That’s been accomplished, too, at least for urban areas. 

He was disappointed that conferees were making a relatively small percentage of Highway Trust 

Fund revenue available for transit, “but it’s a foot in the door.” 

The compromise, according to an estimate in Time magazine, was reached after “two years of 

congressional debate, 3460 legislative man-days of hearings, and a ten-week stalemate in the 

House/Senate conference committee . . . .” [“Compromise Road Bill Allows Trust Fund Money for 

Rail Transit in ’76,” Engineering News-Record, July 26, 1973; United Press International, 

“Conferees Agree to Free Trust Fund for Mass Transit,” Newark Star-Ledger, July 21, 1973; 

“Busting the Trust,” Time, August 6, 1973] 

The key to the compromise, according to reporter Albert R. Karr, was the “Wright Shuffle.” Karr 

set the stage:

The hour was late, the mood was sullen and Congressman Jim Wright, for one, was angry . . 

. . Now the Senate delegation had just rejected a House offer of some modest transit aid 

through the big road-building fund. Mr. Wright, the Texas Democrat who headed the House 

contingent, turned to the Senate delegation in a moment of pique and fatique. “You don’t 

care about helping mass transit,” he snapped. “You just want to bust the trust fund.” 

Representative Wright’s claim had “an element of truth” to it, Karr said. “The truth is that the 

Senate conferees—during the prolonged bargaining that eventually led to a more generous offer 

from the House—did think the fund should be ‘busted.’” 
1055 

The Wright shuffle involved allowing cities to use Federal-aid urban system funds for buses or 

subways, with the funds to come from the general Treasury and the Highway Trust Fund revenues 

frozen. Similarly, when a controversial Interstate segment was withdrawn in favor of transit 

projects, the funds would come from the general Treasury, not the Highway Trust Fund. 

 The Wright Shuffle, in short, had “something for everyone,” as Karr explained: 

The pro-transit cities get their money, the Highway Trust Fund remains at least technically 

unviolated and the budget-conscious Nixon administration is given a way to guarantee that 

any spending for transit will not boost total government spending. 

As is often the case with a compromise, neither side was completely happy. Highway backers were 

not satisfied. Representative Harsha said, “The so-called highway lobby, when the chips were 

down, turned out to be little more than a paper tiger.” Given the complexity of the Wright Shuffle, 

a transit-industry source told Karr the compromise was “a bag of air.” However, UMTA 

Administrator Herringer called the compromise “almost a total victory” for transit, while an 

unnamed Senate transportation expert said, “We’re finally breaking up the pattern a little bit and 

maybe in a few years we can really do something.” 

The amount of Federal-aid urban system funding available to big cities was relatively small:

California cities would get only $96 million, Illinois cities about $49 million and 

Massachusetts only $27 million, for example. Presumably, not even all of these amounts 

would go for transit, for many of the smaller cities in each state would probably lean toward 

roads instead. 

Another potential negative was that the legislation required transportation planning, but in many 

States the only planners were highway planners. “Their decisions, transit men fear, won’t always 

be geared to helping transit.” John Kramer conceded that transit advocates had succeeded only in 

getting “the nose of the camel under the tent.” 

The Interstate trade-in provision held the most promise for cities such as Boston and Baltimore that 

had “as many freeways as they want and huge unmet needs for transit.” Even that option would be 

jeopardized if the Nixon Administration decided to oppose the use of general Treasury funds under 

the Wright Shuffle formula: 

And even if the administration does continue to support this approach, the legality of 

freezing trust fund monies is already under attack. The administration is embroiled in two 

court cases challenging its decisions to impound trust fund money in the past. Without this 

power to impound trust money, the administration presumably would be less eager to spend 

general revenues on transit.

Transit advocates were still intrigued by the idea of a Mass Transit Trust Fund “with the kind of 

self-generating revenues the highway builders now enjoy.” Pro-highway legislators liked the idea 

because it would reduce the need for transit “raids” on the Highway Trust Fund: 
1056 

The conferees even laid some groundwork for a transit fund by directing the Transportation 

Secretary to study prospects for a revenue-producing tax on transit fuel. Then, in case such 

a mass transit fund comes into being, they prescribed that the highway fund may not be used 

to help finance bus and rail projects at all. 

Senator Muskie still clung to the idea of shifting Highway Trust Fund revenue: 

As he put it, before people can choose transit over the private auto, “the diversion of funds 

from highways to public transportation must come . . . , both to signify our willingness to 

change and to make it financially possible to do so.” [Karr, Albert R., “Transit and the 

Highway ‘Shuffle,’” The Wall Street Journal, August 7, 1973] 

According to an editorial in The Los Angeles Times, titled “A Precedent for Transit Aid,” the “big 

break” in the conference “came when a California congressman, Harold T. Johnson (D-Roseville), 

reversed his earlier opposition and voted to accept a key principle of the Senate version of the 

highway aid bill,” the Muskie-Baker amendment as modified by the Wright Shuffle. Although the 

compromise “on the use of highway trust funds for urban mass transit falls well short of meeting 

the immediate needs of the cities,” the editorial said, “it represents a start that can be built on in 

future years.” That was “real progress.” The highway lobby feared (“correctly we hope”) that once 

the Highway Trust Fund was breached “a steadily increasing share of it might go to nonhighway 

uses.” The editorial added: 

Given the convergent problems of urban congestion, environmental pollution and energy 

shortages, that is exactly what should happen. 

The delay until FY 1975 included in the compromise “will mean added hardship for cities,” but for 

Los Angeles, the delay “can profitably be used for sound planning, with some greater assurance 

than ever before that a transit system aided with federal funds can become a reality.” [“A Precedent 

for Transit Aid,” The Los Angeles Times, July 22, 1973] 

The Washington Star-News called the compromise “an historic symbolic breakthrough for the cause 

of balanced transportation” and said “the stone wall limiting the federal highway trust fund’s ample 

resources exclusively to road construction finally has been breached.” Defenders of the Highway 

Trust Fund “gave ground grudgingly,” but assuming the House approves the bill, “we suspect there 

will be no retreat from that sound principle.” [“Hole in the Trust Fund,” The Washington StarNews, July 24, 1973] 

The Baltimore Sun called the compromise “a precedent-setting move” in opening the “untouchable 

$6-billion-a-year highway trust fund.” The House “still has to approve the conference bill and there 

may be more hurdles,” but the Sun’s editorial concluded: 

There are problems with the conference proposal. It is too little and too late and contains 

inflationary sops for the highway lobby. On balance, however, it clearly establishes that the 

highway lobby is no longer the inassailable power it once was. The nation desperately 
1057 

needs new priorities in urban transportation and the conference proposal is a major step in 

the right direction. [“A Gain for Mass Transit,” The Baltimore Sun, July 23, 1973] 

By contrast, The New York Times saw the conference agreement not as a compromise but as “a 

major victory for the highway lobby.” The problem was the House of Representatives, It “refused 

to admit that anything had changed since Henry Ford first marketed the Model T.” During the first 

2 years of the bill, Highway Trust Fund revenue could be used only for buses, “the only form of 

mass transit acceptable to the oil-gas-cement-automobile lobbies which hold the House in 

vassaldom.” 

The bill could be called a compromise only because the third year’s Federal-aid urban system 

funding could be used for any form of mass transit:

The bill can only be described as a disgrace. Are the cities of the nation not entitled to 

decide how they are to spend their own share of the trust fund? For Congress to make an 

inadequate sum of money available in 1975 means that Congress will be about twenty years 

behind the times in responding to an ever more critical problem. Moreover, the bill is 

loaded with objectionable features. 

As examples, the Times cited the exclusion of operating subsidies and the funding for non-interstate 

superhighways outside the cities and their extensions within the cities: 

As a practical matter, advocates of mass transit have little elbow room in which to 

maneuver. Without strong leadership from the Administration, which has not been 

forthcoming, it is difficult to overcome the massed forces of the oil-gas-cement-automobile 

lobbies . . . . Unfortunately, the traffic jam will have to become more tangled, the gasoline 

shortage more acute, and the polluted air even dirtier before Congress recognizes that 

additional billions for benefit of the private truck and automobile are not the total answer to 

the nation’s transportation needs. [“Highway Lobby Triumph,” The New York Times, July 

29, 1973] 

Engineering News-Record pointed out that “diehard advocates moan about diversion getting ‘a foot 

in the door,’” but were at least “happy to see the long disagreement over and a bill finally on its way 

to passage.” They also “diminish the diversion prospects, because indications are that most areas 

will opt to put their urban system funds into highways.” The magazine’s editor, however, hailed the 

act “because it is a foot in the door, not so much for diversion as for balanced funding.” Funding 

for highways and transit should continue “at least as high as current levels,” but “should be made 

available in a more flexible manner so states and metropolitan areas can plan balanced systems to 

meet their varying needs without the financial bias imposed by the disproportionately high highway 

funding.” The editorial concluded: 

At least Congress is now talking highways and transit in a single act and has written some 

flexibility into it. We predict that in a few years the recent struggle will seem very remote 

and few will be surprised to see a single transportation authorization package. [“Creeping 

Trust Fund Diversion,” Engineering New-Record, August 2, 1973, p. 56] 
1058 

The conferees approved the compromise S. 502, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, and issued 

companion House and Senate conference reports dated July 27. In addition to the provisions 

already cited, bill included: 

• Conferees adopted the House provision extending the time for completion of the 

Interstate System to June 30, 1979, with Interstate Cost Estimates to be submitted 

every 2 years to allow for apportionment of the funds on a cost-to-complete basis.

• The bill extended the deadline for Interstate notifications by requiring States to 

notify the Secretary by July 1, 1974, of their intent to build remaining Interstate 

segments. In the absence of such notification, the Secretary was to remove the 

segment from Interstate designation. The Secretary could add substitute segments 

through July 1, 1975. 

• Conferees adopted the House provision on the Howard-Cramer interstate mileage 

additions, but instead of leaving the total open-ended, imposed a 500-mile limit 

(instead of 200 miles under prior law). 

• With the Interstate System “now in the final phase of completion,” conferees added a 

paragraph to the existing Declaration of Policy (23 U.S.C. 101) stating that “it shall 

be national policy that increased emphasis be placed on construction and 

reconstruction of the other Federal-aid systems in order to bring all such systems up 

to standards and increase their safety to the maximum extent.”

• The national policy, as provided in the House bill, would be that to the maximum 

extent possible the Secretary and other Department officials shall encourage 

“substantial” minimization of paperwork and interagency decision procedures to 

avoid needless duplication and unnecessary delays. The conferees substituted 

“substantial” for “drastic,” the term used in the House bill. 

• The bill called for the realinement of the Federal-aid primary, secondary, and urban 

systems by the end of Fiscal Year 1976, based on anticipated functional usage in 

1980 or on a planned connected system. The primary system would consist of rural 

arterial routes and their urban extensions; the secondary system would include rural 

major collector routes; and the urban system would consist of arterial and collector 

routes exclusive of urban extensions of the Primary System. All systems would be 

subject to the approval of the Secretary, but State highway agencies would select 

routes to be included in the revised primary and secondary systems. Appropriate 

local officials, with the concurrence of the State highway agencies, would select the 

urban system routes. 

• The bill retained the Federal share of 70 percent adopted in the Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1970 for non-Interstate projects.

• The new bill adopted Certification Acceptance procedures for projects on all 

Federal-aid highway systems except the Interstate System. At the request of a State, 

the Secretary could carry out his Title 23 responsibilities by accepting a certification 

of the State highway department that it would comply with State laws, regulations, 

directives, and standards at least equal to those under Title 23. Certification 

Acceptance did not extend to non-Title 23 laws such as NEPA, Section 4(f), or the 

Uniform Act. 
1059 

• Conferees decided not to include provisions on control of outdoor advertising or 

junkyards even though the House and Senate bills had included extensive provisions 

on these matters. According to the Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of 

Conference, “The deletion of these provisions should not be construed as 

discontinuing the programs or affecting the existing law,” which remained in effect. 

The conferees expected Congress to consider the issues in separate legislation.

• Expanded the Economic Growth Center Development Highways from the Federalaid primary system to include roads on the other systems. 

• Conferees adopted the House provision defining the Federal-State relationship as a 

“federally assisted State program” under which the availability of Federal-aid 

highway funds should not infringe on the sovereign rights of the States to select 

projects. The provision became 23 U.S.C. 145. 

• The new bill incorporated the House measure on “Bicycle Transportation and 

Pedestrian Walkways” allowing the use of Federal-aid system funds to construct, in 

conjunction with Federal-aid projects, separate or preferential bicycle lanes, bicycle 

traffic control devices, shelters and parking facilities to serve bicycles and bicyclists. 

 Funds authorized for public lands road projects could be used to construct bicycle 

routes in conjunction with those projects. On trails built with Federal-aid highway 

funds, motorized vehicles were permitted only for maintenance purposes and, in the 

case of snowmobiles, when snow conditions and State or local regulations permit. 

Conferees amended the House provision to establish eligibility for pedestrian 

walkways and set a national obligation level of $40 million a year, with each State 

limited to a maximum of $2 million a year for such projects. Separate bikeways 

could be built off Federal-aid right-of-way if the route would accommodate bicycle 

traffic that otherwise would have used the Federal-aid route. 

• The bill authorized $50 million a year for a new Special Urban High Density Traffic 

Program for highways less than 10 miles long connected to the Interstate System in 

portions of urbanized areas with high traffic density. The Federal share for these 

projects could not exceed 90 percent. 

• The bill authorized funds from the Highway Trust Fund for portions of the Great 

River Road on Federal-aid systems along with funds from the general Treasury 

revenue for portions on Federal lands. 

• The bill directed the Secretary to investigate the feasibility of a national system of 

scenic highways linking accessible recreational, historical, scientific, and other 

similar areas of scenic interest and importance. The report was due to Congress by 

January 1, 1975. 

• The Secretary may approve Federal-aid funds for exclusive or preferential truck 

lanes.

• The conferees called for studies of the feasibility of upgrading or building specified 

routes to appropriate standards that may include Interstate standards if warranted.

• The bill allowed private citizens to donate right-of-way for a Federal-aid highway 

project.

• It also specified Interstate segments identified in the Senate bill as the “Dwight D. 

Eisenhower Highway.” 
1060 

A number of provisions affected only one or a few States: 

• New Hampshire would be allowed to repay all Federal-aid highway funds used on 

Route 101 prior to collection of tolls on the highway. Repayments must be made by 

October 1, 1977, or the provision would be rendered inoperative. 

• The Secretary was to withhold further action on I-287 between Montville and 

Mahwah, New Jersey, and on the Corporation Freeway in Winston-Salem, North 

Carolina, until new corridor hearings were held. Hearings were to be held within 1 

year of enactment of the legislation.

• The bill incorporated House and Senate provisions extending Federal-aid for 

ferryboats to those traveling in international waters between the islands of Hawaii, 

any two points in Alaska, and between the States of Alaska and Washington. 

• The bill directed the Secretary to complete by October 1, 1973, the draft 

environmental impact statement for I-66 inside the Capital Beltway in Virginia and 

the District of Columbia. He also should expedite final action on a highway bridge 

project at the Raritan River on State Highway 18 in New Jersey and the Three Sisters

Bridge on I-266 over the Potomac River in Arlington and Fairfax Counties, Virginia. 

• The bill prohibited the Secretary from approving a project in one State that would 

affect traffic volumes in another State “without first taking into full consideration the 

views of that State.” Originally, this provision was aimed at blocking the nowcancelled Long Island Sound Bridge, but its generic wording would apply anywhere 

in the country. 

• Conferees adopted the Senate provision terminating Federal-aid status for the San 

Antonio North Expressway. Texas was to repay Federal-aid funds used on the 

project so they could be reapportioned. Conferees added this note: “This provision 

does not constitute a precedent for similar future action.” 

• The Secretary was authorized to approve construction of I-93 through Franconia 

Notch, New Hampshire, as a parkway built to the standards necessary for the safety 

of the traveling public, protection of the environment, and preservation of the parklike and historic character of the Notch.

• It authorized funds for relocation of U.S. 25E through a tunnel in the Cumberland 

Gap National Historical Park and provided for the construction of the Highland 

Scenic Highway in West Virginia as a parkway.

• Conferees continued the Alaska Assistance Program by authorizing $20 million a 

year from the Highway Trust Fund for Fiscal Years 1974-76 for Federal-aid highway 

projects in the State in addition to its regular Federal-aid apportionments. They also 

authorized $58.67 million from the general Treasury for reconstruction of the Alaska 

Highway in Canada.

• The bill authorized a series of railroad relocation demonstration projects in specified 

cities, with two-thirds of the funds from the Highway Trust Fund. 

• After Louisiana received its final apportionment of Interstate funds, the Secretary 

could authorize the use of Federal-aid primary funds for reimbursement, up to 70 

percent, for construction of toll roads. 
1061 

For Title II (The Highway Safety Act of 1973), the Joint Explanatory Statement said that in passing 

S. 502, the House included the Highway Safety Act of 1973. The Senate had passed separate safety 

legislation, S. 893, but that bill was not within the conference committee’s jurisdiction. The 

managers indicated that S. 893 was similar in many respects to Title II of S. 502, but they were 

basically working from the House bill. 

The conferees authorized funds for rail-highway crossings, bridge reconstruction and replacement, a 

pavement marking demonstration program, highway safety on Indian reservations, high-hazard 

locations, elimination of roadside obstacles, and a new Federal-Aid Safer Roads Demonstration 

Program. The bill funded other activities, such as drug use and driver behavior safety research, 

safety educational programs, citizen participation, pedestrian and bicycle safety, and safety needs. 

Other provisions included: 

• A study of the feasibility of a National Center for Statistical Analysis of Highway 

Operations. 

• Incentive grants for compliance with highway safety programs. 

• Research grants for administrative adjudication of traffic infractions. 

The bill also established eligibility for projects using safety funds to provide adequate and 

reasonable access for safe and convenient movement of physically handicapped persons, including 

those in wheelchairs, across curbs constructed or replaced after July 1, 1976, at all pedestrian 

crosswalks.

For Title III, the conferees adopted the House provision amending the Urban Mass Transportation 

Act of 1964 by increasing funds for the UMTA grant program from $3.1 billion through FY 1975 to 

a maximum of $6.1 billion. The Federal share of project costs was increased from 66 and 2/3 

percent to 80 percent. It authorized funds from the Highway Trust Fund for the Rural Highway 

Public Transportation Program, with eligible items identified as the purchase of buses, passenger 

loading areas and facilities, and fringe and transportation corridor facilities to serve bus and other 

public transportation. 

As noted, the bill funded a study of possible revenue mechanisms for a Mass Transit Trust Fund, 

including the possibility of a gas tax hike in urban areas. The bill also called for an update of the 

public mass transportation portion of the 1972 National Transportation Report. The report was to 

include a proposed program to meet identified needs, as well as information on the financial 

capability of all levels of government to address them. The study also was to evaluate the operating 

and maintenance costs and the fare structures of mass transit. 

Conferees dropped the House provision stating that funds authorized to be obligated, appropriated, 

or expended under the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 shall not be impounded or withheld 

from obligation. 

Conferees retained Title IV of the House bill stating that notwithstanding time requirements in Title 

23 for apportionment of funds (23 U.S.C. 104(b)), the Secretary shall apportion FY 1974 funds as 
1062 

soon as practicable after the date of enactment of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. The new 

Title IV included a provision accounting for the interim FY 1974 funding authorized by Public Law 

93-61. 

The Joint Explanatory Statement mentioned several provisions from the House and Senate bills that 

were not incorporated in the final version, such as: 

• Conferees did not adopt the House provision amending 23 U.S.C. 111 to allow small 

food service establishments to operate at rest stops along the Interstate right-of-way.

• They did not include the Senate’s prohibition of impoundment, but said the decision 

“shall not be construed to indicate anything other than complete agreement” with the 

ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit in Missouri’s lawsuit.

• Conferees did not include the Senate provision designating the State Governor as 

program approver instead of the State highway department. 

• Conferees also did not adopt the Senate provision requiring States to take reasonable 

measures to permit, encourage, and assist public participation in the urban 

transportation process. 

[Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, Conference Report to accompany S. 502, 93rd Congress, 1st

Session, Senate Report 93-355, House Report 93-410, July 27, 1973] 

Senate Action

On July 30, 1973, Acting Administrator Fri announced that EPA would extend the deadline from 

1976 to 1977 for automakers to meet nationwide standards for nitrogen oxides. This was the third 

exception for a pollutant; in April, EPA extended the deadline to 1976 for carbon monoxide and 

hydrocarbons. Fri explained that, “No one—manufacturer or supplies or anyone else—presented 

evidence that the standard could be met in 1976.” In his view, the catalytic converter would 

eventually reduce emissions for all three pollutants without causing high fuel consumption, but the 

devices were not ready for widespread installation. [Witken, Richard, “Car Makers Given Pollution 

Delay,” The New York Times, July 31, 1973] 

On July 31, the New York legislature completed approval of Governor Rockefeller’s transit bond 

issue. A bipartisan majority in the Senate (42 to 15) and House (99 to 43) approved the bill, 

sending it to the voters for a referendum in November. Some Democrats had been skeptical of the 

Republican Governor’s proposal, calling it a “pig in the poke” and a “grandiose scheme” that voters 

would reject as they did a similar plan in 1971. Most members, however, felt they had to support 

the plan if it offered even a slim chance of keeping subway and transit fares at current levels. The 

Times reported: 

Even before the final votes were cast in the Assembly, the Governor appeared grinning at a 

hallway news conference to begin the job of selling the huge program to the voters in a 

November referendum. 
1063 

“I’ll try and persuade you and your family,” he said as legislative workers and coatholders 

prepared to depart at the end of the week-long session at which, as usual, the Governor’s 

will prevailed over what legislative grumbling there was. [Clines, Francis X., “Transit Bond 

Issue Is Passed; Albany Special Session Ends,” The New York Times, August 1, 1973] 

The Senate took up the conference report on S. 502, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, on 

August 1. In introducing the bill, Senator Bentsen said: 

Mr. President, this conference report represents months of very arduous work by both the 

Senate and House conferees . . . . I can report that the conference held to reconcile the 

differences between the two bills was a very difficult one . . . . We were in conference over 

2 1⁄2 months. The conferees met 29 times, and the House and Senate conferees met among 

themselves several times to try to work out solutions to our most difficult problem, the 

question of diverting money from the highway trust fund for the use of transit. I believe we 

have emerged with a strong bill which preserves the essence of the Senate position on the 

highway bill.

He explained that conferees had begun with 110 points of difference in the two bills, but had 

resolved all but 13 of them by May 17, and those 13 remained unresolved for the remaining 2 

months. On the key issue of the Muskie-Baker amendment, Senator Bentsen said:

From May 17 until we reached a final agreement on July 18, there were no fewer than 10 

proposals and counterproposals to reach a solution on this question. I believe that the 

solution that we ultimately reached was an eminently fair one . . . . In the compromise, Mr. 

President, I believe both sides have given substantially. The Senate gives up rail mass 

transit from the trust fund until fiscal 1976, although general fund moneys can be exchanged 

for trust funds for these purposes in both 1974 and 1975. The House gives up its absolute 

insistence that no funds shall be diverted from the trust fund for nonhighway related 

projects.

Turning to other provisions, he said that to avoid a veto, conferees “recognized that we would have 

to make substantial cuts in the House bill,” with the result being a $5 billion cut from the House bill 

to a total of $19.9 billion for the 3 years covered by the bill. 

The priority primary system of highways had been “strongly contested,” resulting in substantial 

modifications from the House position. The 10,000-mile figure had been dropped because it “was 

objectionable both to the Senate and the administration.” Funding levels had dropped from $900 

million over 3 years to $600 million over the same period. He continued: 

And in response to the concerns of those who fear a “junior interstate” system, the bill 

provides that the roads do not have to be built to interstate standards and that the Federal 

share of the cost shall be 70 percent, not 90 percent as on the Interstate System. The 

conferees do not see the priority primary program in this bill as a commitment to an entirely 

new system of highways with a specified level of mileage.
1064 

As for mass transit operating subsidies, Senator Bentsen said: 

Faced with the unrelenting opposition of the administration, which indicated that operating 

subsidies in any form would invite a veto, and the skepticism [of] the House conferees, the 

Senate conferees agreed to drop operating subsidies from the bill. 

He said the bill did not ignore transit, but included $3 billion in additional funds for transit capital 

grants, as well as the breakthrough agreement on the Muskie-Baker amendment. The Interstate 

transfer provision also could benefit transit. In the Senate bill, any funds left over following a 

withdrawal “would have gone to the account of the urban area to be used for highways or any mode 

of mass transit.” The conference agreement modified the Senate bill to prevent the use of Highway 

Trust Fund revenue from withdrawn Interstates for mass transit. The “traded” funds would remain 

in the Highway Trust Fund for highway purposes, while an equal dollar amount of general Treasury 

funds would be made available for the transit project. 

The issue of pass-through and earmarking of Federal-aid urban system funds had received 

considerable attention. The Senate bill earmarked funds for urbanized areas of over 400,000 

population and allowed funds to be passed through for control by incorporated municipalities 

within those urbanized areas having 400,000 or more population. The House, however, did not 

include either feature and, as Senator Bentsen pointed out, had defeated earmarking by nearly 200 

votes. The compromise bill excluded pass-through but retained earmarking for urbanized areas of 

200,000 or more population according to a fair and equitable formula developed by the State and

approved by the Secretary:

We believe that this provision will assure that our larger urbanized areas receive their fair 

share of highway funds and will largely cancel the allegation that rural-dominated State 

authorities can deny urbanized areas the funds they require. 

Conferees, he said, had dropped House and Senate prohibitions on impoundment of funds, whether 

from the Highway Trust Fund or the Urban Mass Transportation Act: 

Both provisions were dropped in the conference agreement in view of strong administration 

opposition and in light of other efforts by the Congress to place strong restrictions on the 

President’s ability to impound. However, this action by the conferees is not to be construed 

as any endorsement of impoundment, and individual Members may initiate further action 

later on this matter if the administration continues to withhold highway funds or if other 

congressional initiatives do not succeed. [“Authorization of Appropriations for 

Construction of Certain Highways—Conference Report,” Congressional Record-Senate, p. 

27194-27196] 

Senator Baker recalled the long path of the legislation through 1972, including the last minute 

quorum call in the House that scuttled the bill, and half of 1973. Speaking of the Muskie-Baker 

amendment, he denied that its purpose was to “bust the trust fund.” He said: 
1065 

Certainly in the sense that the provision allows moneys which would otherwise have been 

spent upon highways in our densely populated urban areas to be spent instead, at the option 

of State and local officials, upon public mass transportation, it does break with old patterns. 

 However, the amendment does not divert even #1 that is directed to the construction of the 

interstate system, the rural primary and secondary road programs, or any other inter-city 

road program to urban mass transit projects. 

He was convinced that “continued highway building, as a primary response to urban problems, 

could in the future seriously damage the quality of life in our cities.” However, the House had not 

adopted the principle of flexibility for urban area officials. The conferees after “much study and 

numerous proposals and counterproposals” had adopted “a true compromise.” 

[“Authorization of Appropriations,” p. 27200-27203] 

Senator Stafford said he would have preferred to retain the Muskie-Baker amendment, but “the 

compromise agreement that permits that flexibility in the third year of the measure represents a 

significant breakthrough for our Nation.” Starting in 1975, “we will be able to deal more 

effectively with both the transportation and air pollution problems of our urban areas in particular, 

and our Nation in general.” 

He was disappointed that the final bill did not address outdoor advertising. He said that initially, 

conferees agreed tentatively on several points: extend control to highway signs visible from the 

Interstate and Federal-aid primary systems; allow up to three official signs (i.e., Logo signs) per 

mile providing traveler information about motels, food services, service stations, and natural 

wonders on those systems; allow a sign plaza area within the right-of-way of those systems; direct 

States to remove signs dealing with products before removing those with traveler information; and 

authorize $50 million annually from the general Treasury for removal of signs.

At the final session of the conference, the House suggested considering two alternatives. First, the 

House proposed to change that language from “official” signs to “officially approved signs.” 

Second, the House suggested deleting the entire section on beautification: 

Because the Senate conferees felt the “officialy approved” language would lead to greater 

proliferation of billboards, rather than removal, we decided to delete the entire provision and 

to try to reach another agreement on the issue after we have had a chance to reassess the 

situation in separate legislation . . . . It is my hope that the Congress will produce legislation 

that will further the cause of highway beautification and that the States and private interests 

concerned will bear that in mind during this interim period. 

He also responded to a question from Senator Cranston about why the conferees had included the 

deadline of July 1, 1976, instead of an earlier date for installation of curb cuts. The date had been 

set, Senator Stafford said, “to allow the necessary time for adoption of enabling legislation by the 

States and the affected local governments.” The conferees preferred compliance sooner rather than 

later and urged the Secretary “to use his persuasive powers to assure that these new curb ramps are 

installed at the earliest feasible date in each state . . . .” [“Authorization of Appropriations,” p. 

27203-27204] 
1066 

Senator Muskie told his colleagues that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 was “the result of a 

most difficult negotiation” and as a result was neither “as progressive or far-reaching” as the Senate 

bill nor “as restrictive, narrowly focused or expensive” as the House bill. Senate and House 

conferees held “diametrically different views on the issue of flexibility in use of highway trust 

funds.” In addition to delaying flexibility, the House had insisted on deleting Senate provisions 

requiring early consideration of alternative transportation modes and public participation in 

decisions on emergency funding of transportation alternatives in urban areas with critical air quality 

problems, as well as transfer of the funds from disputed urban Interstates to other transportation 

purposes in the same urban areas: 

Mr. President, we have not charted the new course proposed by the Senate bill, but the 

conference agreement signals a change in direction.

The Senate conferees made “every effort” to retain the Muskie-Baker amendment, and the fact that 

“we prevailed at all in providing flexibility in the third year” despite House opposition was a credit 

to Senators Bentsen and Randolph. “In less than 2 fiscal years we will be able to embark on a new 

era of urban transportation options.” He added: 

By 1976, when this program will require new congressional action, we in the Congress will 

have a better understanding of the real transportation needs of America’s cities and the 

demand these needs will make on the urban system portion of the trust fund. In the interim, 

we will have had an opportunity to review the highway trust fund in order to consider 

making transportation generally rather than highways alone a national commitment.

He pointed out the $3 billion in funding and contract authority in S. 502 for UMTA grants and the 

provision allowing general Treasury funds if an urban area wanted to develop public transportation 

instead of a project on the Federal-aid urban system. The funds were not assured, as they were 

under the Muskie-Baker amendment, but “it will provide a significant opportunity to test the will of 

this administration to commit Federal dollars to immediate transportation needs.”

In short, Senator Muskie said the bill was “a modest beginning,” but it “commenced an effort to 

diversify and make more flexible the uses of the Nation’s limited transportation funds.” With the 

legislation assured of passage, Congress must “examine in the years ahead how to do a better job to 

assure adequate transportation for all America.” [“Authorization of Appropriations,” p. 27207-

27208] 

Senator Percy of Illinois praised the bill overall, but objected to Section 110(b), which he said “is a 

pretty transparent attempt to do one thing and one thing only—build the Crosstown expressway in 

Chicago, despite the fact that the Governor of the State and thousands of effected [sic] citizens of 

Chicago do not want it to be built.” Section 110 extended the deadline for State commitments to 

build Interstate segments. Section 110(b) directed that routes within an incorporated city that 

commits to pay the non-Federal share “shall be constructed.” Senator Percy was certain that the 

Nation’s Governors would oppose this provision. “And if any Member of Congress has any doubts, 

he could contact his Governor and see how he feels about this attempt to take the responsibility of 

building highways in their State away from the Governor.” 
1067 

He did not think the provision, although “very narrowly drawn,” would have the intended effect: 

I think that we should make absolutely clear that all of the State’s responsibilities under title 

23 still hold, and the ultimate construction of any road is still subject to the agreement of the 

Secretary.

Senators Bentsen and Stafford said they agreed that the provision affected only the date after which 

the route would be removed from the Interstate System and the mileage transferred to another 

segment.

Senator Percy asked if he was correct that the language did not mandate construction of the Chicago 

Crosstown expressway. Senators Bentsen and Stafford agreed. Senator Bentsen added: 

I think as a practical matter where a State has to come in and do the supervision and assist in 

the plans, it would be very difficult and I do not see how a highway could be constructed 

unless there were State cooperation in the matter.

Senator Stafford added that “all environmental protections must be complied with before the 

construction of a highway can be undertaken.” Right-of-way acquisition requirements also applied. 

 “It does not seem to me that a highway could be built without taking care of all matters and without 

the planning and designing and without the agreement of the Secretary.” 

Senator Percy continued his colloquy by pointing out some of the Federal laws that would apply to 

construction of any Interstate highway. Senator Bentsen agreed that Section 110(b) did not relieve 

the Secretary of his legal responsibilities. Just because a city agreed to provide the funds, the 

Secretary cannot simply “go ahead and agree to the project.” 

Senator Percy continued: 

I would just add that so many citizens were deeply concerned about Crosstown that not only 

did former Secretary Volpe meet with citizens of Illinois, but he also made a special trip to 

Chicago, met with a cross-section of citizens in my office, and affirmed without any 

equivocation that he intended to abide by the law. He agreed that no longer would people 

have to feel that they would be bulldozed right out of their homes without having every 

provision of the law maintained, by providing adequate housing for people adversely 

affected by the construction of highways. And this is what is embodied in the legislation we 

passed in 1970 [the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies 

Act of 1970]. I trust that Secretary Brinegar will also abide by that policy, as I am sure he 

will.

He concluded by stating that his colloquy “demonstrates clearly and unequivocally that this 

particular section, section 110(b), not only is not going to build Crosstown, but it also sets a very 

bad precedent.” It had not been part of the House or Senate bills and had not been considered in 

either body. “If hearings had been held, with full public discussion, the obvious defects of the 

section as now incorporated might have been brought to light.” [“Authorization of 

Appropriations,” p. 27208-27210] 
1068 

Senator Adlai Stevenson, Senator Percy’s Illinois colleague, reiterated the same points to elicit 

agreement from Senators Bentsen and Stafford. He emphasized that despite Section 110(b), the 

funds for the Crosstown Expressway would not be lost if the highway were not built, but under the 

Interstate transfer mechanism, could be substituted for general Treasury revenue for public 

transportation. “The Congress has preserved the responsibility of State and local decisionmakers, 

and it is now up to those decisionmakers to make their peace.” [“Authorization of Appropriations,” 

p. 27210-27211] 

Senator Randolph told his colleagues that the 29 meetings of conferees over 21⁄2 months had been 

“one of the most difficult [conferences] with which I have been involved in the nearly 29 years I 

have been in Congress.” Deliberations had been “arduous, but I consider them time well-spent.” 

The key issue over the Muskie-Baker amendment “was not one that developed suddenly after the 

convening of the 93d Congress.” It had “been building for several years and has been the subject of 

intense public debate.” The difficulty resolving differences was that they “were based to a 

substantial degree on the fact that it concerned matters of principle strongly held by Members of 

Congress” and “related to a major policy change affecting the transportation programs of the United 

States.”

The result was a compromise, but “it was not one that impairs the effectiveness of either the 

highway or mass transit programs.” It was “a realistic approach” that adapted the highway program 

to help cities meet highway and mass transit needs:

I am sure there are individuals on both sides of the question who are dissatisfied with our 

answer to an extremely difficult and complex problem. The decisions of the conference 

committee relative to this point, however, are realistic and they are workable. From a 

practical standpoint, I believe them to be the only decisions we could reach to avoid a 

complete breakdown of the conference. 

Without such a compromise, “it is extremely unlikely that there would have been a highway bill this

year.” 

While the Interstate System was nearly 82 percent complete, many changes had occurred since the 

Highway Trust Fund was established in 1956. Urbanization accelerated, concern about the 

environment grew, the role of the automobile in air pollution had increased, an energy crisis 

developed, and people realized “that there are practical limits to road building in cities”and these 

changes had “revived interest in mass transit systems.” The Highway Trust Fund, with its assured 

financed, appeared to be an option for meeting needs that mass transit could address better than 

highways. “Through the years we have endeavored to modify the Federal-aid highway program to 

maintain its ability to respond to these changes.” The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 “continues 

this process.” 

 

He did not like “to describe the results of any negotiations as a victory for one side or the other,” 

but rather as an “accommodation.” The Senate and House had made important concessions, with 

the House ultimately accepting “the key philosophical point in the Senate bill—specifically that 

highway trust funds can be used for all forms of mass transit development.” 
1069 

He was, therefore, surprised by the reaction of some commentators, particularly The New York 

Times editorial titled “Highway Lobby Triumph” that called the bill a “disgrace.” He said the 

editorial relied on “a reasoning with which I am in disagreement and which is incomprehensible.” 

It ignored “the fact that there are two sides to this question,” as illustrated by the editorial in The 

Los Angeles Times titled “A Precedent for Transit Aid.” Neither he nor the other Senate conferees 

are surprised by a difference of opinion on the merits of the final bill, “but there are times when 

there is unsupported and inaccurate appraisal of what we believe we have accomplished, such as the 

New York Times editorial.” [“Authorization of Appropriations,” p. 27211-27214] 

Senator Williams, who had sponsored the mass transit provisions, said he would reluctantly oppose 

adoption of S. 502. He acknowledged the difficulty of the conference, but he had hoped “this 

legislation could at long last deal realistically and comprehensively with urban transportation 

problems, the blending of highways together with mass transportation facilities.” However, the 

sections on urban mass transportation in the final bill were “entirely unsatisfactory.” 

By deleting the Senate provision providing operating subsidies, conferees refused to accept that 

public mass transportation “is a matter of public responsibility providing benefits not just to the 

individual transit rider, but to our entire economy.” What, he asked, was the good of “all of the 

lofty pronouncements” on clean air and reducing the role of the automobile “when existing transit 

systems teeter on the brink of insolvency unable to provide the urban mobility necessary to achieve 

these worthy goals.” In deleting $800 million for subsidies, “the conferees have once again proven 

the old adage of dollars for highways, but tokens for transit.” 

The $3 billion for UMTA grants and the changes in the use of Federal-aid urban system funds 

appeared positive but “completely miss the point.” The real need was “for an immediate 

transfusion of operating assistance so that our existing transit systems are operational when the fully 

funded capital grant program takes effect.” At present, 160 public transit systems in the country, 

“representing all but an insignificant fraction of the total transit ridership . . . face the same grim 

facts and prospects” that drove many transit companies out of business, namely rising costs, 

declining income, and “more dependence on the automobile.” The Senate vote on March 14 to 

incorporate the Emergency Commuter Relief Act into S. 502 “recognized the need to halt the 

raising of fares to intolerable levels thus reducing ridership and curtailing existing transit services.”

The only reason anyone had given for deleting operating subsidies was that if they were included, 

the President would veto the bill. “I only wish the President would exhibit such fiscal courage in 

the areas of defense spending and authorizations for additional mile upon mile of highways.” The 

threatened veto “shows a total disregard for the problems of our Nation’s cities and the citizens who 

inhabit them.” The issue of subsidies was “far too vital to brush under the rug.” He intended to 

reintroduce the subsidy measure later in the year, and the bill’s House sponsors indicated they 

would do the same. “Only then will we in the Congress have fulfilled our responsibility to the 

American people.” 

After favorably quoting from “Highway Lobby Triumph,” he said he appreciated the hard work of 

the Senate conferees, but “on this one proposition I have to take my stand.” [“Authorization of 

Appropriations,” p. 27214-27215] 
1070 

Senator Bentsen replied that he was disappointed that Senator Williams would oppose the bill: 

I supported the Senator’s amendment on operating subsidies. I feel very strongly about it. 

The Senate conferees tried very hard to accomplish this objective. We made several offers 

of compromise on the bill, which included operating subsidies. We explored the possibility 

with the White House, and we were told the administration was adamant on this proposal: 

that it would absolutely result in the veto of this bill if we included operating subsidies. 

Few observers expected “the kind of breakthrough we have made in this area.” The final bill made 

“a significant contribution for the transit needs of the country.” After failing to pass a bill in 1972, 

“we have labored long and hard to do it this time.” The bill does not satisfy either side, but the 

conferees’ “give and take” resulted in “a good compromise and I think it was a worthwhile effort.” 

[“Authorization of Appropriations,” p. 27215] 

Senator Javits of New York had given long and deep consideration to whether to support S. 502. 

“It is a very close one as far as I am concerned” because he deplored “the failure of this Congress to 

acknowledge the realities of urban life and the adamant refusal to admit the urgent necessity 

confronting our own mass transit systems.” Given the clear advantages of mass transit, he said: 

It is simply archaic as well as arcane to persist in the idea that we must be tied with ribbons 

of concrete; that the automobile is the only way to go from place to place; and that we must 

therefore spend billions and billions in that effort. 

He referred to Governor Rockefeller’s proposed $3.5 billion bond issue as “a heavy burden on our 

people,” but if New York were to continue to grow, “that is the way we have to go.” 

On those grounds, he considered voting against S. 502, but he acknowledged other considerations: 

It would also deny my support—although that support is not needed because the matter 

would pass overwhelmingly—for the purpose of opening at long last the door to reality in 

respect to the urban transportation needs of the country. I cannot deny that support even to 

so minimal a crack.

He knew that many were offended by the Times editorial, but “there is a great deal of truth in that 

editorial.” On balance he would vote for S. 502, “but at the same time [he would] express profound 

disappointment and protest, and pledge myself to engage in the continuation of this fight until 

reality and justice are realized in respect to city problems and, indeed, the national problem of urban 

transportation.” [“Authorization of Appropriations,” p. 27217] 

Senator Dole of Kansas discussed the provision designating the Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway. 

This was “an outstanding tribute” to the President who inaugurated the Interstate System: 

Appropriately, the Eisenhower Highway will run along I-70 from Washington, D.C., where 

Ike served two terms in the White House, across his home State of Kansas and through 

Abilene where he grew up and is now buried at the historical center which bears his name. 
1071 

From Kansas, the highway continues . . . to San Francisco. I can think of no more fitting 

tribute to General Eisenhower, for he was the guiding force behind the Interstate System. 

With its importance to national defense and to the peaceful pursuits of our people, it reflects 

his dual devotion to defending America from its enemies abroad and building on its 

strengths and freedoms at home.

The highway was “a lasting and fitting memorial to this warm and great son of the Kansas prairie 

who left his country and the world a better place for having served it. [“Authorization of 

Appropriations,” p. 27218] 

Senator Ribicoff of Connecticut thanked the conferees for adopting his provision on the Long 

Island Sound Bridge. Although Governor Rockefeller had dropped the project, “there is no 

guarantee that another New York Governor could not revive the idea of bridging the sound.” He 

hoped the idea “remains dead,” but this measure would ensure the people of Connecticut “will be 

included in any future decisions.” [“Authorization of Appropriations,” p. 27219] 

Senator Kennedy said he understood the difficulties the conferees had faced before agreeing on “the 

best possible compromise obtainable under the circumstances.” He would support S. 502, not 

because it contained everything he wanted, ‘but because I believe that it represents a valiant effort 

to support the Senate position.” He continued: 

This bill does bust the trust for the first time for mass transit. It does not bust it wide open 

to give States and cities complete flexibility in deciding on how to meet their transportation 

needs but it does represent the first time they are not locked into using all of their trust fund 

moneys for building highways. 

Although the key measure did not go into effect until the third year, “the so-called Wright shuffle” 

allowed transit funding from the general Treasury in the first 2 years for Federal-aid urban system 

funds and Interstate transfers. He said “there is every reason to expect that Boston will be able to 

take full advantage of this provision and that the $900 million which would otherwise be spent on I95 and the inner beltway, will now be spent largely on improving and expanding” Boston’s mass 

transit network. The Wright shuffle was “a workable compromise.” 

The bill contained some negatives, such as the lack of operating subsidies, funding for priority 

primary highways, the measures allowing construction of the San Antonio North Expressway, an 

Interstate highway through Franconia Notch, and the Crosstown Expressway authorized “over 

Governor Walker’s objections which was in neither bill.” He concluded, however, that “the steps 

taken toward opening the highway trust fund are more important than the minuses,” and he would 

vote for the bill. [“Authorization of Appropriations,” p. 27220-27221] 

Senator Kennedy was the final speaker. The Senate approved the bill 91 to 5. Senators Biden, 

Proxmire, Roth, Williams, and Clifford P. Case (R-NJ) voted against the bill. [“Authorization of 

Appropriations,” p. 27221] 
1072 

On August 1, Federal Highway Administrator Tiemann was in Portland, Oregon, where he told 

reporters that FHWA favors diversion of some Highway Trust Fund revenue for mass transit. He 

emphasized that mass transit was not going to replace highways any time soon. “Highways will 

continue to carry the bulk of traffic and goods in the future.” He added, “What does the average 

American want? He wants something that goes where he wants to go and precisely at what time he 

wants to go. This means automobiles.” 

The FHWA supported mass transit “where it is feasible. And by mass transit we do not necessarily 

mean rapid rail.” He cited Portland as an example. Rail rapid transit was not feasible, he said, 

because of Portland’s geography and size. In addition to buses, the city’s traffic problems could be 

relieved by exclusive bus lanes coupled with park-and-ride lots. Computerized carpool programs 

would help. Another option might be toll bridges with carpools and buses getting reduced fees and 

the best traffic lanes. 

Tiemann also discussed the impoundment issue. “It will continue on about the same level as it was 

this last year,” he said. A reporter summarized Tiemann’s response regarding Missouri’s court 

case:

Though Missouri got a favorable ruling, it may be appealed to the Supreme Court, Tiemann 

said. This presents two options to would-be appellants, he said. They can appeal and

gamble on winning in the Supreme Court, or they can release the $16 million to Missouri. 

He said if appellants choose the former, they risk losing in Supreme Court and this would 

mean releasing all the money impounded by Nixon. If the money is returned to Missouri, it 

probably would bring a succession of suits by other states that also felt short-changed in 

highway funds, Tiemann concluded. [Rubce, Web, “Fund Diversion Favored for Mass 

Transit,” Portland Oregonian, August 2, 1973] 

The House Takes Up the Bill

On August 2, Secretary Brinegar telephoned Representative Wright to assure him that President 

Nixon would not veto the pending Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. Engineering News-Record

explained: 

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reportedly raised strong objections to the 

bill’s 1975 and ’76 Interstate allocations of $3 billion annually and to what was viewed as 

an overly generous $1.45-billion highway safety program. House leaders were told that the 

bill might be vetoed unless $1.5 billion was trimmed, which led the bill’s backers to opt for 

postponement of a floor vote until after the August recess, in order to head off a pocket veto. 

But Transportation Secretary Claude S. Brinegar apparently interceded on behalf of the bill 

and succeeded in gaining White House support for the legislation, paving the way for House 

approval. “OMB has agreed to live with the bill,” says a high Department of Transportation 

official. “Brinegar was very pleased with the bill and urged the White House to support it. 

We feel the bill is a victory for the department. [“Congress Passes Major Bills in PreRecess Flurry of Activity,” Engineering News Record, August 9, 1973, p. 8] 
1073 

(If a President vetoes a bill, Congress can overturn the veto by a two-thirds majority vote in each 

House and the bill becomes a law. If a President does not return a bill to Congress within 10 days 

after its final passage, it becomes a law without his signature. However, if Congress is not in 

session during that period, the bill does not become a law. “The latter event is what is known as a 

‘pocket veto,’ that is, the bill does not become law even though the President has not sent his 

objections to the Congress.” [How Our Laws Are Made, p. 46]) 

On Friday, August 3, the day before the start of the August recess, Representative John A. Young 

(D-Tx.) of the House Rules Committee introduced House Resolution 517, stating that upon 

adoption of the resolution, “it shall be in order to consider the conference report on the bill (S. 

502).” The resolution also waived all points of order, mostly on features that were not in the House 

or Senate bills, against the conference report. “There were at least 38 waivers of points of order 

necessary to bring the conference report up successfully,” including: 

Section 102: Authorization for the Interstate System

Final conference figures above that in either bill.

Section 105: Definitions

 Definition of “urban area” expanded beyond either bill. 

Section 109. Federal-Aid Urban System

New matter added. Designation by highway departments. 

Section 110. Removal of Designated Segments of the Interstate System

Complete new subsection (b) added which allows an incorporated city to share the 

non-Federal costs that is needed to construct a segment of an Interstate System 

wholly within it boundaries. 

 Section 121. Public Transportation

New matter added—subsection (k) which in essence says that no project shall be 

approved for the purchase of buses, passenger cars or rolling stock in any fiscal year 

where urban transportation funding or similar assured funding has been enacted to 

provide such funding for highway and public transportation. 

 Section 126: Priority Primary Routes

The limitation of 10,000 miles contained in the House bill has been removed and 

there is no top limit. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” Congressional RecordHouse, August 3, 1973, p. 28088-28089] 

The House quickly adopted the resolution, allowing Representative Wright to call up the conference 

report on S. 502 for consideration. The report, he said, “has been hammered out on the anvils of 

mutual compromise with the other body.” It was “a good bill, a sound bill, and undoubtedly the 

best bill that could have been achieved under the circumstances.” Conferees encountered “strong 

feelings” from their Senate counterparts, but also “conciliatory and harmonious” gestures. “I think 

it is impossible to say that either House predominated more than the other.” He urged a resounding 

vote of approval. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28089] 

Representative Blatnik praised the House conferees, especially Representative Wright for his 

“outstanding skill in finally breaking through what—for weeks on end—appeared to be a hopeless 

impasse, and, in the finest sense of legislative skill, and delegation leadership, made possible the 
1074 

conciliation which resulted in a realistic resolution of the many issues involved in this bill.” He 

cited a number of provisions in the bill, beginning with spending levels. The spending authorized 

by the bill “is not enough to satisfy our real highway and mass transit needs,” but “represents the 

best achievable compromise between the President’s minimal proposals and the recommendations 

of the House.” 

The conference “upheld the House on the need for a massive national effort to cut down the 

needless toll of death and injury on our highways.” It also retained the provision for improving 

priority primary roads, “one of the most important provisions of the 1973 legislation.” The new 

program was consistent with the new declaration of policy in the bill stating that as the Interstate 

System is completed, increased emphasis should be placed on the other Federal-aid systems. 

[“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28090] 

Representative Cleveland said he had not signed the Conference Report “because of my opposition 

to opening up the trust fund for urban mass transit, including subways.” He explained: 

My position is that there has not been adequate exploration of the rationale for rail transit 

diversion, much less a persuasive case for it established.

Nevertheless, I intend to vote for the bill because it does afford an opportunity to explore the 

matter of separate trust funding for mass transit.

The bill, he said, contained many worthwhile provisions, but he focused on the provision allowing 

for construction of a parkway-type facility to carry I-93 through Franconia Notch. The measure 

“represents a true compromise, a balancing of environmental and economic interests.” The House 

had not included a comparable provision in its bill, and the final version of the Senate bill was 

substantially changed, “but with the complete agreement of Senator Cotton, the original Senate 

sponsor.” 

He just wanted to clarify one point, namely that under Section 158, the State had the authority to 

prohibit heavy commercial vehicles from using this stretch of highway during peak periods of 

recreational and tourist travel, while permitting it at other times. In a colloquy, Representative 

Wright assured him that New Hampshire had that right. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28091] 

Representative Clausen, another conferee, urged passage of the bill:

The bill being offered today is the composite result of some 3,460 legislative man-days of 

concentrated and almost daily effort. It has been a long, painstaking and trying experience 

for everyone involved, but it has also been a very constructive and productive undertaking . . 

. . 

While I, of course, do not fully agree with every provision in this bill, it nevertheless 

represents a sound and reasonable compromise that has been very carefully and laboriously 

worked out. As such, it is, in my judgment, the best bill attainable under the circumstances 

and I shall support it. 
1075 

The bill was “so broad and comprehensive” that talking about every provision would be impossible. 

 Instead, he would focus on the principal issue before the conferees, namely diversion of Highway 

Trust Fund revenue to rail mass transit. “I joined with other House conferees in vigorously 

opposing these diversions from the highway trust fund” via the Muskie-Baker amendment, but the 

Senate conferees made clear they would not agree to a bill “unless there were provisions for the 

diversion [to] rail mass transit of some funds authorized by that bill.” He explained: 

I am opposed to the diversion of highway trust fund moneys for expenditure for nonhighway 

purposes so long as the present and future essential highway needs of the Nation have not 

been provided for and the Interstate System is some 10 years from completion. This does 

not mean, however, that I am opposed to providing assured adequate funding for mass 

transit. In fact, I have advocated for several years the creation of a third trust fund, a mass 

transportation trust fund, to finance the many public mass transportation systems that are so 

badly needed in many of the urban areas of this country. 

One reason that he supported the compromise on the Muskie-Baker amendment was that S. 502 

now included a provision that prohibited the Secretary from approving the diversion in the final 

year of the authorization if a dedicated source of assured transit funding was approved in the 

intervening years. (This was subsection (k) of Section 121, cited as a possible point of order the 

Rules Committee had waived.): 

This provision was included in the conference report so as to permit the Ways and Means 

Committee of the House and the Congress as a whole to consider the creation of a mass 

transportation trust fund or other assured funding for public mass transportation before the 

actual diversion of highway trust fund moneys to rail mass transit occurs following the 

apportionment of the D [urban] funds authorized for fiscal year 1976. 

The conferees, thereby, “have avoided the violation of section 209(f)(1) of the Highway Revenue 

Act of 1956, which limits the use of highway trust fund moneys to obligations incurred in carrying 

out the Federal-aid highway laws attributable to Federal-aid highways,” at least pending further 

consideration of special funding for mass transit. He pledged his full support for the effort:

I continue to believe that the need for continued highway improvement is so essential to the 

economic, communication, and transportation life of this country and to provide for the 

safety of persons using the highways that we will have perpetrated a great disservice to the 

people of this country if we ultimately permit the diversion of highway trust fund moneys to 

other purposes while the resources of that fund are inadequate to meet even the most 

essential highway and highway safety needs.

Representative Clausen was confident that the issue would remain controversial “for years to 

come.” He explained:

In all candor, there were very strong and justifiable feelings held and expressed on both 

sides of this question. In the final analysis, however, the critical and urgent need to 
1076 

immediately enact a long-overdue highway bill prevailed and, in a sense, provided the 

catalyst for compromise on this and other differences in points of view held by the various 

conferees.

He cited other mass transit provisions, including the $3 billion authorized from the general Treasury 

for the UMTA capital grant program: 

In addition, under a “transferability clause” included in the Conference agreement, 

urbanized areas would be permitted to “trade” their allocations for “controversial” interstate 

segments for an equal dollar amount of mass transit grants from general revenues. 

He was pleased about the bicycle provision in S. 502, the primary goal of which was to provide 

separation of bicycle and motor vehicle traffic “to ensure the safety of both the motorist and the 

cyclist.” He said he had introduced similar legislation at the start of the 93rd Congress for safety 

reason. “For obvious reasons, the cyclist has a distinct and dangerous disadvantage in such 

competition and thus I believe we should consider his safety by encouraging the multiple [use] of 

our road network.” 

The Highway Safety Act of 1973 included in S. 502 as Title II was “most important and essential in 

its own right.” He credited Representative Harsha for overcoming the objections of those who 

wanted to cut funding for the new initiatives, saying that “he should be recognized as the ‘champion 

of highway safety’ here in Congress.” He added: 

The time has come to call a halt in this unnecessary killing. The time has come for an end 

to alarmist rhetoric about highway safety and a firm commitment to realistic programs 

which will reverse the escalating tide of mayhem on our highways. 

Representative Clausen concluded: 

I believe that enactment of the foregoing recommendations, coupled with their full funding 

and rigorous implementation by the Department of Transportation will mark the end of the 

beginning of this Nation’s efforts to reduce the carnage on our highways. Through these 

measures we can save 10,000 perhaps 15,000, and maybe more lives each year. 

Commensurate reductions in accidents, injuries and property damage will also occur. 

He urged the House to approve “a good bill, a desperately needed bill, a long overdue bill, and as I 

said at the outset, the best possible bill under all the prevailing circumstances.” [“Conference 

Report on S. 502,” p. 28092-28095] 

Representative Hanrahan of Chicago said that he would vote for the bill because it was “essentially 

a necessary and beneficial piece of legislation.” However, it contained “one glaring defect”:

During the deliberations, language allowing the city of Chicago to proceed with construction 

of the Crosstown Expressway, I-94 [sic], in spite of the Governor of Illinois’ strenuous 

objections, was added to the conference committee’s report. As an opponent of the 
1077 

Crosstown Expressway, I wish to state my great disappointment that this step was taken 

without the express approval of either the Public Works Committee or the House as a 

whole. 

Unfortunately, the conference bill must be approved or rejected without change: 

I find it both depressing and ironic that within the same conference committee report there is 

now language allowing both diversion of funds from the highway trust fund for mass 

transportation and permission for the city of Chicago to undertake construction of an 

expensive, unnecessary expressway . . . . In short, I strongly feel that it would be a great 

mistake for Congress or anyone else to approve the construction of the Crosstown 

Expressway. Although I will vote in favor of accepting the Conference Committee’s Report 

on the Federal Highway Safety Act of 1973 [sic], I wish the record to clearly indicate that I 

am firmly opposed to granting the city of Chicago any authority whatsoever to begin 

construction of the Crosstown Expressway. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28095] 

Representative Shuster said that Title II was “a truly historic piece of landmark legislation, the first 

that makes a comprehensive attack on the problem of the terrible slaughter that is taking place on 

our highways now.” He planned to vote for S. 502, but he had “deep misgivings” about the 

Federal-aid urban system diversion provision. The best he could say for it was that at least it 

preserved “the integrity of the highway trust fund . . . for this year.” On behalf of the people in the 

villages and towns across America, he said:

So-called mass transit is not going to help them very much because when you are talking 

about mass transit, 90 percent of the time or more, you are talking about buses, and buses 

are dependent on those same obsolete, substandard, dangerous roads. So when the highway 

trust fund is busted in future years and is further drained of moneys for badly needed 

highways and highway upgrading, when our highway system begins to deteriorate because 

the fund is so overburdened with nonhighway drains that it cannot do the basic job for 

which it was created, when the people of America who are dependent on that highway 

system begin to complain, I hope those Members who supported the busting of the fund will 

stand up and tell those people that they were selected to pay the price, that it was thought to 

be more important to buy mass transit for a few of our largest cities than to upgrade the road 

system of the rest of the Nation, that they just will have to look elsewhere to find the funds 

to maintain their roads . . . . 

I think it is a slap at all of the people living outside of the big cities, who are dependent 

almost exclusively on our highway system for their transportation. I think it is a slap 

particularly at the people of rural America who now suffer the most from the grossly 

inadequate road system of rural America. And I think it is a slap at the families of all the 

people who will die on substandard roads in the future because there was not money left to 

make them safe. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28096] 

Representative Harsha acknowledged that the diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue was the 

most controversial issue before the conference:
1078 

What this House must understand is that immediately upon signing this legislation, the 

administration must apportion the balance of the funds for fiscal 1974. Prior to December 

31 of this year, the administration must apportion the funds for fiscal 1975. 

And immediately upon that apportionment, those funds can be obligated by the several 

States. This means all this House salvaged out of this conference report were 4 lousy 

months of no diversion [until FY 1974 began]. Within 4 months the trust fund can be 

opened first for the purchase of buses and then, a year later, for purchases of any form of 

mass transit within the financial limitations.

This provision does not “represent the position of the House nor is it even a compromise of that 

position.” He explained how it came about:

First, the White House worked in rather intriguing fashion, and most effectively I might add, 

to undermine the House position on this issue. Some of the spokesmen for the 

administration were less than forthright with me. In fairness let me say, this does not 

include the Department of Transportation. DOT’s position was set forth initially as favoring 

diversion, and the Department held steadfastly to that position, never offering to change. 

Second, that awesome array of special interest groups, the vaunted “Highway Lobby” 

referred to by some pundits as the mighty and powerful highway juggernaut, turned out to 

be, when the chips were down, little more than a spineless, sputtering chameleon—changing 

from “principle” to capitulation. There were some exceptions, but these were very few 

indeed. When this occurs—when the troops desert you—there is little alternative in the face 

of such overwhelming odds but to salvage what you can. This I believe the conferees did, 

and I might add did in an admirable fashion. 

If you were aware of the conglomeration of rash counter-productive, untenable provisions 

that were sent to us by the other body, you could more readily appreciate the significance of 

my remarks. Without enumerating all of these provisions, suffice it to say that the House 

conferees did an outstanding job in that regard.

He said, “I feel I lost the battle” on diversion, but he won because the final bill included the safety 

measures of Title II. “If implemented properly and fully funded, this legislation will save literally 

tens of thousands of lives annually and prevent countless serious injuries.” The bill had many other 

redeeming features, but he came back to diversion: 

Because of the principle involved and the consistent position I have historically taken on the 

diversion issue, constantly refusing to yield to some of the most excruciating pressures ever 

exerted, including a personal request from the President of the United States, I find 

accepting this conference agreement a most bitter pill to swallow. However, our Nation 

must have a highway bill. The economy demands it. The jobs of thousands of working men 

and women depend upon it. The transportation system of this country requires it. And the 

safety of millions of Americans, the traveling public, dictates it

He urged his colleagues to approve the bill. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28096-28097] 
1079 

Representative Harold R. Collier (R-Il.), who worked in editing and public relations before 

beginning his public service career in the Chicago area’s Berwyn and joined the House in 1957, 

stated that he would support the bill, but was disturbed by the provision on the Crosstown 

Expressway “that may eventually have some impact on the eastern boundary of my district.” 

Section 110(b) appeared to be “a veiled effort” to ensure construction of the expressway which 

would “spill across the boundary of the city of Chicago.” He said that Senators Stevenson and 

Percy contended that the language would not permit the city to bypass the Governor’s authority. 

Others say it would. He requested clarification.

Representative Wright said he would have to respectfully disagree with the two Illinois Senators. 

The language in Section 110(b) was “clear and unequivocal.” He said that “any part of the 

Interstate System lying wholly within the city of Chicago—and I believe that applies to the crosstown freeway lying within the incorporated limits of the city of Chicago—may be constructed and 

will be constructed if the city of Chicago wishes it constructed and is willing to pay all non-Federal 

costs of construction.” 

When Representative Collier asked if this was not “a change in what has been basic law 

heretofore,” Representative Wright said it was. However, it was consistent with the flexibility the 

bill was giving to cities to decide their own transportation needs. For example, S. 502 allowed a 

city to withdraw an Interstate segment, with approval of the Secretary:

Now, having granted to a city a right under certain circumstances to remove a section which 

it does not want, the conferees felt it only fair and equitable that we should give to the city 

the right to retain and construct a segment that it does want. In each of these situations we 

have given to a city a greater degree of flexibility. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 

28098] 

Representative John Anderson said the Rules Committee on which he served had to include Section 

110(b) in its general waiver because the provision had not been in the House or Senate version of S. 

502. He wanted to make clear that he supported the general Rules Committee waiver but in doing 

so “I was not indicating my approval of all the matters which had come out in the conference.” He 

requested Representative Wright’s attention before referring to the colloquy on the Senate floor that 

indicated that the provision meant the State could not de-designate the Crosstown Expressway 

within Chicago’s city limits, but all requirements under Title 23, NEPA, the Uniform Act, Section 

4(f), and other Federal laws still applied. “None of those responsibilities on the part of the State are 

abrogated by virtue of the inclusion of this amended language.” 

Representative Wright acknowledged that the language did not abrogate any existing right of the 

State, except to state that the city could build an Interstate highway lying within its boundaries if it 

is willing to pay the 10-percent matching share. “Beyond that I think there is no intent, nor do I 

think there is any effect, of limiting the rights of the States.”

Representative Anderson asked if it also was true that the Secretary did not lose his legal 

responsibility to ensure compliance with environmental requirements and is not mandated to 

approve construction of any particular highway. 
1080 

Representative Wright agreed that the provision only mandated construction “when the conditions 

herein enumerated are met.” As Representative Anderson continued to seek clarification, 

Representative Wright pointed out that the provision was “general legislation; this is not local or 

special legislation.” It did not refer to a specific city or stretch of Interstate highway. It referred to 

any given stretch of Interstate highway within a city’s boundaries, “and if that city is willing to do 

those things stipulated, it mandates the construction of that segment.” 

Representative Collier, still not satisfied, requested time to ask whether the city could build the 

Interstate route if the route extended beyond the city’s border as was the case with the Crosstown 

Expressway. Representative Wright clarified the provision:

If one does not agree, it does not build that segment of the highway, but the other would be 

permitted to build its segment of the highway unilaterally if it desired to do so and agreed to 

contribute its own matching funds. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28098-28100] 

Minority Leader Gerald Ford praised the conferees:

I think they did a good job under the most adverse circumstances. They did as well as they 

could to uphold the House position. If they had the support they should have had from 

sound proponents with the right ideas, including some in the administration, we would have 

come back with even better legislation, 

He said he was not bitter about the result, “but I cannot help but be critical.” Drivers moving 

through Interstate construction zones often saw signs proclaiming: “Your highway taxes at work.” 

He continued: 

Since this new highway bill now provides for diversion from the highway fund of some 

construction [funds] to the purchase of buses, to the purchase of equipment, and eventually, 

I am sure, the bottomless pit of operating subsidy, I rue the day when instead of putting 

signs on the side of the road, “Your highway taxes at work” building highways, they will 

have some high-speed bus purchased with highway tax construction money with a sign hung 

on the rear, “Your highway taxes at work.” 

I wonder how many of the people who paid those highway taxes for the construction of 

highways are going to appreciate that bus pushing them off the highway.

 

Getting back to fundamentals, he praised the authorization for priority primary routes. “This is an 

absolutely essential provision and will presumably speed-up the remaining portions of U.S. 131 in 

Michigan.” He said the mass transit lobby disapproves of this provision, but added, “That could not 

make me happier, because I want priority primary routes constructed.” 

He concluded: 

It is awfully hard to swallow a bill that diverts funds from the highway trust fund, but 

because of the safety features, because of the priority primary route provision, it is my 
1081 

intention to support the conference report. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28100-

28101] 

Representative John E. Hunt (R-NJ) picked up on Representative Ford’s comments: 

It will be a sad day in this country, and for those of us who let this through, when we pass a 

conference report on a bill that permits this raid on the highway trust fund. 

As the gentleman said, we will come to portions of the road where they will have some kind 

of gimmick with a sign on it to say: We succeeded in stopping the road at this point. 

Regardless of the fact that the money in the trust fund specifically was put there by the 

voters for highway construction, it has been diverted to other interests. [“Conference Report 

on S. 502,” p. 28101] 

Representative Mizell expressed his “continuing opposition to opening the highway trust fund for 

financing urban mass transit systems.” He said:

I continue to believe that the best way to finance urban mass transit systems—and I am not 

questioning the need for them—is to set up a special trust fund for that purpose, just as we 

have done for highways and airports. 

This objection, however, was overshadowed by the many other excellent provisions of the bill. He 

cited continued funding for the Interstate System, other rural highways, and title II on highway 

safety. He also cited a “section I sponsored in the committee, calling for new corridor hearings on 

the proposed Corporation Freeway in Winston-Salem.” The hearing would “guarantee that the 

voice of the people is heard and their concerns fully considered before any further work is done on 

this proposal.” [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28101] 

Representative Kluczynski commented on the effort that went into this bill, including extensive 

hearings with all interested parties (“those who were for it and those who were opposed”), 

developing the bill in subcommittee and committee, and getting it through the Rules Committee. 

Then there was the conference committee:

I have been in the House for 23 years. I have been on many conferences, but I had never 

witnessed anything like that in my life.

The result was “the finest legislation ever enacted by any Congress.” It “recognizes the relationship 

between urban and rural highways” while addressing “the needs of mass transportation in our 

cities.” His colleagues knew, he said, that he was “a staunch defender of the integrity of the trust 

fund.” He would continue to fight for continuance of the Highway Trust Fund, but the “limited 

diversion” and the added $3 billion for mass transit from the general Treasury was “an excellent 

compromise.” 
1082 

Representative Kluczynski wanted to clarify the implications of Section 110(b) for the Crosstown 

Expressway: 

It is quite clear that the intent of this subsection and the intent of the conferees is the 

following: that in any case where a particular portion of an Interstate System [sic] lies 

wholly within the boundaries of an incorporated city, that portion of the Interstate System 

may be constructed under this subsection, on the condition further contained in this 

subsection that the incorporated city agrees to pay all non-Federal costs of construction. 

The Chicago Crosstown or I-494 was “a prime example” because individual segments “have logical 

terminal points on that freeway” inside the city, namely the Kennedy Expressway and the Dan Ryan 

Expressway:

It is perfectly clear that regardless of the construction or nonconstruction of any other 

segments of the Interstate System that may link to a particular city, if that particular city 

determines to go ahead with that portion of the Interstate System that lies within its 

boundaries, it shall be done. 

He said that theoretically, if a State opposed a route that a city considered essential, FHWA would 

have to work with the city to allow for construction: 

The committee intended, under this subsection, and this subsection only, that a direct 

relationship between local government and the Department of Transportation would be 

established.

This concept was philosophically consistent “with other sections of this legislation which provide 

greater local determination regarding transportation plans and programs.” The conferees added this 

provision “to assure that vitally needed highway facilities such as the Chicago Crosstown be 

constructed at the earliest possible date.” [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28101-28102] 

Representative Morgan Murphy (D-Il.), an attorney based in Chicago who entered the House in 

1971, agreed with Representative Kluczynski. After summarizing the history of the Crosstown 

Expressway, Representative Murphy said: 

In closing, I would merely add that the question of whether to approve or disapprove the 

Crosstown is better left to the people back home in Chicago. I am confident that the 

Crosstown controversy will be resolved equitably, assuming that all facts and figures 

relating to it are made available for public inspection. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 

28102-28104] 

Representative Annunzio pointed out that much effort had been expended during this discussion 

and in the Senate to clarify the intent of Congress. However, experience made him cautious about 

the value of clarifying congressional intent: 
1083 

It is my fervent hope that this legislation will act as a conduit to bring the Governor of 

Illinois and the major of Chicago together in an amicable settlement that will benefit the 

people of our city and our State . . . . I do not want to raise false hopes that congressional 

intent will resolve this problem because I have little faith in congressional intent since I 

have experienced firsthand flagrant violations of congressional intent. In my humble 

opinion, the only way that the people can come out on top is for their public officials to 

recognize their needs and wants, and to work toward meeting and resolving those needs and 

wants. [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28104] 

Representative Abzug acknowledged that the conferees “worked very hard” and that “in every 

compromise there are balances in disappointments.” Despite some disappointments, she would 

vote for the bill “because I am pleased that, for the first time, there will be an opportunity for some 

local mode [sic] and flexibility in the handling of funds.” In 1976, she said, “we will, at long last, 

be able to determine for ourselves what to do with our own contribution to the trust fund.” It was a 

“step in the right direction,” but she added: 

I believe frankly that if we consider the situation in this country, the overwhelming numbers 

of people who live in urban areas who are choking to death from carbon monoxide, the 

problems of pollution and congestion, we will recognize that this step forward is a very 

small step indeed.

She said that the “most glaring omission” was the absence of transit operating revenues: 

In New York City, for example, we are faced with a doubling of the cost of subway and bus 

fares, which are already too high. Unless we are able to maintain fares at their present 

levels, or preferably roll them back, history has shown that more and more riders will shift 

to the automobile. The cost of this shift, in terms of traffic congestion and environmental 

consequences, is incalculable. The fight must continue, therefore, to secure this type of 

desperately needed assistance.

That aside, the bill “represents a significant achievement” and she hoped the President would sign 

the measure quickly “so that we can get on with the business of developing a better balanced 

transportation system.” [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28105] 

Representative Robert C. Eckhardt (D-Tx.), who represented a Houston-based district, questioned 

Section 154, which allowed Texas to repay Federal funds for the North Expressway. He recognized 

that S. 502 was being offered on an all-or-nothing basis, but he wanted to point out “a bit of 

legislative history.” The provision originated in the Senate, he said, and had not been considered in 

committee or on the House floor. It was “a nongermane amendment” under the rules governing the 

Committee on Public Works (“But it shall not be in order for any bill providing general legislation 

in relation to roads to contain any provisions for any specified road.”). However, because the 

Rules Committee had waived all points of order, Representative Eckhardt said, he could not raise a 

point of order on this provision. 
1084 

Apparently, the Rules Committee “did not consider that section to be of significance or of great 

enough importance for this body to consider that point separately.” He disagreed because on a 

“matter of principle,” namely exemption of a project from NEPA, the House should take up a 

nongermane amendment. Without House debate, therefore, the provision would allow Texas to 

repay the Federal funds used on the North Expressway project, but he pointed out: 

It cannot reasonably be construed to alter the duty that developed on any Federal 

governmental agency to design and direct its action with the necessary regard to its impact 

on man’s environment . . . . Thus, where Federal highway construction covers an entire 

area, the project must be considered as a whole. And the whole plan must be accomplished 

in compliance with such policies and recommendations. The nongermane Senate 

amendment does not say that the State of Texas can buy itself immunity from such Federal 

policy application for the portion of a total project, federally instituted, going through Olmos 

and Breckenridge Park. 

Since that portion was part of a larger project, “it cannot be excised from the application” of NEPA 

“except by clear legislative language purporting to accomplish that end.” Section 154 did not 

include such language, nor was there any House legislative history “that can be used to amplify the 

language of the amendment so as to give it a meaning other than that which its words spontaneously 

yield.” [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28105-28106] 

Representative Glenn Anderson said the conferees had devised “an acceptable compromise that can 

be supported by those of us who have been working to open the highway trust fund for bus or rail 

transit purchases.” The bill, while not perfect, “does place us on the right track to providing for a 

balanced transportation system by allowing flexible funding out of the highway trust fund.” He 

continued: 

Next year trust fund revenue will be available for bus purchases, and the following year rail 

systems are eligible for trust fund allocations.

When we consider that only last winter such a proposal was not even germane [according to 

the House Rules Committee], and when we consider that only 1 year ago such a proposal 

was considered radical, I feel that all of us who have worked to permit flexibility in the use 

of highway trust fund revenue can be pleased. This is a step, but a necessary step, toward 

flexibility . . . . [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28106] 

The record of the debate contains several additional statements that appear to have been inserted in 

the record after-the-fact. One was by Representative Herman Badillo (D-NY), an accountant who 

had served in New York City’s government before joining the House in 1971. He said he 

appreciated the difficulties the conferees encountered, but “I must speak in opposition.” He said: 

This conference report perpetuates our distorted national transportation priorities and by 

excluding the provisions for operating assistance to existing mass transit systems it 

represents a refusal to accept the fact that efficient urban mass transportation is a matter of 
1085 

public responsibility providing benefits to the entire Nation, not just to individual transit 

riders or communities.

Making “heroic pronouncements” about cleaning the air or curbing auto use did little good “when 

transit systems across the country are threatened with insolvency and steadily lose riders because of 

necessary fare increases.” In deleting the Senate’s provision authorizing $800 million for operating 

subsidies, while “at the same time authorizing billions for miles and miles of highways,” the 

conferees had failed to recognize that, as the Times editorial “Highway Lobby Triumphs” put it, 

“additional billions for benefit of the private truck and automobile are not the total answer to the 

Nation’s transportation needs.” 

Representative Badillo added that New York’s voters would be asked to approve a $3.5 billion 

State bond issue in November that would preserve the current fares and avert “a disastrous fare 

increase that could end [up] bankrupting the entire transit system in New York City.” If Congress, 

he said, were “living up to its responsibilities to our urban centers, a bond issue of this scope and 

nature would be unnecessary.”

He knew that legislation to provide operating subsidies would be introduced again later in the 

session, but for now, “I must vote in protest against this conference report which, in terms of urban 

transportation needs, is tokenism at its worst.” [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28109] 

His New York City colleague, Representative Biaggi, said (in an added statement) that he had 

opposed the House bill because it did not contain Highway Trust Funds for mass transit, but “am 

pleased to see that the conferees agreed to include such a section in the compromise version of the 

bill.” He, too, was disappointed that the bill did not make Highway Trust Fund revenues available 

for mass transit operating subsidies, an issue that the 93rd Congress must address. However, the bill 

was “a fair compromise and should not be delayed further.” He would vote for the bill. 

[“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 28110] 

 

With expiration of time for debate, Speaker Albert called for a vote on the conference report. The 

House voted to approve the bill, 382 to 34 (with 17 not voting). [“Conference Report on S. 502,” p. 

28110] 

The Associated Press said the House action on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, a major farm 

bill, and a bill raising the minimum wage to $2.20 an hour in two steps as occurring on “a busy day 

of desk-clearing for the annual summer vacation,” which began on August 4. The New York Times

put it this way:

Amid cries of “vote, vote,” the House worked its way through a stack of Senate-House 

conference reports while the Senate spent most of its day in recesses waiting for the House 

to tie the loose ends of legislation before Congress could recess until Sept. 6. [Associated 

Press, “Three Big Bills Pass, Congress Recesses,” The Washington Star-News, August 4, 

1973; Madden, Richard L., “Congress Votes Pay Bill; Start’s a Month’s Recess,” The New 

York Times, August 4, 1973] 
1086 

The Washington Post published an editorial titled “The Highway Trust Fund: On the Right Track.” 

 It recognized that compromises “leave almost everyone a bit unhappy.” The bill “displeases 

diehard guardians of the highway trust fund” while failing to “satisfy mass-transit advocates 

because it does not open up the trust fund entirely now, and it fails to provide operating subsidies 

for mass transit.” Nevertheless, “for all the grumps it will provoke, this compromise is something 

to be marveled at because it came to pass at all.” Clearly, the final bill “is nobody’s ideal” and was 

more highway-oriented than the Post would like: 

The conferees have not executed a daring leap from highway funding to transportation 

funding, but they have at least brought national policy into a transitional phase. It is an oldfashioned, hard-won political compromise. [“The Highway Trust Fund: On the Right 

Track,” The Washington Post, August 6, 1973] 

By contrast, Transport Topics, the motor carrier industry newsletter, called its editorial “Death by 

Diversion.” Pointing out that “the Highway Trust Fund was being maimed,” the editorial quoted 

several Representatives who “did not let trust-busting mischief pass without vividly pointing out 

some things anti-highway forces have apparently overlooked.” It cited Representative Ford’s 

comment about “Your highway taxes at work” signing now being placed on buses and his reference 

to “the bottomless pit of operating subsidy.” It referenced Representative Shuster’s comment that 

the diversion was stealing highway funds from rural Americans “who need those trust fund monies 

to upgrade a largely obsolete, substandard and often downright dangerous road system.” The 

editorial concluded: 

Rep. Shuster called the compromise-diversion measure “a slap at the families of all the 

people who will die on substandard roads.” 

It is, in effect, death by diversion. [“Death by Diversion,” Transport Topics, August 13, 

1973] 

Engineering News-Record was more positive: 

Some die-hard highway advocates moan about diversion getting “a foot in the door,” but 

most are happy to see the long disagreement over and a bill finally on its way to passage . . . 

. We hail the act, however, because it is a foot in the door, not so much for diversion as for 

balanced funding. 

With this start on creating balanced transportation systems, the editorial predicted “that in a few 

years the recent struggle will seem very remote and few will be surprised to see a single 

transportation authorization package.” [“Creeping Trust Fund Diversion,” Engineering NewsRecord, August 2, 1973] 

Mass transit planners were “overjoyed,” according to The Christian Science Monitor. An aide to 

Governor Sargent of Massachusetts said, “This is the most significant transportation legislation 

passed in a decade.” Boston was expected to be a chief beneficiary of the new legislation, with an 

estimated $821 million in Interstate segments on hold: 
1087 

Alan Altshuler, the state Secretary of Transportation, says the funds will allow completion 

of much of the city’s mass transit master plan in 10 years instead of the expected 20 years.

The substitute funds from trading in unwanted Interstates were expected to be used to extend rapid 

transit lines onto commuter rail lines, modernize the existing system, and use more expensive 

construction methods for transit lines to reduce neighborhood impacts. A spokesman for the 

MBTA said the organization was expecially excited about the increased Federal share for transit 

projects. “Even if the federal pot does not increase and even if new states start requesting funds, we 

can still lower our state and local expenditures.” 

In addition, Section 121 authorized the use of Interstate funds to finance the Federal share of 

projects for exclusive or preferential bus, truck, and emergency vehicle routes or lanes. This change 

would allow Governor Sargent to proceed with his plan for a two-lane, special purpose tunnel that 

would be open only to buses, airport limousines, taxis, emergency vehicles, and trucks going to and 

from Logan International Airport. 

In Chicago, the dispute continued over how the legislation would affect the $1 billion Crosstown 

Expressway, which “has been blocked for years by citizens’ protests, court action, and opposition 

from Gov. Daniel Walker.” Governor Walker believed the State’s role in holding public hearings 

gave him leverage. “We can determine whether, if not when, the highway will be built.” The U.S. 

Department of Transportation was considering a State proposal for “a longer western route, which 

would only cost about $500 million because fewer families would need to be relocated. If the less 

costly route were approved, the State wanted to use the balance of $500 million to aid the CTA, 

which, “in a perennial financial crisis, is threatening to cut service or increase fares.” [Stewart, 

Colin, “Transit Aid Welcomed by States,” The Christian Science Monitor, August 9, 1973] 

According to Albert R. Karr of The Wall Street Journal, the Nixon Administration had decided to 

embrace the compromise plan to use general Treasury funds instead of Highway Trust Fund 

revenue for transit projects. As reflected in the congressional debates, the White House position 

had been a concern:

However, administration officials say that they’ve been willing all along to permit more 

spending from general revenues for transit. They preferred a direct raid on the fund, they 

say, but didn’t want public knowledge of their position to weaken a lobbying effort in this 

direction. 

Thus, this week President Nixon is expected to sign the bill that authorizes the new transitaid approach, and Transportation Secretary Claude S. Brinegar will likely announce that 

department’s intention of carrying it out with full dispatch. Their comments will be “very 

firm” in this pro-transit resolve, one source close to the officials’ deliberations says. 

The plan for the Federal-aid urban system, Karr wrote, was acceptable to “administration budgetmakers because total transportation outlays won’t go up” since the equivalent Highway Trust Fund 

revenue would be frozen for future use. UMTA Administrator Herringer confirmed this view. “I 

see no reason why we wouldn’t fund those [transit] projects” out of the general Treasury. 
1088 

The Interstate substitution plan was of more concern because it might apply to “perhaps $5 billion 

to $6 billion in funding for controversial urban segments: 

Because this total represents piecemeal appropriations over the life of a particular road 

project, the transfer clause might make available as much as $400 million or $500 million a 

year for transit, by one estimate. But in this case, the administration may well have to do 

some more freezing of its own. 

How much cities might use for transit was a matter of speculation. Karr said estimates ranged from 

$100 million to $450 million a year, with the rest going for city roads and streets: 

The transit sum will be “nominal” this year, fiscal 1974, says John Kramer, director of the 

Highway Action Coalition, an antihighway group. He says cities want to get caught up on 

roadwork that was stalled by the prolonged debate in Congress over the new highway-transit 

funding. 

All along, Mr. Kramer says, the “key” to making the Senate-House compromise work has 

been what the administration would do. A transit-industry source agrees that if the Nixon 

men release money from general revenues, on top of the current $1 billion Urban Mass 

Transportation budget, they will convert what he regards as “a bag of air” into “a bag of 

gold.” 

One additional concern was that cities wanting to use urban system or Interstate transfer funds for 

transit would be applying to FHWA. “The agency’s expertise lies in highway work rather than 

transit.” Karr explained that Secretary Brinegar had directed FHWA and UMTA to develop “joint 

criteria” in anticipation of the legislation. An UMTA source “says ‘a working relationship’ is being 

created.” [Karr, Albert R., “Cities’ Use of General Revenues for Transit Seems to Have Won 

Administration Backing,” The Wall Street Journal, August 13, 1973] 

As Representatives Badillo and Biaggi had said, plans were underway to reintroduce the Emergency 

Commuter Relief Act when Congress returned in September. Senator Williams and Representative 

Minish had held off advancing the transit bill pending action on the Federal-Aid Highway Act. 

Now that S. 502 had been approved without the Emergency Commuter Relief Act, they intended to 

move forward with their measure in the fall. [“Congress Passes Major Bills in Pre-Recess Flurry of 

Activity,” Engineering News Record, August 9, 1973, p. 10] 

The 1973 Act Becomes a Law 

On July 13, 1973, Federal Aviation Administrator Butterfield, the former deputy to H. R. 

Haldeman, participated in what initially appeared to be a routine interview with staff of the Senate 

Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices (also known as the Senate Watergate 

Committee). During the interview, he revealed the existence of a taping system in the White 

House. His public revelation of the taping system on July 16 would alter the course of the 

Watergate investigation and increase pressure on the President. The New York Times headline on 

July 17 read: 
1089 

NIXON WIRED HIS PHONE, OFFICES TO RECORD 

ALL CONVERSATIONS; SENATORS WILL SEEK THE TAPES

Surprise Witness 

Butterfield, Ex-Aide at White House,

Tells of Listening Devices

As the Times explained, “The recordings became the immediate focus of the central investigation 

by the Senate panel into the role President Nixon may have played in the Watergate cover-up.” 

From the start, the President would fight release of the tapes in every forum, including the Senate, 

the courts, and in public statements. 

By early August 1973, he was facing a crisis from an unexpected source. On August 6, Vice 

President Agnew announced that he was under investigation by the United States Attorney in 

Baltimore, George Beall, for possible violations of criminal law. Initial media reports indicated he 

was suspected of extortion, bribery, and tax evasion related to a kickback scheme involving 

contractors, architects, and engineers employed on Maryland projects. The Vice President’s 

statement said:

I will make no further comment until the investigation has been completed, other than to say 

that I am innocent of any wrongdoing, that I have confidence in the criminal justice system 

of the United States, and that I am equally confident my innocence will be affirmed. 

[Apple, R. W., Jr., “Agnew is Under U.S. Investigation in ‘Possible’ Criminal Violations; 

Innocent of Wrongdoing, He Says,” The New York Times, August 7, 1973] 

R. W. Apple, Jr., in a Times news analysis on August 8 wrote:

President Nixon, says a man with occasional access to the Oval Office, “feels as if he’s 

living through six crises at once.” [This was a reference to Nixon’s 1961 book, Six Crises, 

describing how he had handled controversial situations.] The revelation that Vice President 

Agnew is under investigation for extortion, bribery and tax fraud in connection with 

Maryland building contracts seemed almost incredible to many politicians here, coming as it 

did on the heels of so much other bad news for the Administration. 

Only six and a half months ago, Richard M. Nixon took the oath of office for his second 

term in a mood of euphoria. He stood on the brink of a peace agreement in Indochina; he 

had carried 49 of 50 states, something no other man had ever done; he seemed to have 

divined precisely the nation’s mood. 

Since then, the fortunes of the Nixon Administration have been so disastrous that the 

Washington soothsayers have been forced to abandon the word “nadir.” Every time the 

President’s situation seemed impossibly bad, every time it seemed inevitable that his luck 

would turn, the opposite has happened: Some other disaster has come to public attention. 

[Apple, R. W., Jr., “A New Crisis for Nixon,” The New York Times, August 8, 1973] 
1090 

Although Vice President Agnew had said he would not comment on the allegations, he held a news 

conference on August 8 in a studio-auditorium on the fourth floor of the Old Executive Office 

Building. Reporters Richard M. Cohen and Jules Witcover described his entrance: 

The television networks decided at once to cover the event live, and by three o’clock more 

than 200 reporters were there. Agnew came out, ramrod straight as always, tense but in 

control. In a sense, his whole political career, and his self-image as a righteous man unfairly 

put upon, had prepared him for this moment . . . . Now finally he was called upon to cash in 

all the chips he had gathered since 1969 in building and cementing his reputation for blunt 

and honest talk. He was equal to the call. 

“Because of defamatory statements that are being leaked to the news media by sources that 

the news reports refer to as close to the investigation,” he began, “I cannot adhere to my 

original intention to remain silent following my initial statement a few days ago, which 

asserted my innocence . . . . And since I have no intention to be so skewered, I called this 

press conference, to label as false and scurrilous and malicious these rumors, these 

assertions and accusations that are being circulated and to answer your questions regarding 

them . . . .” 

With some uneasiness at the start, but soon with firmness, even aggressiveness, as he stood 

straight and unsmiling before the microphone, Agnew proceeded to field every question 

asked of him. 

In response to a question about what turned out to be an erroneous allegation that he received 

$1,000 a week in kickbacks, Cohen and Witcover wrote: 

Agnew knocked it out of the park: “I am denying them outright and I am labeling them, and 

I think a person in my position at a time like this might be permitted this departure from 

normal language, as damned lies.” [Cohen, Richard M., and Witcover, Jules, A Heartbeat 

Away: The Investigation and Resignation of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, A Washington 

Post Book, Bantam edition, October 1974, p. 169-170] 

On August 13, the Times reported that Federal investigators were planning to go through the 

records of the Vice President’s 2 years as Governor of Maryland and those of Jerome R. Wolff, 

whom Agnew had appointed chairman-director of the State Roads Commission of Maryland in 

March 1967. “In the new phase of the far-reaching investigation—which has all Maryland agog 

even though the state had become all but accustomed to seeing its political figures face criminal 

charges—Mr. Beall appeared to be concentrating on highway construction and engineering 

contracts.” [Waldron, Martin, “Agnew Term as Governor Under U.S. Scrutiny Today,” The New 

York Times, August 13, 1973] 

(Wolff, as noted earlier, had been the Vice President’s Advisor for Science and Technology. 

However, when the White House learned that he had retained an interest in two engineering 

companies, Counsel John W. Dean III ruled that Wolff had a conflict of interest and ordered him off 

the payroll in 1970. Cohen and Witcover described Wolff this way: 
1091 

Among his fellow engineers, the brilliant Wolff was hailed as a genius, and it was true that 

he was nationally recognized for his expertise in the new and complex field of 

environmental planning. He was both lawyer and civil engineer, able to provide legal and 

scientific advice to a client concerned about the environmental impacts of a particular 

project. [Cohen and Witcover, p. 61] 

Above the Agnew article on the front page of The New York Times that day appeared an article 

headlined: 

PUBLIC FOUND DISILLUSIONED BY THE WATERGATE SCANDAL

Survey Shows Complacency Jarred by

Senate Hearing and a Wide Loss 

Of Confidence in the President 

The article was based on hundreds of interviews correspondents had conducted with Americans 

across the country before the revelation of the Agnew investigation: 

Subsequent reports that Vice President Agnew is under investigation for possible criminal 

misconduct could be expected only to reinforce the basic impression. The Watergate 

scandal is hurting President Nixon – badly. [Roberts, Steven V., “Public Found 

Disillusioned by the Watergate Scandal,” The New York Times, August 13, 1973] 

Later that day, Senators Randolph and Baker, Secretary Brinegar, Administrators Tiemann and 

Herringer, and freshman Republican Representative Hanrahan were among those standing behind 

President Nixon in the Oval Office as he signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. In a formal 

statement, he called it “a significant extension and reform of the Federal highway program,” which 

he described as “the strong tradition of Federal-State cooperation in building American highways.” 

This was, however, more than just a highway act: 

One of its most significant features is that it allows the Highway Trust Fund to be used for 

mass transit capital improvements. This landmark provision is one that I have urged for 

some time and one that I recommended with special emphasis in four different messages to 

the Congress this year. Under this Act, for the first time, States and localities will have the 

flexibility they need to set their own transportation priorities. The law will enable them at 

last to relieve congestion and pollution problems by developing more balanced 

transportation systems where that is appropriate rather than locking them into further 

highway expenditures which can sometimes make such problems even worse.

He highlighted “the $3 billion I requested for funding the Urban Mass Transportation Act” and the 

provision allowing State and local officials “to substitute mass transit projects for certain urban 

Interstate highway segments which are controversial and non-essential.” He also pointed out that 

the 1973 Act earmarked urban highway funds for areas with populations over 200,000 and “cuts red 

tape and improves efficiency by giving more authority to the States and by increasing planning 

funds.” He added:
1092 

I am pleased that the bill also designates several links of the Interstate network forming a 

coast to coast route as the Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway, a fitting tribute to the father of 

the Interstate highway system.

He regretted that the bill exceeded his budget proposals and included “a number of special narrow 

categorical grant programs at a time when it is particularly important for us to trim back on the 

budget and the bureaucracy.” However, he recognized that funding levels had been cut back from 

earlier versions “and I am gratified that certain other elements, particularly an anti-impoundment 

provision and mass transit operating subsidies, were eliminated from the final version.” 

Overall, he said, the legislation reflected “a spirit of constructive cooperation between the Congress 

and the Administration and I am confident that the Act can be properly administered so as to not 

violate my commitment to a non-inflationary budget.” He concluded: 

The legislation I sign today represents an important forward step for our country, not only in 

providing for better and more balanced transportation, but also in related fields such as 

environmental protection, highway safety, energy conservation, and community 

development. I am gratified that it includes important proposals to which I have long given 

high priority. I sign S. 502 with confidence that it will contribute significantly to the 

strength of our American economy and the quality of American life.

Informally, the President had observed that, “the dullest thing in the world is to spend a day on a 

superhighway.” He added, also informally, “Let me say after these two smog alerts we’ve had in 

Washington, let’s have more mass transit.” 

After the ceremony, Secretary Brinegar and Melvin R. Laird, the former Defense Secretary who was 

now the President’s counsellor for domestic affairs, briefed reporters. Secretary Brinegar said:

Both in terms of dollars and numbers of separate programs, this is the single most important 

piece of legislation that the Department of Transportation has been called upon to 

administer.

He highlighted the urban transportation features of the 1973 Act, which gave “urban transportation 

planners immediate flexibility in the uses of the Highway Trust Fund dollars that are allocated to 

urban areas.” He said:

No longer must these planners think “just highways.” Now they will be able to consider 

trade-offs to such alternatives as buses, exclusive bus lanes, and rapid rail systems. We do 

not see such flexibility as a “busting of the trust,’ but rather as a sensible broadening of its 

uses. Approximately $21⁄2 billion is authorized for this “flexible” urban usage. 

Citing the $3 billion for UMTA capital grants, Interstate substitution, $8.75 billion for Interstate 

construction and $3.3 billion for rural highway programs over 3 years, and the new highway safety 

programs, he added: 
1093 

The Act even helps the bicycle rider—perhaps the ultimate in the efficient usage of 

energy—by providing up to $120 million from the Trust Fund to be used for the 

construction of bicycle paths in connection with highway projects. 

In closing, he praised the conference committee that had drafted the final bill “in a spirit of 

constructive compromise.” The result was “a good bill—one that will go a long way toward 

providing our Nation with the balanced, total transportation system that it needs.” 

Reporter Lou Cannon, writing in The Washington Post, said: 

Two emerging and related administration themes dominated the ceremonies and 

announcements surrounding the bill signing. One is the developing White House praise for 

Congress on non-Watergate issues, the other the reiteration of administration belief in its 

own ability to government. 

Cannon quoted Laird as saying during his briefing, “It is important to bear in mind that we are 

moving forward on the domestic agenda for America.” [Cannon, Lou, “Nixon Signs $22 Billion 

Highway Bill,” The Washington Post, August 14, 1973; “President Signs Highway Bill With 

provisions for Mass Transit Assistance,” The New York Times, August 14, 1973]] 

Senator Randolph issued a statement after the ceremony:

We deliberated the provisions of this bill in conference for more than 120 hours. The result 

is a measure that responsibly meets transportation requirements in large cities, small towns 

and rural areas.

The Department of Transportation subsequently compiled editorials and articles on the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1973. According to H. David Crowther, Director of Public Affairs, “Of the sixtynine editorials included, fifty-eight are favorable and eight are unfavorable.” The editorials

Included: 

• The Tucson Star said, “The breaking of the Highway Trust Fund is long overdue,” pointing 

out that “powerful interest groups” had “zealously protected” the Fund. “Tucson could 

benefit greatly by the release of funds for mass transit—providing there is coordination and 

the planning is done early and done well.” [“Breaking Highway Trust Fund Long Overdue,” 

Tucson Star, August 15, 1973] 

• The Little Rock Democrat said, “The Congress has acted wisely to opening [sic], ever so 

slightly, the Highway Trust Fund tap, to allow money to trickle into urban mass transit.” 

Highway building can never catch up with demand. “The sooner we return to the more 

efficient trains and buses, the better chance we will have of keeping a reasonable amount of 

our land unpaved.” Considering the billions in the new law for highways, “Surely the 

highway lobby will not begrudge a mere $1 billion of road-user taxes for relieving the 

burden of traffic on roads.” [“A Trickle for Transit,” Little Rock Democrat,” August 14, 

1973] 
1094 

• “With President Nixon’s signature,” The Los Angeles Times wrote, “the way has at last been 

cleared for the nation’s cities to begin receiving some of the essential federal support they 

need to build mass transit systems.” Although the Highway Trust Fund “has been cracked,” 

it “can’t meet all of the transit financing needs of Los Angeles and other cities.” [“U.S. 

Clears the Way for Transit Aid,” The Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1973] 

• “The amounts involved are small,” The New Haven Journal-Courier in Connecticut wrote, 

“but the significance of the breakthrough to a new distribution formula for the Highway 

Fund—amassed from federal road user taxes—is potentially large.” It was not “a bonanza” 

for urban transit, and it “falls short of anything like the ‘re-ordering of priorities’ that was 

talked about in last year’s presidential campaign.” However, with Congress finally 

approving “a break in the solid front that has kept the Highway Fund as a sort of sacred trust 

in years past, there is at least a slight shift of emphasis.” [“A Little Help With Mass 

Transit,” New Haven Journal-Courier, August 15, 1973] 

• The Miami Herald predicted that “when people in big cities find it a little easier and cheaper 

to move from place to place, the blessings they might count could begin with the signing 

this week of the new Federal Highway Act by President Nixon.” The Act was “unlike any 

other” and brought the Federal transportation effort “a bit closer to the world of reality” 

because a “limited amount—very limited—[of highway funding] will be spent on mass 

transit.” The bulk of Highway Trust Fund revenue “will go into pavement, but at least a 

piddling transit appropriation is a start and a precedent.” The next time Congress considers 

a highway bill, “the city skies will be blacker with air pollution and the streets will be even 

more clogged with autos.” The “real significance” of the new law was “not what it does this 

time but the promise of what it can do in the future to give Americans the choice of 

traveling modes which they so desperately need.” [“Tip-Toeing Out of the Trust, a Step 

Toward Real Transit,” The Miami Herald, August 15, 1973] 

• Monday, August 13, was “a great day for public transportation,” according to an editorial in 

The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, because “the powerful highway lobby finally got a well 

deserved kick in the teeth.” Funds for money-starved transit agencies, including the BiState Development Agency serving the St. Louis area, would receive “sizable amounts” of 

funds “from the heretofore sacrosanct Highway Trust Fund.” The “highway lobby” had 

successfully blocked all attempts to use Highway Trust Funds revenue for transit “until 

yesterday.” [“Banner Day for Rapid Transit,” The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 14, 

1973] 

• “The highway lobby guarded its exclusive access to the fund for years,” said The Akron 

Beacon-Journal, but the “hallowed wall around the Federal Highway Trust Fund has finally 

been punctured.” After years of preserving the Highway Trust Fund, “the pressure was too 

great in Congress this year.” At first, only “a few coins [would] trickle out of the fund’s 

money bags, but the process has finally started.” The highway lobby should not be upset at 

the prospect. “Indeed, more imaginative and far-reaching mass transit and rapid transit 

projects may be a positive boon to the motorist—eventually decreasing both congestion and 

pollution.” [“At Last Comes the Vital Step Toward Transportation Sanity,” The Akron 

Beacon-Journal, August 15, 1973] 

In New York, Dr. Ronan said, “The enactment of the compromise highway bill is a significant 

victory for mass transportation as it opens the opportunity for the use of certain highway funds for 
1095 

mass transit facilities and equipment.” With this significant victory for developing balanced 

transportation systems, he said, the next important step was to secure Federal operating assistance. 

[“MTA Praises Highway Bill,” The Journal of Commerce, August 16, 1973] 

“This bill,” Dr. Ronan said, “opens up the possibility to do a number of things and not just on a 

one-shot basis.” In the first year, he anticipated the purchase of 500 buses, with 70 percent for the 

metropolitan area. “This will materially help the bus fleets in New York City, Westchester and 

other communities.” The new buses would be air-conditioned. The second year funding would be 

used for highway and capital rail projects. State matching funds would come from the bond issue 

that he hoped voters would approve in November. [Anderlan, David A., “Officials Plan for Use of 

Highway Funds,” The New York Times, August 15, 1973] 

Of course, not everyone was pleased. On August 16, the Times published a letter from Gilbert B. 

Phillips, president of the Automobile Club of New York, reacting to the Times’ July 29 editorial 

“Highway Lobby Triumph.” “Not only is opening the Highway Trust Fund not a triumph for 

anyone, it is a portent of what may become the ruination of the nation’s transportation systems.” 

Phillips objected to the way the editorial berated House members who “have a sincere and serious 

concern over precipitate actions not founded on objective data or in the best interests of the public 

in shaping transportation for the future.” 

He pointed out that when Senator Williams’ effort to secure $4.4 billion in general Treasury 

revenue for urban mass transit had failed in 1972, the Senator suggested soul-searching “on the 

question of whether the effort was to aid mass transit or to break up the Highway Trust Fund.” The 

editorial, Phillips said, had not mentioned that the 1973 Act provided $1 billion a year for transit. 

“Is The Times more interested in busting the Highway Trust Fund than it is in making a realistic 

effort to obtain assistance for transit?” 

Phillips also objected to a July 31 editorial in which the Times had advocated increased tolls on the 

East River bridges to subsidize transit. “Sooner or later, our elected officials, and we hope the 

media must face the unavoidable truth.” If New York City needed mass transit, “the public must be 

told what it will cost.” He added, “Simple arithmetic will tell the community that motorists cannot 

foot the bill, nor can any other single group.” Only a “broad-based revenue source” could foot the 

bill. He concluded by asking, “Isn’t it time for some soul searching?” [Phillips, Gilbert B., “”The 

Highway Trust Fund: Unrealistic Aid for Mass Transit,” The New York Times, August 16, 1973] 

Frank Reid, the editor of Better Roads, predicted that the 1973 Act “sets the stage for the eventual 

breaking up of the Highway Trust fund.” The raid would start slowly, but “by the third year, the 

Trust Fund raid will be on full blast.” If a Mass Transit Trust Fund were established by then, the 

highway funds would remain intact. “Don’t hold your breath on that one!” The Highway Trust 

Fund had a ready source of income from highway users: 

For the Transit people, there is no such ready source of funds. They can’t even pay their 

operating costs now, much less tax the user for more money to support such a special fund. 
1096 

The more likely result was a Transportation Trust Fund “generally supported by the existing 

highway-user taxes.” 

Reid had warned the highway community when “the old Bureau of Public Roads was emasculated 

and merged into what is now the Department of Transportation.” The Federal-State partnership 

was abandoned and, as Reid had said at the time, “the clock is never turned all the way back.” He 

had urged State highway officials to convert their agencies into departments of transportation as 

quickly as possible so that “highway men would at least be in key positions to give highways a fair 

shake.” Now, with the 1973 Act, “we are right back where we were, financially, before there was a 

Trust Fund.” He urged highway officials not to fight it. Instead, they should learn “the new ground 

rules so well, that highways remain an effective means of transporting people and goods.” He 

concluded his editorial: 

In a truly balanced, comprehensive transportation system, highways are too important to be 

ignored. Start planning NOW to promote and defend highways in an inter-fund battle for a 

limited number of dollars. Both taxpayers and legislators must be kept aware of the great 

need for a good highway system. 

Yes, start now—just for once, let us lock the barn door before the roads are stolen. [Reid, 

Frank, “New Highway Challenge: A Transportation Trust fund,” Editorial Viewpoints, 

Better Roads, September 1973, p, 9, emphasis in original] 

Bicycle interests also questioned the legislation. At first, the 1973 Act had seemed like a “a great 

pedal forward,” as a news service article put it:

It wasn’t, transportation officials say now. Instead of pumping more money into bikeways, 

they claim, the highway bill in effect clamps a lid on federal funds that were already being 

spent. 

The problem was the $40 million ceiling on projects nationwide, and $2 million limit per State:

To the layman, that may sound like plenty of money. But to officials in the Federal 

Highway Administration—which has already been doling out bikeway money for several 

years without specific legislative authorization to do so—it’s viewed as a pitifully low 

figure. “That spending ceiling includes both walkways and bikeways,” one FHA planner 

said, “and you can’t build a heck of a lot of walkways for $2 million. That just doesn’t 

leave much for bike paths, or even marking off a bike lane on an existing highway. Frankly, 

the highway act is restrictive rather than promotional.”

A cycling enthusiast in the Department agreed. “Maybe that’s not what Congress intended. They 

said they wanted to promote bicycling, and all that. But that doesn’t look like the way it’s going to 

work out.” 

The Department was encouraging States to address the safe and operational problems of mixing 

motor vehicles and bicycles:
1097 

Whatever is done, Transportation Department urban systems specialist Marie Birnbaum 

says, “It’s got to be worked on by all levels of government—and it isn’t necessarily just a 

money thing. We’ve got to start identifying the problems of non-motorized vehicles in a 

world designed for motorized ones. We’ve got to stop looking at bicycles as toys and 

realize that millions of adults are riding them to work every day. [Knight News Service, 

“’73 Highway Act Backpedals on Bike Funds, Riders Find,” The Baltimore Sun, August 28, 

1973] 

As August 1973 ended, Lee Stillwell of Scripps-Howard newspapers, wrote that: 

America’s love affair with interstate highways as the ultimate solution to urban 

transportation problems appears to be cooling fast as citizens challenge increasing numbers 

of proposals for new ones. 

He cited Department of Transportation officials as saying the objections usually involve: 

• They don’t solve problems because the growth that sprouts around new ones just creates 

bigger jams.

• Proposed freeways through the hearts of cities threaten the few remaining nice 

neighborhoods many citizens regard as the last hope for keeping cities from becoming 

hollow shells ringed by prosperous suburbs. 

• A growing health danger from air pollution pouring from vehicle exhausts. 

• Excessive use of autos contributes to the energy crisis by burning up large amounts of fuel 

daily.

John Hellegers of the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “The trust fund is the source of the 

problem.” State highway officials were pressured into building Interstate highways because that 

was the only way the money could be spent. “It’s tragic to what lengths they will go to build a 

highway.” [Stillwell, Lee, “American Love of Interstates Turning Sour,” Pittsburgh Press, August 

30, 1973] 

The Priority of Quality

On December 31, 1973, the Commission on Highway Beautification submitted its final report, The 

Priority of Quality, to President Nixon. The report listed the recommendations in the 

Commission’s August 1972 interim report before providing additional recommendations, beginning 

with directional signs that let motorists know of services such as gas, food, and lodging on the road 

ahead. The Commission wanted to ensure that as billboards containing directional information 

were removed, “such information continues to be provided effectively” in a variety of ways, 

including Logo signs. Only two States, Oregon and Virginia, had installed such signs “and 

relatively few facilities have qualified anywhere” for inclusion on the signboards. The committee 

recommended:
1098 

The authority of the Secretary to authorize directional signs for all necessary motorist 

services pursuant to both subsection 131(c)(1) and 131(f) of title 23 should be clarified and 

confirmed. 

FHWA was encouraging the States to defer removal of directional signs until other types of signs 

had been removed, but “many States apparently for administrative convenience, are providing little 

or no effort to differentiate between directional and nondirectional signs in removal projects.” 

Sign removal programs should be structured so as to defer the removal of private signs 

providing necessary directional information about the goods and services of peculiar 

necessity to the traveling public until last.

The operator of a facility providing such goods and services (gas, food, lodging, trailer 

parks, etc.) should be given the right to retain his last nonconforming directional sign on any 

given route until such time as he is afforded alternative means of providing the directional 

information contained on such sign. 

The Commission recommended alternative ways of informing the public: 

States should be encouraged to make greater use of tourist information centers, map plazas, 

etc., within safety rest areas. The present requirements for the placement of such facilities 

in safety rest areas should be reviewed and revised to assure that there are no arbitrary 

restraints on their effective use. 

The facilities might employ other means of directional information, including telephones in rest 

areas, tape cassettes, and transmitters for AM radios:

The Federal Communications Commission should give careful consideration to the needs of 

motorists to get information about specific goods and services in any rule-making 

proceeding the FCC might undertake to provide for special purpose transmission, 

particularly those which might be received on AM radio in automobiles. 

The Commission concluded that local jurisdictions could best regulate on-premise signs based on 

“local mores and desires.”

The Commission suggests that independent consideration be given in the various States to 

State coordination of regulation of on-premise signs at locations such as areas immediately 

adjacent to major interchanges where land use may be of critical State or regional concern.

Members of Congress had expressed concerns about FHWA compliance with the language of the 

law and the congressional intent. Areas of concern included “State zoning determinations, the 

exemption for on-premise signs, federal participation in compensation, and authorization of 

directional signs.” The Commission felt that “Federal administrators on occasion have been highly 

arbitrary and neglectful of legislative language, to the point of substituting their own judgments for 

those of Congress.” 
1099 

The administrators of the Federal program should immediately take steps to adhere more 

closely to the language of the law and the intent of Congress. 

The penalty of losing 10 percent of Federal-aid highway funding for failure to maintain control of 

outdoor advertising was so severe that it could rarely be imposed. The Commission suggested a 

change in law so that “the Secretary would have the option of assessing less than a 10% penalty, 

depending upon the relative severity of the noncompliance.” In the case of judicial proceedings, a 

State should be able to recover the penalty if it prevails. 

The Commission recognized that Indian reservations and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, both 

covered by the Highway Beautification Act, possessed “peculiar legal status.” 

Tribal councils should be given clear authority to set a regulatory scheme consistent with the 

Highway Beautification Act of 1965 on Indian reservations. 

In view of general concern expressed in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico about 

unessential restraints from Federal laws, Congress might wish to reconsider the necessity of 

applying the requirements of the Highway Beautification Act in the Commonwealth. [The 

Priority of Quality, p. 16-23] 

The Commission also addressed control of junkyards, abandoned cars, and litter. The Highway 

Beautification Act “provides that junkyards or solid waste disposal sites within 1,000 feet of 

Interstate and Primary highways must be screened or relocated unless they are located in industrial 

areas.” Although FHWA reported that all but two States were in compliance, questions had arisen 

about the effectiveness of screening and the appropriateness of some of the plantings used to screen 

junkyards. The Commission recommended more effective screening, but suggested that local 

highway authorities “direct their emphasis to relocation of junkyards wherever possible.” It 

recommended clearing the areas for recycling, especially of abandoned cars, and that the private 

sector be given priority in absorbing the recycled material. [The Priority of Quality, p. 24-28] 

Litter control was “a serious problem” that cost State and local governments an estimated $50 

million a year. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 directed the Secretary of Transportation to 

study the litter problem and submit a report to Congress on the subject. In the meantime, the 

Commission recommended careful consideration of disposable containers, placement of receptacles 

in readily accessible areas along highways and in rest areas, use of the unemployed to rid highways 

of litter, and continued education of the public about the little problem. [The Priority of Quality, p. 

28-29] 
1100 

Part 5

A Blessing in Disguise

Transit Battles On

By the time Congress returned in September from its recess, transit supporters were voicing 

concerns about the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. On September 5, an editorial in The Wall 

Street Journal referred to the 1973 Act as “a lamentably weak compromise in the long battle to 

redirect the multi-billion dollar Highway Trust Fund and open it up for mass transit.” The bill, the 

editorial explained, put off the use of Federal-aid urban system funds for mass transit for 2 years 

while “Congress gave simultaneous authorization for yet another highway program.” The editorial 

also denounced “President Nixon’s destructive practice of impounding appropriated funds on an 

unprecedented scale.” [“Congress Returns,” The Wall Street Journal, September 5, 1973] 

The New York Times anticipated that in coming days, the House and Senate would vote on the 

operating subsidies in the revived Emergency Commuter Relief Act, the measure that conferees had 

partly dropped from the 1973 Act: 

With few exceptions, cities all across this country are witnessing a familiar, but no less 

vicious, cycle in the fortunes of their mass transit systems: rising costs and fares, loss of 

passengers, reduced net income, deterioration, loss of more passengers and finally a slide 

into hopeless decay. 

The pending vote could “break that terrible progression by the only means that can break it—a 

Federal operating subsidy.” The “hoary belief” that Federal operating subsidies “would be 

throwing public funds down a bottomless well” had been challenged by imaginative action in 

several “exceptional cities.” The Times cited San Diego, which adopted a subsidy to reduce fares 

from 40 cents to 25 cents, after which “patronage went up an astonishing 72 percent.” Atlanta, 

which dropped fares to 15 cents, had seen ridership increase by 11 million passengers. 

Federal action, in the form of $400 million a year in subsidies for 2 years, was “the one real hope 

for arresting a decline that has already reduced the country’s mass transit patronage to less than onethird of what it was a quarter-century ago.” The Senate bill made the grants available at the 

Secretary of Transportation’s discretion. The Times preferred the House version, which made funds 

available to any system that produced a comprehensive plan for improved service, with 

apportionment based on the number of passengers carried and other criteria. In this way, the 

subsidy “would be not merely a handout but an incentive to increase patronage—and the only 

known ways to do that are to keep fares down and improve transit services.” 

If cities were to meet EPA’s stringent air quality standards and reduce energy use, the key was for 

the House and Senate to pass the bill “by votes overwhelming enough to discourage an all too likely 

Presidential veto—or at worst to brighten the prospects for overriding it.” [“Cash for Mass 

Transit,” The New York Times, September 7, 1973] 
1101 

Also on September 7, the Senate took up Senator Williams’ bill, the Emergency Commuter Relief 

Act, S. 386. It amended Section 3 of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 by authorizing 

$400 million a year for 2 years to defray operating expenses, including debt service for mass transit 

investments. State or local agencies seeking a grant would have to submit a comprehensive mass 

transportation program to the Secretary of Transportation showing how it would improve the 

service and put it on a sound financial basis, including a reasonable fare structure. The Secretary 

would have to determine that the mass transit services are being provided efficiently. The Federal 

share would be two-thirds. 

Senator Williams told his colleagues:

On four previous occasions the Senate has accepted this premise and overwhelmingly 

approved legislation providing for such a program—a program that only the Federal 

Government can successfully administer . . . . [Most recently on March 14] we passed S. 

386 by a 59 to 36 vote as an amendment to the 1973 highway act. 

But each time the legislation was derailed short of final enactment. On each occasion, the 

House failed to act and the House-Senate conferees, under the threat of a Presidential veto, 

deleted the provisions of S. 386 from the final bills. And in taking this position I, for one, 

believe that the President has shown a total disregard for the problems of our Nation’s cities 

and the citizens who inhabit them. 

The need for this bill was greater than ever:

During the 4-year delay in enacting S. 386, costs have risen, fares have increased, and 

services have been curtailed, due to greater and greater operating deficits. As a result, more 

and more transit riders have been forced to use automobiles. And transit plans and projects 

that are urgently needed have piled up and gathered dust. [“Emergency Commuter Relief 

Act,” Congressional Record-Senate, September 7, 1973, p. 28919-28921] 

Senator Randolph was among those speaking in support of S. 386. He regretted that Senator 

Williams had voted against the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, which contained several protransit elements, but not operating subsidies: 

Throughout a long and difficult conference with the House of Representatives, we 

encountered strong opposition to this provision. In the end the Senate conferees agreed to 

its deletion. This was necessary in order to obtain final agreement on important legislation 

and, frankly, to avoid a Presidential veto of that measure. The administration was 

adamantly opposed—wrongly, in my mind—to any Federal operating support for mass 

transit. [“Emergency Commuter Relief Act,” p. 28923-28924] 

After debate and amendment of the bill, including one from Senator Hart of Michigan authorizing 

demonstration projects to determine the feasibility of fare-free transit service, the Senate agreed to 

postpone the vote to Monday, September 10, to follow the vote on confirmation of Russell E. Train 

to be EPA Administrator. After confirming his nomination on the 10th by a vote of 85 to 0, the 

Senate turned back to S. 386. After brief supportive comments on the bill, the Senate passed the 
1102 

Emergency Commuter Relief Act by a vote of 53 to 33. [“Emergency Commuter Relief Act,” p. 

29066] 

Albert Karr pointed out that Senator Williams had opposed operating subsidies in 1961, saying, “It 

would be unwise, I think, to merely throw good money after bad by subsidizing the costs of [transit] 

deficits rather than trying to remedy the cause of it.” As the Senate vote indicated, Senator 

Williams was not the only convert to operating subsidies. “A number of important people have 

opposed the idea at first—only to come back to it in the end.” Former Secretary Volpe was one. 

He had once considered subsidies a “bottomless pit,” but had changed his view in 1972. He had 

been, however, unable to persuade the White House. Karr continued: 

Now, it’s understood that the new secretary, Claude S. Brinegar, and other department 

officials recently sought White House backing for some kind of transit-aide program, too, 

but without success. 

Meanwhile, various administration budgeteers and transit experts are understood to be 

kicking around the idea of letting transit systems use some federal money for either capital 

improvements or to help cover deficits, although no final decisions have been made. The 

official administration position still opposes the subsidy.

Still, the pressure to “do something” was growing. Even Karr’s cab driver, stuck in downtownWashington congestion, had said in frustration, “For God’s sake, do something, even if it’s wrong!” 

In part, this growing support reflected the realization that EPA’s air quality requirements meant 

that cities would have to emphasize transit. “We should be subsidizing transportation,” Mayor Pete 

Wilson of San Diego said, “to a far greater extent than we ever have in the past. If we don’t, then 

we are going to limp along toward realization of the standards.” 

Noting that the House had never approved the idea, Karr said “observers think it may well do so for 

the first time, when the measure comes to the floor tomorrow [October 3].” If so, spokesmen 

indicated the President would veto the measure: 

The spokesmen say, for instance, that they didn’t want a repeat of the government’s sizable 

operating subsidy program for the Merchant Marine. The program doesn’t seem to have 

done much to keep ocean freight moving in U.S. ships, as it was intended to do. 

To date, according to the House Banking Committee, 150 State and local operating subsidies for 

transit have been approved. “These subsidies have apparently helped nearly arrest the long postwar 

decline in transit ridership. A decline that ended only this year.” While that was a positive change, 

“what is needed is even more dramatic, a major surge in ridership.” Getting people out of their 

private automobiles would require “fast, frequent, full-route, and comfortable commuting,” without 

which subsidies “may be putting the cart before the horse (or the car before the bus).” Karr 

continued: 
1103 

And, as some Transportation Department planners have envisioned, a federal subsidy 

program might do well to include requirements that cities take steps like boosting auto 

parking fees or creating exclusive bus lanes in order to qualify for the dole. 

Unfortunately State and local subsidies “proved a spotty, uncertain and often inadequate form of 

assistance, especially when it comes to inducing steps toward better transportation service.” Karr 

cited the CTA as having received “some one-shot cash infusions” from the State “but the amounts 

have been small enough (though not tiny and prospects of more are so uncertain that the CTA has 

actually cut back service—and is faced with having to cut back more—when it should be improving 

service.” Milton Pikarsky, CTA’s chairman, explained that State or local funding for CTA was 

“possible only once every four years . . . because the others are presidential, congressional or 

mayoralty election years.” He said, “Local officials are not yet ready to do these things—the federal 

government has to be the catalyst.” [Karr, Albert R., “The Growing Clamor for Transit Subsidies,” 

The Wall Street Journal, October 2, 1973] 

On October 3, the House debated the Emergency Commuter Relief Act, H.R. 6452, which 

Representative Minish had introduced. The debate was more contentious than Senate consideration 

of the comparable bill. The Rules Committee had approved an open rule with 2 hours of general 

debate and had waived points of order against the bill for failing to comply with the House rule on 

appropriation in a legislative bill. The first order of business was to approve the rule, which many 

Representatives opposed. Representative Quillen, the Republican from Tennessee, explained the 

objection: 

It makes in order a bill which will merely cause us to go over much of the same ground that 

we have already covered in our consideration of the Federal-Aid Highway Act.

After outlining the 1973 Act’s pro-transit provisions, he concluded: 

The administration is strongly opposed to the enactment of this bill, at a time when it is 

essential to control Federal spending. If inflation is to be controlled, we cannot continue to 

increase Federal spending.

Mr. Speaker, in order that the House may not waste its time fighting over again the battles 

that were recently fought on the Federal aid to highway bill, I will ask for a no vote on 

passage of this rule. Let us defeat this rule and not waste our time plowing the same ground 

twice.

Others shared Representative Quillen’s view. Representative Delbert L. Latta (R-Oh.) asked in the 

view of enactment of the 1973 Act, “how much more do a few large cities want from the taxpayers 

of this country?” Representative Frenzel said he cheered when the bill had been dropped from the 

1973 Act “and hoped we had seen the last of the bill.” Objections were too numerous to list, but 

the worst was “that the concept of operating subsidies is inherently deficient” because it turned 

priorities “upside down” by perpetuating “obsolete systems.” He added that in an era of fiscal 

limits, subsidies would divert funds from needed capital improvements. He concluded: 
1104 

So let us not waste scarce transit dollars on obsolete systems; let us not accept future 

liabilities of billions of dollars of future transit operating losses; let us not tolerate a big-city 

money grab; let us put those scarce transit dollars where they will do the most good. Let us 

vote down this rule. 

Representative Ford also opposed the rule because “it would be an academic exercise to pass the 

rule, consider the bill, and perhaps pass the bill, because it is inevitable that this legislation would 

not get the approval of the administration.” He read from an October 1 letter he had received from 

Secretary Brinegar:

The most important feature of H.R. 6452 would be the establishment of a new categorical 

grant program making funds available exclusively for operating subsidies. This bill would 

authorize $800 million for these grants and distribute the money by formula among only the 

largest urban centers.

On that basis, Representative Ford explained, the Administration unequivocally opposed H.R. 

6452. Given that the Administration opposed the bill without reservation, Representative Ford 

urged his colleagues to defeat the rule and, if unsuccessful, the bill.

Representative Minish objected to the criticism of big cities. He pointed out that New York paid 

$30 billion in income taxes. “Where the population is, that is where the problem is.” 

Representative Biaggi of New York also resented the reference. “In my judgment, [the bill] is just a 

response to a need that has been universally recognized as critical.” As for the threat of a veto, he 

said:

We should permit the President to review the findings of the Congress and then if he sees fit 

he will either sign or veto a bill which we feel will provide a great deal of assistance to 

millions of people in these United States. I harbor a hope that he will recognize the need 

and sign the bill into law.

Representative Koch said he wanted to take head-on the question of whether the legislation was a 

big city bill and whether the 1973 Act disposed of the problem. On the latter point, he pointed out 

that the 1973 Act did not address operating subsidies at all. On the big city question, he wanted to 

be very honest: 

This bill will apply where the existing transit lines are. It will not provide an operating 

subsidy to a transit system that does not exist. Therefore, obviously, where the subway 

riders are, or where commuters are, or where bus riders are, that is where the money will go.

He asked if that was any different than the way Federal-aid highway funds were apportioned: 

There is no limitation as to where we will put our highway money. It goes where the 

highways are . . . . I accept that principle, I accept it because it makes sense to put the 

money where the need is. 
1105 

Representative Abzug agreed that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 was “a transportation 

milestone for all our people,” including those in rural areas who needed buses as well as those in 

New York City who needed new subway cars: 

When we talk about mass transportation by bus, subway, rail or otherwise, we are speaking 

of the ways in which we can find solutions to some important national problems—the 

problems of pollution, the fuel crisis and the unclogging of our suburban and rural highways 

and highway interconnections, as well as the highways and streets of urban America. 

She concluded: 

So when we speak about granting subsidies, it is not just for the guy or gal who goes into the 

subway in New York; it is a subsidy for all the American people with some hope for the 

future that we can create a decent society, economically as well as environmentally. That is 

what is inherent in this kind of subsidy bill. 

Representative Gross pointed out that the bill was “a special-privilege bill for a few large cities, and 

especially the city of New York,” which would get a quarter of the funds in the bill. He urged defeat 

of the rule and the bill. “I suggest that if the bill is approved we should take the torch from the hand 

of the Statue of Liberty and replace it with a tin cup.” 

Representative Madden of Indiana said he wished the funds in the bill could be tripled or 

quadrupled. As for Representative Gross’ comment, Representative Madden said:

Two years ago I drove from Chicago out to Omaha, and I went through Congressman Gross’ 

area, and congressional district. You can shoot a cannon down any highway out there and it 

would be a miracle if you hit an automobile or truck. We in the traffic congested area of the 

Nation need this small subsidy to get at least some help on our transportation troubles. 

Following additional debate, the House approved the rule, 282 to 131. Now, the debate could begin 

on H.R. 6452 amending the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964. [Urban Mass Transportation 

Assistance Act of 1973, Congressional Record-House, October 3, 1973, p. 32782-32792] 

Representative Minish explained that as Americans increasingly lived in urban and suburban areas, 

mass transit had declined in recent decades, serving 10 billion fewer riders than it did just 20 years 

earlier. “These passengers are not lost. Rather, they are riding in cars, most one to a car.” They 

could be enticed back to transit if the Federal Government assumed a partnership with the States 

and localities “for convenient, cheap, attractive mass transportation.” He continued: 

Fortunately, the one-man one-car concept of transportation is now recognized as the most 

expensive and the most environmentally damaging means of moving people to and from 

their homes, places of employment, and the marketplace. Yet in spite of the tremendous 

cost and the social damage, billions of dollars have been spent to facilitate auto traffic, while 

a relative handful of dollars have been directed to meaningful alternative systems of 

transport. 
1106 

He recognized that some might disagree with his characterization of the funding level in H.R. 6452 

as prudent, but “I cannot emphasize too strongly that these costs are as nothing compared to the 

heavy economic and social costs of continued over-reliance on the automobile and continued 

neglect of mass transit.” He concluded his introduction of the bill by saying, “We should face the 

fact that good urban transit service is a matter of public responsibility like education or police 

protection which provides benefits not just to the individual consumer, but to the well-being of the 

entire economy.” [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 32793-32795] 

Several Representatives spoke in support of the bill, including Representative Edward J. Patten (DNJ), who said: 

Now, we might hear, “Congress recently passed mass transit funding in the form of the 

Federal Aid Highway Act, so why authorize more?” Mr. Chairman, what we did by 

including mass transit provisions in the highway bill was to buy the carriage; but the 

carriage is not going to move without the horse. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance 

Act of 1973, p. 32799] 

Representative Koch said the bill provided “a means for breaking the cycle of deteriorating service 

and declining ridership in which public transportation has been spinning for the past 3 decades.” 

From 23 billion passengers in 1945, the peak year, transit had declined to a 1972 low of 6.5 billion 

passengers. “This is an astounding reduction, but one which suggests the potential of mass transit 

as a means of transportation for millions of people in all parts of the country.” 

He disputed a common criticism:

Some argue that if a mass transportation operating assistance program is enacted, the 

demands for funding will only grow. But this is in fact what would not happen. Indeed, the 

committee sees this bill as providing emergency assistance to stem the tide of deficits now 

plaguing most systems. In the long run, the bill should save money at all levels of 

government. 

H.R. 6452 is designed to salvage and revive existing transit systems, make better use of 

transit capital resources, and return systems to a more sound financial basis. Just as this 

country subsidized trunkline airline operations for a number of years until they were able to 

operate independently, we now need to invest money in transit service so that it can be 

updated to better meet today’s needs and become more financially viable. This cannot be 

done through capital grants alone.

He could not understand why some opposed operating subsidies. The Nation subsidized Amtrak. 

“Why should it be more reasonable to subsidize the operations of railroads carrying people between 

cities than mass transit transporting men and women to and from work in our cities?” The Nation 

subsidied the U.S. merchant marine to continue the U.S. flag fleet. “Similarly, we need mass transit 

operating subsidies so we can be assured that we will have the capability of moving large 

concentrations of people at an efficient pace within our cities.

He disputed that the money would go only to large cities:
1107 

One of the things that recommends this bill over others that have been introduced is that 

every transit system—private and public, urban and rural—can get assistance through H.R. 

6452. The Secretary is directed to allocate funds on the basis of a formula prescribed by the 

bill. The formula assures every transit system of some assistance upon submission, and 

approval by the Secretary, of a comprehensive transit service improvement plan. 

True, a large share of the money would go to large cities. “But, is this so unreasonable that because 

transit systems and transit passengers are concentrated in certain parts of the country, these areas 

will get large portions of the funding?” He pointed out that the “transit crisis is a crisis of national 

proportions affecting all of us.” 

His New York colleague, Representative Biaggi, added: 

Let us make no mistake about it; the billions of dollars poured into highways and related 

facilities by the Federal, State, and local governments do not come from user taxes 

exclusively. There are sizable amounts for maintenance repair, ancillary facilities, traffic 

control systems, highway personnel, police patrols, and so on, that are not covered by user 

taxes. What we do here today is put mass transit service—the service that so many 

Americans, particularly our elderly, our poor, and our handicapped must rely on—on an 

equal footing with highway services. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, 

p. 32799-32800] 

Representative James A. Burke (D-Ma.), who represented a Boston district, said H.R. 6452 was 

designed to alleviate a national problem that would only get worse unless addressed now: 

At another time, a far-sighted Congress saw the growth of the automobile as necessary to 

our society and they aided its growth by mandating the Interstate Highway System. Today, 

it is time again for another, hopefully, more farsighted House to approve aid to transit 

systems which will serve as alternatives to the automobile with its attendant problems of 

pollution, noise, congestion, and land requirements. 

In the mid-1950’s when Congress initiated the interstate highway project America was 

primarily a rural, small-town country and the idea of Congress was to connect major cities 

by the most advanced road network at the time. Today with that vision almost complete the 

emphasis should be upon improving mass transportation within the urban and suburban 

areas because today more than 70 percent of our population live in these urban-suburban 

areas.

As many others pointed out, Representative Burke said that urban mass transportation was no 

longer a local problem. “Instead it now is national in scope, and Congress must deal with the 

problem directly—in the form of operating subsidies.” 

Representative Roe summarized testimony from Stokes of BART and Dr. Ronan: 
1108 

The minute you mention subsidies everybody runs and hides. But everybody testified to the 

point that the States simply cannot carry the cost of the mass transportation systems 

themselves. They have to have additional financial aid, particularly until they reach a 

revenue-producing level from fares collected . . . . Have we deteriorated to a point in this 

country where we refuse to make the investment that is needed, not out of emotion, but out 

of essential necessity? [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 32803-

32804] 

Representative Bingham, who just a few years earlier had battled Representative Fallon on the 

House floor in support of transit, said that since coming to Congress in 1965, “I have been working 

vigorously to help redress this imbalance through opening up the Highway Trust Fund for mass 

transit purposes at local option.” Finally, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 accepted that 

premise:

Unfortunately, it did not go as far as I had proposed, but its adoption represents an important 

victory in the cause of balancing highway needs against mass transit requirements.

H.R. 6452 was “an intelligent approach to a critical problem and deserves the support of all of us 

who are concerned about maintaining the health of our urban areas, fighting pollution, relieving the 

energy crisis, and insuring the mobility of our society, especially the poor, the old, and the 

handicapped.” [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 32807-32808 

After these and other statements, some of which were introduced for the record rather than 

delivered during the debate, the bill was read and amendments considered. The first was by 

Representative Wylie of Ohio who introduced an amendment on behalf of the Nixon 

Administration that would delete the section of H.R. 6452 dealing with operating subsidies. It was 

“not fair” to say the Nation was not providing assistance for mass transit unless it also provided 

operating subsidies. Congress, in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, had increased capital 

grants for mass transit:

There is some inconsistency in that we have already provided an additional $3.1 billion for 

capital grants and now we add an additional $800 million for operating subsidies. I think 

the amendments are counterproductive because the money for each program will be coming 

out of the same pocket: the general revenue fund, and there is only so much to go around. 

I think what we need to do is provide the system first and then say to cities and 

municipalities, “It is up to you to operate it efficiently. We will try to help you with your 

capital grant program, since this will be your first major outlay as far as urban mass 

transportation is concerned” . . . . I am a strong supporter of urban mass transportation, and 

I supported the increase in the capital grant program to 80 percent Federal money . . . and I 

favored opening the highway trust funds for that purpose. 

However, the section he proposed to eliminate would encourage inefficiency because it did not 

provide the Secretary of Transportation with guidelines on how to judge the merit of plans 
1109 

submitted by transit agencies seeking funds. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, 

p. 32811] 

Representative Minish opposed the amendment, saying, it “plainly would gut the bill . . . and there 

would be nothing left in the bill.” He addressed Representative Wylie’s comments on guidelines: 

Let me say that it seems the people on this side of the aisle [Democrats] have more faith in 

the administration than the Members on the other side [Republicans]. There are plenty of 

safeguards in the bill. The Secretary of Transportation has the authority to deal with 

subsidies any way he wants. If transit systems do not measure up to what he thinks ought to 

be done they will not get any money. So it is a fallacy to say that this money is going to be 

wasted. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 32811] 

After additional debate, the House adopted the Wylie amendment, 206 to 203, to drop operating 

subsidies from the bill. [Urban Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1973, p. 32814-32815] 

As debate on H.R. 6452 was nearing an end after action on other amendments, Speaker of the 

House Carl Albert “resumed the chair.” Under House rules, he asked if a separate vote was 

demanded on any amendment. Representative Wright Patman, who chaired the Banking 

Committee, demanded a separate vote on the Wylie amendment. After a voice vote, the Speaker 

declared that the “noes appeared to have it.” Representative Wylie demanded “the yeas and nays.” 

His amendment was defeated, 205 to 210. 

The House then voted on H.R. 6452, which was approved 219 to 195. [Urban Mass Transportation 

Assistance Act of 1973, p. 32823-32824] 

Marjorie Hunter, writing in The New York Times the next day, explained that big-city legislators 

had achieved the victory “only after a day-long excursion on a wild roller-coaster in which they 

found themselves first up, then down, and finally on top.” She explained: 

Democratic floor leaders won an initial victory early today as the House agreed, 282 to 131, 

to bring the bill to the floor for debate. Scarcely hours later, Administration forces 

succeeded in stripping from the bill the operating subsidy provision, leaving the measure 

little more than a skeleton. That vote was 206 to 203. Under House rules, a second vote is 

permitted on any amendments that have been adopted during the amending stage. And 

Democratic managers of the bill, with the help of arm-twisting by Democratic leaders, 

succeeded in reversing the earlier vote. 

The bill then cleared the House by a vote of 219 to 215 and will be sent to a Senate-House 

conference to reconcile the differences.

The victory on the second Wylie amendment vote “was caused primarily by Democratic shifts”:

Voting for the proposal by Mr. Wylie to delete the subsidy provisions of the bill were 146 

Republicans and 68 Democrats. Voting against were 166 Democrats and 37 Republicans. 
1110 

On the subsequent vote, 175 Democrats and 35 Republicans voted against the Wylie 

amendment, while 148 Republicans and 57 Democrats voted for it. 

Despite the last-minute victory, the bill was still facing a Nixon veto threat. Considering that a twothirds vote in both Houses would be needed to overturn a veto, “the narrowness of the vote 

indicates that a Presidential veto would be sustained.” [Hunter, Marjorie, “House Approves 

Subsidy to Cities for Mass Transit,” The New York Times, October 4, 1973] 

On October 4, at a symposium sponsored by the Maryland Transportation Federation in Baltimore, 

a former member of the Nixon Administration suggested that the President was being poorly 

advised on national transportation needs in placing an undue emphasis on urban mass transit. 

Former Federal Highway Administrator Frank Turner told the symposium: 

The only problem we have in our cities is the rush hour traffic—morning and evening—five 

days a week. This constitutes from three to five per cent of the transportation movement in 

our cities.

The news media had drawn public attention to this “exotic part of the nation’s transportation 

problem because they get caught in it every day.” 

The reason the Nixon Administration was emphasizing mass transit was “advice on the part of 

federal administrators that is of the same caliber of advice that we’ve seen of late on another topic 

involving the administration,” Turner said, apparently referring to Watergate: 

What is continually overlooked in the push for mass transit in lieu of the auto is that 

downtown areas are not continuing to draw. Downtown Baltimore is a good example. It’s 

long past due for reconstruction. And like other great cities, reconstruction is underway. 

The assumption is that re-growth will occur after reconstruction. But that’s not true. 

Downtowns are growing at a much slower rate than the community in general. 

As an example, he pointed out that redevelopment in the area around the new World Trade Center 

had not increased the number of people going into downtown New York City: 

Therefore, we don’t need great concentrations of mass transit in downtown areas. And this 

point has not been given proper consideration. What we do need is relief from the pressures 

we have right now. We have blinded ourselves to the major portion of the problem. As a 

result, a disproportionate amount of money has not been applied to this part of the 

transportation problem. 

The country’s “rural transportation system” was the most deficient part of the network, while much 

time was lost in suburban areas where highway travel dominates. In cities, Turner said, “We don’t 

need very much reduction in rush hour traffic to ease the problem. A 30 per cent reduction in the 

traffic flow would make the system adequate.” Requiring carpools would be inexpensive and it 

would provide a better solution to urban transportation problems than new rail systems. “Mass 

transit is the wrong thing to do,” he said in recommending that Federal transportation administrators 
1111 

focus on rural and suburban problems. [Marcks, Drew, “Mass Transit Overrated, Transportation 

Expert Says,” The Baltimore News-American, October 5, 1973] 

Secretary Brinegar, of course, disagreed with Turner’s assessment. On October 15, he was in 

Miami to address the 92nd annual meeting of the American Transit Association. “It’s my 

judgment,” he told the meeting, “that the United States has, at last, turned the corner in its 

acceptance and usage of mass transit.” He continued:

To use a businessman’s phrase—you’re now clearly a “growth industry.” By 1980, as your 

Association approaches its centennial year, the transit industry should be well on its way to 

again being the mainstay of urban transportation in our major cities. This Administration, I 

assure you, is dedicated to that objective. 

Americans increasingly realize that “our long-term concentration on highways and automobiles—to 

the point where we now have 3.4 million miles of the former and 100 plus million of the latter—is 

no longer appropriate.” Highways and motor vehicles had been essential at any earlier time, but the 

priorities of the 1970s and 1980s, such as urban congestion, air pollution, and the energy shortage, 

“now give us little choice but to shift the direction to public transit.”

Despite “a rather late start,” the Federal Government was addressing the urban transportation 

problem. One way was through UMTA’s capital grants program: 

Since January 1969 our Department has approved 250 transit projects involving grants 

totaling $1.83 billion. Last month the 1973 Federal-Aid Highway Act doubled the available 

contract authority, extending it to a total of $6 billion. In this fiscal year we have in the 

neighborhood of $875 million to obligate. Despite the increased Federal share (we now 

match local dollars four to one), it appears that we will be able to approve most of the grant 

applications that are for bus purchases and bus facilities. 

The flexibility afforded urban officials under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 was another 

significant step:

This law overcomes one of the obstacles that has most hindered the progress of public 

transit in the past—the inability of local planners and municipal authorities to bargain 

persuasively for transit funds when Federal dollars for highways were cheaper and more 

readily available. Now, for the first time, cities can choose from a shopping list of 

transportation options in budgeting their portions of Highway Trust Fund monies . . . . 

The result is not only a new flexibility of funding, but immediate flexibility in the sense that 

only budget technicalities stand between urban communities and the accessibility of 

designated funds for transit purposes. Any city preferring an exclusive busway, for 

example, over a proposed freeway should make the fund application accordingly. We will 

work out the bookkeeping details. 

Interstate substitution was another important provision: 
1112 

Mass transit projects—railways or busways—can now be substituted on a dollar-for-dollar 

basis for unbuilt Interstate highway segments no longer considered essential to the National 

system. 

He added:

I wish to caution that the ’73 Highway Act does not guarantee money for transit purposes; it 

simply makes it available. Whether funds are drawn down for highways or transit depends 

ultimately on local initiative. For long-term success of these initiatives, in our view, we 

must have more comprehensive planning at the local level, better cooperation on the part of 

all the authorities involved, and closer coordination between local and state agencies. As 

part of President Nixon’s doctrine of New Federalism, we believe that as much as possible 

of this decion-making should be at the levels of government closest to the people . . . . 

I am hopeful that under the broad and somewhat complex provisions of the Highway Act, 

more and more highway people and transit people, state officials and local authorities, will 

find out how to sit down and work together. Perhaps, hopefully, we’ll even stop thinking of 

“highway people” and “transit people” as having different objectives. 

The result of these and other initiatives was historic:

President Nixon’s commitment to the resurrection and renewal of public transit has yielded 

a most significant milestone in this, the fourth year of that commitment. The annual decline 

in total U.S. transit ridership has stopped, and, for the first time since the end of World War 

II, the trend is moving upwards. 

He acknowledged “the continuing dilemma of operating losses,” but said: 

I wish that I could say that I see a major Federal role in solving this problem, for I know 

how serious it is to you. Yet, in all honesty I believe the proper Federal approach is the one 

we have been advocating: helping with the capital investments but not with operating costs.

UMTA Administrator Herringer also was in Miami to address the annual meeting. In his speech on 

October 17, he confirmed that Secretary Brinegar would recommend that President Nixon veto the 

Emergency Commuter Relief Act if it came to him with $800 million in operating subsidies. 

Responsibility for operating budgets was “principally a local one.” Some of the deficits could be 

eliminated by more efficient operations, particularly during off-peak hours. 

He recommended that the industry needed an aggressive marketing campaign to get across the idea 

that mass transit was cheaper and safer than the automobile and contributed to cleaner air and 

energy conservation. It was time, Herringer said, “we start selling this product on its strengths.” 

[Crosby, Thomas, “Transit Aid Veto Backed by Brinegar,” The Washington Star-News, October 18, 

1973] 
1113 

Downfall of Vice President Agnew

On October 10, 1973, Vice President Agnew, famous for alliterative denunciations of 

Administration and war critics (calling them at one point “nattering nabobs of negativity”), resigned 

to avoid criminal prosecution for tax evasion and money laundering during his years as County 

Executive of Baltimore County, Maryland (1962-1966), and Governor of Maryland (1967-1969). 

The scheme involved accepting “kickbacks” from consultants who won contracts with the county or 

State. 

As part of the agreement with prosecutors, Agnew pleaded nolo contendere (no contest) to a single 

charge of income tax evasion on $29,500 in “payments” received as Governor in 1967. In return 

for his resignation and plea, the Department of Justice agreed not to bring any other criminal 

charges against Agnew.

Jerome Wolff, the Agnew-appointed chairman-director of the State Roads Commission of 

Maryland, was one of the prosecutor’s key witnesses. Cohen and Witcover explained Wolff’s role: 

One of his chief tasks was to monitor every consulting engineering and construction contract 

in the state. It was a commanding position; under state law, for all practical purposes he 

controlled the selection of engineers and architects on every roads commission contract, 

subject only to Agnew’s approval. 

What made Wolff especially valuable to prosecutors was that he had documented his activities, 

giving the prosecutors a paper trail to follow.

The kickbacks usually averaged 3 to 5 percent of the design fee, but at least one engineer was 

paying 10 percent. The money was split among participants in the scheme, with Agnew receiving 

50 percent of the kickback. 

Another figure in the scheme was Allen Green, president of Green Associates, Inc., an engineering 

company. He met with Governor Agnew about six times a year: 

The two men usually discussed state business at such meetings, and Green nearly always 

would take the opportunity to bring up the subject of special interest to him—state road 

contracts. He would tell Governor Agnew which road and bridge contracts his company 

was interested in; sometimes Agnew would promise him a contract, sometimes tell him it 

had been committed to somebody else. In all this, the payoffs were never mentioned, but 

they continued on a regular basis. [Cohen and Witcover, p, 119, 134] 

Although Vice President Agnew had little control over Federal contracts, he continued to receive 

kickbacks from his Maryland associates based on contracts still underway from his time as 

Governor. 

Kickbacks were not unique to Maryland. Shortly after Vice President Agnew stepped down, The 

Wall Street Journal pointed out that prosecutors had identified Louisiana, New Jersey, and 
1114 

Pennsylvania as trouble spots. In New Jersey, for example, convicted officials included a Member 

of Congress, the Mayors of Jersey City and Newark, and two Secretaries of State, all on kickback 

charges.

The Journal added: 

Particularly susceptible to abuse are contracts for architectural and engineering services—of 

the kind that led to Agnew’s exit from the Vice President’s office. [These] contracts are 

negotiated, rather than bid for competitively. The contracting official is given much leeway 

to choose among qualified applicants, thus opening the process to political influence. 

[Karmin, Monroe, “Throughout the U.S., Public Contracts Tied to ‘Campaign Gifts,’” The 

Wall Street Journal, October 17, 1973] 

Theodore White, who had covered passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 as a reporter, 

saw the Agnew abuses as an outgrowth of the Interstate System. Referring to the 1956 Act, he 

wrote:

One can follow the thread of this single Highway Act on to politics: the reasoning behind 

the Federal Highway Act was so seductive as to melt resistance. It ran thus: the entries to 

and exits from big cities were so congested that a way had to be created for people to move 

into and out of such cities easily and go wherever they wanted to. But where more and more 

Americans wanted to go was the suburbs; and suburbia was to change American politics just 

as much as the opening of the West a century before. 

Suburbia, he said, “had a new kind of politics, and only word of mouth to explain it.” Suburbanites 

knew little about how they were governed, lacking the newspaper, radio, and television coverage 

that focused on the big city: 

Suburban politics revolve around land—the homeowners’ use of land; where new 

expressways will go; where new factories will go; zoning ordinances and land-use variances 

that politicians broker among themselves for money. 

In the suburbs, the usual big city graft (“from prostitution, gambling, ticket-fixing”) was minimal. 

The “graft that comes from real-estate deals, zoning fixes and highway construction is maximal.” 

In the context of this new environment, Agnew had been “on the take by 1962 from engineering 

firms, [and] he remained on the take all the way through his career, until it was learned in 1973 that 

he was on the take still.” [White, p. 44-45] 

[Today, White is best known for his series The Making of the President that began with the 1960 

election, but his article, “Where Are Those New Roads” in Collier’s (January 6, 1956) is an 

insightful contemporary view of the political and economic forces that had killed the Federal-Aid 

Highway Act of 1955 in Congress.) 
1115 

In the turmoil of the Vice Presidential resignation, President Nixon saw Representative Ford as a 

safe choice for Vice President because he would win confirmation easily. He had been in the 

House of Representatives since January 3, 1949, serving as Republican Minority Leader since 1965. 

 He had never wanted to be President; his highest aspiration had been to become Speaker of the 

House if Republicans could gain control of the House (a feat they would not achieve until the midterm elections of 1994). 

When President Nixon announced his choice on October 12, congressional Democrats joined 

Republicans in praising the Minority Leader. Shortly after the announcement, Engineering NewsRecord commented:

When President Nixon nominated Rep. Gerald R. Ford (R.-Mich.) to be Vice President, he 

selected one of the best friends the roadbuilders have. Ford has long been known as one of 

the most forceful advocates of highway construction. On only one occasion this year did he 

split with the Administration over major legislation. That involved diverting money from 

the Highway Trust Fund for construction of public transit systems. Ford argued that the 

construction funds would only be a foot in the door. If it was approved, he predicted, 

operating subsidies would be siphoned out too. [“Ford’s Better Idea is More Highways,” 

Washington Observer, Engineering News-Record, October 18, 1973, p. 7] 

Journalist John Osborne wrote about the confirmation hearings for Vice President-designate Ford in 

the December 15 “Nixon Watch” column in The New Republic: 

The chairman and members of the Senate and House committees that approved the 

nomination of Congressman Gerald Ford to be the next Vice President of the United States 

spoke often at the hearings on the nomination as if they expected Ford to replace Richard 

Nixon in the presidency and were deciding whether he is fit to do so . . . . Chairman 

Howard Cannon said that his Senate Rules Committee “should view its obligations as no 

less important than the selection of a potential President of the United States.” Chairman 

Peter Rodino said at the start of the House Judiciary Committee’s hearings that “what we 

may indeed be undertaking this morning is an examination of a man’s qualifications and 

fitness to hold the highest office in America, that of President of the United States.” 

Ford understood, “and answered matter of factly when he was asked what he’d do ‘if you were 

President.’” 

He explained that his 25 years in the House, 8 of them as Minority Leader, qualified him to be Vice 

President:

I believe I can be a ready conciliator and calm communicator between the White House and 

Capitol Hill, between the reelection mandate of the Republican President and the equally 

emphatic mandate of the Democratic 93rd Congress. 

Contrary to what some had said, history suggested he would not be an effective White House 

lobbyist, as Osborne wrote: 
1116 

Ford indicated in different answers that he did and didn’t think that a realistic view. 

Senators Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and Alben Barkley [Vice President under 

President Harry Truman, 1949-1953] discovered in recent times that their clout with the 

Senate melted away when they became Vice Presidents. Ford’s disgraced predecessor, 

Spiro T. Agnew, never recovered from the harm he did himself during his first months in 

the vice presidency when he presumed to tell senators how to vote. 

Questioners periodically asked if he supported the President’s individual positions or generally. He 

said of his relationship with President Nixon: 

Of course I support the President. He is my friend of a quarter century. His political 

philosophy is very close to my own. He is the head of my party and the constitutional chief 

executive of the nation. He was chosen quite emphatically by the people a year ago as I, if 

confirmed as Vice President, will not have been. 

He had periodically disagreed with President Nixon and had said so, but acknowledged that as Vice 

President, “I imagine . . . you do your presidential criticizing a little more privately than publicly.” 

[Osborne, John, The Fifth Year of The Nixon Watch, Liveright, 1974, p. 209-212] 

Representative Ford resigned from the House after he was sworn in as Vice President on December 

6, 1973. He had been confirmed by the Senate on November 27 by a vote of 92 to 3, and by the 

House, earlier on December 6, by a vote of 387 to 35. (The three opposing Senators were Thomas 

F. Eagleton (D-Mo.), briefly Senator McGovern’s Vice Presidential running mate in 1972, William 

D. Hathaway (D-Me.), and Gaylord Nelson.) 

(On August 13, 1974, the National Society of Professional Engineers and the Maryland chapter of 

the society announced that Jerome B. Wolff, who had been president of Greiner Environmental 

Services., Inc., since leaving his position on Vice President Agnew’s staff, had been expelled from 

both professional organizations. The action against Wolff and several other engineers was taken 

“with prejudice,” meaning the engineers could never be reinstated. They were expelled “for 

unethical conduct” involving payoffs to former Vice President Agnew and his successor as 

Baltimore County Executive, Dale Anderson. [Walsh, Edward, “Engineers Expel 5 in Md. 

Scandals,” The Washington Post, August 14, 1974] 

The Quiet Revolution

Administrator Tiemann addressed the Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry on 

September 26, 1973, during “National Highway Week.” The subject of his speech was “The Quiet 

Revolution.” He said: 

I think it is important to explain to Americans in all walks of life what today’s Federal-State 

highway program is really all about, because highways affect all of us individually in our 

everyday activities, and collectively in the attainment of our national goals.
1117 

Unfortunately, many misconceptions and misstatements are prevalent about the highway 

program and how it relates to our present-day lifestyle. This, perhaps, is because both friend 

and foe alike are generally unaware of a “quiet revolution” that has been going on in the 

highway program, one that already has brought sweeping changes in direction, purpose and 

procedure. 

He wanted to describe this revolution and “explain why much of the routine criticism you hear of 

the highway program is no longer accurate—or justified.” 

He began by saying the highway program was no longer a separate entity:

Highways are a part of the total transportation team, and are fully in harness with the other 

modes. We are all pulling in the same direction—toward this total transportation the United 

States must have—and I think we are beginning to make notable progress. 

FHWA worked “in very close concert and harmony” with UMTA, NHTSA, FAA, and FRA, “all 

parts of the Department of Transportation team.” As a result, the goals and methods of the Federalaid highway program had changed dramatically:

Today the program is very much people-oriented, and environment-oriented. We want it to 

be responsive to the needs and desires of all of our people—for, after all, while highways 

are indispensable servants in our society, we must never permit them to become our masters. 

He acknowledged the “loud voices raised in the land” that were “harshly critical of the highway 

program—even to the extent that some would do away with it altogether.” This view was 

unrealistic since “almost 95 percent of the people and goods in this Nation are moved by highway.” 

 He thought some critics had “gone to an extreme—and untenable—position” because they were 

“true zealots, and this is their cause, so no amount of logic or compromise will sway them.” Many 

environmentalists, city planners, mass transit advocates, and other highway opponents held a couple 

of basic misconceptions, namely that highway officials were “inimical to their objectives” and that

“highways and their objectives are an either/or proposition.” 

Neither premise was valid:

Those of us in the highway program do not oppose environmental, ecological, transit or 

other worthy goals; indeed, we are very much in sympathy with them, and we, too, are 

working for them.

And this most definitely is not an either/or proposition. In our society today we are all very 

much aware of the need to preserve our environment and to protect our ecology, and of the 

vital necessity of providing dynamic new mass transit facilities for our urban areas. At the 

same time, America needs highways, along with all other forms of transportation, if it is to 

continue to progress. And these highways must be modern, safe and efficient. 
1118 

Both sides had made mistakes and were guilty of misunderstandings. “Neither those who plan and 

build highways nor those who oppose highways have been without fault in this regard, and I would 

admit this freely.” Highway officials had learned much from listening to their critics and as a result 

the highway program was “vastly improved over the highway program of yesteryear.” 

The “war,” if it ever existed, with other interests was over. Now was a time for “mutual good will, 

trust, and cooperation.” FHWA would do its part. “We want the highway program to be a good 

neighbor to all other desirable activities, and we intend to see to it that it is.” He invited 

“conservationists, city planners, sociologists, or members of whatever disciplines” think something 

was wrong “to feel free to come in and tell us about it.” He promised a “respectful and honest 

hearing.” 

The problems in the Nation’s cities were well known, certainly to Chicago residents. The solution 

was obvious: “we must persuade significant numbers of people to leave their automobiles at home, 

particularly during the rush hours, and travel by mass transit or by car pools.” In this regard, the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 was landmark legislation “because it provides immediate 

flexibility in transportation decisionmaking in urban areas.” He cited its breakthroughs on use of 

Federal-aid urban system funds, withdrawal of controversial Interstate segments, and increased 

UMTA funding. “The Department of Transportation feels that cities should have a choice as to 

what transportation modes are best for their particular needs, and this Act provides them with this 

choice.” 

He emphasized that highway officials were not opposed to rail rapid transit. “We are 

wholeheartedly for it wherever it is needed and can be justified.” Elsewhere, “mass transit will of 

necessity be bus-oriented, utilizing exclusive bus lanes or other forms of preferential treatment.” 

He identified environmental concerns as “another area of great importance.” At FHWA, he said, 

“we sincerely believe that the environment is just as important as highways, and we have an 

unequivocal commitment to making certain that the environment is protected.” The environmental 

impact statement was “firmly established as standard operating procedure for State highway 

departments.” The States also were preparing Action Plans for FHWA approval indicating how 

environmental consideration would be reflected in each State’s highway planning and how the 

public would be involved in early decisionmaking: 

Of course, these things are required by Federal law. But I personally believe, as Edmund 

Burke once said, “It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do, but what humility, reason, and 

justice tell me I ought to do.” In other words, we are doing all of these things to protect the 

environment because it is right to do so. 

He commented on FHWA’s commitment to fair treatment of relocatees, equal opportunity and civil 

rights, bicycling, highway safety, and reduction of red tape: 

There is more—much more—but no more time today to discuss it. I trust, however, that the 

things I have mentioned have helped to make you better aware of the “quiet revolution” that 
1119 

has been, and is, making today’s highway program as different from that of the past as is a 

1974 model car from the Model T, which started it all.

And I leave you with this assurance: we are going to continue to make sure that the 

highway program is a good neighbor to all of the other needed programs in our society. For 

as Mark Train put it, “Always do the right thing. This will gratify some people, and 

astonish the rest.” [Emphasis in original] 

The Energy Crisis

After much debate and delay, Congress had settled on the transportation balance reflected in the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. Transit, bicycle, and urban interests had wanted more, but the 

highway interests had worked hard to preserve the “trust” in the Highway Trust Fund. While rival 

interests fought for their share of the funds, forces were underway that would aid transit, bicycle, 

and urban interests in ways their supporters could not have foreseen when President Nixon signed 

the legislation. In addition, the House and Senate had approved the Emergency Commuter Relief 

Act to provide, if a presidential veto could be overturned, Federal operating assistance. 

In recent years, the public had been adjusting to reduced availability of gas for their cars. Transit 

and bicycle interests had added the energy crisis to their arguments for increased funding from a 

guaranteed source. Just 3 days before the Oval Office ceremony in which President Nixon 

approved the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, officials announced on Friday, August 10, that 

gasoline, heating oil, and other petroleum products would remain under price controls indefinitely. 

The present rigid controls would remain in effect through August 18, to be replaced by a slightly 

less rigid freeze. According to The New York Times: 

John T. Dunlop, director of the Cost of Living Council, said that the petroleum ceiling 

would result in some rollbacks in gasoline and heating oil prices below freeze levels. He 

does not expect such rollbacks to be widespread, however. 

The most visible evidence to the customer of the new controls will be red-white-and-blue 

stickers on service station gasoline pumps. They will display the lawful prices and octane 

ratings. [Associated Press, “Price Controls Are Kept on ‘Gas’ and Oil,” The New York 

Times, August 11, 1973] 

These forces were known by the Members of Congress who approved the Federal-Aid Highway Act 

of 1973. They could not know that the single event that would most affect the Federal-aid highway 

program would take place just 2 months after the legislation became law – not in the United States 

but Lebanon. 

Israel and several Arab States led by Egypt and Syria were in the midst of the Yom Kippur War 

(October 6 to 26, 1973), which Israel would win. The war would impact the entire United States, 

but it also helped bring about one of the most startling events in the Watergate investigation. 
1120 

In May, Attorney General Richardson had appointed a Special Prosecutor to investigate the 

widespread abuses grouped under the name Watergate. Richardson selected Archibald Cox, a 

former Solicitor General (January 1961–July 1965) and a professor at Harvard Law School, for the 

post. In October, with the Administration absorbed in diplomatic efforts to help Israel and 

mounting an airlift, President Nixon and his aides decided that the investigation had become too 

much of a distraction. At 8:15 p.m. on Friday, October 19, the White House released a statement:

For a number of months, there has been a strain imposed on the American people by the 

aftermath of Watergate . . . . Our government, like our nation, must remain strong and 

effective. What matters most, in this critical hour, is our ability to act—and to act in a way 

that enables us to control events, not to be paralyzed and overwhelmed by them. At home, 

the Watergate issue has taken on overtones of a partisan political contest. Concurrently, 

there are those in the international community who may be tempted by our Watergaterelated difficulties at home to misread America’s unity and resolve in meeting the 

challenges we confront abroad. 

I have concluded that it is necessary to take decisive actions that will avoid any possibility 

of a constitutional crisis and that will lay the groundwork upon which we can assure unity of 

purpose at home and end the temptation abroad to test our resolve. 

The President announced he would compromise on the White House tapes by making summaries of 

them available to Senator John Stennis (D-Ms.). The 72-year old hard-of-hearing right-wing

Senator, a strong supporter of the President, would listen to the tapes to verify the accuracy of the 

summaries. President Nixon also indicated that he was ordering Cox, a Federal employee, to end 

his inquiry. Cox refused to end his investigation. 

On Saturday, October 20, General Haig ordered Attorney General Richardson to fire Cox for 

insubordination. When Richardson refused and resigned, the White House asked William 

Ruckelshaus, now Deputy Attorney General, to fire Cox. He refused and resigned. Both had made 

commitments to the congressional investigators regarding the independence of the Special 

Prosecutor. Next, the White House turned to Solicitor General Robert H. Bork, who had taken 

office only a few months earlier. Having made no such commitment, he fired Cox. Press Secretary 

Ron Ziegler announced the news at 8:22 p.m., Saturday Night. What quickly became known as the 

“Saturday Night Massacre” would quickly impact the course of the investigation into the Watergate 

abuses. As White put it:

Thus playing with fate brilliantly across the world, the President, still resolute, played the 

same gambler’s game at home—but badly, mindlessly, totally miscalculating the 

consequences . . . . The reaction that evening was as near instantaneous as it had been at 

Pearl Harbor, or the day of John F. Kennedy’s assassination—an explosion as unpredictable 

and as sweeping as mass hysteria . . . .

Within three day, Charles Alan Wright, the President’s Constitutionalist, stood before Judge 

Sirica to capitulate, to announce that the President would yield the tapes demanded. “This 
1121 

President does not defy the law,” said Wright, though his client three days before had done 

exactly that. [White, p. 263-271] 

While President Nixon used the war to try to end the Watergate investigation, Israel’s enemies 

decided to use the war to punish the small country’ allies. On October 17, 1973, 11 Middle East 

nations, all members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), 

proclaimed a progressively increasing monthly cut in exports of oil to the United States and other 

nations perceived as unfriendly to Arab goals. The cut soon became a boycott until March 1974. 

The OAPEC and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Counties (OPEC), which included nonArab countries, used the boycott as an opportunity to raise the price of their oil after the boycott. 

Daniel Yergin described the reaction:

What better recipe could there have been for panic prices than the oil supply situation in the 

memorable final months of 1973? The ingredients included war and violence, cutbacks in 

supply, embargoes, shortages, desperate consumers, the specter of further cutbacks, and the 

possibility that the Arabs would never restore production. Fear and uncertainty were 

pervasive and had a self-fulfilling effect: both oil companies and consumers frantically 

sought additional supplies not only for current use but also for storage against future 

shortages and the unknown. Panic buying meant extra demand in the market. Indeed, 

buyers were scrambling desperately to get any oil they could find. “We weren’t bidding just 

for oil,” said one independent refiner who did not have a secure source of supply. “We were 

bidding for our life” . . . . 

The age of shortage was at hand. The prospect, at best, was gloomy: lost economic growth, 

recession, and inflation . . . . Moreover, the United States, the world’s foremost superpower 

and the underwriter of the international order, had now been thrown on the defensive, 

humiliated, by a handful of small nations . . . . 

In the United States, the shortfall struck at fundamental beliefs in the endless abundance of 

resources, convictions so deeply rooted in the American character and experience that a 

large part of the public did not even know, up until October 1973, that the United States 

imported any oil at all. [Yergin, Daniel, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & 

Power, A Touchstone Book, 1993, p. 615-616] 

Journalist and author David Halberstam described the immediate impact:

The American economy and the American people were completely unprepared for the 

change. The squandering of oil was built into the very structure of American life. Everyone 

had become dependent upon cheap energy. Almost all American cars, for example, had 

automatic transmissions, which used 25 percent more gas than the old manual transmission. 

 With many American brands of car, if a buyer wanted a manual shift, he had to say so in 

advance so it could be ordered from the factory. By the time of the Yom Kippur War, 85 

percent of the job holders in America drove to work every day—and as a result, public 

transportation had atrophied. Suddenly gas was expensive and scarce. In a short time it 
1122 

went from 36 cents a gallon to 60. People lined up for hours at every service station. There 

were fights as drivers tried to jump the line, reports of bribes, and even one murder 

committed in a struggle for gas. In the neurosis created by the boycott there was a new 

craze called “topping off,” which was an attempt to keep one’s tank perpetually filled. At 

one service station in Pittsburgh a motorist came in and bought 11 cents’ worth, and the 

attendant spit in his face. The Boston police department came up with an interesting 

statistic: The number of cases of automobile arson went up dramatically, from 149 to 330, 

in the year when the gas prices jumped; most of those torched cars were gas guzzlers. In the 

first quarter of 1974 the use of gas dropped 7 percent in the United States instead of rising 

the normal 7 percent. [Halberstam, David, The Reckoning, William P. Morrow and 

Company, 1986, p. 458-459] 

In an address on November 7, 1973, President Nixon advised the Nation that the energy crisis was 

“a problem we must all face together in the months and years ahead.” The Federal Government, he 

said, would take several steps, such as preventing industries and utilities that use coal from 

converting power plants to use oil, reducing the number of flights as well as the supply of heating 

oil for homes and offices (by 15 percent), reducing the temperatures in government buildings, and 

speeding up the licensing and construction of nuclear power plants. He asked State and local 

officials to take appropriate steps, including: 

How many times have you gone along the highway or the freeway, wherever the case may 

be, and seen hundreds and hundreds of cars with only one individual in that car? This we 

must all cooperate to change.

Consistent with safety and economic considerations, I am also asking Governors to take 

steps to reduce highway speed limits to 50 miles per hour. This action alone, if it is adopted 

on a nationwide basis, could save over 200,000 barrels of oil a day, just reducing the speed 

limit to 50 miles per hour. 

 

In addition, the President indicated he would direct his staff to work with Congress on emergency 

energy legislation. It would make daylight saving time a year-round provision, relax regulations to 

balance environmental interests with energy requirements, impose energy conservation measures 

such as restrictions on working hours for shopping centers, fund exploration and development of oil 

from the naval petroleum reserves, and give the Federal Government authority to reduce highway 

speed limits throughout the Nation as well as the power to adjust the schedules of planes, ships, and 

other carriers.

These were all short term measures. For the long term, he outlined measures his Administration 

would take, including the launch of a campaign to free the country from reliance on oil from other 

parts of the world. He was convinced the Nation had the reserves, as well as the technology to meet 

this goal. He cited the 1940s Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb and President 

Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon in 10 years: 

Let us unite in committing the resources of this Nation to a major new endeavor, an 

endeavor that in this Bicentennial Era we can appropriately call “Project Independence.” 
1123 

Let us set as our national goal, in the spirit of Apollo, with the determination of the 

Manhattan Project, that by the end of this decade we will have developed the potential to 

meet our own energy needs without depending on any foreign energy sources. 

Let us pledge that by 1980, under Project Independence, we shall be able to meet America’s 

energy needs from America’s own energy resources.

Yergin said of Project Independence: 

To call this plan ambitious was a considerable understatement; it would require many 

technological advances, vast amounts of money, and a sharp swerve away from the new 

road of environmentalism. His staff had told him that the goal of energy independence by 

1980 was impossible, and suggested that it was thus silly to proclaim. Nixon overruled his 

staff. For energy was now both a crisis and high politics. 

Nixon fired his energy czar, John Love, and replaced him with Deputy Treasury Secretary William 

Simon: 

Telling the Cabinet about Simon’s new post, Nixon likened it to Albert Speer’s position as 

armaments overlord in the Third Reich. Had Speer not been given the power to override the 

German bureaucracy, Nixon explained, Germany would have been defeated far earlier. 

Simon was somewhat discomfited by the comparison. Nixon further said that Simon would 

have “absolute authority.” But that was one thing he surely did not have in fragmented, 

contentious Washington. [The Prize, p. 617-618] 

On December 11, 1973, the Senate Committee on Public Works held a hearing on “Transportation 

and the New Energy Policies.” One of the witnesses was George H. Andrews, Director of 

Highways for the Washington State Highway Department and president of the American 

Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), as AASHO was now 

called. He reported on a survey of AASHTO’s member States. He said that “the uncertainty as to 

the availability of critical materials such as asphalt, cement, reinforcing and structural steel, and 

petroleum products is making it difficult to obtain reasonable bids in 23 States.” Some States, he 

said, “are curtailing some of their maintenance activities” to conserve fuel, while every State was 

experiencing revenue reductions as a result in a decline in State gas tax revenues and was adjusting 

project schedules in view of the new financial reality. 

He reported on the “social and economic effects” if all highway construction were suspended in 

1974. Such an action would save 148 million gallons of gasoline and 450 million gallons of diesel 

fuel. It also would result in increased unemployment totaling 1,291,000 workers, while the lack of 

improved facilities with safer designs would prevent a reduction of 9,070 injuries and 460 fatalities. 

He summarized other “extreme financial hardships” that would result from curtailment:

A great deal of heavy equipment being used today because of the national commitment to 

building of the interstate program is bought on time and the lending institutions that have 
1124 

extended the credit may have to call loans. If this happens, it could mean bankruptcy to 

many private businesses. 

Many States had lowered speed limits, some even before President Nixon had called for a 

reduction: 

Many of the States have already taken action individually to lower speed limits on not only 

the interstate system but on all highway systems within their borders . . . . [As] of 

December 3, 1973 . . . only two States—Massachusetts and South Carolina—have adopted a 

two-tiered system [different speed limits for trucks/buses and other vehicles]. 

Nine States have set 50 miles per hour limits and 7 have set 55 miles per hour. Three States 

have set dual limits with higher speeds permitted on the interstate and turnpike systems . . . . 

 Some States are withholding action, pending action taken in the Congress. 

AASHTO had not formally recommended a maximum speed limit, although Andrews said that in 

testimony before the House Committee on Energy, AASHTO had stated that 55 mph “was probably 

a desirable maximum.” However, AASHTO was particularly concerned about speed differentials 

where one class of vehicles, such as trucks and buses, had a higher speed limit than other vehicles 

on the same road. One of the primary causes of crashes is speed differential, in part because it 

encourages lane changes and other maneuvering among lanes. 

On January 2, 1974, President Nixon signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, 

which prohibited FHWA from approving Federal-aid projects in any State that had a speed limit 

over 55 m.p.h. The provision was to go into effect 60 days after enactment. The Act also 

prohibited the use of variable speed limits for different classes of vehicles and authorized the 

Secretary to carry out a demonstration project to encourage the use of carpools in urban areas. The 

speed-limit restriction on project approvals would end when the President declared the end of the 

fuel shortage or June 30, 1975, whichever came first. 

The President, working out of his home in San Clemente, California, said he was “gratified and 

encouraged” by the number of States that had voluntarily lowered speed limits as he had requested. 

 “I have also been pleased by the response of so many Americans to my request that they slow down 

on the highways even when the speed limits have not officially been lowered.” He estimated that 

lowered speeds would save nearly 200,000 barrels of fuel a day. His brief remarks concluded: 

With the attitude of cooperation and mutual concern expressed by a wide range of 

conservation actions by individual Americans, the social and economic impacts of the 

energy crisis can be minimized and we can look even more confidently to the day when we 

will become self-sufficient in energy.

(The requirement authorized by the emergency legislation was sometimes referred to as a “national 

speed limit,” but in requiring FHWA to withhold project approvals if speed limits were not 

lowered, the measure recognized that State and local governments, not the Federal Government, 

impose speed limits.) 
1125 

The oil boycott was short-lived, ending in mid-March, but it had long-lasting effects on how 

Americans thought about transportation. Average vehicle distance traveled declined in 1973 for the 

first time since rationing of gasoline and rubber had ended after World War II. Alternatives to the 

motor vehicle, particularly transit, gained momentum. Officials promoted carpooling while 

bicycling received the biggest boost as a means of transportation it had received since the 1890’s. 

Americans began turning away from the large cars they had favored, increasing the market share of 

foreign auto manufacturers whose small, fuel efficient vehicles gradually increased their share of

the U.S. market. Historian John Steele Gordon described the impact of the 1973 energy crisis: 

With gas in short supply, far more fuel-efficient European cars saw a sharp rise in demand. 

The Volkswagen Beetle, which had had only a niche market among college students and 

families with second cars, became an icon of the new automotive era and would have a 

longer production run than even the Ford Model T. Japanese cars also began to invade the 

American market, revealing starkly how poorly many American cars were manufactured and 

how inefficient American manufacturing had become.

With the long period needed to redesign and retool, the American automobile industry 

would struggle for more than a decade to regain its footing. By the time it did, the 

automobile business had become one of the first heavy manufacturing industries to be 

thoroughly globalized. [An Empire of Wealth, p. 387] 

The Safety Bonus

A week before the oil boycott began, The Washington Post carried a Los Angeles Times article that 

began:

Nearly 60,000 people will be killed on U.S. highways this year. That might not be much of 

a surprise unless you recall that more than seven years ago—on September 9, 1966, to be 

exact—President Lyndon B. Johnson signed two major traffic safety laws in the hope the 

nation could “cure the highway disease” that already had killed more than 1.5 million 

Americans since the turn of the century.

Despite “billions of dollars” spent since then on highway safety, 58,000 people would be killed on 

the roads in 1973, up from 53,000 dead in 1966. At some point in 1974, “the 2 millionth U.S. 

traffic fatality will be recorded.” True, the fatality rate was lower, reflecting increased miles of 

travel, but in 1966, people had expected the number of fatalities to decline.

Even the most optimistic safety experts were talking about “holding the line” rather than reducing 

the death toll. “And others say even that is a pipe dream.” For example, Roy Haeusler, the 

Chrysler Corporation’s chief safety engineer, said, “We’re going to have more fatalities in 1980 

than we have now. There will be no reduction, much less a reduction of one-half,” as once 

predicted by government officials. 
1126 

The article attributed the continued climb in fatalities to several factors. One was the “continuing 

debate over the most effective way to combat highway deaths.” The debate over whether to 

improve cars, highways, or drivers “has caused such a diffusion of effort that no area has received 

strong, sustained attention.” Further, the most effective moves “are considered too costly or too 

radical to implement.” 

Improved safety standards since 1966 “have added more than $300 to the price of the average car.” 

If new car sales in 1974 totaled 11 million, “buyers will pay a $3.3 billion safety premium for their 

cars.” However, the only change “that promises significantly greater survival in accidents is the 

unpopular seat belt system.” Polls indicate that only 3 out of 10 people use the systems. “And no 

other advances on the horizon appear good enough to cause a drop in the annual death toll.” 

The results of efforts to improve driver behavior also were disappointing. William E. McCormick, 

assistant director of the University of Michigan’s Highway Safety Research Institute, suggested that 

attempts to change driver behavior were futile because no one understood why drivers make unsafe 

choices. According to traffic safety engineer B. J. Campbell of the University of North Carolina’s 

Highway Safety Research Center, driver education efforts failed because “many of our driver 

programs in highway safety are the equivalent of dividing one aspirin among 10 people with a 

headache. If the headaches are nor cured we shouldn’t blame the aspirin.” [Fisher, Dan, “U.S. 

Highway Deaths Still Seen Increasing,” The Washington Post, October 7, 1973] 

In an interview with United Press International, Secretary Brinegar said the focus of safety efforts 

would now be on the driver: 

I think that some of the quick, early things that could have been done to the automobile have 

been done—the collapsible steering gear, improved windshields, the seatbelts, the shoulder 

harness, and perhaps ahead of us, the air bag—those technological things have pretty well 

been explored. 

He clarified that, “I don’t think we are letting up on the car, but in terms of quick payoff, we’re 

back harder on the driver.” One of the biggest concerns was alcohol, which was involved in about 

half the fatal highway crashes. “Those things seem to tell you that if you want to put a lot of effort 

into quick results—which the country wants—it should be on the driver, and I think that’s where 

you’ll see” a renewed emphasis:

Brinegar said he favors stiffer restrictions against drunk drivers. “I think that we should 

move to a very strict legal action” in the event a drunk driver is caught. He suggested he 

would “come close” to recommending mandatory license suspensions for such drivers. “I’d 

have to look at some of the legal sides, but I’d surely do something essentially like that.” 

“It’s a matter of singling out the group—the young people, and the people who are excessive 

drinkers, are clearly the ones who are causing most of the accidents,” he said.

Secretary Brinegar also argued that while more progress was needed, the 1966 safety legislation had 

been effective. The fatality rate (deaths per 100 million miles traveled) had fallen since 1966. “If 
1127 

the traffic death rate stayed as it was in 1966, the fatality [total] would now be about 75,000 or 

80,000 a year” because of increased traffic. [United Press International, “Driver Safety Pushed,” 

The Washington Star-News, October 22, 1973] 

The energy crisis would have many unpredictable impacts, but one of the first was an unexpected 

bonus in highway safety. After initially focusing on energy savings, officials began to see a safety 

benefit by late November 1973. According to Eugene L. Lunn of NHTSA’s research institute, the 

lower speed limit could reduce fatalities by 1 percent or 5,000 lives a year. “There will be a drastic 

reduction if we went through all of 1974 with less traveling and at lower speeds.” 

Experts were divided on this prediction. They agreed that reduced travel miles would have a safety 

impact, but other changes resulting from the energy crisis could counteract the impact. Smaller 

vehicles might be more fuel efficient, but also less safe. Motorists carrying extra cans of gas in 

their trunk increased their risk of a fire following a rear-end collision. And speed differences 

among vehicles on a road, always one of the main causes of crashes, could increase risks as drivers 

ignoring the speed limit weave among slower vehicles. Dr. Haddon of the Insurance Institute for 

Highway Safety said the short-term impact of lower speed limits was “hard to assess because it 

depends on how strictly speed limits are enforced and the availability of gas.” He added that, “in 

the long run the increased use of small cars will increase injuries and deaths if controls continue 

because we are putting people in smaller packages.” [Lyons, Richard D., “Slower Speed May 

Savey 5,000 Lives Next Year,” The New York Times, November 27, 1973] 

Very quickly, however, officials noticed a decline in crashes. As The Washington Post reported: 

Serious highway traffic accidents dropped sharply over the long Thanksgiving weekend this 

year in what highway safety experts said yesterday was an apparent side effect of the 

nation’s energy crisis . . . . Figures compiled by the American Automobile Association 

showed a 22.2 percent drop in nationwide traffic fatalities. There were 679 fatalities during 

last year’s Thanksgiving weekend and 528 this year, according to the AAA figures. 

Traffic volumes fluctuated in minor ways from 1972 to 1973, but State police and highway officials 

considered the reduced speeds the key factor. Chairman Reed of the National Highway 

Transportation Safety Board said, “It’s certainly reasonable to assume that wherever we have a 

reduction in speed we’re going to see a corresponding drop in severe accidents.” [Richarus, Bill, 

“Accidents Decline as Speeds Fall,” The Washington Post, November 28, 1973] 

The safety bonus resulted in additional support for the Federal legislation on speed limits. 

In 1974, the country experienced 46,049 highway deaths, compared with 55,096 fatalities in 1973. 

The reduction was widely attributed to the speed limit of 55 m.p.h. and reduced traffic volumes. 

With the 55 m.p.h. speed limit still in effect after the boycott, fatalities increased to a post-boycott 

peak over 50,000 in 1978, before beginning a gradual decrease to 39,230 deaths in 1992 and 32,367 

in 2011, the lowest level since 1949 even though drivers traveled nearly 46 billion more miles than 

in 1949. Initially, the decline was widely attributed to the lower speed limits, but other changes, 
1128 

such as safer vehicles and added safety features on roads, were occurring at the same time and may 

have had a longer term positive benefits for highway safety that may account for the continued 

progress after the Federal requirement was lifted.

AASHTO in L.A.

AASHTO held its annual meeting in Los Angeles beginning November 12, 1973. When Mayor 

Bradley had to cancel his planned address of welcome, AASHTO found a substitute: Governor 

Ronald Reagan. Instead of an impromptu greeting that would have left a large block of empty time 

for AASHTO to fill, Governor Reagan filled the hour with a speech on highways and the 

environment. He began: 

In recent years, most of us have become a great deal more concerned about the necessity of 

protecting the environment, and we have been doing something about it . . . . Literally 

millions of dollars have been and are being spent to fight smog, eliminate water pollution, 

and to otherwise preserve and protect the environment against unnecessary intrusion by the 

activities of man.

Although any “reasonable person would say that we have been moving vigorously” on the 

environmental front, Governor Reagan said that “no matter how much we do, there is still a very 

active fringe element in the environmental movement that never seems to be satisfied.” The 

“voices of reason are being drowned out by the prophets of calamity” who want to take the old 

expression “stop the world, I want to get off,” and change it to “stop the world and put us off.” He 

continued: 

A strange sort of no-growth, no-development syndrome is proposed without regard for the 

consequences this might have on the lives of our people or the vitality of our economy. 

Most daily traffic “is for a very necessary and practical purpose,” such as commuting to and from 

work. “We must have the fuel and electric power to drive those vehicles, along with the rapid 

transit systems we are trying to develop to ease the burden on the private automobile and the 

roads.” He suggested:

It is high time we strike a more realistic and reasonable balance between the need to protect 

the environment and the equally urgent need to have an efficient, functioning transportation 

system, including highways, with sufficient fuel to meet the needs of a modern industrial 

economy . . . . 

Right now, America is caught between two whirlwinds forcing potentially massive 

disruptions in our society, the effort to protect the environment and the world wide energy 

shortage. 

In the face of this national challenge, “the philosophy of no-growth” was imposing “an 

environmental straight-jacket on our economy.” He was concerned about proposals to drastically 

curtail automobile traffic:
1129 

There have been suggestions that a surcharge be imposed for downtown parking, for higher 

taxes on automobiles, for steps that would mean higher gasoline prices to limit driving, even 

for gasoline rationing itself.

These might be temporary solutions, but they “hit the average citizen where it hurts most, in the 

pocket book.” The solution would not be found by forcing people out of their cars “because 

government makes it too expensive for the average citizen to operate his own car.” The solution 

was more likely to come “from the engineers in the factories, not from the economists in 

Washington.” He said:

Because it is such a complex subject, it is not my purpose to dwell on the particular 

guidelines . . . . But there is one element in many of these suggestions that I find disturbing, 

unrealistic and decidedly unfair. That is the tendency to apply economic sanctions, to 

imipose an economic penalty as a major tool in the effort to solve the pollution problem. 

Governor Reagan considered highways “an essential element” in the Nation’s transportation 

system:

Perhaps it is time that those of you in this particular area of transportation become less 

defensive and more aggressive in pointing out the beneficial impact of America’s network 

of highways and roads. 

There has been far too much mythology about the so-called adverse impact of highways and 

not enough of the facts about how vital our highways are to the prosperity, convenience and 

well-being of our people. 

We have the best transportation system in the world. And the main reason for that is 

because we have the best highways and roads. 

He said the population had doubled since 1916 and the number of vehicles had 

increased 30 times, yet highway mileage has increased less than one third. “In some areas, 

highways require less land area than we used for horses and wagons before the automobile was 

invented.” The Interstate System carried 19 percent of all traffic “and yet uses up only one percent 

of the land area devoted to highways and roads.” Although freeways were “cast as the butt of so 

many jokes” and portrayed as the “archvillain,” they “made a massive contribution to traffic safety,” 

saving thousands of lives. Further, most of the funding, 93 percent, spent on roads was to improve 

existing facilities, not build new ones.

He said California was “ahead of most of the rest of the nation in adding technical devices to 

control smog,” but now, “in fairness to our people, in recognition of the realistic limits of existing 

technology, it is time to start asking some very serious questions in view of the fuel shortage.” He 

explained:

The California scientist who discovered smog has questioned whether the catalytic 

converter might do more harm than good. Even some researchers for the Environmental 
1130 

Protection Agency are raising serious objections to this device, which is scheduled to be 

introduced on 1975 automobiles. Should government mandate this type of device before 

these kinds of serious reservations are fully resolved? 

He agreed that smog control devices had been helpful in reducing emisions, but “there is also no 

dispute that in doing so, the automobile engines have required more fuel, at a time when we face a 

fuel shortage.” 

Governor Reagan concluded: 

We need a modern system of roads and highways to carry our people to and from work, to 

haul the products of our industries and farms to market, to help maintain a dynamic and 

prosperous economy and to make travel safer for our people. 

That is a legitimate and valid goal. It is something that government must recognize, just as 

we recognize the need for legitimate and realistic steps to protect and preserve the 

environment. [Reagan, Governor Ronald, “The Voices of Reason,” American Highway and 

Transportation Monthly, March 1974, p. 5]

Later that day, Secretary Brinegar provided a different perspective. He said that since moving from 

his home in the Los Angeles area to Washington, he had spent a great deal of his time addressing 

the collapse of the Penn Central, northeastern rail bankruptcies, and other rail crises, but “it’s 

clearly the automobile and the highway that dominate our Nation’s transportation system.” About 

“80 percent of what we spend for transportation involves highway transportation.” Illustrating how 

the motor vehicle and the highway dominated the lives and lifestyles of Americans, he continued: 

As the late highway commissioner Thomas H. MacDonald . . . once observed: “It was not 

our Nation’s wealth that made our highways possible; rather, it was our highway system that 

contributed greatly to our country’s wealth.” 

But now, 3.8 million miles of highways and 100-plus million automobiles later, we have 

come to a turning point. Clearly, our long-term concentration on cars and highways is no 

longer appropriate. The four big problems of urban congestion, pollution, safety, and now, 

perhaps the most important of them all—the energy shortage—demand a re-thinking of 

direction and a shift emphasis. 

He emphasized that he was not anti-highway. “I’m ‘pro-transportation,’ as you are, and our 

assignment now is to find how best to reach that broader goal.” He was searching for ways “to 

manage a smooth transition from the old ways to the new ways.” The fact that 23 States now had a 

department of transportation and that AASHO had become AASHTO reflected a “trend toward 

broad gauge transportation planning and thinking.” 

Secretary Brinegar emphasized that his Department had “worked hard for a highway bill that would 

permit us to push forward on our Interstate and rural highway programs, but at the same time provided 

for flexibility and common sense in the use of the dollars assigned to our urban areas.” The Federal-
1131 

Aid Highway Act of 1973 was another “strong and welcome step forward.” It was complicated 

legislation, but “the key point is that every urban transportation planner is now free to choose from 

an assortment of transportation options, and to do so immediately.” Secretary Brinegar said the 

1973 Act was neither pro-highway nor pro-transit. Rather, “it is transportation legislation and I 

intend to administer it as such.” 

He also had taken an important step by delegating approval of EISs, previously retained in the Office 

of the Secretary, to FHWA, UMTA, and the other Modal Administrations. “I am confident that the 

importance of environmental considerations has been widely accepted by the transportation 

community and that my modal Administrators are fully capable of responsibly exercising this added 

authority.” The “chain of command has changed a little, with FHWA and UMTA taking on new 

roles, but he had encouraged them “to keep it simple, be stingy with the red tape, and to work out

procedures that will then make the regulations easily accessible to the public at large.” 

As reflected in President Nixon’s energy statement, the transportation sector would play a major 

role in reducing the need for foreign oil. Change was inevitable since over 50 percent of “liquid 

petroleum ends up being used in transportation—mostly, of course, by our 100 million 

automobiles.” Substantial savings could be achieved by a greater use of carpooling and mass 

transit, especially buses. As challenging as the energy shortage might be, it at least showed the 

danger of relying too much on foreign oil. “Today, at least, we can cope and can learn how to avoid 

this future trap.” 

The District of Columbia’s Airis delivered the annual departing president’s address on November 

12. He agreed with a recent statement by Governor Tiemann that the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1973 was “a complex and significant piece of legislation.” Some of its provisions, Airis said, 

“depart from traditional practice.” AASHTO was still working with FHWA staff “in an attempt to 

solve some knotty problems of interpretation.” The main point was that at last, the States had a 

highway act that “would be adequate for the next two to three years.” He added, “This, alone, is 

very much a plus over last year.” 

The compromise measure in Section 137 allowing the withdrawal of Interstate highways and the 

substitution of nonhighway public transit projects “made headlines, of course,” but he said: 

This is a novel feature, but the provisions dealing with priority primary routes, the urban 

high density traffic programs, economic growth center development highways, public mass 

transportation studies, the special earmarking of urban funds, and the addition of extensive 

Title II Safety Act provisions, from a practical standpoint, are also equally new and novel 

and no less significant. 

He reminded members that in June 1973, AASHO had begun a transformation that had just been 

approved by the Policy Committee. AASHO would become AASHTO, with membership expanded 

to include a broader spectrum of State transportation officials and its regional organizations 

modified accordingly. “In making these changes, I think the Association is keeping abreast of the 

times and stepping into a role that it needed. The emphasis now, as in the past, is on state officials.
1132 

Airis concluded “by philosophizing just a little bit.” He said:

We hear a great deal nowadays about changes or innovation in the transportation field—about 

total transportation. Yesterday the glamour term was “balanced transportation,” and Governor 

Tiemann, our Federal Highway Administrator, spoke recently of “The Quiet Revolution.” This 

indicates, I think, that in urban areas, particularly those of the Northeast, there is unrest over our 

present mix of modes; there is too much traffic congestion on city streets and highways caused, 

to a sizable extent, by commuters’ preference for their private vehicles on the home-to-work, 

work-to-home movements. There is the feeling that something ought to be done about this 

situation.

The corrective action, I think, is going to require some “real doing” in the form of furnishing the 

large metropolitan area commuter a better alternative—a “better mousetrap” if you will. We 

need better coordination between the existing modes, and perhaps someday, even new modes.

The question, he said, was when to stick with “the tried and proven” and when “to adopt innovative 

approaches.” Administrators dealing with urban areas needed “not only to be intimately familiar with 

all the facts, but also sufficiently nimble to avoid losing their heads over unpopular positions on 

inconsequential matters. Nevertheless, transportation officials had to adhere to their principles. “I see 

no reason to be pessimistic,” Airis said, adding, that “I am confident we will continue to have a good 

system.” [“President’s Annual Address,” American Highway & Transportation Monthly, March 

1974, p. 3, 4, 10, emphasis in original]

Administrator Tiemann also addressed AASHO. He told the State administrators that, “The changing 

state-local role which is evolving out of the ’73 Act may be causing you some uncertainty—but I 

really do not believe that it should.” He continued:

We feel that our urban areas should have responsibililty for determining their own futures with 

respect to transportation systems, and that local officials, working through metropolitan 

organizations, should stand up and be counted, and make tough decisions on transportation issues.

Nothing, however, had changed the requirements for a State-local cooperative process. “You are 

going to continue to be very much in the act—as you should be.”

The Interstate withdrawal process was an example:

Who initiates the proposal? Under the law it must be a joint request by the state governor and 

the local government. Who determines that the substitute mass transit project is in accord with 

the planning process and has a priority? The state highway department. And there are many 

more such examples. In short, the only possible way I could forsee [sic] a loss of state control is 

where there is an absence of state leadership—and I do not expect that to happen.

He also discussed the Certification Acceptance procedure for “ridding yourselves of some Federal red 

tape . . . under which a state can elect to build all but its Interstate Federal-aid highways under its own 

laws and regulations, if they are at least equivalent to the Title 23 laws.” 
1133 

(FHWA’s history volume, America’s Highways 1776-1976, discussed Certification Acceptance, 

observing that it “superseded the highly successful Secondary Road Plan, but unfortunately, it did not 

succeed very well.” It required States to develop projects in accordance with State laws and 

procedures that were at least equivalent toTitle 23 requirements. The new law excluded the other 

requirements that States found most burdensome, including NEPA, Section 4(f), the Uniform Act for 

right-of-way acquisition and relocation assistance, and the Davis-Bacon Act. “Thus, Federal program 

demands and complexities still governed.” Further, since the 1973 Act eliminated the Secondary 

Road Plan, “more work was actually generated.” The result was that “States did not elect to use 

Certification Acceptance procedures.” [America’s Highways 1776-1976, FHWA, 1976, p. 226]) 

UMTA Administrator Herringer also addressed the annual meeting, saying that the flexibility under 

the 1973 Act “allows us, by working together, to take advantage of environmental and energy saving 

advantages of mass transit, while continuing to make appropriate use of the highways.” The provision 

that had received the most publicity, he said, was the use of Highway Trust Fund revenues for transit. 

About $2.5 billion that would have been earmarked for highways over the next 3 years could now be 

used for highways or mass transit:

This new flexibility is immediate. I stress the immediacy because there has been some 

confusion about the source of the dollars—that is, will they come out of the Trust fund or out of 

general revenues? Let me assure you that which procket the money comes from makes no 

difference from the point of view of the local authority who wants to spend his money on transit. 

President Nixon and Secretary Brinegar have made it clear to me that we should encourage 

local areas to spend Urban Systems money on transit now, if that is what they wish to do. We 

will take the amount out of general revenues, until the provisions regarding the Trust Fund itself 

take effect. From the point of view of local officials, the full amount of Urban System funds is 

available for mass transit—highways or rail—right now in FY 1974 . . . . I believe that the most 

far reaching effect of this Bill may ultimately be the closer relationship that will be encouraged 

between transit interests and highway interests at all levels.

To me the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 is only the first step in giving state and local 

authorities the tools with which they can make and implement transportation decisions.

[Tiemann and Herringer statements from “Comment-Federal-Aid Highway Act ‘73,” American 

Highway & Transportation Monthly, March 1974, p. 3, 4, 8, 10, emphasis in original]

The Transit Bill

On November 6, 1973, New Yorkers overwhelmingly rejected Governor Rockefeller’s 

transportation bond issue. New York City residents favored the measure, but counties outside the 

metropolitan area rejected it by a 2-to-1 margin. A day later, Dr. Ronan announced that the subway 

fare would go to 60 cents on January 1 unless a stopgap subsidy was identified. He urged the city 

to restore its $100 million transit subsidy. Outgoing Mayor Lindsay responded: “Dr. Ronan’s 

shoot-from-the-hip, instant political response to the short-term fare problem is a misdirected, 

misinformed misfire.” The city had no such funds. 
1134 

Mayor-elect Abraham D. Beame, who had won with around 60 percent of the vote, called Governor 

Rockefeller to ask for help. The Governor agreed to a meeting when he returned from his vacation. 

Former U.S. Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said he would file suit to block a fare increase on the 

grounds that it would violate Federal EPA air quality requirements by forcing more people into 

their automobiles. Theodore Kheel predicted that even if the suit were successful, money would be 

needed to operate the subway, which otherwise would have to shut down. He considered it 

unrealistic to expect the State to provide enough help; he intended to seek an additional State 

gasoline tax for mass transit and to put more pressure on the Port Authority to construct mass transit

facilities. [Burks, Edward C., “Ronan Predicts a Rise to 60 Cents by Jan. 1 if No Subsidy is 

Found,” The New York Times, November 8, 1973] 

Governor Rockefeller, on November 13, said that he saw no way to save the 35-cent fare. “We may 

be able to prevent it from going all the way to 60 cents, but I’m not even sure of that.” He 

challenged those who voted against the transportation issue to come forward with their plan for 

saving the fare. The Governor also reportedly told Mayor-elect Beame not to get locked into a 

“save-the-fare” posture. With the legislature including a majority of members from the upstate 

counties that had provided the margin of defeat for the bond issue, prospects for financial rescue 

appeared dim. [Ronan, Thomas P., “35c Fare is Doomed, Governor Contends,” The New York 

Times, November 14, 1973; Clines, Francis X., “Transit-Fare Hopes Dimmed by Upstate 

Opposition,” The New York Times, November 14, 1973] 

When the Governor and Mayor-elect met on November 20, Rockefeller said “there could be a 

chance” to save the fare. Although the Governor said a week earlier that anyone saying the fare 

would be saved would be “kidding the public,” now he assured reporters that he and Mayor-elect 

Beame would seek Federal-aid to subsidize the fare by meeting with Federal officials. They would 

ask for a meeting with President Nixon in hopes of saving the Emergency Commuter Relief Act, 

the House version of which would give New York 23 percent or $184 million of the operating 

subsidy funding, assuming the President did not veto the bill. The White House did not 

immediately respond, but Secretary Brinegar and Administrator Herringer said they continued to 

oppose subsidies. [Clines, Francis X., “Rockefeller Sees Beame, Calls Saving Fare Possible,” The 

New York Times, November 21, 1973; Tolchin, Martin, “President Asked to Meet on Fare,” The 

New York Times, November 24, 1973] 

President Nixon declined to meet with Governor Rockefeller and Mayor-elect Beame. The 

President’s Chief of Staff, General Haig, told the Governor that since the President had nothing to 

offer the city to save the 35-cent fare, the meeting would be pointless. Instead, Governor 

Rockefeller, Mayor-elect Beame, Nassau County Executive Ralph G. Caso, and Dr. Ronan 

scheduled a meeting with Secretary Brinegar. 

Beyond the public stance, White House “sources” told reporters that the Nixon Administration was 

rethinking its policy on Federal operating subsidies if they were a short-term measure in a larger 

legislative package addressing the energy shortage. The President still planned to veto the 

Emergency Commuter Relief Act. “It’s just a fact of life,” a White House official told reporters. 
1135 

“It’s not likely that the President would approach a small part of an otherwise acceptable energy bill 

in the same way [with a veto] that he would a separate categorical program.” The official said:

We still feel as strongly as we can say, that transit operating costs are a local responsibility. 

Particularly in New York you can see the problem posed by Federal subsidies: The voters 

there weren’t willing to pass a bond issue to save the fare, so why should the people in Des 

Moines help subsidize it? 

Given the MTA’s projected 1974 deficit of $300 million, Federal officials emphasized that even if a 

Federal operating subsidy passed, it would not be enough to save the 35-cent fare. [Tolchin, 

Martin, “Transit Meeting with Rockefeller Declined by Nixon” and Lindsey, Robert, “Federal 

Subsidy Weighed,” both The New York Times, November 30, 1973] 

The meeting with Secretary Brinegar took place on November 30. After meeting for 45 minutes, 

Secretary Brinegar and the New York delegation held a joint news conference. “The time has 

come,” Secretary Brinegar said, “to take a broader look at how to build and run mass-transit 

systems by giving localities funds to distribute themselves.” He planned a total review of the issue 

that would be completed “in weeks.” Dr. Ronan told reporters, “This is the first time that there has 

ever been a spokesman for the Administration who has embraced the concept of operating 

subsidies.” Governor Rockefeller added, “We came to Washington and found an awareness of the 

problems nationwide.” 

The New York officials also met with the State’s congressional delegation, but received a mixed 

reception. Senator Javits said “this is an emergency demanding emergency action.” However, 

Senator Buckley pointed out that New Yorkers had voted against the bond issue: 

I am in principle against Federal transit subsidies. If one of my colleagues here in the 

Senate would ask me how New Yorkers, having voted against incurring debt in order to 

save the 35-cent fare, could at the same time ask the Federal government to incur debt for 

that purpose, I couldn’t answer to the question and wouldn’t try to. 

Asked that day if the energy crisis had proven to be a blessing in disguise, Governor Rockefeller 

said, “Tragic as it is, I would say yes.” [Tolchin, Martin, “Brinegar Weighs Mass-Transit Aid,” The 

New York Times, December 1, 1973] 

Politicians, transit officials, and others were searching for ways to reduce energy use, increase 

transit funding, and cut back on the Nation’s commitment to the private automobile. For transit 

backers, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 had been a breakthrough but not a solution. As 

Professor Smerk pointed out in his 1991 book on transit history: 

The important features of the 1973 Act for transit were the increase in the amount of money 

for the federal transit program and that the Highway Trust Fund was no longer treated as a 

sacred cow. The mechanism that inevitably assured highway construction, whether or not it 

was the most desirable approach to the solution of mobility problems, had been changed, 

although this most certainly did not mean that America’s zest for highways and highway 
1136 

construction was ended. More responsibility for the use of the funds was thrust upon the 

cities, since it was at their option—given the cooperation of the states—that money might be 

diverted from highway use to transit purposes. This did not produce a widespread shift of 

highway money for transit purposes but, as noted earlier, it did increase local flexibility in 

finding solutions to urban transportation problems. It was not a pot of gold for transit or a 

catastrophe for highway interests—no transportation revolution took place. 

He saw several reasons for the breakthrough: 

What was particularly significant was the cohesion of the transit lobby: its organization, the 

quality of its program of information and persuasion, and the receptivity of Congress. The 

support of the White House in opening the Highway Trust Fund was another critical factor. 

Fred Burke had been right about what was possible with a well-organized lobby effort. 

The 1973 Act had been a “major departure from previous transit funding,” but had not provided the 

vital operating subsidies so many cities needed. While the weakened White House promoted urban 

transportation revenue sharing, without success, congressional supporters of mass transit saw the 

energy crisis as the crucial factor in turning back to the issue. [Smerk, p. 122-123] 

Transit supporters saw their opportunity and seized it: 

The lobbying by the supporters of transit continued to follow the strategy that Fred Burke 

and other key supporters had devised. The planning and organization were taken seriously 

as the supporters of transit sought to complement their legislative victory of 1973 with 

operating aid. Advocacy of transit legislation by the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the 

National League of Cities remained, but it was the transit industry itself that gained the 

strength and skill to become the leader of the charge. [Smerk, p. 124-125] 

On December 19, House-Senate conferees completed work on the Emergency Commuter Relief 

Act. The bill would provide $400 million a year for operating subsidies, beginning with the current 

fiscal year, 1974. The compromise scrapped the House plan for formula distribution of the subsidy 

funds and capped each State’s total at $50 million a year. In addition to authorizing $40 million for 

an experimental program of free transit, the bill required any locality receiving Federal funds to 

provide half fares for the elderly and handicapped during nonpeak periods. The bill also included 

an amendment from Representative Koch, one of the conferees, that deleted a Senate provision 

allowing Federal mass-transit funds to be given as loans. 

Fearing a pocket veto while Congress was in recess, conferees decided to hold the bill until 

Congress returned in January and not to preview it for the White House, which still threatened to 

veto it. Supporters hoped to gain the two-thirds support that would be needed in each House to 

overturn the expected veto, but the odds were not good, even in the midst of the energy crisis. 

Representative Minish said, “It is ironic for the federal government to urge citizens to switch to 

mass transit while at the same time it provides no support whatsoever for these operations.” 
1137 

The change in formula distribution meant that New York City would receive $76 million less than 

it would have received under the House bill. “We tried down to the very end to get the Senate to 

accept the formula,” Representative Minish said. “They were clearly afraid of getting it voted down 

in a veto-override vote.” Representative Koch added that, “what we have to do now is hope that the 

President recognizes the need for this bill.” [“House-Senate Panel Votes Operating Aid for Mass 

Transit,” The Wall Street Journal, December 20, 1973; Tolchin, Martin, “State Transit Aid is Cut 

$76-Million in Conferees’ Bill,” The New York Times, December 21, 1973] 

Governor Rockefeller, 65 years old, had announced on December 11 that he would resign on 

December 18 after 15 years in office, with Lieutenant Governor Malcolm Wilson becoming 

Governor. The outgoing Governor indicated he would head national commissions looking into 

future problems and water conservation. Asked if he was contemplating another run for the 

presidency in 1976, he responded, “Whether I will become a candidate in the future I do not know. 

I should like to keep my options open.” He said, “I have great faith in our country, and I am 

optimistic about the future. But we can’t take the future for granted.” 

This statement was reflected in the challenges he faced as chairman of the National Commission on 

Critical Choices for America, described by the Times as “a multi-million-dollar study of future 

problems he has fashioned.” [“Rockefeller is Resigning After 15 Years; Will Head 2-year National 

Issues Study; Wilson to Assume Governorship Tuesday,” The New York Times, December 12, 

1973] He also continued to serve as chairman of the National Commission on Water Quality, 

having been appointed to the position in May 1973. 

Former Governor Rockefeller and Governor Wilson visited the White House on December 26 for a 

30-minute meeting with President Nixon. They briefed him on the plan developed by State and 

local officials to borrow enough money, subject to approval by the State legislature, to retain the 

35-cent fare through April in the expectation that Federal assistance would become available by 

then. The President told them that he supported flexible use of Federal funds for mass transit, 

including operating subsidies, but would not commit to providing the $200 million needed to save 

the fare after the loan ran out. “I am completely satisfied,” Governir Wilson said, “and I’m very 

pleased that the President’s view on the matter is that to the extent that Federal funds can be made 

available, there should be flexibility as to whether those funds can be used for capital or operating 

purposes.” [Tolchin, Martin, “President Backs Flexibility in Use of Transit Funds,” The New York 

Times, December 27, 1973] 

By mid-December, Nixon Administration officials were considering a single urban transportation 

fund, including over $2.2 billion in highway and mass transit aid that cities could use as they 

wished. By also ending impoundment, the plan would place additional Highway Trust Fund 

revenue in the new fund. It also would allow localities to use the single urban fund for operating 

subsidies. Although Congress had ignored Secretary Volpe’s similar plan in 1971, White House 

officials expected that Congress would be more receptive due to the energy crisis. [Toth, Robert C., 

“Nixon Plans Single Fund for Urban Roads, Mass Transit,” The Washington Post, December 14, 

1973] 
1138 

United Transportation Assistance Program 

In January, with the plan about to be unveiled in the State of the Union Address, Albert Karr 

pointed out that the plan also involved killing “the long-sacrosanct Highway Trust Fund” after its 

current expiration date in 1977: 

The plan reflects a Nixon administration desire to deal with rising transit demands amid the 

energy crisis with a method that will curb highway spending and check total outlays at a 

time when cities and transit systems say their needs have increased. One official dubs it a 

“face-saving measure.” 

The President still planned to veto the Emergency Commuter Relief Act, if approved by Congress, 

“on the ground [that] a simple and direct subsidy isn’t merited.” [Karr, Albert R., “Plan Stressing 

Mass Transit, Not Roads, Likely to Be Announced by Nixon Next Week,” The Wall Street Journal, 

January 21, 1974] 

On January 23, the President’s special message to Congress on the energy crisis provided several 

references to the President’s legislative plans. As part of conservation plans, he said: 

It is widely recognized now that the development of better mass transit systems may be one 

of the key solutions to both our energy and environmental problems. My budget for fiscal 

year 1975, which will be sent to the Congress in the next two weeks, gives special priority 

to the improvement of urban transportation, especially transit bus fleets. In addition, I will 

soon propose legislation to increase the amount and flexibility of Federal transportation aid 

which is available to local communities.

Changes in the Clean Air Act would be needed during the energy shortage. Congress, he said, was 

working on emergency legislation to permit temporary relaxation of requirements on power plants. 

“It would also extend the deadlines for the reduction of emissions from automobiles.” The 

President wanted quick action to relax requirements and “freezing the standards for auto 

emissions—now applicable to 1975 model cars—for two additional years.” These could be done 

“without significantly adverse effect on our progress in improving air quality,” while giving the 

industry time to improve fuel economy. Actions under the Clean Air Act would be reconsidered to 

ensure they provide “an appropriate balance among our objectives for environmental quality, 

economic and social growth, energy supply and national security.” 

On January 30, the President addressed a joint session of Congress on the State of the Union. For 

1974, his predictions included the assertion that, “We will make a crucial breakthrough toward 

better transportation in our towns and in our cities across America.” He said:

I think all of us recognize that the energy crisis has given new urgency to the need to 

improve public transportation, not only in our cities but in rural areas as well. The program 

I have proposed this year will give communities not only more money but also more 

freedom to balance their own transportation needs. It will mark the strongest Federal 
1139 

commitment ever to the improvement of mass transit as an essential element of the 

improvement of life in our towns and cities. 

In a separate message the same day, he listed the recent increases in aid for mass transit, including 

the $3 billion increase approved in the 1973 Act. 

For the first time since World War II the downward trend in transit riderships has been 

reversed, and is now moving upwards. And for the first time, under the provisions of the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, States and localities can now use a portion of their 

Federal highway funds for public transit purposes. 

In general terms, he explained a soon-to-be-released proposal that “would give our communities not 

only more money but also more freedom to balance their own transportation needs—and it will 

mark the largest Federal commitment ever to the improvement of public transportation.” Officials 

would be able to choose how to use the new funds for highways or transit, including operating 

subsidies: 

Under this bill resources would also be available for the first time to augment the operating 

funds for public transportation systems in both urban and rural areas. By permitting Federal 

resources to be used for operating purposes, this proposal should make it unnecessary to 

establish a new categorical grant problem for transit operating subsidies, as is now 

contemplated in bills before the Congress. 

Although details were unclear, Dr. Ronan said, “We’re encouraged by it.” He could not predict 

whether the proposal would save the 35-cent fare, but hailed the proposal as an “historic 

breakthrough.” [“Nixon Asks 50% Rise for Mass Transit,” The New York Times, January 31, 1974] 

In an editorial, the Times acknowledged the President was “moving in the right direction,” 

particularly his “turnabout” on operating subsidies. However, his proposals would “apparently fall 

far short of the expectations and needs of such hard-pressed cities as New York.” The city, which 

would receive only about half the needed subsidy, “can no longer afford to postpone a determined 

search for additional sources of local transit support, if a fare increase is to be averted.” In the long 

run, the President’s commitment was inadequate if the goal was to provide improved transit 

facilities to lure motorists out of their cars. Congress would have to “move faster and faster in 

order to put this country’s commuters back on the rails and buses where they belong.” [“Transit 

Short-Changed,” The New York Times, February 1, 1974] 

In a February 9 radio address, President Nixon provided more details on his plan: 

We have to find ways to use our enormous transportation systems in a more flexible manner 

. . . . Our efforts must continue to concentrate on achieving the goals of flexibility in the use 

of our transportation systems, economy in the use of our energy resources, and balance in 

the availability of diverse forms of transportation. 

For this purpose, he would submit legislation to Congress: 
1140 

The program would authorize $16 billion in Federal assistance for metropolitan and rural 

transportation over the next 6 years. Two-thirds of this amount would be allocated to State 

and local governments for application in areas where they believe this money can be spent 

most effectively.

Local officials, who understand your community better than anybody here in Washington, 

would determine transportation priorities, choosing between construction of highways or 

public transit systems, or the purchase of buses or rail cars. This would provide for 

flexibility between capital investments and other expenses.

The unified transportation assistance program will make the largest Federal commitment 

ever to the improvement of public transportation in our cities and towns. Its objective is to 

provide you with diverse forms of public transportation that take into account the need for 

transportation without environmental damage, without wasted energy, and if possible, 

without congestion. 

In a February 13 special message to Congress proposing the transportation legislation, the President 

explained the Unified Transportation Assistance Program (UTAP):

I am submitting to the Congress today legislation to create a Unified Transportation 

Assistance program. This program would provide $15.9 billion to urbanized areas over a 

six-year period and $3.4 billion for small urban and rural areas through fiscal year 1977. 

This act would mark the largest single commitment by the Federal Government to 

metropolitan and rural transportation in our history. 

The legislation would make several critical improvements over current programs: 

- The recipients could spend the money not only on capital improvements, such as 

new buses, new rail cars, new rapid transit systems, and non-interstate highways, but 

also on other transit needs. Broadening the law in this way would permit local 

tradeoffs between capital investments and costs to improve services. I believe this is 

the most effective way for the Federal Government to provide transit assistance, and 

I will continue my strong opposition to any legislation which establishes a 

categorical program solely for local operating assistance. Such a program would 

unnecessarily inject the Federal Government into decisions which can be far better 

made by State and local governments. 

- UTAP also would allocate over two-thirds of metropolitan funds on a populationbased formula so that our cities would receive an assured flow of transportation 

assistance. We are aware of the concerns voiced by some that our proposed formula 

should be altered to meet the unique problems of some of our largest cities. We 

intend to work closely with the Congress, elected officials and others, in examining 

alternative formulas.

- Finally, UTAP would also provide additional, more flexible assistance for public 

transportation systems in smaller urban and rural areas. Most of these funds would 

probably be used by the localities for improving the service and safety on main 
1141 

highways and roads. Funds would also be available for public transportation 

equipment and demonstrations in smaller urban and rural areas. 

Enactment of the Unified Transportation Assistance Program would augment my budget for 

fiscal year 1975, which already calls for an increase of 50 percent in spending for transit 

capital improvements under existing programs. 

He concluded; 

For too long we have focused a great deal of attention on some forms of transportation to 

the detriment of others, we have permitted decision-making at the Federal level to scramble 

priorities at the State and local levels, and we have begun to lose the diversity and flexibility 

in transportation systems that encourage competition and, therefore, great efficiency and 

greater effectiveness in the employment of these systems.

We have a clear understanding of these problems now, and we have begun to come to grips 

with them. I believe 1974 will see a crucial breakthrough in expanding and enhancing 

America’s national system of transportation so that it once again serves our Nation with a 

maximum of flexibility, diversity, and balance. 

Smerk, in describing UTAP, said, “The great difference between this and other legislation that was 

introduced—and the factor that perhaps had the most wrenching impact on congressional thought—

was that UTAP sought to combine the existing urban transit and urban highway programs.” He 

continued: 

Under the terms of the UTAP program, beginning in July 1974 (the beginning of fiscal year 

1975), $1.4 billion would have been made available for transit. One-half of this sum would 

have been allocated to states on the basis of population. Cities receiving funds under UTAP 

would have the option to use the funds for either capital or operating purposes. The other 

half of the money—$700 million—would be used for the “regular” UMTA mass transit 

discretionary grant program. 

The discretionary funding level would remain at $700 million, but formula funds would increase 

from $800 million in FY 1976 to $900 million in FY 1977, and $2 billion a year from FYs 1978 

through 1980. Capital funds would be available on an 80-20 Federal-State matching basis. [Smerk, 

p. 128] 

Senator Williams, commenting on the new plan, noted that the conference committee had yet to 

release the Emergency Commuter Relief Act. “We didn’t send it to the White House because they 

threatened a veto.” Now, he said optimistically, “we can move the bill downtown [to the White 

House] and it would be possible to have operating expense funds for the subways available soon, if 

the President wants it.” [Lyons, Richard D., “President Offers $16-billion Plan on Aid to Transit,” 

The New York Times, February 10, 1974] 
1142 

Elizabeth Parker, the former Department of Transportation policy official, explained that UTAP 

“was poorly received by highway and transit interest groups and Congress; it received no serious 

consideration or debate.” As with Secretary Volpe’s Single Urban Fund, highway and transit 

interests “felt threatened by the proposed changes in program control.” The problem was that 

neither interest saw an advantage in the proposal. Smerk put it this way: 

First of all, transit officials and other transit supporters held that UTAP really did not 

provide any new money for transit and that there would still be too little available to meet 

needs. On the other side of the coin, state highway officials and the interests involved in 

highway construction were most fearful that the transformations wrought in the Highway 

Trust Fund—already eroded by the passage of the Highway Act of 1973—would seriously 

cut into the money available for highways. This was especially worrisome as the sharp rise 

in inflation at the time caused construction and maintenance costs to rise even more than 

expected.

Further, reduced driving during the energy shortage could seriously erode Highway Trust Fund 

revenue:

The highway interests . . . were seriously and genuinely concerned with the possibility that 

there would not be enough money to go around for highways in an atmosphere of sharply 

rising costs and stable or falling Trust Fund income. Moreover, still smarting from the 

opening of the Highway Trust Fund by the 1973 Act, highway interests feared the long-run 

danger of perhaps the total demolition of the Trust Fund or a major diminishment of the 

sums available for roadbuilding. 

In short, with neither transit nor highway interests behind it, the Administration’s UTAP proposal 

had no constituency to seek its adoption. Parker said that UTAP “became such a joke among 

interest groups that they threatened to send a pair of taps to each member of Congress so they could 

do the UTAP.” [Parker, p. 58; Smerk, p. 129] 

Trying to Craft a Transit Bill 

With UTAP an unappealing option, Congress struggled to complete transit legislation, Conferees 

on S. 386 tried to modify the bill to diminish the prospect of a veto. On February 20, 1974, they 

amended the bill to permit local transit agencies to use the $800 million for capital or operating 

expenses, instead of only for subsidies. In a joint statement, Senator Williams and Representative 

Minish said: 

Now with the energy crisis upon us, the necessity for mass transit has become even more 

critical. We cannot expect the commuting public to significantly reduce its use of private 

cars if we do not provide alternate sources of transportation. We anticipate that this 

[conference] report will be approved by both the Senate and the House, and we hope that 

President Nixon will not turn his back on our mass transit and energy problems by vetoing 

this legislation.
1143 

Dr. Ronan thought the proposal was a good short-term measure. “It will give Congress more time 

for mature consideration of the long-range Administration plan” that would address “the true 

dimensions of the energy crunch and the impact on mass-transit.” [Witken, Richard, “The Prospect 

for a Transit Bill,” The New York Times, February 22, 1974] 

Officials of UMTA, according to Smerk, liked the revised bill but their support “was squelched by 

higher echelons in the administration; apparently the White House felt it could get a better deal out 

of UTAP, handled by the Public Works committees, than was possible with the Minish-Williams 

bill that had been a product of the Banking and Currency committees.” 

Secretary Brinegar made clear on March 5 that he was “flatly opposed” to the revised bill and had 

urged the President to veto it if approved by Congress. In a letter to Representative John J. Rhodes 

(R-Az.), who had replaced Vice President Ford as House Minority Leader, the Secretary said the 

bill, which would have provided $150 million to New York City, was “heavily weighted to a 

handful of big cities with large and expensive rail transit systems.” The “piecemeal, one-shot, 

categorical approach” would set back the President’s “more comprehensive program.” He did not 

object to formula fund distribution, but found the formula in the conference bill, based on number 

of passengers, vehicle miles, and population, to be “complicated.” The President’s proposed 

formula was fair, but “we are not wedded to a formula based upon population; the Administration is 

prepared to discuss the adjustments in the formula during deliberations on the total package.” 

Representative Minish said of Secretary Brinegar’s position, “I’m damn mad,” adding, “They make 

the point that it’s a big-city bill. Of course it is. That’s where the problem is.” Senator Williams 

said of the Secretary’s letter: “This is truly tragic” and “a woeful retreat” from the President’s more 

relaxed position. Representative Koch saw maneuvering over the Watergate scandal as the basis 

for opposing aid to big cities. “There’s no question that the major voices raised on impeachment 

come from urban areas, and it may be that he’s trying to punish them. He may just be so angry that 

he’s flailing at the cities.”

In New York City, officials claimed that if the revised Emergency Commuter Relief Act were 

defeated, it would force an increase in the subway fare to 60 cents—“no question about it,” as Dr. 

Ronan put it. He added that, “the conference bill would provide immediate funds, whereas the 

President’s bill would involve considerable long-term discussions and delays.” Failure to aid the 

city, Mayor Beame said, would have “disastrous results.” [Tolchin, Martin, “House Maneuver on 

Transit Bill Perils 35c Fair,” The New York Times, March 6, 1974] 

For the bill to advance to the House floor for a vote, the Rules Committee would have to waive the 

point of order that the bill included concepts that were in neither the approved House nor the Senate 

bill. Department of Transportation officials made their opposition to S. 386 known to committee 

members and staff. On March 6, the Rules Committee postponed action by voice vote, effectively 

killing the conference report even though it was still technically alive. Many members of the Rules 

Committee wanted to kill the bill outright. As The Washington Post explained:

The [conference report] fell victim to intense opposition by the Nixon administration, 

including a warning by Secretary of Transportation Claude S. Brinegar that he would 
1144 

recommend a veto of the bill. In addition, there was a jurisdictional dispute in the House 

itself.

The House and Senate banking committees had developed S. 386, while the Administration’s bill 

had been submitted to the public works committees. Representative Minish, who urged Rules 

Committee approval, claimed jurisdiction over urban transit, but Representatives Harsha and 

Stanton had urged the Rules Committee to block action to give the Public Works Committee time 

to take a broad look at urban transportation issues. Rules Committee Chairman Madden and other 

members considered the bill overly generous to New York City. However, at the request of 

Representative Richard Bolling (D-Mo.), who had represented Kansas City since 1949, they 

decided, as the Post put it, “to postpone action, a move that keeps it technically alive but probably 

will sidetrack it until it is overtaken by the administration bill.” [Eisen, Jack, “Transit Aid Bill 

Blocked in House Unit,” The Washington Post, March 7, 1974] 

In a news analysis, Times reporter Martin Tolchin acknowledged that the bill was “a long shot.” He 

explained:

The White House, oriented toward conservative “middle America,” and the rural-suburbandominated Congress have provided operating subsidies to farmers, oil men (through tax 

relief), railroads, airlines and the maritime industry, to name a few. But mass transit, vital to 

the economy of most larger cities, has been regarded as a sinkhole.

The Nixon Administration “had wondered out loud why these cities could not live within their 

means.” No large city could do so, and every transit system was “operating deeply in the red.” 

Cities had seen “a ray of hope” in the fall of 1973 when the Senate and House finally passed the 

Emergency Commuter Relief Act providing $800 million in operating subsidies, including 25 

percent or about $200 million for New York City. Passage in the House had never been certain:

The House Democratic leadership saw the legislation’s potential as a partisan issue, to 

enable the Democrats to recapture the allegiance of city dwellers, traditionally Democratic 

loyalists who had been lost to Mr. Nixon’s “new majority.” The vote in the House was 

postponed for two weeks to enable the leadership to use its computers to identify the 

legislation’s Congressional opponents. 

“We asked them, ‘Can you go with us? We would appreciate it,’” recalled Representative 

John J. McFall, California Democrat and majority whip. “It’s like the fellow who gets his 

face slapped because he asked girls for kisses, but he got some kisses, too.” 

Following President Nixon’s policy reversal on subsidies, conferees revised S. 386 to reflect the 

President’s own proposal, prompting Rules Committee action. As noted, Chairman Madden 

objected to the big city orientation of the bill, saying that “ninety per cent of the states were left out 

in the cold.” His State, Indiana, “had less than 1 percent of the funds. You can’t put a bill like that 

over on 435 Congressman, and most come from rural areas.” 
1145 

In the “jurisdictional tangle,” Representative Minish, “named only a year ago as chairman of the 

transportation subcommittee of banking and currency, was no match for John A. Blatnik, Minnesota 

Democrat and well-entrenched chairman of the Public Works Committee.” 

Another factor, according to Tolchin, was the distribution formula. The President’s proposal to 

distribute funds based on population “undoubtedly had a more widespread Congressional appeal 

than the Minish-Williams bill, whose formula was based on population (50 per cent), number of 

riders (25 per cent) and number of miles carried (25 percent).”

The Rules Committee action effectively killed the bill “by postponing its consideration until the 

President’s bill comes before it—which some legislators said could take a year.” 

New Yorkers “were stunned” by the Rules Committee’s action. Governor Wilson said: 

When I saw the President, I told him of the urgent need of New Yorkers for $200-million in 

mass-transit operating subsidies. The President manifested a sympathetic concern. 

When the President told the delegation he was sympathetic to operating subsidies, Tolchin wrote, 

“The New Yorkers left the White House in a state of elation—misplaced elation, as events later 

indicated.” Governor Wilson put it this way: 

This is a prospect that is too devastating even to consider. I’ve stated this in terms of 

essentiality. Essentiality does not admit to degrees. A thing is essential or not essential. It 

is not more or less essential.

The New York City delegation expressed their frustration as well:

“He’s given up entirely on the city areas,” said Representative James J. Delaney, Queens 

Democrat and the only member of the Rules Committee to vote for the bill. “He’s 

appealing to the rural areas.”

Representative Edward I. Koch, Manhattan Democrat, expressed the view of many

metropolitan-area Congressmen when he said that “the President sees the cities as the antiNixon coalition . . . he may just be so angry that he’s flailing the cities.” 

The bill’s death also points up the relative powerlessness of the New York Congressional 

delegation. “New Yorkers just don’t realize what it meant to the state to have a Charlie 

Buckley or a Manny Celler up here,” said a New York Congressman who asked not to be 

named. “When they went into [sic] see the leaders, the leaders really listened.” [Tolchin, 

Martin, “Federal Mass-Transit Aid: The Hope That Fizzled,” The New York Times, March 

8, 1974] 

Representative Koch saw a hidden reason for the Rules Committee’s action. He suggested that the 

Department of Transportation had approved a $60-million grant for improvement of Cline Avenue 

in Chairman Madden’s district in Gary, Indiana, in exchange for the chairman blocking the bill that 
1146 

would save the 35-cent fare. Chairman Madden, according to Representative Koch, had been 

seeking the funds for 12 years, as the Times explained:

The administration, he [Koch] said, announced approval of the project in the same week that 

Mr. Madden blocked action by his committee on a bill to authorize $140-million in Federal 

transit aid.

“It boggles the mind to think that this was coincidental,” Mr. Koch said. “God works in 

wondrous ways, but I don’t think He did this time—that was no coincidence.” 

. . . . But the department said the grant had been in process for some time prior to its 

announcement. Administration officials asserted that there had been no connection between 

the road project and the legislative fight over transit subsidies. Mr. Madden could not be 

reached for comment. [Lindsey, Robert, “Koch Says Nixon Trade Blocked Transit Bill,” 

The New York Times, April 16, 1974] 

(The funds for Cline Avenue connecting I-80 and I-90 were from the Special Urban High Density 

Program established by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. The legislative history suggested 

that Cline Avenue was one of the projects to be funded. During the March 15 Senate debate, 

Senator Bayh of Indiana inserted a lengthy statement in support of the 1973 Act (apparently not 

delivered on the floor). He stated: 

I am glad to report in addition that the bill contains a proposal I made last year for a special 

urban high density traffic program. Routes selected under this program would be less than 

10 miles long, would serve areas of concentrated traffic population and heavy traffic 

congestion, and would meet the urgent needs of commercial, industrial, airport or national 

defense installations. A route would be eligible only if the Secretary determines that no 

feasible or practicable alternative mode of transportation would be available, and parkland 

and residential areas were not damaged. I believe that this program will provide a means for 

completing the Cline Avenue Expressway in Lake County, Ind., thereby eliminating an 

extremely serious commuter and industrial bottleneck. The route meets the stiff 

requirements of this section, I believe, and the road is very badly needed. [Congressional 

Record-Senate, March 15, 1973, p. 8230] 

(House Report 93-110, issued April 10, 1973, on the 1973 Act stated: 

Typical of this kind of facility is the proposed Cline Avenue facility connecting Interstate 80 

and Interstate 90 in East Chicago. In this instance, the route is only 5.6 miles long, but is in 

a heavily industrialized area and will be very expensive to build. There are no funds 

available, there is no remaining Interstate mileage for designating it on that System, and 

there is an obviously urgent need for the facility. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, House 

Report No. 93-118, p. 22]) 

The Nixon Administration opposed the revised S. 386 for several reasons, including the fear that its 

passage would diminish prospects for its UTAP proposal. Smerk identified another concern: 
1147 

Brinegar was unhappy with the Minish-Williams provision that would have given the 

money directly to transit officials rather than work through the states as UTAP proposed. 

Minish-Williams supporters countered with the point that, under the terms of S. 386, before 

local transit officials could receive funds, they had to be designated by local elected officials 

and approved by the secretary of transportation. 

Another factor was the Watergate scandal enveloping President Nixon:

Charges were flying that the president’s efforts to defend himself against the strong 

possibility of impeachment proceedings had seriously weakened him as an effective chief 

executive. UTAP was supposed to be evidence—along with other programs in other 

areas—of strong, farsighted leadership on the part of the president. The Nixon 

administration tried to sell the UTAP program as a true long-range measure that would help 

satisfy the national needs in the area of mass transportation. If successful in getting the 

Congress to pass UTAP instead of the Minish-Williams bill, the possibility of a serious 

conflict with Congress over a certain presidential veto of Minish-Williams could be avoided 

at a time when the Congress was likely to hold the fate of the Nixon presidency in its hands. 

In addition, UMTA was now receiving requests for more funding than was available: 

With a shortfall of funds and the threat that the money situation would grow worse in years 

to come, UMTA would face the bureaucratic nightmare of having to choose among 

applications. This means that UMTA would have to develop rankings and priorities in 

order to select winners among competing projects; the implementation of such a policy 

would, at worst, inevitably lead to monumental snafus and, at best, kindle the ire of 

members of Congress who saw mass transportation projects for their districts languishing 

because of lack of funds. 

[The] problem of decion-making could be avoided if funds were distributed according to a 

formula. Thus UTAP took on an added measure of attractiveness to those in the federal 

establishment charged with managing the mass transit programs, because real decisionmaking and the choice among projects was placed in the hands of local officials. [Smerk, p. 

131-132] 

As noted earlier, UTAP had little appeal for transit interests. It provided little additional funding 

for transit, while much of the optional highway-transit funding would go to highway projects. For 

the next few months, Senators and Representatives introduced alternative bills for increasing transit 

funding. [Smerk, p. 133-135.] 

Another problem facing the Minish-Williams bill was a jurisdictional dispute between the House 

Committee on Public Works and the Committee on Banking and Currency over which was 

responsible for formulating urban transportation policy. The issue could be traced to the mid-1960s 

when UMTA was in HUD while BPR was in the Commerce Department. When HUD was created 

in 1965, the House decided to give jurisdiction over it to the banking committee, which had been 

handling Federal mortgage insurance. UMTA was included as an afterthought. 
1148 

This split jurisdiction was not a problem until the Nixon Administration began asking Congress to 

let local officials choose among highways and transit, as National Journal Reports explained:

Any bill that would create a unified urban transportation program would be up for grabs by 

either House committee, as well as by the House Ways and Means Committee, which 

controls all taxation, including the gasoline tax that supports the highway trust fund. 

The Administration’s UTAP proposal contained provisions that could fit under either committee: 

Title I contains amendments to the 1973 Highway Act, Title II would establish a mass 

transit allocation formula for 1975-77, and Title III would merge the urban highway and 

transit programs after 1977. 

Nobody in Congress . . . gave Title III much of a chance of passage, while the amendments 

in Title I are minor, compared to the impact of the bill as a whole.

But by including Titles I and III in the same bill, a Transportation Department official said, 

the department was able to present the plan as an amendment to the highway portion (Title 

23) of the U.S. Code, thus assuring referral to the Public Works Committee. 

That official, who declined to be quoted by name, said the department was concerned about 

committee assignment for a good reason. The plan would be treated differently by each of 

the committees.

The Committee on Banking and Currency, “long considered a choice assignment for Members with 

urban constituents,” was a strong supporter of mass transit but had little interest in the rural 

highway program. The Public Works Committee supported UMTA programs and many members 

favored a mass transit trust fund, but with its jurisdiction over highways, was “likely to resist efforts 

to shift federal funds out of roadbuilding.” 

The Nixon Administration had to choose between the committees in drafting its bill:

If they wrote UTAP in such a way as to have it referred to the Banking Committee, they 

feared the committee might turn the bill into a raid on the treasury in behalf of the largest 

metropolitan areas. If, on the other hand, the bill were sent to Public Works, they would 

have little chance of getting changes in the highway program. 

Given this choice, Public Works seemed their best bet. It would be no permanent loss to 

introduce Title III this year and have it dropped by the committee. 

The Administration already had won a victory on funding flexibility in 1973; that, in itself, 

should stimulate a major review of the highway trust fund when it expires in 1977. 
1149 

By contrast, if Congress were to pass a bill that would establish what Administration 

officials would consider a wrong-headed subsidy program, the decision would be difficult to 

reverse. Subsidy programs develop their own constituencies once they are established. 

According to an anonymous UMTA source, the Administration had another reason for its 

committee preference:

The Administration had been receiving private assurances from the committee—while 

Administration officials still were trying to decide whether to support the Williams-Minish 

conference report—that Public Works would act expeditiously on the Administration plan. 

Consistent with the Administration’s plan, Speaker Albert assigned the UTAP bill to the 

Committee on Public Works. 

(Jurisdiction was not an issue in the Senate where rules allowed bills to be divided and referred to 

several committees at the same time.)

Shortly after the Rules Committee rejected S. 386, Speaker Albert met with leaders of the Rules 

Committee and Public Works to decide on a course of action. On March 15, Chairman Blatnik 

announced that the committee would hold intensive field hearings on mass transportation, in 

addition to Washington hearings on UTAP. “The committee needs actually to see, taste and feel the 

problems.” 

After the committee had held hearings in six cities on April 1, 5, and 6, the transit lobbyist Fred 

Burke called them “an incredible show.” He added, “I cannot recall another time when there were 

field hearings in six cities in one week.” He speculated on the motivation for this unusually 

compact hearing schedule. “There is a driving force in Public Works to do something and outdo 

the Banking and Currency Committee.” [Malbin, Michael J., “Transportation Report/Mass Transit 

Bills Slowed by Jurisdictional Dispute,” National Journal Reports, May 20, 1974] 

On July 25, the House Public Works Committee reported out a $20 billion mass transit bill, H.R. 

12859, providing capital and operating funds for 6 years. The Federal share would be 75 percent 

for capital projects; 50 percent for operating subsidies. Chairman Blatnik said, “This is landmark 

legislation which for the first time establishes a firm multi-billion mass transportation program.” 

Nine cities with fixed rail systems would share $10.8 billion, with the amount received by each city 

determined by the Secretary of Transportation. Representative Abzug had succeeded in adding a 

provision to H.R. 12859 directing the Secretary to base the distribution guidelines on usage, 

population, previously approved projects, and local funding commitment. “That puts us way 

ahead,” she said following committee action on the bill. “New York City should certainly get the 

kind of money that we need.” New York was seeking $200 million to protect its 35-cent subway 

fare.

The fate of the bill was uncertain. The Nixon Administration threatened a veto of any bill 

authorizing more than $12 billion as inflationary. Committee members voted for the bill in the 
1150 

hope of securing a two-thirds vote of the full House in favor, the amount needed to override a veto. 

Another optimistic scenario for committee members was that President Nixon would no longer be 

in office to veto the bill. As Representative Abzug put it, “We’ve got to fight it out [since] this 

Administration is hardly here to stay.” [“House Unit Backs Mass Transit Bill,” The New York 

Times, July 26, 1974] 

One detail, of seemingly little importance, remained to be dealt with, namely the conference report 

on the Minish-Williams bill (S. 386, now called the Emergency Urban Mass Transportation Act). 

On July 24, the Rules Committee resurrected the bill, which as Smerk said, “had been stuck in 

legislative limbo while the long-range transit proposals had occupied center stage.” The bill was 

finally cleared for a House vote. Representative Minish told his colleagues about the bill: 

Under the conference report, $800 million in contract authority would be available to the 

Secretary of Transportation through the end of the present fiscal year for grants to local and 

State public bodies, agencies, and transit authorities. The funds could be used, at the 

discretion of the recipient, for either capital expenditures or operating subsidies. 

The Federal share of the cost of projects under the bill could not exceed 80 percent, with the 

remaining funds provided by the applicant. Moreover, there is a requirement that these 

funds must be supplementary to and not in substitution for the average amount of State and 

local government funds and other revenues spent in the operation of mass transportation 

service for the past 2 fiscal years. In addition, no assistance will be provided unless the fare 

charged the elderly and handicapped during nonpeak hours does not exceed one-half the 

normal fare.

The funds under the conference report would be distributed by formula to urbanized areas 

within each State. In urbanized areas in which 75 percent of the population is served by a 

public transit authority or by a local public body providing transit services, that entity shall 

receive the funds after consultation with the Secretary of Transportation and other State and 

local public bodies. Where such a recipient is not in existence, the funds apportioned for the 

urbanized area shall be made available to the Governor of the State for distribution to these 

areas . . . . In addition, the Governor may distribute funds to a State agency engaged in 

providing transit services by contract to either public or private bus or rail carriers. 

The apportionment formula was based 50 percent on population of the urbanized area, 25 percent 

on the number of revenue passengers in the area, and 25 percent on revenue vehicle miles in the 

area. 

S. 386, he said, contained one other important provision: 

This is title II, which authorizes $20 billion for fiscal 1975 for demonstration projects to 

determine the feasibility of free fare urban mass transit systems. In this connection, it is 

interesting to note that the city of Seattle has been most successful with a limited experiment

of this type. By charging no fare whatsoever in the central business district, that city has 

increased transit ridership to 70 percent over last year.
1151 

That same day, the House voted 221-181 to reject the bill. The bill was returned to the Banking and 

Currency Committee. The jurisdictional dispute between Representative Blatnik’s Committee on 

Public Works and Representative Patman’s Committee on Banking and Currency was one reason 

the bill failed, since Representative Blatnik made clear that he considered his committee to have 

jurisdiction over public works. [Consideration of rule: Providing for Consideration of Conference 

Report on S. 386, Urban Mass Transportation, Congressional Record-House, July 30, 1974, p. 

25649-25655; Consideration of bill: Conference Report on S. 386, Urban Mass Transportation, 

Congressional Record-House, July 30, 1974, p. 25655-25666] 

A claim in The Washington Post that the defeat was based on “widespread antagonisms in the 

House to the authoritarian chairman,” Representative Patman, prompted Representative Minish to 

say the claim “adds little to the understanding” of the bill’s defeat. In a letter to the editor, he 

explained:

Anyone following this legislation would have known of the heavy pressure from the 

administration, including the threat of a presidential veto. It is also a fact that the Public 

Works Committee wanted to clear the way for their own legislation and this was not an 

inconsiderable factor in mustering opposition to the Banking and Current Committee Bill. 

Although S. 386 had failed in the House, he added that, “I think that the pressure brought by my bill 

will do much in pushing the Congress and the administration toward greater support for meaningful 

and much-needed mass transit programs.” 

The future of mass transit legislation was uncertain. The House was expected to start a presidential 

impeachment debate in August, which would prevent consideration of H.R. 12859 or any other 

major bills. The Senate had not yet reported a comparable bill, in part because it expected to hold 

an impeachment trial. According to The Wall Street Journal, “Some key Senators are reluctant to 

act on any big long-range mass transit plan, lest it disturb last year’s historic compromise allowing 

transit companies to get money from the Highway Trust Fund.” [Large, Arlen J., “House Due to 

Vote on Transit Subsidies; Nixon Veto Looms if Senate Goes Along,” The Wall Street Journal, 

July 29, 1974; Wilkin, Richard, “Despite Setback, Future of 35c Fare is Still Unclear,” The New 

York Times, August 1, 1974; “Surprise in the House,” The Journal of Commerce, August 1, 1974; 

Minish, Joseph G., Letter to the Editor, The Washington Post, August 5, 1974] 

 Smerk summarized:

Without doubt, S. 386 looked as if it was consigned to the legislative bone pile; as events 

developed, however, there was a lot of life left in it. [Smerk, p. 135] 

Revenue Mechanisms for Transit

During the long gestation of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 in 1972 and 1973, highway 

interests came to favor a mass transit trust fund because they thought it would reduce pressure to 

divert revenue from the Highway Trust Fund to transit. Transit interests wanted a trust fund 
1152 

because it would assure a source of revenue safe from the appropriations cycle. However, neither 

side could identify a reliable source of sufficient revenue for a new trust fund. 

Section 138(b) of the 1973 Act directed the Secretary to study “revenue mechanisms including a tax 

on fuels used in the provision of urban mass transportation service, and an additional gasoline tax 

imposed in urban areas which could be used now or in the future to finance transportation activities 

receiving financial assistance from the Highway Trust Fund.” The study was to cover possible tax 

rates, potential revenue from each source, how the taxes could be collected, and “the potential 

impact on transit usage by such taxes.” The Secretary was directed to report the findings to 

Congress by no later than the 180th day after enactment of the 1973 Act.

On February 28, 1974, Secretary Brinegar submitted the report to Congress. His brief transmittal 

letter concluded:

Consideration of the use of special taxes for financing Federal aid to urban mass 

transportation implicitly raises the question of earmarking of the revenues of certain taxes 

for limited purposes. In general, we feel that such earmarking should not be extended 

beyond its current applications. Continuing revenue sources very often come to be 

considered either a floor or a ceiling on annual expenditures for a particular purpose 

regardless of the merits of either decreasing or increasing these expenditures as times and 

priorities change. [Transmittal Letter, A Study of Revenue Mechanisms for Financing 

Urban Mass Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation, February 1974] 

As directed by the statute, the study of possible transit taxes was limited to excise taxes on transit 

fuel (gasoline, diesel oil, and propane) “and the assumption has been made that the transit fuel tax 

would be imposed on bus fuel only.” The study did not consider a tax on electrical power for rail or 

trolley systems.

The report described the decline in transit passengers from 19 billion in 1945 to approximately 5.3 

billion in 1972. “Over the 10-year period ending with 1972, bus passengers declined at an average 

annual rate of 3 percent; for the last five years, the average annual rate of decline has been 5 

percent.” Some evidence offered by the American Transit Association suggested that “this trend is 

being reversed and that increased ridership may well be experienced over the next several years.” 

Factors affecting transit ridership included quality of service, fares, gasoline shortages, higher 

gasoline prices, EPA policies, and urban area policies to limit growth in automobile traffic. 

“Significant changes are occurring with respect to each of these factors,” such as: 

Transit agencies, particularly the great number operating motor buses, are attempting to 

improve service through such means as adding more buses, replacing old equipment, 

providing fully air-conditioned fleets, and improving schedule frequency. A few transit 

agencies have experimented with lower fares.

On the constraint side, it is expected that shortages in supplies of gasoline for automobiles 

will continue through 1976. It is also expected that policies aimed at shifting journey-to-
1153 

work trips from automobile to transit in order to reduce air pollution will continue to be 

implemented.

These factors were contributing to the “leveling off in the long-decline in transit ridership,” but the 

impact of factors such as oil shortages and pollution control policies “are substantially unknown at 

present. [A Study of Revenue Mechanisms, p. II-4 – II-5] 

The Department considered a range of tax levels and their impact on fares for bus riders. “For 

example, a $0.10 fuel tax results in an $0.01 fare increase for bus riders, a $1.00 fuel tax results in 

an $0.08 increase, and a $3.00 fuel tax results in a $0.25 increase.” Each increase would result in 

ridership decline ($0.10 – 0.88 percent decline; $1.00 – 7.06 percent decline; and $3.00 – 22.06 

percent decline). “It is assumed that the decrease in transit ridership will result in an equivalent 

decrease in bus mileage and fuel consumption.” [A Study of Revenue Mechanisms, p. II-26 – II-27] 

Depending on the amount of the tax, revenue would range as low as $30 million and as high as $1.3 

billion a year. These yields did not take into account “probable reductions in transit ridership 

resulting from fare increases.” [A Study of Revenue Mechanisms, p. II-17] 

From an administrative standpoint, collecting this tax would be difficult:

The federal excise tax on the sale of gasoline is customarily assessed by the Internal 

Revenue Service at the manufacturer or refinery level, whereas the tax on diesel fuel is 

assessed at the pump.

(Using State motor-fuel tax receipts for comparison, the Department of the Treasury estimates the 

amount of Federal gax tax collected from drivers in each State even though the revenue is collected 

only from the few States with producers or importers.) 

Wholesalers and distributors pass on the increased cost of the gas tax to customers, including State 

or local governments. Under Federal law, sales to government agencies are exempt from the excise 

tax, and procedures are in effect to account for this exemption. All publicly owned transit 

operations qualify for the exemption, which is interpreted broadly. The declining number of 

privately owned transit systems, most of them in economic difficulty, would be subject to the tax. 

Collecting revenue from a transit fuel tax from publicly owned systems would be administratively 

difficult and legally uncertain in view of the exemption. Collecting the tax from privately owned 

systems would be legal, but could worsen their tentative financial condition. [A Study of Revenue 

Mechanisms, p. II-38 – II-39] 

The report summarized the Department’s conclusions on taxing fuel used for transit: 

A tax rate necessary to generate sufficient revenues to make a meaningful contribution to 

transit financing requirements would be extremely high. The effects of such a tax on transit 

ridership would depend on the extent to which the revenues to pay the tax were derived 

from the farebox.
1154 

The current gasoline shortage was expected to increase transit ridership, but higher fares would 

have the opposite effect. “A consequent increase in automobile use would exacerbate the current 

gasoline shortage, urban pollution, and urban congestion.” In addition, transit users come mainly 

from households with low to modest income, working women, minorities, school children, young 

people, and senior citizens, all of whom would find the increased fare burdensome.

If the transit tax is not passed on to passengers, State or local governments would have to raise the 

money from other tax sources. “This would mean, in effect, that state or local taxes would be used 

to pay a federal tax which, in turn, would be used to pay a portion of the costs of urban mass 

transportation.” [A Study of Revenue Mechanisms, p. II-44] 

In studying the effect of an urban gasoline tax on motor vehicles, the study varied from the law, 

which referred to urban areas (population 5,000 and over). The study considered only urbanized 

areas (those with population of 50,000 or over) “where the preponderance of transit usage occurs.” 

[A Study of Revenue Mechanisms, p. III-1] 

The effect of a 1- to 3-cent hike in the gas tax on motor vehicle use would be minimal, and would 

have little impact on gasoline consumption: 

[W]ith the restricted supplies of gasoline projected for FY 1975 and FY 1976, very large 

price increases would be required before consumption would fall below the available 

supply. 

A tax rate of 3 additional cents a gallon would raise about $1.5 billion a year “and would not be 

expected to have any significant effect on the consumption of gasoline or on transit usage.” 

As with the tax on transit fuel, collecting the additional tax on gas used in urbanized areas posed 

administrative difficulties. The tax could not be collected at the distributor or refinery level since 

the destination is not known. The States might have to collect the revenue along with revenue from 

State gas taxes and send it to the Internal Revenue Service. The tax might lead to evasion as 

motorists purchase cheaper gas outside the urbanized area. [A Study of Revenue Mechanisms, p. ii, 

III-14 – III-15] 

The report pointed out that even as Section 138(b) called for a study of revenue mechanisms, the 

1973 Act contained several provisions to increase funds for transit. It cited the potential use of 

Federal-aid urban system and Interstate substitution funds. At this early date, projections of how 

much these new sources would yield for transit were impossible to make. The 1973 Act also 

increased UMTA funding. These changes could impact policy on whether additional revenue from 

a tax on bus fuel or gas for urban motor vehicles was needed. [A Study of Revenue Mechanisms, p. 

IV-1 – IV-4] 

The report concluded: 

Under either of the above funding interpretations, it is clear from the magnitude of the tax 

rates that a transit fuel tax would not be a workable alternative. With regard to an urban 
1155 

area gasoline tax, several potential problems have been raised in this study. Such a tax 

proposal would have to be judged in relation to other alternatives for financing urban mass 

transportation and highway facilities in urban areas. [A Study of Revenue Mechanisms, p. 

vii]

The President Resigns

In the end, the tapes that Federal Aviation Administrator Butterfield had revealed brought down the 

President. Despite the President’s efforts to deflect every charge and to give the impression of 

focusing on important national and international issues, his presidency came down to a recorded 

conversation on June 23, 1972, during which he directed the Central Intelligence Agency to halt an 

FBI investigation into the Watergate break-in that would be politically embarrassing during his 

reelection campaign. 

On Saturday, July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend impeachment of 

the President on three articles:

Article I—Obstruction of Justice 

Article II—Abuse of Power 

Article III—Defiance of Committee Subpoenas 

With the reality of the taped conversation impossible to deny, the President issued a statement on 

August 5 acknowledging his efforts to block the investigation. He urged people to recall, first, that 

despite his actions, the investigation had continued: 

The second point I would urge is that the evidence be looked at in its entirety, and the events 

be looked at in perspective. Whatever mistakes I made in the handling of Watergate, the 

basic truth remains that when all the facts were brought to my attention, I insisted on a full 

investigation and the prosecution of those guilty. I am firmly convinced that the record, in 

its entirety, does not justify the extreme step of impeachment and removal of a President. I 

trust that as the constitutional process goes forward, this perspective will prevail. 

On August 6, he held a 90-minute Cabinet meeting during which he acknowledged his problems 

and the likelihood of impeachment. He told Vice President Ford and the Cabinet that he would 

remain in office and let the legal process decide his fate.

His determination to fight, a key component of his long political career, came to an abrupt end on 

Wednesday, August 7, when three congressional leaders visited the President. They informed him 

that support had eroded in the House and Senate. Senator Barry M. Goldwater informed him that 

he had no more than 15 votes in the Senate against impeachment. Senator Hugh Scott confirmed 

the estimate. Representative Rhodes declined to give a count in the House, but privately thought he 

could count on only about 50 votes. He made clear that he did not want any misunderstanding; he 

was not suggesting there were alternatives to resignation. 
1156 

If the President saw any way out in this discussion, Senator Goldwater slammed it shut. He said 

that with a clever lawyer, he might be able to survive Article I and III of the impeachment, but not 

Article II. “I’m leaning that way myself, Mr. President.” 

As Theodore White explained: 

The session lasted less than thirty minutes. And there was no one left, no major American 

political figure to support the man who had been elected by the largest free majority in 

American history. [White, p. 28-29] 

On August 8, President Richard M. Nixon informed the American people that he would resign the 

following day. In a 9 p.m. television and radio address from the Oval Office, he said: 

In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for 

the Nation. Through the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to 

persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected 

me.

In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong 

enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was 

such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to 

its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately 

difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future. 

But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has 

been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged. 

He wanted to carry on, despite “the personal agony it would have involved,” and his family urged 

him to do so. However, “the interests of the Nation must always come before any personal 

considerations.” After talking with congressional leaders, he recognized that he might not have 

support “that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties 

of this office in the way the interests of the Nation will require.” He said:

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to 

every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interests of America first.

He announced that he would resign at noon on August 9, 1974. 

The Ford Administration

For the public and the media, President Ford presented a remarkable contrast with the former 

President, who had earned the nickname “Tricky Dick” in the early 1950s and never lived it down. 

After the bitter and divisive drama of the Watergate scandals, people enjoyed reading about a 

President who seemed to be an “everyman.” 
1157 

In that era, Vice Presidents lived in their own home. In 1951, Representative Gerald R. Ford and 

his family moved to 1521 Mount Eagle Place in the Park Fairfax apartment complex in Alexandria, 

Virginia, the same rental community where the Nixons had once lived. They moved to 514 Crown 

View Drive in the Clover neighborhood of Alexandria in 1955. The home is near King Street 

(State Route 7), a main commuter road between U.S. 1 (Jefferson Davis Highway) on the east and 

what was then I-95 (Henry G. Shirley Highway, now I-395). The Fords had built the four-bedroom, 

two-bath colonial house on a quarter-acre lot. The house included a recreation room in the 

basement and a two-car garage. The Fords later added a backyard pool. When Representative Ford 

became Vice President, the Secret Service improved the home’s security, installing bulletproof 

glass and adding steel rods under the driveway to support the Vice President’s armored limousine, 

among other changes. 

For the Fords, the morning of August 9, 1974, began in a way that any family could identify with, 

as The New York Times explained:

For the new First Family, today was a flood of mundane chores and extraordinary events. 

Only hours before Betty Ford sorrowfully embraced Julie Nixon Eisenhower [President 

Nixon’s daughter] on the White House lawn as President Nixon departed in his helicopter, 

she was debating with her 18-year old son about whether he should go to the beach this 

week.

President Ford seemed to set the pattern for the day when, at sunrise, he stepped out of his 

house in his bathrobe, uninhibited by the reporters on vigil outside his modest suburban 

house in Alexandria, Va., to retrieve the morning paper, which would have been a simple 

task for one of the Secret Service agents on duty there.

Mr. Ford cooked breakfast for himself and his son, Steven, who had risen early to collect his 

paycheck from the National Capital Park Service for mowing grass along a highway, while 

the rest of the family slept.

An accompanying photograph showed Betty Ford, coffee mug in hand, and the Fords’ daughter 

Susan standing at the front door, in their bathrobes, talking to a neighbor. [“The Fords’ First Day as 

First Family,” The New York Times, August 10, 1974] 

While the Nixons moved out of the White House, the Fords stayed in their home in Clover for a 

week and a half. At the request of the Secret Service, the police blocked Crown View Drive in both 

directions, allowing only local traffic and authorized vehicles. Time magazine described the 

President’s daily commute:

Every morning last week, the President of the United States was driven into the capital from 

his suburban Alexandria, Va., home along with the stream of commuters who daily turn 

Interstate 95 into what Washingtonians sometimes grumpily refer to as “the world’s longest 

parking lot.” Preceded by a police car and trailed by four other vehicles, including a Secret 

Service station wagon and a press van, his limousine was hard to miss. Many motorists 
1158 

waved a cheerful if somewhat bemused good-morning as the Chief Executive, immersed in 

his morning newspapers, sailed past them in the lane reserved for buses and car pools. 

Gone was the public hostility of yesterday as Nixon’s presidency foundered; now there was 

a new President, totally contrasting in manner, mien and style from his predecessor, and he 

was moving fast. [“Gerald Ford: Off to a Fast, Clean Start,” Time, August 26, 1974] 

(In 1974, Congress approved funds to renovate the residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory as a 

Vice Presidential home, but it was not ready for occupancy while Ford was Vice President.) 

At noon, Chief Justice Warren E. Burger was in the East Room of the White House to administer 

the oath of office to the 38th President of the United States, Gerald R. Ford. Burger had been in 

Europe, but returned on a military plane for the occasion. The new President said he had not 

expected to be President and had not received the votes of the American people. “I expect to follow 

my instincts of openness and candor with full confidence that honesty is always the best policy in 

the end. My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.” 

A month later, on September 8, 1974, President Ford issued a full and unconditional pardon to his 

predecessor, an act that proved to be the most divisive of his years in the White House. The New 

York Times called the decision “an act of monumental folly” and a “cynical aberration of justice” 

that raised questions about President Ford’s “credibility as a man of judgment, candor and 

competence,” “showed incredibly poor judgment bordering on moral obtuseness,” and “wiped out 

the era of good feeling that he himself had inaugurated.” [“Mr. Ford’s Folly,” The New York Times, 

September 15, 1974] 

With the economy still struggling despite President Nixon’s efforts to overcome stagflation, 

President Ford declared that inflation was his main target–“public enemy number one.” 

Presidential historian Robert Dallek summarized the Ford approach: 

When the economy, whipsawed by rising energy costs, fell into a cycle of stagflation in 

1975—falling GNP, the worst since 1929-1932; 9 percent unemployment, the highest since 

1941; and rapidly rising prices, the biggest increases in twenty-five years—Ford focused 

only on how to keep inflation in check. In response to the worst economic downturn since 

the Great Depression, he urged tax increases and less government spending to reduce 

deficits and encouraged price restraints by handing out WIN (Whip Inflation Now) buttons. 

In addition, he opposed congressional efforts to stimulate the economy with a large tax cut 

and expand social welfare programs by vetoing seventy-two pieces of legislation in a little 

over two years—nearly doubling the number of Nixon’s vetoes in a five-and-a-half-year 

period and substantially more than the average in an eight-year presidential term. [Dallek, 

Robert, Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents, Oxford 

University Press, p. 185] 

He saw government regulation, and the bureaucrats who administer the regulations, as imposing 

hidden costs. This view would inform his transportation proposals for reducing Federal 

bureaucratic involvement in Federal-aid programs and regulation of the transportation sector. 
1159 

On August 30, President Ford announced that his choice for Vice President was former Governor 

Nelson Rockefeller. Dating to his campaign for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination in 

1964, Governor Rockefeller had been seen by conservatives as too liberal. His past and perhaps 

future presidential ambitions and his long experience as the top executive of New York also raised 

questions. Despite conservative objections and revelations during the confirmation hearings of 

questionable behavior, the Senate confirmed him for the post, 90 to 7, on December 10. Senator 

Goldwater, who had secured the presidential nomination in 1964 but lost the election in a landslide, 

was among the few voting against the former Governor. 

The House of Representatives confirmed him, 287 to 128, on December 20, 1974. Later that day, 

Chief Justice Burger administered the oath of office to the new Vice President in the Senate 

chamber shortly after 10 p.m. 

National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974 

On Monday, August 12, 1974, before a joint session of Congress in the House chamber, President 

Ford said, “I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage.” He asked for 

congressional help in fighting inflation by cutting Federal spending to achieve a balanced budget. 

He had already instructed the Cabinet, his advisors, and White House staff “to make fiscal restraint 

their first order of business, and to save every taxpayer’s dollar the safety and genuine welfare of 

our great Nation will permit.” 

On this occasion, his first opportunity as President to address Congress, he did not want to threaten 

vetoes, but said, “I do have the last recourse, and I am a veteran of many a veto fight right here in 

this great chamber.” He asked, “Can’t we do a better job by reasonable compromise? I hope we 

can.”

One of the first bills after this challenge was the Federal Mass Transportation Act of 1974 (H.R. 

12859), the House Public Works Committee’s $20-billion mass transit bill. In a meeting with 

municipal officials, including Mayor Beame, President Ford pledged his support for an $11.8-

billion transit program and letting local officials decide whether to use Federal funds for capital 

projects or operating subsidies. [Smerk, p. 135] Reporter Mary Russell explained on August 15: 

Congress’ willingness to cooperate in President Ford’s announced goal of cutting 

government spending to hold down inflation faces its first test today as the House considers 

a six-year, $20 billion mass transit bill that the administration has said is “highly 

inflationary.”

House Minority Leader John J. Rhodes (R-Ariz.) has said the President would veto any bill 

with a funding level higher than $11.6 billion . . . . During debate on the mass transit bill 

yesterday, Rep. E. G. Shuster (R-Pa.) said, “What we have today is a first test of whether we 

merely applauded the words of the new President or whether we are going to act on those 

words.” 
1160 

Representative Wright pointed out that “the President said he would meet us half way,” so 

Democrats on the Public Works Committee were willing to reduce the size of the bill to $15.5 

billion, halfway between the current total and the Administration’s preference. He could not say 

whether committee Democrats could accept a lower amount, but Representative Shuster called the 

“halfway” amount “just too much money given present inflationary conditions.” 

The bill contained other controversial measures. It would exempt mass transit projects from filing 

environmental impact statements under NEPA, substituting a new set of environmental standards 

for such projects. “Liberal Democrats are expected to offer an amendment to knock out the NEPA 

exemption, arguing that the bill’s standards are vague and that circumventing NEPA sets a 

dangerous precedent.” Other provisions increased permissible bus width on Interstate highways 

and increased allowable truck weights on the Interstates from 73,280 pounds to 90,000 pounds. 

[Russell, Mary, “Transit Bill Vote to Test Hill Anti-Inflation Forces,” The Washington Post, August 

15, 1974] 

On August 15, the White House made clear that President Ford favored cutting the bill to $11 

billion and restricting operating subsidies. During debate that afternoon on subsidies, 

Representative Milford, the Democrat from Big Tussle, Texas, called subsidies “a big-city ripoff” 

and an “insult to the taxpayers.” Others called subsidies a “rat hole” and a move to “bail out” New 

York City. Members of Congress from rural areas agreed with Representative Milford’s 

characterization of subsidies as an attempt by the big cities “to unload their problems on 

Washington.” Representative Lamar Baker (R-Tn.) said, “There’s no reason to bail out New York 

when they pay wages like $7.24 an hour plus cost-of-living increments to subway motormen.” 

Representative Abzug defended subsidies, saying that without them, New York would have to raise 

fares, thereby triggering a new inflationary spiral. She also pointed out that subsidies would benefit 

rural communities because the bill included bus subsidies. 

The House sustained operating subsidies, 202 to 197, after a strong debate, but by voice vote cut the 

Federal-State matching ratio for subsidies from 50-50 in the bill to 33-67. As The New York Times

said, “Both votes showed a wide-ranging disinclination on the part of the House to take 

responsibility for saving New York’s 35-cent transit fare.” [Burks, Edward C., “Support for 35c 

Fare and Aid Shrink in House Debate on Bill,” The New York Times, August 16, 1974] 

On August 20, the House of Representatives approved, over the New York delegation’s objections, 

Representative Harsha’s amendment to reduce total authorizations in the bill to $11.8 billion by a 

257 to 155 vote. 

The House also voted to delete the provision increasing weight limits on the Interstate System. 

Representative Koch objected to the provision. He said that, “all great committees occasionally 

make errors. This is one of the errors in this bill.” Allowing heavier trucks, he said, would increase 

fatalities while increasing damage to highway pavements. The cost of repairing the damage “will 

be borne by the localities up to $100 million a year, which is not refunded in this bill, and because 

the existing bridges on the Interstate System were built for the current maximum loads and not 
1161 

those permitted in the bill.” (The States were responsible for highway maintenance without 

Federal-aid.) 

Representative Harsha defended the provision, pointing out that the lower speed limit had 

“necessitated the addition to the truck fleet of additional trucks to transport the same volume of 

goods.” The proposed weight increase “would enable the trucking industry to increase its loadcarrying capacity . . . with a resulting fuel savings of 5.6 percent and a decrease in the number of 

trips by 7.8 percent.” He quoted Secretary Brinegar, who had called for increases in the weight 

limits:

We believe that the weight increases we propose will have a minimal effect upon highway 

safety. The lowering of the speed limit to 55 reduces braking distance materially, far more 

than any increases in braking distance with existing equipment which might be attributed to 

greater axle loads. To the extent that increased truck productivity leads to fewer trucks on 

the road, it means less exposure to accidents.

Representative Wayne L. Hays (D-Oh.) said: 

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman had me with him until he made that statement about the poor 

trucks. There is not a truck in this country which is obeying the 55-mile-an-hour limit. 

They will blow one off the road if one is going 50 miles an hour. 

Representative Harsha acknowledged that the truckers do not obey the speed limit (“That is a matter

of enforcement”), with Hays adding, “They are all doing 65 to 75 miles an hour.” (According to a 

New York Times account, Representative Hays’s comment “brought some roars from the House.”) 

Representative Wright pointed out that the provision did not raise limits, but only permitted States 

to do so if they wished. 

The House approved Representative Koch’s amendment striking the provision by voice vote, but he 

demanded a recorded vote. The provision was deleted by a vote of 252 to 159. 

Finally, the House approved the Public Works Committee’s 6-year, $11.8-billion bill, 324 to 92. 

[Federal Mass Transportation Act of 1974, Congressional Record-House, August 20, 1974, p. 

29370-29392] 

Representatives Abzug and Koch were among those voting for the bill despite their disappointment 

about the reduced funding level. Representative Abzug explained: 

This is landmark legislation even though the bill has been cut, because it establishes the 

principle of operating subsidies, which we never had before. 

She hoped that funding levels could be increased when the House and Senate establish a conference 

report on the final measure. 
1162 

A Department of Transportation spokesman said the bill was “a major deal for us because the 

money level is down to a level the Administration will accept. It looks like we now have a good 

chance for an acceptable mass-transit bill this year. [Burke, Edward C., “House Passes Transit Bill 

Providing $11-Billion Aid,” The New York Times, August 21, 1974] 

According to an aide, Senator Williams considered the bill inadequate, objected to the reduced 

Federal share of operating subsidies, and was thinking of revising the Emergency Commuter Relief 

Act. According to a Times account:

Senator Williams contends that the new House bill will actually lower the funds available 

for capital projects at least for the first two years of its six-year spending plan. In fact, he 

argued that there is no compelling need for a new bill on capital allocations because there is 

already capital funding for fiscal 1975 and 1976, and that therefore the big need is to tackle 

the problem of operating subsidies. [Burks, Edward C., “Mass-Transit Bill Held 

Inadequate,” The New York Times, August 22, 1974] 

Editorial reaction to the House bill was similarly negative. The New York Times called its funding 

“disappointingly inadequate” and “clearly insufficient to meet the pressing needs of deficit-ridden 

transit systems here and elsewhere.” The Los Angeles Times said the bill “falls seriously short of 

assuring the level of federal support required” and hoped the Senate would increase funding levels. 

On a more positive note, The Christian Science Monitor called the bill “one of the first big

dividends of the end of the impeachment process.” Instead of being absorbed in that process, 

Congress could get “back to its primary business of legislation—with an eye on the fall elections.” 

The bill broke ground on operating subsidies and authorized funds that “look fiscally responsible.” 

[“Too Little for Transit,” The New York Times, August 22, 1974; “Transit: A Chance to Choose,” 

The Los Angeles Times, August 23, 1974; “House Push for Mass Transit,” The Christian Science 

Monitor, August 22, 1974] 

The House bill, which had originated in the Committee on Public Works, was submitted to the 

Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. But as the initial reaction to the bill 

suggests, it faced serious objections, in part because of its origins in the Public Works Committee. 

Smerk explained:

The bill would amend U.S. Code Title 23, the Federal Highway Act, and cause major 

changes for both highway and transit interests, changes that were very upsetting to both 

groups. The bill would also completely abolish the UMTA programs. The whole of the 

mass transit aid program would be subject to the procedures of the federal highway 

program. Supporters of transit were fearful of what would happen to mass transit if it was 

left to the mercies of state highway departments. Moreover, both President Nixon and 

Secretary of Transportation Brinegar had objected to the operating-aid provision. There was 

fear that, to use political rhetoric, it would become a bottomless pit or a rathole down which 

to squander taxpayers’ dollars. It became clear that the Senate was not about to go along 

with H.R. 12859 and that it would not come up with a long-range bill of its own and go 
1163 

through what promised to be a difficult conference process before the end of the 93rd

Congress. [Smerk, p. 136] 

As The Baltimore Sun put it at the time, “Comprehensive mass transit legislation . . . appears to be 

caught in a series of legislative and special-interest conflicts and is unlikely to win approval during 

the current session of Congress.” The three major factors stalling the legislation were (1) fear by 

transit interests that the bill gave too much control to State transportation departments (“The people 

seeking transit money would be the people who administer highway programs. It would be a clash 

of policy,” said James McCannon of SEPTA); (2) the prestige of the Ford Administration made it 

unlikely Congress would call for additional funding; and (3) as aides to Senator Williams pointed 

out, the funding procedures and inadequate amounts for construction programs were unacceptable. 

His aide, Stephen J. Paradise, explained that under the House bill, the use of funds for operating 

costs would reduce the funds available for construction that was crucial in many big cities. 

These concerns had revived interest in S. 386, the Minish-Williams bill, but this, according to the 

Sun, “appears to be a questionable strategy because the House has shown considerable opposition to 

federal support of operating costs and a provision permitting it in the major bill passed only by a 

vote of 202 to 197.” The bill provided no funds for construction, and tentative plans indicated the 

2-year, $800 million subsidy would be cut in half to try to increase House support: 

A transit lobbyist here [in Washington] indicated a willingness to wait for major legislation 

until after the November elections both because President Ford now appears strong enough 

to force low spending levels and because of the possibility that the new Congress will have a 

larger number of transit supporters. [“Mass Transit Legislation Appears Dead This Year,” 

The Baltimore Sun, September 3, 1974] 

President Ford was in Pittsburgh on September 9 to address the Sixth International Conference on 

Urban Transportation. He began by joking: 

I am told that some people in Europe heard about my nomination of Governor Rockefeller 

and concluded that we had solved our transportation problems in America. The Europeans 

said that we now have a combination of a Ford, who makes automobiles, and a Rockefeller, 

who makes gasoline. 

He said he was not a transportation expert, but was “dedicated to the revival of efficient 

transportation in our great urban centers here in the United States.” He described the decline of 

urban transportation: 

The relationship between urban regeneration and urban transportation is extremely close. 

Among our most pressing urban problems—and your presence here highlights it—is 

transportation, especially the automobile. For the last 25 years, two decades and a half, 

automobiles have been the most important factor in shaping urban centers and expanding 

suburbs. The statisticians tell me that there are some 100 million automobiles on nearly 4 

million miles of American streets and highways. That makes one automobile for every two 
1164 

Americans, and most of those 100 million cars are in our way when any one of us tries to go 

downtown. 

Many Americans have moved to suburbs where there is less and less traffic. My wife Betty 

and I can vouch for the very restful suburban life, and we picked it for reasons that most 

Americans select it. We raised our family in Alexandria, Virginia, just outside of 

Washington, D.C., and on a personal note, I miss it, especially my backyard swimming pool. 

In the last two decades, suburban population grew far faster than our central city population. 

 And in some instances, the population growth in our suburbs resulted in an actual 

numerical decline in our central cities. Americans, as a result, by the millions on a day-today basis, drive to and from work. Most took the road or the highway or the street, 

approximately at the same time of day as everybody else. Frankly, I admire the fortitude 

and the driving skill of the millions of Americans who are on time going to work without 

police and Secret Service escorts . . . . 

I am sure everyone, everyone here especially, along with thousands, or literally millions of 

other Americans have been caught in rush-hour traffic jams. I know I have for a number of 

years while serving in the House of Representatives and living in Alexandria. Sitting in 

bumper-to-bumper traffic has become a way of life to far too many Americans.

 

As a Congressman, I was in New York City about 10 years ago, and I asked a New York 

City policeman the best way to get to Brooklyn, and he was very blunt in his answer. 

"Buddy," he said, "the best way to get to Brooklyn is to be born there." [Laughter] 

Being from Michigan with the name of Ford, the President said, “you can be sure I am not going to 

say anything unkind about automobiles.” It was, however, “self-evident that excessive use of cars 

in dense urban areas increases pollution levels, causes unbelievable traffic jams, massive 

headaches, and bumper-to-bumper tie-ups which burn too much scarce and expensive fuel.” The 

energy shortage from October to March made clear that, “Solutions must be found for the growing 

problems of congestion and pollution, challenges now complicated very severely by our energy 

conservation.” A renaissance of urban transportation “must be built on solid, defendable concepts.”

The fact that mass transit usage in 1973 had increased for the first time since World War II was 

encouraging, but until the Nation developed urban mass transit systems that people want to use—

systems “that offer convenience, comfort, and reliability expected from the automobiles that 

Americans have been traditionally using”—transit service would continue to be underused. 

The international conference, with its emphasis on transit marketing, “is exactly on the right target.” 

 People had an understandable reluctance to abandon what they were brought up to use, namely the 

automobile, and try something “new and different.” President Ford said, “There has to be 

something extra if we are going to achieve a viable mass transit system in most of our urban 

metropolitan areas.” He suggested that the transit industry learn from the automotive industry. 

“They have done quite well with the product that they have promoted in our country. We must 
1165 

compete with the automakers in the effective promotion of products, in their imagination, 

enterprise, and marketing skills.” 

One point must be understood. “The automobile is and will continue to be our chief transportation 

vehicle” because it “fits America’s traditional lifestyle.” We must “learn how best to live with 

them in the urban scene.” Diversity of choice among options was one key, coupled with land-use 

planning.” This could, “only be done, in my judgment, wisely and well at the local level.” 

The Federal Government has a role in assisting urban mass transit systems, but “that role must be 

carried out in complete and total partnership with States and localities.” The “heavy hand of the 

Federal Government” must not dictate outcomes. To help cities, he said: 

Federal assistance, as I see it, must be primarily directed at finding cost efficient solutions to 

the problem of moving people. It must only secondarily be viewed as a means to stimulate 

urban area economic growth or to increase central-city density. Federal taxpayers just can’t 

afford to pay for the whole package, and I won’t ask them to do so. 

The House and Senate must join with the White House as inflation fighters: 

Investments in local mass transit systems must have reasonable cost-to-benefit ratios or 

relationships. The House-passed Federal Mass Transit Act of 1974 proposes an $11 billion 

spread [sic] over a 6-year period and, I add emphatically, an absolute upper dollar limit.

In addition, I have a problem with the program structure in the House bill and its treatment 

of Federal operating assistance for public transit. A committee of the Senate will be 

considering a transit bill whose program structure is similar to the Administration’s transit 

proposal. I am confident that this problem, or this conflict between the House and Senate 

versions, can be overcome in a House and Senate conference.

It is probably known to many here, I have opposed in the past transit operating subsidies, 

particularly out of the Highway Trust Fund, because of my strong belief that such a program 

would lead to the Federal Government [getting involved] in the local day-to-day transit 

operating matters. And also, I have learned, from my experience with other Federal 

categorical grant programs for operating expenses, that these funds often do not result in 

better or more service. Instead, they simply result in greater cost and less efficiency.

It is my conclusion, however, that our current inflexible urban mass transit grant program 

encourages States, encourages cities to adopt what you can call capital-intensive solutions, 

such as subways, as a response to their transportation problems. 

Accordingly, as a compromise for my own long, deeply held convictions, I am supporting 

some limited Federal operating assistance such as the proposal I mentioned a few moments 

ago, submitted in February and currently being considered by the Senate. 

He was referring to UTAP.
1166 

I recognize that this change will allow a limited portion of Federal urban transit funds to be 

used for operating expenses as an integral part of a comprehensive transit program and as a 

result, primarily, of decisions by local and State officials . . . . And although the operating 

assistance provisions of the House bill do not meet these standards, the Senate will . . . and I 

hope does, correct this deficiency, and I trust the final version will contain that specific 

provision. 

He was confident “we can achieve our national transportation goals . . . without further feeding the 

fires of inflation or busting the Federal budget.” 

In closing, he emphasized that from the Nation’s earliest days, “we have been a mobile people.” 

Today, we had many “avenues of movement for all Americans,” but whatever choices people make, 

the “wheels of the Nation cannot stop turning, whether they are on cars or trucks or buses or trains 

or planes.” 

A Times editorial reacted to the President’s remarks:

President Ford built mass-transit boosters up to a jarring letdown in Pittsburgh the other day 

when he told transportation experts there that last winter’s energy crisis had driven home the 

message that “we must make major progress in improving mass transit.” Most of the 

President’s subsequent remarks made it painfully evident that this transit message had failed 

to penetrate the White House with any real sense of urgency.

His limit of $11 billion on the transit bill “hardly qualifies as a commitment to ‘major progress.” 

He also had expressed reservations about operating subsidies “despite the clear need for such aid.” 

His comments seemed less to reflect a President who had learned the lessons of the energy crisis, 

and more “the parochial prejudices of a Congressman [from Michigan] more concerned with the 

prosperity of a major local industry than with the burdens of pollution and congestion which the 

automobile imposes on urban areas.” [“Mr. Ford on Transit,” The New York Times, September 14, 

1974] 

The Coconuts, the Bread, the Dollars

On September 15, a conference of mayors convened by Mayor Beame in San Francisco agreed on 

an intensive campaign for Federal operating subsidies. As part of Mayor Beame’s effort to save the 

35-cent fare, more than 15 cities would send representatives of government, labor, and business to 

Washington the week of September 23 to lobby for the funds. 

Reminded of President Ford’s restriction of transit aid to $11 billion, Mayor Beame replied, “He 

changed his mind on pardoning Nixon, didn’t he? Now he can change his mind on more transit 

money.” He called the House bill “inadequate” and thought that “a reasonable compromise, 

perhaps $18-billion, would do.” He was backed up by Mayor Neil Goldschmidt of Portland, 

Oregon. “We’re tired of going to Washington and hearing them say, ‘We’re all for comprehensive 

transit help but, gee, there’s just not enough time before adjournment.’ The time is now.” 
1167 

[Malcolm, Andrew H., “Mayors to Lobby for Mass Transit Aid,” The New York Times, September

14, 1974] 

Prospects for a bill in 1974 dimmed. Secretary Brinegar told reporters that Congress could “take it 

up in February—we don’t need it right away.” The dollar levels in the approved House bill were 

satisfactory, Secretary Brinegar said, but as the President had explained in Pittsburgh, “The program 

structure has some serious difficulties.” He also dismissed talk of reviving the Minish-Williams 

subsidy bill. The Administration would “find it very difficult” to support the measure. 

Senator James B. Allen (D-Al.) presented another obstacle, namely the threat of a filibuster. His 

filibusters had blocked legislation on public financing of political campaigns, consumer protection, 

and pay raises for Members of Congress. Now, he said, “There is always a possibility” of a 

filibuster of the transit act. The bill was “only the tip of the iceberg,” adding, “We might as well 

open the door to the U.S. Treasury and say come on in.” The bill would “build up megalopolises” 

when the country needed “a decentralization of the population, businesses, and industries in this 

country.” [“Filibuster Hint Dims Hopes of Mass Transit Bill Vote,” The Washington Post, 

September 20, 1974] 

[The contemporary Ralph Nader Congress Project described Senator Allen as a “parliamentarian,” 

defined as “If you’re not keen on policy-making, you should learn the rules of procedure. If you are 

perennially in the minority, you must learn the rules of procedure.” In a newsletter to his 

constituents, he describes his role as “keeping watch in the Senate to see that our position is not 

prejudiced by adverse parliamentary maneuvers.” [Green, Mark J., Fallows, James M. and Zwick, 

David R., Who Runs Congress? A Bantam/Grossman Book, 1972, p. 221]) 

The lobbying effort by local officials had little impact on the Administration’s position:

Adamant opposition to immediate federal subsidies for urban mass transit operations was 

expressed yesterday by a Ford administration spokesman, despite warnings that imminent 

fare boosts will hurt the poor and increase auto use. 

Responding to a phalanx of urban America’s leaders—mayors of large cities, governors and 

candidates for governor, labor leaders and mass transit lobbyists—who launched a renewed 

effort to win transit subsidies, a Department of Transportation official said the 

administration would rather wait for a more comprehensive bill next year. 

“We believe it is a realistic expectation that such a measure will be enacted early in the life 

of the 94th Congress,” said Frank C. Herringer, urban mass transportation administrator. 

He made the comment on September 25 while testifying before what Smerk referred to as “an 

almost unprecedented action,” namely another day of hearings on S. 386, the bill still technically in 

conference committee. 

The approved long-range House bill, written by the Committee on Public Works, stalled in the 

Senate Banking and Currency Committee. Support was insufficient and time in the session too 
1168 

limited to complete work on it. Having concluded that that the House bill could not be approved in 

the Senate by the end of the year, Senator Williams revived S. 386 on the theory that the short-term 

bill had a better chance of congressional approval. The revised bill reduced the subsidy to $600 

million ($200 million in FY 1975 and the remainder in FY 1976). 

The diluted bill, as Herringer made clear, was still unacceptable to the White House. He repeated 

the President’s statement that he would support operating subsidies only as part of a comprehensive 

multi-year financing plan:

It is with reluctance that I take this position, because I am concerned that it will be 

misinterpreted and branded as an anti-mass transit stance.

He worried that the bill would “take the steam away from the long-term bill” by making the longterm bill less urgent. He said that Secretary Brinegar would recommend a veto of the revived 

Minish-Williams bill. 

Senator Williams said the Administration’s position was “more than distressing” since the bill had 

been “tailored to everything that has come to us from the Administration.” He hoped the Secretary 

would “think this through . . . we’re going to fight to accomplish what the nation needs.” 

Representative Fortney H. (Pete) Stark (D-Ca.) said the Administration’s position was “an affront, a 

cop-out” and “not responsive” to the needed “spirit of compromise.” The Ford Administration, he 

said, “is ready to let [mass transit] go down the tubes.” 

Representative Abzug said she preferred the long-term bill. “The Minish-Williams bill is a little 

bill with a little bit of money, but it can derail the long-range mass-transportation bill.” She urged 

Senator Williams to hold hearings on the House bill, but he replied, “it would take us easily from 

now until the end of the year,” at which point all pending bills would die with the end of the 93rd

Congress. 

For New York, which needed $200 million a year in Federal subsidies, the outcome varied among 

the bills, but neither version of the Minish-Williams bill came close to the $125 million the city 

would have received the first year of the House bill. Governor Wilson called the situation “an 

extreme emergency” and said he had talked with the President. He declined to repeat the 

conversation, but said the President listened to what he wanted to say. The Governor pointed out 

that, “the Republican party does not control either house of the Congress,” and added, “I am fed up 

to the gills about words. I want money. It is the coconuts, the bread, the dollars.” 

President Ford had agreed to an October 1 meeting with the Conference of Mayors. The conference 

president, Mayor Joseph L. Alioto of San Francisco, said of the planned meeting, “The nation’s 

cities—the people who live in our cities—cannot wait until next year for relief.” 

As part of Mayor Beame’s plan to save the 35-cent fare, he said he would ask the President to allow 

the city to convert half of its $240 million in transit grants to operating subsidies. He favored the 

Minish-Williams bill, but wanted it amended to give cities the choice to use transit funds for 

subsidies of capital expenditures. The House bill, according to the Mayor was inadequate for New 
1169 

York’s needs. He hoped to “turn the President around” to secure immediate action because “the 

fare is in the hands of the Federal Administration.” [Tolchin, Martin, “A Weakened Bill on Mass 

Transit Cuts Aid to Fare,” The New York Times, September 26, 1974; Jones, William H., 

“Administration Hits Transit Subsidy,” The Washington Post, September 26, 1974; “Beame to See 

Ford Today on Transit,” The New York Times, October 1, 1974] 

Secretary Brinegar and Administrator Herringer joined President Ford in the Cabinet Room for the 

meeting with the Mayors and business and union leaders. Henry Ford II led the business 

community, while representatives from organizations such as the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the Amalgamated 

Transit Union, and the United Steelworkers of America participated. 

President Ford gave unqualified support to the House mass transit bill, but refused to endorse the 

stop-gap Minish-Williams bill even if the House bill failed in the Senate before the end of the 93rd

Congress. Herringer told reporters after the meeting that “the President supports long-term 

legislation and does not accept the fact it can’t be passed.” The President promised to call a White 

House meeting for the mayors and House and Senate leaders to discuss how to expedite the 

measure. As Secretary Brinegar said, “the President wants to enlist the Mayor’s efforts to get a bill 

out.” 

Mayor Beame said, “The President feels very definitely that a long-term bill could come out of this 

session.” He added, “We’re plugging for a better bill. The $11-billion bill would not save the fare. 

But if there is a better bill, who knows what would happen.” Chicago’s Mayor Daley agreed. “We 

all need immediate relief for the emergency that exists today.” 

Earlier in the day, Senator Williams had met with the mayors, informing them that the long-term 

House bill was inadequate. An improved bill, he promised, would be the first of order of business 

in the 94th Congress. He would continue to pursue the Minish-Williams bill in the interim. 

Mayor Beame, who proposed his 50-percent measure, summarized the situation by saying, “We’re 

afraid that the city is going to get caught between the long-term bill and short-term bill, and get 

nothing.” Reminded that Congress would recess in mid-October for the mid-term elections in 

November, Mayor Beame replied, “They’re on the payroll until January 3.” [Tolchin, Martin, 

“President Backs Transit Measure,” The New York Times, October 2, 1974] 

On October 3, the conference committee on S. 386 approved a report combining the MinishWilliams bill with the House bill to create a 6-year, $11.8 billion urban mass transportation 

program, with two-thirds of the funding restricted to capital projects and the remainder available for 

operating subsidies at local option. 

Ron Nessen, the White House press secretary, said that President Ford “would strongly support the 

bill and be happy to sign it into law.” An unnamed White House transportation saide said, “We’re 

going to push very, very hard for it. We think it’s exactly what the President wanted. We’re 

delighted.” Part of the White House pleasure in the bill stemmed from its fear that the November 

elections, the first in the post-Nixon era, would result in a more liberal Congress in 1975 that would 

seek a stronger, more expensive bill. 
1170 

Senator Williams intended to bring the conference report before the Senate after the elections. He

was confident the Senate would pass the bill. Representative Minish wanted to bring the bill to the 

House floor before the elections, but the House Rules Committee would have to approve the 

measure and that presented a problem. The conference report had converted an $800 million bill 

into an $11.8 billion mass transit bill that differed in many respects from S. 386 and the approved 

House bill. Although the switch violated House rules, Chairman Madden was confident his 

committee would approve the bill. “I’m going to go along with it,” he said. “The people want mass 

transit, and I think my committee will go along with it.” [Tolchin, Martin, “Ford Plans Strong 

Support in Congress for Mass-Transit Bill,” The New York Times, October 5, 1974] 

He did not anticipate difficulty he would encounter in securing passage. The jurisdictional dispute 

between the Public Works Committee, which had drafted the House bill, and the Banking and 

Currency Committee, which had drafted S. 386, was part of the problem. Members of the Public 

Works Committee had held 4 months of hearings before completing work on the House bill. They 

were upset that the conference committee had ignored the House-approved bill and spent 80 

minutes converting its $800-million Minish-Williams bill to meet President Ford’s wishes. 

Chairman Blatnik of the Public Works Committee, who was not seeking reelection in November, 

said, “To allow a multi-billion bill to be written in conference with no hearings, I don’t understand 

how we can tolerate it.” He added, “This procedure grossly violates all the rules and precedents of 

the House.” Representative Jones of the committee said, “We dispatched subcommittees to Boston, 

New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta. We rode the subways, and we passed a bill.” 

Representative Madden acknowledged the charge of plagiarism, but told Representative Blatnik, 

“This bill is practically a carbon copy of the [public works] bill that we passed. You’re absolutely 

right. But how are we going to explain to 220 million Americans why we haven’t passed a bill?” 

On October 8, the House Rules Committee voted 6 to 6 on releasing the bill, with the tie blocking 

the bill from a vote on the House floor. Three members were absent from the vote, and Chairman 

Madden, confident that he could secure approval, scheduled another vote for early October 9. If 

approved then, the bill could reach the House floor before the recess began on Friday, October 11. 

Despite President Ford’s support, only one of five Republicans on the Rules Committee had voted 

for the bill. Three voted against it while the fourth was not present. Representative Dave Martin 

(R-Ne.), who according to the Times led the attack on the bill, said of Administration support: 

Somebody from the Transportation Administration came to see me yesterday to say he 

wanted to see it passed. By comparison, on the rice bill, I had everybody from the 

Department of Agriculture, from the Secretary on down. 

Secretary Brinegar indicated he would write a letter to the committee Republicans reaffirming the 

President’s support. Pressure would be applied to the absent members and others to support the 

bill. Administrator Herringer said, “I think we’ll get it back on the track tomorrow, but it was an 

awful scare.” [Tolchin, Martin, “6-to-6 Vote in House Rules Committee Blocks Mass-Transit 

Bill,” The New York Times, October 9, 1974] 
1171 

Later that day, President Ford addressed a joint session of Congress on the economy. He covered a 

variety of topics, including energy. “America’s future depends heavily on oil, gas, coal, electricity, 

and other resources called energy. Make no mistake, we do have a real energy problem.” Pointing 

out that 17 percent of American’s energy came “from foreign sources that we cannot control, at 

high cartel prices,” he said:

The primary solution has to be at home. If you have forgotten the shortages of last winter, 

most Americans have not. I have ordered today the reorganization of our national energy 

effort and creation of a national energy board. 

He said he had met with automakers “to assure, either by agreement or by law, a firm program 

aimed at achieving a 40 percent increase in gasoline mileage within a 4-year development 

deadline.” He also called for actions to increase energy resources at home, including deregulation 

of natural gas supplies and amendments to the Clean Air Act. 

He did not mention the mass transit bill, but it came up during his press conference at 2:30 p.m. in 

the Rose Garden on October 9. 

Q. Sir, if you accept that mass transit is an essential part of the energy saving program, can 

you explain why you did not lend your support to a comprehensive Federal mass transit bill 

now before Congress, in your very important speech yesterday? 

THE PRESIDENT. The answer to that is very simple. I had some considerable part in 

working out the compromise on the Williams-Minish bill. If you will recall, I had about 15 

mayors from all over the country down here to see me, including some business people. 

I told them I wanted to help. Within a day or so, I called Senator Williams. After it was 

suggested, we worked out a figure and a time and a formula. And as a result, Senator 

Williams, in conjunction with other Members of the Congress, arrived at a mass transit bill 

that provides for a little over $11 billion over a period of 6 years with a formula between 

capital outlays and operating expenses. 

I think we made a big step forward, and I compliment the Congress for cooperating. And 

there was no need for me to mention in that speech yesterday something that was fait 

accompli the day before.

He did not know that Chairman Madden had decided that morning to postpone consideration of the 

bill. The conference committee bill, he said, “was the most unparliamentary thing I have seen in 

over 30 years” in Congress. He was confident he had the votes to approve it, but feared it “would 

meet the death of a rag doll” if the Rules Committee approved it for a House vote before the 

election. He was simply postponing action until after the recess to smooth ruffled feelings. “We’ll 

get a mass transit bill,” he told the committee. 

Representative John Anderson of the Rules Committee took a different view of the vote, attributing 

it to “election-year politics.” House Democratic leaders, he said, did not want President Ford to be 

able to take credit for the legislation. “If there had been any will at all on the part of the Democratic 

leadership of the House, it would have come out of the Rules Committee.” 
1172 

Speaker Albert said he was disappointed. He observed that 5 of 10 Democrats on the Rules 

Committee had voted for the bill the day before, but Representative Anderson had been the only 

Republican to support the bill. Three Republicans voted against it and one was absent. 

Administrator Herringer said, “If Congress does not act, it is doubtful that federal assistance for 

operations will be available to the cities prior to fiscal year 1976.” [Tolchin, Martin, “Transit Bill 

Backed by President Stalls in Rules Committee,” The New York Times, October 10, 1974; Eisen, 

Jack, “Ford-Backed Mass Transit Bill Delayed,” The Baltimore Sun, October 10, 1974] 

Addressing the 93rd annual convention of the American Transit Association in New York City, 

Representative Minish was optimistic about the bill’s prospects in the lame duck session following 

the elections. “Our only remaining hurdles involve petty jealousies on the part of a very few, but 

powerful, House members who are not the least interested in transit itself, but only in transit as a 

source of power with which to protect other interests.” 

Governor Wilson also was critical of the forces delaying the bill. “Congressmen have shown plenty 

of mouth but no money,” he said. He predicted “disastrous results” if Congress did not approve the 

bill, adding, “My sense of justice will be outraged if Congress does not respond.” 

Mayor Beame told association members of the strong support in Congress for the bill and President 

Ford’s “commitment” to it, but said, “yet we are still without legislation and we are living in the 

11th hour of a pending transit disaster.” It would, he said, be “a national tragedy if, because of 

Congressional prerogatives or Presidential procrastination, a mass-transportation assistance bill

fails of passage this year.” Failure would result in inflationary fare increases across the country, not 

just in New York. 

Herringer, in a news conference at the New York Hilton Hotel, said, “I don’t think we should 

structure a national transit program to save the 35-cent fare or any fare. I’d hate to see the capital 

program grind to a halt in order to maintain the 35-cent fare.” The Times summarized his views:

Mr. Herringer, who was here to speak at the 93d annual meeting of the American Transit 

Association, said it was much more important to provide money for service improvements. 

He suggested that a better method of protecting low-income riders from high fares was a 

direct subsidy—the issuance of “transit stamps” similar to food stamps, to be turned in for 

tokens. On the other hand, he said, a subsidized low fare is also a subsidy for the well-off 

resident of Westchester County or Connecticut who works in the city and uses the subway. 

While city and state officials have been emphasizing the need for Federal aid to help hold 

down the fare, Mr. Herringer urged the following kind of national transit measures: 

Enactment by Congress of the pending $11.8-billion mass-transportation-assistance 

bill for both capital projects (construction and equipment) and for operating 

subsidies, the latter perhaps being necessary although he said he was “not wild about 

them.” 
1173 

He expected Congress to pass the bill in November, “but it’s not going to be easy.” 

David L. Yunich, the new MTA chairman, held a news conference on October 16 to predict transit 

and bus fares of 60 cents in 1975 unless a Federal subsidy became available. “We’re at the brink,” 

he said. “I think it’s a crime that the Congress has bottled up the legislation this way.” Calling the 

legislation “the keystone in maintaining the fares,” Yunich said he was disappointed the public had 

not voiced its concerns to Congress. “The public just isn’t responding in the way they should in 

this fight for subsidies in the Congress.” 

Chairman Madden had given “a new sharp jolt” to hopes for the bill, according to the Times, by 

sending a telegram to Yunich stating, “In my opinion there is no way S. 386 can move.” Dr. Ronan, 

now chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was worried that “it’s going to 

be hard to energize Congress” during the lame duck session. [Burks, Edward C., “Ronan is Afraid 

Congress May Stall on Transit Aid,” The New York Times, October 15, 1974; Burks, Edward C., 

“Warning is Given on New Subway,” The New York Times, October 16, 1974; Burks, Edward C., 

“M.T.A. Now Sees a 60c Fare in 1975 Unless U.S. Gives Aid,” The New York Times, October 17, 

1974] 

Finding a Way for S. 386 to Move 

On October 17, the American Transit Association merged with the Institude for Rapid Transit. Dr. 

Ronan became the first chairman of the new American Public Transit Association (APTA). B. R. 

Stokes, the former BART general manager, became APTA’s first executive vice president. Smerk 

explained:

Stokes increased the number of professionals by adding to the staff inherited from the 

Institute for Rapid Transit and the American Transit Association. APTA meetings and 

conferences became much more business oriented, with strong emphasis on solving 

practical transit problems and helping members in their relations with government at all 

levels. The basic lobbying strategy for APTA remained in the hands of Fred Burke, who 

had played such a major role in the passage of the 1970 legislation. Burke headed a 

consulting firm that specialized in transit and other urban issues, and he was retained to 

work closely with APTA and its members. [Burks, Edward C., “Ronan is Afraid Congress 

May Stall on Transit Aid.” The New York Times, October 15, 1974; Smerk, p. 331, n. 2] 

In the November 5 mid-term elections, the Watergate scandal cost Republicans around the country. 

Democrats gained a two-thirds majority in the House after taking 49 seats from the Republican 

Party. In the Senate the Democrats gained three seats. (After a September 1975 special election in 

a disputed New Hampshire contest to replace retiring Senator Cotton, the Democrats gained a 

fourth seat, giving them control of 61 seats in the Senate.) New York Governor Wilson was one of 

the Republican Governors who lost their election bids. Democrat Hugh Carey, a U.S. 

Representative since winning election in 1960, became Governor on January 1, 1975. 

On November 12, Secretary Brinegar held a news conference in his 10th floor office at Department 

headquarters. He said the White House was working with congressional leaders on a new strategy 
1174 

for passage of the mass transit bill. “We’re pretty hopeful that S. 386 will find its way out this 

session. We think we will get action.” He acknowledged that the Rules Committee vote before the 

elections “caught us by surprise. The vote was quicker than we expected.” The strategy now was 

to secure passage in the Senate, where support was assured, before the House Rules Committee 

voted on the bill again. “The House will hear the voice.” 

In addition, the President and Secretary were communicating with congressional leaders. The 

President, for example, had brought the subject up during a 45-minute breakfast with Speaker 

Albert. “Hopefully, we can pass it,” the Speaker told reporters. 

Democratic leaders hoped to satisfy Representative Jones, who would become Chairman of the 

House Public Works Committee in January following Chairman Blatnik’s retirement. Jones 

indicated, however, he would continue to oppose the conference bill, largely over the jurisdictional 

issue. [Tolchin, Martin, “Brinegar Says Ford Pushes New Transit Bill Strategy,” The New York 

Times, November 13, 1974] 

Meanwhile, the Conference of Mayors was sending 15 mayors, including Mayor Beame, to 

Washington to lobby for the bill. On November 14, they met with Secretary Brinegar and Kenneth

Cole of the White House domestic council in the morning, and with congressional leaders in the 

afternoon. Secretary Brinegar assured the Mayors that the Ford Administration was working hard 

to pass the $11.8 billion, 6-year bill during the lame duck session. He predicted that more than one 

Republican would vote for the bill in the House Rules Committee so it could proceed for a floor 

vote. Referring to Representative Anderson’s lone Republican vote in the 6-6 tie, Secretary 

Brinegar said, “We have more than one. We’ll have enough.” 

Mayor Alioto urged Congress to complete work on the bill before Christmas: 

He said the mayors not only considered the measure anti-inflationary but also felt it was the 

best means available to conserve gasoline supplies. 

Mayor Abraham Beame of New York agreed and said the measure is needed if his city is to 

be successful in staving off an increase in its public transportation fares . . . . 

Mayor Alioto says the mayors expect the transportation bill to obtain overwhelming 

approval in the Senate and said the mayors would work hard to assure the House passage as 

well. [Associated Press, “Mayors Seek Transit Bill Support,” The Baltimore Sun, 

November 15, 1974] 

On November 19, Senator Williams brought S. 386 to the Senate floor. He explained the long 

history of S. 386, recalling the approval of the original version five times beginning in the 91st

Congress and twice in the 93rd, once as part of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, from which it 

was deleted in conference to avoid a presidential veto. On February 25, 1974, the conference report 

had been filed, but the House recommitted it to conference, largely for reasons stated in Secretary 

Brinegar’s letter to Minority Leader Rhodes:
1175 

In that letter, the Secretary stated that S. 386 had the following critical weaknesses: First. It 

effectively eliminated participation by State governments in planning and executing public 

transportation programs; Second. The formula for distributing funds contained in S. 386 

was unsound; Third. The funding authorization in S. 386 was out of line with the need to 

fight inflation; and Fourth. The administration opposed any legislation providing for 

operating assistance that was not part of a long-term comprehensive bill. 

Senator Williams explained why the conference committee had decided to conduct “an 

extraordinary public hearing” on September 25: 

This was done so that we could explore means of improving and modifying S. 386 so that 

urban mass transit assistance legislation could be enacted into law this year.

Many of the witnesses had spoken of the need for a long-term comprehensive mass transportation 

bill. “In particular, the administration testified that they would oppose any legislation which did not 

provide a long-term program.”

The conference committee was scheduled to meet the morning of October 3, but Senator Williams 

and President Ford discussed the bill: 

During that conversation, the President stated that he would enthusiastically support 

legislation along the lines of S. 386 if the final version of the formula grant-operating 

assistance program were extended from a 2-year program to a 6-year program. He also 

requested that the capital grant program which now authorizes $3 billion through fiscal year 

1976 be funded for an additional 4 years. The President explained that in this manner the 

Congress would be enacting a comprehensive 6-year long-term urban mass transportation 

assistance program. The President stressed that any final legislation should contain 

authorizations ranging between $11 billion and $12 billion for the life of the program. He 

explained that this amount would be within his budgetary estimates and would comply with 

the need to curtail Government spending and thus fight inflation. 

Based on these instructions, House and Senate conferees revised the bill. It provided $7.825 billion 

for the existing UMTA capital grant program. Instead of the original $800 million, 2-year measure 

in S. 386, the new bill included $3.975 billion in formula funds that, in accordance with Mayor 

Beame’s suggestion, could be used for capital projects or operating costs. “The use of the money 

would be left to the discretion of local officials who best know the real needs of their 

communities.” Based on a formula suggested by Secretary Brinegar, the optional funds were 

distributed 50-50 upon population and population density per square mile. Also to meet the 

Secretary’s objections, Governors would allocate funds for urbanized areas of under 200,000 

population: 

For areas of over 200,000, the Governor, responsible local officials, and publicly owned 

operators of mass transportation services, would select a designated recipient to receive and 

dispense the funds. Governors and governing bodies of local communities would also be 
1176 

required to develop long-range plans and programs for improvement and coordinating all 

forms of transportation within urbanized area. 

After only 30 minutes of discussion, the Senate approved the bill, 64 to 17. The 17 votes against 

the bill were from conservatives who objected to the precedent of Federal funding for operating 

subsidies. Of the 17, only Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr., spoke briefly, saying he was afraid the 

Federal Government “may be getting itself into a very precarious position for the future.” Senator 

Weicker raised the only other objection to the bill, saying it was “totally inadequate.” He added, 

“This is business-as-usual during rather extraordinary times.” Despite his concerns, Senator 

Weicker voted for the bill.

“It’s been a long, long journey,” Senator Williams said following the victory. 

Now, attention turned to the House. In a joint statement, Mayor Alioto of the U.S. Conference of 

Mayors and Los Angeles Mayor Bradley of the National League of Cities said that the 

“overwhelming vote” in the Senate “should hopefully provide further momentum to assure final 

passage in the House this year.” Their statement reflected the strategy devised by the White House 

and congressional leaders to secure a big victory in the Senate as an incentive for the House Rules 

Committee to release the bill. [Naughton, James W., “Senate Approves $11.8 Billion Mass-Transit 

Bill by 64 to 17, Sending Measure to the House,” The New York Times, November 20, 1974; Urban 

Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974—Conference Report, Congressional Record-Senate, 

November 19, 1974, p. 36564-36573] 

On November 20, the House Rules Committee approved the bill for floor consideration. Approval 

was by an “overwhelming voice vote” according to one account. Chairman Madden said: 

“This committee has been accused all over the nation of holding up mass transit. We’ve 

been accused by the newspapers, and every mayor in this country from the big cities has 

been giving this committee the devil.”

“Is the chairman telling us he can’t take the heat?” asked Representative Delbert L. Latta, 

Ohio Republican, with a smile on his face. 

Mr. Madden responded by holding aloft an elegantly printed volume, entitled “Subways of 

Seoul,” and observing, “We send them $400-million a year and they’re building a subway, 

so maybe we ought to spend a little money on our own cities.” 

One of those voting for release of the bill, Representative Dave Martin (R-Ne.), had voted against it 

before the election. He said he changed his mind following a call from President Ford. “I told him 

I’d help get it out,” but he still planned to vote against it on the floor. 

The floor fight would be tough, with Representative Jones promising, “We will use all our 

resources and all our energies on the House floor” to kill the bill. 
1177 

Representative Minish hoped to get the bill to the floor before Thanksgiving on November 28, but 

Speaker Albert said the intensity of the debate would determine if approval came before or after the 

holiday. “If it’s going to be a long-drawn-out thing, it will probably be after,” he said. 

Governor-elect Carey, still serving in the House, told reporters in the Capital cloakroom: 

With this bill finally moving, there’s a good probability that we can hold the 35-cent fare. 

This bill doesn’t go all the way, but it goes a long way. The rest of it is up to the state. We 

certainly ought to scrape up the rest. 

Under the bill, New York City would receive $170 million in the current fiscal year, 1975, in 

operating subsidies, along with $125 million for capital expenditures. Mayor Beame said: 

The decisive action by the House Rules Committee today gives us every encouragement that 

Congress will enact a mass-transit bill within a few days. We are pleased that we now have 

the bipartisan support of the Congressional leaders and the Administration to act on this 

vital urban legislation. [Tolchin, Martin, “Rules Committee Votes to Send Mass Transit 

Bill to House Floor,” The New York Times, November 21, 1974] 

To the surprise of some, the bill came before the House the following day, November 21. 

Representative Delaney of the Rules Committee, who represented Queens, told reporters why the 

bill had arrived on the floor with such haste. Knowing that the House Committee on Public Works 

was preparing an all-out assault, he said, “We had to get this to the floor before they organized. If 

we gave them a week or two, it would have been all over. Public Works can exert a lot of 

pressure.” 

On November 21, Representative Delaney began consideration by introducing House Resolution 

1470, the House Rules Committee resolution waiving all points of order against the conference 

report. Representative Harsha immediately rose in opposition to the rule:

However well intentioned the proposition before us today, it is utterly wrong from a 

procedural standpoint. It does violence to the intent of the House on jurisdiction grounds 

and creates the risk of the House being stampeded into the approval of a mass transit bill 

irrespective of the merits. 

Aside from the question of the merits, or jurisdiction, in my judgment it would be a tragic 

mistake for the House to approve this rule and thereby give sanction to the most outrageous 

violation of rules and precedents of the House to occur during my many years in the 

Congress. 

He pointed out that S. 386 had not been considered by a standing committee of either House or on 

the floor of either House in a manner that allowed for amendments: 

It, therefore, represents the product of a handful of Members working alone, working 

subject to intense outside lobbying pressure and working in haste, and, we are asked to take 
1178 

it or leave it and vote it up or down on its initial consideration by this body under what 

amounts to a closed rule.

Mr. Speaker, if this House takes this ill-considered action, we may as well forget all about 

the reforms we have enacted, to our credit, in recent years. This would be a step backward 

and to the extent we are bound by our precedents—and we are—our action will come back 

to haunt us. 

He rejected the claim that in developing the House’s $11.3 billion bill, the Committee on Public 

Works had engaged in a jurisdictional power grab. On October 8, he said, the House had shifted 

jurisdiction over mass transit from the Committee on Banking and Currency to the Committee on 

Public Works. (Later, Representative Minish pointed out that the shift would not take effect until 

the 94th Congress; his committee still had jurisdiction.)

Representative Bingham, who recalled that he had fought since the 89th Congress and finally 

succeeded in 1973 to divert Highway Trust Fund revenue to mass transit, said he reluctantly 

supported S. 386. “I am reluctant because it is so woefully inadequate.” 

Representative Wright, “with a mixture of reluctance and great sadness,” said he would oppose the 

rule. He supported the substance of the bill, adding: 

But there is something far more profound and far more important for the long run, and that 

is the question of whether or not we shall sit still or lie supinely and permit the will of the 

House to be subverted, the rules of the House to be contraverted, and the House to be denied 

the privilege of going to conference on another bill that the House has passed. That is what 

this amount to—a bold and brazen effort on the part of the other body to avoid going to 

conference with the house on a bill that the House has passed—the 6-year, long-term bill 

from which many basic provisions have been engrafted by the conference committee onto 

the two smaller and shorter range bills which went to conference. 

I do not know whether this procedure is without precedent. I know that it should be without 

precedent. I, for one, cannot be a party to setting this kind of a precedent today. 

Representative Carey acknowledged the jurisdictional issue, but said: 

Nothing is sacred around here, but at this moment, at this time, I make an appeal to my 

colleague from Texas, do not stop the passage of this bill and this rule, because it is the one 

single act that will help to put a brake on inflation and tell the people of the United States 

that we have to do something to conserve energy and get to work. If we hold back on this 

rule, we are telling the people that the jurisdiction of the committee is more important than 

the immediate needs of the American people.

Representative Wright clarified that he was not seeking defeat of the bill, but the rule. “We are 

prepared to go to conference” under House rules on the House-passed bill created by the Committee 

on Public Works. 
1179 

Representative Garry E. Brown (R-Mi.) dismissed the jurisdictional argument by pointing out that 

when the Administration submitted its UTAP proposal, which included highway issues, the 

package was referred to the Public Works Committee. That committee left the highway program 

untouched, and reported a mass transit-only bill that, since it addressed only mass transit, should 

have come from the Committee on Banking and Currency. “Now, if there is a ‘Johnny-come-lately’

concerning the jurisdiction,” he said, “it is the Committee on Public Works.” 

As the debate on the rule continued, Representative John Anderson read a telegram from President 

Ford to Minority Leader Rhodes, the addressee: 

I understand that the U.S. House of Representatives will consider today the National Mass 

Transportation Assistance Act of 1974, S. 386. As you know, I fully support this six-year, 

$11.8 billion transit bill. It represents a responsible step in our efforts to reduce energy 

consumption and control inflation. This is a good bill and I commend the efforts of you and 

other leaders in the House who are working hard for its passage. I am very hopeful that 

action you take today will result in passage of S. 386 so that it will be on my desk for 

signature when I return from abroad. 

Representative Anderson said: 

Have we all forgotten . . . why it is that this is legislation of an urgent character? It is for the 

reason the President has spelled out in his telegram to the minority leader, and that is that 

this is needed if we are going to produce a meaningful and credible conservation program. 

If we are serious about trying to do something to fight inflation and to cut down the amount 

that we are paying for imported oil from abroad, then we have to go to the assistance of the 

mass transit systems of our country that would be aided under the various formulae grant 

provisions of this legislation. 

Representative Blatnik expressed “a strong objection to this kind of procedure, these kinds of 

shenanigans.” He said the report “violates every rule and orderly legislative regular procedure of 

the Congress,” continuing: 

It is a conference report that was debated by a handful of Members of both bodies which 

changed a simple 2-year, $800 million authorization into a long-term, 6-year, $11 billion 

program . . . . It is a report . . . which comes to us today on an up or down vote. It cannot be 

amended. It cannot be recommitted. We are asked to buy a pig in a poke. 

He urged defeat of the rule and initiation of a conference on the House-approved bill his committee 

had initiated. “I ask every member to search his conscience to protect this House that we all love, 

and to vote down this abominable procedure, and—with it—the conference report.”

After additional debate, the House voted in support of House Resolution 1470, 241 to 154, allowing 

for consideration of S. 386. This vote indicated that despite the jurisdictional dispute, S. 386 would 

pass the House. After additional debate, the House approved S. 386 by a vote of 288 to 109 later 

that day. 
1180 

Senator Williams hailed the vote as a “major advance” in reordering national priorities. 

Representative Minish said, “This is a new era for mass transit, and one that is long overdue.: 

Mayor Alioto, on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said of the bill: 

This means the beginning of a balanced national urban transportation policy. Until now, the 

Federal transportation policy in urban areas has been directed toward encouraging only the 

use of the automobile. 

Mayor Beame expressed the hope that the bill would preserve the 35-cent fare. The bill was “far 

from ideal in terms of our needs,” but “we now have a clear commitment by the Congress and the 

Administration to the concept of operating subsidies.” 

Secretary Brinegar said the bill provided “urban areas of the country with the means for meeting 

one of their most pressing problems. With this legislation now enacted, the cities can proceed with 

long-range mass-transit plans.” Administrator Herringer agreed that the bill represented a 

“fundamental change in mass transit,” adding, “The voice of the people was heard.” [Russell, 

Mary, “House Votes Mass Transit Aid, Sends Bill to White House,” The Washington Post, 

November 22, 1974; Tolchin, Martin, “House Approves $11.8-Billion Aid for Mass Transit,” The 

New York Times, November 22, 1974; Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 [sic], Congressional 

Record-House, p. 36935-36955] 

President Ford approved the National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974 in the East 

Room of the White House in a morning ceremony on November 26. In brief remarks, he said the 

legislation had been a top priority: 

This marks a long-term and vital major Federal commitment to mass transportation. This 

legislation represents a compromise in the best sense of the term. Although different 

positions were set forth in the beginning—the views of the Administration, the Congress, 

Governors, mayors, and others—we were able to reconcile our differences and develop 

legislation to meet our most urgent needs in mass transportation at a cost which is not 

inflationary. 

The legislation was a significant step in “our fight against excessive use of petroleum, in our 

economic battle, and in our efforts to curb urban pollution and reduce congestion.” He continued: 

The assurance of steady and predictable support for public transit for the first time will 

enable localities to plan intelligently for their long-term needs. Also for the first time, this 

legislation will permit the Federal Government to provide limited assistance toward the 

operating expenses of transit systems. Provisions of the bill will minimize possible adverse 

effects of Federal involvement in such deficits. 

He signed the bill, he said, with “a great deal of personal pleasure.” 
1181 

The Times declared the ceremony a personal victory for Senator Williams, Representative Minish, 

and Mayor Beame “who was instrumental in enlisting President Ford’s support for the legislation,” 

the Times said. “The Mayor gave Mr. Ford cufflinks made of subway tokens dipped in gold” that 

had been designed by Beverly Yunich, wife of the MTA chairman. “I’m confident that the fare will 

be saved through 1975,” Mayor Beame told reporters after the ceremony. “This is an historic 

occasion which ranks with revenue sharing in its importance to urban America.”

Senator Williams said:

Two months ago, we were depressed about the legislation’s chances for enactment. We 

were beset with legislative problems that looked amost insoluble. The elements that came 

together came together at just the right moments—the President, the Congress, the nation—

all within 48 hours. 

Representative Minish said that if anyone had told him he’d be attending a signing ceremony in 2 

months, he would have had “grave doubts—to say the least.” He added, “But I’m resourceful, so

here we are.” 

On behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mayor Alioto said: 

President Ford has now accomplished more than any President of the United States for mass 

transportation. This marks the day when the automobile stops getting a monopoly of 

favored treatment from the Federal Government. [Tolchin, Martin, “President Signs MassTransit Act,” The New York Times, November 27, 1974] 

Smerk summarized the reaction to the new law and its impact:

Naturally, the passage of the Act brought considerable euphoria to its supporters. The fact 

that another major step had been taken in fleshing out a more complete program of federal 

aid to mass transit made the bill important in the development of the federal role in urban 

mass transportation. It should be carefully noted that the bill was not intended to be the 

final word on federal mass transit programs. The Act of 1974 was intended to be a shortrun measure for the purpose of keeping mass transit viable until longer-range measures 

could be enacted . . . . 

After all the bills and compromises, the transit industry not only had new legislation that 

provided operating aid, but it also had a clearer mission from Congress, which was: to keep 

fares stable, expand service, and increase ridership. This the industry proceeded to do 

during the remainder of the seventies. [Smerk, p. 141] 

The Continuing Fight for/Against Impoundment

In June, the House Rules Committee had cleared the impoundment bill for House debate. It 

imposed a $268.1-billion spending ceiling and required the President to notify Congress within 10 

day if he were going to withhold spending authority. His action could be overturned by a vote of 
1182 

the House or Senate within 60 days of notification. House action would be postponed to December. 

 [“Congress Compromises on an Anti-Impoundment Bill,” Engineering News-Record, June 14, 

1973, p. 7] 

By the end of August 1973, the Nixon Administration had developed a new legal strategy for 

speeding up a final decision on its position. Solicitor General Bork worked out a plan to leapfrog 

the lower courts where 37 challenges were under consideration and get a Supreme Court ruling 

right away. The idea was to key on the Georgia case, where State officials had gone directly to the 

Supreme Court to seek release of funds under the Federal-Aid Highway Act, the 1972 Federal 

Water Pollution Control Act, and the National Defense Education Act. A news account of the new 

legal strategy explained:

More than $2 billion in apportioned highway funds is currently impounded. If the 

government did not put its bets on the Georgia case, it would have had to try to get the 

Supreme Court to look instead at the case Missouri brought to get its highway funds, a case 

the state has won. Because the road money is set aside as a trust fund, the government’s 

right not to spend it may be a bit foggier than in appropriations from general revenues. The 

Georgia case, by presenting three kinds of programs, gives the high court the chance to work 

out a compromise ruling. [“Strategy Planned to Free Impounded Monies,” Engineering 

News-Record, August 30, 1973] 

In addition, Solicitor General Bork asked the Supreme Court to appoint a special “master” to take 

evidence because the “case presents major statutory and constitutional issues of enormous 

importance.” The master would gather evidence on “the Federal budgetary process, the 

considerations leading to the imposition of spending controls, the ways in which the executive 

branch monitors and seeks to improve the state of the economy.” 

On September 26, 1973, 10 States, including Missouri, urged the Supreme Court to reject the 

Administration’s plea. They were concerned that a hearing on the Georgia case would “retard the 

progress” of their similar suits making their way through lower courts, which were ruling in favor 

of the States for the most part. They also rejected Bork’s suggestion that in view of the complexity 

of the issues, a special master be appointed to hear the evidence. Such a procedure, the States 

argued, might encourage lower courts to put off consideration of their suits knowing that the 

Supreme Court might rule soon on the same issues. [MacKenzie, John P., “10 States Oppose 

Impoundment Suit,” The Washington Post, September 27, 1973] 

On October 9, 1973, at the start of its new session, the Supreme Court declined to hear the Georgia 

case. The Supreme Court typically does not explain why it chooses not to hear cases, and it did not 

do so in this case. The Administration’s new strategy having been defeated, it still had the option of 

appealing other pending decisions at the Circuit Court level. 

On December 5, the House voted on the Budget and Impoundment Control Act that had cleared the 

Rules Committee in June. The House approved the act, 386 to 23. [Budget and Impoundment 

Control Act of 1973, Congressional Record-House, December 5, 1973, p. 39691-39740]. 
1183 

On December 7, 1973, six States (Louisiana, Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, and 

Washington) filed suit in the U.S. District Court in Washington for release of $2.7 billion in 

highway funds. Based on the Missouri ruling that the Administration had not appealed to the 

Supreme Court, the States sought release of the funds for all 50 States, the District of Columbia, 

and Puerto Rico. William J. Guste, Jr., Louisiana’s Attorney General, said, “It is our position that 

when congress directed the secretary of transportation to allocate certain funds to Louisiana and 

other states for badly needed highways . . . that the secretary had no right to disregard the will of 

congress.” The suit asked the court to determine whether the Department of Transportation had 

acted “unlawfully and unconstitutionally” in its impoundment actions. 

Attorney General Slade Gorton of the State of Washington said it was “unfortunate” that the States 

had to pursue their interests in court since Missouri had already won its case on the same grounds. 

Guste claimed the impoundments reflected a “defiance of Congress’ will that illustrates an 

arrogance in the White House that’s unprecedented.” James R. Adams, the Deputy Attorney 

General of Texas, added: 

The president simply does not have the power he’s seeking to exert. It’s obvious that the 

administration intends to keep right on impounding and insisting on its level of spending 

rather than the level approved by Congress. [United Press International, “Six States File 

Suit for Federal Funds,” Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, December 7, 1973] 

Days later, the Administration impounded funds for rural water and sewer facilities, angering many 

Members of Congress. A news report said that Representative Jamie L. Whitten (D-Ms.), 

Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, believed the impoundments of the popular 

programs would give new impetus to the budget bill making its way through the legislative process: 

Whitten said the new impoundment only adds to congressional frustrations and noted the 

lopsided 386-23 vote by which the Budget Reform Act passed containing the antiimpoundment amendment. Whitten said he is more inclinded to take a tough line because 

the Administration will not promise to avoid impoundment even if Congress comes in 

below spending ceilings. “I asked Treasury Secretary George P. Shultz if they would 

promise to abide by our appropriations if we stayed within the ceiling, and he wouldn’t 

commit himself. With that attitude, the Administration seems to think they have the right to 

an item veto; and they don’t,” said Whitten. [“Latest Impoundment May Drive Congress to 

Overdue Showdown,” Engineering News-Record, December 13, 1973, p. 9] 

On March 22, 1974, the Senate completed several days of debate and approved the Congressional 

Budget Act of 1974 by a vote of 80-0. The Senate bill and the House bill, approved the previous 

December, would not be reconciled in a conference committee. [Congressional Budget Act of 

1974, Congressional Record-Senate, March 22, 1974, p. 7833-7938] 

While Congress considered the legislation, courts continued to consider the impoundment cases. 

For example, on May 7, 1974, U.S. District Judge Robert W. Hemphill ordered the Department of 

Transportation and OMB to release $50 million in Federal-aid highway funds to South Carolina. 

Calling past impoundments “illegal,” he said, “The executive branch does not have authority to 
1184 

withhold funds which the Congress directed to be spent.” Congress, under the Constitution, had 

“the power of the purse.” The impoundments, therefore, were “a clear usurpation of the power” 

vested in Congress. Judge Hemphill added that, “After the Congress has enacted legislation, there 

is no longer a political question concerning an act. It is the law subject to only statutory 

construction.” [Munn, Hugh E., “Impounded Funds Ordered Released,” Columbia State, May 8, 

1974] 

The Nixon Administration, beset by the Watergate scandal, released $500 million in impounded 

transportation funds on June 13 ($370 million for highways, $130 million for mass transit). An 

anonymous White House source told reporters the release was prompted at least in part by a fear 

that courts would force release of all impounded funds, despite the impact that action would have 

on spiraling inflation. Members of Congress thought Watergate, and the prospect of impeachment, 

was behind the move, as Representative Koch explained: 

He’s trying to mend his fences . . . . If he thinks he’s going to mend his fences by letting the 

money Congress appropriated be spent, we’re delighted, but we’re still going to do our 

constitutional duty. 

Representative Benjamin S. Rosenthal (D-NY), who represented a Queens district, added: 

It’s one of the cards he’s using in the battle against impeachment. He’s done everything he 

could to placate the conservatives. Now he thinks maybe there’s some hope by going to the 

other camp. He feels that maybe those people won’t feel so ill of him if he gives them 10 

per cent [sic] of what they’re entitled to all along. My own judgment is that none of this 

will help him but we’re glad to take the money. [“Impounded Transport Funds Released,” 

The New York Times, June 14, 1974] 

Indiana was not among the States pursuing impounded funds in court, and Senator Bayh wanted to 

know why. He wrote a letter to Indianapolis’s Republican Mayor Richard G. Lugar, the Senator’s 

rival in the November 5 election, and Chairman Richard A. Boehning of the Indiana State Highway 

Commission asking them to join a suit filed by Nile Stanton, an Indianapolis attorney, seeking 

release of impounded funds owed to the State. Stanton was trying to force State officials to join 

him in the suit. Boehning explained that, “Filing suit is not the only alternative. My approach is to 

try and work with the Federal Highway Administration in gaining their favor on other projects that 

we have going in the State of Indiana rather than filing suit and having them aggravated with us.” 

A news report added: 

As an example, Boehning said, the Federal Highway Administration would not have had to 

designate Cline Avenue (in Lake County) as a high-traffic urban thoroughfare, but it is now 

one of a few that have been so designated nation-wide. That can mean $60 million in the 

next three to five years, Boehning pointed out. 

He also said the Federal Highway Administration recently approved another $5 million for 

Indiana’s portion of the Interstate-275 along the Indiana-Ohio boundary line near Cincinnati. 

 “Here are a couple of things we got favorable action on which aided the highway program 

in Indiana,” Boehning added . . . . 
1185 

“I am not going to cast stones either way,” Boehning said, “but I don’t think he (Bayh) 

ought to be casting stones at the Nixon administration either.” [“State Roads Chief Rejects 

Suit for Regaining Impounded Funds,” Indianapolis Star, June 28, 1974] 

(A Federal judge dismissed Stanton’s suit. Senator Bayh narrowly defeated Mayor Lugar, who in 

1976 defeated Senator Vance Hartke in a landslide.) 

At the height of the Watergate controversy, Congress was making progress on its budget control 

legislation aimed at improving congressional operations and reclaiming power from a weakened 

White House. House-Senate conferees had met in April to reconcile differences between the 

differing budget control bills approved earlier by wide margins. On June 5, they completed work 

on a conference report, approving it unanimously in a rare public session that lasted less than an 

hour. Senator Ervin told the other conferees, “This, I think, is one of the most important pieces of 

legislation Congress has ever considered.” 

In the past, Congress approved appropriations acts each year that were developed without reference 

to their overall impact on the economy or the other sectors of the budget. Under the conference 

report, the House and Senate would establish Budget Committees to oversee expenditures and 

revenues and a congressional budget office to provide Members of Congress with the type of 

advice, expertise, and information the President received from OMB. 

Under a new timetable, the President would submit his budget proposals within 15 days after 

Congress convenes each January. The new Budget Committees would send recommendations, by 

April 15, in the form of concurrence resolutions, not subject to presidential review, establishing 

fiscal goals to be followed by the Committees on Appropriations. By May 15, both Houses would 

approve a reconciled version of the two initial resolutions. Congress would consider a second set of 

resolutions in September to reflect any economic changes since May, completing action by 

September 25. 

The legislation gave either House a veto by resolution (not subject to a presidential veto) of a 

proposed impoundment. If the impoundment involved the cancellation of a program, the President 

would have to submit a recission request for congressional approval. The Comptroller General, 

with congressional approval, could take the President to court if he failed to comply with 

congressional action. 

In addition, the legislation shifted the start of the fiscal year to October 1 beginning in 1976. 

The House approved the Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by a vote of 401 to 6, and 

the Senate by a vote of 75 to 0, sending it to the President. [Madden, Richard L., “Conferees Agree 

on Wide Reforms for U.S. Budgets,” The New York Times, June 6, 1974; Madden, Richard L., 

“Budget Overhaul Passed by Senate,” The New York Times, June 22, 1974] 

Beset by the impeachment threat, President Nixon signed the legislation on July 12, 1974, knowing 

that it had been approved by veto-proof margins in the House and Senate. He said he took “special 

pleasure today” in signing the legislation. He had long supported, he said, budget reform, and the 
1186 

new law would meet that goal. He hoped that future legislation would simplify some of the 

provisions. “The impoundment control provisions, in particular, may well limit the ability of the 

Federal Government to respond promptly and effectively to rapid changes in economic conditions.” 

 Despite this “major step toward reform of the Congressional budgetary system,” he said that 

Congress had approved or was considering measures that exceeded his budget requests. “I will 

have no choice but to veto bills which substantially exceed my budget.” 

He expected to implement the proposals in the 1976 budget he would submit in early 1975 that 

would provide for a balanced budget. “To achieve this balance, I plan to propose a broad range of 

legislation which will be needed to cut back individual programs.” 

He added, “I pledge the full support of the executive branch in helping fulfill the great promise of 

this bill.” 

United Press International described the scene:

The signing ceremony was carried out in an air of joviality, as Mr. Nixon bantered with 

Congressional leaders around his desk. Mr. Nixon handed the first pen to Speaker Carl 

Albert, and told the other Senators and Representatives they would get pens that he would 

personally pay for. 

Mr. Nixon wore a dark blue suit and a black tie, dressing for the funeral services for former 

Chief Justice Earl Warren he was attending before taking off for a two-week vacation at his 

San Clemente, Calif., estate. 

Mr. Nixon expressed confidence that a balanced budget goal for 1976 “can be won.” 

[United Press International, “Congress Gains Wide Budget Role,” The New York Times, 

July 13, 1974] 

The new law was intended to end or at least control the presidential practice of impounding funds, 

including Federal-aid highway funds, in a one-sided attempt to control inflation, reduce the deficit, 

or any other reason. However, the bill did not halt impoundments immediately. For example, the 

Federal-aid funds that were to be released to South Carolina remained impounded as the U.S. 4th

Circuit Court of Appeals considered a Federal appeal. An attempt to secure quick release was 

denied by Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall on August 23, who said the impoundment 

would remain in effect until the Circuit Court ruled. [“Impoundment Gets Temporary Okay,” 

Columbia Record, August 24, 1974] 

Indiana began questioning its decision in August not to go to court after FHWA and OMB 

impounded funds for the Cline Avenue project. Governor Otis R. Bowen said, “Now (the Federal 

officials) are telling us that we have to use our regular highway funds of $71 million a year to build 

the road.” The State could use the funds for Cline Avenue, but he said that would jeopardize the 

State’s plan to accelerate completion of the Interstate System. Governor Bowen said the recent 

action was “enough to make you threaten to sue,” but he wanted to give new President Ford a 
1187 

chance to establish himself before deciding whether to pursue legal remedies. [“U.S. Highway 

Officials’ Rulings, Fund Impoundments Irk Bowen,” Indianapolis Star, August 23, 1974] 

On September 20, the Ford Administration submitted a status report to Congress on unspent 

authorizations. The report, required by the Budget Act, revealed that the balance in the Highway 

Trust Fund was increasing by $1.7 billion a year and stood at $6 billion. Congress had authorized 

$6.3 billion for the Federal-aid highway program in FY 1975, but the President’s budget proposal 

called for only $4.6 billion in expenditures. Theodore Lutz, Deputy Under Secretary for Budget 

and Program Review, explained that the Department had to ask Congress to agree to deferral of 

$10.7 billion in highway aid, which would “shake down” to near $6 billion: 

The department has already deferred or impounded $4.4-billion over the last few years. In 

addition, Congress has already authorized a spending level of $6.3-billion for the 1976 fiscal 

year beginning next July 1, and Federal law requires the department to make that money 

legally available to the states starting next Jan. 1. That adds up to $10.7-billion. The 

department is more likely to want to spend only about $4.6-billion to $5-billion of next 

year’s $6.3-billion, however, so that the unspent authorizations, now at $4.4-billion, will 

climb to about $6-billion next year if Congress does not exercise its new prerogative to 

intervene. [Burks, Edward C., “Unspent U.S. Highway Money Piling Up,” The New York 

Times, September 21, 1974] 

Jerry Mallek, senior editor of Rural and Urban Roads magazine, predicted that the Nixon 

Administration’s June release of $500 million in impounded highway funds might signal the end of 

“the nation’s longest budgetary shell game.” The Budget Act “stops further selective 

impoundments by the executive branch, except where Congress agrees.” 

Thus far, Missouri, Iowa, and South Carolina had received judgments by courts that the actions by 

OMB and FHWA were illegal. “In all, 16 state agencies filed suit for the release of nearly $1.5 

billion in highway funds,” with six other States reportedly considering similar suits:

Currently, administration lawyers are eyeing a forthcoming case in Minnesota where they 

hope to set a precedent favoring impoundments. This was important to the administration 

on two counts: (1) it needs some kind of opposing precedent to the Missouri case, and (2) it 

must set that precedent in the same FHWA region that includes Missouri. Meanwhile, the 

administration’s legal tactic is to abort (as it already has) all class action suits or any 

hearings before the U.S. Supreme Court. 

However, by dint of the same tactic, the administration must still fight all suits one by one 

as they appear. So if states cannot file a class action, the “Feds” cannot get an umbrella 

ruling, either. [Mallek, Jerry, “Road Funds and Impoundments: The Great Shell Game,” 

Rural and Urban Funds, August 1974, p. 4-5] 

On February 11, 1975, President Ford was in Wichita where he addressed a joint session of the 

Kansas State legislature. He addressed his “action program to fight an inflationary recession, to 
1188 

tackle the energy crisis, to create jobs, and to foster economic stability.” Toward the end of the 

speech, he said:

Now, I would like to announce an important action that I am taking in response to the 

request of many Governors. Last week, I met with a number of Governors in Atlanta, 

Georgia. Last night, I met with another group of Governors in Houston, Texas. And I will 

have the privilege and the honor of meeting with some additional Governors here this 

afternoon. 

The ones that I have met with have pointed out to me that owing to the softness in the 

construction industry, they as Governors will be able to accelerate work on our highway 

system at lower cost than in the recent past. Accordingly, I have ordered the release of up to 

$2 billion in additional Federal highway funds. 

The Governors have assured me that these funds are needed and can be put to immediate use 

in highway construction projects that can be underway by June 30, 1975. This action will 

help an industry that has been one of the hardest hit during our current economic turn-down. 

 In reaching this decision, I considered that authority is already available in the Highway 

Trust Fund. 

Now, I have urged State governments to focus these additional funds, first, on projects that 

will produce meaningful jobs; second, on improvements that will enhance highway safety; 

and third, on projects that will complete key links in our interstate system.

Priority—and I add this as a very important part of the recommendation—will also be given 

to urban mass transportation projects which State and local officials agree should be 

substituted for less critical highway projects.

He held a news conference at 7 p.m. in the ballroom of the Ramada Inn. A reporter asked about 

doubts expressed, even by Republicans, about the President’s energy program to increase domestic 

energy supplies, restrain energy demand, and prepare for energy emergencies. The President 

replied that if Congress could come up with a better plan, they should do so. “It is my judgment 

that the crisis is far too serious, that the need is very obvious, and therefore, I intend to continue 

trying to give some leadership for a solution to our vulnerability to foreign oil cartels.” 

The next question concerned his release of impounded highway funds: 

Q. Mr. President, without diminishing your attempt to do that, there is an inconsistency, do 

you think, in your proposal to conserve energy by increasing, in effect, its price, presumably 

for gasoline as well and, at the same time, releasing $2 billion in highway funds to build 

more highways so we can drive more? 

The President. I think that is a good question, but I think there is a good answer. The 

reason I released $2 billion to the States for the construction of additional highways was 

because over the last 10 days or 2 weeks I have met with a number of Governors, 

Democratic and Republican, and all of them, more or less, assured me of the following: 
1189 

Number one, that in most cases they had State funds that could be used right away, and 

they—or most of them—have promised me that if I did release this $2 billion for highway 

construction, that they could get bids and have the contracted work underway within a few 

months. 

We all know that the highway construction industry is depressed. We know that 

unemployment in the highway construction industry is very high. We know that better 

highways save lives. We know that highway construction jobs are meaningful employment. 

 We think that this program, when it gets underway, will provide roughly, both direct and 

indirect, about 140,000 or more jobs. We think that the promotion of safety, employment, 

the ulitization of State matching funds, and the opportunity to get action justifies what I 

have done. 

And it seems to me that there is no inconsistency in doing this at the same time we are 

trying to conserve fuel, because better highways save fuel. And furthermore, it could have a 

favorable impact in giving to States as well as to local communities the right to use of the 

money, some of the money for mass transit, which is an energy saver, a fuel saver.

Instead of being distributed to the States by formula, the Department of Transportation explained 

that the funds would be sent to the States on a “first-come, first-served basis,” with priority given to 

construction proposals on which bids can be opened or work started within 45 days after approval 

by FHWA. A press release explained:

Projects which can be funded under the program may cover a wide range of construction. 

They could include the replacement of bridges, completion of key links in the interstate 

highway system, upgrading of existing highways, safety improvement projects and the 

development of public transit facilities under recent amendments to the federal-aid highway 

laws. 

Administrator Tiemann said he had asked the States to submit all projects which are ready for 

contracting:

He said the message he is sending out to the States is that the financial restraints now are off 

and that federal funding will be provided for all approvable projects. 

Surveys indicated that up to the full $2 billion could be committed before the end of June. Further, 

workers, equipment, and materials were all available to permit full implementation:

It is estimated that between 35 and 50 percent of the nation’s highway construction capacity 

now is idle. This, together with the immediate availability of highway construction 

materials should cut the normal period required for the start-up of projects. 

The Department estimated that half the $2 billion would go straight into the pockets of wage 

earners. The Department expected the release to create about 107,000 jobs directly, while induced 
1190 

jobs from expenditure of wages and profits would generate up to 150,000 jobs “depending on the 

pattern of spending that would be generated by this additional infusion of federal funds.” 

In short, as an FHWA spokesman told reporters, “In this case, we’re saying to the states, in effect, 

‘it’s here; if you can use it, come and get it.’” 

Administrator Tiemann, at a news conference in Chicago, said the funds would be used mainly to 

update and renew existing roads, rather than construction on new alignments. New Interstate links 

would be a minor part of the program because of their longer startup time. He did not expect large 

amounts of the funding to go for mass transit, but said construction of highway median strips for 

bus lanes would be an example of how the funds might benefit mass transit. Asked if the release of 

funds would increase fuel use on roads at a time when conservation was a goal, he replied, “Even if 

we didn’t manufacture one more auto in the nation, we’d still have to spend this $2-billion to 

upgrade our road system. [AP, “Released Funds to Repair Roads,” The New York Times, February 

13, 1975] 

States that could not afford the matching funds would not be able to apply for the funds. President 

Ford said he could not waive the statutory matching requirement. Nevertheless, on February 18, 

Governors attending the winter meeting of the National Governors’ Conference planned to fight for 

a waiver. An account in The Washington Post explained:

Gov. Calvin L. Rampton of Utah, chairman of the National Governors’ Conference, said the 

decline in state gasoline tax revenues, linked to conservation measures, made it impossible 

for more than half the states to meet the matching requirements on the newly released funds 

. . . . Rampton said a survey of governors found 21 of 37 states replying saying they could 

not meet the matching requirement from available gas tax revenues. [Madden, Richard L., 

“Readiness is Key to Road Fund,” The New York Times, February 12, 1975; Broder, David 

S., “Governors Seek Road Fund Release,” The Washington Post, February 19, 1975] 

Congressional reaction was not as positive as President Ford might have wished. Senator Proxmire 

commented that the funds would be better spent on housing: 

For $2-billion only 125,000 jobs are produced at a cost of $16,000 per job. By putting only 

$300-million or $400-million into new housing construction 500,000 houses could be built 

and one million men and women could be put to work. [United Press International, “Funds 

for Housing Urged Over Funds for Highways,” The New York Times, February 14, 1975] 

The new chairman of the House Committee on Public Works, Representative Jones, called the 

release “both little and late.” He explained:

The time for such half-way measures is long past. Every dollar of highway funds that the 

Administration has locked up should be put to work without further foot-dragging and flyspecking . . . . We need those jobs and can get them in short order if we get started here and 

now. [“Rep. Jones Seeks Release of Impounded Highway Funds,” Florence Times, 

February 25, 1975] 
1191 

On February 12, the day after President Ford announced release of $2 billion in impounded funds, 

U.S. District Court Judge John Lewis Smith, Jr., ruled that the White House did not have the power 

to impound Federal-aid highway funds. In deciding a lawsuit brought by 12 States, he said, “The 

[Federal-Aid Highway] Act does not allow the Secretary to withhold funds for reasons unrelated to 

the merits of a project itself.” In addition to this ruling, according to AASHTO, at least seven other

States had won decisions against impoundment of highway funds, most recently a $121 million 

claim by Kansas. [Eisen, Jack, “Highway Fund Impoundment is Upset,” The Washington Post, 

February 13, 1975] 

On May 15, 1975, FHWA reported that $1,085,495,000 of the $2 billion had been obligated to 35 

States, with 11 other States indicating they would make use of the funds. Tiemann said, “It looks 

very much as though we will have all, or most, of the $2 billion obligated by our deadline, June 30, 

which is the end of the current fiscal year.” Only six States had informed FHWA that they would 

not be able to use the funds, with one of them, Pennsylvania, able to use only its original 

apportionment for the year: 

The others, with their problems, are: Rhode Island, New Jersey and the District of 

Columbia (lack of plans ready to be implemented); and Connecticut and New York (court 

injunctions which have stopped or delayed work on controversial Interstate System routes). 

Ending Impoundment of Federal-Aid Highway Funds

The Budget Control and Impoundment Act of 1974 required Presidents to submit reports to 

Congress and the General Accounting Office on funding that was being withheld whether as an 

impoundment or for management purposes. If either House of Congress disapproved, the President 

had to release the funds. 

On September 20, 1974, President Ford submitted the first Deferral Message, designated D75-17, 

explaining why he was impounding funds from several programs. He emphasized the importance 

of his proposed actions: 

Budgetary restraint remains a crucial factor in our efforts to bring inflation under control. In 

today’s environment, we cannot allow excess Federal spending to stimulate demand in a 

way that exerts further pressures on prices. And we cannot expect others to exercise 

necessary restraint unless the Government itself does so. 

The responsible apportionment of congressional appropriations and other Federal budget 

authority is an essential—though often controversial—element of budget execution. Sound 

management principles and common sense dictate that Federal agencies spend money in an 

orderly fashion and only to the extent necessary to carry out the objectives for which the 

spending authority was provided. Current economic conditions require extra care to assure 

that Federal spending is held to the minimum levels necessary.

He specified total deferrals of $19.8 billion, including: 
1192 

Federal-aid highway funds ($4.4 billion for fiscal year 1975 and $6.4 billon for fiscal year 

1976). Release of these funds would also be highly inflationary and would have to be offset 

in cuts in higher priority programs. Some of the funds are being withheld pending 

resolution of court cases concerning the environmental effects of proposed highway 

construction. 

In view of the President’s subsequent release of $2 billion in impounded Federal-aid highway 

funds, Congress concluded that the time had come to reject the deferral message. 

Senate Resolution 69, introduced by Senator Randolph on February 7, 1975, was the vehicle for 

congressional action. On April 24, the Senate considered the resolution. Senator Randolph 

explained that he did not believe the President possessed the legal authority to impound funds, as 

reflected in numerous court rulings. The resolution permitted under the Impoundment Control Act 

was “the most expeditious manner to make these highway funds available for obligation at a time 

when our economy needs infusions of money to stimulate employment.” 

He recognized that the States could not use all the impounded funds immediately. “To this end we 

have expressed our desire to conduct a continuing dialog [sic] with the executive branch to reach 

agreement on a suitable funding level for Federal-aid highway programs in fiscal year 1976.” He 

continued: 

I think it is an opportunity as well as a responsibility for us to indicate our genuine concern 

for unemployment, for the need for construction workers to be at gainful employment, and 

for us to strengthen the system of the mobility [sic] through facilities provided for the 

movement of people and the movement of products from the field, the factory, the farm, and 

the mine.

Given the “broad implications” of Senate Resolution 69, Senator Randolph had referred the 

measure not only to his own Committee on Public Works but to the new Budget Committee, 

chaired by Senator Muskie, and the Appropriations Committee where Senator Bayh, chairman of 

the Subcommittee on Appropriations, was responsible for initial review. “Each of those 

committees expedited consideration that the measure might be brought to the Senate promptly.” 

Senator Randolph hoped the Senate would approve the resolution unanimously, but Senator 

Proxmire, whose Joint Economic Committee had explored the unemployment issue extensively, 

made clear that would not be the case. Based on information gathered during numerous hearings, 

he said, “I think this is one proposal that will do nothing, and I stress nothing, to solve 

unemployment problems . . . . The passage of this resolution will contribute to a galloping budget 

deficit.” The funding could not be spent quickly, and by the time “the first dollars are spent, the 

economic situation may call for Federal spending constraints to fight inflation, not a greater budget 

deficit to fight unemployment.” Further, he estimated that each job created would cost $15,000 or 

$16,000. “It will be much more cost effective to provide jobs in other areas.” 

He added that, “what we emphatically do not need at this point is more and more highways.” 

Despite “the clout of the highway lobby” in his home State of Wisconsin and throughout the 
1193 

country, the energy crisis had “taught us we should slow down, not speed up, the construction of a 

highway network that threatens to strangle this Nation’s transportation system which makes it a 

gasoline glutton, not an energy saver.” He continued: 

We have to reorder our priority so that money we used to spend on highways goes into mass 

transit systems, subways, and railroads, to move goods and people with a minimum waste of 

energy and a minimum condemnation of land. 

He also doubted the optimistic prediction that the funds could be used promptly: 

Mr. President, this resolution, as I understand it, will release $9.1 billion in Federal aid 

funds, of which $6.4 billion is attributable to 1976 contract authority. The President 

released $2 billion in highway funds in February, making available a total of $6.6 billion for 

1975. It is doubtful that the States can use more than $6.6 billion in 1975. It is my 

understanding that they will not use more. That is why I argue this will not have any 

immediate effect.

It has been argued that this resolution will make the impounded funds available in 1976. I 

am told by the staff of the Appropriations Committee that this is not the case since the 

administration will likely submit a separate deferral on July 1. So this 1976 deferral and not 

the one we are debating today will determine the actual level of obligations.

Senator Bayh, speaking next, said that the Committee on Appropriations believed “that the highway 

program should be used to the maximum possible extent to relieve the very serious unemployment 

situation in which we find ourselves.” When the President “is reluctant to recognize the problem, 

and when he does, offers proposals that are too little and too late, this Congress must take action to 

fill the void.” Although “the economic and social benefits of highway transportation to the Nation 

are far reaching,” he recognized that “there will be those who will say that the Senate, by 

disapproving the deferral of highway funds, will be doing so to the detriment of public 

transportation and railroads.” He disagreed, citing the National Mass Transportation Assistance Act

as greatly expanding the Federal-aid available to the States and local communities for their public 

transit programs.

He “felt very strongly about this” because he believed Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford did not 

have authority under the Constitution to impound funds: 

This is not the first time we have been confronted with this situation. But our Founding 

Fathers in their wisdom, having come from Europe where they saw the abuse of King 

George using the power of the tax collector and the privilege of the throne, put into that 

Constitution that it is the Congress’ responsibility to appropriate funds . . . . I would hope 

that we would, indeed, unequivocally stand up and say we confirm once again our right as 

members of the legislative body to control the pursestrings [sic]. 

Regarding Senator Proximire’s objections, Senator Bayh agreed about the timing of expenditures, 

but for Congress to turn down Senate Resolution 69 would be “a signal to the President and a signal 
1194 

to the entire country that we are once again going to derogate our responsibility to control the purse 

strings.” As for Senator Proxmire’s criticism of highways, Senator Bayh pointed out that the 

emphasis on the Interstate System had been to the detriment of primary and secondary roads. 

“These funds can do something about rebuilding those roads that are very important.” 

Finally, Senator Bayh rejected Senator Proximire’s objection regarding mass transit:

This bill will permit the expenditure of up to $800 million for mass tansit. This is not 

simply a highway lobby bill. It provides $800 million to do something about mass transit. 

The Senate agreed with Senators Randolph and Bayh. It approved Senate Resolution 69, 77 to 7. 

[“Disapproval of Proposed Deferral of Budget Authority,” Congressional Record-Senate, April 24, 

1975, p. 11666-11672] 

Representative Jones had introduced a similar resolution in the House, but House action was not 

needed after the Senator rejected the deferral.

Congress was eager for the funds to be used, but was concerned because some States were having 

trouble matching Federal funds for the original $4.6 billion authorized for the Federal-aid highway 

program in FY 1975, yet alone the impounded funds that had been released. On February 26, 1975, 

Representative Howard, chairman of the Surface Transportation Subcommittee of the Committee 

on Public Works and Transportation, as it was now called, introduced a bill to temporarily waive 

the matching requirement. It cleared the full committee on March 21. During House debate on 

April 10, Representative Howard explained the reason for the bill: 

Very briefly . . . on February 12 the President announced the release of $2 billion of the 

impounded Federal highway funds. The President stated—and we commend him for this—

that he was releasing this money for the remainder of this fiscal year in order that the States 

may be able to utilize it not only to provide for additional safety and transportation of people 

in their States, but also to help meet the tremendous unemployment that we find throughout 

this Nation. We applaud the President for this action. 

However, in checking, we did find that unfortunately many of the States in the Nation are 

unable to make use of this money in the time allocated. 

Of course, the provision the President made is that any project approved under this release 

of $2 billion must be under contract by June 30 and work begun within 45 days, thereby 

putting people to work within 45 days at most after contract. Of course, many of the States 

depend upon their matching funds—10 percent on the Interstate System and 30 percent on 

all other roads. Some of them raise matching funds by a tax on gasoline. 

The slowdown in 1974 had reduced gas tax revenue the States needed for matching funds. For 

1975, they found matching funds for their share of the $4.6 billion made available by formula, but 

“had no idea there would be another $2 billion available, and so they did not budget matching 

money.” The bill he had introduced would authorize the Secretary of Transportation to allocate up 
1195 

to 100 percent of the construction cost, “with the stipulation, of course, that the States before 

January 1, 1977, return with non-Federal funds these moneys to the Highway Trust Fund so that we 

may have our balanced system as soon as possible.” 

Another problem was that States did not have the flexibility to shift funds among Federal-aid 

categories. “We found that some States are all ready to go on a certain section of a highway but 

they do not have funds in this particular category, but they do have funds available to them in a 

different category.” The bill would allow States to transfer funds among categories, not including 

the Interstate System, through the end of the fiscal year. 

Debate was generally supportive as Members spoke in favor of the bill or asked questions to clarify 

its intent. The House passed the bill by voice vote. [“Increasing the Federal Share of Highway 

Projects,” Congressional Record-House, April 10, 1975, p. 9966-9975] 

The Senate Committee on Public Works discharged its version of the bill for consideration on the 

Senate floor on May 22. The bill was identical to the House bill except that it extended the waiver 

of matching funds to September 30, 1975, instead of June 30. After brief discussion, the measure 

passed by a voice vote. Senator Proximire inserted the only opposing views into the record of the 

debate, saying in part that far from being a “recession fighter,” highway construction was “the least 

efficient, most expensive way of creating jobs.” Aside from costing too much per job, “it is bad 

public policy for this Nation to continue on the automobile binge.” [“Federal Highway 

Administration Apportionments,” Congressional Record-Senate, May 22, 1975, p. 15951-15954] 

That same day, the House agreed to the Senate amendment, and the bill went to the President for 

signature. Without ceremony and some reluctance, President Ford signed the measure on June 4 

(Public Law 94-30). In a statement, he said he strongly opposed “in principle deferring matching 

requirements by State and local governments.” He recognized, however, that the intention of “this 

one-time exception” was to help the States “take advantage of the special jobs-producing highway 

funds which I released in February and of the additional funds made available by the Congress in 

April.” Noting the payback requirements, he said, “I have signed this legislation to insure that all 

States will be able to take advantage of their fair share of these special highway funds and to 

proceed with projects which will stimulate employment in the construction industry.” 

The Department of Transportation’s annual report for FY 1975 said that President Ford’s release of 

$2 billion in February had reduced impounded funds to $9.1 billion while increasing the federal-aid 

highway program to $6.6 billion. Senate Resolution 69 had released the remaining funds: 

The states were able to obligate an additional $1.2 billion because of this release. As a 

result, by the end of the year, almost $7.8 billion had been obligated. This figure is $3.2 

billion above the original fiscal year 1975 program level. [9th Annual Report, Fiscal Year 

1975, Department of Transportation, p. 29] 

(For many years, the Highway Trust Fund was self-supporting with sufficient revenue to support 

growing levels of support for the Federal-aid highway, transit, and safety programs. However, 

increased fuel efficiency, reduced driving due to economic difficulties, and other factors cut into the 
1196 

revenue derived from the highway user taxes. By the 2000s, Congress had to find ways to support 

desired funding levels by supplementing revenue credited to the Highway Trust Fund. As 

Transportation Weekly editor Jeff Davis pointed out in June 2011, “a provision written into the 

Budget Act of 1974 (and never really tested since then) restricts the kind of revenues that can be 

deposited into the Trust Fund if the Trust Fund is to continue providing spending in the form of 

contract authority.” 

Section 401 of the Act “prohibits the House and Senate from considering bills providing new direct 

spending (specifically including contract authority) that is available outside the annual 

appropriations process.” The measure was intended to prevent “backdoor” spending measures that 

avoided Appropriations Committee action on new spending by tacking it onto trust fund accounts. 

Trust funds that support at least 90 percent of deposits from dedicated taxes “related to the purposes 

for which such [spending] will be made” were exempt, but if the Highway Trust Fund revenue goes 

below that percentage, contract authority would be called into question. [Davis, Jeff, “Additional 

Trust Fund Revenues and the ’90 Percent Rule,’” Transportation Weekly, June 16, 2011, p. 7-8]) 

 

$2 Billion Worth of Job Generation 

Administrator Tiemann initiated a study to evaluate onsite employment as a result of President 

Ford’s release of $2 billion in impounded funds. The study covered the period from March 1, 1975, 

to October 31, 1978, based on contracts awarded between March 1 and July 1, 1975. The study 

found that: 

The $2.0 billion release resulted in authorization of 2,112 contracts between March 1 and 

July 1. The average size of contract was $946,970. Total onsite employee-hours of labor 

generated was 52,000,000 (including an estimate of 1 million employee-hours of labor 

required to complete contracts extending beyond October 31, 1978) . . . . 

Using a conversion factor of 1,600 employee-hours per employee-year for onsite 

employment, the 52,000,000 employee-hours of onside employment converts to 32,500 

onsite employee-years or jobs for the $2 billion. Of the total cumulative employee-hours 

usage, 50 percent was generated before about April 15, 1976, (15 months after the release); 

75 percent before about September 15, 1976; and 90 percent before about June 30, 1977. 

Total wages from the $2 billion released were $360 million (18 percent of contract value). 

The study identified variations in the labor intensiveness of expenditures: 

• Most labor intensive urban contract size = $500,000 - $1,000,000 (only minor variations) 

• Most labor intensive rural contract size = $1,000,000 - $3,000,000 (only minor variations by 

size of project)

• Most labor intensive urban contract = Traffic Operations to Increase Capacity and Safety 

(TOPICS) 

• Most labor intensive rural contract = Rural Secondary 

• Most labor intensive urban type of work = Bituminous paving 

• Most labor intensive rural type of work = Grade and Drain 
1197 

The study concluded that “the Federal-aid highway program provides a quick return in employment 

for capital investment in improvements which, in themselves, provide long term benefits.” It 

continued: 

Onsite employment, matched as it is by “offsite” employment and “induced” employment, 

has, in the case of the $2 billion expended on the projects studied, resulted in some 32,500 

employee-years of employment onsite plus an estimated 32,500 offsite employee-years of 

employment and another estimated 92,500 employee-years of induced employment. [Smith, 

Norman E., Generation of Employment: A Report on Employment Generated by FederalAid Highway Funds, FHWA, undated (probably 1979), p. 1-3] 

Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974 

The Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act, which President Nixon had signed on January 

2, 1974, was a quick reaction to the energy shortage that began in October 1973. Its key feature, the 

denial of Federal-aid highway project approvals in any State that did not establish a maximum 

speed limit of 55 m.p.h., was temporary. The requirement went into effect on the 60th day after 

enactment (Sunday, March 3, extended by the Department of Transportation to March 4 to avoid 

weekend confusion), but it would cease after the President declared “that there is not a fuel shortage 

requiring the application of this Act,” or after June 30, 1975, “whichever date first occurs.” 

Some States had lowered speed limits voluntarily in late 1973, while others delayed until the last 

minute, but all were in compliance by the due date. The safety bonus, noted earlier, was soon 

observed. In April, for example, Maryland State Police reported that traffic fatalities were about 

half what they had been in 1973 (116 compared with 214). Colonel Thomas S. Smith, 

superintendent of the State Police, said, “I would attribute the decrease to the reduction in driving in 

the state and the lower speed limits, as well as the co-operation of Maryland citizens in following 

the speed limit.” He said police had noticed “a slight upward trend in fatalities and speeders” in 

some areas. “It does seem that the general public’s speed on the roads is edging up.” [Wade, 

Robert P., “50% Fewer Road Deaths Credited to Speed Curb,” The Baltimore Sun, April 5, 1974] 

Kansas was the last State to comply, enacting the necessary legislation only the weekend before the 

deadline. Reflecting the State’s reluctance, Senator Dole of Kansas offered an amendment to the 

pending Standby Energy Emergency Authority Act that would revise Section 2 of the Emergency 

Highway Energy Conservation Act to allow States to increase the maximum speed limit to 60 

m.p.h., at their discretion without loss of Federal-aid project approvals. (The purpose of the 

Standby Act was to assure the Federal Government had the authority to meet the Nation’s essential 

energy needs and for other purposes.) 

Senator Dole brought his amendment to the floor while the Senate was considering the Standby Act 

on May 13. The principal factors for offering the amendment, he explained, were that the oil 

embargo had ended and the Nation was no longer facing “the same grave supply crisis.” In States 

such as Kansas “where distances between towns and cities are great” and automobiles the only 

option, “55 miles per hour is an unreasonably and frustratingly low speed to travel.” Further, the 

speed limit “is having serious economic consequences for the trucking industry and through it to the 
1198 

other industries and businesses—especially the beef industry—which depend on truck 

transportation.” 

Senator Randolph responded that the Dole amendment was “surely another indicator that 

Americans are rapidly forgetting the lessons that were painfully learned a few months ago.” They 

were not “a midwinter hallucination but rather a permanent fact of life in this country.” The 

American people embraced conservation, but recently “we have seen growing evidence that our 

resolve to conserve energy was, indeed, short lived.” The President may have declared the energy 

crisis at an end, but the “energy shortage is real and it is persistent.”

In addition to conserving oil, the 55 m.p.h. speed limit had resulted in “a dramatic drop in people 

killed on our highways.” He introduced a May 13 letter from Secretary Brinegar acknowledging 

that the speed limit “admittedly had some adverse economic impact on certain sectors of the 

transportation industry.” However, the energy saved and the deaths avoided argued against 

increasing the speed limit at this time. He did not believe the limit should be altered “prior to 

passage of sufficient time to allow proper assessment of its advantages and disadvantages.” 

Senator Percy opposed the amendment as well:

Certainly a relaxation of the speed limits today would again say to the Nation that “the 

energy crisis is over.” Mr. President, it is a long, long way from being over. It is going to 

be with us for a good, long time, regretfully. 

Senator Henry Jackson, the primary author of the Standby Act, also opposed the amendment, first 

because of its impact on oil consumption: 

In testimony before the Senate Public Works Committee, Secretary of Transportation 

Claude Brinegar indicated that some fuel economy could be achieved at 55 miles per hour, 

but that at speeds of 60 miles per hour, no fuel savings would be realized. At 55 miles per 

hour, savings of up to 160,000 barrels per day would be realized; yet, the loss in travel time 

from 60 to 55 miles per hour is only 5 minutes. 

On a drive from Kansas City to Wichita, the difference would be only 16 minutes. “I could say the 

same thing about the wide open spaces of eastern Washington, my own State, in order to be fair to 

the Senator from Kansas.” 

He also was concerned about the impact on safety. “It is estimated that with a 55-miles-per-hour 

speed limit instead of 60, some 12,000 lives can be saved this year . . . . A gain of 5 minutes an 

hour in driving time is not worth 1,000 lives a month.” 

He shared the concern of Senators Randolph and Percy that the American people were getting back 

to practices that were wasting energy and increasing the price of oil: 
1199 

Mr. President, this situation only further underscores the need to develop conservation 

programs that will protect the American consumer from a repeat of this winter’s gasoline 

supply fiasco. 

In support of the Dole amendment, Senator Hansen said that in his State of Wyoming, the issue was 

nonpartisan. The Republican and Democratic party conventions had each voted to raise the speed 

limit to 65 m.p.h. He said that “the important thing to consider is, as is true in so many other 

instances, it really does not make any sense to try, in the Halls of Congress, to legislate specifics for 

each of the 50 States.” Wyoming wanted to increase the speed limit, he said, but if Vermont wants 

to retain the 55 m.p.h. speed limit, nothing in the Dole amendment would prohibit it from doing so. 

 He shared the goal of energy conservation, but said “that a good case cannot be made for 

conserving energy by the important trucking industry of the United States if a 55-miles-an-hour 

speed limit continues.” 

Senator Fannin said that when he was Governor of Arizona (1959-1965), he had served on the 

National Governors’ Conference highway safety committee. As this past service suggested, he 

knew that highway safety was “a vital interest,” but he supported the Dole amendment:

Still, when we start analyzing what is involved in going from 55 miles an hour to 60 miles 

an hour, I do not think we really can agree on the differences involved in that 5 miles an 

hour. 

He thought the safety benefit of the lower speed limit was partly because the results were measured

when driving was down because of the oil shortage. He added that 60 m.p.h. was safer for trucks 

and buses: 

Trucks and interstate buses . . . have gear ratios that do not go into high gear until they reach 

50 or 55. At cruising speeds, they are operating around 60, and there is at that speed a 

saving of a considerable amount of fuel. 

Senator Dole concluded the debate by pointing out that under his amendment, each State had the 

flexibility to stay at 55 m.p.h. or increase the speed limit to 60 m.p.h. Anyone who travels 100 to 

400 or more miles a day would confirm that 55 m.p.h. “is an unquestioned irritation, inconvenience, 

and source of frustration.” He was in favor of highway safety, but if that were the primary intention 

behind the current law, “perhaps we ought to lower the speed limits to 25, and assure that perhaps 

no one would be critically injured on the highways.” 

He agreed that the Nation should try to conserve energy, but so far about all the Congress had done 

was approve year-round Daylight Saving Time and a speed limit of 55 m.p.h. “One great saving 

was made in reducing the speed limit from 75 and 70 to 55, but the increase from 55 to 60 miles per 

hour will not really add all that much additional fuel consumption.” He recognized that setting the 

proper speed limit involved “a very grave, delicate balance,” but for those who live “in an area of 

the country with broad open spaces, 60 miles an hour is a safe, reasonable, and psychologically 

acceptable limit.” 
1200 

The Senate rejected the Dole amendment, 29 to 52. (The Senate did not approve the Standby 

Energy Emergency Authorities Act.)

By then, with oil flowing again from the Middle East, Americans had begun ignoring the speed 

limits, although speeds were still below pre-crisis levels. As Senator Dole had said, motorists in the 

large western States found the lower limit especially bothersome. Captain Bill McLain of the Texas 

Department of Public Safety said, “The traffic is definitely faster now. Motorists are becoming a 

little bit disillusioned with the 55-m.p.h. speed law.” Speeding tickets were increasing around the 

country. [Associated Press, “55-m.p.h. Speed Limits Ignored,” The Baltimore Sun, May 6, 1974] 

In California, the upper speed limit had dropped from 65 m.p.h. to 55 m.p.h. on January 1, 1974, 

and was scheduled to return to 65 m.p.h. in July 1975 unless Federal law changed. Governor 

Reagan recommended retaining 55 m.p.h. for urban freeways, but the higher limit could be restored 

on rural freeways “when we can for certainty say we do not need the gas savings that we’re getting 

from the lower speed limit.” For rural freeways, a 65 m.p.h. limit would “recognize the problem of 

those people who have got 400 miles to go.” Different urban and rural speed limits made a “great 

deal of sense to him.” California Highway Patrol (CHP) Commissioner Walter Pudinsky preferred 

eliminating the lower speed limit as soon as gasoline supplies were back to normal. He said the 

CHP could arrest 100,000 drivers every day for ignoring the speed limit if he had enough officers 

and equipment. [Gillam, Jerry, “Reagan Urges Permanent Limit of 55 M.P.H. on Urban Freeways,” 

The Los Angeles Times, May 3, 1974] 

In this context, the House and Senate were developing legislation that would address the speed limit 

on a permanent basis. Secretary Brinegar wrote to Senator Randolph on July 23, 1974, to urge 

enactment of legislation making the 55 m.p.h. speed limit permanent. The Secretary emphasized 

that the reduction in highway fatalities in the 8 months since the lower speed limit went into effect 

justified congressional action making it permanent. A news release explained:

In his letter to Randolph, the Secretary cited figures to show that highway fatalities have 

declined on an average of about 23 percent during the first six months of this year. He said 

that since November, 7,000 fewer people were killed on our streets and highways than were 

killed in a similar period a year earlier. He said that a large part of that reduction in 

fatalities resulted from the lower speed limit.

Mr. Brinegar said there are competing economic factors to be considered in the decision to 

make the 55-mile limit permanent. But he said those factors are outweighed by the 

increased safety on the highways. 

Secretary Brinegar was replying to Senator Randolph’s request for comments on the Committee on 

Public Works’ Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1974. The Secretary said he opposed a provision 

increasing funds for the Federal-aid highway program through FY 1976 because it “would create 

further inflationary pressure throughout the economy,” according to the news release. Secretary 

Brinegar also opposed a provision allowing alteration of existing highway construction contracts to 

compensate for increased costs due to inflation. The provision would, the Secretary said, give 
1201 

preferential treatment to one group of contractors even though all have been affected by the same 

cost increases.

In February, the Administration had attempted to address one of the economic factors Secretary 

Brinegar mentioned by introducing legislation that would allow bigger, heavier trucks on the 

Interstate System. Reporter Albert R. Karr described the proposal: 

The Transportation Department’s Federal Highway Administration yesterday [February 20, 

1974] proposed legislation specifically telling states to raise their interstate load limits 2,000 

pounds for each truck axle. The measure also calls for a boost in the total truck weight 

permitted; a length limit that would allow longer trucks in many states, and clearance for 

certain combined “twin-trailers” to ply the roads. Any state that didn’t change its laws to 

comply with the new limits would lose all its federal road building funds.

He added that the proposal was in part a response to the trucker strikes and unrest during the energy 

shortage that followed the October 1973 oil boycott: 

As part of Nixon administration efforts to end the recent independent truckers’ strike 

protesting the effect of the fuel crisis on their operations, Transportation Secretary Claude S. 

Brinegar had promised a close look at possible steps to allow bigger trucks on roads built 

with federal aid.

“Because of the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit imposed during the fuel problem a truck run 

that previously could have been finished in 10 hours currently takes 11 hours,” said Norbert 

T. Tiemann, federal highway administrator. He said the higher load limits would be 

temporary, confined to the duration of the energy crisis, and are “directed toward providing . 

. . immediate relief to sectors of the economy suffering, in part, due to governmental 

action.” 

However, Sen. Mike Gravel (D., Alaska), who chaired Senate Transportation subcommittee 

hearings on the big-truck issue yesterday, said the legislation, if enacted, would be, in effect, 

“a minimum of five years,” and Mr. Tiemann conceded, “We don’t believe (the fuel crisis) 

is going to end very soon.” 

One Senate source goes further, arguing that there isn’t any possibility, once the energy 

crisis is ended, of rolling back any decision to permit bigger trucks on interstate roads. 

The Administration was optimistic, despite past setbacks in trying to raise size and weight limits:

I don’t envision any problem” in getting the legislation passed, says John W. Barnum, 

Transportation Under Secretary. “I think it’s in pretty good shape.” Mr. Barnum says he 

has talked to several Congressmen who had previously opposed big-truck legislation, but 

now see it as “a new ball game,” saying they’ll back it on energy grounds. And a Senate 

highway expert states, “I wouldn’t be surprised if something passed.” 
1202 

But an aide to one Senator on the Transportation subcommittee cautions that the measure 

will still find tough going. “A lot of Senators just don’t like big trucks,” he says.

(Barnum, who had become the Department’s General Counsel in 1971, became Under Secretary of 

Transportation in May 1973 following the departure of Egil Krogh, Jr. The title was changed to 

Deputy Secretary in 1974 and Barnum retained that position into January 1977.) 

Although AASHTO, the American Trucking Associations, and shippers favored the proposal, AAA 

and the National Transportation Safety Board were among the opponents. They were concerned 

about the safety implications of larger, heavier trucks mixing with passenger vehicles. [Karr, Albert

R., “Nixon Bill to Allow Bigger, Heavier Trucks on Interstate Roads is Aided by Oil Crisis,” The 

Wall Street Journal, February 21, 1974] 

As noted earlier, Congress had quickly discarded the UTAP proposal. On August 20, 1974, the 

Senate Committee on Public Works reported the Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974. The 

bill “responds to some of the issues raised by the energy crisis and fills in those sections of the 1973 

Act which were either deferred by the House-Senate Conferees or found to need adjustment after 

they were enacted into law.” The introduction summarized the bill: 

The principal sections of the Committee bill are directed at the country’s energy problems: 

one would make the temporary 55 miles per hour speed limit, approved by the Congress and 

the President last winter, permanent. The second would permit modest increases in the 

allowable weights of trucks on Interstate highways, increases that the Committee feels will 

improve the productivity of trucks while remaining within acceptable limits of safety.

Among the deferred issues, the bill extended the Highway Beautification Act for three years, 

increased funds for implementation of its provisions, and allowed “alternative information systems 

along highways which do not conflict with the thrust of the original act.” In other provisions: 

A charter bus provision which passed the Senate last year is also included in this measure; it 

would amend Section 164(a) of last year’s highway legislation by allowing public transit 

systems receiving Federal-aid funds to engage in charter activities so long as they do not 

foreclose private carriers from doing so. 

The bill also contains provisions (1) allowing the termination of highway contracts under 

conditions where the materials necessary are not available from the expected supplier 

because of Federal actions [in the allocation of petroleum supplies]; (2) providing additional 

authorizations for the rural bus demonstration program approved last year; (3) allowing the 

Alaska ferry to stop in Canada; (4) allowing funds for Indian reservation roads and trails to 

be used on Federal-Aid Highways on or leading to Indian lands and increasing the 

authorizations for the program by $25 million; (5) providing $20 million, half from the 

Highway Trust Fund, for bikeway facilities in urbanized areas; (6) amending Section 322 of 

Title 23, which deals with elimination of rail-highway grade crossings in the Northeast 

corridor; (7) increasing the authorization for the special bridge replacement program by a 

total of $150 million; (8) setting up a separate authorization of approximately $116 million 
1203 

for the repair of bridges on the vital Overseas Highway leading to Key West, Florida; (9) 

authorizing $360,000 for an engineering study of a railroad relocation demonstration project 

in Lafayette, Indiana; (10) authorizing all parkways, not just those on a Federal-Aid System, 

to be financed out of the Highway Trust Fund; (11) creating a new program authorizing $15 

million for each of two fiscal years for access roads to Federal reservoirs; (12) assuring that 

public transportation facilities assisted with Federal-aid funds are accessible to the 

handicapped; and (13) extending a carpool demonstration program for one year to be 

separately funded at a level of $15 million. [The Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 

1974, Committee on Public Works, United States Senate, 93d congress, 2d Session, Report 

No. 93-1111, August 20, 1974, p. 2-3] 

Despite this early action, Congress put off further action on highway amendments to work on the 

National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974. With limited time remaining in the 2nd

session of the 93rd Congress after enactment of that law, the public works committees resumed 

work on the highway amendments. As the House Committee on Public Works explained in its 

report of December 11, 1974: 

The time remaining in the current session of Congress will not permit the consideration of a 

major highway bill. To provide continuity of the existing Federal-aid highway program, 

action on a new authorization bill must be completed during the first session of the 94th

Congress. Congress must also act next year to continue the highway Trust Fund [sic] 

beyond its present termination date of October 1, 1977; otherwise, Congress will have to 

provide some other source of financing for the highway program. 

The 1975 Interstate Cost Estimate was to be submitted in early 1975, and that would result in 

funding issues and hearings. For now, several critical issues could not be put off: 

There are provisions in the reported bill directed at the country’s energy problems. One 

would continue the national 55 miles per hour speed limit until Congress declares by 

concurrent resolution that it is no longer necessary; a second provision would require State 

certification of enforcement of the 55 miles per hour speed limit; a third provision would 

extend for one year the authority to make grants for demonstration carpooling programs. 

Actions on these measures need not await a comprehensive review of the total highway 

program.

The House bill included an increase in funds for the rural primary and secondary systems in 1976, a 

provision permitting buses of up to 102 inches in width to operate on the Interstate System, 

approval to accept donation of property for highway projects with appraisals, a provision increasing 

or decreasing the funds available for substitute Interstate highway or public mass transportation 

projects to offset inflation or deflation, and several “earmark” authorizations for projects. The 

House bill also contained new categorical programs (Access Highways to Public Recreation Areas 

on Certain lakes and Off-System Roads). In addition, the bill addressed highway beautification and 

the control of outdoor advertising based on the final recommendations of the Commission on 

Highway Beautification.
1204 

The Senate passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1974 (S. 3934) on September 11, 1974, with 85 

yeas and zero nays. The House took up the bill on December 16, 1974. Chairman Blatnik brought 

the bill to the House floor on December 16, 1974, under suspension of rules. The Committee had 

substituted its version, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1974, for the Senate bill. The chairman 

said:

This will be the last highway bill for which I, as a Member of the House of Representatives, 

will be here on this floor asking you [to] support. I have been through many of them with 

you including that great bill in 1956 which got the Interstate System really rolling. Now we 

are the envy of the world with that system and much of the rest of the world followed our 

example.

Most of the floor discussion was favorable to the bill. However, Representative Koch opposed the 

bill. He admitted:

I am very apprehensive. I feel somewhat like a Volkswagen confronting a Mack truck. The 

Mack truck is on the wrong side of the road and there is no place to go for help. But I think 

there is help.

His problem was the House Rules Committee had sent the measure to the floor under suspension of 

rules, meaning no amendments would be considered. (Suspension of rules was allowed on certain 

days during the year, but also during the last 6 days of a session. [How Our Laws Are Made, p. 

25.]) 

He objected to the increase in weight limits for trucks. He pointed out that on August 20, during 

consideration of the mass transportation bill, the House had approved his amendment, 252 to 159, 

to delete from the bill its provision increasing weight limits. The measure was not in the House 

version of S 3934, but the Senate had approved the increase in its version. Representative Koch 

was certain that in conference, the Senate’s provision would be accepted, unless the House bill 

could be amended to “simply state that there shall be no increase in truck weights, and would 

therefore keep truck weights at their current levels.” Such an amendment could be added only if the 

House first rejected the bill so it could come back to the floor under an open rule. 

Representative Wright responded that the urgency of the bill stemmed from the fact that the current 

Congress was about to end and the bill would die with it prior to the start of the 94th Congress. The 

suspension of rules “was dictated by the realities of the situation.” He did not see how “it makes a 

particle of difference” regarding the issue that concerns Representative Koch:

He is concerned, he says, about some provision in the Senate bill which would increase the 

allowable and permissive weight of trucks. I would advise my friend, and all of the others 

here, that this bill does not contain that provision. It is not in the bill. There is no basis in 

reason for voting against this bill. This bill does not contain any language whatsoever 

respecting that problem. 
1205 

The House approved the bill by voice vote and sent it to conference with the Senate. [Federal-Aid 

Highway Amendment of 1974, Congressional Record-House, December 16, 1974, p. 40149-40163] 

House and Senate conferees approved a conference report on S. 3934, the Federal-Aid Highway 

Amendments of 1974, on December 17. The following day, Senator Randolph brought the report to 

the floor for consideration. He said the critical issue had been truck weights:

There was much discussion of this problem and resolution was difficult. The conference 

committee ultimately agreed to include the provisions of the Senate bill allowing an increase 

in truck weight to a maximum of 80,000 pounds and the initiation of a bridge formula for 

the distribution of weight over the truck configuration, with two modifications. The 

provision regarding weight limitations on the steering axle was deleted at the insistence of 

the House conferees because it was felt that the Bureau of Motor [Carrier] Safety has the 

authority to regulate in this area under the Interstate Commerce Act.

The conferees also “grandfathered” any State that had a weight limit in excess of that in the bill

“for a vehicle with any group of two or more consecutive axles operating on the Interstate System.” 

 

Senator Randolph recognized that some individuals would be dissatisfied with the weight limit 

provisions. However, they were “realistic and workable” and were the only way “to avoid a 

complete breakdown of the conference.” Following a short debate on the weight limits, the Senate 

approved the conference report, 68 to 27. [Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974-Conference 

Report, Congressional Record-Senate, December 18, 1974, p. 40683-40686, 40690-40691] 

The House also considered the conference report on December 18. Introducing the report, 

Representative Wright called the bill “a fair and equitable meeting of the minds between the 

conferees of the two bodies.” As in the Senate, the provisions on truck weight limits provoked 

discussion. Representative Wayne L. Hayes (D-Oh.) pointed out that the House, “by a very 

substantial vote,” had defeated an increase in weight limits. Representative Wright responded that 

the vote had come on the mass transit bill, not the highway act, and so was not binding on the 

conferees. 

Representative Koch told his colleagues, “we have a second opportunity to vote this bill down,” 

adding, “We should have done it the other day when it first came up.” With the exception of the 

weight provisions, “this is a good bill,” with “a lot of money in it for rural areas and it has got a lot 

of money in it for the urban areas.” He found it hard to vote against the bill, but he was going to do 

it because of his concern about safety:

I am saying it is dangerous to you, to your wives, and to your children, because you and your 

families are on these same interstate roads [as the heavier, dangerous trucks] . . . . What I 

am urging the Members to do is not only think of the [unsafe] drivers but also to think even 

more of their own families, whose lives are in danger—in danger—as a result of increasing 

these weights.
1206 

Representative Seiberling said that given his family background in the tire business, it was hard to 

oppose a measure that might increase business. However, he pointed out that NHTSA had just 

initiated a study of weight limits from a safety standpoint. “I do not see how we can in good 

conscience approve a bill to increase the axle limits without that kind of a report before us so we 

know what we are doing.” 

Representative Wright responded that “such reports are before us, and several of them have been 

before us for as long as 5 or 6 years.” The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 had called for a study 

that BPR conducted at a cost of $27 million: 

They recommended to the Congress that certain limits be applied. The limits we have 

accepted from the Senate bill are well within the limits and lower than the limits 

recommended by the safety people in the Bureau of Public Roads and in the Department of 

Transportation. 

(Representative Wright seems to have been referring to the provision in the 1956 Act authorizing 

the AASHO Road Test “for the purpose of determining the maximum desirable dimensions and 

weights for vehicles operated on the Federal-aid highway systems, including the Interstate System . 

. . .” The focus was primarily on how varying vehicle weights affected different thicknesses and 

configurations of concrete and asphalt pavements and bridges, rather than on safety issues.) 

When Representative Seiberling suggested that NHTSA was more safety oriented than BPR, 

Representative Wright replied, “the Department of Transportation is a creature of this Congress, 

and this committee has been instructed to do certain things and we believe we are following the 

right course.” 

After brief further debate, the House approved the conference report, 307 to 67. [Federal-Aid 

Highway Amendments of 1974, Congressional Record-House, December 18, 1974, p. 40906-

40913] 

President Ford approved the legislation on January 4, 1975. In a statement, he said the bill 

contained three energy-related provisions that he considered highly desirable: 

First, it will establish 55 miles per hour as the national speed limit on a permanent basis. 

This limit has proven to be of great value in not only saving fuel but in decreasing the loss 

of life on our highways. 

Second, this bill will extend the carpooling demonstration program for 1 year, until 

December 31, 1975. This program provides funds to States and localities to encourage the 

use of carpools. The Department of Transportation has estimated that it could save this 

country 5 billion gallons of gasoline. In addition, it will reduce air pollution and urban 

congestion. 

Third, the bill will increase the allowable weights for trucks on interstate highways. Largely 

because of the lower speed limit, many truckers have found themselves in an economic 
1207 

bind, with decreased productivity. This modest increase in allowable truck weights should 

help them regain that productivity, without threatening public safety on the highways. 

The bill also contained “undesirable changes” in the Federal-aid highway program: 

For one, it would provide $347 million in additional authorizations for existing highway 

programs and $405 million for new categorical grants. Of these amounts, more than $500 

million in contract authority would be available to States without further action by the 

Congress. 

Since funds for many of the existing programs are already being deferred, these extra 

authorizations are not needed. Approving these funds at this time would not only be 

unnecessary but highly inflationary as well. In addition, one of the objectives of this 

Administration is to reduce or eliminate categorical grants. This bill provides authorizations 

for numerous new categorical grant programs. Accordingly, I will recommend to Congress 

that release of most of this highway obligational authority be deferred for 1975. I hope 

Congress will agree with this plan.

He concluded: 

The 94th Congress and the Administration must work together to develop a highway 

program for this decade which is compatable with our national transportation and economic 

objectives. I will work with the Congress to develop such a program. 

The Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974 (Public Law 93-643) increased authorizations for 

the Federal-aid primary and secondary systems in rural areas and provided funds for control of 

outdoor advertising and junkyards, and for landscaping and scenic enhancement. It increased funds 

for Indian Reservation Roads, the Rural Highway Public Transportation Demonstration Program, 

and the Special Bridge Replacement Program. The Act also:

• Directed the Secretary of Transportation to carry out a feasibility study for a rail-line 

relocation demonstration project in Lafayette, Indiana. 

• Declared as national policy that the elderly and handicapped have the same right as others to 

use mass transit systems. The Secretary was to require that projects under the Federal-aid 

urban system, Interstate transfer, or rural-bus demonstration provisions be planned, 

designed, constructed, and operated to implement this right.

• Increased from 18,000 to 20,000 pounds the maximum weight allowable on any one axle 

and from 32,000 to 34,000 pounds the maximum tandem axle weight for vehicles operated 

on the Interstate System. Any vehicle that could lawfully be operated in a State on the 

Interstate System on the date of enactment may continue to operate in that State even if it 

exceeded the national weight limits.

• Each State was required to certify enforcement of maximum vehicle size and weights and 

speed limits. The Secretary could not approve Federal-aid projects in any State that failed to 

certify.

• Authorized the Alaska ferry system to make stops in Canada. 
1208 

• Extended outdoor advertising controls to signs on Interstate and primary systems more than 

660 feet from the edge of the right-of-way outside urban areas, visible from the main 

traveled way, and designed to convey its message to the main traveled way. Directional and 

official signs and notices could remain in place. Payment of just compensation was required 

for removal of any sign lawfully erected under State law. Similarly, compensation of just 

compensation was required for disposition of any junkyard lawfully established under State 

law.

• Allowed “advance construction” payments when a State has obligated all its Federal-aid 

system funds under a given apportionment and proceeds with a project on that system 

without Federal-aid funds. The Secretary may compensate the State for the Federal share 

when the next apportionment becomes available. 

• When a party wished to donate property for project right-of-way, the prerequisites of an 

appraisal or tender of just compensation were waived. 

• Authorized funds for access highways to public recreation areas on lakes. 

• Provided funds for a bikeway demonstration program, defining “bikeway” as “bicycle lane 

or path, or support facility, a bicycle traffic control device, a shelter, or a parking facility to 

serve bicycles and persons using bicycles.” Grants could go for the construction of 

commuting or recreational bikeways in urban areas. Federal share: 80 percent.

• Extended the carpool demonstration as noted by the President. 

• Authorized the use of funds under the Safer Roads Demonstration program for the 

correction of high-hazard locations off the Federal-aid systems.

• Authorized funds for the construction, reconstruction, and improvement of off-system roads. 

“Off-system road” was defined as “any toll-free road (including bridges) in a rural area, 

which road is not on any Federal-aid system and which is under the jurisdiction of and 

maintained by a public authority and open to public travel.” 

• Authorized the Secretary to adjust the estimated cost of an Interstate project based on the 

1975 Interstate Cost Estimate.

• Authorized the Secretary to make grants for State programs for driver education and training 

for persons driving school buses. 

The legislation included several provisions directed at specific projects, including reconstruction or 

replacement of bridge structures of a two-lane nature on the Overseas Highway (U.S. 1) to Key

West, Florida, construction of a bridge to replace a drainage culvert in Auburn, California, and 

high-density urban highway intermodal connection between Franklin Avenue and 59th Street, South, 

in Minneapolis, Minnesota. [“Analysis of 1974 Federal-Aid Highway Act Amendments (P.L. 93-

643),” FHWA News, April 1975, p. 6-7] 

(The first change in the speed limit requirement occurred in the Surface Transportation and 

Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 1987, which allowed States to raise the maximum speed 

limit to 65 m.p.h. on rural segments of the Interstate System (outside urbanized areas of 50,000 

population or more). Some States raised speed limits immediately while others raised it only on 

selected rural Interstate routes. Other States modified speed limits in later years. It was entirely up 

to the States.
1209 

(Federal restrictions on speed limits would not be completely lifted until 1995 when the 

“Republican Revolution” of the 1994 elections turned Congress over to conservatives who wanted 

to eliminate Federal restrictions on what they perceived as State prerogatives. After an emotional 

debate in both Houses, Congress included a provision in the National Highway System Designation 

Act of 1995 that eliminated all Federal restrictions on the speed limit. After President Bill Clinton 

approved the legislation on November 28, 1995, the States were free to raise the speed limit to any 

level they thought appropriate, or leave it at the existing level, without concern about the loss of 

Federal-aid highway projects. 

(Those opposed to the measure predicted it would turn highways into “killing fields,” but the feared 

outcome did not occur. As noted earlier, highway deaths fell to 32,367 in 2011, the lowest level 

since 1949.) 

New York City’s 35-Cent Fare

On May 19, 1975, Frank Herringer visited New York City Hall with a green check in hand for 

$85.5 million. The New York Times described the event:

Mayor Beame and David L. Yunich, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, 

made up the happy “reception committee.” Frank C. Herringer, New York-born son of a 

Transit Authority employe [sic], casually handed over the green check in his present 

capacity as head of the Federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration. 

The Mayor then interrupted newsmen asking questions, declaring, “Sorry, we’ve got to get 

this check to the bank right away.” He explained that the city would lose a day’s interest--

$12,000 to $13,000—if the check was not deposited before 3 o’clock. Mr. Beame had a 

Finance Administration official standing by to be sure that the deposit was made on time. 

The Transit Authority thus became the first such agency in the nation to receive a Federal 

operating grant . . . . Mr. Herringer said that the $87.5-million operating grant would 

subsidize nearly 227 million rides.

It was a result of the “Beame Shuffle” included in the National Mass Transportation Assistance Act 

of 1975. Introduced by Representative Koch, the provision allowed cities to shift half their transit 

capital grant funds to meet operating deficits. 

The Mayor steered clear of saying that Federal assistance would save the 35-cent fare 

beyond the end of the year. He said instead that the grant “will help us run New York City’s 

buses and subways at a reasonable cost to the rider.” [Burks, Edward C., “M.T.A. Receives 

$87.5-Million Aid,” The New York Times, May 20, 1975] 

An UMTA press release quoted Herringer as expressing concern that the transfer of funds “not 

delay progress on the affected capital projects.” The release also quoted Mayor Beame:
1210 

The city of New York is very pleased by this Federal contribution to its mass transit 

systems. What is even more important is that this is a subsidy of operating costs and as such 

is an historic breakthrough. It is an acknowledgement of Federal responsibility for mass 

transit systems which benefit metropolitan regions.

Mayor Beame added that in presenting the first check to New York City, Herringer was recognizing 

that the city had been “responsible for the marshalling of support in all parts of the country for the 

concept of Federal operating subsidies for mass transit. It was New York City’s initiative which 

helped secure the Congressional and Presidential approval which made today’s grant possible.” 

New York officials and their representatives in the Congress had fought hard, almost desperately, to 

save the 35-cent fare and had been successful thus far, but by May 1975, an increase was inevitable.

The MTA had kept the fare at 35 cents thanks to subsidies from the State and city, but by spring 

1975, New York City teetered on the brink of bankruptcy. With neither the Federal nor State 

governments prepared to rescue the city, its ability to provide an annual subsidy to the MTA 

disappeared.

The city’s financial disaster was a result of many factors that had developed over the decades. 

According to contemporary journalist Ken Auletta, the size and nature of city expenditures was one 

factor:

The city’s budget, $2.7 billion in 1961, leaped to $13.6 billion in fiscal 1976 . . . . From an 

emphasis on basic services which are most visible to middle- and upper-income residents—

the city’s budget shifted to providing more public employee benefits and more services for 

the poor. 

The city became less attractive to middle-income residents and businesses as taxes increased and 

benefits aimed at them decreased. The suburbs became an increasingly attractive option. “The 

causes of the fiscal crisis cannot be fully comprehended without” understanding the “exodus of 

wealth” and the “flood of poor people” who represented an increasing percentage of the city’s 

population. In a way, the migration was inevitable since it was happening in cities around the 

country. “But a good deal of this population shift was foreordained by city, state and federal 

policies promoting highways and low-interest government-sponsored home loans.” Auletta added: 

Government also made it possible for people to get to their new homes. On January 16, 

1955, the Triboro Bridge and Tunnel Authority and the Port Authority agreed to a $1.2 

billion scheme to construct a second deck on the George Washington Bridge and miles of 

new bridge approaches and roads that would bulldoze neighborhoods. The architect of this 

scheme was Robert Moses . . . . 

He quoted Robert Caro’s biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, as saying the plan 

“sealed, perhaps for centuries, the future of New York and its suburbs.” Auletta continued: 
1211 

It stimulated new road construction. Visions of sugarplums danced before the eyes of the 

establishment. The banks thought of the bonds to be sold; the construction unions, of the 

jobs to be created; the law firms and politicians, of the legal fees and insurance premiums; 

the real-estate interests, of the enhanced value of their Manhattan properties.

Had that money been spent on mass transit, New York might today be a very different place 

. . . . But the automobile was the wave of the future. 

These forces, especially since enactment of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and the 

construction of the Interstate System, pulled people out of the city. “By 1970, the average 

household income of the New York City suburbs ($17,062) was more than 50 percent greater than 

that inside the city ($11,269).” 

The transit strike beginning January 1, 1966, “the most damaging strike in the city’s history,” was 

another factor. Settlement of the strike 12 days later cost between $52 and $70 million, “almost 

three times what one of the three mediators, Theodore Kheel, told me should have been the price.” 

The real cost was to come:

Aside from the immediate $70 or so million price tag, the strike’s costs were steep. The 

city’s economy lost millions of dollars in sales and other taxes, and employees sacrified an 

estimated 6 million workdays. The transit fare rose from 15 to 20 cents; future deficits were 

guaranteed when the transit system lost 2.1 percent of its riders. 

Auletta found that even repeal of the Port Authority’s bond covenant, which Kheel had been 

fighting for years, was part of the problem. The covenant dated to 1962 when the Port Authority 

arranged a swap with the Governors of New York and New Jersey: 

In exchange for its agreement to take over and modernize the Hudson River commuter rail 

link between the two states, the Port Authority received permission to build a world trade 

center in lower Manhattan. The legislatures of the two states also passed covenants solemly 

pledging that the Authority and its bondholders would never again be asked to take over a 

deficit-plagued mass transit system. Since such systems chronically lose money, the 

covenant effectively prevented the rich and powerful Authority from investing in mass 

transportation. It also reassured bondbolders that their investments would continue to be 

secured by revenue-generating projects.

Years passed. The Authority’s surpluses grew. Mass Transit revenues shrank. Slowly, a 

chorus of critics also grew—lashing out at the Authority’s refusal to invest in mass transit, 

at the $850 million lavished on the World Trade Center, at the miles of “profitable” concrete 

ribbons strangling New York. 

Theodore Kheel’s fight in court had been in vain, but his long campaign helped change attitudes: 
1212 

By 1973 and 1974, political support for repeal of the covenant was widespread. Before 

turning over the reigns of state government to Malcolm Wilson in late 1973, Governor 

Rockefeller extracted a pledge that he would repeal the covenant.

Governor Brendan Byrne of New Jersey approved the repeal on April 30, 1974, as did the New 

York State legislature:

But Governor Wilson hesitated. He worried, he said later, that repeal would “overturn a 

solemn pledge of the state.” Kheel responded: “Repeal of the 1962 statutory covenant will 

in no way impair the security of Port Authority bondholders.” 

Attacked for his hesitation by city associations, The New York Times, and Republican allies who 

feared Wilson would lose his election bid in November 1974, “and just about everyone in politics,” 

Governor Wilson finally signed the repeal on June 15: 

After an agonizing appraisal, he said, it was determined to his satisfaction that the repeal 

was constitutional. The courts disagreed, deciding in 1977 that repeal of the covenant was 

unconstitutional. 

(As noted earlier, Wilson lost the election to Democrat Hugh Carey, who had served in the U.S. 

House of Representatives since January 3, 1961.) 

In the meantime, “the damage had been done,” as Auletta explained:

Repeal came at a bad time. Following the Arab oil boycott, energy costs were soaring, the 

national economy was in a recession, there was an international crisis, the financial 

community was suffering losses and had less cash to invest in tax-exempt bonds. And since 

a credit market is tissued together by faith as well as facts, repeal signaled to investors that 

what the state giveth, the state can taketh away. Investors took this as a sign that the 

governments’—or, more precisely, the politicans’—word was no good. 

As the city’s fiscal crisis deepened, it was unable to rely on “moral obligation” bond issuances to 

balance its budgets. In 1960, Governor Rockefeller had signed legislation creating a State Housing 

Agency that could raise funds through moral obligation bonds. Since they were not backed by the 

State’s full faith and credit, they could be issued without a referendum. The agency accepted its 

moral obligation to find a way to repay bondholders. “The city took the cue” and increasingly 

relied on such bonds: 

In February 1975, the state Urban Development Corporation—an offspring of the Housing 

Finance agency—defaulted on its “moral obligations.” Within a month, the city found itself 

unable to borrow money. 

When the bond market slammed shut, the city’s cumulative deficit was approximately $3 billion. 

Its reliance on new debt to service old debt was no longer feasible. Despite the State’s emergency 
1213 

efforts to borrow money to pay the debts and restore solvency, investors “remained wary,” as 

Auletta explained 

Regular cash deadlines neared, and nerve-ending dramas were played out as all participants 

marched to the brink of bankruptcy—each time pulling back at the point of no return. 

Usually, employee pension fund trustees would relent at the last minute and agree to invest 

more of their members’ money. Sometimes the banks agreed to roll over due dates on 

securities.

Mayor Beame sought a bailout from Washington, but President Ford said in a speech at the 

National Press Club in Washington on October 29, 1975, that if Congress approved the legislation, 

he would veto it: 

One week ago, New York City tottered on the brink of financial default which was deferred 

only at the eleventh hour. The next day, Mayor Beame testified here in Washington that the 

financial resources of the city and the State of New York were exhausted. Governor Carey 

agreed. They said it was now up to Washington, and unless the Federal Government 

intervenes, New York City within a short time will no longer be able to pay its bills.

The fault, he said, was with “those who have misled the people of New York about the inevitable 

consequences of what they were doing over the last 10 years.” The causes were “a steady stream of 

unbalanced budgets, massive growth in the city’s debt, extraordinary increases in public employee 

contracts, and total disregard of independent experts who warned again and again that the city was 

courting disaster.” A Federal bailout, President Ford said, would “ensure that no long-run solution 

to the city’s problems will ever occur.” 

He referred to at least eight proposals under consideration in Congress. “I can tell you, and tell you 

now, that I am prepared to veto any bill that has as its purpose a Federal bailout of New York City 

to prevent a default.” He intended to introduce legislation “providing the Federal courts with 

sufficient authority to preside over an orderly reorganization of New York City’s financial affairs” 

under bankruptcy laws. 

After his remarks, he responded to several questions, the last being, “Do you think you will carry 

New York City in the next election?” After the audience laughed, President Ford said, “I will take 

my chances on New York City.” He thought the people of New York City would understand how 

they had been mislead by their leaders and would appreciate “some straight talk.” 

The next day, The New York Post created one of its most famous front-page headlines: “FORD TO 

CITY: DROP DEAD.” 

On December 9, President Ford approved, without ceremony, a $2.3 billion seasonal loan 

authorization. He had proposed such a loan bill a few weeks earlier. Congress appropriated the 

funds on December 15 in a $10.3 billion supplemental appropriation bill that the President signed 

as soon as it reached his desk. As Auletta explained: 
1214 

With notes coming due in November, the State legislature, at the instigation of city officials, 

declared a moratorium on the repayment of $2.4 billion of outstanding city notes. Next, the 

federal government came to rescue, narrowly approving a $2.3 billion annual season loan to 

the city (to be repaid with interest) after assurances that this loan would put New York back 

on its feet . . . . 

For the next 3 years, “the city limped along,” periodically escaping bankruptcy. [Auletta, Ken, The 

Streets Were Paved With Gold, Random House, 1979, p. 29-91; Caro quote, The Power Broker, p. 

926] 

(In the 1976 election, President Ford lost New York City and the State to Governor Jimmy Carter, 

with much of the blame going to that headline in The New York Post.) 

The city’s finances were unraveling at a time when the entire country was facing economic strains. 

Presidential historian Robert Dallek explained that the economy “whipsawed by rising energy costs, 

fell into a cycle of stagflation in 1975—falling GNP, the worst since 1929-1932; 9 percent 

unemployment, the highest since 1941; and rapidly rising prices, the biggest increases in twentyfive years . . . .” [Dallek, p. 185] 

On March 14, 1975, MTA’s Yunich announced bus and subway service cuts beginning April 1 

because of a “very marked loss of ridership.” The subways were carrying 200,000 fewer riders each 

weekday than for the same period in 1975, costing a loss of $20-25 million. A Times article said, 

“Mr. Yunich cited rapidly declining employment here—especially in the garment district and in 

clerical positions—as the main reason for the loss of riders.” The result of the cutbacks would be 

“longer waiting times between buses and trains on the affected routes, primarily in nonpeak hours.” 

 Yunich said MTA was not planning layoffs, but would retain the hiring freeze instituted the 

previous August. The main impact of the changes would be on overtime, which he said was “eating 

us out of house and home.” [Burks, Edward C., “Subway and Bus Service Faces Cuts as Riders 

Fall,” The New York Times, March 15, 1975] 

A month later, the Port Authority announced it would increase tolls on the George Washington , 

Bayonne, Goethals, and Outerbridge bridges and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels from $1 for a 

roundtrip fare to $1.50 on May 5. Vehicles carrying three or more persons could get discount 

roundtrip fares of 50 cents. Trucks would pay the new fare, but buses would continue to pay the 

existing roundtrip fare of $1.80. Dr. Ronan said the changes reflected the Port Authority’s 

commitment to mass transit improvements in the area. A Port Authority announcement explained:

It is no longer in the public interest to offer special inducements to motorists who choose to 

drive to work. On the contrary there is general agreement on all levels of government that 

commuters should be encouraged to make maximum use of public transportation or to form 

car pools. [Burks, Edward C., “Port Authority Increases Tolls at Crossings by 50%,” The 

New York Times, April 11, 1975] 

Kheel, criticizing the increases as “too little and too late,” asked Governor Carey for a much higher 

toll. Robert N. Rickles, executive director of the Institute for Public Transportation, urged the 

Governor to veto the increase and require a 100-percent increase instead. In view of “the dire 
1215 

situation” of the subway, commuter rail, and bus systems, Rickles said the increased revenue could 

be used to support a $600 million bond issue “for much needed expansion and upgrading of the 

commuter rail system and subways system in New York City.” A higher toll increase would, he 

predicted, divert enough traffic from the automobile to mass transit to allow the city to reject plans 

to replace the West Side Highway with an Interstate highway. 

Two weeks after the increase in tolls, the Port Authority reported that instead of causing motorists 

to use mass transit, traffic had actually increased. Some motorists had switched to the Tappan Zee 

Bridge, which had not experienced a toll increase, to cross the Hudson River instead of the George 

Washington Bridge. [Burks, Edward C., “Carey Requested to Back a $2 Toll,” The New York 

Times, April 16, 1975; Burks, Edward C., “Toll Increase Fails to Cut Port Authority’s Traffic,” The 

New York Times, May 21, 1975] 

Mayor Beame was scrambling to balance the city’s budget for FY 1976, even delaying its release 

while he identified ways to increase revenue or reduce expenditures to close the expected $641 

million budget gap. He finally released the 1976 budget on May 29, saying that without new 

revenue, “we must move from programmed recovery to shock therapy.” He actually released two 

budgets, one “crisis budget” of $11.891 billion reflecting the absence of the additional revenue he 

still hoped to secure, the other an “austerity budget” of $12.678 billion based on receiving the 

funds. Both budgets involved thousands of layoffs and widespread reductions in service. [Ferretti, 

Fred, “Mayor Emotional,” The New York Times, May 30, 1975] 

On July 14, Mayor Beame asked the City Council to repeal a law that had limited the one-way fare 

on the Staten Island Ferry to a nickel since 1898. The increase would allow restoration of services 

that had been cut on July 1 as a result of the fiscal crisis. [Kihss, Peter, “Beame Asks Wend of 5-

Cent Ferry Fare,” The New York Times, July 15, 1975] 

Later that month, MTA announced the bus and subway fares would increase to 45 or 50 cents in 

1976. Yunich explained that MTA had “problems similar to those of the city.” It faced rising cost 

at a time of “serious decline of almost 5 percent in ridership, due to the increased unemployment in 

the city.” He added:

In view of the city’s present over-all financial plight, it is clear that the city will be unable to 

provide any financial support beyond that which it has already allocated. Therefore, the 

M.T.A. board is compelled to consider a fare increase. 

The size of the increase would depend on possible cost reductions and levels of support from the 

city and State. Yunich also said the MTA was reviewing fares on the New Haven and other 

commuter rail lines.

Meanwhile, the City Council passed the Staten Island Ferry fare increase to 25 cents by a vote of 34 

to 2. [Burks, Edward C., “A Fare Increase to 45 or 50c Seen; Ferry Rise Voted,” The New York 

Times, July 26, 1975] 
1216 

On July 31, MTA announced a bus and subway fare increase to 50 cents, effective September 1, 

1975, a 25-cent toll increase on most facilities of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (part 

of MTA), and a 25-percent increase in fares on the commuter rail lines. Even with these changes, 

Yunich said, “We’re not out of the woods by a long shot.” He called for understanding by the 

public and cooperation from the transit unions. The Times reported: 

Asked how the M.T.A. could justify an increase of more than 40 per cent now, Mr. Yunich 

replied, “When I came to New York in 1940 the subway fare was a nickel, and a loaf of 

bread cost 9 cents. Now a loaf of bread costs 69 cents and the fare is going to be 50. I think 

the relationship is pretty good.” 

The Times added: 

The M.T.A . . . is largely autonomous, but is heavily dependent on subsidies--$70-million 

each from the city and state and $244-million from the Federal Government. The 

unlikelihood of any increase in these subsidies has necessitated the fare increases . . . . 

Although Mayor Beame and the Municipal Assistance Corporation recommended the 

transit-fare increases as part of an over-all revenue package, Mr. Yunich made it clear that 

the M.T.A. still needed and counted on the $70-million annual city subsidy. In other words, 

the fare increase in his view is to ease the plight of the M.T.A., a separate entity, and not 

that of the city treasury. 

The increase would require the city to increase its subsidy payment by $16.8 million to keep the 

fare 15 cents for school children. [Burks, Edward C., “Some Tolls Rising,” The New York Times, 

August 1, 1975, Burks, Edward C. “Fare Rise to Cost City $16.8 Million,” The New York Times, 

August 2, 1975] 

A group of Federal, State, and local officials formed a group to “rollback fare increases,” which 

they deplored as “another sharp turn of the inflationary screw.” Representatives Abzug and Koch 

joined the other members of the group in calling for a 12-county special payroll tax to be paid by 

employers or a surtax on State personal income and corporate taxes. They predicted that the tax 

could produce $270 million in new revenue, enough they said to roll back the fare increases due to 

go into effect on September 1. Representative Abzug accused MTA of raising fares without 

considering other alternatives: 

The Federal Mass Transportation Act of 1974 provided enough funds to hold the fare until 

next Jan. 1. But Big Mac and the bankers have dictated this increase now to sell their 

bonds. 

Citing Atlanta’s regional tax as a model, the group called on Governor Carey to convene a special 

session of the legislature to enact the tax. The Times reported: 

Persons close to the Governor indicated there was little likelihood of a special session, and 

the Assembly Speaker, Stanley Steingut, first wants to see what recommendations a joint 
1217 

legislative transportation hearing will produce Sept. 10. Also, a city transit official 

described the effort to get the M.T.A. to roll back its announced fare increases as something 

like trying to “roll back the Red Sea.”

On August 19, Representatives Abzug and Badillo urged about 1,000 people in a lunchtime rally in 

Lower Manhattan to refuse to pay the increased transit far. “We must refuse to pay this tax, this 

new transit fare,” Representative Abzug said from atop a panel truck serving as an improvised 

stage. “There were no public hearings and the banks and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority 

forced Mayor Beame and Governor Carey to raise the fare. We fought the whole Revolution to 

avoid this type of taxation without representation.” 

Other speakers, including Representative Koch, urged people to sign petitions calling on Governor 

Carey to convene a special legislative session to consider the issue. In an interview after the rally, 

Representative Badillo suggested that people boycott the subways to put pressure on MTA and city 

and State officials. Citing the 1966 transit strike, he pointed out that people could carpool as a way 

of protesting the fare hikes. 

In an editorial, the Times denounced Representatives Abzug and Badillo for launching “a worthy 

cause on a dangerously misdirected track.” The editorial continued: 

Their incitement to break the law is a shocking abrogation of responsibility by officials who 

were elected to help fashion the laws of the land and who are sworn to uphold them. Mrs. 

Abzug’s rabble-rousing cry to “resist if necessary” has a ring of rank hypocrisy from a 

member of Congress who was once vigorously outspoken against lawlessness as practiced 

in the Nixon White House. 

As an alternative, the Times called for efforts to promote the regional tax advocated by some rally 

speakers, as well as to “reduce wasteful work rules and other excessive transit labor costs—a 

subject on which Matthew Guinan of the Transport Workers Union, a co-sponsor of the rally, and 

other speakers were strangely silent.” [Burks, Edward C., “Tax for Transit Gaining Support,” The 

New York Times, August 15, 1975; Smothers, Ronald, “Boycott is Urged on Fare Increase,” The 

New York Times, August 20, 1975; “Turnstile Tantrums,” The New York Times, August 21, 1975] 

MTA held hearings on the fare increases for commuter rail lines on August 21. Faced with 

extensive criticism, board members, according to the Times, “snapped back yesterday at critics of 

their projected 25 per cent fare increase on commuter routes, accusing some legislators of ‘rank 

nonsense’ in their attacks.” The increases for commuter railroads became official on August 25. 

Yunich said, “While the board regrets the necessity to increase fares, it has no alternative.” 

Otherwise, he predicted a shortfall of $203.6 million for bus and subway operations and $57 million 

for the commuter rail lines by mid-1976. He urged “all levels of government” to give priority to 

transit financing. “It is now generally recognized that public transportation cannot be sustained 

solely by the farte box.” [Burks, Edward C., “Hearings of M.T.A. Marked by Clashes on 

Commuter Fare,” The New York Times, August 22, 1975; Burks, Edward C., “Fare Rise Up to 

25% to Start on Monday on Suburban Rails,” The New York Times, August 26, 1975] 
1218 

September 1, the day the fare increases went into effect was part of the Labor Day holiday, easing 

confusion on the lines. After the first work day with the new fares, the Times reported: 

The vast majority of New Yorkers trooping back to work yesterday gave the new 50-cent 

transit fare a shrug or a snarl, and a few of them—42 by early evening—were arrested in 

scattered gate-crashing incidents. 

Despite organized attempts at some subway stations to urge riders not to pay, the transit 

police—including 300 extra men assigned to the day shift—were able to hold disturbances 

to a minimum on the first regular working day with the new fare. 

The “vociferous rallies of the last few days . . . finally came to little as the great majority of New 

Yorkers paid the extra 15 cents of the new fare.” 

After the first week, subway ridership was down compared with a year earlier, but had already been 

running behind the previous year by about 4 percent because of economic conditions. [Burks, 

Edward C., “Fare Rise Brings Anger, Shrugs, Turnstile-Jumping and Arrests,” The New York 

Times, September 3, 1975; Burks, Edward C., “Subway Riding Here Down 8.2% During First 5 

Days of Fare Rise,” The New York Times, September 11, 1975] 

Auletta provided a different perspective on the fare increases:

Take, for instance, the city’s 40 percent subway fare increase in 1975. Many cried, with 

considerable justice, that this was counterproductive and would lead to the loss of many 

more riders. That September, the city needed to borrow $906 million to meet its monthly 

cash needs. Sixty-five percent of this sum was earmarked to repay interest and principal on 

previous loans, much of which could have been eliminated if previous mayors had not 

borrowed so promiscuously. Just one-fifth of this September 1975 debt service payment—

$120 million—could have spared the 35 cent subway fare. [Auletta, p. 267] 

Another force on fares became clear on September 29 when EPA Regional Administrator Gerald 

M. Hansler announced orders requiring the city and State to establish tolls by mid-1977 on all East 

and Harlem River bridges. The toll-free bridges included the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and 

Queensborough Bridges. The Times reported: 

Mr. Hansler said the tolls would reduce the pollutants emitted by automobiles by cutting the 

number of vehicles coming to Manhattan. He estimated that a toll of $1.50 per round trip, 

24 hours a day except Sunday, would raise $145 million a year. He added that such revenue 

would have to be used for mass transit . . . . 

The E.P.A. traffic order calls for a 10 per cent reduction in automobiles entering Manhattan 

south of 60th street between 6 and 10 A.M. Although it is left to the city to achieve this 

goal, the order calls for elimination of parking meters in mid-Manhattan (which number 

about 200); sets a rigid control over construction of new parking areas south of 60th Street 

(one new space only if two are deleted); and suggests new parking surcharges of $2 per 

space per day.
1219 

Mayor Beame responded by saying the city would take EPA to court to invalidate the order because 

the Federal Goverment did not, the city argued, have the constitutional authority to order a city or 

State to impose tolls or other measures to comply with the Clean Air Act. 

The city’s Corporation Counsel, W. Bernard Richland, said: “We’re not going to do it. The 

idea is ridiculous. It is foolish. It is contrary to the public interest and contrary to the 

objectives of the Clean Air Act.”

Mr. Richland, who is seeking a ruling by a three-judge Federal court, said the E.P.A. orders 

were clear violations of the 10th Amendment, which reserves all powers to the states not 

specifically delegated to the Federal Government. 

Mr. Richland added that, it was “a pretty-damned ridiculous situation” for EPA to try to force the 

city to spend an enormous amount of capital funds, “which are unobtainable,” for toll plazas. 

[Burks, Edward C., “U.S. Formally Orders Tolls on Bridges to Manhattan,” The New York Times, 

September 30, 1975; Burks, Edward C., “State Will Offer Toll-Bridge Plan,” The New York Times, 

October 1, 1975] 

(The new bus and subway fare remained in effect through June 28, 1980, when it jumped to 60 

cents. Mayor Beame ran for reelection in 1977, but finished third in the primary behind New York 

Secretary of State Mario M. Cuomo and Representative Edward I. Koch, who won the general 

election. Beame did receive more votes than Representatives Abzug and Badillo in the primary. 

Mayor Koch took office on January 1, 1978.) 

(In the early 1970s, as mentioned earlier, New York City officials were promoting construction of 

the Second Avenue Subway. In part with an UMTA grant, the city broke ground on the project on 

October 27, 1972, at 103rd Street and Second Avenue. Governor Rockefeller and Mayor Lindsay 

wielded pickaxes, which barely “dented the asphalt pavement,” while Senator Javits and Secretary 

Volpe were among the dignitaries who handled shovels. Recalling that the plan for the subway line

dated to the 1920s, Mayor Lindsay said, “We know that whatever is said about this project in the 

years to come, certainly no one can say that the city acted rashly or without due deliberation.” 

Governor Rockefeller, a Republican speaking just a few days before the presidential election, said, 

“There is just one man responsible for this groundbreaking this morning, and that man is President 

Nixon.” The New York Times explained:

He was referring to the fact that the Federal Government would pay $12.1-million for 

construction of the first part of the line, from East 99th to East 105th Street. The State will 

pay $4-million and the city $2 million. That section is scheduled for completion in the fall 

of 1975 . . . . 

And Secretary of Transportation John M. [sic] Volpe reminded the assembled civic leaders, 

civil service workers, politicians and schoolchildren [from nearby Public School 121] that 

since January 1969, the Nixon Administration has given the city’s trisate [sic] area more 

than $235-million in mass-transit funds. 
1220 

The subway is expected to cost at least $1-billion, and there is no firm estimate of when it 

will be completed. The old Second Avenue elevated line carried its last passengers in 1942, 

and service on the Third Avenue elevated below 149th Street was terminated in 1955. 

(Dr. Ronan hailed the groundbreaking as “a day of deliverance for the straphanger.” [“Rockefeller 

and Lindsay Break Ground for 2d Avenue Subway,” The New York Times, October 28, 1972] 

(Unfortunately, the straphanger’s relief was to be delayed. The fiscal problems that struck the city 

in the mid-1970s brought a halt to construction before service could begin. In 1995, MTA’s New 

York City Transit revived the project by beginning a NEPA alternatives analysis. The Federal 

Transit Administration (FTA), UMTA’s successor, issued a Record of Decision in July 2004 

concluding the NEPA phase. The $4.4 billion project involved construction in stages of the line 

from 125th Street to the financial district in Lower Manhattan. 

(On November 19, 2007, Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters announced that FTA would 

provide $1.3 billion over 7 years for the first phase as construction progressed. She said, “It will be 

very good news to people in the area that this long-planned, on-again-off-again project will finally 

be completed.” She added that this was the second-largest expenditure on a mass transit project, 

the largest being $2.6 billion for the Long Island Rail Road link to Grand Central Terminal. MTA 

would raise the remaining funds for the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway by issuing bonds. 

 Although plans called for four construction phases, MTA had not established a schedule for the 

remaining work. [Neuman, William, “U.S. Approved $1.3 Billion for 2nd Avenue Subway,” The 

New York Times, November 19, 2007] 

(Officials broke ground for the first phase of construction (96th Street to 63rd Street as an extension 

of the Q train) on April 12, 2007, with construction of this phase to be completed in December 

2016. Once again, the Times was on hand: 

The politicians and dignitaries sat on a stage about 40 feet under Second Avenue and 99th

Street, at the dead end of a 35-foot-wide tunnel built in the 1970s for the on-again-off-again 

Second Avenue subway. The tunnel was sealed when New York City’s fiscal crisis hit, and 

ever since then it has been waiting for a day like yesterday—a day of cleansing spring rains 

and underground rites. 

(Dignitaries included Governor Eliot Spitzer, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, U.S. 

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, MTA Chairman Peter S. Kalikow, FTA Administrator James 

S. Simpson, and local officials. Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff represented Mayor Michael R. 

Bloomberg, who was out of town: 

Yesterday’s ceremony was at least the fourth groundbreaking for the line. Three previous 

ones were held in 1972, 1973, and 1974 when politicians, including two governors (Nelson 

A. Rockefeller and Malcolm Wilson) and two mayors (John V. Lindsay and Abraham D. 

Beame) hacked away at the Manhattan pavement with pickaxes or jackhammers to 

symbolically start work on different segments of the project. 
1221 

Once yesterday’s speeches were over, Mr. [Eliot G.] Sander [MTA’s chief executive] 

announced, “We are now going to hit the wall.” It turned out that no actual ground was 

going to be broken. A section of wall where the 1970s tunnel ended had been prepared with 

a false front of quick-drying cement, half an inch thick, which would fall away when it was 

tapped with a hammer. For that purpose, 11 shiny brick hammers with plastic-covered 

handles had been laid out on a table on the side of the stage. 

(The Times identified a comment by Dr. Ronan, who had participated in that first groundbreaking in 

1972, about the 2007 groundbreaking as “Quotation of the Day”: “There used to be a saying in 

New York, ‘I should live so long.’” [Neuman, William, “Was There a Ghost? No, Just a Tunnel at 

the Latest Subway Groundbreaking,” The New York Times, April 13, 2007]) 

Herringer’s Biggest Disappointment 

On April 25, 1975, Herringer was named general manager of BART. He would receive an annual 

salary of $68,500, which was an increase of $16,500 over the salary of his predecessor, B. R. 

Stokes. BART’s vice president, Elmer B. Cooper, explained: 

We had to pay more to get the man we wanted. We needed someone to lead us out of the 

hole we are in. He was the best person we looked at for the job, the best transportation man 

in the country. 

(By contrast, the Governor’s salary was $49,100.) 

BART faced an operating deficit of $15 million and a projected deficit of $100 million in the next 5 

years, and was experiencing technical and mechanical problems. Cooper said Herringer’s principal 

task would be “to evaluate the system in terms of fixing all the things that are wrong with it. As 

general manager, he has the power to evaluate the staff and do what he wants.” 

Herringer’s last day as UMTA Administrator was June 30, 1975; he would remain BART’s General 

Manager until December 31, 1978. Commenting on the use of Federal-aid urban system funds for 

mass transit, Herringer said, “I would have to say the results have been disappointing to say the 

least.” 

Only two transfers from the Highway Trust Fund had taken place by then. Secretary Brinegar 

announced the first transfer on July 2, 1974, with $1,547,597 in Federal-aid urban system funds 

being transferred to the Bi-State Development Agency of St. Louis as part of a $12.2 million grant 

for the purchase of 240 buses, 100 bus stop shelters, 343 two-radios, and other support equipment. 

Days later, on July 9, Secretary Brinegar announced the “first significant use” of urban system 

funds for mass transit with the transfer of $33 million to the New York City Transit Authority to 

buy 398 buses and continue its subway fixed-equipment rehabilitation program. “We hope,” the 

Secretary said, “that New York’s flexible use of Federal highway funds will prove to be an 

instructive example for the entire nation.” 
1222 

The St. Louis and New York City examples did not spur a surge of urban system transfers. 

Herringer attributed his “biggest disappointment” to lack of information about the program among 

local transit officials and the “formidable institutional problems” in the States to switching highway 

funds to transit. He explained, “The decision-making process goes through the Mayor or Governor, 

and no one pulls it together.” Local highway authorities still exercised considerable control over 

disposition of highway funds and were not eager for their transfer. The fact that expenditures 

required a 30-percent local match, compared with 20-percent for UMTA capital grants, also had 

discouraged transfers.

Several areas appeared ready to begin transfer activities. San Francisco, Chicago, and Minot, North 

Dakota, had submitted applications for a total of $3.6 million in transfers, while Houston’s transit 

administrator, Barry Goodman, said, “We met resistance at first” from Texas highway officials, 

“but after we explained the needs, they agreed.” [Associated Press, “U.S. Transit Chief Named 

Manager of BART System,” The Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1975; Blumenthal, Ralph, “Mass 

Transit Use of Road Fund Lags,” The New York Times, April 21, 1975] 

On July 22, 1975, the White House announced that President Ford would nominate Robert E. 

Patricelli to be UMTA Administrator. The 35-year old native of Hartford, Connecticut, had 

graduated, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1965. He had served in the Department of 

Health, Education and Welfare as Deputy Under Secretary for Policy Coordination, Deputy 

Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, and Special Assistant to the Secretary. Since 

1971, Patricelli, his wife Susan, and their two children had lived in Hartford where he was vice 

president of Greater Hartford Process and Greater Hartford Community Development Corporation. 

He had never held a job related to transit, but had been assured the job would be an “exciting 

challenge.” 

In July, Patricelli sold his Hartford home and relocated his family to McLean, Virginia. In view of 

his pending job, he wanted to commute by bus to Department headquarters in southwest 

Washington, but found that he would have to drive 2 miles, park on the street, catch a bus to 

downtown, and transfer once to reach his office. He decided to commute by car and park in the 

Department’s four-level underground garage despite the personal embarrassment. Some of his new 

colleagues were not sympathetic, with one anonymous official saying, “If it was all that important 

to him, he could have cranked it into his house-hunting.” [Crosby, Thomas, “Brand New U.S. 

Mass Transit Boss Misses the Bus,” The Washington Star, August 7, 1975]) 

On August 6, Deputy Secretary Barnum officiated at the swearing in ceremony for Patricelli, who 

served through the remainder of the Ford Administration. 

Taking the Sting Out of the 1970 CAA 

By the fall of 1973, EPA was continuing to approve plans to bring urban areas into compliance with 

the ambient air quality standards imposed by the Clean Air Amendments for 1975. On October 15, 

EPA approved transportation rules for Los Angeles and 16 other areas. For the Los Angeles Basin, 

the rules included free parking for carpools, surcharges on parking fees, restrictions and eventual 

bans on motorcycles that did not meet stringent emissions standards, a requirement that the owners 
1223 

of cars manufactured between 1966 and 1974 install an oxidizing catalyst at their own expense, and 

implementation of inspection and maintenance of 1966-1974 vehicles for antipollution 

performance. 

The area would experience a 57-percent reduction in its gasoline and diesel supplies for the summer 

of 1977. Drastic as the plan was, it would not be sufficient. Assistant EPA Administrator Robert 

L. Sanson told reporters that Los Angeles would have to eliminate its vehicle travel completely and 

San Francisco would need a 97-percent reduction to achieve the standards required by law. 

In announcing the plans, new EPA Administrator Russell Train said a “major source of concern” 

for EPA and Congress was that ultimately, the agency might need to impose “major limitations on 

gasoline usage itself.” He added:

Achieving reductions in gasoline use of 60 to 80 per cent or more—as several urban areas 

may need to do by 1977 in order to meet the law’s national air quality requirements—is 

almost certainly unreasonable. It could produce substantial economic and social 

disruptions. 

Although Train planned to ask Congress for an extension of the deadline, he considered other 

measures reasonable and said they would be pursued vigorously, an aide pointed out that Los 

Angeles and other California urban areas might need at least 5 years beyond 1975 to meet the 

standards without gasoline rationing. 

The reaction in Los Angeles was negative. Senator Tunney, recalling his reaction in January, said 

of the possible traffic ban that “E.P.A. spokesmen hint that it may be all but total for Los Angeles, 

which, of course, would turn the area into a 20th-century ghost town.” [Witkin, Richard, “E.P.A. 

Issues Rules on Car Pollution,” The New York Times, October 16, 1973; Benjamin, Stan, 

Associated Press, The Washington Post, October 16, 1973] 

Next, in response to another court order, EPA proposed measures to address “complex sources” of 

air pollution such as parking garages, airports, shopping centers, and sports stadiums. In approving 

new such projects, State or local officials would have to consider the air-quality impacts of highway 

traffic accessing the facility. The goal, Train said, was not to stop construction but to encourage 

“proper location and design.” Developers would be required to show that their proposal would not 

violate a State’s pollution-control strategy or “prevent or interfere” with attainment or maintenance 

of national air quality standards. Projects that could not meet this test would have to be blocked. 

[“Developers of ‘Complex’ Air Polluters Get More Latitude Than Expected in EPA Plan,” The 

Wall Street Journal, October 29, 1973] 

By then, the Nation had begun suffering from the severe energy crisis caused by the oil embargo. 

As Train, who had become EPA Administrator only the month before, put it in his autobiography, 

“Any honeymoon for me at EPA was nonexistent.” The energy crisis “occupied much of the 

president’s time not already taken up by Watergate.” He continued: 
1224 

One of the major difficulties EPA faced was that compliance dates for meeting 

environmental standards mandated by statute, particularly the Clean Air Act, began to hit 

just as the nation was feeling the pinch of the energy crisis, was in the midst of inflation, and 

was on the edge of an economic downturn. We prepared our defenses as best we could 

against the opponents of environmental regulation, who typically argued either that the cost 

of compliance with a given regulation far exceeded the benefits to be achieved or that the 

risks addressed by a regulation were overstated and did not justify the cost of compliance. 

At a pre-boycott Cabinet meeting that Train attended, President Nixon “made quite clear his 

conclusion that it was going to be necessary to ‘lower the emission standards.’” [Train, p. 161-162] 

A new concern had emerged that the new catalytic converters that would control auto emissions 

produced small amounts of sulfuric acid vapor that could cause lung damage. (Governor Reagan 

had mentioned this concern in his AASHO speech.) On November 6, 1973, Train testified before 

the Senate Public Works Committee that the possible dangers could be dealt with by removing 

sulphur from gasoline or adding equipment to the converters. The dangers did not justify rolling 

back the standards for automobiles. Dayton H. Clewell of Mobil Oil Corporation told the 

committee that removing sulphur from gasoline would require a significant investment while 

aggravating the fuel shortage:

We must make up our minds about our order of priorities. Do we desulphurize or do we 

increase gasoline refinement capacity? It does not look as though we can do both. 

A panel of GM, Ford, and Chysler officials used the hearing to ask Congress to freeze emission 

standards at 1974 levels for 1, 2 or 3 years. [Witkin, Richard, “Senate Panel Told Desulphurizing 

‘Gas’ Is Costly,” The New York Times, November 6, 1973; Witkin, Richard, “Agency Bars Stay on 

Auto Pollution,” The New York Times, November 7, 1973] 

On December 2, The Washington Post reported that the White House, bypassing EPA, sent an 

OMB-drafted amendment to the House Public Health and Environment Subcommittee freezing 

1975 auto exhaust standards through 1977. The Senate Committee on Public Works had already 

voted an extension to 1976: 

For the public, the proposed amendment would mean a slowdown in the drive to clear up 

the air. For Detroit it would mean more time to find ways to clean up engine exhausts and 

perhaps reduce its planned investment in catalytic converters to purify pollutants coming out 

of the tail pipe.

EPA officials were “reported to be furious that the White House amendment went to the House 

Thursday without their knowledge.” [Wilson, George C., “Clean Air Delay is Proposed,” The 

Washington Post, December 2, 1973] 

Train summarized the conclusion: 
1225 

In recognition of the practical difficulties the auto industry faced in putting catalytic 

converters into production, the Energy Supply and Environmental Coordination Act of 1974 

provided an extension until 1977 of the 1975 auto emission standards and also gave the auto 

industry the right to petition for a one-year suspension of the 1977 hydrocarbon and carbon 

monoxide standards. The industry promptly petitioned for such an extension in January 

1975, during the Ford administration. 

In signing the legislation on June 22, 1974, President Nixon said that the country must continue to 

fight for clean air. “It has become clear, however, that certain requirements established by the act 

cannot be achieved within the deadlines allotted, and others have unacceptable economic and social 

implications.” 

After public hearings on the issue, Train announced on March 5, 1975, that because of the sulfuric 

acid emission problem, he was suspending the 1977 auto emission standards and recommending a 

program for reducing hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and sulfate emissions for the 1977-1982 

model years. [Train, p. 167-169] 

A similar fate awaited the ambitious and controversial transportation management plans the Clean 

Air Amendments of 1970 had required. In discussing the outcome of these efforts, Train explained 

that: 

In response to all the controversy that swirled around the federal role in these issues, 

Congress inserted language in EPA’s appropriation bill requiring, in effect, that none of the 

funds appropriated be used to enforce transportation plans. That essentially was the end of a 

no-win effort. [Train, p. 176] 

Secretary William T. Coleman, Jr. 

The September 1974 issue of Government Executive contained an article about the Department of 

Transportation (“the youngest Cabinet level organization in the Federal structure”). It quoted 

Secretary Brinegar as saying:

When I was sworn in on February 2, 1973, I took a personal pledge to do my best to be 

Secretary of all Transportation. But a funny thing happened to me on the way to carrying 

out that pledge: I nearly got run over by a bankrupt railroad; I got backed to the wall by a 

trucker’s strike and I spent several months struggling with the energy shortage. 

He also had overseen a shift in the balance between highways and transit, a shift that highway 

interests understood. Some in the highway community were having trouble accepting the shift, but 

Administrator Tiemann embraced it in recognition of the limitations of the highway mode: 

We expect that the Federal Highway Administration is going to gradually evolve from being 

primarily an engineering organization to one that is concerned with the management of our 

transportation network, including in cooperation with UMTA, mass transit in our urban 

areas.
1226 

Building new freeways is no solution in itself unless we know how to manage the traffic that 

uses them, so that we can prevent traffic congestion and accidents. In other words, we must 

know how to most efficiently manage the facilities we have.

(Tiemann would follow through on this evolution in October 1975 when he changed the title of the 

top official in FHWA’s State offices from Division Engineer to Division Administrator. The new 

title, he said, better reflected the nature and scope of the position. “As the role of the Federal 

Highway Administration has gradually evolved from essentially an engineering function to the 

much broader responsibility of highway management, so, too, has the assignment of the Division 

Administrator changed.”) 

The magazine quoted Secretary Brinegar’s message:

Transportation is not an end in itself. It is a means to contribute to the Nation’s economic 

well-being and quality of life. 

Thus, transportation is a linking process—it links together the Nation’s productive resources 

as they move from the raw material stage to the manufacturing plant to the consumer; it 

links our dispersed population centers; and it makes it possible to move people and goods 

within our densely populated urban centers. [“A Moving Target,” Government Executive, 

September 1974, p. 1-2] 

On November 18, 1974, Secretary Brinegar was in Detroit to address AASHTO’s annual meeting. 

He began by recalling his speech a year earlier to what was then still technically AASHO in Los 

Angeles. He had complimented the organization then for its “broadened outlook and on your new 

focus on all aspects of transportation.” He continued: 

Yes—and this point is made even more pertinent by the location of this year’s meeting—our 

Nation’s transportation system continues to be inescapably dominated by our 120 million 

automobiles and trucks and by the 3.7 million miles of streets and highways that serve them.

How, he asked, could the Nation deal with the policy dilemmas of an economy containing excessive 

inflation and high unemployment while coping with the “chilling—and the word may prove to be 

unfortunately apt—prospect of a permanent energy shortage?” President Ford had made reducing 

inflation a top priority, but he also “launched a major effort to deal with the energy shortage, both 

by increasing domestic supplies of all types and by decreasing wasteful usage through 

conservation.” Because the transportation sector used 60 percent of the Nation’s energy, the 

Department of Transportation’s program had to be part of the fight. 

America used about 17 million barrels of oil per day, but produced only about 9 million barrels 

daily of crude oil. Secretary Brinegar said, “it’s little wonder that the balance of energy power has 

shifted to the Middle East—along with $60-$70 billion per year of the world’s monetary resources. 

To change course, much of the reduction “must come from the transportation sector.” 
1227 

First, he said, “We must find effective ways to discourage people from using the family automobile 

so casually and so wastefully.” The country’s 100 million automobiles use over 5 million barrels of 

petroleum a day. “Quite clearly, any serious effort to save fuel must concentrate on the family 

automobile.” Drivers must be convinced to “voluntarily reduce unnecessary driving,” a cause 

helped by higher gasoline prices. The single occupants of the 30 to 35 million automobiles 

commuting each weekday must be convinced to car pool or shift to mass transit. The 90-10 carpool 

incentive grants from the Highway Trust Fund had resulted in over $8 million in grants to 80 urban 

areas, but would expire at the end of the year unless renewed as President Ford was about to 

request. The Department was about to launch a national publicity campaign to promote carpooling. 

The theme was:

Double Up, America. Two can ride cheaper than one 

Enforcing the 55 m.p.h. speed limit was another important way of reducing energy consumption. 

“In addition to major fuel savings, observing the speed limit will significantly reduce highway 

deaths and injuries.” The FHWA was conducting a survey to determine which States were lax in 

enforcement. “We may find it necessary to seek legislative authority to withhold FHWA or 

NHTSA funds as a method to achieve the needed compliance.” 

In addition, the auto industry must produce more fuel efficient cars. The 1975 models (fleet 

average about 16 miles per gallon) were slightly better than the 1974 models (14 miles per gallon). 

“If the auto industry, including imports, can achieve, by 1980 models, the 40 percent improvement 

that President Ford has called for—to a 1980 average of 19.6 mpg—the fuel savings would be of 

major proportions.” 

Another imperative: “We must make alternatives to the automobile more attractive to potential 

users, especially in our large and congested urban areas.” Recent ridership increases, partly a result 

of the energy crisis, were encouraging but even with increased funding for transit, “there are limits” 

to what transit can accomplish. “We must not expect too much too fast from mass transit.” In the 

largest urban areas, the percentage of travelers using mass transit might reach as high as 24-30 

percent, “but for virtually all the rest, 15 to 20% is more likely a realistic upper limit over the next 

decade.” 

Between the two mass transit options (rail and bus), fixed guideway rail systems are very 

expensive, take years to build, and attract significant ridership only in densely populated corridors. 

“Viewed strictly from a technical standpoint, in all but a very few situations buses are cheaper, 

more quickly available, and can be more flexibly adapted to changing commuting patterns.” He 

added that, “Unfortunately, too many automobile commuters do not yet view buses as a very 

appealing alternative.”

As a result, the automobile would “almost certainly be the principal form of urban transportation in 

most of our cities for a long time.” The key, therefore, was to find ways to make automobile use 

more efficient through “better urban planning and better traffic management.” Better management 

might include staggered work hours, carpooling, and traffic flow controls as well as special bus 

lanes and “minibus” home pick-up and delivery services. With such techniques, “we should be able 
1228 

to entice reasonably large numbers of people to switch from their cars, especially as gasoline prices, 

downtown parking rates, and other costs of automobile ownership and usage rise.” 

The Ford Administration, he said, would soon be proposing a Federal-aid highway bill that would 

be based on several objectives. Without going into details, Secretary Brinegar said it would 

maintain the longstanding Federal-State relationship. It would take a long-term perspective of 

funding through FY 1980 to help States make “reliable long-term transportation plans.” The 

special funding programs, now exceeding 30, would be reduced. “The States and localities need 

more responsibility and more flexibility in deciding upon local priorities and uses of the available 

funds. Further, annual funding levels should be “reasonably predictable, yet be sufficiently flexible 

to permit adjustments for changing National conditions, including the impacts of inflation.” He 

hoped that the 1974 Budget Control Act would offer “the machinery for achieving this flexibility, 

although until we have some actual experience under it I must reserve judgment.” 

Completing the Interstate System would remain a priority. “Although only one-seventh of the 

interstate mileage is not yet open to traffic, the unfunded cost is at least one-quarter of the total—

and growing.” Secretary Brinegar said that he saw “a need to focus on a method of identifying key 

unbuilt and unfunded priority links—especially those that will complete connections between and 

around our major cities—and then funneling ear-marked money to these high-priority links.” The 

Highway Trust Fund should be continued until the Interstate System is largely completed. “Longerterm uses of Trust fund dollars—including possible future maintenance and upgrading of the 

Interstate System—are issues that we still have under analysis.

(The 1975 Interstate Cost Estimate, which went to Congress on July 16, 1975, indicated that the 

total cost of the Interstate System would be $89.2 billion (up from $76.3 billion in the 1972 

estimate) and that the 90-percent Federal share would total $79.52 billion (compared with $62.5 

billion in 1972.) 

Secretary Brinegar’s prepared remarks concluded with this observation: 

Despite today’s problems and uncertainties our Nation—and its National will—remains 

strong. Our physical assets, our productive capacities, and our innovativeness are as great as 

ever. Caution is certainly needed as we work our way through today’s global minefield, but 

caution must not give way to pessimism.

We are endeavoring to design our programs to reflect the right mix of caution about today 

and optimism about the future. We solicit and welcome the advice of AASHTO in this 

process.

On December 17, 1974, Secretary Brinegar submitted his resignation to President Ford, effective 

February 1, 1975. In a December 18, reply, President Ford accepted the resignation “with deep 

gratitude for your dedicated service.” He said:

In doing so, I want you to know of my personal appreciation for the many improvements in 

the Nation’s transportation system that have occurred in your tenure as Secretary. The 

Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 and the National Mass Transportation Act of 
1229 

1974 are but two of many legislative achievements of truly historical significance. Under 

your capable leadership, we have for the first time since the creation of the Department 

articulated a National Transportation Policy, and I particularly want to commend you for 

this important achievement.

He wished Secretary Brinegar continued success as he returned to the private sector.

Shortly after the announcement, The Journal of Commerce reported that his tenure “drew 

universally high marks for his achievement from industry spokesmen.” He did an excellent job 

“under very difficult circumstances.” Secretary Volpe had been “a tough act to follow,”

according to an unnamed administration source: 

“Mr. Volpe was a lot more dynamic and forceful. Mr. Brinegar’s style was different. He 

was more a behind-the-scenes guy who would hold informal, unannounced meeting in his 

office or go to the hill to meet with Congress, take steps to resolve the problem and go 

home. Mr. Volpe did the same thing, but he’d hold a press conference afterwards and made 

Department of Transportation employees feel they were part of the action.”

Another source said that Secretary Brinegar took a direct role in his speeches, sometimes writing 

them himself. “There is no question he grew in the job . . . and he learned the hard way.” One 

lesson was that, “Congress packs a lot of clout and one doesn’t walk up to the hill and tell Congress 

what to do.” [Rokeach, Morrey, “Brinegar Draws High Marks,” The Journal of Commerce, 

December 20, 1974] 

The DOT Historian’s Web site said of Secretary Brinegar: 

While Secretary, Brinegar confronted railroad revitalization and proposed regulatory 

reforms that the collapse of the Northeastern railroads made necessary, reauthorization of

the federal highway program, and the impact of transportation on energy consumption and 

the environment, triggered by the energy shortage of 1973-74. Brinegar also steered the 

Department through Watergate. When Gerald Ford said that he intended to seek the 

Presidency in his own right, Brinegar, not wanting to be part of a reelection campaign, 

resigned, effective February 1, 1975, and returned to the Union Oil Company, where he was 

elected senior vice president and member of the Executive Committee. He subsequently 

served as leader of the Reagan transition team for the Department of Transportation. After 

retiring as Vice Chairman from Unocal Corp., as it was later named, Claude Brinegar was 

elected to the Conrail Board of Directors. [http://ntl.bts.gov/historian/bios.htm] 

On January 14, 1975, President Ford announced that he would nominate William T. Coleman, Jr., 

as the fourth Secretary of Transportation. The 54-year old attorney would be the second African 

American to hold a Cabinet post (the first was Robert C. Weaver, Secretary of Housing and Urban 

Development from 1966 to 1968). A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Coleman had 

completed a year of law school before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943. After 

graduating summa cum laude from Harvard in 1947, he served as a law clerk to Supreme Court 

Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1948 along with Elliot L. Richardson, a Harvard Law School classmate. 
1230 

The future Attorney General recalled of Coleman, “He had strong views on a variety of subjects, 

but he always approached a case with strict legal and constitutional perspective—and brother, was 

he sharp.” 

As president of the Legal and Educational Defense Fund, Inc., of the National Association for the 

Advancement of Colored People, he was involved in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 

1960s. He was a co-author of Thurgood Marshall’s successful 1954 brief before the Supreme Court 

in Brown vs. the Board of Education, the decision that overturned the “separate-but-equal” concept 

of race relations. In addition to a successful career as an attorney in Philadelphia, he had served as 

a staff lawyer for the Warren Commission’s investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy 

and as chairman of the White House Conference on Civil Rights in 1965, among a number of parttime assignments in public service. 

The future Secretary had extensive experience in transportation, including service as legal counsel 

helping Philadelphia and Cincinnati acquire their private transit systems, transportation labor 

matters, and as special counsel for SEPTA, the Philadelphia area transit agency. At the time of his 

nomination, he was a director of Pan American World Airways, the financially troubled U.S. flag 

international airline. If confirmed by the Senate, Secretary-designate Coleman said he would resign 

from his PanAm post. 

 

For a profile appearing in The Washington Post, Coleman said he had “enormous respect” for 

President Harry S. Truman and President Eisenhower, knew President Kennedy “from Harvard 

days” and “admired him very much,” but declared “there is no man that I admire more than Lyndon 

Johnson.” In his Philadelphia office at the law firm of Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish, Levy and 

Coleman, he gestured toward a picture of himself with the former President. He also expressed 

“great admiration” for President Ford, noting their service on the Warren Commission. He declined 

to comment about President Nixon, saying, “I’ve got to go before the Senate and I don’t want to go 

into that, please.” 

Coleman had been offered Federal posts before but always turned them down: 

I thought it important that the talent I thought I had should be used in the private sector. I 

thought corporations would pay a lot of attention to my recommendations [on civil rights] 

when they saw me function in things that had nothing to do with race. I could get 

companies to be more responsible. 

He initially had planned to turn the position down, but changed his mind after meeting with 

President Ford: 

President Ford really wants to make a change. In 15 minutes’ conversation, he told me how 

important transportation is to him. I felt the guy really wants to do it.

He declined to be more specific. [United Press International, “Ford to Nominate Black to Cabinet,” 

The New York Times, January 14, 1975; Wooten, James T., “Transportation Choice,” The New York 

Times, January 15, 1975; Epstein, Aaron, “Nominee to DOT Has Built-in Caution Light,” The 

Washington Post, February 22, 1975] 
1231 

An editorial in The New York Times said of Secretary-designate Coleman:

[His] distinguished achievement as a private practitioner of the law and as a public-spirited 

citizen make it almost irrelevant to note that he is the second black to be nominated to a 

Cabinet post, were it not for the fact that his color lends even greater depth to his 

accomplishments. The country is fortunate that Mr. Coleman did not reject this call to 

public service as he did some years ago when President Johnson asked him to join the 

Federal judiciary. [“The Ford Nominations,” The New York Times, January 16, 1975] 

The Senate Commerce Committee confirmed Coleman unanimously and sent his nomination to the 

Senate floor. The Senate confirmed Coleman in routine business on March 3. 

On March 7, President Ford and Secretary-designate Coleman appeared in the East Room of the 

White House for the oath of office. They were joined by Coleman’s family and friends, including 

President Johnson’s daughter Lynda Johnson Robb and so many Philadelphia associates that the 

Metroliner to Washington was unofficially dubbed “The Coleman Special.” 

President Ford began his remarks by recalling that as a member of the Warren Commission, he had 

met the new Secretary in 1963. “When we were looking for a Secretary of Transportation, Bill 

Coleman’s name was right at the top of the list.” He warned Coleman that, “you have your work 

cut out for you” because of the Department of Transportation’s “very critical role as this Nation 

proceeds toward energy independence.” With transportation accounting for over 50 percent of our 

total petroleum use, “we need strong assistance from the transportation sector” to attain the goal of 

energy independence.” 

(The President accidentally referred to the position as “Secretary of Commerce,” before correcting 

himself and assuring Coleman, “I’m not switching jobs on you.”) 

President Ford pointed out that the Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974 required the States 

to certify their enforcement of the speed limit of 55 m.p.h. prior to the release of Federal-aid 

highway funds. “Strict enforcement of the 55-mile-per-hour limit is absolutely essential . . . . I 

look to you for stern but equitable enforcement.” Secretary Coleman also would be working 

towards a goal of a 40-percent improvement in auto fuel efficiency by 1979 for new cars. 

The President recalled how he had fought for the National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 

1974 in the last days of the 93rd Congress. “I am looking to you for vigorous implementation.” 

Pending legislative initiatives included “a new highway bill, which will set forth a revised highway 

program through the year 1980.” 

Just before the swearing in, the President said, “Mr. Secretary, I’m very pleased to welcome you 

into one of the toughest Cabinet posts in our Government and to wish you success as we work 

together. Now, Mr. Secretary, if you still want the job—[laughter]—I will ask Justice Marshall to 

please administer the oath.”
1232 

Supreme Court Justice Marshall, Coleman’s associate from the Civil Rights era, administered the 

oath of office. 

Later, during a reception in the State Dining Room, a reporter asked Coleman’s mother if she was 

proud of her son. “Am I proud of him? I’m the proudest mother in the United States today.” 

[Kilpatrick, Carroll, “William T. Coleman Becomes Secretary of Transportation,” The Washington 

Post, March 8, 1975; Black, Creed C., “A ‘Fine Philadelphian’ Joins the Cabinet,” The 

Philadelphia Inquirer, March 9, 1975] 

Interstate Substitution-Withdrawal 

In the reports to Congress in 1939 (Toll Roads and Free Roads) and 1944 (Interregional Highways) 

that first described what became the Interstate System, one of the central tenets was that the larger 

cities would have an inner beltway built through decaying properties around the CBD and an outer 

beltway around the city. The two belts (and a third more distant belt for the most heavily populated 

areas) would be linked by radial express highways. The outer beltway or beltways would carry 

traffic among the radials as well as traffic bypassing the city. The inner beltway would link the 

radial termini to allow traffic that was not bound for downtown to bypass the congested CBD. 

Motorists could leave their vehicles in parking structures near the inner beltway and continue to 

their destination on foot or by transit. This configuration was intended to relieve congestion, 

revitalize the inner core, limit suburbanization, and restore the tax base of the cities. 

Many large cities developed plans for their expressway networks, usually modeled on the concepts 

in the two reports. Business organizations, State and local officials, and the public supported the 

elaborate expressway plans until construction began. Once their disruptive impacts on 

neighborhoods and businesses became evident, the urban Interstates proved unpopular, 

controversial, and difficult if not impossible to build. Where they were built, they generally failed 

to solve the problems they were designed to address. Congestion continued. Suburbs expanded 

along the Interstate routes with “edge cities” springing up at the interchanges. The CBDs continued 

to decline as population and businesses shifted to the suburbs. And cities, faced with declining 

revenue, struggled to provide services, including mass transit, to a needier population. 

City and State officials were faced with unsatisfactory options. They could try to build 

controversial Interstate highways to reap the jobs benefits from the expenditure of millions of 

dollars. They could cancel the Interstates and lose the money and jobs. They could try to shift a 

controversial route to a location where construction might be possible or use the money on other 

noncontroversial Interstate routes. Making these choices even more unappealing was the growing 

demand for public mass transportation. As cities took over mass transit from the private companies 

that had formerly provided the service, they searched for additional revenue—from taxing their own 

residents and those in surrounding areas or from the State or the Federal Government—to improve 

the service and pay for its inevitable operating deficits. 

Boston had followed the familiar pattern of conceiving an expressway network, beginning 

construction, discovering that it proved controversial, and then building the routes anyway—that is 

until People Before Highways Day brought Governor Sargent to Boston Common shortly after 
1233 

replacing Governor Volpe. From then on, Boston was different from most other cities because 

Governor Sargent was not trying to modify the routes or their designs to overcome objections to 

their construction. He had cancelled the freeways outright. 

Business and labor interests charged him with costing the area $700 million in Federal-aid funds 

that translated into jobs lost and economic opportunity squandered. Pressed to save the funds, if not 

the highways, Governor Sargent argued for allowing Interstate funds intended for controversial 

routes to be put to alternative uses, including rail and bus mass transit options. Although this issue 

was only one aspect of his congressional testimony in 1972 and 1973, he was a critical figure in 

convincing Congress to approve the concept, as his Secretary of Transportation, Alan Altshuler, 

discussed in books he and associates wrote after he left office. 

In a book written with David Luberoff on mega-projects, Altshuler said that substitution was an 

option that “Sargent had already been pursuing (in cooperation with leading members of the 

Massachusetts congressional delegation) for the past year.” When Secretary Altshuler suggested a 

middle option of scaled down freeways, Sargent rejected the idea. “Sargent confided privately that 

[regardless of their merits] he did not see who would support my middle-ground position . . . . The 

pro-highway and anti-highway forces were so polarized that he felt compelled to choose one or the 

other in clear-cut fashion.” 

Because a statutory change would be needed, Governor Sargent took the lead in Congress among 

State and local officials who hoped to trade in Interstate highways for alternative highway or transit 

projects. His success, according to Altshuler, came for an unexpected reason: 

Leaders of the highway coalition at first considered this a preposterous idea, but state 

officials persisted, arguing that it was unfair to penalize states that—because of changing 

political circumstances and new federal environmental laws—were unable to build 

controversial highways. Sargent, in particular concentrated on lobbying his state’s powerful 

congressional delegation. In response, House majority leader Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, 

through whose district two of the controversial Massachusetts highways passed, and Senator 

Edward Kennedy asked the key committee chairmen—Representative James Wright (DTex.) and Senator Jennings Randolph (D-W.Va.)—to include the transfer provisions in 

pending legislation to reauthorize the federal highway program. Wright and Randolph 

proved receptive. Altshuler, who conceived this provision and, on Sargent’s behalf, 

managed the effort to secure its enactment, wrote [about it] several years later:

They quoted a passage from Altshuler’s 1979 book on urban transportation: 

The Senator (Jennings Randolph) and congressman (Jim Wright) who played the key roles 

in forging the new strategy were from West Virginia and Texas, respectively. Along with 

nearly all of their committee colleagues, they were perennial champions of the highway 

program who had minimal interest in transit. Their central concern was that urban 

expressway controversies and transit aid demands had become significant threats to the 

consensual and veto-proof dominance of the highway coalition in Congress. By extending 

the program concept to include (and provide major new benefits for) transit and to return 
1234 

disputes about highway-transit tradeoffs firmly to the local level, they not only reestablished 

congressional harmony in the highway policy arena, but they also enhanced their own 

reputations as legislative statesmen. (Congressman Wright became House majority leader 

in January 1977). This is by no means to minimize the victory achieved by urban antihighway and transit interests in the 1973 and 1974 acts. But it is to emphasize that they 

were minor actors who achieved influence largely by maximizing their nuisance potential. 

Their triumph occurred when a few farsighted leaders of the highway coalition, which 

remained politically dominant, discerned that a mutually beneficial solution was possible 

and persuaded the rest of the coalition to accept it. [Mega-Project, p. 87, 187-188; the 

excerpt about Wright’s and Randolph’s concern is from The Urban Transportation System: 

 Politics and Policy Innovation, p. 38] 

With strong support from the Massachusetts delegation, Congress included a provision in the 1973 

Act that allowed a Governor and the local governments concerned to ask the Secretary of 

Transportation to withdraw Interstate designation from controversial unbuilt routes or portions 

thereof in an urbanized area. The Secretary could withdraw designation if the segment was not 

essential to completion of a unified and connected Interstate System and the Secretary received 

assurances that the State did not intend to construct a toll road in the traffic corridor that would 

have been served by the Interstate route. Transit projects in or serving the same urbanized area 

could be substituted, with funds from the general Treasury in an amount equal to the Federal share 

of the withdrawn facility. (The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1976 allowed local officials to 

substitute highway projects in addition to transit projects.) 

Altshuler discussed these events in an oral history interview that Darwin Stolzenbach conducted for 

AASHTO’s 1988 Interstate Highway Research Project. Regarding Governor Sargent’s 

announcement on February 11, 1970, that he would not build the I-95 extension into Boston or I695, Altshuler recalled Secretary Volpe’s reaction: 

Volpe reacted almost violently. When Sargent made the speech in February 1970, he did 

not tell Volpe until a couple of hours before [when] he made a courtesy call. As you can 

imagine, Volpe was furious. Then about a week or two later, Sargent went down for a 

Governor’s conference, and he took me with him, and the MBTA Chairman and the 

Commissioner of Public Works. 

He had a meeting with Volpe in the Vice President’s office. The Vice President wasn’t 

there, but Volpe had gotten the office. Volpe walked in and for five minutes he just 

lambasted Sargent for making this dumb decision. And Sargent, who called Volpe 

“Governor,”—Volpe called him “Frank”—and Sargent said, “Well, Governor, you know, 

you have got to listen to the people.” And Volpe pointed his finger at me and he said, 

“Frank, you are listening to the wrong people!” 

On why Secretary Volpe subsequently kept his views private, Altshuler explained: 

Volpe was changing his own positions rapidly during this time period. And I mean, he was 

stopping things for environmental reasons and so on. But the main reason that Volpe went 
1235 

along, I think, was . . . Volpe’s view that he was a highway builder second or third. But first 

he was a politician. If you are a politician and you have a protégé and you become Secretary 

of Transportation and he becomes Governor, you let him be the Governor. And if he does 

things you don’t agree with, you nonetheless give him pretty good support. 

And that’s what Volpe did. Volpe never criticized Sargent publicly. 

Governor Sargent’s February 1970 decision included a call for a study and he asked Secretary 

Volpe for $3.5 million to help fund it: 

He needed $3.5 million. And the state legislature sure wasn’t going to give it to him. The 

state legislature was in the hands of the highway people. Frank Turner advised Volpe not to 

authorize it . . . “It is illegal to spend highway money to study the possibility of not building 

a highway.” 

(Despite Turner’s efforts, Secretary Volpe announced the grant on February 25, 1971, calling the 

study “one of the most comprehensive ever submitted to the Department of Transportation.” A 

press release described the study:

The study will consider a number of major transportation controversies in the Boston area. 

These will be reviewed in concert, with careful attention to their interrelationships and to 

their effect upon the full range of metropolitan values, such as environment, housing, 

employment, and the economy. 

(Governor Sargent, the press release continued, was “deeply grateful to the Secretary.” The study, 

he said, would serve as a model for the country because it would bring the transportation 

decisionmaking process as close as possible to the local level and elevate citizen participation;

would first evaluate and weigh environmental and community considerations and impacts before 

deciding whether to build a transportation facility, rather than selecting the facility, then studying its 

impacts; and was an effort “to develop a new Federal/State relationship in transportation planning 

which encourages state initiative and Federal flexibility in developing transportation programs for 

urban areas.”)

Asked why Governor Sargent decided to promote the idea of withdrawal and fund substitution. 

Altshuler said:

Well, the reason was fairly simple. Sargent was potentially out on a limb for enormous 

sums of money. I had become very concerned that the thing that was driving the [highway] 

policy in Massachusetts was federal money that was up there. And it was clear that if 

Sargent permanently stopped the highways, the major criticism of him was not going to be 

on transportation grounds—it was going to be that he had lost $600 million that was coming 

to the state of Massachusetts.
1236 

And at the same time there were severe shortages of money for transit investment, transit 

investments that essentially would have lots of support behind them and for which there was 

no money. 

So clearly the way to give Sargent the maximal range of options . . . was to reduce this 

potential political liability of not building the highways. So that’s what it was all about, 

basically, to make it potentially feasible for Sargent to kill the highways.

How did Massachusetts promote the withdrawal-substitution concept? 

[At] every opportunity we lobbied hard for this position. Then in 1972 the administration 

proposed, as part of the proposed Highway Act in 1972, the flexible use of urban highway 

assistance funds for transit as well as highway purposes. 

Now, we lobbied like crazy to get Interstate funding included there, as well. The Interstate 

was considered to be sacrosanct, you know. 

We were lucky in that, at the last minute, in 1972, the whole bill got killed. It got killed in 

part over the issue of even (opening) the highway funds for urban systems . . . . 

So then in 1973 the issue was building, and in 1973 the administration finally proposed a 

bill that included our Interstate component . . . . 

Did Massachusetts reach out to the other States for support? 

Now, it might be worthwhile to talk about some of the alliance-building that went on. 

At the beginning, Massachusetts was absolutely alone pursuing this thing. We decided what 

we had to do was to find at least a few other states with similar problems that might join us 

in this effort. And, also, try to neutralize and get support from AASHO. Now, AASHTO. 

There were several people who, in the end, joined. Harry Hughes, who was then the 

Secretary of Transportation in Maryland had a problem both in the Baltimore area and in the 

Washington [suburbs]. Harry was a very enlightened, thoughtful guy. And so he joined. 

He was the only one who really gave vigorous support [to] Massachusetts. We got a little 

bit of support, as I recall, from the state of Illinois, toward the end. I guess we didn’t get 

it—in one administration we did, and in one administration we didn’t. 

After [Langhorne Bond] became the Secretary of Transportation out there . . . we got 

support. See, Chicago would never support us. They were very important because a 

Chicago representative [Kluczynski] was the key person on the House Public Works 

Committee. The Crosstown Expressway was an issue that we thought might lead them to 

support us, but Mayor Daley was absolutely committed to building that . . . 

My recollection is that eventually . . . Pennsylvania joined us, because they had problems in 

Philadelphia. But that is about it. California vigorously opposed us . . . . Reagan was 
1237 

Governor of California at that time, and he had a Commissioner of Transportation named 

Jim Moe who was a very decent fellow . . . [but] it was the position of the state that the 

Interstate system was the one thing the federal government [should] be doing. The federal 

government should go out of the highway business and the transit business altogether except 

for the Interstate.

What about AASHO’s position? Referring to AASHO’s executive director, Alf Johnson, Altshuler 

recalled:

He was really quite a statesman of the highway program. And we went to him and we said, 

“Look, the issue is very simply state discretion. We are not saying that [other States 

shouldn’t] build highways. We are not lobbying against highways in Montana and so on. 

Our position is simply that Montana shouldn’t tell Massachusetts how to spend its money. 

And he basically could see that.

Did the transit lobby support the concept? 

The key thing was that by 1973 there . . . was a powerful mass transit lobby and it included 

most of the cities . . . . By 1973 the idea had taken off considerably. And the National 

League of Cities took a position that without the flexibility in the use of highway funds 

monies, that they were going to be opposed to highway bills. [W]hat happened in 1973—

and there was a big difference in the situation in 1970 when this all began—was that the 

highway people were [convinced] that the coalition was more important . . . . the highway 

coalition got together by expanding the logroll. 

We basically made a deal that we were going to have local officials on board, as in 1956. 

What we were going to do was we were going to give the urban officials flexibility to use it 

for either highways or transit, we were going to put highways and transit into the same big 

bill—comprehensive highway transit legislation, with flexibility in the urban areas—and we 

were going to eliminate any opposition to highway programs. And we did. 

Nationally it was a success, great success. Of course, very few urban freeways have been 

built since.

How did you get the measure through Congress? 

Everybody in the country that was a highway lobbyist was ready for this. Frank Turner was 

not ready for this. But the—some of the key statesmen . . . came to recognize that the way 

to really solidify the political base of the national highway program, to be able to override 

Presidential vetoes, was to have veto-proof majorities. And the way to get veto-proof 

majorities was to forget whether a given highway is being built in Boston or Baltimore.

The way to get a veto-proof national program through is to include transit. And they did. 

And they succeeded in doing that. 
1238 

Now, there were a couple of key people for this. The first one who came around, is 

Jennings Randolph. He came around in 1972 to our side. My recollection . . .was that this 

came out in the 1972 bill. We managed through a close friend in Massachusetts [a member 

of the MBTA] to get access to Jennings Randolph, who was Chairman of the Senate Public 

Works Committee . . . . 

See, what I was doing in 1971 and 1972, was talking this up everywhere. And after one of 

my talks about this, this guy came up to me and he said, “You know, I happen to be a very 

good friend of Jennings Randolph. If I can be of any help to you, let me know.” 

. . . Well, he managed to set up a luncheon in the Senate dining room with Randolph, and 

Harry Hughes and I and Barry Meyer [the committee’s chief counsel and chief clerk]. And 

Randolph heard us out, and at the end he said to Meyer, he said, “Well, that sounds perfectly 

reasonable to me. Why don’t you just write it up?” 

And Meyer took it from there and made history. It was incredible. That one meeting. And 

it was through the Senate. And with the Senate on our side, we decided the only way we 

really had a chance in the House was through Tip O’Neill. Sargent had very good relations 

with O’Neill, even though he [Sargent] was a Republican. And now, he [O’Neill] had been 

against the highways for a long time. See, the most controversial highway in Boston was 

the Inner Belt [that] would have run about a mile to the west of here, across the river. It 

would have taken 2,500 people out of their homes in Cambridge, which was O’Neill’s 

district. And O’Neill had opposed that highway for a decade or more. So one of the things 

Sargent had done in 1970 was to stop the Inner Belt. 

Nevertheless, Tip O’Neill was a hard guy to get to. Everybody wanted access to him. He 

would listen politely but serious access was difficult.

Again, the key turned out to be a friend, a close personal buddy of O’Neill’s, who . . . was a 

former state legislator in Massachusetts . . . . Peter Cloherty. He agreed to bring our case a 

little more vigorously to O’Neill’s attention. And then get him to do more than just say it 

was fine, get him to actually lean on Kluczynski, the Chicago guy that was head of the 

Public Works Committee.

Lean on him to do it. And in the end, O’Neill hosted a lunch in his office, to which 

Kluczynski came in for three minutes, and [O’Neill] made the old [major league pitch] to 

him that [he] wanted it, Massachusetts wanted it. Otherwise it was a perfectly social lunch 

for another hour and a half. 

The message was given. But even though the message was given, in the House it was tough 

because [Richard J.] Sullivan, who was the Chief of Staff, and Frank Turner as a part-time 

consultant [to the committee], they didn’t want to get the message. They just didn’t want to 

get the message.
1239 

And so, in fact, we had to keep going back to O’Neill and getting pressure from O’Neill’s 

office, the Committee, to keep it on track on the House side. 

But it [stuck], finally. And again there was a battle about how precisely to fund it. And out 

of the issue of how to do it, the Wright amendment as it [came] to be known, was born, the 

issue of substitution out of the general fund. The key decisions were basically made as a 

result of these two contacts . . . . But he [Wright], even more than Jennings Randolph, he 

was aware in 1973 that there was a need to break the deadlock between the highway

program and the cities . . . . 

From 1965, it was clear that there was a real deadlock that was building up between the 

cities and the Interstate program and the highway program. So this didn’t just come out of 

the blue. I don’t think in 1970 or 1971 we could have done this. By 1973 the 

administration was behind this, too. [Altshuler, Alan, Oral History Interview by 

Stolzenback, Darwin, 1988 Interstate Highway Research Project, American Association of 

State Highway and Transportation Officials, Public Works Historical Society, Transcript, p. 

15-32, questions summarized] 

Stolzenbach also interviewed Frederick Salvucci, who was Secretary of Transportation and 

Construction for Massachusetts when AASHTO was conducting the oral histories. Secretary 

Salvucci offered further insight into the origins of the withdrawal and substitution provision of the 

1973 Act and why Representative Wright was the key person in finding an acceptable compromise: 

When Sargent made his decision that the funds should be shifted from highways to transit, 

there was no statutory vehicle to do that. I have used the expression that it was like Frank 

Sargent jumped off the top of the Prudential Tower [749 feet tall, with 52 floors] . . . in 

hopes that Alan Altshuler would weave a safety net by the time he got to the ground floor. 

And I think in large part the interstate transfer legislation was crafted technically by Alan 

Altshuler and the people who worked for him and politically was done, I am sure, by a lot of 

people that I don’t know. But the people who I know were part of it were Frank Sargent, 

John Volpe . . . who was mad that the highways were killed, but didn’t want to see the 

region go without the resources to do something about the transportation system. 

Tip O’Neill was the Majority Leader and it was his district. And Tip was in a position—Tip 

had many parts to his constituency. He had advocated against the highway construction 

because those were his neighborhoods. But he also had a lot of construction workers. I 

mean, his father, I think, was one of the organizers of the Bricklayers Union. So he was a 

building trades guy. 

So—and he was the kind of guy who wanted to help his district. So he wanted the highway 

pushed out of the neighborhood, but he very much wanted those dollars to come into the 

district and the jobs that went with them . . . . Well, it turned out he wanted and fought very 

successfully for the interstate transfer to allow the transit to be built in his district, so he 

ended up without the disruption, and he got the jobs, too, and the economic development 
1240 

that went with it. So he was certainly very supportive of the interstate transfer legislation, 

and probably the key figure in getting it through. 

Jim Wright, who is now Speaker, was the chairman [sic] of the House Public Works 

Committee, I believe, at the time . . . . I heard one anecdote just the other day. It’s fifteen 

years since Frank Sargent made his decisions, and we had a little event to commemorate it 

at MIT, with six of us giving our recollection of what happened. It was kind of a workshop 

and you know, coffee and donuts. It was a fun evening. A lot of people that hadn’t seen 

each other in fifteen years.

And I went out for pizza afterwards with Jack Doolittle, who had been Alan Altshuler’s 

Undersecretary. And he told me a story—I thought I knew, you know, everything that had 

happened here, but you never do. He told me a totally new thing, to me—that when all this 

work was going on to get the interstate transfer provision, Mike Dukakis . . . was running, I 

believe, the TV program called The Advocates . . . . And he had a sort of a discussion or 

maybe a debate between [Governor Sargent] and Jim Wright on whether or not you should 

be allowed to transfer highway dollars to build transit. 

And as Jack told me the story, after the debate, Jim told Dick Sullivan who was there . . . 

“I’ll tell you what. They’ve got a valid point, but I’ve got a valid point. I don’t want Trust 

Fund dollars going into it, but they need the resources to build that transit because that’s 

what that region needs. Figure out how to do it.” 

And they, as the story went, they put it together that night, the idea of you could get an equal 

amount of dollars, but they had to come from the general fund so that the sanctity of the 

Trust Fund would stay, and that you weren’t spending Highway Trust Fund dollars on 

transit. So, in a way, Massachusetts came out fine because they got an equal number of 

dollars as they would have gotten to build the transit. 

But the highway community won . . . in many ways because those dollars that didn’t get 

spent in Massachusetts went back into the Highway Trust Fund and were spent on highways 

elsewhere in the country. And the construction community won twice because they got to 

build the subways and build the highways in the other states. 

So it was an incredibly win win compromise that Jim Wright crafted there. Nobody lost on 

it. [Salvucci, Frederick, Oral History Interview by Stolzenback, Darwin, 1988 Interstate 

Highway Research Project, American Association of State Highway and Transportation 

Officials, Public Works Historical Society, Transcript, p. 25-32] 

Governor Sargent submitted a request on March 26, 1974, transmitting comprehensive 

transportation proposals for the Greater Boston region and seeking withdrawal of 24.7 miles 

covering the entire I-695 Inner Loop and most of I-95 within the I-495/Route 128 circumferential 

and certain other system modifications. 
1241 

On May 23, 1974, FHWA Administrator Tiemann and UMTA Administrator Herringer approved 

Governor Sargent’s request—the first approved withdrawal/substitution proposal. Several 

adjustments were approved to provide system continuity, including the addition of short segments 

and renumbering of others. The remaining portion of former I-95 became part of an extension of 

the I-90 Massachusetts Turnpike to provide a connection across Boston Harbor to Logan 

International Airport. In addition, I-495/Route 128 was designated to carry I-95 around the Boston 

area.

In a May 30 announcement, Secretary Brinegar stressed that the action would result in “more than a 

half billion dollars in additional Federal funds” for public transportation: 

With the announced approval by the Transportation Department, the $671 million which 

would have been spent on those segments is released for other transportation projects, 

including mass transit. Initial planning indicates that more than $600 million of the new 

funds will be used for mass transit projects, which can include rail rapid transit and rolling 

stock for rail transit and buses. The remainder of the funds will be used for improvements 

to the Southeast Expressway in Boston and completion of a segment of Interstate Route 495 

in southeastern Massachusetts.

In making the announcement Secretary Brinegar pointed out that the new Federal mass 

transit money made available by this one action compares to the Department’s Urban Mass 

Transportation Administration’s total annual budget for 1974 of $872 million. 

During a May 25 briefing at the State House, Governor Sargent told reporters that the Inner belt and 

I-95 in and out of Boston “will never be built.” As for the substitution funds, “The large bulk of it 

will go for mass transit.” His plan included extension of the Red Line, a below grade route for the 

Orange Line, a circumferential transit system with a connector to the Green Line, and commuter rail 

improvements. According to Guy Rosmarin of the Governor’s staff, officials had been “sweating 

out the decision . . . it is the first in the nation.” 

(Over the time that the State used the funds, the base cost was adjusted for inflation as provided by 

Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974 to a total of $1.5 billion. Of this amount, State and 

local officials used $1.451 billion for transit projects and $86 million for highway projects.) 

As Altshuler and Luberoff pointed out in Mega-Projects, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 

included a “cost to complete” provision. The Federal share would be 90 percent regardless of how 

an Interstate project’s cost increased during the planning stages, and the cost usually increased 

significantly in response to changes in design standards, NEPA, the Uniform Act, and attempts to 

address adverse impacts and public criticism. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 converted the 

“cost to complete” commitment into “a tradable entitlement.” They wrote:

The 1973 interstate transfer provision . . . also changed the political and planning dynamics 

in several locales, ultimately providing more than $6.8 billion in funding for more than 50 

transit projects, most notably in Washington, D.C. ($2.1 billion), Boston ($1.5 billion), 

Chicago ($882 million), New York City ($848 million), Baltimore ($485 million), and 
1242 

Philadelphia ($354 million) urban areas. The Boston region, for example, used it to fund an 

extension of its Red Line subway and a relocation of its elevated Orange Line as a depressed 

facility paralleled and in places covered by a linear park. Interstate transfers also provided 

about one quarter of the funding for Washington, D.C.’s long-discussed subway system. 

[Mega-Project, p. 192, 235] 

California withdrew only two segments under the substitution provision. On May 15, 1980, FHWA 

Deputy Administrator John Hassell, Jr., and UMTA Administrator Theodore C. Lutz approved 

withdrawal of a 5.1-mile portion of I-80 in Sacramento from the Interstate System between C Street 

and I-880. Officials maintained route continuity by shifting the I-80 designation to the existing I880 loop around the west and north sides of Sacramento. On January 16, 1981, FHWA 

Administrator Hassell and UMTA Administrator Lutz approved withdrawal of a 1.9-mile segment 

of the Embarcadero Freeway connection to I-80 in San Francisco at the western end of the San 

Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

New York, another State that had strongly fought for the substitution option, withdrew three 

Interstate segments, two of them in New York City. The withdrawals involved a segment of the 

Long Island Expressway (I-495) and all of Westway (I-478). New York built the Long Island 

Expressway between the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (I-278) and Van Wyck Expressway (I-679) 

before enactment of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The segment was incorporated into the 

original 40,000-mile Interstate System authorized by the 1956 Act. In 1963, BPR approved the use 

of Interstate funds to widen the 6-lane expressway to 10 lanes, including 4 lanes elevated above the 

existing facility. At the request of Governor Carey and Mayor Koch, the Department of 

Transportation approved withdrawal of this 4.7-mile upgrading of I-495 on June 29, 1979. 

FHWA approved addition of I-478 to the Interstate System in 1971 to connect the Lincoln, 

Holland, and Brooklyn-Battery Tunnels along the Hudson River on the west side of Manhattan 

Island. On August 7, 1985, after years of controversy, the U.S. District Court enjoined the U.S. 

Army Corps of Engineers from issuing a landfill permit for Westway and enjoined FHWA from 

approving funds for the route. This ruling prompted Governor Mario M. Cuomo and Mayor Koch 

to request withdrawal of the 4.26 miles of I-487. Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole 

approved the request on September 30, 1985. (New York also requested withdrawal of I-687, a 3.-

6-mile connector between I-90 and I-87 in Albany, from the System. FHWA and UMTA approved 

the withdrawal on July 14, 1978.) 

The District of Columbia and Maryland were more aggressive than California and New York in 

applying the withdrawal option to their controversial Interstates. At the District’s request, all or 

portions of the following segments were withdrawn from the Interstate System in stages: 

First Stage: I-70S and I-95 (October 3, 1975) 

Second Stage: I-66 and I-266 (April 29, 1977) 

Third Stage: I-295 and I-395 (September 8, 1978) 

Fourth Stage: I-695 (August 27, 1980) 

Fifth Stage: I-266 (June 28, 1982) 

Sixth Stage: I-66 and I-266 (August 19, 1983) 
1243 

Maryland’s Interstate withdrawals also took place in stages:

First Stage: I-70S in Washington area (July 28, 1975) 

Second Stage: I-70 in Baltimore (September 3, 1981) 

Third Stage: I-83 and I-595 in Baltimore (September 29, 1983) 

Fourth Stage: I-297 between Bowie and Millersville (September 29, 1983) 

The final Interstate withdrawal occurred on September 22, 1989 (bus lanes on I-205 in Portland, 

Oregon, and substitution of light rail). In all, the Department approved 50 actions involving 

withdrawal of 343 miles of Interstate highways in 21 States and having a base value of $9.7 billion 

to be used on highway or mass transit projects at local option. 

Mark Rose put the change in perspective: 

During the next several years, political leaders at state and local levels took advantage of the 

new legislation to dismantle planned portions of the Interstate system judged particularly 

objectionable . . . . No more than a decade earlier in cities such as Portland and Denver, 

coalitions of growth minded business and political leaders had led successful efforts to 

secure Interstate routings through their cities. By the mid-1970’s, the reality of the matter 

was that the freeway era had ended and the politics of highway building had devolved 

toward the state and local levels. [Rose, p. 112] 

A Statement of National Transportation Policy 

Early in the early years of the United States, Congress was faced with pressure for internal 

improvements. As Caroline E. MacGill wrote in History of Transportation in the United States 

Before 1860: 

Washington and Jefferson, and other public-spirited men who had labored for a “broader 

national life” had foreseen that a national policy of improvement of land and water routes 

was essential . . . . An empire of rich territory, isolated from the Atlantic seaboard, and with 

no outlet except by way of New Orleans or the St. Lawrence, was being rapidly occupied, 

and no systematic effort was being made for its relief or to insure its loyalty. The isolation 

of the West was felt to be a menace to that national unity which meant national life. The 

industrial and commercial seaboard, the cotton-producing South, and the grain-producing 

trans-Allegheny region, developing as they were into three separate social entities, were 

beginning to conceive of their interests as being in some respects mutually antagonistic. 

Manufacturing was relatively undeveloped and politically impotent, but under the influence 

of a new school of political economy—the so-called “national school”—and from motives 

of obvious self-interest, the manufacturers united with the farmers to overcome the 

indifference of the shipping interests in the agitation for internal improvements . . . . 

As production increased in any community, two distinct services were involved in the 

transportation problem: first, the local problem of collecting products at centers of 
1244 

distribution within the district; second, the national problem of providing practical routes 

and facilities for reshipment to distant markets. 

As the 18th century gave way to the 19th, “the primitive facilities provided for this traffic had 

become inadequate.” As sectors of the country and the commercial interests put pressure on 

Congress, the Senate passed a resolution on March 2, 1807, asking the Secretary of the Treasury to 

submit a report on roads and canals. Secretary Albert Gallatin’s report on roads and canals, sent to 

the Senate on April 4, 1808, was the first attempt to establish a national transportation policy. 

[MacGill, Caroline E., under the direction of Balthasar Henry Meyer, History of Transportation in 

the United States Before 1860, Reprinted by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1948, p. 131-

135] 

Gallatin, who had migrated from Geneva, Switzerland, to the United States in 1780, had settled in 

western Pennsylvania. He entered the House of Representatives in 1795, where he impressed his 

colleagues with his grasp of financial issues. He served in the House until President Thomas 

Jefferson selected him to be Secretary of the Treasury in 1801.

Gallatin’s report began by stating, “The general utility of artificial roads and canals is at this time so 

universally admitted, as hardly to require any additional proofs.” Artificial roads and canals were 

typically provided by private enterprise, but did not always repay their investors because “the tolls 

may not have been fixed at a rate sufficient to pay to the undertakers the interest on the capital laid

out.” The investors lose, “but the community is nevertheless benefited by the undertaking.” In a 

country “possessed of large capital” or where population resides in a small area, “those 

improvements may often, in ordinary cases, be left to individual exertion, without any direct aid 

from Government.” In the United States, the size and diversity of the country “render the facility of 

communications . . . an object of primary importance” but “check the application of private capital 

and enterprise to improvements on a large scale.”

Financial, commercial, and geographic challenges prevented private investment from providing the 

artificial roads and canals the Nation needed:

The General Government can alone remove these obstacles.

With resources amply sufficient for the completion of every practicable improvement, it will 

always supply the capital wanted for any work which it may undertake, as fast as the work 

itself can progress; avoiding thereby the ruinous loss of interest on a dormant capital, and 

reducing the real expense to its lowest rate.

With these resources, and embracing the whole Union, it will complete on any given line all 

the improvement, however distant, which may be necessary to render the whole productive, 

and eminently beneficial.

The early and efficient aid of the Federal Government is recommended by still more 

important considerations. The inconveniences, complaints, and perhaps dangers, which may 

result from a vast extent of territory, can not otherwise be radically removed or prevented 
1245 

than by opening speedy and easy communications through all its parts. Good roads and 

canals will shorten distances, facilitate commercial and personal intercourse, and unite, by a 

still more intimate community of interests, the most remote quarters of the United States. 

No other single operation, within the power of Government, can more effectually tend to 

strengthen and perpetuate that Union which secures external independence, domestic peace, 

and internal liberty.

As Albert C. Rose, BPR’s longtime unofficial historian, explained, Gallatin’s proposal for a 

network or roads and canals was based on three basic concepts. First, given “the legitimacy of 

Government aid to finance transportation projects transcending local needs,” the report 

demonstrated that “the through routes of national importance could be financed only by the General 

Government because the central authority alone possessed ‘resources amply sufficient for the 

completion of every practicable improvement.’” Second, the General Government should 

undertake only improvements that would yield reasonable returns on the original investment. 

Third, a nationwide system of transportation would be essential to the national defense. [Rose, 

Albert C., Historic American Roads: From Frontier Trails to Superhighways, Crown Publishers, 

Inc., 1976, p. 27] 

America’s Highways 1776-1976 summarized the plan: 

The works proposed by Gallatin were, first, a series of great canals along the Atlantic coast 

connecting the natural bays and estuaries into one continuous waterway for the carriage of 

heavy freight. Supplementing this waterway, there would be a light-duty turnpike from 

Maine to Georgia for passengers, mail and light goods hauling. The second part of the plan 

was to form communications between the four great Atlantic rivers and the Western rivers 

by river improvements, short canals and four heavy-duty freight turnpikes across the 

mountains. These would be supplemented by internal roads to Detroit, St. Louis and New 

Orleans. The third part was to open inland navigation between the Hudson River and the 

Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, plus a canal around the Niagara rapids to open the 

Great Lakes to sloop navigation as far as the extremities of Lake Michigan. [America’s 

Highways 1776-1976, p. 18] 

As MacGill pointed out, Secretary Gallatin’s report displayed “the characteristics of a shrewd 

politician, as well as of a statesman of comprehensive foresight.” He understood that “the interest 

of the different sections of the country must be united in support of a national scheme of improving 

transportation facilities as a condition of securing legislation which would benefit western 

Pennsylvania or any other section.” Nearly every State would benefit directly from the Gallatin 

plan. 

The report estimated that the plan would cost $20,000,000 and could be completed in 10 years at a 

cost of $2 million a year: 

He showed how the benefits to be derived from any given improvement on investigation 

were dependent upon the completion of other improvements, and closed his report with the 
1246 

assertion that the General Government alone was competent to undertake the work outlined. 

 [MacGill, p. 136] 

Congress, then divided over expenditures for the National Road (a portage between the Potomac 

River at Cumberland, Maryland, and the Ohio River at Wheeling, then in Virginia), and soon 

engaged in the War of 1812, did not adopt Secretary Gallatin’s plan. However, as modes of 

transportation evolved, Rose concluded, Gallatin’s observations and recommendations “established 

the pattern which was expanded and modified as the national frontiers moved westward from the 

Allegheny Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.” [Rose, p. 27] 

Officials in the mid-20th century considered a national transportation policy covering the public 

private component, but with limited impact. As mentioned earlier, President Kennedy submitted a 

message to Congress in April 1962 on “The Transportation System of our Nation.” The message 

was a broad statement that covered a wide range of topics that were part of a basic national 

transportation policy, including freight shipments by land, air and water; international aviation and 

maritime issues; and labor relations. In addition to discussing the need to revitalize urban transit 

with a Federal-aid program, the report advocated what became the critically important 3C 

transportation planning process. 

The section titled “A Basic National Transportation Policy” stated:

The basic objective of our Nation’s transportation system must be to assure the availability 

of the fast, safe, and economic transportation services needed in a growing and changing 

economy to move people and goods, without waste or discrimination in response to private 

and public demands at the lowest cost consistent with health, convenience, national security, 

and other broad public objectives. 

Resources devoted to providing transportation service “should be used in the most effective and 

efficient manner possible,” which meant that “users of transport facilities should be provided with 

incentives to use whatever form of transportation which [sic] provides them with the service they 

desire at the lowest total cost, both public and private.” The Nation could continue to rely on 

“unsubsidized privately-owned facilities, operating under the incentives of private profit and the 

checks of competition to the maximum extent practicable.” A more coordinated Federal policy 

would mean “equality of opportunity for all forms of transportation and their users and undue 

preference to none.” 

In these and other recommendations, President Kennedy addressed the physical side of 

transportation, namely the provision of facilities for transport, and the regulatory structure for rail, 

motor carriers, and air transportation. 

His special message concluded:

The troubles in our transportation system are deep; and no just and comprehensive set of 

goals—which meets all the needs of each mode of transportation as well as shippers, 

consumers, taxpayers and the general public—can be quickly or easily reached. But few 

areas of public concern are more basic to our progress as a nation. The Congress and all 
1247 

citizens, as well as all Federal agencies, have an increasing interest in and an increasing 

responsibility to be aware of the shortcomings of existing transportation policies; and the 

proposals contained in this message are intended to be a constructive basis for the exercise 

of that responsibility. 

The difficulty and the complexity of these basic troubles will not correct themselves with 

the mere passage of time. On the contrary, we cannot afford to delay further. Facing up to 

the realities of the situation, we must begin to make the painful decisions necessary to 

providing the transportation system required by the United States of today and tomorrow. 

President Johnson, in proposing a Department of Transportation, recognized the need for a unified 

national transportation policy. When Congress approved the Department of Transportation Act of 

1966, it included a declaration of purpose that was essentially a statement of national transportation 

policy: 

The Congress hereby declares that the general welfare, the economic growth and stability of 

the Nation and its security require the development of national transportation policies and 

programs conducive to the provision of fast, safe, efficient, and convenient transportation at 

the lowest cost consistent therewith and with other national objectives, including the 

efficient utilization and conservation of the Nation’s resources. 

As the clash between highway and transit interests intensified in the early 1970s, the absence of a 

new national transportation policy became a target. In March 1974, the Subcommittee on 

Transportation of the House Appropriations Committee held a hearing on development of a national 

transportation policy, with representatives of railroads, mass transit, airlines, waterways, farming, 

and highways appearing as witnesses. A subcommittee member, Representative Brock Adams (DWa.), complained in an opening statement that the Department of Transportation “does not have the 

resources, the desire, or whatever it takes to develop—and to attempt to implement—a national 

transportation policy.” He continued: 

For those who have taken former Attorney General John Mitchell’s advice to “watch what 

we do, not what we say,” we have found little to watch at DOT—as with the abominable 

snowman. All I have seen is a few tracks, and those are now being obscured by snow. 

(An editorial titled “Watch What We Do” in The Washington Post on July 7, 1969, said that 

reporters had recently overheard the Attorney General telling civil rights activists protesting the 

Nixon Administration’s efforts to modify the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that, “You will be better 

advised to watch what we do instead of what we say.”) 

To replace the “fragmented . . . nonsystem,” Representative Adams said, the Nation needed a 

unified transportation budget, a congressional Committee on Transportation, and a single 

transportation trust fund. The present collection of separate trust funds led to imbalance. “The 

interstate highway system nearly put the eastern railroads out of business,” he said: 
1248 

One year, the New Haven Railroad made a lot of money hauling sand, gravel and cement. 

Shortly after, the same sand, gravel and cement was used to build a superhighway that 

helped propel the railroad into bankruptcy. 

A single trust fund . . . would not end revenue problems in transportation. But it would lead 

to rational decisions on which mode, which functions, which types of transportation 

vehicles and which functions should be assisted financially. [Bilanow, Alex, “Congressman 

Blasts DOT for Inaction on a National Transportation Policy,” The Journal of Commerce, 

March 8, 1974] 

On March 5, Secretary Brinegar appeared before the Subcommittee on Transportation, Committee 

on Appropriations, to present a 51-page first draft of a national transportation policy. He had 

written it, but had not had time to clear it with OMB and the White House. The statement 

acknowledged that “almost any meaningful statement of policy will be seen as a threat by some 

interests.” Secretary Brinegar laid out the principles that he believed should guide national 

transportation policy: 

The overriding thrust of Federal policy is to see that the nation has an overall transportation 

system that reasonably meets its essential needs. To the maximum feasible extent, this 

system should provide transportation that is efficient, safe, fast, convenient, and limits 

negative impacts on the environment. 

Whenever possible, transportation should be provided “through the competitive forces of the 

private sector, or, if the private sector is inappropriate, by State and local governments.” Funding 

should be limited to “those few cases where there is a clear and widely accepted requirement for 

concerted action in an area of high national priority, and where the private sector or State and local 

governments are obviously incapable of adequately meeting this requirement.” Where a Federal 

funding role has been established, “these expenditures should be recovered from users and other 

beneficiaries in a manner that is appropriate to the degree of benefits received, unless widely 

accepted national policy directs otherwise.” 

To address the “severe transportation problems” in large urban areas, the Federal effort should 

encourage “(a) the establishment of non-Federal governmental mechanisms that embrace the full 

urban area and have the authority to make and implement all relevant urban plans; (b) the 

development at the local level of urban plans that properly relate transportation needs to future 

land-use plans and community development objectives; and (c) the development of plans that are 

appropriate to the structure and size of the urban area.” As a corollary, the Federal Government 

should “encourage urban areas to stress public transportation plans” based on “using existing transit 

systems and highways more effectively.” 

Economic regulation of interstate transportation “needs to be thoroughly reexamined to determine 

which parts are necessary, as a minimum, to protect the public interest, and those which, through 

the passage of time, have become more of a burden than a help.” The Nation also must “deal 

aggressively and equitably” with conservation of energy, increased safety, protection of the 

environment, and transportation for the poor, handicapped, and elderly. The difficulty of resolving 
1249 

these sometimes conflicting points of view caused “delay, confusion, and excessive reliance on 

appeals to the courts.” A better process, the Secretary said, is needed.

Rural public transportation was “in an uncertain state, with numerous isolated rural areas now able 

to be reached only by private automobile.” Many questions remained to be answered in future 

statements.

The lack of close coordination among modes was a “major cause of inefficiency in both passenger 

and freight transportation.” A priority program was needed “to lift unneeded restraints to 

intermodal cooperation and to encourage the joint use of terminal and other facilities by all 

transportation modes.” 

The Department adapted Secretary Brinegar’s testimony into a May 1974 publication, A Progress 

Report on National Transportation Policy. Secretary Brinegar’s brief introduction emphasized the 

need for such a policy. “Agreeing on the need for such a statement, however, has proven to be 

much easier than agreeing on what it should say.” 

In an interview with William H. Jones of The Washington Post, the Secretary explained that the 

basic difficulty in developing a national transportation policy was that different people had different 

ideas about what the term meant. Some people wanted a “grand design” that pinpointed where rail 

lines, highways, air routes, and canals should be built. The Secretary did not think such a policy 

was possible. “Our role is to establish policies to implement goals . . . . We should spell out 

relative goals, on such issues as subsidies versus user charges, that will lead to plans evolving in 

various areas” across the country. He thought that a “fundamental shift in personal transportation” 

was underway. “We are beginning to abandon the idea of a big family car at the center of the way 

we do things . . . . Beginning to understand we can ration travel.” He expected a significant shift to 

public transportation, which he said has “plenty of slack” to absorb the increase. [Jones, William 

H., “Brinegar: New Path for Transportation,” The Washington Post, March 17, 1974] 

 

Secretary Brinegar would not complete a national transportation policy and was skeptical of the 

goal. In September 1974, he told Government Executive magazine:

“National Transportation Policy” is an attractive but illusive concept. I don’t know how 

many times I’ve been lectured to the effect that “what the country needs is a National 

Transportation Policy,” and that with such a policy “all these transportation problems”—and 

everyone has their own list—“would soon vanish.” 

The Department of Transportation could do better in coordinating transportation, but a National 

Transportation Policy would prove disappointing: 

The reason is simple: Those who are asking for “policy” are usually really after the details 

of “programs”—they want to know where the future highways will be built and how they 

will be financed; where the railroads will run; what cities will have subways, and so on. 
1250 

I’m convinced that our country is too big, our mixed public-private economy too complex, 

and our historic divisions of federal, state and local responsibilities too firmly entrenched to 

permit us, at the federal level, to even come close to being able to design the nationwide 

details of such programs. 

Further, since transportation serves to link activities that flow from other policy decisions—

including those of national defense, urban development, environmental protection, energy 

conservation, and on and on, who, we must ask—knowing in advance that the question is 

unanswerable—can tell us the future of policy and programs in these areas. [“A Moving 

Target,” Government Executive, September 1974, p. 1] 

His successor, Secretary Coleman, felt differently. He released A Statement of National 

Transportation Policy on September 17, 1975. William H. Jones reported that Secretary Coleman 

was “obviously pleased at a news conference” releasing the 55-page policy statement less than 6 

months after taking office. The Secretary credited Secretary Brinegar for completing much of the 

policy work before leaving office.

In the foreword, Secretary Coleman emphasized that the statement was “my initial attempt to set 

forth the broad policy considerations that should underlie the Federal government’s response to the 

Nation’s transportation needs.” He added that, “Since policy formulation is a continuing process, 

the positions presented here are preliminary and may be amended and refined as we learn from 

experience and as we listen to your views.” [A Statement of National Transportation Policy by the 

Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation, September 17, 1975, p. i] 

The “Policy Overview” began: “Transportation has substantially shaped the growth and 

development of the United States.” Waterways opened the frontiers, while railroads “fed the 

hearths of an industrial revolution and now have renewed significance in the era of environmental 

and energy consciousness.” Highways “made us the most mobile population on earth, profoundly 

altered our land use patterns, and established the automobile, truck and bus as an important part of 

the Nation’s mobility and economic activity.” Mass transportation “provided the lifeline to city 

centers and now offers hope for their revival.” Civil aviation extended mobility for business and 

pleasure while pipelines “are vital to energy independence.” 

The overview continued: 

To sustain and enhance our economic vitality and growth, the productivity of our commerce 

and the quality of our leisure, we need a healthy and responsive transportation system. 

National transportation policy must serve these broad goals of our society by helping to 

guide the development, financing, and maintenance of a safe, efficient, accessible and 

diverse transportation system . . . . The values and priorities of our society are changing as 

the land on which we live is changing, and transportation must blend with other national 

goals in seeking heightened quality in the American way of life. [A Statement of National 

Transportation Policy, p. 1] 

The Federal Government had “actively participated in building transportation’s infrastructure,” but 

given America’s basic economic philosophy, “the private sector should bear primary responsibility 
1251 

for meeting the Nation’s transportation needs.” The Federal role in interstate and international 

transportation “is mandated by the Constitution and defined by practical requirements of uniformity 

and connectivity,” but recent laws on mass transit, environmental quality and energy conservation 

had expanded the Federal interest into local concerns. “Now, we must seek a more rational 

delineation of responsibility among the levels of government.” 

Because most transportation involves local activity, Federal assistance involves Federal, State, and 

local priorities and decisionmaking. “As we decentralize authority and increase State and local 

program flexibility, States and localities must improve program management and, where possible, 

increase their financial participation in projects that primarily benefit their residents.” A “more 

rational relationship” with the private sector was also vital. “Unfortunately, the Nation’s economic 

regulatory structure in transportation has not kept pace with changes in industry and the economy.” 

[A Statement of National Transportation Policy, p. 1-2] 

National policy must recognize “that diversity and intermodal completion are essential to an 

effective transportation system.” Policy, therefore, “must move in the direction of increasing equal 

competitive opportunity among the transportation modes, promoting cooperation among modes, 

minimizing the inequitable distortions of government intervention and enabling each mode to 

realize its inherent advantages.” In addressing a particular mode, “we must recognize and evaluate 

the consequences of government action on the competitiveness of other modes.” [A Statement of 

National Transportation Policy, p. 3] 

The Department of Transportation had to identify the unique Federal role for each mode. The 

automobile was “the most universally accepted form of transportation in America” and was “the 

most flexible and responsive mode and provides the greatest freedom of mobility.” It also was a 

major contributor to pollution, energy consumption, congestion, and fatalities and injuries. “We 

will seek to preserve and maximize its unique contributions. At the same time, however, we will 

strive to increase its energy efficiency, economic and socially responsible use and safety.” [A 

Statement of National Transportation Policy, p. 5] Similarly, highway transportation was “essential 

to the preservation of American mobility and to our economic well-being.” Its continued high 

performance depended on cooperation among Federal, State, and local governments “and increased 

program flexibility” that will allow each level of government “to best determine priorities and 

improve its transportation in the most cost-effective manner.” 

Completion of the Interstate System was “a top federal priority” and older segments “need to be 

modernized and rehabilitated.” Beyond the Interstates, State and local governments should have 

increased flexibility, including “more options in their selection of projects within broad-based 

program categories.” Where segments were primarily local in service, “we will expect State and 

local officials to justify these expenditures carefully.” Further, in view of changes since the 

highway networks were planned, State and local communities should “rethink some of the highway 

planning already done so as to determine if a particular highway still offers the best transportation 

alternative.” 
1252 

Urban areas require intermodal balance, including the option to transfer highway funds to mass 

transit. The “special problems of rural America” must be addressed with programs designed to 

meet rural needs.

Funding should be adequate, but “consistent with other transportation and national priorities.” It 

should not be “affected either way by the current revenue yields of gasoline or other automobile 

taxes.” With “large segments of the Nation’s highway infrastructure” in place, “we must address 

the future requirements for and utilization of the Highway Trust Fund.” [A Statement of National 

Transportation Policy, p. 9-10] 

Each urban area should be free to select the transportation solutions that best serve its needs. 

Federal policy should respond to locally determined goals while meeting national objectives such as 

revitalization of cities, reduction of air pollution, conservation of energy, and access for the 

disadvantaged. “Because mass transit serves all these objectives, simultaneously and well, it merits 

strong Federal as well as State and local support,” as reflected in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1973 and the National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974. 

Federal policy should require analysis of the cost-effectiveness of transportation alternatives while 

requiring implementation of transportation plans “to improve the efficiency of existing facilities and

transit services and conserve energy (e.g., carpools, exclusive bus lanes, higher parking fees).” 

Fixed rail systems were “appropriate only in a few highly populated metropolitan areas,” but 

Federal funds should support “efforts to develop a type of rail system which is much less costly to 

build, operate and maintain.” The Federal Government should give funding preference to localities 

that “demonstrate consistency with broader community development goals, effective processes for 

resolving jurisdictional conflicts, effective cost controls and a substantial State, regional and local 

financial commitment.” [A Statement of National Transportation Policy, p. 8-9] 

Federal resources should be allocated “more fairly among the modes,” with subsidies offered only 

“when a clearly defined national interest requires the development, modernization or maintenance 

of essential transportation service.” [A Statement of National Transportation Policy, p. 10] 

In closing, the statement indicated that a transportation policy issued by one Federal Department 

“does not become the Nation’s transportation policy,” which required actions by other Federal, 

State, and local officials:

A more perfect transportation system will evolve primarily through the efforts of an 

innovative, competitive, and forward looking private sector. The Federal Government must 

support this evolution, reinforcing the strengths of our system and shoring up its weakness . 

. . . 

Although there are old habits and ways of thinking, and strong forces of politics, precedent 

and program inertia at work, we must now seek new, more efficient ways of responding to 

the Nation’s transportation needs. This document is an initial attempt to do so. It may well 

contain inconsistencies, omissions and policies that the public will not accept. It is hoped, 

however, that it will stimulate discussion of the issues so that there will be progress and 
1253 

ultimately consensus on a policy which we will all work to implement. [A Statement of 

National Transportation Policy, p. 49-50] 

The Washington Post said the policy did not contain “much that is surprising” since Secretary 

Coleman and other Ford Administration officials had been incorporating these ideas into their 

speeches and statements for the past several months. The policy would, inevitably, face opposition 

from transportation interests:

The real value of the Secretary’s statement is that it may force Congress—and the rest of 

us—to begin to look at transportation in its broadest sense. National policy has been formed 

in the past out of a series of responses by Congress and other administrations to individual 

situations—and powerful special interests. And once a particular solution has been found, it 

has usually become a permanent part of government policy. 

The railroad and airline industries were struggling with regulatory structures put in place for a 

different time, “and the highway trust fund, created to solve a problem of the 1950s, has already 

acquired many of the characteristics of a national fixture.” These old policies did not make sense in 

1975 “but the resistance to change, no matter how small, is enormous.” 

Secretary Coleman’s policy came “at a time when it is obvious the government must act.” Many 

old railroads “are dead and a large number of those remaining, along with several airlines, are 

seriously ill.” The idea that highways, trucks, and automobiles could solve the problem was 

increasingly doubtful. “Secretary Coleman’s statement provides a better framework than was 

available in the past in which to consider how the nation should proceed on transportation.” [“A 

National Transportation Policy,” The Washington Post, September 22, 1975] 

An editorial in The Journal of Commerce began, “A demonstrable truth does not lose its validity 

simply because it has been often and widely repeated, nor because it has not gained general 

acceptance.” Secretary Coleman’s ideas might not have “the sense of novelty and urgency,” but 

they merit “serious attention even though to a large extent they merely repeat, in a slightly altered 

sequence, what has often been said before.” 

Of particular interest to The Journal was the proposal to impose a new tax on inland water carriers 

and higher taxes on truckers “as two means of enabling the railroads to compete more successfully 

for the available freight.” This idea prompted a question about the Department’s objective. Is the 

objective a better transportation system, fairness for each segment, or “a better deal for part of it,” 

namely the railroads? And, asked the editorial, “Is DOT giving any thought to inflation or fuel 

conservation in putting forth this program?” Or does saving the Nation’s troubled railroads 

override these other concerns? “The rails would benefit from taxes on their competitors, we agree. 

But would the transport system as a whole?” 

Based on this tax issue and the failure to consider inflation or reducing the use of oil, the editorial 

found “the tenor of the first policy roundup by a DOT secretary disappointing.” [“Not Quite on 

Target,” The Journal of Commerce, September 22, 1975] 
1254 

Carlton C. Robinson, a traffic engineer who had joined the Automotive Safety Foundation in 1955 

and was now an official of HUFSAM, said that Secretary Coleman’s policy statement “wasn’t 

perfect but at least he tried to create one.” He praised the report for strongly supporting the concept 

that users should pay for the transportation facilities they need. He added that, “The system of 

payment . . . is certainly not perfect but doesn’t, in our judgment, deserve the harsh treatment the 

policy affords.” Secretary Coleman seemed to be “confused about the role of the Highway Trust 

Fund which channels charges on highway users to highway improvements.” Robinson explained: 

Its income is not all raised by charges on users of the Interstate System nor is it all spent on 

Interstate construction. State and local safety programs, bridge replacements on important 

rural roads, improvements in urban traffic, relocation assistance, highway landscaping and 

literally hundreds of other activities are paid for through the Trust Fund. [Robinson, Carlton 

C., “Highway Financing,” Letter to the Editor, The Washington Post, October 12, 1975] 

Sense and Nonsense

While Secretary Coleman was unveiling the National Transportation Policy, Representative Adams 

was delivering the keynote address to a symposium sponsored by the Mitre Corporation on 

transportation issues. (Mitre is a Massachusetts-based not-for-profit corporation that provides 

engineering and technical services to the Department of Defense and other Federal Agencies, 

including FAA.) In a speech titled “The Sense and Nonsense of Congress and Transportation,” 

Adams told the symposium that the way the Federal Government dealt with transportation was one 

of the “basic problems.” Congress and the Executive Branch were “completely fragmented,” he 

said, explaining: 

It is what I call the “squeaky wheel” approach to policymaking—the wheel that squeaks the 

loudest seems to get most of the oil or, perhaps we now should say, its share of the oil . . . . 

I can tell you that more than 27 different agencies have important roles in Federal 

government policy on transportation . . . . The Congress managed to complicate this 

nonsense by dividing oversight and funding jurisdiction over this maze of agencies among a 

series of committees and subcommittees. 

Most of the talk about transportation reform related to what he called the “deregulation delusion.” 

It was, he said, a “large strawman” concealing “the basic flaws not only in railroading, but also in 

our whole transportation industry.” He had previously suggested that a national transportation 

policy could begin: 

The Nation’s transportation policy should be directed toward creating and maintaining a 

privately owned and operated intermodal, interstate system regulated by the Federal 

government in the public interest. 

His proposal dealt primarily with regulation of private-sector transportation providers, but he 

pointed out that government affected transportation in “two major ways—as regulator and as 

financier.” For example, he pointed out that in his view, regulation was not the “principal cause” of 
1255 

the financial collapse of the northeastern railroads. “Probably the major contributing factor was the 

Federally supported construction of the interstate highway system, which was superimposed on an 

already overbuilt rail network.” He continued: 

Yet this was done without any detailed analysis of the intermodal transportation network of 

New England. I am not arguing that the interstate highway system should not have been 

built, but certainly the effect on rail and water transportation should have been considered . . 

. . In developing a national transportation policy, we must give as much emphasis to policy 

decisions on the level of Federal investment in transportation as we do to fair and 

evenhanded regulation. 

Once a national transportation policy is established, Congress should organize its committees to 

line up with that policy. 

Representative Adams also recommended adoption of a unified transportation trust fund. With 

multiple trust funds as at present, transportation funds were scattered throughout the budget, 

making it “impossible to compare the level of investment in the individual modes.” 

Regarding the trust fund concept, he said: 

The problem with the existing funds is that they make flexible transportation spending 

almost impossible. These funds acquire a life of their own and roll along like unstoppable 

fiscal juggernauts . . . . In practice, the beneficiaries of the fund have shown great ingenuity 

at developing new and vitally important uses for the money sitting in the pot with their name 

on it. 

In remarks to reporters, Representative Adams said of Secretary Coleman’s policy, released that 

same day, that it was “not definitive” but “evolutionary.” [Adams, Representative Brock, “The 

Sense and Nonsense of Congress and Transportation,” Symposium on Transportation Issues, The 

Mitre Corporation, M76-14, 1975, p. 23-32; “Transport Policy Held Fragmented,” The Journal of 

Commerce, September 19, 1975; and Aug, Stephen M., “Reduced U.S. Share in Transportation 

Fund is Urged by Coleman,” The Washington Star, September 17, 1975] 

Despite Representative Adams’ dismissive comment, Secretary Coleman’s policy helped establish 

his reputation for decisiveness. Albert R. Karr, in an October 1975 profile, explained that Secretary 

Coleman was a man “in a hurry” who knew his time in Washington would be limited: 

Using one of his favorite analogies . . . the Secretary told his staff, “it only takes nine 

months to produce a baby, the most precious thing in the world and the most complicated. 

Nothing government does should take longer. 

Karr contrasted the new Secretary with his predecessor: 
1256 

How much he does in moving fast and forcefully on several key transportation issues will be 

a real test of his mettle . . . . So far, Mr. Coleman is emerging as a “big-picture” man, who 

doesn’t want to immerse himself in detail and delights in making prompt decisions.

His predecessor, oilman Claude Brinegar, took one issue at a time, studied it till he became 

an expert and moved cautiously. Mr. Coleman, in contrast, brings “liveliness,” which a 

department source says is timely and necessary for putting some Brinegar-drafted programs 

into operation. “A guy cannot be dynamic (like Coleman) and cautious at the same time . . . 

. 

As for his desire to rush ahead with changes, a Coleman underling says Mr. Brinegar made 

“fewer mistakes,” but the new Secretary “will have left his mark on many more things” by 

the time he leaves.

In an interview, Mr. Coleman says that in the next 15 months he’d like among other things, 

to set up a “truly interstate private rail-freight system” (a nationwide network rather than a 

bunch of regional systems); decide how to improve Boston-Washington passenger train 

service; create a coherent international aviation policy; resolve policy on future highway 

construction, and reconcile rising transit needs and costs. 

Should all this seem overambitious, Mr. Coleman likes to quote Robert Kennedy’s 

paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw: “Some men see things as they are, and say ‘Why?’ I 

dream things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’” 

. . . . He said in a recent New Orleans speech that “the great American love affair with the 

automobile is not over,” but he also said the illicit aspects of this affair” and its “illegitimate 

offspring”—congestion, pollution, fuel waste and highway deaths—must be eliminated.

Karr explained that Secretary Coleman appeared to want to slow highway construction and leave 

local officials the task of reducing reliance on the automobile as mass transit improved. He 

recognized that this would be a slow transition since otherwise, local politicians would find 

themselves “getting thrown out of office.” He called on local officials to rethink planned highway 

projects, many of which he thought should never be built: 

As for mass transit, Mr. Coleman largely follows predecessor Brinegar’s stand: Few cities 

can justify expensive rapid-transit systems; the federal government cannot pay the lion’s 

share of such projects, especially as their costs climb, and better bus service and 

management of the car will provide most urban-transport gains. But many public-transit 

advocates take heart in his support of added transit financing as lending general favor to 

their cause. [Karr, Albert R., “The ‘Wild Man’ of Transportation,” The Wall Street Journal, 

October 27, 1975] 

Following President Ford’s defeat in November 1976, Secretary Coleman followed through with 

his plan to release a final statement of national transportation policy. He released the 400-plus page 

National Transportation Trends and Choices (To The Year 2000) on January 14, 1977, just a week 
1257 

before leaving office. The report attempted to identify trends developing in transportation and the 

public choices resulting from those trends. In a statement, he explained, “Only by knowing the 

trends and the public decisions that will be necessary can we, as a nation, make the proper choices 

to direct America’s vast transportation network toward desired national goals.” 

The report did not attempt to answer questions, but rather provided information needed to pursue 

answers. During a press conference, he said the Nation needed to focus on restoration of its cities. 

“We’ll be making a great mistake,” he said, “if New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, 

Cleveland, the other cities, are not restored and their vitality maintained and increased.” An 

account in The Washington Post said:

Coleman described a litany of governmental actions that in his view have contributed to 

suburban expansion and urban decline—from public housing constrained by zoning policies 

to core cities to the boost in sprawl abetted by highways and sewer lines. 

“If we do nothing,” he said, the problem of the cities “will get worse. There has to be an 

active discussion. I feel that way. All I want is for the Congress and the President to debate 

that issue, then based on that debate, make an intelligent choice.” [Feaver, Douglas B., 

“Public Transport Key to Cities’ Future,” The Washington Post, January 15, 1977] 

During his last week in office, he made a circuit of every floor of Department headquarters to thank 

employees for their support. Each floor was alerted to his arrival and employees waited in the halls 

to greet him with handshakes and hugs. 

The Department’s historian summarized Secretary Coleman’s later career:

On leaving the Department, Coleman returned to Philadelphia, but subsequently became a 

partner in the Washington office of the Los Angeles-based law firm of O’Melveny and 

Myers. In 1996, in the wake of the July 17 crash of TWA Flight 800, he served on the 

President’s Commission on Airline and Airport Security. That same year, Coleman 

received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to civilians by the 

United States.) 

Representative Adams would leave the House on January 22, 1977, to become Secretary of 

Transportation under President Jimmy Carter on January 23, 1977. One of his top priorities was 

developing a national transportation policy. “I don’t want you to think the frenzied activity we’re 

going through was planned,” he said. “We’re running on the momentum of a transportation policy 

that was basically to build an autobahn system in the United States, and we’ve been at it for 20 

years.” The country was in an interim period, “knowing that petroleum is not going to be available 

as it was—and shifting to something new. And I just happen to be caught in the middle of that 

shift.” He dismissed the Coleman policy as “more factual than conclusionary.” He had established 

a task force to solicit ideas, and had received a suggestion from President Carter, delivered by the 

White House on March 21, 1977: 
1258 

I suspect that many of the rapid transit systems are grossly [underlined] overdesigned. We 

should insist on (a) off-street parking, (b) one-way streets, (c) special bus lanes, (d) surface 

rail-bus, as alternatives to subways. In some urban areas, no construction at all would be 

needed if a, b and c are required. [Mollison, Andrew, “Adams in Search of New 

Transportation Policy,” Atlanta Constitution, July 24, 1977] 

On February 6, 1978, he released Transportation Policy for a Changing America “to set before the 

country the broad directions and goals [the Secretary] expects to pursue in developing Federal 

transportation policies and programs for the future.” In addition to pursuing longstanding 

objectives such as economic development, national security, efficient management of public 

transportation, and a competitive and responsive private transportation sector, the Secretary 

believed that other concerns and priorities needed far greater attention than in the past. They 

included energy conservation and production, environmental protection and enhancement, safety, 

quality of life, and improved resource allocation, both human and material. 

The statement indicated that the Carter Administration was considering a combined transportation 

account that would collect all Federal financing for transportation, whether from user fees or 

appropriations from the general Treasury, into a single account with regular review by the 

Congress. “Congress and the Executive branch would then have the ability to decide how best to 

allocate the limited transportation resources among the many competing claims of Federal 

assistance, without necessarily changing the method of financing for individual modes.” However, 

Federal legislation for grant programs for urban and rural transportation should stress the 

“flexibility necessary for state and local decisionmakers to meet different local conditions while 

encouraging the simple and speedy administration of the program.” [Transportation Policy for a 

Changing America, U.S. Department of Transportation, February 6, 1978, p. 1-2, 21-22] 

Secretary Adams left office on to July 20, 1979, as part of a shakeup of the Carter Cabinet. 

Parting Shot: A Statement of National Highway Transportation Policy 

In December 1976, outgoing Administrator Tiemann released A Statement of National Highway 

Transportation Policy to serve as “basic policy guidance for the program planning, research, 

development, implementation, and management functions which derive from the statutory 

responsibilities of the FHWA.” The policy making process is “complex, evolutional, and 

controversial.” All involved in transportation may not agree on goals and objectives, but “policy 

can represent but one aspect of concern, albeit an important one . . . .” It explained:

Basic to this process are two fundamental policy problems. First, there is the question of 

the appropriate Federal role in improving the Nation’s highway transportation systems . . . 

. The second fundamental policy problem concerns the scope of national highway 

transportation policy. [A Statement of National Highway Transportation Policy, FHWA, 

December 1976, p. 1-2, emphasis in original]

The highway network, described as “one of the Nation’s greatest assets,” was impressive in extent 

and performance, but “heavy use has contributed to serious deficiencies which must be corrected if 
1259 

the system is to continue to meet high standards of safety and efficiency.” Even the Interstate 

System, though not yet completed, was “already overloaded on a daily basis,” especially during 

peak periods in urban areas. Other roads also are overloaded, numerous deficient bridges must be 

replaced, and many miles require safety improvements. “Because of these deficiencies, there must 

be continuing improvement of the Nation’s highway system.” Further, highway travel was 

expected to increase about 40 percent by 1990, which will only worsen conditions “unless adequate 

improvements to the system are undertaken or there are major changes in travel habits.” [A 

Statement, p. 2-4] 

The overall national principles that were the basis for policy development were: mobility, 

intergovernmental cooperation, economic development, safety, energy, environmental quality, and 

civil rights. [A Statement, p. 4-7] With those principles in mind, the statement defined national 

highway transportation policy by subject: 

Interstate System: The FHWA places top priority on completion of the essential sections 

and programs are designed to accomplish this policy objective . . . . Moreover, it is FHWA 

policy that the Interstate program be recognized as a long-term national commitment to 

maintain a high level of service on the Nation’s most important transportation system, and 

that adequate resources be provided to fulfill this commitment. [A Statement, p. 9-10, 

emphasis removed from this and other indented excerpts] 

Urban Transportation: FHWA policy [is] that Federal-aid highway program funds be 

used, where appropriate cost-effective projects are identified, to fund improvements in 

urban areas which result in the most effective mix of transportation services . . . . It is 

FHWA policy that the movement of automobiles, motorcycles, buses, rail transit vehicles, 

taxis, trucks, bicycles, and pedestrian traffic be managed together so that maximum 

effectiveness of the urban transportation system as a whole may be more nearly achieved. 

[A Statement, p. 10-11] 

Rural Transportation: FHWA policy shall focus greater attention on determining rural 

highway transportation needs and improving rural highway service. [A Statement, p. 11] 

Program Funding Mechanisms: Program levels should be determined through careful 

analysis of system performance, and should reflect an explicit Federal role related to 

maintaining or improving such performance . . . . A fundamental premise of the FHWA, 

one which forms the basis for policies concerned with transportation program funding 

mechanisms, is that appropriate user charges are a fair and equitable means of obtaining 

transportation revenues in order to provide benefits to users. [A Statement, p. 12] 

Transportation planning: Transportation exists to meet an interconnected set of broad 

national, State, and community social, economic, and environmental goals, and its profound 

effects on development must be consistent with these goals. To achieve this consistency, 

the FHWA encourages the coordination of transportation planning at all levels of 

government with land-use planning and other social, economic, and environmental planning 

. . . . It is FHWA policy that in urban areas the transportation planning process shall include 
1260 

the development of a transportation plan and a short-term improvement program . . . . 

FHWA policy is that transportation planning at all levels of government should be 

multimodal, and special attention should be given to the need for improved intermodal 

transfer facilities and access to terminals. [A Statement, p. 13-14] 

Research and Development: FHWA policy seeks to ensure that the benefits of research 

and development are made available to other governmental agencies and to private 

enterprise through effective dissemination programs and appropriate incentives for their use 

. . . . In order to increase the benefits of highways, improve their quality and minimize their 

cost, the FHWA promotes the widespread use of new technology . . . . [A Statement, p. 14-

15] 

Management of the Highway System: It is FHWA policy to encourage the use of system 

management techniques, or low capital intensive methods, to improve traffic flow and to 

help solve mobility problems . . . . Since many of these concepts require new and 

innovative plans, it is FHWA policy that each urban transportation planning process shall 

include the development of a plan for transportation system management. [A Statement, p. 

16] 

Safety: Although the accident and fatality rates of United States highways are the lowest of 

all major industrial countries, the FHWA is committed to a national highway transportation 

policy which will further reduce highway hazards and the resulting number and severity of 

accidents on all the Nation’s highways . . . . The following are current highway 

transportation safety policy objectives: realignment of FHWA safety functions to provide a 

focal point for coordinating safety efforts and evaluating progress; improvement in the 

overall management of safety programs by simplifying planning procedures and 

encouraging State agencies to better coordinate their activities; improvement of highway 

accident data collection and analysis systems; enforcement of the 55 m.p.h. speed limit; 

increased use of Federal-aid funds for cost-effective safety improvements; updating and 

enlarging by the States of their motor carrier safety activities through cooperative 

agreements with the FHWA; and safer shipment of hazardous materials. [A Statement, p. 

19-20] 

Social, Economic, and Environmental Factors: It is FHWA policy that full consideration 

shall be given in highway transportation programs to the impacts of highway development 

and travel, along with transportation needs, engineering aspects, safety elements, and project 

costs. Furthermore, a systematic, interdisciplinary approach is essential to assure a balanced 

treatment of all of these factors in providing for safe and efficient transportation service . . . . 

 It is FHWA policy that noise control mitigation measures be taken, where feasible, when 

anticipated noise levels for new projects exceed specified levels related to adjacent land uses 

. . . . It is FHWA policy that every effort be made to minimize the detrimental effects on 

those who must be relocated or are otherwise directly affected by highway construction. [A 

Statement, p. 20-21] 
1261 

Special Highway Programs: The Federal Government has a unique interest and role in 

special programs such as those to construct and improve highways on federally owned 

lands, to promote mobility in Appalachia and designated economic growth centers, to 

provide highway assistance to foreign governments, to assure access to defense facilities, 

and to provide disaster relief . . . . The FHWA policy is to administer these programs as 

efficiently as possible, to streamline procedures for administering them, and to assure the 

same high standards of performance, safety and environmental protection as those 

established for the regular Federal-aid highway programs in cooperation with the States. [A 

Statement, p. 21-22] 

Under the broad heading of Program Management, the policy statement discussed a number of 

issues:

The FHWA Organization: Since detailed knowledge of local conditions is frequently 

needed to respond effectively, the FHWA shall continue to delegate to its field offices as 

much flexibility and decisionmaking authority as is consistent with the uniform application 

of Federal highway policies.

Program Accountability: It is FHWA policy to ensure proper accountability in the 

administration of national highway transportation programs.

Streamlining of Procedures: It is FHWA policy that the flexibility of States in developing 

and carrying out projects using Federal highway funds should not be restricted by excessive 

Federal regulation . . . . FHWA continually reviews its internal procedures to: minimize 

those requirements which are not contained or envisioned in the law; curtail lengthy and 

complex instructions; simplify existing procedures and requirements to provide greater 

flexibility and discretion at the local level; eliminate unnecessary paperwork; and 

decentralize program responsibilities and related delegation of authority. 

Quality Construction: It is time to readdress and reemphasize the basic function of highway 

transportation agencies—the construction and maintenance of quality highways—so as to 

provide the best possible investment of public highway funds. 

Program Emphasis Areas: It is the policy of the FHWA to annually determine and carry out 

an internal program that focuses special attention on certain timely and significant 

objectives [such as] quality of highway construction and maintenance; Federal/State/local 

coordination and Federal interagency coordination; transportation systems efficiency; 

delivery system for Federal-aid highway funds; motor carrier safety; highway safety; and 

Civil Rights (internal, external, minority business enterprise participation).

Minority Business Enterprise Contracting: It is the policy of the FHWA, consistent with 

Executive Order, to provide opportunities for minority business enterprises to be informed, 

to bid, and to obtain commodity and service contracts. 
1262 

Equal Opportunity: The FHWA shall further internal efforts to recruit, promote, and train 

minorities and women for all positions and especially for those positions of a supervisory 

nature . . . . In addition, agencies and contractors that receive Federal highway aid must also 

protect civil rights, and strive to eradicate the effects of past discrimination on the basis of 

race, color or national origin in the planning, location, design, construction, and operation of 

Federal-aid highway improvements. [A Statement, p. 16-19] 

The final section explained that in considering general policy directions that Congress and the 

executive branch “deem in the national interest,” two significant points are appropriate: 

First, it should be based as much as possible upon the systematic analysis of alternatives 

and, second, that as coordinated, multimodal transportation systems continue to be 

developed, new perspectives on transportation service in its broadest functional terms will 

become necessary. 

The statement concluded:

The appropriate policy directions for the future must ensure that the transportation system 

operates efficiently with respect to the four major transportation service categories [short 

haul of passengers, long haul of passengers, short haul of freight, and long haul of freight] 

and that all system improvements are compatible with broader societal goals. This goal 

indeed provides a challenge to all those concerned with the development and use of the 

Nation’s transportation system as well as to the formulation of future policy statements on 

transportation. [A Statement, p. 23-26] 

A month later, with the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter, Administrator Tiemann resigned. 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1976 

On January 26, 1975, Representative John C. Kluczynski died of a heart attack in Chicago. An 

obituary in The Washington Post explained;

The 79-year-old lawmaker complained of a fever on Saturday, an aide said, but refused to 

call a doctor. About 10:30 p.m. Sunday, he got out of bed in his home to get a drink of 

water, collapsed and died. He had planned to fly to Washington yesterday [Monday] 

afternoon. 

The article described him as “a leading supporter of the interstate highway program,” adding, 

“When it came under attack from environmentalists, he sprung to its defense.” As a longtime 

highway supporter, “it was an article of faith . . . that the highway trust fund, raised chiefly from 

gasoline taxes, should not be tapped for mass transit.” However, he “abruptly switched position in 

1973,” under pressure from Mayor Daley, “paving the way for more liberal federal aid to transit.” 

Representative Kluczynski “was the archetype of an old-fashioned big-city ethnic politician.” 
1263 

Of medium height, he weighed close to 250 pounds, and had a ruddy round face topped with 

white hair. He was rarely seen without the unlighted butt of a cigar clenched between his 

teeth.

He had owned a restaurant, a catering business, and a bar called the Syrena. Although the 

restaurant had closed, the bar remained open and he “could be found there on weekends, meeting 

with constituents.” 

An obituary in The New York Times recalled: 

Mr. Kluczynski, sponsor of the 1965 act to beautify highways, turned against it in 1967 in a 

determined effort to protect the billboard industry and force a showdown on highway 

beautification.

“I believe,” he said then, “we enacted a can of worms, and I’m going to try to untangle it.” 

President Ford, who had worked with Representative Kluczynski in the House for 23 years, said he 

was grieved to learn of his death. “I know how much he loved his work and how well he did his 

job.” The President described his former colleague as “a conscientious, hard-working public 

servant, who served both his party and his country well.” He added, “John helped to shape our 

interstate highway system—an achievement in which he took special pride.” [Eisen, Jack, “Head of 

Hill Unit on Highways Dies,” The Washington Post, January 28, 1975; Associated Press, “Rep. 

Kluczynski of Illinois Dead,” The New York Times, January 28, 1975] 

The highway champion would not be around to fight another attempt to restructure the Federal-aid 

highway program in favor of mass transit. 

By late January 1975, reports were emerging that the Ford Administration would propose to divert a 

large portion of highway user tax revenue from the Highway Trust Fund to the general Treasury. 

The Administration’s FY 1976 budget proposal, which the President unveiled on February 3, 1975, 

reflected the plan. He said:

My budget recommendations anticipate legislation that I shall propose to extend the 

Highway Trust Fund through 1980 for the Interstate Highway System only, and increases its 

funding. My proposal will focus trust fund assistance on completion of key segments of the 

Interstate Highway System needed to link the national system together. They will also 

combine a number of narrow categorical grant programs to eliminate red tape and allow 

localities greater flexibility in meeting their transportation problems. In 1978, States will be 

permitted, under this proposal, to assume over $1 billion of Federal motor fuel tax receipts 

for local needs.

Administrator Tiemann explained FHWA’s views in an article that appeared in the March 1975 

issue of American Road Builder. Following enactment of the National Mass Transportation 

Assistance Act of 1974, “it is now essential that a balance be struck by passing a companion bill for 

highway development that will provide needed flexibility.” With the Highway Trust Fund set to 
1264 

expire in 1977, FHWA’s idea was to continue one cent for the Interstate System, deposit two cents 

in the general Treasury, and return one cent to States that increased their fuel tax by a like amount. 

All other revenue presently going into the Highway Trust Fund would continue, except for one cent 

of the diesel tax. All non-Interstate highway programs would be financed out of the general 

Treasury. Tiemann said the plan had not yet been approved by the Department or OMB, 

Under the proposal, Tiemann said, funds would be available for Interstate construction in the 

amounts of $3.5 billion in FY 1978, $3.7 billion (FY 1979), and $3.8 billion (1980), all higher than 

at present. A portion of Interstate construction funding would be set aside for the Secretary’s 

discretionary use in expediting closure of gaps in essential Interstate routes between urban areas

(known as “essential gaps”). 

The proposal would revise the Federal-aid primary system to include all rural and urban arterials. 

“There would be no special earmarking of funds for urban extensions, as we anticipate that the 

states will make adequate provision for them.” The secondary and urban systems would be 

replaced by a Rural Transportation Assistance Fund and an Urban Transportation Assistance Fund. 

They would have “broadened eligibility,” with a minimum of the funds to be spent on the secondary 

and urban systems, but the rest would be available on or off the systems for any highway or transit 

purpose, other than maintenance and operation. Separate categories, such as economic growth 

center and urban high density, would be folded into the rural or urban funds. Other programs, 

including the public lands categories, bridge replacement, and highway safety, would remain 

separate. 

FHWA was still considering how to address a problem caused by the Budget and Impoundment 

Control Act of 1974. Tiemann explained that contract authority had been the source of the Federalaid highway program’s “strength and viability” because it allowed States to prepare projects, 

including multi-year projects, in advance. In recent years, with project development time 

increasing, “the value of contract authority to permit orderly planning and assured financing became 

even more important.” The Budget Act “changed all of this by providing that—and I quote—“new 

spending authority is to be effective for any fiscal year only to such extent or in such amounts as are 

provided in appropriation Acts.” This provision would have to be amended in some way that was 

yet to be determined. [Tiemann, Norbert, “Proposed Omnibus Highway Bill,” American Road 

Builder, March 1975] 

With reauthorization of the Federal-aid highway program due in time for FY 1977, the Ford 

Administration convened a Surface Transportation Task Force to recommend options for creating a 

Surface Transportation Program and Administration. With representatives from the Office of the 

Secretary of Transportation, FHWA, UMTA, and FRA, the task force identified areas of national 

interest and ways of giving State and local officials increased flexibility in dealing with local 

transportation issues. 

Based on the task force’s recommendations, President Ford unveiled his reauthorization proposal 

on July 7, 1975. It reflected views that would later be part of Secretary Coleman’s national 

transportation policy. President Ford’s announcement began:
1265 

Twenty years ago, President Eisenhower sent to the Congress a landmark report on our 

Nation’s highways. That report, and the legislation it inspired, launched the Nation on one 

of the most ambitious public works programs in history—construction of the 42,500-mile 

Interstate Highway System.

He was referring to A 10-Year National Highway Program: A Report to the President, prepared by 

the President’s Advisory Committee on a National Highway Program, commonly referred to as the 

Clay Committee. President Eisenhower had transmitted the report to Congress on February 22, 

1955 as the basis for legislation to give the country “a modern safe highway system.”

With 85 percent of the Interstate System open and the Highway Trust Fund scheduled to expire on 

October 1, 1977, President Ford proposed the expected transformation in the Highway Trust Fund. 

“In this way, the ability of State and local governments to deal with their own transportation 

problems will be improved, but costs to the highway user will not be increased.” 

Regarding his other proposals, he said:

The highway program is a classic example of a Federal program that has expanded over the 

years into areas of State and local responsibility, distorting the priorities of those 

governments. 

Accordingly, he proposed to consolidate 30 narrow grant-in-aid programs into three broad 

categories dealing with urban and suburban transportation, rural transportation, and highway safety: 

This is consistent with my general philosophy that we should not, at the Federal level, 

extend our influence into areas which other levels of government can handle better. 

In a statement issued at a White House press conference, Secretary Coleman said the proposal 

“reflects the changing Federal role in transportation.” Interstate funds would be made available to 

the States by formula, but funds also would be available for Interstate improvement and 

rehabilitation to protect the Federal investment in the network. 

Over 30 categories would be combined into: 

• Urban Transportation Assistance Program 

• Rural Transportation Assistance Program 

• Highway Safety Improvement Program

He explained:

These programs would continue to be available for conventional Federal-Aid Highway 

construction, the development of mass transit projects, and the construction and 

improvement of highways not part of any Federal Highway System. It is important to note 

that local and state discretion would be maintained in the use of these non-Interstate 
1266 

Highway monies, as well as in the use of the one cent of the gasoline tax which would revert 

to the states.

Although the proposal “represents a strong commitment” to completing the Interstate System, “it 

marks the beginning of a new era in transportation—one in which highways play a vital, but not 

total role.” He added:

We are not self-sufficient in energy. How can we continue to delude ourselves that 

highways and the private automobile symbolize the apex of the American dream.

One of our most pressing challenges is to blend effectively our National energy conservation 

goals with the continued need for a strong highway system to serve the Nation’s economic 

and social objectives. I believe these challenges call for new direction in our highway 

program, and I believe the proposed Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1975 is a bold, forwardlooking effort to meet this goal.

The highway community reacted to the proposal as it had to similar previous consolidation 

proposals. The day of the announcement, the AGC said the Ford proposal was “deceiving in its 

implications, entirely overlooks the major highway needs of the nation, and would leave the 

uncompleted interstate highway program badly underfunded.” Representative Shuster, a 

Republican, said he would break with tradition and not introduce the bill, even as a courtesy to the 

Republican President. According to an aide, he considered the bill a “rape” of the Highway Trust 

Fund. Representative Jones, chairman of the Public Works Committee, said, “It seems to me a 

great error to change a very successful program. I don’t think it’s a very well thought out plan.” He 

saw the hands of transit backers behind the plan: 

The notion is abroad that there is enough money in the trust fund to do their work. That’s 

totally fallacious. There’s not enough money to [solve the mass transit problems] of two 

cities, much less the rest of the country. 

Highway supporters especially objected to the idea that highway users would continue paying the 

gas tax, even though some of the revenue was going into the general Treasury instead of highway 

building. Representative Wright said, “I don’t think those taxes should be continued to be levied 

against motorists and then simply dumped into the general fund.” 

An unnamed highway supporter said, “I think the administration just wanted to lower the highway 

priority and get rid of the trust fund. The federal budget people don’t like trust funds and they 

perceive there is not as much interest in building highways anymore.” When a spokeman for 

HUFSAM was asked if the organization would oppose the plan, he exclaimed “Damned straight.” 

[Hoyt, Clark, “Ford Urges Diversion of Road Funds,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 8, 1975; 

Crosby, Thomas, “Ford Plan Will Rekindle Transit-Highway Dispute,” The Washington Star, July 

10, 1975] 

Mark R. Arnold, writing in Dow Jones and Company’s weekly National Observer, recalled a 

Michigan Congressman named Gerald Ford who said during the House debate in 1972: 
1267 

To divert highway-use revenues to purposes other than the provision of highways would 

abrogate a long-standing moral commitment as well as a statutory provision. We ought not 

break faith with taxpayers.

Now, “that same Gerald Ford, from the perspective of the Oval Office, proposed to do exactly what, 

as a congressman, he opposed.” 

The Ford proposal, Arnold said, “set off the predictable furor among highway builders and their 

allies in Congress.” But at the same time, “it fell short of the objective of veteran freeway fighters, 

who want to ‘bust the trust’—dismantle the Highway Trust Fund entirely.” He added that despite 

the devolution of funding and authority, the plan “doesn’t propose to de-emphasize highway 

construction nationally.” He explained: 

And even if Congress should endorse Ford’s plan in its present form, which is highly 

unlikely, officials estimate that by 1980 Federal transportation spending would break down 

about the same way it does now: Washington would spend $3 on highways for every $1 it 

spends on mass transit. 

The proposal “revived the New Federalism doctrine, which Richard Nixon enunciated and then 

abandoned under pressures of the Watergate scandal.” It also “marks a step backward from earlier 

efforts to graft an energy-conservation ethic onto Federal transportation policy,” as Arnold 

explained:

Instead of broadening the Highway Trust Fund to finance mass transit or reserving a share 

of its revenues for energy research, the plan continues the present pattern of spending under 

a different format. “They’re changing the signs on the door but the same things go on 

inside,” says one critic.

If conservationists are less than enamored of the proposal, so are highway champions. 

Predicting that Ford “would not get away with” the scheme, Rep. Robert E. Jones . . . 

defended the Highway Trust Fund as “the only program I know that’s pay-as-you-go.” 

[Arnold, Mark R, “Broken Trust?” National Observer, July 19, 1975] 

Conservative columnist and former Nixon speechwriter Patrick J. Buchanan wrote:

Of all the inventions that have liberated the working man from the drudgery of daily 

existence, none has done more than the automobile. It has taken him off crowded and dirty 

commuter buses, subways and streetcars. It has brought within reach the home and plot of 

ground in the suburbs his parents dreamed about. It has given his wife and teen-age children

freedom of movement to visit shops, markets, friends and social events dozens of miles 

away. It has provided access to national parks, monuments, playgrounds and beaches, 

formerly the preserves of the upper middle class and the rich . . . . 

Yet for 10 years, a political war has been mounted against the automobile. Private cars are 

regularly disparaged by the trendies in the media as inefficient wasters of raw materials. 

They are blamed for urban sprawl, congestion, pollution and the energy crisis . . . . The 
1268 

principal victims of this war against the automobile have been auto workers, unemployed by 

the tens of thousands, and the working poor, priced forever out of the new car market.

He explained:

Before Americans start nodding thoughtless agreement to attacks on the “highway lobby” 

they ought to know that the highway lobby wants them to ride in their own cars; while the 

“mass transit lobby” has in mind forcing them back onto the buses and subways from which 

they and their parents escaped years ago.

His point was: 

Why Gerald Ford, who is as middle American as a Dodge Charger, should have thrown in 

with the mass transit lobby, against the highway trust fund, is difficult to understand. 

Nevertheless, workers of the world unite. When those television commentators say, “We 

have to change our life styles,” what they mean is, “YOU have to change YOUR life styles.” 

Not in a million years will you find Cronkite, Sevareid, Chancellor or Brinkley riding 

across town on a city bus. [Buchanan, Patrick J., “‘Highway Lobby’ vs. ‘Mass Transit 

Lobby,’” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, August 9, 1975] 

Time magazine found the proposal deceptive. Its editorial began: 

Most experts agree that the U.S.’s transportation network is gravely out of balance—too 

much emphasis on highways and too little on railroads and mass transit. The main reason 

can be summed up in four words: the Highway Trust Fund. 

Describing the proposal as “this apparent trust-fund busting,” Time said “the President’s plan is far 

less innovative than it appears to be” and called it “a collection of politically attractive revisions 

that change almost nothing.” The Highway Trust Fund would continue to receive enough revenue 

from the remaining gas tax and other excise taxes “to continue to finance road building at close to 

its present massive scale.” Much of the money returned to the States “would still be used for 

highways,” since most State constitutions require highway user tax revenue to be used for 

highways: 

Indeed, Ford’s proposal would only free the states from complying with federal rules that 

force highway builders to design their roads to be safe and not harmful to the environment. 

Meanwhile, the remaining highway user tax revenue “has in effect already been committed to 

highways,” instead of mass transit, welfare, defense, “or anything else.” Mass transit would remain 

at a competitive disadvantage in seeking funds: 

“Sure, we need more mass transit,” sums up a transportation expert in Washington. “But we 

also need the highways, there is not enough money for both.” Whether Congress will agree 

remains to be seen. [“Not Busting the Trust,” Time, July 21, 1975] 
1269 

Newsweek was also skeptical, quoting “one Washington hand” as predicting the proposal would 

touch off “one of the biggest lobbying battles of this or any decade.” The magazine said the 

proposal was a break from the President’s views as a member of the House of Representatives:

Just two years ago, when Congress for the first time was about to divert money from the 

fund for mass transit, Ford stood in the well of the House and declared: “we ought not to 

break faith with the taxpayers in order to let this kind of diversion take place.” But now he 

was embarking on a program that one aide called “almost a radical restructuring of an 

American institution.”

Although “more than one lobbyist must have spilled his Martini when he heard of the President’s 

proposal,” Newsweek found a mixed reaction among the traditional highway supporters. Carlton 

Robinson of HUFSAM said, “If this passes, the [Interstate] system won’t be finished in this 

century.” Times, however, might be changing: 

Some members of the highway lobby may be less willing to go down the line for the “oldtime religion.” Some auto executives, for instance, are known to agree with Ford’s idea that 

the use of the trust fund should now be limited to completing and then maintaining only the 

intersate roads. And Big Oil may give this issue low priority because of other problems 

with Congress. 

Still, the odds seemed “heavily against Ford’s proposal.” The Public Works Committes were 

“loaded with road devotees who are jealous of their spending prerogatives.” The White House, 

however, was hopeful: 

White House aides are convinced nonetheless that the President has a chance, if not this 

year, then next. Win or lose, said one Administration aide, “it will be blood, sweat and tears 

all the way.” [“Taking on the ‘Road Gang,’” Newsweek, July 21, 1975] 

On Capitol Hill, Secretary Coleman received a skeptical reception during testimony as he tried to 

explain and justify the Administration’s proposal. Congressional Quarterly summarized the pro 

and con views in Congress on abolishing the Highway Trust Fund. Among those favoring abolition 

was Senator Kennedy, who had introduced legislation for that purpose. He said the Highway Trust 

Fund had “produced the best highways and the worst transportation in virtually the entire 

industrialized world.” He added, that “we have put blinders on our transportation planners” who 

know that “highways commanded the lion’s share of the federal transportation dollar so they 

planned for highways.” 

Leonard Arrow, who had replaced John Kramer at the Highway Action Coalition, said, “You can’t 

begin to have an integrated transportation system with all this segregated money hanging around.” 

Michael Finkelstein, chief of Highway and Mass Transit in the Secretary’s Office of Planning and 

Program Review, agreed, saying the country must get away from the “trust fund mentality.” He 

pointed out that, “We don’t designate cigarette taxes for [lung] cancer wars or alcohol taxes for 

federally subsidized bars.” 
1270 

Representative Shuster said, “We’re smoking opium if we think the fundamental people mover is 

going to be anything but the highways.” Given the unsafe condition of the Nation’s roads and 

bridges, “the inescapable fact is that the Highway Trust Fund is inadequate to provide for 

America’s highway needs.”

Ben M. Hogan of the AGC said, “The solution to the urban mobility problem will require more 

spending for highways, not less.” That was because in cities, “mass transit, with few exceptions, 

can only be rubber-tired.” 

The idea of general Treasury funding for non-Interstate highway projects concerned Representative 

Glenn Anderson. The multi-year nature of highway project development meant that if the highway 

program had to compete with all other needs every year, “I feel we would have a losing battle 

[because] the immediacy of other things, like schools, would shatter us.” [Congressional 

Quarterly, “Abolish Highway Trust Fund?” Madison (Wisconsin) State Journal, September 15, 

1975] 

One voice for change was former Secretary Boyd, now president of the Illinois Central Gulf 

Railroad. On August 14, he was in Osage, Iowa, for a ceremony marking reconstruction of the 

railroad’s line from Waterloo to the Minnesota State line. He said:

The idea of a designated highway trust fund is ridiculous. Those funds should be for general 

transportation. 

He urged the States, as well as the Federal Government, to open the trust funds to other uses: 

The biggest problem in settling up a state transportation department is the possibility of it 

being just another highway department and not devoted to general transportation needs. The 

best way to get around that problem is to open state highway trust funds so that the money 

can be used for other functions . . . . [W]hat is needed is for the states and federal 

governments [sic] to stop favoring one form of transportation—namely the highways—and 

begin treating all modes of transportation equally. [Piller, Dan, “Urges Open Highway Trust 

Funds,” Des Moines Register, August 15, 1975] 

On September 30, Representative Howard told the APTA meeting in New Orleans, that “Secretary 

Coleman should not play one side [of the mass transit issue] against the other.” He was referring to 

statements by Secretary Coleman that the proposal would benefit donor States that contributed 

more to the Highway Trust Fund than they received from it: 

I refuse to believe that Louisiana citizens don’t travel outside their state. That [1956] act 

served a specific purpose very well.

He speculated that President Ford’s real motive was to include highway user tax revenues in the 

capital budget. “That way he could use the money however he wanted. But it may not be for 

transportation.” 
1271 

Representative Howard hoped to avoid the “bi-annual fight” between highway and mass transit 

proponents, but to achieve that goal, a “broad view is needed by the administration.” [Bauerlein, 

Chuck, “Official in Favor of Highway Fund,” New Orleans States-Item,” October 1, 1975] 

When AASHTO met in St. Louis for its annual meeting, Secretary Coleman delivered the keynote 

address. He began by saying, “I am neither anti-highway nor anti-auto.” The automobile was “the 

most flexible and responsive mode and provides the greatest freedom of mobility.” The country 

must “preserve and maximize the motor vehicle’s unique contributions to our culture, lifestyle and 

economy.” Nevertheless, he was “deeply concerned that the value of the highway transportation 

system in our country is being diminished by markedly prejudicial circumstances,” which he 

explained:

The dream of “two cars in every garage” of 30 years ago has come to pass, and the problem 

is that the cars are not in the garage but on the highways. Our cities cannot contain them; 

our energy resources cannot forever support them; and our environment cannot tolerate 

them. 

That was, he said, a foundation of his national policy statement. Completion of the Interstate 

System was “a top priority, especially where connective intercity links are concerned.” However, 

he favored reexamining the merits of the Highway Trust Fund financing mechanism. “I am in favor 

of adequate funding authorizations for highway programs, but such funding should be consistent 

with other national transportation needs and priorities, and not determined on the basis of gasoline 

tax revenues.” He was hopeful that Congress would act favorably on one of the cornerstones for 

transportation improvements, “which is increased flexibility in planning and implementing local 

transportation concerns.” 

He did not want to leave AASHTO with the impression that he believed the last urban highway had 

been built. They were appropriate if they fit within a metropolitan transportation plan: 

New urban highways may be the best solution to a particular transportation need when they 

close a loop, complete a traffic pattern, or incorporate express lanes for high-occupancy 

vehicles.

But new urban highways, I caution, are inappropriate where they induce greater automobile 

commuter traffic, contribute to suburban sprawl, unnecessarily divert passengers from 

public transit, or violate environmental standards. Under these conditions, the highway is as 

unwelcome on the urban scene as it is essential to the rural resident or traveler.

In planning transportation networks, he told AASHTO: 

Our transportation policies must reflect the consciousness that we no longer have energy to 

burn—that fuel efficiency must enter into our transportation plans and programs along with 

environmental, economic and social considerations. There’s simply no way of doing 

highway business the “old way” any more. But there is still highway business to be done. 
1272 

And I am confident that the highways built or improved according to today’s higher 

standards and ideals will be the best highways we have yet produced. 

Elizabeth Parker summarized the fate of the Ford proposal: 

In addition to being ignored by Congress, the administration's proposal had little support at 

the state and local level because it would have required state and local officials in each state 

to support enacting taxes to substitute for federal taxes. Another significant reason the 

administration's proposal was such a colossal failure is that it offered no real improvements 

and because it asked state and local officials to assume responsibility for programs that 

would have cost more than the tax money they would get. It also suffered from the 

unfortunate name association with UTAP. [Parker, p. 59] 

On December 18, 1975, the House of Representatives approved the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1975 by voice vote. On a procedural vote to recommit the bill to the Committee on Public Works, 

the House rejected the motion by a vote of 410 to 7. The Senate approved its version of the 

legislation, 86 to 13, on December 12.

Conferees reconciled the House and Senate bills and issued a conference report on April 7, 1976. 

The House and Senate approved the conference report on the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1976 by 

voice votes on April 13. 

On May 5, 1976, President Ford appeared in the Rose Garden at 3 p.m. for the signing ceremony. 

In brief remarks, he said, “Many, many thousands of jobs will be directly as well as indirectly 

supported by the legislation, which will provide for key links in the Interstate Highway System, 

upgrade existing highways, and develop public transit facilities.” He conceded that “this act does 

not include everything that this administration proposed to the Congress,” but it was nevertheless 

“an important step toward meeting America’s transportation needs.” He singled out for praise the 

fact that the primary responsibility for selecting projects would “continue to rest with State and 

local authorities.”

Saying, “I am very pleased to sign this legislation,” he signed Public Law 94-280 surrounded by 

Secretary Coleman, Administrator Tiemann, and the Members of Congress who had largely ignored 

his July 1975 proposals for transforming the Highway Trust Fund. 

The new law retained the structure of the Federal-aid highway program, including the Federal-aid 

primary, secondary, and urban systems, and authorized funds for the program’s array of categories. 

It consolidated the primary system to incorporate its urban extensions rather than fund the 

extensions separately. It increased flexibility for transfer of funds among the consolidated primary. 

secondary, and urban systems. 

It extended the completion date for the Interstate System to 1990 and authorized $3.25 billion for 

Interstate construction for FYs 1978 and 1979 and $3.625 billion for each of FY’s 1980 through 

1990. At least 30 percent of the funds for FYs 1978 and 1979 were to be expended for construction 

of intercity portions (including beltways) to close essential gaps in the System. For the first time, 
1273 

the legislation authorized $175 million a year for FYs 1978 and 1979 “for projects for resurfacing, 

restoring, and rehabilitating portions of the Interstate System which have been in use for more than 

5 years and which are not toll roads.” Although maintenance of Federal-aid highways, including 

the Interstate System, had always been a State funding responsibility, declining State highway user 

revenue prompted Congress to take this step to protect the Federal taxpayers’ investment in the 

Interstate System.

The legislation modified how State and local officials could address controversial Interstate 

segments. It extended the Howard-Cramer transfer provision, which had been limited to segments 

approved “prior to the enactment of this program,” to any route on the Interstate System except 

routes built without Interstate construction funds but given an Interstate number. 

The 1976 Act increased the widths of buses allowed on the Interstate System from 96 inches to 102 

inches, but did not modify size and weight requirements for trucks. 

The legislation also:

• Repealed the Special Urban High Density Program but authorized funds to complete 

projects already approved. 

• Funded priority primary projects from the consolidated primary system funding. The 

Federal share could not exceed 70 percent. All Title 23 provisions applicable to Federal-aid 

primary projects applied to priority primary projects.

• Modified Certification Acceptance by deleting the the phrase “establishing requirements at 

least equivalent to those contained in, or issued pursuant to, this title” and substituting 

“which will accomplish the policies and objectives contained in or issued pursuant to this 

title.” It also reinstated the Secondary Road Plan.

• Modified the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act by expanding the carpool 

program to make it permanent and establish eligibility for van pools and the purchase of 

vehicles for them as well as carpooling opportunities for the elderly and handicapped. 

Funds could come from the Federal-aid primary and urban system apportionments. 

• Eliminated separate funding for landscaping and scenic enhancement, but allowed 

expenditures for this purpose from Federal-aid construction funding. 

• Increased funding for bicycle transportation and pedestrian walkways from $40 million to 

$45 million and the ceiling on expenditures for this purpose in any State from $2 million to 

$2.5 million. 

• Funded an Acceleration of Projects initiative “to demonstrate the feasibility of reducing the 

time required to complete a highway project in areas severely impacted as a result of recent 

or imminent change in population or traffic flow resulting from the construction of Federal 

projects.” (Representative Shuster included this language to cover the Everett Bypass 

project in his district. Secretary of Transportation Neil Goldschmidt transmitted the report 

to Congress on the Everett Bypass demonstration project on January 16, 1981. The lessons 

learned, such as concurrent review, would be the foundation for the 1983 FAST program to 

Facilitate Acceleration through Special Techniques.) 

• Expanded the railroad-relocation demonstration program to four additional central city areas 

(Metairie, Louisiana; Augusta, Georgia; Pine Bluff, Arkansas; and Sherman, Texas). 
1274 

• Authorized the Secretary to carry out a traffic control signalization demonstration project to 

“demonstrate increasing traffic capacity, conserving fuel, decreasing congestion, improving 

air and noise quality, with priority to projects providing corrdinated signalization.” 

• Authorized the use of Federal-aid highway funds for construction of access ramps from 

bridges to public boat launching areas adjacent to such bridges. 

• Authorized funds for an ongoing Automated Guideway Transit System at the Dallas/Ft. 

Worth Regional Airport. 

• Extended to Puerto Rico the provision making ferry boats that traverse international waters

eligible for Federal-aid highway funds. 

• Gave the Secretary of Transportation authority to cooperate with the Secretary of the Interior 

to study the most feasible Federal-aid routes to move motor vehicles to and around National 

Parks and thereby best serve the needs of the traveling public while taking into account the 

national policy of making a special effort to preserve the natural beauty of the areas being 

traversed.

• Directed the Secretary to submit a report to Congress on ways of funding completion of the 

Interstate System, including bonds, and another report on resurfacing, restoration, and 

rehabilitation (3R) of the Interstate System.

• Called for a study of the cost of repairing roads in Alaska damaged due to construction of 

the Alaska Pipeline.

• Established the National Transportation Policy Study Commission to study transportation 

problems and the resources necessary to ensure that adequate transportation systems are in 

place to meet the needs for safe and efficient movement of of goods and people. 

Safety programs included highway safety funds, rail-highway crossings, incentive safety grants for 

reduction in fatalities, school bus driver training, pavement marking, a National Highway Safety 

Advisory Committee, and an investigation into the relationship between the gross load on front 

steering axles of truck tractors and the safety of operators of vehicle combinations of which such 

truck tractors are a part.

(Although the Nixon and Ford proposals failed to make large amounts of Highway Trust Fund 

revenues available for mass transit, they reflected a continuing trend. The Surface Transportation 

Assistance Act of 1982 would enact a breakthrough. It authorized a 5-cent increase in the gas tax 

and directed that 1 cent of the increase go to a new Transit Account in the Highway Trust Fund. 

The 1982 Act also increased taxes on trucks. For a detailed account of how this legislation came 

about, see “Palace Coup: President Ronald Reagan and the Surface Transportation Assistance Act 

of 1982” at http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/reagan_staa.cfm.) 

Increasing the Gas Tax to Conserve Energy

Following the October 1973 oil boycott, Nixon Administration officials considered increasing the 

gas tax by as much as 50 cents to cut the public’s appetitive for energy consumption. The House 

Ways and Means Committee would have to approve any change in highway user taxes, whatever 

the reason. As The Wall Street Journal reported on December 7, 1973, Chairman Mills strongly 

opposed an increase, which he thought would be “disastrous.” He explained that, “For many 

working people, cars aren’t a luxury, and they couldn’t afford this no matter how it’s designed.” He 
1275 

was willing to consider a small increase, perhaps 4 cents, if the revenue went to energy research and 

development. 

At the same time, he was concerned that as the price of oil rose, the increase might result in 

exorbitant profits. He was willing to consider an excess-profits tax on oil and gas companies. He 

also favored requiring oil companies to use the money saved from tax write-offs, such as the oil 

depletion allowance, in new exploration. “The problem is to develop new supplies, and this would 

be one way to go about it.” He added, “we just can’t let profits become exorbitant.” 

The Journal’s editorial page agreed with the idea of doubling the gas tax to 8 cents, saying, “the 

higher rates being considered in the Nixon administration to discourage demand would be 

‘disastrous,’” as Mills had put it. The editorial continued: 

Doubling the excise tax would raise an additional $4 billion annually that he would earmark 

for energy research and development. The proposals kicking around in the administration 

range from a 10-cent-per-gallon increase up to a 50 cent boost, the latter figure offset by a 

cumbersome scheme to give every American over 16 so many coupons a week worth 50 

cents at the gas pump, or redeemable in cash at any bank.

Everyone, the editorial said, agreed on the need for research and development, including an effort to 

develop nuclear fusion (“the hope for the next century”) and coal liquefaction and gasification: 

Friday, the Senate unanimously passed Senator Jackson’s program to spend $20 billion over 

10 years. Mr. Nixon talks of a five-year program of $10 billion. It’s one thing to propose 

spending money, another to raise it. Raising the gasoline tax is at least one way to do it . . . . 

An eight-cent gasoline tax is not necessarily the magic figure, nor has Mr. Mills implied as 

much. But there are good uses that can be made of those revenues deriving from a tax at 

that rate beyond the R & D effort. 

Some of the new revenue could be returned to the States in the form of revenue sharing to offset tax 

losses that were devastating State budgets. “The mass-transit efforts at the federal level, just

beginning to take hold through the highway trust fund, could also be accelerated.” [“Mills Would 

Fight Big Gasoline-Tax Rise But Might Back Increase of 4 Cents a Gallon,” The Wall Street 

Journal, December 7, 1973; “Doubling the Gas Tax,” The Wall Street Journal, December 10, 1973] 

EPA Administrator Train agreed with the idea of using an excess profits tax on oil to expand mass 

transit. In an Atlantic City speech, he explained to the American Farm Bureau Federation that the 

Nation faced “a crisis of demand rather than supply.” He said, “we are doing almost nothing in 

either the public or the private sector to encourage the basic changes we must make to bring 

demand down to life-size levels.”

The most likely way “by far” to reduce demand was to invest revenue from an excess-profit tax in 

“the growth and development of genuine mass transit alternatives to the urban automobile.” Using 
1276 

the revenue exclusively for this purpose would offer the Nation “substantial returns in reduced 

energy demand.” 

The Nixon Administration appeared to be leaning toward the use of revenue for research and 

development. On the same day that Train addressed the federation, the Federal Energy Office said 

that “we would prefer” the revenue be used for Project Independence to make the United States 

self-sufficient ini energy. Train commented that “almost every day I read or hear about some 

marvelous new proposal for a Manhattan-type project that will assure us all an open sesame to 

endless supplies of cheap energy.” Instead of a project equivalent to the Manhattan Project, he said, 

he would be “a lot more impressed by a far more modest proposal” that would “enable us to get 

around Manhattan and our other metropolitan areas without wasting so much energy and time and 

land and air . . . .” 

He was concerned that the Federal emphasis appeared to be on finding more energy rather than on 

conservation: 

We need leadership with the courage to tell the American people the truth. The real cause 

of our energy problems is runaway and wasteful growth in demand: there is no quick fix to 

these problems; we will never resolve them without very real changes in our way of life. 

[Wilson, George C., “Oil Taxes Sought to Aid Transit,” The Washington Post, January 16, 

1974] 

In late January 1974, President Nixon took steps to address the energy crisis. On January 19, he 

delivered a radio address reporting on the progress made since, 10 weeks earlier, he had called on 

“all Americans to accept some sacrifices in comfort and convenience so that no American would 

have to suffer real hardship.” He said the individual actions of every American to conserve energy 

were an important factor in the success the Nation had achieved in facing the crisis thus far.

At the government level, he promised to do everything he could to reduce the price of foreign oil. 

“Scare stories that the American people will soon be paying a dollar for a gallon of gas are just as 

ridiculous as the stories that will say that we will be paying a dollar for a loaf of bread.” He urged 

Congress to act immediately on a windfall profits tax that would require windfall profits to be 

“turned over to the Government or be invested in the development of new supplies” of oil. He said 

that private profiteering must not be tolerated. 

If his Project Independence initiative were to succeed, the private sector would have to contribute 

revenue and initiative, but the Federal Government had a role to play as well. He would submit a 

legislative package of energy initiatives that he expected Congress to act on promptly. “If we are to 

be successful in dealing with our long-term energy needs, the Congress must play its part, and I 

believe that the Congress, after returning from their districts over the Christmas holidays, will agree 

that the people want them to play their part along with the Administration.”

On January 23, he sent a special message to Congress on the energy crisis. Although much 

progress had been made since the October boycott, he recommended additional actions, including a 

windfall profits tax consisting of “a tax of up to 85 percent on receipts from sales of crude oil above 
1277 

the ceiling set by the Cost of Living Council in December of 1973.” Among many other ideas, 

some pending, some new, President Nixon called for changes to the Clean Air Act “to provide 

greater flexibility in deadlines and other requirements.” He said, “I hope the Congress will move 

quickly to grant authority for temporary relaxation of requirements and freeze the standards for auto 

emissions—now applicable to 1975 model cars—for two additional years.” This action would 

allow the auto companies to focus on improving fuel economy. 

He also was concerned that “the reductions of nitrogen oxides from automobiles as required by the 

Clean Air Act are unnecessarily stringent and that technology to achieve the reductions is not yet 

practicable. EPA had already advised Congress that many metropolitan areas could not meet 

current air quality standards “without drastically curtailing the use of motor vehicles. For instance, 

these deadlines would require that motor vehicle usage in Los Angeles be reduced by as much as 87 

percent.” The impact of actions required by the Clean Air Act must be assessed “so that there will 

be a basis for sound decisions that provide an appropriate balance among our objectives for 

environmental quality, economic and social growth, energy supply and national security.” 

In addition to locating new sources of oil and increasing energy research and development, the 

President said, improved urban transportation must be part of the response to the crisis: 

It is widely recognized now that the development of better mass transit systems may be one 

of the key solutions to both our energy and environmental problems. My budget for fiscal 

year 1975 . . . gives priority to the improvement of urban transportation, especially transit 

bus fleets. In addition, I will soon propose legislation to increase the amount and flexibility 

of Federal transportation aid which is available to local communities.

He was referring to the UTAP proposal that Congress would ignore in developing the Federal-Aid 

Highway Amendments of 1974. 

On February 27, 1974, Congress completed work on the Energy Emergency Act, despite a promise 

from the President that he would veto it, as he did on March 6. He particularly objected to a 

rollback provision that would set the price of oil produced in the United States at $5.25 a barrel and 

establish a ceiling price of $7.09 per barrel unless the Administration could justify a higher price 

and a congressional review concurred. In his veto message, President Nixon said of the rollback 

provision that it would reduce oil company incentives to produce oil from new and future sources: 

It would result in reduced energy supplies, longer lines at the gas pump, minimal, if any, 

reduction in gasoline prices, and worst of all, serious damage to jobs in America. 

Unemployment would go up, and incomes would go down . . . . 

He objected to other features of the legislation, such as its “unworkable and inequitable program of 

unemployment payments” to those who lost their jobs for “energy related” reasons. 

He reiterated his earlier legislative proposals and pledged his Administration’s full cooperation “in 

the effort to provide energy legislation which is responsive to the problems we face and responsible 

in its impact on the economy and on the American people.” 
1278 

Within hours, the Senate attempted to override the veto, but secured only 58 votes to override, 8 

short of the two-thirds majority needed. The House, which could not override the veto on its own, 

did not need to vote. 

Although the end of the OPEC oil boycott would reduce pressure for drastic action, the idea of 

increasing the gas tax to encourage energy conservation remained alive. On October 8, 1974, 

President Ford delivered an address to a joint session of Congress on the economy. He would 

outline his recommendations, but he said, “There is only one point on which all advisers have 

agreed: We must stop inflation right now.” To achieve this goal, one area that must be addressed 

was the ongoing energy problem. He announced that he would reorganize Federal efforts by 

establishing an Energy Resources Council with Secretary of the Interior Morton taking the lead “to 

reduce imports of foreign oil by 1 million barrels per day by the end of 1975, whether by savings 

here at home, or by increasing our own sources.” 

He called for measures to increase the energy supply, including changes in the Clean Air Act, and 

said, “I will meet with top management of the automobile industry to assure, either by agreement or 

by law, a firm program aimed at achieving a 40 percent increase in gasoline mileage within a 4-year 

development deadline.” He added that if these measures failed, “I will not hesitate to ask for 

tougher measures,” but he did not specify what they might be. He supported a tax reform measure 

before the House Ways and Means Committee to reduce taxes on hard-hit low and middle income 

Americans, with compensating new revenues, including a windfall profits tax on oil producers, to 

avoid adding to the deficit. 

During a press conference the next day, President Ford answered a question about a gas tax hike:

Q. Mr. President, some people think—a great many people, in fact—think that your 

proposals were not tough enough, or at least tough on the wrong people. In view of your 

somewhat apocalyptic vision of what will happen to this country if we don't lick inflation, 

why didn't you propose mandatory gasoline taxes or gasoline rationing in order to conserve 

fuel, for example? 

THE PRESIDENT. We believe that the surtax charges that we have recommended are a 

more equitable approach to the achievement of greater income so we could give some relief 

to the less well-off, the people who are suffering greater hardship. 

We took a look at the gasoline tax recommendations, and we found that this might be 

harmful to people, and it would be more harmful to the people less able to pay. And in 

balancing out all of the tax proposals, we came to the conclusion that what we have 

recommended, which affects only 28 percent of the personal income tax payers in this 

country, was the appropriate way to raise the revenue and dampen inflation. 

He also rejected gasoline rationing to conserve fuel, saying, “We believe that the American people 

will respond to our volunteer program.” If the American people responded as he thought they 

would, “I don’t think we have to put a tax on gasoline users to achieve our objective.” 
1279 

On October 16, while in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, campaigning for Republican candidates in the 

upcoming mid-term election, President Ford again addressed the issue of a gas tax hike for 

conservation, saying: 

And let me add one other thing while I am talking about fuel. Prior to my speech a week 

ago, everybody else but myself was telling the American people what I was going to say 

about gasoline taxes. Well, I have now said or given my own views, but I want to reiterate 

it right here to you in South Dakota: I am vigously opposed to any additional Federal tax on 

gasoline, and I will fight it as hard as I possibly can. 

We want to keep this country rolling, not parked on a dead-end street.

Let me add one special concern that I had for the people of South Dakota when this issue 

was presented to me and I rejected it. I thought of the people of South Dakota and other 

States who have to travel not a couple of miles but many miles to go to the doctor or to the 

hospital. I thought about the people in South Dakota who have to go from their farms or 

their ranch to the implement dealer or to the community where they trade. 

A gasoline tax would unfairly, in my judgment, penalize those people. And for that reason, 

among many others, I rejected it. And we are not going to have it as long as I am in the 

White House.

Although the Ford Administration was relying on voluntary measures to reduce energy 

consumption, Secretary Brinegar, Secretary Morton, and other government officials met with Big 

Four auto company executives at the White House on October 29. After the 1-hour meeting, 

Secretary Brinegar said he had told the executives that President Ford was “dead serious” about a 

40-percent average increase in fuel efficiency by 1980. He hoped to achieve that goal by the 

industry’s “voluntary, cooperative response,” but Secretary Brinegar intended to seek a commitment 

from industry leaders. 

The auto executives were noncommital during the meeting, but Thomas A. Murphy, General 

Motors’ vice chairman, told reporters he expected resistance from the industry unless the 

government offered some trade-offs, such as a pause in safety and anti-pollution regulations and a 

review of the cost-benefit of meeting standards in both areas. [Kenworthy, E. W., “Auto Men Hear 

U.S. Plea on 40% Gas Mileage Rise,” The New York Times, October 30, 1974] 

In an address to the National Highway Users Federation in Chicago the following day, Secretary 

Brinegar said the energy crisis was “potentially the most serious threat to our way of life since Pearl 

Harbor.” It was a “ticking time bomb” and “we must stop ignoring it, stop hoping that it will go 

away, and get on with solving it.” Despite voluntary efforts following the long gas lines at the 

height of the crisis, “we seem to be settling back into the old energy spendthrift ways.” 

To reduce dependence on foreign oil, the transportation sector must do its part:
1280 

Since the nation’s transportation system uses nearly 60 per cent of all liquid oil consumed in 

the United States, meeting that challenge clearly is going to require some changes in our 

travel and shipping habits. 

Among the immediate steps was to encourage drivers to cut total driving by 10 percent, encourage 

carpooling, and enforce the 55 m.p.h. speed limit. 

On November 1, Rand Corporation researchers announced that short of rationing supply, the only 

way to significantly reduce gasoline consumption was to increase fuel prices through higher taxes. 

Research and development might pay off in a decade or more, but the impact of an increase in fuel 

taxes would be immediate. Sorrel Wildhorn, senior Rand researcher, said, “if we are to save 

gasoline from here on out, what seems to make the most sense is a combination of short and longterm policies.” In the short term, a 15-cent gas tax increase would reduce gasoline use by 16 

percent or 700,000 barrels of oil daily. A 30-cent increase would result in a 34-percent saving 

(1,260,000 barrels), while a 45-cent increase would result in a 40-percent saving (1,750,000 

barrels). While conceding that the impact would be greatest on lower income motorists, the 

researchers said the tax could be decreased as longer term measures became effective. [Fisher, 

Dan, “Rand Study Urges Gasoline Tax Hike to Cut Consumption,” The Los Angeles Times, 

November 1, 1974] 

Secretary Morton briefly reopened the idea of a gas tax increase on November 13 by telling 

reporters that a hefty increase was again under consideration within the Ford Administration. “It’s 

on my burner.” Voluntary fuel conservation may prove to be a “Mexican standoff” because “there 

are 300,000 filling stations operating out there working against it.” A 4-cent gas tax increase was 

among the options being considered for short-term relief. Reminded of the President’s remarks in 

Sious Falls, Secretary Morton said, “I don’t feel the President has foreclosed any” options. 

A report on the breakfast meeting with Secretary Morton in The Wall Street Journal said of the “onagain, off-again idea” that:

The gasoline-tax boost idea was forcefully pushed by [Federal Energy Administration] 

Administrator John Sawhill right before the elections, and is believed to have been a big 

factor in his forced resignation. Indications are that the gasoline-tax boost was dropped last 

month for political reasons only after many Republican congressional candidates 

complained to the White House that the proposal would hurt their campaigns. 

Secretary Morton said that officials had not settled on an amount of tax increase, but said that if an 

increase significantly reduced oil consumption, it could “break the cartel price” of oil. “That’s what 

this is all about.” Officials had not decided what they might do with the added revenue, although 

they had considered recycling the revenue back into the economy by a rebate.

By day’s end, the White House reminded the press that President Ford was opposed to a gas tax 

hike. Press secretary Nessen said, “This is the position now” and indicated that Secretary Morton 

was considering a “number of options.” Reporters speculated that this meant the President might 

change his mind. Asked about the White House statement, Secretary Morton’s spokesman said that 
1281 

the Secretary was not endorsing a gas tax hike, but felt he must study all options. [“Morton Revives 

Idea of Gasoline-Tax Rise as a Possible Way to Cut Energy Use,” The Wall Street Journal, 

November 14, 1974] 

 (John C. Sawhill departed as Federal Energy Administrator on October 29, 1974. A Times account 

of the forced resignation said that he had “overreached himself.” It explained, “He tried to send too 

many memorandums directly to Presidents Nixon and Ford, according to a Sawhill associate, failing

to appreciate that most of them would be diverted to [Treasury Secretary William E.] Simon’s inbasket because Mr. Simon was chairman of the inter-agency energy committee (until Mr. Morton 

became ‘boss.’)” 

(He had lost Simon’s confidence and alienated other Administration officials by his outspoken 

views and advocacy of views that were not part of Administration policy. Recently, “Sawhill has 

emerged as an ardent advocate of energy conservation, as a way to diminish this country’s need for 

imported oil.” Although conservation was an element of Project Independence, Sawhill had made 

one last blunder. “Mr. Sawhill recommended on national television specific measures—an 

increased tax on gasoline, perhaps a general surtax on excessive energy use—only days before a 

major Presidential economic message.” Soon thereafter, in a White House meeting on October 25, 

President Ford requested Sawhill’s resignation so he could appoint Secretary Morton as the new 

“energy czar” in a shakeup of the energy team. Where “Sawhill was not a good soldier,” according 

to a Morton associate, the Interior Secretary was “a professional politician” who “often seemed 

primarily concerned with the politics of the situation.” [Cowan, Edward, “Energy-Policy Search: 

Sawhill vs. Morton,” The New York Times, October 31, 1974]) 

In case Secretary Morton was in any doubt, the President reiterated his position the day after the 

Secretary’s remarks. During a news conference in Phoenix at the annual convention of the Society 

of Professional Journalists, Jules Witcover of The Washington Post raised the subject:

Q. Mr. President, Secretary of Interior Morton told reporters yesterday he is still interested 

in the possibility of a new gasoline tax as a weapon to fight the energy crisis and inflation. 

Your Press Secretary on your behalf has repeatedly said that you are not considering it. Can 

you clear up exactly what the Administration’s position is on a new gas tax? 

A. I certainly will, Jules. I don’t know how many times I have to say that we are not 

considering an additional gasoline tax. I said it the first time, I think out in Sioux City 

[Falls], South Dakota, and I repeated it many times thereafter. I thought that others in the 

executive branch got the word, and I hope this word is conveyed to my good friend, the 

Secretary of the Interior. [Laughter] We are not considering an increase in the gasoline tax.

Secretary Morton ordered energy officials to stop considering the idea. 

Testifying before a House Interior subcommittee on November 21, Secretary Morton said that while 

a tax hike was out, he was still considering the idea of a tax on crude oil that might have the same 

effect of reducing consumption. Also under study were gasoline rationing and an embargo on oil 

imports if voluntary conservation “doesn’t prove adequate to reduce demand.” A Ford 

Administration energy official, speaking anonymously, told reporters, “The President ruled out a 
1282 

gasoline tax increase but he didn’t say anything about a tax on crude oil.” The immediate concern 

was the impact of a fuel hike, whatever the source, on the weakened economy. Nevertheless, 

Secretary Morton told the subcommittee, “I feel strongly we are going to have to impose a new 

ethic on conservation of energy in this country.” [“Tax on Crude Oil Possible Option to Cut Use of 

Fuel, Interior Secretary Says,” The Wall Street Journal, November 22, 1974] 

Despite President Ford’s repeated rejection of a gas tax hike, the idea remained alive. On 

November 22, Henry Ford II endorsed a 10-cent gas tax increase. The increase “should at least be 

considered, mainly as a means of giving the Federal Government the revenues it needs to provide 

the various forms of assistance to the people most directly affected in this deepening economic 

slump.” The auto industry, he acknowledged, would suffer a drop in sales, which already were in a 

slump. Nevertheless, the idea deserved consideration, he said, adding that “the fact is that we will 

never get a full-fledged recovery in the auto industry if we don’t give the nation some elbow room 

in its effort to fight its way out of a recession.” 

He recognized that, “Many people in our industry, including some at Ford Motor Company, don’t 

share my views on this matter.” Richard C. Gerstenberg, outgoing chairman of the General Motors 

Corporation, said a gas tax hike was a “terrible” idea, with the impact falling on the people who 

could least afford it. A spokesman for the Chrysler Corporation said a gas tax hike would not be in 

the “best interests” of the country. [Salpukas, Agis, “Henry Ford Urges a 10-Cent Increase in Tax 

on Gasoline,” The New York Times, November 23, 1974] 

Gerstenberg’s successor, Thomas A. Murphy, reversed the company’s position, saying he would 

support higher gas taxes if they were necessary to reduce dependence on petroleum imports. “If in 

the judgment of the [Ford] Administration it looks like a gasoline tax is necessary, I think we ought 

to consider it.” Reporter Robert Lindsey said, “Mr. Murphy’s endorsement of the idea appeared to 

be reluctant. He said it should be done only ‘if it’s necessary.’” [Lindsey, Robert, “G.M. Would 

Back Gasoline Tax Rise,” The New York Times, December 3, 1974] 

On December 13, Senator Edward M. Brooke (R-Ma.), the first African-American popularly elected

to the Senate, introduced two bills: 

S. 4234 – A bill to increase the Federal excise tax on gasoline, to terminate the Highway 

Trust Fund, and to provide a refundable tax credit with respect to the increased tax paid on 

no more than 700 gallons of gasoline purchased each year. 

S. 4235 – A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 to provide for a tax on every 

new automobile with respect to its weight, and for other purposes. 

Senator Brooke explained that the oil embargo 1 year earlier “underscored the urgent need for this 

country to develop a national energy policy.” Despite a great deal of talk about energy policy, “the 

Nation drifts toward economic and energy chaos.” He offered his bills “with no joy” because “they 

entail hardship, sacrifice, and dislocation.” But he saw no alternative “to this kind of tough, 

mandatory action.” His bills offered “the most sensible, equitable approach to curing our paralysis 

and forging a rational energy policy. 
1283 

A key element was to curb auto use: 

We are hooked on the automobile and the habit spreads despite the many problems it now 

presents to our society. It is nearly impossible to overstate America’s love affair with the 

automobile . . . . But it may just be that the luxuries offered by the private automobile are 

something we can no longer afford. 

Given the automobile’s many deficiencies, the “time has come to face the music,” beginning with 

the gas tax, which S. 4234 would raise by 20 cents. The revenue would go into the general 

Treasury and “could then be put toward the task of providing for those most burdened by our 

current economic woes. The increased tax would curb driving, reduce oil demand by a million 

barrels a day, and improve the country’s balance-of-payments picture by as much as $3.6 billion a 

year. “In addition to these crucial energy and economic benefits, there will be attendant 

environmental and social benefits of less automobile driving.” These additional benefits included 

fewer deaths and fatalities on the roads and reduced emissions. 

Although objections could be raised to his proposal, Senator Brooke said, the lack of alternatives to 

reduce oil dependency made his plan fair and equitable. Rationing, which was often offered as a 

solution, would be difficult to administer, was susceptible to political pressures, had regressive 

tendencies, and would cut into travel by low income citizens and those with large cars—“and this 

without any of the attendant economic benefits supplied by the gas tax.” It was “a short-term 

solution to what is definitely a long-term problem.” 

His plan began by ending the Highway Trust Fund: 

Not only is this desirable from a procedural standpoint since all revenues generated by 

gasoline taxes must now go directly into the fund; but, from the even more important 

standpoint of social policy, the proliferation of highway construction is contrary to the needs 

manifested by our energy problems. Highway construction is simply no longer a high 

priority item for this country. If future moneys are needed for highway construction—and I 

assume they will be—then I say let the case be made before the Public Works and 

Appropriations Committees and let them compete actively with other social programs such 

as health care, defense, education, veterans’ benefits and mass transit, to name a few.

His “progressively stringent tax on automobile weight” was needed to “ensure that a growing trend 

toward producing smaller cars becomes the norm among all auto manufacturers.” 

He recognized that rhetoric was “a politician’s stock-in-trade,” adding: 

But no amount of rhetoric can bring home the need for tough, mandatory energy 

conservation steps. 

Congress, “paralyzed by opinion polls, steadfastly refuses to act.” He knew his bills would not be 

popular. This legislation “will jar; it will jolt; it will inconvenience.” If anyone else had a better 

idea, “let them come forth.” He concluded:
1284 

Let them put their proposals before the people and let us debate them on their merits. This 

is our responsibility. We must insure that our citizenry understands fully the seriousness of 

our energy crisis and what can be done about it. Only then can they make the informed 

decisions that are so desperately needed. [“Statement on Introduced Bills and Joint 

Resolutions,” Congressional Record-Senate, December 13, 1974, p. 39709-39712] 

(Both bills were referred to the Committee on Finance. Neither bill progressed out of committee. 

Senator Brooke, who had first won election to the Senate in 1966, was defeated for reelection in 

1978 by Democrat Paul Tsongas for reasons unrelated to his stance on the Highway Trust Fund.) 

As 1974 ended, Washington Post columnist Hobart Rowen looked back on the energy crisis debate:

One way or another, the average American’s love affair with his car is going to go through a 

crisis in 1975. By raising the price of gasoline through direct or indirect taxes, or by an 

allocation or a rationing system of some sort, the government is likely to make an effort to 

reduce the amount of gasoline available for business and pleasure driving. 

He said that Ford Administration officials “privately confess what they should have known in the 

first place,” namely that voluntary measures were not going to be sufficient. A strong conservation 

program would be needed:

In a thoughtful speech, Sen. Edward M. Brooke (R-Mass.) recently proposed a 20-cent 

federal tax on gasoline, along with a graduated tax on auto weight, a plan for gas tax refunds 

to those making less than $15,000 a year, so as to make the system less burdensome, and an 

end to the Highway Trust Fund. 

The Joint Economic Committee of Congress, after debating the merits of a rationing system 

versus a gas tax, leaned toward a 30-cent tax, which would push the price up to 85-90 cents 

a gallon, also with a rebate plan for the money so collected.

Given President Ford’s clear rejection of a gas tax increase, “his energy advisers have concocted an 

alternate plan that would raise the price of all petroleum products indirectly by imposing a tariff of 

from $1 to $3 a barrel on imports.” This plan would impose a great burden on the Northeast, which 

needed fuel for heating. Moreover, Secretary of the Treasury Simon “who shudders at the thought 

of a coupon rationing system” had suggested a mandatory allocation system, possibly coupled with 

import quotas: 

Simon is still pushing for a gasoline tax increase and, within the private councils of 

government, it also has the backing of Economic Council Chairman Alan Greenspan and 

Interior Secretary Rogers Morton.

The advantage of a gas tax increase was clear:

Under a gas tax increase plan, those who consciously cut their driving below the national 

average would be money ahead. There would be the incentive to drive less for pocketbook 
1285 

as well as patriotic reasons. Essentially, the formula is similar to one that helped get former 

energy czar John Sawhill fired from his job a few weeks ago. 

The disadvantages also were clear:

First of all, no one really knows how effective a higher price would be in cutting 

consumption. Even 85 or 90 cents a gallon is far below the gas price commonly paid in 

Europe. Pleasure driving hasn’t been inhibited by gasoline prices of $1.35 a gallon in 

London and $1.50 in Paris. 

But what is certain is that the tax would raise the cost of living, and put most of the burden 

on those who need their cars for work—doctors, traveling salesmen, commuters without 

mass transit alternatives. It would be a hardship for truckers and bus companies. And if the 

tax is coupled with a rebate plan, many who don’t drive much (and therefore contribute little 

to conservation) would get a windfall tax bonus. 

Still, “Vice President Nelson Rockefeller wisely put the No. 1 tag on the problem.” The 

“desperate” situation called for “bold measures.” As a result, “if there were no other way to cut 

gasoline consumption, a new tax would have to be seriously considered even though it would 

exacerbate the recessionary trend in the automobile industry.” [Rowen, Hobart, “Driving Toward a 

Crisis,” The Washington Post, December 29, 1974] 

A New Direction

In January 1975, President Ford launched initiatives to address economic and energy problems. On 

January 13, he addressed the Nation on his plans. “We must turn America in a new direction,” he 

said, and “reverse the current recession, reduce unemployment, and create more jobs.” What was 

needed was “a simultaneous three-front campaign against recession, inflation, and energy 

dependence.” The campaign must include “within 90 days, the strongest and most far-reaching 

energy conservation program we have ever had.” The price of gasoline and oil might increase, but 

his program would “discourage the unnecessary use of petroleum products, and it will encourage 

the development and substitution of other fuels and newer sources of energy.”

He would begin by using his emergency powers to increase “import fees on each barrel of foreign 

crude oil by $1 to $3 over the next 3 months.” Beyond that, he would call on Congress to enact 

energy conservation taxes on “oil and natural gas to reduce consumption substantially.” The 

revenue would be “returned to the economy.” The plan would prevent windfall profits by producers 

while calling on voluntary efforts to cut gasoline and other energy use. He would use his authority 

to allocate fuel resources to areas such as New England that had unique needs during part of the 

year:

My national energy conservation plan will urge Congress to grant a 5-year delay on highway 

automobile pollution standards in order to achieve a 40-percent improvement in miles per 

gallon . . . . 
1286 

If Congress speedily enacts this national energy program, there will be no need for 

compulsory rationing or long waiting lines at the service station. Yes, gasoline prices will 

go up, thought not as much as will a 20-cent-a-gallon tax. Furthermore, the burden of the 

conservation taxes on oil will be shared by all petroleum users, not just motorists. 

The President summarized his energy proposals during his State of the Union Address on January 

15. “I am recommending a plan to make us invulnerable to cutoffs of foreign oil. It will require 

sacrifices, but it—and this is most important—it will work.” He called for legislation to allow 

commercial production at the Naval Petroleum Reserve, to encourage powerplants to use coal 

instead of oil, and to increase import fees and enact a natural gas excise tax and a windfall profits 

tax. He also wanted to increase oil exploration, including “on those frontier areas of the Outer 

Continental Shelf where the environmental risks are acceptable,” and increased use of “our most 

abundant domestic resource—coal.” The latter would require changes in the Clean Air Act to 

“strike a reasonable compromise on environmental concerns with coal.” Further, he planned to 

submit legislation to “energize our nuclear power program.” 

He added:

I want you to know that before deciding on my energy conservation program, I considered 

rationing and higher gasoline taxes as alternatives. In my judgment, neither would achieve 

the desired results and bother would produce unacceptable inequities. 

He submitted the Administration’s Energy Independence Act of 1975 on January 30. The program 

was designed to increase domestic energy resources while discouraging reliance on oil imports. 

The tax measures reflected his recent announcements, with revenue returned to the economy “to 

offset higher energy costs, particularly for low and middle income citizens, and to help restore jobs 

and production.” His message to Congress concluded: 

I cannot stress too much the sense of urgency I feel about these proposals and the need for 

their swift consideration by the Congress as a basis for the earliest possible enactment into 

law. Without these measures, we face a future of shortages and dependency which the 

Nation cannot tolerate and the American people will not accept.

By then, leaders of the Democratic controlled Congress had made clear they had their own ideas. 

Senator Jackson, chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, disagreed with the 

proposed levies on imported and domestic oil. They would, he said, boost energy bills for 

consumers by $52 billion a year, thus “taking away more than they’re giving. It’s merely 

rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” The House Ways and Means Committee had a new 

chairman, Representative Al Ullman (D-Or.) a businessman from Baker who won his first election 

to the House in November 1956. He said he did not “differ too much with the overall size of the 

President’s program, but I do differ strongly with many of the components.” [Hunt, Albert R., and 

Large, Arlen J., “Congress Likely to Pursue Its Own Plans on Taxes and Energy Instead of Ford’s,” 

The Wall Street Journal, January 15, 1975] 
1287 

(Representative Mills, who had been in the House since 1939 and became chairman of the Ways 

and Means Committee in 1958, had stepped down as chairman on December 10, 1974, after a series 

of drunken incidents involving an Argentine stripper known as Fanne Foxe.) 

Chairman Ullman followed through by announcing on February 25 that his comprehensive energy 

bill would include deregulation of oil and natural gas, an excess profits tax, and an increase in the 

gasoline tax as high as 40 to 50 cents a gallon. The plan involved a 10-cent a year increase each 

year for 4 or 5 years, and a coupon system to allot each vehicle a basic amount of gasoline per week 

at lower prices. The revenue would go into an Energy Trust Fund for developing domestic energy 

sources. An oil import quota would be imposed as the economy permitted and gas and oil would be 

deregulated. [Rowe, James L., Jr., “40-50-Cent Gas Tax Sought by Hill Unit.” The Washington 

Post, February 26, 1975] 

Vice President Rockefeller was in Detroit on February 26 to reinforce the President’s position. 

Addressing 2,700 members of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Cobo Hall, the new Vice 

President, making only his fourth speech since taking office, said the energy problem would not be 

solved by a “downgrade” of the auto industry, but by adapting the automobile to the “new energy 

realities.” He assured the engineers that the coming years would a “golden age” for them as they 

found ways to improve gas mileage, reduce emissions, and develop alternative energy sources. 

He urged Congress to act on President Ford’s economic and energy proposals, which he said were 

“a Swiss watch” with interrelated parts. “This country doesn’t have too much time to waste. So 

we’ve got to get going.” 

In an impromptu news conference at the Detroit airport, the Vice President acknowledged that the 

city’s unemployment rate of 14.2 percent was one of the Nation’s highest (the national average was 

3.2 percent). About 263,000 of the industry’s 700,000 auto workers had been laid off. The 

President and he were “deeply concerned about the unemployment situation here.” Reversing the 

trend was “the first and most important thing on the President’s mind.” Asked when Detroit could 

expect improvement, he replied, “When the people start buying cars again.” [Madden, Richard L., 

“Rockefeller Poses Energy Solutions,” The New York Times, February 27, 1975] 

House and Senate leaders on the energy issue differed on the value of a gas tax increase: 

The Senate group leaned toward a gasoline tax increase of no more than five cents, 

earmarked for conservation and energy research. The House panel favored a gasoline tax 

increase of 16 cents by 1977 aimed at discouraging consumption. 

Senator Magnuson, who chaired the Commerce Committee, said, “I don’t know why everybody 

suddenly seized upon an increase in the gas price to solve our energy problem.” Representative 

Wright, who headed the House energy group, favored an 8-cent increase in the gas tax, with 

additional 4-cent increases in 1976 and 1977. [United Press International, “Democrats in House 

and Senate are Divided Over Energy Plans,” The New York Times, February 27, 1975] 
1288 

The President noted the differences when asked about energy issues at his February 27 news 

conference. “I wish there was a single plan proposed by the majority party in the Congress.” He 

called on the Democrats to develop a single plan. “And then we can sit down and hopefully 

negotiate.” 

The following day, House and Senate Democrats, in separate caucus meetings, agreed on a 3-page 

plan titled The Economy and Energy, a Congressional Program of Action that included an increase 

of 5 cents a gallon in the excise tax on gasoline, excise taxes on high gas mileage new vehicles and 

rebates for new vehicles with lower fuel consumption, mandatory mileage performance standards, 

and the withholding of Federal-aid highway funds from States that did not enforce the 55 m.ph. 

Edward Cowan of the Times said:

It was plain that the Democrats regarded the package, expressed for the most part in general 

statements of principle, as a starting point for negotiations with the White House rather than 

as a definitive legislative program . . . .

If these and other fuel conservation measures do not bring about a sufficient drop in imports, 

the Democratic statement said, “stand-by authority should be invoked to require Sunday 

closings” of service stations and the curtailment of deliveries, and import “quotas” should 

be imposed. But these measures, like rationing found little favor with most Democrats. 

Regarding the gas tax hike, Cowan reported: 

The range of feelings about increasing the gasoline tax was reflected in the senators’ 

comments. Mr. Jackson, who has been portrayed by aides as deeply opposed to any rise in 

the present levy of 4 cents a gallon, said he could vote for an increase only if Congress 

prevented price increases by defeating Mr. Ford’s import fee and proposed decontrol of 

crude oil prices.

Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr. of Louisiana said, after leaving the caucus, “I would like to 

see a couple of cents a gallon less this year.” [Cowan, Edward, “Democrats Fashion an 

Energy Package,” The New York Times, February 28, 1975] 

When Chairman Ullman unveiled the tax portion of the plan, he had modified it to provide a better 

basis for negotiation with the White House. The plan included a gradual tax increase on “excess” 

use of gasoline defined as over nine gallons a week per motorist. The tax would start at 5 cents a 

gallon and increase to 40 cents by 1979. The bill also included a gradual increase in the import 

quota, a windfall profits tax, and creation of a Federal petroleum purchasing agency to deal directly 

with OPEC and other foreign oil producers. [Shabecoff, Philip, “Democrats Offer New Energy 

Plan; Ford May Accept,” The New York Times, March 3, 1975] 

Appearing before the House Ways and Means Committee’s new Subcommittee on Energy and 

Power on March 3, Administration officials indicated willingness to consider the new plan, 

including the gas tax hike. Secretary Simon said the committee’ proposal was “a sound basis for 

discussion” and one he preferred over the earlier joint Democratic plan. The proposed increase in 
1289 

the gas tax, he said, “takes the market approach” toward conservation. [Cowan, Edward, “House 

Democrats Seek Broad Plan for Energy Use,” The New York Times, March 4, 1975] 

Despite Chairman Ullman’s confidence in his plan and the Administration’s willingness to consider 

it, opposition to the gas tax increase was evident. On March 14, five freshman Democrats 

announced they had sent a letter to the chairman, signed by more than 100 Representatives, 

opposing any increase in the gas tax. Their letter favored a government-ordered reduction in 

gasoline supplies of 5 to 8 percent. One of the five, Representative Anthony J. Moffet (D-Ct.), said 

that increasing the tax to discourage consumption was typical of “the oil-company thinking that 

permeates the thinking of this government.” Representative Andrew Maguire (D-NJ) added, 

“Congress has been wrapped around the finger of the oil companies and utilities industry for some 

time.” 

Chairman Ullman responded to reporters that, “There’s too many people trying to find easy 

answers. We have to face the hard alternatives. If we go to allocation, it will just be a matter of 

time before we go to rationing.” [Cowan, Edward, “New Gasoline Tax is Opposed by 102,” The 

New York Times, March 15, 1975] 

He introduced his comprehensive bill on March 17. It included a gradual excise tax increase of 37 

cents a gallon by 1980, with cash rebates to all residents of the United States, 18 or older, based on 

nine gallons a week. Excise taxes would be imposed on new cars if they fell below a gradually 

rising standard of mileage per gallon. It also would impose light taxes on industrial use of 

petroleum products and natural gas. 

Later that day, on Air Force One as the President headed to South Bend, Indiana, his chief energy 

spokesman, Frank G. Zarb, told reporters that the Administration and the Ways and Means 

Committee had achieved “60 per cent agreement” on a compromise program to discourage energy 

consumption and reduce oil imports. The President, Zarb said, had abandoned the goal of cutting 

oil imports by 1 million barrels in 1975, but now favored a cut of 2 million in 1977. Zarb 

emphasized that the compromise agreement with the committee did not include the gasoline tax 

proposals, which were already facing stiff Democratic resistance. This position was reflected in 

Secretary Simon’s testimony before the Ways and Means Committee earlier in the day. He 

reiterated President Ford’s view that taxing all petroleum products would be better than taxing just 

gasoline. [Cowan, Edward, “Ullman Would Tax Gasoline 37c More,” The New York Times, March 

18, 1975] 

During a news conference at University of Notre Dame, that evening, President Ford was asked if 

he was softening his opposition to a gasoline tax increase. He replied:

I couldn’t help but notice that over the weekend 102 Democrats joined in a statement in the 

House of Representatives condemning a gasoline tax. I think a gasoline tax of the 

magnitude that several have proposed is not the right approach and I don’t think the 

Congress will approve it . . . . 
1290 

I have grave doubts that the Congress would pass a gasoline tax, and certainly my feeling in 

that regard was reaffirmed by 102 Democrats putting their name on the line, saying they 

wouldn’t vote for one. And I think there’s a better way to do it and we’re going to work 

with the Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means hoping to find an answer that is 

more like the approach that I have recommended. 

Asked if he might consider a lower increase, say 20 cents, President Ford said:

I read a news report a few minutes ago which said that the bill that he [Chairman Ullman] 

had introduced included a gas tax up to 37 cents over a three or four-year span. I don’t think 

that’s the right approach, and I don’t think it’s feasible in trying to get the Congress to act. 

Therefore I go back to a program that we proposed, which I think will be the answer, which 

I think the Congress eventually will buy substantially. 

By early April, the Democrats had modified the plan after difficult negotiations with the 

Administration. Democrats rejected the President’s plan, saying it was “an obstacle to economic 

recovery and, as such, it is self-defeating.” The new plan included a 5-year phasing in of a gasoline 

tax increase to fund energy projects, discourage consumption, and finance mass transit. [Associated 

Press, “Democrats Offer New Energy Plan,” The New York Times, April 6, 1975] 

On April 18, the House Ways and Means Committee voted 11 to 5 to add 3 cents to the gas tax in 

January 1976 with an additional 20 cents possible in 1977 or later. The 3-cent increase would not 

be subject to rebate, but any increase above that amount would include a refund formula to ease the 

impact on motorists. In the absence of a quorum, the vote was unofficial, but members thought the 

tax might be acceptable to President Ford if coupled with other measures he supported, such as 

taxes on industrial use of oil and natural gas and continuation of the import fee of $1 a barrel on 

crude oil. [“House Panel Approves 3c Rise in Gasoline Tax Next January,” The New York Times, 

April 19, 1975] 

The committee completed its energy conservation bill on May 8, voting 20 to 16 to send the bill to 

the House floor. The bill included the measure approved tentatively on April 18 to increase the gas

tax by 3 cents in January 1976 and up to 20 cents more in 1977 or later. It included a tax credit to 

all residents of the United States 16 years or older, including those who do not drive. An 

explanation in the Times said: 

The credit would be calculated on the basis of 40 gallons a month times however much of 

the tax in excess of the first 3 cents is in effect. For example, if in 1977 an additional 10 

cents a gallon went into effect, the tax credit for each eligible person would be $4 a month. 

The tax was expected to raise $25.5 billion in 1980, but the tax credit would return $16 billion to 

the economy. 

Other measures in the bill included an import quota subject to presidential adjustment; tax credits to 

households for installing insulation, storm windors, or solar heating equipment; an excise tax on 

new automobiles based on their fuel consumption; and excise taxes on some business uses of 
1291 

petroleum and natural gas. The bill also established an Energy Trust Fund to increase energy 

supplies, develop technologies such as solar power and nuclear fusion, and a more efficient way to 

reduce auto emissions. Revenue from the new fund also could finance demonstration projects for 

mass transit by bus, commuter, and intercity rail transportation. [Cowan, Edward, “Energy 

Conservation Bill Drafted by House Panel,” The New York Times, May 9, 1975] 

The bill was scheduled for consideration on the House floor the week of May 19, but leadership 

pulled it from consideration when vote counts showed it would fail. With Congress departing for 

its 10-day Memorial Day recess, President Ford went on television to blast the lack of action. 

Referring to his January proposal, he said that “Congress did nothing.” Holding up the Democrats’ 

3-page outline submitted to him in March, he said, “What did the Congress do in March and April 

about energy? Congress did nothing.” Acknowledging Chairman Ullman’s efforts, the President 

said, “So what has the Congress done in May about energy? Congress did nothing and went home 

for a 10-day recess.” As he spoke, he tore months off a calendar to illustrate the passage of time 

without congressional action. 

He announced he would act by imposing a second $1 a barrel fee on imported oil beginning the 

following Sunday and would start phasing out price control on domestic oil supplies later in June. 

“I cannot sit here idly while nothing is done. We must get on with the job right now.” The White 

House estimated the additional import fee would add 1.5 cents to the price of a gallon of gas or 

home heating fuel while deregulation could add another 5 or 6 cents a gallon. “When I talk about 

energy,” the President said, “I am talking about jobs. Our American economy runs on energy. No 

energy, no jobs. In the long run it is just that simple.” He told the American people that “the 

Congress cannot drift, dawdle and debate forever with America’s future.” 

Chairman Ullman responded to the President’s criticism. “The nation does not need what the 

President is prescribing, which is just a bulge of inflation through increasing the prices.” 

[Naughton, James M., “$1 Oil Import Fee Doubled by Ford; Gas Price to Rise,” The New York 

Times, May 28, 1975] 

On June 11, votes on the House floor killed any increase in the gas tax. The Washington Post

described the series:

First, by a vote of 345 to 72, the House rejected a possible 20-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax 

increase that was intended to reduce consumption. Most of the tax would have been 

returned to individuals in tax rebates. 

Then it rejected, by a standing vote of 74 to 25, an attempt to recoup up to half of the 20 

cents and to save another 3-cent gas tax increase imposed by the bill to finance research on 

new energy sources by giving one of the three cents to the states.

Finally, the House voted 209 to 187 to kill the 3-cent tax. This left little in the bill except 

import quotas and auto efficiency taxes as tools to reduce consumption of oil and make the 

United States self-sufficient.
1292 

Majority Leader Thomas P. O’Neill (D.-Mass.) pleaded with the House to save the 3-cent 

tax to fund the research program. The issue, he said, was: “Have we got the guts to stand 

up and vote for the future of America?” 

One supporter of the increase, Representative Joseph E. Karth (D-Mn.), told his colleagues that if 

they “can’t vote to raise taxes we don’t deserve to sit here as leaders of the nation.”

In the wake of the votes, an unnamed Administration planner said, “I really am surprised at the 

extent to which this has crumbled.” 

The votes revealed divisions among Democrats, splitting even the leadership. For example, on the 

vote to retain the 3-cent increase, Speaker Albert voted for it, while Representative John J. McFall 

(D-Ca.), the Majority Whip, and Representative John Brademas (D-In.), Chief Deputy Whip, voted 

against it. The Times reported: 

An aide said Mr. Brademas had opposed the tax in the conviction that a rise in prices was 

the wrong way to discourage gasoline consumption and that the tax would hit poor people 

harder than others. 

Mr. McFall offers a very different reason. The House, he noted today, had rejected an 

amendment offered by Representative Gunn McKay, Democrat of Utah, to allocate onethird of the revenue—about $1-billion a year—to the states to replenish their highway 

construction funds. 

In his home town of Manteca, Calif., Mr. McFall explained[,] “My people are screaming for 

a bypass.” He said San Franciscans driving to and from the Sierra Nevada recreation area 

choke the road through Manteca every Friday night and Sunday afternoon. 

But California lacks the funds to pay all of its 20 per cent state share of the proposed $4-

million bypass, with Washington paying the rest.

Had the House earmarked one cent of the tax for the states, Mr. McFall said, he would not 

have opposed it. 

Another factor against the gas tax increase involved the rebate feature. It would return tax credits to 

everyone 16 years and older, drivers and nondrivers, but would not reach those without an income 

tax liability. “An aide to a prominent Democrat cited this as a reason for opposing the tax.” 

[Lyons, Richard L, “House Bars All Rises in Gasoline Tax,” The Washington Post, June 12, 1975; 

Rosenbaum, David E., “House Rejects a Stiff Tax on Low-Gas-Mileage Cars,” The New York 

Times, June 13, 1975; Cowan, Edward, “ ‘Gas’ Tax Votes Reflected Mixed Needs,” The New York 

Times, June 13, 1975] 

The House completed work on its scaled-down bill on June 19, by a 219-130 vote, after 9 days of 

debate. Major provisions of the bill included quotas on oil imports, penalties for gas guzzlers, an 

Energy Trust Fund, tax incentives for homeowners who reduce energy consumption, and taxes to 
1293 

penalize industries that do not convert from oil to coal or other fuels available domestically. 

Chairman Ullman acknowledged that many of his provisions had been stripped from the bill, but 

said:

By contrast, the President wants to cut back consumption all at once with jarring price hikes. 

 The President’s way is wrong—economically and politically. The cost in jobs and inflation 

is more than we can bear as we struggle out of a severe recession.

All recognized that when the Senate acted on its version of the energy bill, many of the House 

measures would be eliminated or altered. [Rosenbaum, David E., “Scaled-Down Energy Bill Voted 

by House, 291-130,” The New York Times, June 20, 1975] 

Senator Russell E. Long (D-La.) had become Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in 1965, 

and his committee would now consider the surviving tax measures in the House bill. (During final 

consideration of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, Senator Long had been the only Senator 

who voted against the bill. He opposed financing construction of the Interstate System by 

increasing the gas tax. As Daniel Yergin explained, Senator Long would not do anything that he 

thought would harm his home-State oil production. He would tell oil company executives, “It is 

very much to your advantage to have a very healthy domestic industry and to do everything within 

your power to cooperate to that end.” [Yergin, p. 540]) 

The proposed gas tax increase to discourage consumption had not survived the House and would 

not be revived in the Senate Finance Committee. Moreover, with the 1976 elections on the political 

horizon, Congress was hesitant to do anything that would increase oil prices or curtail usage. As 

the Finance Committee began considering the energy bill, Senator Long predicted, “In due time, 

this’ll start losing ground.” [“Proposals to Tax Gasoline-Guzzling Cars, Curb Imports Are Voted 

by Senate Panel,” The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 1975] 

The Democratic Congress and the Republican President would battle the rest of the year over 

legislation on price controls and, to a lesser extent, energy policy. As the The New York Times

explained on July 16: 

There is a basic philosophical difference between the President and Congressional 

Democrats on energy policy.

Mr. Ford believes that the country faces a serious energy crisis and that higher fuel prices 

are the only way to limit consumption, increase domestic production and reduce reliance on 

foreign oil. 

The Democrats prefer to attack the long-range problem through import quotas and other 

forms of regulation. 

The impasse between Congress and the President has occurred because the Democrats have 

large enough majorities in the House and Senate to block the President’s proposal but 
1294 

insufficient strength to override his vetoes of Democratic legislation. [Rosenbaum, David 

E., “Senate Votes to Keep Oil Curbs,” The New York Times, July 16, 1975] 

On December 15, 1975, the House voted 236-to-160 to approve the energy bill. The Senate 

followed on December 17 by a vote of 58 to 40 vote. 

Neither vote would be sufficient to override a presidential veto. President Ford was not certain he 

would sign the bill. His advisers were divided. His chief rival for the Republican Party’s 

presidential nomination in 1976, former Governor Reagan, said that if he were President, he would 

veto the bill. The Times summarized the debate:

Mr. Ford faced pressures from both directions in deciding whether to sign or veto the energy 

bill. He was lobbied intensively by oil and automobile companies who strongly urged a 

complete removal of price controls, mandatory standards and other restraints. Many of the 

Southern conservatives in the Republican Party, whose support he needs to win the 

nomination next year, had urged a veto. 

A number of his own aides reportedly wanted him to allow the price mechanism of the free 

market to determine fuel prices, a position that Mr. Ford is sympathetic to ideologically.

But if he vetoed the bill and allowed fuel costs to jump, the results could have helped touch 

off a new wave of inflation. In the Northeastern states, including New Hampshire, where he 

faces an important primary election in February, passage of the energy bill was a major 

issue. 

Finally, on December 22, 1975, President Ford signed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act 

(Public Law 94-163). Its major provisions included mandatory gasoline mileage standards, known 

as Corporate Average Fuel Economy or CAFE, with a goal of 27.5 miles a gallon for 1985-model 

cars; efficiency standards for manufacturers and labels showing fuel consumption; establishment of 

“strategic petroleum reserves” of at least 150 million barrels of petroleum in 3 years and up to 500 

million barrels in 7 years; loan guarantees for coal operators investing in new underground mines; 

and authority for the President to develop contingency plans such as fuel rationing for energy 

emergencies.

Speaking to reporters in the White House Briefing Room a little after 3 p.m., President Ford said: 

The time has come to end the long debate over national energy policy in the United States 

and to put ourselves solidly on the road to energy independence. We cannot afford 

continued delays. We cannot afford prolonged vulnerability to foreign products. We must 

act.

For that reason, he had decided to sign the bill. It was “only a beginning,” but it did include several 

of his objectives: 
1295 

It opens the way to an orderly phasing out of controls on domestic oil, thereby stimulating 

our own oil production. As I requested earlier this year, it will enable us to set up a strategic 

oil storage system, convert more utility and industrial plants to coal, and take other steps to 

increase production and promote energy conservation. It makes possible the removal of the 

oil import fee of $2 per barrel. And finally, it provides a foundation upon which we can 

build a more comprehensive program for the future.

Departing from his formal statement, the President told the reporters that “the single most important 

energy objective for the United States today is to resolve our internal differences and put ourselves 

on the road toward energy independence.” He conceded that “this legislation is by no means 

perfect. It does not provide all the essential measures that the nation needs to achieve energy 

independence as quickly as I would like.” 

The Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represented small producers, called the 

President’s decision to sign the bill “unfortunate for consumers and the economy.” The association 

said President Ford had “compromised his firmly stated concept of relying on the free market as the 

best allocator, conserver and solicitor of energy supplies and has gone along with this unwise 

decision by Congress.” The Exxon Company said the President’s decision “may hinder efforts to 

increase domestic oil and gas production and lead to increased dependence on foreign oil imports.” 

[Shabecoff, Philip, “Ford Signs Bill on Energy Policy,” The New York Times, December 23, 1975] 

The gas tax increase, considered in the summer as part of the bill, had been left out. It would 

remain 4 cents until enactment of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982. As noted, the 

tax was increased by 5 cents, with 4 cents going to improve aging highways and bridges and 1 cent 

for a new Mass Transit Account in the Highway Trust Fund. 

(Vice President Rockefeller’s longtime speechwriter, Joseph E. Persico, recalled an anecdote to 

summarize his boss’s experience as an uncharacteristic number two: 

As he wandered through his suite [at the Old Executive Office Building], he turned to Mrs. 

Whitman, his chief of staff, who had spent eight years as President Eisenhower’s personal 

assistant. “Annie, you’ve had more White House experience than any of us down here. 

When I do something wrong, I want you to tell me about it.” 

“Then he proceeded to do everything wrong,” Mrs. Whitman observed, “And he got 

annoyed if I pointed it out.” 

What Rockefeller expected to achieve as Vice-President was extraordinary, given his 

foreknowledge of the job. His protégé, Henry Kissinger, had effectively taken control of 

U.S. foreign policy in the Ford Administration. Why should Nelson not handle domestic 

policy? Who was better prepared? 

(He thought he had succeeded when his aide, Jim Cannon, became executive director of the White 

House Domestic Council and brought on three Rockefeller aides from Albany: 
1296 

Thus Nelson and his people appeared to have gained control over the domestic-policy 

machinery. For Nelson, it was only an appearance. His post was largely ceremonial. 

Cannon had difficulty getting it through Nelson’s head that his primary duty now lay with 

the President. [Persico, Joseph E., The Imperial Rockefeller, Simon and Schuster, 1982, p. 

260-261] 

(In November 1975, President Ford asked Vice President Rockefeller to submit a letter declining to 

have his name placed in nomination for Vice President in 1976. [Persico, p. 272] Republican Party 

conservatives, who had despised the liberal Rockefeller since he had contested Senator Goldwater 

for the Republican nomination in 1964, had prevailed on President Ford to select a more 

conservative running mate.) 

Right Turn on Red

Section 362 (“State Energy Conservation Plans”) of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act called 

for guidelines for the preparation of a State energy conservation plan feasibility report. After 

considering the State submissions, the NHTSA Administrator was to “prescribe guidelines with 

respect to measures required to be included in, and guidelines for the development, modification, 

and funding of, State energy conservation plans. To be eligible for Federal-aid, the State energy 

conservation plan must include such items as “programs to promote the availability and use of 

carpools, vanpools, and public transportation (except that no Federal funds provided under this part 

shall be used for subsidizing fares for public transportation); mandatory lighting efficiency 

standards for public buildings (except buildings owned or leased by the United States); and “a 

traffic law or regulation which, to the maximum extent practicable consistent with safety, permits 

the operator of a motor vehicle to turn such vehicle right at a red stop light after stopping.” 

Right turn on red or RTOR has been traced to New York City in the 1910s during the era of 

manually operated traffic signals. The city adopted a permissive RTOR regulation on January 1, 

1924, that allowed motorists to employ RTOR at any intersection. The practice changed in 

February 1937 when the city allowed RTOR only at intersections posted for RTOR. 

Other jurisdictions, including Detroit and California, adopted RTOR, some with permissive and 

others with sign-permissive rules. As more States adopted RTOR, western States tended to adopt 

the permissive rule while eastern States, possibly because of a higher density of pedestrians and 

cars, adopted sign-permissive rules. The permissive rule became known as the “Western rule,” 

while the rule permitting RTOR only at signed intersections became known as the “Eastern rule.” 

The energy crisis offered a new rationale for RTOR, namely the saving of fuel wasted at red lights 

when no cross-traffic is approaching the intersection. Senator Dale Bumpers (D-Ar.), the former 

Governor of Arkansas (1970-1974) serving his first term in Congress, introduced a measure on 

RTOR, S. 2049, that would have prohibited the use of Federal-aid highway funds in any State that 

did not adopt RTOR by June 30, 1976. In testimony before the Subcommittee on Transportation, 

Senate Committee on Public Works, Senator Bumpers recognized that RTOR raised safety 

concerns. Studies found that RTOR resulted in substantial time savings while “the safety factor is 

of minimal signification.” He said:
1297 

Without question, the uniformity of all States permitting right turn on red would further 

minimize whatever significance one attached to the safety factor.

Moreover, every indication so far is that inducing the various States to adopt right turn on 

red systems would result in a substantial fuel savings. This is no real surprise, but 

essentially commonsense. If we eliminate the average idling time for cars turning right on 

red, which according to the Virginia study is 14 seconds, and when we consider the average 

gasoline consumed per hour at idling speeds is anywhere from 0.63 gallons to 1.2 gallons 

per hour, then by simple mathematics we can extrapolate impressive gasoline savings.

The Virginia study, by the Virginia Highway and Transportation Research Council, found that 

Virginia could save 3.1 million gallons of fuel each year by adopting the permissive rule. 

Preliminary results for an FHWA study projected a 3-percent minimum reduction on fuel 

consumption in urban areas: 

To date, 26 States have adopted the general permissive rule which in a nutshell provides that 

right turn on red is permissible, except at those intersections where signs specifically 

prohibit it . . . . Of the remaining States, 19 only permit right turn on red at intersections 

where a sign specifically authorizes it, and in these States, studies have shown that the 

percentage of jurisdictions that have permitted right turn on red at specific intersections is 

very small indeed. Of the remaining States, two permit right turn on red in all instances, 

two, with the District of Columbia, disallow it in all instances, and one permits it by a 

flashing red arrow. [Right Turn on Red Signal, Hearing for the Subcommittee on 

Transportation, Committee on Public Works, United States Senate, 94th Congress, 1st

Session, Serial No. 94-H25, October 1, 1975, p. 3-5] 

S. 2049 would not become law, but the provision in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 

1975 was attributed to Senator Bumpers. When he retired from the Senate in 1998, some of his 

colleagues recalled his first legislative success. Senator Byrd said:

He is the United States Senator responsible for “right-turn-on-red,” his first legislative 

victory and one for which, I am told, he received devilish teasing from a colleague who 

warned that “many people might want to drive straight!” [Retirement of Dale Bumpers, 

Congressional Record-Senate, October 10, 1998, p. 25316] 

Priority Primary Routes

Within highway circles, a 10,000-mile priority primary system was seen as the “junior Interstates” 

that former Federal Highway Administrator Frank Turner had proposed as a followup to the 

Interstate System. Highway opponents saw it in the same light and opposed it for that reason. 

Section 126 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 was a compromise. It established Section 147 

(“Priority Primary Routes”) in Title 23. Section 147 began: 

High traffic sections of highways on the Federal-aid primary system which connect to the 

Interstate System shall be selected by each State highway department, in consultation with 
1298 

appropriate local officials, subject to approval by the Secretary, for priority of improvement 

to supplement the service provided by the Interstate System by furnishing needed adequate 

traffic collector and distributor facilities.

Development of priority primary projects would be subject to the same requirements as all projects 

on the Federal-aid primary system, including the standard non-Interstate Federal-State matching 

ratio of 70-30. 

The 1973 Act authorized $100 million out of the Highway Trust Fund for priority primary routes in 

FY 1974, $200 million for FY 1975, and $300 million for FY 1976. It also stated: 

The initial selection of the priority primary routes and the estimated cost of completing such 

routes shall be reported to Congress on or before July 1, 1974. 

Secretary Brinegar submitted the Primary Primary Route Cost Study Report to Congress on August 

14, 1974. The report summarized the extent and cost of the highest priority routes and described 

other mileage recommended by the States but that constituted a slightly lower priority. The 

Secretary’s transmittal letter stated:

Evaluation of the data submitted by the States indicates that the improvements required are 

already receiving relatively high priority. During the next five years under existing funding 

levels, more than 50 percent of the required improvements identified would be under 

contract. We see little need for a categorical grant program which superimposes Federal 

priorities on those of the States, particularly when State and Federal priorities seem to 

coincide. We recommend that present authorizations for the priority primary program be 

merged with the existing authorizations for primary routes and urban extensions of primary 

routes. We also recommend that, in the future, separate authorizations should not be 

provided for this program. 

An FHWA news release summarized the major findings:

the highest Priority Primary routes selected by the States totaled 11,122 miles, requiring 

$21.5 billion to complete, and approximated 5 percent of each State’s 1972 non-Interstate 

Federal-aid Primary System mileage.

81 percent of the selected mileage and 60 percent of the total cost would be for 

improvements in rural areas.

selected routes now consisting mostly of 2 or 3 lane facilities, currently carry 10 percent of 

the non-Interstate Federal-aid primary traffic.

over 90 percent of the selected mileage is expected to be improved to 4 or more lanes with 

access control and carry twice the motor vehicle traffic recorded in 1972
1299 

studies anticipate that 53 percent of all improvements would be completed or under contract 

by 1980 under existing funding conditions. 

(The Committee Print for the report was House Document No. 93-332, 93d Congress, 2d Session, 

Committee on Public Works, August 8, 1974.) 

Section 143 of the 1973 Act had called on the Secretary of Transportation to report to Congress on 

“the feasibility and necessity for constructing to appropriate standards” 10 routes specified in the 

provision. FHWA worked with the States and completed its report in December 1974. (One of the 

routes, from Waterloo, Iowa, to Rockford, Illinois, had two routings, so FHWA ultimately studied 

11 routes.) 

The routes totaled about 5,000 miles in 18 States, with a little over 3,000 miles designated priority 

primary routes. The routes would provide economic benefits within the corridors served, but 

FHWA’s report concluded: 

From the nationwide perspective, there appears to be no reason to formulate any new 

Federal level initiatives or programs applicable to these specific routes. As the analyses 

herein indicate, these routes do not appear unique in any national sense. In terms of traffic 

volumes, accident experience, and deficiencies, they are typical of non-Interstate principal 

arterials in the States which they traverse . . . .

More important than the factors discussed above is the fact that the best Federal mechanism 

for improving these or other similar routes is already available within existing Federal-aid 

highway laws and programs. Portions of these routes have been built or are being 

programmed with available Federal-aid funds on the basis of State priorities that consider all 

their highway needs. Considering the extremely high price tag attached to the higher cost 

alternative reported herein, there appears to be no way that a special Federal program for 

these routes could avoid distorting the Federal-aid highway program balance achieved by 

the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, or avoid establishing a precedent of special funding 

for numerous similar routes in future legislation.

Enthusiasm for priority primary routes had diminished by the time Congress completed work on the 

Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1976, which combined most of the funding for the routes with the new 

consolidated primary system. However, the 1976 Act set aside $50 million of the priority primary 

funds authorized for FYs 1977-1978 for use at the discretion of the Secretary of Transportation for 

projects of unusually high cost which would require long periods of time for construction. This 

discretionary funding was used for projects, such as those listed in the 1973 Act, with a legislative 

history. 

The Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978 set aside $125 million of Federal-aid primary 

funds to be used on the discretionary priority primary routes in each of FYs 1979 through 1982. 

The Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 continued discretionary funding for the routes 

in FY 1982. However, Section 117(c) of the 1982 Act provided for continuing projects designated 

by the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation in Committee Print 97-61 using 
1300 

regular Federal-aid system funds at a 95 percent Federal share. The Surface Transportation and 

Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 1987 continued this practice and added projects to the list of 

priority primary projects covered by the 95-percent Federal share. 

The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 repealed the discretionary priority 

primary provision from Title 23. By then, the “junior Interstate” concept had evolved into a 

National Highway System that included the Interstate System, priority arterials, routes of 

importance to national defense, and numerous routes designated by Congress. For information on 

these changes, see “Creating a Landmark: The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 

1991” in the November/December 2001 issue of Public Roads magazine 

(http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/01novdec/istea.cfm). “What Happens After 

1972?” on FHWA’s Highway History Web site also discusses briefly the evolution of the “junior 

Interstate” concept into the National Highway System. 

(http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/50after1972.cfm).

 John D. Kramer 

By September 1973, John D. Kramer had left his low-paying job with the influential Highway 

Action Coalition to become Director of the Office of Planning, Policy, and Environmental Science 

with the Illinois Department of Transportation. In a November interview, he explained his “leap 

into respectability” by saying:

One of the reasons I came to Springfield is that it affords the opportunity to actually 

accomplish many of the things we were calling for. We wanted local officials to have use of 

the Highway Trust Fund money. The problem is getting that option used. 

Illinois, he explained, had every kind of transportation problem: 

I left Washington because I realized I was suffering from the illusion that it was really the 

center of things. But this is the real world. 

He was heavily involved now in controversies over funding for Chicago transit and the State 

legislative action on bills to establish the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) to operate the 

area’s transit system: 

Much of the public attention has been on the political battles over funding, but there are 

many creative ideas and new initiatives in both bills. It could genuinely set the pace for the 

rest of the country. 

(As private bus companies serving the Chicago area went out of business, the remaining companies 

sought increased fares. The CTA began service cuts in the wake of declining revenue, and local 

jurisdictions established their own mass transit authorities. The legislature authorized a referendum 

to establish RTA as a coordinating body for transit service in Cook, DePage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, 

and Will Counties. Voters approved the referendum by a narrow margin on March 19, 1974. The 

RTA, to be controlled by a nine-member board of directors, would have the power to levy special 
1301 

transit taxes to finance mass transit in the six counties. Mayor Daley, who had supported the RTA 

initiative, said, “I think we should get on with the job of creating the best mass transit facilities in 

the six counties.” [Farrell, William E., “Chicago-Suburban Transit Plan Pushed by Daley, Wins 

Narrowly,” The New York Times, March 21, 1974]) 

Kramer had fought in Washington to open the Highway Trust Fund to urban mass transit, but he 

recognized that working at the State level required a different focus:

Public transportation is absolutely vital and essential to the life and vitality of northeastern 

Illinois. But improved highways are extremely important to rural and small town Illinois, 

and government ought to make it possible for people to live in rural areas. 

In view of the energy crisis the Nation faced, he added: 

Every aspect of this department’s operations will be examined in terms of how we can 

conserve energy. The possibilities are endless. [Sachs, Susan L., “Balance in 

Transportation Objective of DOT Innovator,” Springfield State Register-Journal, November 

3, 1973] 

One of the issues Kramer would have to face was the fate of the Crosstown Expressway. Mayor 

Daley and his Department of Public Works supported construction. The Department’s 1973 history 

of Chicago public works included a section on the Crosstown, which it called “the final link in the 

Comprehensive Superhighway System.” It traced the expressway’s origins to the 1909 plan created 

by David Burnham, an architect and early urban planner. The report explained: 

Burnham saw Chicago primarily as an industrial city and his plan was designed to free 

industry and commerce from the strangling effects of congestion while at the same time 

insuring Chicagoans of an agreeable place to work and live which would be aesthetically 

pleasing as well as practical and convenient.

The plan “included a series of diagonal highways leading from the core center to the outer borders 

of the city with concentric rings of outer drives at convenient distances.” 

One of the routes was a “carriage road” on the west side of Chicago “to connect the various arms of 

the radial road system and relieve congestion in the central Loop area.” It continued: 

The persistent need for this final link in the roadway system as originally set forth by 

Burnham at the turn of the century has been recommended by all major transportation 

planning commissions including the Comprehensive Expressway Plan of 1946, the Chicago 

Area Transportation Study (CATS) released in 1962, indorsed in 1963 as part of the Federal 

Interstate System to serve as a by-pass of the Central Business District and was incorporated 

into the Basic Policies for the Comprehensive Plan for Chicago published in 1964. 

A general study of traffic congestion had considered whether other types of improvements could be 

substituted for the expressway: 
1302 

The study convincingly demonstrated that if an expressway were not built within the next 

few years, traffic conditions on many adjacent streets would border on the intolerable. Not 

only would auto exhaust pollution reach critical levels, but the commercial and economic 

life of the city would be seriously impared [sic]. 

The city recognized that an expressway could not be designed simply to serve traffic. It had to 

consider social, psychological, and economic impacts on the communities it passed through. The 

current version of the Chicago Crosstown Expressway “affords the opportunity to attract new 

industries, stimulate commercial activity, remove blight and upgrade neighborhoods.” The short 

chapter concluded: 

With these new modern approaches to planning, the Crosstown was designed not only as an 

accommodation to traffic demand, but as a contribution to improved community life by 

minimizing disruption to neighborhoods and by provision for long-range development. 

Detailed design and specific route selection for this final and vital link in Chicago’s history 

cannot proceed until federal approval of the recommended route has been received. 

[Chicago Public Works: A History, Chicago Department of Public Works, 1973, p. 22 

(Burnham plan), 166-167 (Crosstown Expressway)] 

The expressway, bearing the designation I-494, followed a 19.9-mile L-shaped route connecting the 

Dan Ryan Expressway (I-94) on the south with the Kennedy (I-90) and Edens (I-94) Expressways 

on the north. From the Edens/Kennedy Expressways, the Crosstown followed Cicero Avenue to 

Midway Airport, then turned east to the Dan Ryan Expressway along 75th Street.

Mayor Daley, who had taken office in April 1955, strongly favored the expressway. Often called 

“the last of the big city bosses,” he was accustomed to getting what he wanted. However, 

opposition to the Crosstown was growing and received a boost when Governor Daniel Walker, a 

Democrat, took office on January 8, 1973. He had opposed the Crosstown during his campaign to 

defeat incumbent Governor Richard Ogilvie, a Crosstown supporter. The incoming Governor had 

made a campaign issue of preserving the homes, churches, stores, and factories that would be 

displaced by construction of the expressway. 

Governor Walker and Mayor Daley had many reasons for despising each other and would fight 

numerous frustrating political battles in coming years, not least over the Crosstown. After taking 

office in January 1973, Governor Walker reassured Crosstown opponents in March that, “The 

Crosstown Expressway will not be built, no matter what others may say, or hint, or hope.” For 

emphasis, he added, “the Crosstown Expressway will not be built. I repeat—the Crosstown 

Expressway will not be built.” (One of their few areas of agreement was creation of the RTA.) 

[Addie, Jean-Paul D., “A Century of Chicago’s Crosstown Corridor: From Daniel Burnham’s City 

Beautiful to Richard M. Daley’s Global City,” York University, p. 12] 

http://www.transportchicago.org/uploads/5/7/2/0/5720074/6-

a_century_of_chicagos_crosstown_corridor.pdf) 

As discussed earlier, the Crosstown was one of the projects generating controversy during 

development of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. At the insistence of Chicago’s 
1303 

congressional delegation, Section 110 (“Removal of Designated Segments of the Interstate 

System”) addressed the deadlines for completing Interstate segments by using generic language 

stating that for any segment “entirely within the boundaries of an incorporated city and such city 

enters into an agreement with the Secretary to pay all non-Federal costs of construction of such 

segment, such segment shall be constructed.” The provision did not mention Chicago, but as the 

legislative history of Section 110 and the floor debates made clear, the lawmakers aimed it directly 

at the Crosstown Expressway. 

On August 20, 1973, shortly after President Nixon signed the 1973 Act, the Chicago Tribune

published an interview with Administrator Tiemann, Deputy Administrator Bartelsmeyer, and Ted 

Lutz, the Deputy Under Secretary of Transportation. The introduction made clear that they had not 

yet received the city’s assurance that it would provide the matching funds for the expressway. At 

this early date following enactment, they were not certain how to implement the provision, but they 

thought “there would have to be cooperation and some degree of agreement” between Mayor Daley 

and Governor Walker. (The article about the interview did not always specify which Federal 

official was responding to each question.) They were not willing to confirm Representative 

Wright’s and Senator Bentsen’s assertions that the provision gave Mayor Daley clear and 

unequivocal authority to go ahead with construction if the city was willing to provide the matching 

funds. 

Bartelsmeyer, who had been involved in developing the expressway during his years with the 

Illinois Division of Highways and the Chicago Area Transportation Study, said the preliminary 

estimate for the expressway was $900 million. “But as plans are developed and right-of-way 

purchased, that might go up or down.” 

Governor Walker had suggested the city take advantage of the 1973 Act’s transfer mechanism to 

use the funds for mass transit. For that to happen, the law provided that “Gov. Walker and Mayor 

Daley jointly would have to make that request. First a determination must be made whether the 

highway could be eliminated. If the answer were yes, then the $900 million would be the top 

amount available for mass transit.” The Governor had suggested as an alternative that a west 

suburban Interstate could be substituted for the Crosstown. Bartelsmeyer, said: 

We received the Governor’s request on that proposal June 30 and we haven’t gone into 

details of analyzing it yet. Remember, the planning process must go into all these matters. 

The Crosstown has been located for quite a few years and planning has been on that basis. 

If you’re going to move it from there, you have to do more planning. 

They clearly preferred a cooperative solution by city and State officials. As Bartelsmeyer put it:

You also must realize how impossible it would be for the governor to come in and build a 

project in Chicago that would not have the blessings of the mayor or the city government. 

By the same token, the reverse also is true. [Hutchinson, Louis, and Warden, Philip, “Q&A 

Crosstown Construction Still Up in Air, U.S. Says,” Chicago Tribune, August 20, 1973] 
1304 

The uncertainty the officials displayed during the interview was confirmed by Secretary Brinegar 

who said on September 6 that the 1973 Act’s “language is somewhat confusing.” He did not think 

“it unilaterally gave Chicago the right to do it,” he said at a press conference in Chicago. He hoped 

that Governor Walker and Mayor Daley could work out a compromise, but he implied what he 

thought the compromise should involve: 

Highways alone are not solving our very serious urban congestion problems, and I believe 

the revival and growth of high-quality urban public transit is the necessary first step to 

lessening our excessive dependence on private automobiles. 

He added that, “The necessity for this step has been made more urgent with the emergency of the 

national energy shortage.” He was speaking before the oil boycott began the following month. 

[“U.S. Official Sees No Crosstown OK,” Chicago Tribune, September 7, 1973; “Brinegar Urges 

End to Quarrel on Crosstown,” Chicago Sun-Times, September 7, 1973] 

By the end of the month, Tiemann was far enough along in review of the provision to say “in my 

judgment Mayor Daley cannot build the Crosstown without Gov. Walker’s approval.” At a 

Chicago press conference, he added that Illinois would lose the $900 million in Interstate funds 

earmarked for the Crosstown “unless Daley and Walker can agree on how the money should be 

spent.” He said the Mayor and Governor had until July 1, 1974 (the statutory deadline for 

submitting plans and schedules), to reach agreement on whether to go ahead with construction, 

substitute Governor Walker’s western expressway alternative, or request withdrawal of Interstate 

designation and use substitution funds for alternative projects, including mass transit. 

In short, they must come up with a “mutually agreed upon proposal.” Tiemann added that, “Neither 

the mayor’s plan for the Crosstown nor Walker’s substitute plan can go forward without 

concurrence by both.” [Ziemba, Stanley, “Crosstown Needs Walker OK: U.S. Aide,” Chicago 

Tribune, September 27, 1973] 

Deputy Administrator Bartelsmeyer would not be part of the solution. He died unexpectedly on 

January 25, 1974, of kidney failure at the age of 64. Following the retirement of Administrator 

Turner, Bartelsmeyer had served as Acting Administrator for nearly a year, longer than anyone who 

has served in that acting capacity. Administrator Tiemann, expressing sadness at the unexpected 

death, said: 

He was well liked by all who knew him and he was highly respected as an authority in the 

highway field . . . . I found his advice and counsel to be extremely valuable.” [“Deputy 

Federal Highway Administrator Ralph R. Bartelsmeyer Dies Unexpectedly,” FHWA News, 

February 1974, p. 1] 

With the State likely to lose $900 million if Governor Walker and Mayor Daley did not agree on 

building the Crosstown, State transportation officials began identifying substitute uses for the 

funds. With a deadline of July 1, 1974, to reach agreement, the Chicago Tribune reported in early 

February on some of the options: 
1305 

Among the alternatives . . . are the possibility of constructing a new subway under Archer 

Avenue past Midway Airport; reversible, high-speed bus lanes in the Stevenson 

Expressway, and truck-only lanes on Cicero Avenue and Pulaski Road. 

Governor Walker had not reviewed the proposals, but said during his regular press conference that, 

“Using the money for improving mass transportation would be the best plan.” [Ziemba, Stanley, 

“Crosstown Alternatives Sought,” Chicago Tribune, February 4, 1974] 

During a trip to Washington, Governor Walker told reporters that Secretary Brinegar had informed 

him that the deadline for a decision had been extended administratively to June 30, 1975. Because 

FHWA had not yet completed regulations for implementing Section 110 of the 1973 Act, the 

extension made sense. State and city officials did not know the factors they would have to 

consider. 

Administrator Tiemann approved the proposed rules on April 22, 1974; they appeared for comment 

in the Federal Register on April 24. The introduction explained the problem FHWA had been 

alluding to in interviews. In short, “No provision of title 23 permits a city to construct Federal-aid 

highways.” Section 110 “is a unique exception to title 23 provisions.” The problem FHWA faced 

was to implement a law that gave a city authority that in every other element of Title 23 was 

assigned to the State, including the means of conveying funds. The provision “confers upon a city 

the right to make a decision (whether a segment of Interstate shall be constructed) that is normally 

made by a State.” 

The State would have to agree to undertake construction in accordance with the provisions of Title 

23 and other applicable Federal laws and requirements. Neither the introduction nor the proposed 

rule noted that these requirements included the reimbursable nature of the Federal-aid highway 

program. FHWA did not simply send a check to the State transportation department. Rather, the 

State expended its own funds then requested reimbursement for the Federal share of the 

expenditures. For the Crosstown Expressway to be built under Section 110, the city or State would 

have to agree to that initial expenditure to trigger Federal reimbursements. However, financial 

arrangements existed only for reimbursing the State highway agency or transportation department, 

not a city. [“Interstate Highway System,” Federal Register, Vol. 39, No. 80, April 24, 1974, p. 

14517-14519] 

FHWA officials realized that the proposed rules would not satisfy Governor Walker or Mayor 

Daley. The proposal did not allow Mayor Daley to begin construction without delay; the city still 

had to satisfy all requirements, including NEPA and the Uniform Act. At the same time, the 

proposal limited Governor Walker’s ability to delay indefinitely. An unnamed FHWA official told 

a reporter:

We deal with state departments of transportation or highway departments. So, when we 

allot federal funds, we allot them to the state. Even if Chicago has legal authority to build 

the Crosstown, its problem is how to do it if the state won’t release the 90-per cent federal 

share.
1306 

Section 123 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 had spelled out the Federal-State relationship 

by adding Section 145 to Title 23, United States Code: 

The authorization of the appropriation of Federal funds or their availability for expenditure 

under this chapter shall in no way infringe on the sovereign rights of the States to determine 

which projects shall be federally financed. The provisions of this chapter provide for a 

federally assisted State program.

Mayor Daley met with Secretary Brinegar in Washington on April 24 to discuss the proposed rules. 

He emerged from the meeting to tell reporters that the city could undertake the project “with no 

problems.” Federal sources indicated they had gone “about as far as possible” to clear the path for 

the Mayor, but he still faced procedural hurdles and other difficulties because Section 110 had not 

exempted the Crosstown from all the provisions of Title 23 that gave authority to the State. Frank 

Calhoun of FHWA’s Office of Chief Counsel said, “The regulations basically recognize the 

paramount role of the state in constructing federal-aid highways.” [Gruenberg, Bob, “U.S. Hedging 

on Crosstown,” Chicago Daily News, April 25, 1974] 

Secretary Brinegar said of his meeting with Mayor Daley:

I told him that our regulations required the city to give us notification by July 1 if it planned 

to go ahead with the proposal on its own. I told him that if he intended to do so, he should 

so notify me and it could start the process moving. 

Secretary Brinegar recognized that the intent of the law was to allow Mayor Daley to build the 

Crosstown. “The bill was written to accommodate Chicago and we are proceeding in that fashion.” 

 He also recognized that President Nixon had told Mayor Daley during a visit to Chicago on March 

15 that the provision would be implemented in a way to allow the city to begin construction. (The 

President and Mayor Daley had driven together to the Conrad Hilton Hotel for the President’s 

nationally broadcast question-and-answer session with the Executives Club of Chicago.) Although 

Secretary Brinegar denied receiving any advice from the White House on the matter, he added that, 

“I do get some ‘encouragement’ from the Congress and the committee,” in reference to 

Representative Kluczynski of the House Public Works Committee. 

At the same time, Secretary Brinegar was open to listening to Governor Walker’s views. “There is 

still the question of the State’s role. I will still listen to Gov. Walker’s position on the Crosstown. I 

hear both sides regularly.” [Ramshaw, Greg, “U.S. is Willing to Hear Walker on Crosstown.” 

Chicago Today, May 3, 1974] 

FHWA completed the final rule on June 6 and published it in the Federal Register on June 12, 

1974. The introduction said the proposed rule had prompted over 150 comments, most of them in 

opposition to construction of the Crosstown Expressway. “The great bulk of the comments were 

therefore not directly relevant to the proposed regulations.” The Citizens Action Program, the 

group leading opposition to construction, had submitted comments suggesting that Section 110 did 

not apply to the Crosstown because it passed through the city of Cicero and was thus not a single 

Interstate segment within the boundaries of an incorporated city. FHWA dismissed this suggestion 
1307 

because “it is our interpretation of the statute, and that of the House Public Works Committee, that 

the statute is applicable to the Crosstown as would be the proposed regulations.” 

The city’s comments to the rulemaking docket “objected generally to the proposed regulations on 

the grounds that they would not permit a full substitution of a city for the State, thus enabling the 

city to undertake the actual construction responsibilities normally performed by the state highway 

agency.” Recognizing that the city may be capable of complying with all requirements, “we do not 

believe Title 23 permits such a substitution.” The introduction continued: 

In the absence of an explicit exemption, responsibility for compliance with all the 

requirements of Title 23 and implementing regulations remains with the state, to which the 

matching 90 percent federal share is apportioned under 23 U.S.C. 104. 

One of the Illinois Department of Transportation’s significant suggestions was that “the regulation 

be amended to make explicit that the notice of intent, the agreement, and the schedule for the 

expenditure of funds would not impair the ability of the state, local governments, and responsible 

local officials to request an alternative Interstate segment of a mass transportation project.” FHWA 

did not revise the regulation because those options would remain open to the State if the city agreed 

to a joint request to withdraw the Interstate segment. [“Interstate Highway System,” Federal 

Register, Vol. 39, No. 114, June 12, 1974, p. 20666-20668] 

The Chicago Tribune’s article about the regulations indicated that “both city and state officials said 

they knew exactly what the regulations meant.” The article continued: 

But they came to opposite conclusions. Mayor Daley’s men said the regulations clearly 

permit the city to build the controversial expressway, while Gov. Walker’s men said they 

clearly allow the state to veto the proposal.

Neither was right, as Gregory D. Wolfe of Secretary Brinegar’s Office of General Counsel 

explained:

[Wolfe] said Walker has no power to veto the expressway which the city wants to build. 

But he suggested Walker and other state officials could prevent construction”by various 

kinds of delays.” They could, for example, “try to mess up the environmental impact 

statements” required in connection with all federal projects, he said.

Secretary Langhorne Bond of the Illinois Department of Transportation interpreted the regulations 

as meaning the State could stall the project indefinitely. Marshall Suloway, acting commissioner of 

the city’s public works department, shrugged off Wolfe’s comments, saying he did not believe “the 

state will defy the federal government and Congress.” 

(Secretary Bond had served as Special Assistant to Under Secretary of Commerce for 

Transportation Alan S. Boyd (1965-1968), where Bond worked with Deputy Assistant Secretary 

Lowell K. Bridwell, the future Federal Highway Administrator. He also served as UMTA’s 
1308 

Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs (1968-1969) and executive director of the National 

Transportation Center in Pittsburgh (1969-1973) before becoming Secretary in 1973.) 

Representative Wright, asserting that he and Representative Kluczynski had drafted Section 110 to 

give the city full authority to build the Crosstown over Governor Walker’s objections, said new 

legislation might be needed if the regulations gave the State the power to stall construction. Since 

the 1973 Act gave cities the right to veto proposed Federal-aid highway proposals favored by the 

State transportation departments, he “thought it only fair, just, and equitable to also allow cities to 

build highways where they desire them.” 

According to Kramer, even if the State and city somehow agreed to build the Crosstown, 

construction could not begin before 1980. It would take that long, he said, to complete the NEPA 

review, acquire the right-of-way, and relocate homes and businesses in the path. 

State objections aside, Mayor Daley wrote to Tiemann on June 20: 

I would like to reaffirm . . . the city of Chicago’s intention to enter an agreement with the 

secretary of transportation to construct F.A.I. 494 and to pay the non-federal cost of such 

construction. 

Governor Walker, meanwhile, had informed Federal officials that the State would not approve the 

Crosstown. [“City, State Aides at Odds on Crosstown Regulations,” Chicago Tribune, June 7, 

1974; David Robert, and Ziemba, Stanley, “City’s Rights on Crosstown Told,” Chicago Tribune, 

June 22, 1974; Warden, Philip, “Chicago Will Build Crosstown, Daley Tells U.S. in Letter,” 

Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1974] 

Kramer warned the city that not enough funding would be available for both the Crosstown and the 

mass transit projects, including the downtown subway system, that Mayor Daley wanted: 

Kramer listed urgent needs thru 1979 as: Chicago Transit Authority, $442 million; 

commuter railroads, $215 million; suburban bus lines, $52 million; commuter parking, $40 

million; and stations, $72 million.

Included are “improvements that just can’t wait . . . . 

“The $900 million is earmarked for Chicago, and it won’t lose the money if Mayor Daley 

compromises on either of the shorter Crosstown versions the state suggested and utilizes the 

remaining funds for transit projects. This is really the bottom line of the whole controversy. 

He will have to choose between the expressway and the O’Hare [International Airport] 

access and the downtown, Archer Avenue, and Lake Shore subways.” [Shepherd, C. 

Owsley, “Crosstown, Transit Must Share Funds,” Chicago Today, July 26, 1974] 

 

In Kramer’s view, by the time construction could begin, the Crosstown would cost more than $2 

billion because of inflation. Despite such predictions, Mayor Daley issued a statement in early 

September that “the first work to make way for this construction should begin in the spring.” He 
1309 

did not define “first work” but as Kramer had pointed out, the NEPA and right-of-way acquisition 

phases remained to be completed before construction could begin. 

Under Secretary Barnum agreed that if the stalemate lasted much longer, construction of the 

Crosstown may not be possible: 

This is something that I hate to see—people just standing there staring at each other. There 

is a demonstrated transportation need, and the dollars are just sitting there waiting to be 

used. I’m for the transportation problem to be resolved. [Hirsley, Michael, “Daley Moves 

to Spur X-Town,” Chicago Today, September 4, 1974; Gilbert, David, “Crosstown Fued 

Could Cost Millions,” Chicago Tribune, September 5, 1974] 

Right-of-way acquisition was a looming problem. Ray J. Bolin, director of FHWA’s regional 

Office of Right-of-Way, said that the Federal requirement to find comparable housing for displaced 

residents would have to be met. If it were not, “it simply will not be built—not with federal funds, 

anyway.” He was speaking at a public meeting in front of 200 people, many of them homeowners 

in the path of the Crosstown. Kramer told the crowd that State studies indicated that finding 

comparable housing for the estimated 10,400 people who would be displaced was impossible: 

“Businesses are already afraid to invest in the neighborhood. Homeowners are afraid to 

invest in improvements to their homes. Property values are going down.” 

City officials had been invited to the meeting but did not attend. [Kromery, Keith, “Crosstown 

‘Edict,’” Chicago Daily News, October 2, 1974] 

The city was trying to finalize an agreement with FHWA that would allow city officials to begin 

acquiring land for the first phase of the project (from the Stevenson Expressway to 67th Street). 

Administrator Tiemann was awaiting additional information, which encouraged city officials to 

think that he was willing to approve the agreement. However, Tiemann had also pointed out that 

“cooperation with the state will be required, and responsibility for construction lies with the state 

unless it is delegated to the city by the state.” He did not have to add that the delegation was not 

likely.

Secretary Bond, in a letter to FHWA, explained that State studies suggested the city could not 

afford to pay the matching share for construction of the Crosstown, estimated by State 

transportation officials as $614.3 million of a total $2.7 billion cost. The estimate included 

inflation over a 10-year construction period and the cost of improvements to connecting 

expressways to accommodate additional traffic entering or leaving the Crosstown. [Byrne, Dennis, 

“Chicagoans Face Big Tax BiTe on Crosstown, State Warns,” Chicago Daily News, December 9, 

1974] 

The Illinois Department of Transportation issued another report in February 1975 demonstrating 

that the cost of the Crosstown had doubled to $2.6 billion and that construction would adversely 

affect more than 33,000 residents in its corridor. Court rulings, the report pointed out, prohibited 

“piece-mealing” that involved construction of one segment before NEPA reviews were completed 
1310 

for the entire route. “We believe,” Kramer said, “the final nail is in the coffin . . . and the cost is 

just too prohibitive.” He recommended transferring the funds to mass transit projecst, namely 

construction of the rapid-transit extension to O’Hare International Airport and the Loop subway and 

distributor system under Monroe and Franklin Streets. “It is readily apparent that currently there 

are not sufficient federal funds to finance these two projects without using the interstate transfer 

[mechanism authorized by the 1973 Act].” 

The city denounced the State’s “scare tactics.” Commissioner of Public Works Suloway said, “We 

are planning to move ahead with construction to begin on the segment between the Stevenson 

Expressway and Midway Airport this year.” [Gilbert, David, “New Round in Crosstown Fight,” 

Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1975] 

President Ford’s proposal in July 1975 to alter the Federal-aid highway program gave the State 

additional evidence that the Crosstown could not be built. By proposing to drop most of the 

Highway Trust Fund and use the remaining funds to focus on intercity segments of the Interstate 

System, the State pointed out, the Ford Administration was relegating the Crosstown and other 

controversial urban segments to second-class status. Michael Finkelstein from Secretary Brinegar’s 

office, explained that under the Ford proposal, the Crosstown and similar routes were “important on 

a regional scale, but not important as links in a federal system.” Such projects could still be built, 

but the rate of completion would “have to be slowed.” Kramer saw this proposal as offering 

Chicago the “very attractive proposition” of trading in the funds for mass transit. [Gruenberg, 

Robert, “Ford Proposal Cuts Priority of Crosstown,” Chicago Daily News, July 8, 1975] 

Ultimately, FHWA Executive Director Lester P. Lamm said, the fate of the Crosstown depended on 

State-city agreement, however improbable that seemed. “The federal government has made a 

commitment to fully fund the Crosstown when the city and state agree on what they want. But 

nothing will happen until there is agreement.” He added: 

The impact of the President’s program would be felt over the next few years but the federal 

government is still committed to completing all of the national interstate system and that 

includes the Crosstown. The plan does not penalize the Crosstown because it is not ready 

for construction. Federal money would still be available for design if the city and state can 

agree. [Gilbert, David, “Funds for Crosstown Fading Away as Daley, Walker Continue 

Fued,” Chicago Tribune, July 13, 1975] 

Mayor Daley said the Ford proposal “seems to be a reversal of everything that has taken place in the 

last 25 years.” He objected to press coverage of how the Ford proposal might affect his plans: 

It’s again a great error made by—what do ya call them—the guys who write the headlines 

and didn’t read the story. The truth of the matter is that the late Lyndon Johnson—God love 

him—allocated $1 billion for the Crosstown in 1968 . . . . He had the vision which you and 

I are expressing now. He didn’t know it would be this bad, that unemployment would be so 

general. We’re not talking about an expressway as in the past, with concrete and steel. 

We’re talking about neighborhoods and building new houses, new schools, and building 

new parks. This great corridor will have a depressed expressway underneath, and the people 
1311 

dispossessed will be paid for and put in better quarters and there’s not many of them. 

[McCarron, John, “Ford’s Highway Plans a Blow to Crosstown,” Chicago Tribune, July 9, 

1975; Randolph, Eleanor, and Orehek, Fred, “Ford Plan Won’t Affect Crosstown, Daley 

Says,” Chicago Tribune, July 10, 1975] 

Mayor Daley had tried unsuccessfully to secure State legislation that would require the State to shift 

funds from downstate Interstates to the Crosstown. Governor Walker’s press secretary, Norton 

Kay, said, “The day of the urban throughway has ended.” He added, “The money is better spent on 

public transportation. You can’t have both.” 

In August, State Attorney General William J. Scott ruled that under home rule provisions of the 

1970 State constitution, the city had the legal authority to clear the way for construction. The ruling 

encouraged Mayor Daley, who said, “The people of Chicago want the crosstown, and this proves 

what has been said.” As far as he was concerned, “construction could begin tomorrow.” 

In a telephone interview, Tiemann made clear that the Interstate funds would have to be channeled 

through the Illinois Department of Transportation and could not be made available directly to the 

city. “I’ll stick with what we’ve been saying all along. The city and state will have to reach some 

sort of an agreement. The situation is unchanged.” 

Governor Walker agreed, “The situation is unchanged. I remain opposed to it. The state still must 

be the contracting party.” [Thomas, Randy, “Crosstown Expressway Faces Long Battle,” 

Springfield State Journal-Register, August 8, 1975] 

President Ford was in Chicago on August 24 for brief remarks at a dinner for participants in the 

Annual World Championship of the International Star Class Racing Association. Mayor Daley 

rode to the event in the President’s limousine, fueling speculation that they had discussed the 

Crosstown Expressway. According to one account, “Immediately after Ford’s visit, Daley 

expressed confidence that the expressway would be built.” [Schriber, Edward, “Council Unit OKs 

Proposal to U.S. for Crosstown,” Chicago Tribune, October 7, 1975]

In September, Tiemann wrote to inform Mayor Daley that FHWA had accepted the city as the local 

financing agent under Section 110. Tiemann emphasized that the agreement “does not give federal 

approval for construction of the Crosstown.” Mayor Daley was exultant: 

This action by the U.S. Department of Transportation is a very significant move forward 

toward building of the Crosstown corridor, which is so vitally needed to help the West Side 

and the entire Chicago area, as well as to provide thousands of jobs at this time of high 

unemployment.” 

Governor Walker was not convinced. “Under the law, the state must enter the contract and it will 

never do that under my administration.” Secretary Bond agreed: “It is apparent that the mayor’s 

effort has produced a piece of paper—not the Crosstown Expressway.” John Kramer added that 

while the city was willing to pay 10 percent, 90 percent of the $2 billion cost of the project would 

have to be funneled through the State. “And we’re not about to approve pumping that kind of 
1312 

money into a Crosstown Expressway where there are so many other, higher priority projects in the 

state.” [“Crosstown Hopes Diluted,” Chicago Daily News, September 12, 1975] 

On October 6, 1975, the Finance Committee of the City Council approved a proposed financial 

agreement with the Federal Government and Governor Walker. The approval did not specify where 

the city’s 10-percent share would come from. Commissioner Suloway said, “That will come from 

the executive branch. The decision will be made there.” He expected construction of the first leg 

of the Crosstown, the 3.4-mile section along Cicero Avenue between the Stevenson Expressway 

and 67th Street, to get underway in the spring. The full City Council approved the agreement on 

October 8. 

Kramer dismissed the City Council’s action, which he said “has nothing to do with constructing the 

Crosstown.” It pertained “only to the city’s paying the $600 million local share of construction. 

It’s only a funding commitment and by no means represents any federal commitment to the 

project.” Despite the city’s optimism that construction could begin in the spring, Kramer pointed 

out that, “There are 21 major steps that have to be gone through, and the state is responsible for 

each of them,” including the NEPA review and relocation activities. “It couldn’t begin for five 

years, and not even then because of the state’s objection and citizens’ objections.” 

Suloway issued a new cost estimate, as described in a local news account:

Suloway issued an updated report that showed the entire project—from a junction with the 

Kennedy and Edens expressways to about 75th St., then east to the Dan Ryan Expressway—

would cost $1.34 billion in 1975 dollars. 

“That estimate doesn’t include the cost of widening the Kennedy, Edens and Dan Ryan 

expressways,” which transit experts said must be done to link up with the proposed 

Crosstown, Kramer said. He estimated the cost of the Crosstown, including inflation over 

the 10-year life of the project at $2.6 billion. “That’s assuming a 6 per cent rate of inflation 

for highway construction and that is very conservative. Last year, we experienced a 25 per 

cent increase.”

He also wondered where Chicago was going to find the $600 million local share. “Chicago only 

allocates $20 million a year for all street and highways construction, including repairs.” 

[McElheny, Marge, “City Can’t Start Crosstown Next Spring, State Says,” Chicago Daily News, 

October 7, 1975] 

Despite city assurances that it was prepared to begin construction, Federal officials were 

encouraging consideration of an Interstate withdrawal and the use of substitute funds for the new 

Loop and Distributor subways that were on hold pending approval of Federal transit funds. Jerome 

Premo, UMTA Associate Administrator, said, “Chicago has no guarantee that it is going to get 

anything from UMTA.” Chicago had asked for $1.1 billion from a fund that had only $2 billion 

left. Premo said that “in each city proposing mass-transit projects, we are suggesting that local 

officials consider the transfer of highways funds.” 
1313 

Administrator Patricelli confirmed this view in a New Orleans speech. He said, “We will have to 

turn some of the less well-conceived funding requests down and perhaps some good ones.” He 

added: 

We continue to be concerned with the fact that only a few urban areas have taken advantage 

of the 1973 highway amendments which permit transfers of funds from road construction to 

transit.

FHWA Executive Director Lamm added, “From the Federal Highway Administration’s point of 

view, we have no grounds for forcing the state to put [Federal] money into the Crosstown.” 

Kramer estimated that if Governor Walker and Mayor Daley would agree to a transfer, the city 

would get about $1.5 billion. 

Visiting Chicago on October 30, Secretary Coleman said:

The federal government, under the Constitution and the statutes, can only make grants to the 

state, and it is up to the state to allocate the money.

He did not intend to mediate the dispute between Governor Walker and Mayor Daley. “The 

decision to build or not to build must be a joint decision by the state and the city.” [Ingersoll, 

Bruce, “Use Federal X-Town Funds for Subway,” Chicago Sun-Times, October 26, 1975; Ingersoll, 

Bruce, “City Must Clear Big Hurdles to Win Transit Funds,” Chicago Sun-Times, October 31, 

1975] 

Unable to secure Governor Walker’s approval, Mayor Daley undertook to ensure Walker’s defeat in 

the 1976 gubernatorial election. The Mayor encouraged Michael J. Howlett, Illinois’ Secretary of 

State, to run in the Democratic primary instead of seeking a second term as Secretary. In March, 

with strong support from Mayor Daley’s political machine, Howlett defeated Governor Walker. 

Whatever satisfaction Mayor Daley took in the defeat of his longtime foe was undercut in 

November when Republican James R. Thompson won the election to become Governor of Illinois. 

President Nixon had appointed Thompson to be U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, a 

post he had used to convict not only a former Governor, Otto Kerner, Jr., of improper influence on 

behalf of the racetrack industry, but top aides to Mayor Daley.

Governor Thompson took office on January 10, 1977. Just a few weeks earlier, Mayor Daley had

died of a heart attack on December 20, 1976. His successor, Michael A. Bilandic, lacked Daley’s 

hold on the political machine and was surrounded by politicians who vied for control of the city. 

At the national level, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter had defeated President Ford and 

became President on January 20, 1977. He brought in a new team at the Department of 

Transportation, including former Representative Brock Adams as Secretary of Transportation. 

Other appointees included Federal Highway Administrator William M. Cox, who had been senior 

vice-president of Ligon Specialized Hauler, a large trucking firm in Madisonville, Kentucky. He 
1314 

took his oath of office on April 7, 1977. Richard S. Page became UMTA Administrator on July 11, 

1977. A former aide to Senator Jackson, Page had been executive director of the Municipality of 

Metropolitan Seattle, which operated the city’s transit system and water pollution control facilities, 

and an APTA board member at the time of his nomination. 

For FAA Administrator, President Carter nominated Secretary Bond of the Illinois Department of 

Transportation on March 30, 1977. The President’s announcement pointed out that in addition to 

his work in the Departments of Commerce and Transportation, Bond had received a Bachelor of 

Arts degree from the University of Virginia (1959) and a degree from the University of Virginia 

Law School (1963). He also had studied international aviation law at the Institute of Air and Space 

Law at McGill University and the London School of Economics. Bond, who had been president of 

AASHTO (1975-1976), took the oath of office on May 4, 1977, and remained in his post for the 

remainder of the Carter Administration.

Governor Thompson decided to appoint 28-year old John D. Kramer to Bond’s former post. The 

move, announced on July 6, 1977, was controversial because Kramer was a Democrat, but the 

Republican Governor decided to proceed. 

In March 1977, Governor Thompson, who opposed the Crosstown, and Acting Mayor Bilandic 

agreed to discussions on funding the southern leg of the expressway, but to request withdrawal of 

the remaining portion of the expressway to secure funds for a Franklin Street subway. They 

submitted the joint proposal on May 19, 1977, to withdraw a 6.3-mile portion of I-494 between the 

Eisenhower Expressway and the Kennedy-Edens Expressways from the Interstate System. 

Administrators Cox and Page approved the withdrawal on September 30, 1977. 

As Secretary Kramer had said many times, construction of the southern leg of the Crosstown could 

not proceed until NEPA and Uniform Act right-of-way requirements were met. Illinois asked for 

permission to resume right-of-way acquisition and planning/location studies that had been started 

with FHWA approval in 1968, but FHWA denied the request. NEPA had been approved since 

then, and an environmental impact statement along with public involvement would be needed. 

While efforts were underway to reach agreement on routing, Mayor Bilandic lost his election bid to 

Jane Byrne. A former Daley Administration consumer affairs official who had been fired by 

Bilandic, her prospects in the Democratic primary were dim until January 12, 1977, when a blizzard 

dumped nearly 19 inches of snow on the city. Snow and freezing weather continued through 

February, disrupting roads and transit, while the city’s snowplows proved ineffective. The public 

blamed Mayor Bilandic for the city’s incompetent handling of the blizzard recovery effort, leading 

to his defeat by Byrne in the Democratic primary on February 27. After winning the general 

election, Mayor Byrne took office on April 16, 1979. 

Within months, Mayor Byrne and Governor Thompson had agreed to withdraw the southern leg of 

the Crosstown Expressway and cancel the Franklin Street subway planned by Mayor Bilandic. 

Instead, substitution funds from the withdrawal would be used for mass transit by the financially 

troubled RTA and roadway improvements. 
1315 

On September 26, 1979, Governor Thompson and Mayor Byrne submitted a joint request for 

withdrawal of the remaining 13.6-mile portion of I-494 between the Eisenhower and Dan Ryan 

Expressways. Deputy Federal Highway Administrator John S. Hassell and UMTA Acting 

Administrator Lillian C. Liburdi approved the request on October 1, 1979. 

The Crosstown Expressway was dead. In calculating the substitution value, FHWA used the base 

cost shown in the most recent Interstate Cost Estimate at the time of the withdrawal, adjusted 

quarterly to reflect inflation in the cost of construction. Overall, the final withdrawal value of the 

Crosstown Expressway was $2.5 billion, with State and local officials using $1.6 billion for 

substitute highway projects and $880 million for transit.

John D. Kramer remained Secretary until 1984. As reflected in his effort to block Mayor Daley’s 

Crosstown Expressway, Secretary Kramer continued to favor transit over roads, helping to turn 

around RTA’s fiscal fortunes. 

A future Deputy Federal Highway Administrator, Eugene R. McCormick (1989-1993), worked with 

Secretary Kramer in Illinois. McCormick, now Highway Market Leader with Parson Brinckerhoff, 

offered this comment in an e-mail for this article: 

It was a great opportunity and a continuous learning experience to work closely with John 

Kramer. Perhaps the greatest lesson learned was a disciplined persistence to continue to 

seek broad based consensus on major policy or political challenges as hurdles emerged on 

new initiatives and new ways to do business. The substitution program for completing the 

Crosstown Expressway in the City of Chicago as a part of the original Interstate System is a 

prime example. John was ultimately successful in substituting a program with a balance of 

public transportation and existing expressway/arterial investments . . . . Even more 

importantly, it initiated and encouraged a balanced transportation system investment 

approach in the long term. 

After leaving State service, Kramer went into business, focusing on infrastructure investment. 

Kramer, who had studied Political Science and International Relations at Stanford Univerity, met 

his wife Susan, a London native, while studying at Magdalen College, Oxford. They married in 

1972. After the young couple moved to Chicago in 1973, Susan Kramer went into banking, 

eventually becoming a vice president of CitiBank. 

The Kramers moved to London in 1992, initially as executive director of Goldman Sachs (1992-

1995). The couple established International Capital Partners, which specializes in infrastructure 

projects in Central and Eastern Europe. 

In May 2005, Susan Kramer won election to Parliament, serving through 2010. During these years, 

she specialized in transport issues.
1316 

John D. Kramer died on September 22, 2006, of melanoma at 57 years old. Baroness Sally 

Hamwee, one of Susan’s Liberal Democrat colleagues in Parliament, wrote a memorial for The 

Independent on October 13, 2006. She said of his work in Chicago: 

Kramer restructured the Illinois transportation funding systems, with new transportation 

taxes and user charges, revenue bond financing and public-private partnership structures. 

The chairmanship and post of chief executive officer of the Chicago Regional 

Transportation Authority were added to his role, and he converted its $14.5m deficit to a 

$90m surplus. This was 1980s America, where car was king, and Kramer was moving 

money from roads and investing in trains and buses. 

She said of his work in Europe: 

With typical enthusiasm, when the Berlin Wall came down John and Susan Kramer took 

their childred to be there. John Kramer’s interest in Central and Eastern Europe had already 

led him to establish relationships with reform movements including Solidarity in Poland and 

the New Forum Movements in former East Germany and Czechoslovakia, and he advised 

these groups on development, transport and other infrastructure when they took over 

government in 1989/90 . . . . 

Moving to London in 1992, initially as an executive director of Goldman Sachs, Kramer 

made a tangible contribution to the task of creating a modern transport infrastructure that 

integrated Europe. He gave a lot of effort to the Central Railway rail freight project, linking 

the Channel Tunnel to the North of England, and served as lead banker/adviser on some of 

Europe’s largest public-private transport projects, among them Berlin Airport, the MunichVerona rail project and the Elb Tunnel project in Germany. 

As for the man, Baroness Hamwee said:

John Kramer was a big man, and especially big in spirit. Those who worked with him on 

political campaigns in London saw how he glowed with pride at his wife’s achievements. 

They may have guessed that his support was in more than the practical things, though his 

ineptitude with a hammer (“The most feared words in the English language are ‘Some selfassembly required,” he said) did not stop him being a champion at erecting poster boards. . . 

. . John Kramer’s family meant more to him than anything. His delight in his newly born 

granddaughter was very evident. His kindness and generosity to everyone could hardly be 

contained. Despite the pressures of work, when he arrived in London ahead of his family he 

spent time with Molly, the family dog, at her quarantine kennels. And always, when he met 

you, he would say, “Hi, great to see you”—as if you were the very person he had most 

wanted to see.

Although Susan Kramer lost an election in November 2010, she was raised to the peerage as 

Baroness Kramer, of Richmond Park in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in 2010. 
1317 

Mayor Bradley’s Fight for Mass Transit 

Campaigning in 1973, Mayor Tom Bradley made transit one of his main themes. Shortly after 

taking office on July 1, 1973, he had said, “Number one, I want to see us build a rapid transit 

system.” 

On July 23, the Southern California RTD held a board meeting in Occidental Center Auditorium to 

unveil a $6.5-billion transit plan for the Los Angeles area. The proposal, developed by consultants 

over an 8-month period, included a 116-mile network of commuter trains, busways, and nearly 

3,000 buses. The district estimated that the rail network, 30 percent of it to be built as a subway, 

could begin construction in 1976 and be completed by the late 1980s. The cost had not been a 

consideration hampering development of the plan to get people out of the 3.5 million cars using the 

area’s freeways. “Hang the costs!” one planner said. “When you’re under the gun—and when 

you’re starting from scratch—billions of dollars are involved any way you look at it.” [Hebert, Ray, 

“$6.5 Billion, 116-Mile Transit Network Proposed for L.A. Area,” The Los Angeles Times, July 23, 

1973] 

Nevertheless, funding was the key. Planners thought the area was more receptive to transit than it 

had been in 1968, when the district had proposed an 89-mile downtown-oriented rail system that 

would be funded by a half-cent increase in the sales tax. Despite a strong campaign by downtown 

businesses and other supporters, the voters defeated a sales tax referendum by a wide margin. 

[Altshuler, Mega-Projects, p. 184] 

The district proposed another referendum for a sales tax increase as part of an optimistic funding 

plan for a transit network. To pay off 30-year construction bonds, the district needed the sale tax 

increase, revenue from the State gas tax if voters approved a constitutional amendment to divert 

revenue from freeways, and a major contribution from UMTA. The district projected the UMTA 

share at $4.5 billion, a shaky projection. A planner said, “If the federal money we’ll need isn’t 

available, then . . . well, we’ll trim back our program accordingly.” [Quoted in Hebert, “$6.5 

Billion, 116-Mile Transit Network Proposed for L.A. Area”] 

Mayor Bradley took one step toward a funding package on July 30 by petitioning the State Supreme 

Court to open the State’s highway trust fund to other types of transportation. Voters had turned 

down the idea in a 1970 referendum, but Mayor Bradley argued in the suit that the Clean Air 

Amendments of 1970 made a reduction in automobile traffic imperative to meet the stringent goals 

set for the Los Angeles Basin. One approach the suit took was to provide a broad definition of 

“highway” to include “any public way.” [Hebert, Ray, “Bradley Asks High Court to OK Use of 

Road Fund for Transit,” The Los Angeles Times, August 1, 1973] 

Funding was very much on Mayor Bradley’s mind on August 21 when he and Senator Cranston 

hosted metropolitan area mayors for a breakfast meeting at City Hall. Mayor Bradley said he hoped 

they would work with him so the plan “will not be destroyed by bickering or parochialism” among 

Los Angeles County’s 77 cities. Although Los Angeles was by far the largest jurisdiction, Bradley 

assured the other Mayors: 
1318 

The attitude that Los Angeles is above other cities in the county is at an end. Our problems 

do not separate us. We’ll expect the good neighbor policy to go both ways. 

Senator Cranston offered a note of caution about the funding plan, pointing out that the area had no 

guarantee of $4.5 billion from UMTA. “In the long run, we’ll get that much—but how long it will 

take I don’t know.” Although he endorsed the district’s plan, he said it was “only a beginning . . . a 

thousand questions must be answered before the concept can become a plan.” Because California 

was limited to receiving no more than 12.5 percent of available funds, the only way to increase the 

amount received was to “expand the pot.” [“Bradley Urges County Unity on Transit Goals,” The 

Los Angeles Times, August 22, 1973] 

In September, the State legislature approved a referendum, similar to the one rejected in 1970, to 

open the State highway trust fund to transit. Senate President Pro Tempore James R. Mills (D-San 

Diego), who had advocated the 1970 measure, was optimistic the outcome would be different this 

time. He cited support from Governor Reagan, the energy crisis, the need to reduce emissions to 

meet EPA air quality standards, and less opposition from the oil and gas industry. He estimated 

that if the voters approved, about $50 million in gas tax revenue would be diverted for nonhighway 

purposes. The referendum, and a separate measure providing for a flat 25-cent fare, would go 

before voters during the primary election in June 1974. 

The Southern California Automobile Association opposed the move, arguing that highway user 

taxes should be used for the intended purpose. Further, diverted funds would contribute little to the 

extensive transit plan while delaying needed highway improvements. [Gillam, Jerry, “Voters Will 

Get Second Chance to OK Gas Tax for Transit Use,” The Los Angeles Times, September 14, 1973] 

Senator Cranston’s cautious comments at City Hall were reinforced by UMTA Administrator 

Herringer on September 13 during an address to the Southern California Association of 

Governments meeting at the Hyatt Regency. The Los Angeles area would have to bear much more 

of the cost of the district’s transit plan because UMTA did not have enough funds for all the cities 

that wanted to begin or expand their transit networks. “I do not want to seem unduly pessimistic. I 

am only [giving you] my personal, straightforward assessment of the situation.” He said that 

UMTA would need six times as much funding as it had to satisfy demand around the country. The 

district might want to reduce its reliance on rail transit to lower the overall cost. [Hebert, Ray, 

“L.A. Region to Get Less Transit Aid, U.S. Official Warns,” The Los Angeles Times, September 15, 

1973] 

State Auditor General Harvey M. Rose emphasized the funding problem facing the district’s plan in 

a report issued on November 14. He pointed out that the consultants who developed the plan had 

greatly overestimated UMTA’s contribution, which Rose estimated might be $2.6 billion, and even 

that might be too high an estimate, he said. Further, the final plan failed to point out the operating 

deficits the proposed network would experience, which he estimated would increase from $6 

million in 1977 to more than $1 billion in 2000. Over that 26-year span, the total operating deficit 

would be more than $10 billion. The plan released in July estimated a 4-year operating deficit of 

only $210.3 million. [“$10 Billion Deficit Predicted for Proposed L.A. Transit System,” The Los 

Angeles Times, November 16, 1973] 
1319 

Secretary Brinegar was in Los Angeles on January 21, 1974, for the launch of a computerized 

carpool program called Commuter-Computer. Asked about the district’s plan to base financing on 

$4.5 billion from UMTA, he said, “We have no program that would guarantee that kind of money. 

Nor would I recommend it. The taxes of the whole nation are involved. It becomes a question of 

equity.” He encouraged the Los Angeles area to consider smaller concepts, such as the new carpool 

program. The area could use up to $150 million a year from Federal-aid urban system funds for 

transit and up to $1 billion over a 5-year period for freeway bus lanes, jitney service, carpools, and 

other programs. 

He seemed to reporter Ray Hebert annoyed with the district for assuming such a large UMTA 

contribution. Pulling the consultants’ report out of his briefcase, Secretary Brinegar said:

These things simply are not true. Don’t misunderstand what Washington can do. If you are 

planning a rapid transit system because you think the federal government can finance it—

don’t do it. 

In a Town Hall address the same day at the Holiday Inn in Westwood, he said the automobile 

“remains a very desirable and . . . the best means of personal transit” in the area. “Our love affair 

with the big car may have cooled but we clearly still love the services a car can offer.” He 

explained that his concept for the area was based on taking advantage of what the region already 

had, namely a freeway network. [Hebert, Ray, “U.S. Won’t Fund Rail Rapid Transit Here, Brinegar 

Says,” The Los Angeles Times, January 22, 1974] 

In February, Los Angeles County Supervisor James A. Hayes reported on a proposal to implement a 

25-cent, flat-rate bus fare for a 3-month experimental period. The county would use up to $12 

million of its General Revenue Sharing funds to subsidize the reduction. In late February, Hayes 

said he had met with Secretary Brinegar to ensure the experiment would not result in penalties for 

the county under pending Federal legislation that would penalize any local jurisdiction that reduces 

it own expenditures for public transportation. “I have received a commitment directly from 

Secretary Brinegar that Transportation Department rules implementing such legislation would

exempt from the penalty expenditures made under experimental programs like the one 

contemplated by Los Angeles County.” Hayes said the Secretary had encouraged the county to take 

other steps to increase bus ridership, such as reserving freeway lanes for express buses and 

providing park-and-ride lots for commuters. “We are going to develop” such a program, Hayes 

said. 

A few days later, Hayes had to admit Secretary Brinegar had been unwilling to put his assurances in 

writing. Instead, Secretary Brinegar sent a telegram pledging to “make every effort to see that the 

legislation is written in such a way that the county would not be penalized.” UMTA Administrator 

Herringer confirmed the Secretary’s hesitance, pointing out that Congress, not the Secretary of 

Transportation, would decide the details of the final legislation. Herringer did, however, predict 

that the final bill would permit the Department to exempt experiments. “I can’t imagine any way 

Los Angeles would be hurt,” he said. [Steiger, Paul E., “25-Cent RTD Fare Gets U.S. Approval,” 

The Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1974; “Hayes Fails to Get U.S. Pledge on Bus Subsidy,” The 

Los Angeles Times, March 7, 1974] 
1320 

The experiment, which began on April 1, proved successful in increasing ridership. By early May, 

the district designated Mrs. Kay Conley of Los Angeles as the 3 millionth patron to ride the county 

bus system for 25 cents. She was a special guest at a National Transportation Week luncheon on 

May 16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The featured speaker was Under Secretary of 

Transportation Barnum who told the audience that Los Angeles was far down the list of cities suited

to a rail rapid-transit system. The area was the 21st among cities in population density, a key 

yardstick for suitability. Exclusive bus lanes, carpooling, and staggered work hours that took 

advantage of the freeway network were the best approach for cities that were not densely populated. 

 [Hebert, Ray, “L.A. Low on List of Cities Suited for Rail Transit,” The Los Angeles Times, May 

17, 1974] 

On June 4, voters approved Proposition 5, which amended the constitution to permit the use of up 

to 25 percent of gas tax revenues for construction of fixed public transit systems and guideways. 

Motor vehicle license fees and fuel taxes could be used to reduce noise and improve air quality. 

The equally crucial vote would take place during the November 5 elections. The referendum 

measures called for twin half-cent increases in the Los Angeles County sales tax. The measures 

were expected to raise more than $100 million over the next 5 years. One of the half-cent increases 

would help finance construction of 145 miles of the planned rail rapid transit network. (The district 

was still projecting that 60 to 80 percent of construction funds would come from the Federal 

Government.) The other half-cent increase would be used to expand the bus system, other transit 

improvements, and continuation of the subsidized 25-cent fare. 

Mayor Bradley launched an aggressive campaign to support the referendum. As chairman of a 

loose coalition called Citizens for Better Transportation, he said: 

We have talked about rapid transit for 50 years. Now the time to stop talking has come. 

This is a time for action. We have an opportunity to set a clear course for the future. 

Despite talk for all those years, the county’s proposed plan was the first “believable” transit plan 

prepared for the area:

The passage of Proposition 5—the measure that opened California’s highway trust fund for 

transit use—clearly indicated that the people support an alternative to the freeways. 

[Hebert, Ray, “Bradley Opens Drive for Transit Plan,” The Los Angeles Times, August 7, 

1974] 

An editorial in The Los Angeles Times quoted Mayor Bradley’s line about “This is a time for 

action,” then concluded: 

In approving Proposition 5 at the June primary election—a measure opening California’s 

highway funds for transit use—the voters gave a clear signal that they recognize the need for 

an alternative to the freeway system.
1321 

That alternative is rapid transit. In November the voters will have an opportunity to move 

the best plan we have yet had off the drawing boards and into construction. Further delays 

can only multiply the eventual cost of a rapid transit system and increase the growing 

congestion on our freeways and surface streets.

Bradley is right. The region can afford to wait no longer. [“Transit Can Wait No Longer,” 

The Los Angeles Times, August 13, 1974] 

As if to demonstrate the importance of mass transit, bus drivers and mechanics in a four-county 

area walked off their jobs on August 12 after their union representatives broke off negotiations with 

the district. The strike left transit riders scrambling to find another way to commute. The freeways

were jammed with transit refugees. The strike also undercut the experimental 25-cent fare that had

increased ridership from 550,000 to 650,000. Now those new riders, and any residents without a 

car, had to find some other way to get to work. 

Aside from the difficulties the strike caused on the area’s congested road network, officials feared it 

might undercut their campaign for the November vote, which would support existing transit service 

as well as the new transit plan. Jack R. Gilstrap, the district’s general manager, said, “It’s a terrible 

time. A long strike could sour the attitude of the public toward public transportation.” He feared 

that resolving the strike would mean an increase in fares. Mayor Bradley acknowledged that people 

might “become frustrated and annoyed by the traffic on the roads and take it out on the [district] 

and vote ‘no.’” He tried to take the positive view that the consequences of the strike would have 

the opposite effect. “The people who see the congestion on our streets may be more encouraged to 

vote for mass transit.” [“Los Angeles Strike Puts New Bus Riders Back Into Their Cars,” The New 

York Times, August 17, 1974] 

To help relieve congestion as the strike went into its second week, the district opened the San 

Bernardino-El Monte Busway to carpools for the first time on August 19. Permits to use the 

busway were issued to carpools carrying three or more people. 

The strike ended on the 68th day. When normal service resumed on Monday, October 21, the buses 

carried more than 600,000 passengers, offering renewed hope that county residents had not given up 

on mass transit. Gilstrap referred to the ridership as “dramatic evidence” of the importance of 

public transit. [“Public Transit: Voting for the Future,” The Los Angeles Times, October 23, 1974] 

On November 5, voters turned down Proposition A, with 53.7 percent of voters opposed. 

Neighboring Orange County turned down a similar measure by an even wider margin, with 63.4 

percent of voters opposed. Mayor Bradley said he was “terribly disappointed,” but added, “We’re . 

. . still committed to improving public transportation. The need remains.” Some observers thought 

the Southern California RTD deserved much of the blame. County Supervisor Pete Schabarum 

suggested that, “There has been almost tunnel vision on a fixed guideway system” and suggested 

that Gilstrap’s resignation might be in order. 
1322 

Mayor Bradley felt that restricting the district’s 11-member board to give the city of Los Angeles a 

“more significant voice,” might be appropriate, but he refused to blame the defeat entirely on the 

board. He also refused to blame the 68-day strike:

You could pick a half dozen different arguments why people voted against the measure. But 

in the final analysis, it was this terrible inflation we are experiencing now. That persuaded 

the people. And it boiled down to a single issue . . . the added tax. 

(Inflation was running at over 11 percent in 1974, up from 3.4 percent just a year earlier. The 

Nation’s economy was still experiencing stagflation characterized by high inflation, low business 

activity, and an increasing unemployment rate. Time magazine for October 14, 1974, featured an 

illustration of President Ford, drawn by Mad magazine’s Jack Davis, rolling up his sleeves next to 

the headline: “TRYING TO FIGHT BACK: Inflation, Recession, Oil” ) 

With Governor Reagan unable to run for reelection due to term limits, the voters selected Edmund 

G. “Jerry” Brown, Jr., the son of a former Governor, to be the next Governor of California. 

Regarding the defeat of Proposition A, he said, “What we have to do is . . . pick up the pieces. The 

need for better transportation will not change. It’s still there. The need to move people quickly and 

cheaply still exists.” [Hebert, Ray, “Opposition to Tax Blamed for Defeat of Mass Transit Plan,” 

The Los Angeles Times, November 7, 1974] 

Despite the setback, Mayor Bradley and other local officials decided to focus on a “starter” line 

linking Los Angeles and Long Beach as an object lesson to build support for rail rapid transit. The 

National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1974, which President Ford signed on November 

26, gave area officials hope. The area expected to receive $1.2 billion over 6 years, but they cited 

the discretionary transit funds now available to Secretary Brinegar as a source of funding for the 

single line despite the Secretary’s preference for buses and better use of freeways to solve the area’s 

problems. Gilstrap explained: 

The new transit bill not only gives us a chance to salvage our own corridor plan or part of it, 

but it also is the signal to get started on something. The monkey is on the Los Angeles 

area’s back. Federal money is there. It’s just a question of moving forward . . . . [Hebert, 

Ray, “U.S. Funds Revive L.A. Rapid Transit Plans,” The Los Angeles Times, Dcember 2, 

1974] 

As the year ended, Mayor Bradley wrote an article for The Los Angeles Times issue of December 

20. He said that in the wake of the defeat of Proposition A, people regularly asked him “Where 

does Los Angeles go from here on rapid transit?” His answer was simply: “We go forward.” 

The support for Proposition 5 in June, Mayor Bradley wrote, and opinion polls indicated support for 

mass transit, including fixed rail transit:

How does one resolve this apparent contradiction in the voters’ wishes? Quite easily.
1323 

Rather than a rejection of rapid transit, the defeat of Proposition A was simply an expression 

of two very specific sentiments: an unwillingness to increase the sales tax in the face of 

unsettled economic conditions, and a lack of confidence in the Southern California Rapid 

Transit District as currently constituted.

Under Proposition 5, which voters had approved in June, Mayor Bradley expected the area to 

receive as much as $220 million by 1980 to match Federal transit funds for a fixed rail line. This 

was in addition to the $1.5 billion he expected the area to receive over 6 years under the 1974 Act: 

[T]hese funds should be put to work on the core of our system—a rapid transit project along 

a heavily traveled commuter route. We will, of course, require other sources of revenue. 

Among those we might consider are: public assessment districts; diversion of federal 

highway funds; and state oil and gas revenues. Indeed, I have asked the State Legislature to 

consider allocations for transit from the latter source as soon as possible. 

In the meantime, the area should move forward to improve mass transit service. The bus fleet 

should be expanded by 300 buses and 40 minibuses while following through on plans for grid bus 

systems through South Central Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley; implement an express

system in which a large number of buses follow each other in the heavily traveled Beverly-Fairfax 

corridor; expand subscription bus and minibus services for downtown employees; continue the 25-

cent fare; pursue the State’s program for giving preferential treatment to buses and carpools on 

designated freeway lanes beginning with the Santa Monica and Hollywood Freeways; consider 

using existing railroad right-of-way as the foundation for light rail; and expand dial-a-ride services 

for the elderly and handicapped. He also advocated a “people mover” personal rapid transit system 

for the downtown area. 

He had spoken with Governor-elect Brown about State-level initiates to promote balanced 

transportation. The Mayor suggested that the incoming Governor might, for example, “instill in the 

Highway Commission a new commitment to mass transit and thus induce it to release more state 

gas tax funds.” 

Mayor Bradley concluded: 

All around us we see the social, economic and environmental reasons for improving mass 

transit. If we make our institutions for planning and operating public transit more 

responsive and accountable; if we obtain new and equitable sources of funds; and if we 

carefully weigh the allocation of whatever funds are available, we can achieve a practical, 

efficient system.

In the long run, then, the rejection of Proposition A was a detour, not a deadend. In one 

form or another, Los Angeles is going to see an improvement in mass transportation—a 

promise I’ve made before and still stand by. [Bradley, Tom, “Where Do We Go Now on 

Rapid Transit? Mayor Bradley Says: ‘Forward,’” The Los Angeles Times, December 20, 

1974] 
1324 

To develop the starter line, officials needed consensus on financing and routing. Consensus became

more urgent when Secretary Coleman informed area officials that he wanted a report by August 1, 

1975, on the region’s corridor consensus and how it would be financed. He did not expect a precise 

alignment, but wanted to ensure a broad consensus on the corridor. 

On July 26, Byron E. Cook, president of the Southern California RTD, wrote to inform Secretary 

Coleman that Los Angeles County, the cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Burbank, and Glendale, 

and the RTD had reached consensus. Gasoline tax revenue of $200 million, freed by Proposition 5 

in 1974, would pay the local share on a Federal-State 80-20 basis, matched to $800 million in 

UMTA funds. As for the corridor, Cook acknowledged that despite the consensus on financing, 

several technical and policy issues remained to be determined. “These include the specific route 

alignment, configuration, station locations and transit mode.” He expected resolution of the issues 

by the end of the year. [Hebert, Ray, “Region Informs U.S. of Transit Accord,” The Los Angeles 

Times, July 27, 1975] 

The State legislature created the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (LACTC) in 

1976 to develop a rail transit plan for the region. County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn took the lead in 

developing a LACTC plan to go back to the voters for a half-cent sales tax increase worth about 

$225 million a year in November 1980. The money would be used for the top two rail priorities 

(lines from downtown to Wilshire and Long Beach), to lower bus fares for 3 years, and assist 

localities for transportation improvements of their choice. The voters approved the increase, with 

54 percent approving. 

The initial segment of the above-ground Blue Line opened on July 14, 1990, between downtown 

Los Angeles and Long Beach. The 22-mile, 22-station line cost $877 million, more than double 

estimates before construction began. Rides were free through July, but starting in August, the oneway fare was $1.10, which was expected to pay only about 5 percent of the projected $33 million 

annual operating budget. The percentage was speculative because the line was to run on an honor 

system, with only random checks to ensure passengers had purchased tickets. Much of the initial 

operating budget, $12 million, was for security because the line ran through hard-core gang 

territory. Sheriff Sherman Block predicted, “Of course, the gangs will view this system as part of 

their turf.”

On opening day, neither end of the line had been completed, and was not expected to be completed 

until 1993, necessitating shuttle bus service. Ridership was expected to be low because the shuttle 

added 30 minutes to the 55-minute trip. However, opening day ridership exceeded expectations, 

with 15,000 passengers riding the Blue Line, about three times the expected number. 

 

Mayor Bradley almost missed the Saturday opening of the Blue Line. He spent much of the day 

dealing with a fire in a tunnel under construction for a section of the Metro system that closed U.S. 

101 and created day-long congestion. Nevertheless, he said: 

With the opening of the Metro Blue Line, public rail transit permanently comes back to Los 

Angeles.
1325 

[Armstrong, Scott, “Congested L.A. Looks to Light Rail,” The Christian Science Monitor, July 13, 

1990; Mathews, Jay, “Fiery Rebirth of Rail Mass Transit in Los Angeles,” The Washington Post, 

July 14, 1990; Mydans, Seth, “Rail Line Makes Debut Where Car is Supreme,” The New York 

Times, July 16, 1990; The Los Angeles Times News Service, “15,000 Ride New Calif. Rail Line,” 

The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 17, 1990] 

The Catalytic Converter

Through the mid-1970s, auto industry, EPA, urban officials, Members of Congress, the oil industry, 

and others considered how to meet the seemingly impossible air quality standards imposed by the 

Clean Air Amendments of 1970 in the face of the energy crisis. Drastic cuts in auto use appeared to 

be the best option, but they proved impossible to implement. As writer Tim Palucka put it:

With the passage of the Clean Air Act of 1970, Congress threw down a gauntlet similar in 

spirit to President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 challenge to put a man on the moon before the 

end of the decade. Both were bold strokes that placed a burden squarely on the shoulders of 

the nation’s scientists and engineers. And both looked impossible . . . . 

In the race to clean up the air, no one knew if the goal, a 90 percent reduction in automobile 

emissions from pre-1968 levels by the 1975 model year, was even remotely possible. 

Moreover, Americans loved their thirsty automobiles; the petroleum industry depended on 

toxic lead in gasoline to increase octane; and automakers didn’t want to add another costly 

device, especially one that would interfere with the cars’ performance. 

Although the manufacturers responded to the 1970 CAA "with a chorus of complaints,” the 

government held firm. As Palucka pointed out, “It was 1975 or bust.” 

By then, however, several research efforts came together to enable the manufacturers to meet the

EPA standards. 

Eugene Houdry, a French engineer living in Pennsylvania, developed a “catalytic muffler” in 1959 

that could be installed in the auto exhaust system to oxidize carbon monoxide into harmless carbon 

dioxide and convert unburned hydrocarbons into carbon dioxide and water. “Put them on all cars,” 

he said, “and watch the lung cancer curve dip.” Palucka described the invention: 

It consisted of a rectangular metal box containing 71 porcelain rods arranged in staggered 

rows among which exhaust gases would pass. The rods were coated with high-surface-area 

alumina containing tiny islands of platinum, which acted as an oxidation catalyst. 

The time for Houdry’s invention had not yet arrived because “there was little pressure yet from 

consumers to do anything about automobile emissions.” Further, “the lead in gasoline would have 

‘poisoned’ the catalyst, forming an alloy with the platinum atoms and preventing oxygen from 

bonding to them.” 

 
1326 

Houdry received a patent for his invention in 1962, but died later that year, even as, Palucka said, 

the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring began the pressure that would create a market for 

his invention. (Like Helen Leavitt’s Superhighway-Superhoax, Silent Spring was among the New 

York Public Library’s Books of the Century. The “impassioned, carefully researched, and 

meticulously documented call to arms . . . alerted the general public to the growing danger—known 

already to ecologists and conservationists—from the careless and, in many cases, egregious 

poisoning of the earth’s soil, water, air, creatures, and plants. [The New York Public Library’s 

Books of the Century, p. 42]) 

Around the same time, Carl Keith of Engelhard Industries in New Jersey was working with 3M to 

find a way of reducing carbon monoxide emissions from forklifts in enclosed spaces such as mines 

and warehouses. 3M had developed a zirconia-mullite blend that improved on Houdry’s porcelain 

rods to hold the platinum catalyst: 

[The] zirconia-mullite blend could be rolled up in corrugated sheets and then rolled up into 

a cylinder. The cylinder in effect formed a honeycomb that the exhaust gas could flow 

through, with abundant surface area available for catalytic conversion. 

Keith “put a layer of high-surface-area alumina with platinum onto the honeycomb to convert 

carbon monoxide.” 

The catalyst was successful in the forklift market, but the market was too small to be profitable. 

Keith had not solved the problem of lead in gasoline that had also stymied Houdry. On an 

automobile, the catalytic converter would last only about 12,000 miles. “I was convinced,” Keith 

said, “that nobody was going to pay $150 every 12,000 miles to replace a catalytic converter.” 

Following enactment of the 1970 CAA, Engelhard Industries had the incentive to find a solution for 

automobiles even while the auto industry fought imposition of the stringent requirements and cities 

protested the transportation control plans they would need to meet ambient air quality standards. 

A third company, Corning Glass Works in Corning, New York, had been working with the auto 

industry in other areas. “One was the development of a regenerator wheel for turbine engines, to 

carry hot exhaust gases back to the inlet side of an engine. The material it was made from was very 

similar to the 3M honeycomb structure used on forklifts.” Auto-industry executives brought this 

similarity to Corning’s attention. “At one meeting the representatives asked if the turbine 

regenerator’s cellular concept might be used in a catalyst system.” The company recognized the 

challenge and the potential rewards for meeting it. 

Corning engineers developed a process for extrusion of the cellular structures on the honeycomb. 

(Palucka: “Extrusion involves pushing a soft, viscous material, like a clay, through a die to form a 

desired shape.”) The extrusion method for thin-walled honeycomb structures received a patent in 

1974. Even before the new process was perfected and a market assured, Corning began building a 

factory to manufacture catalytic converters. 

One of the unresolved issues was identifying the best material for the honeycomb, with a goal of 

eliminating or reducing the need for expensive, scarce platinum and palladium. Base metals such 
1327 

as copper and iron were tested and rejected. “They were easily poisoned by sulfur, and attempts to 

remove the sulfur were unsuccessful.” 

Corning settled on a magnesium-aluminum-silicate compound called cordierite. Additional 

technological challenges remained to be solved, but EPA added a new challenge even as 

manufacturing was getting underway. It issued a new emissions standard for a significant reduction 

in mono-nitrogen oxides (NOx) gases:

NOx reacts with oxygen and sunlight to form ground-level ozone, a major component of 

smog, and with water and unburned hydrocarbons to form nitric acid and other nasty 

chemicals. The EPA had left NOx standards out of the 1975 requirements so researchers 

could focus on carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons, but they were scheduled to take effect 

the following year. During the 1973-74 gas crisis, the EPA extended them to 1978, and in 

1977 they were extended again, to 1981. When they took effect, the same catalyst system 

that added oxygen to carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons would have to remove oxygen 

from NOx, to leave nitrogen. 

Engelhard researchers found the solution by inserting a small amount of rhodium into the platinum 

catalyst. Palucka explained that, “Now both oxidation and reduction could take place at the same 

time in the same catalytic converter.” Three-way catalysts remain in use, modified over the years to 

meet changing needs. He added that, “This kind of control over chemical reactions wouldn’t have 

been possible without the computing and sensing technology that was just emerging.” 

Even as the catalytic converter began to appear in cars, its impact was uncertain. In October 1974, 

The New York Times headlined an article:

Catalytic Converter: Big “If” of 1975

The article began:

“This is a tremendous achievement on the part of all concerned,” says Charles Heinen, 

Chrysler Corporation’s emission expert, “something the industry can be proud of.” 

“The dumbest thing that ever happened to the automobile,” insists Alan Loofbourrow, 

Chrysler vice president.

The article explained that if the device worked, “two major auto emissions—carbon monoxide and 

unburned hydrocarbons—will be reduced sharply.” If the device didn’t work, “the clean air drive 

will be crippled, and a new pollutant, sulphuric acid, might slip into the atmosphere.” 

Some industry executives claimed that if they had 2 or 3 more years, they could have achieved the 

same result and fuel economy gains without the converter: 
1328 

But General Motors said it could cleanse the air with converters, and dragged the industry 

along. All 1975 G.M. models will use them, as will 70 per cent of the Ford and Chrysler 

autos and 35 per cent of A.M.C. cars. 

Palucka summarized the importance of the catalytic converter:

The catalytic converter is one of the great environmental success stories of the last century. 

When each goal was reached, the government raised the standards another notch, and the 

scientists kept meeting them. The result was automobiles that ran more efficiently with 

better gas mileage, confounding fears that environmentally friendly cars would be sluggish 

cars. [Palucka, Tim, “Doing the Impossible,” Invention and Technology, Winter 2004, p. 

22-31] 

Since then, catalytic converters have been installed on millions of cars. In part because of the 

converters, the country has made significant progress in improving air quality despite a 41-percent 

increase in population, 167-percent growth in Gross Domestic Product, and 157-percent growth in 

Vehicle Miles Traveled since the 1970s. [Transportation Air Quality Facts and Figures, Office of 

Planning, Environment, and Realty, FHWA, January 2006, 

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/air_quality/publications/fact_book/page05.cfm] 

Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway 

Secretary Volpe initiated the idea of a transcontinental highway dedicated to President Eisenhower, 

and Congress designated it in Section 159 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. As discussed 

earlier, the idea was to designate Interstate highways paralleling the route of the U.S. Army’s first 

transcontinental motor vehicle convoy, which left the Ellipse south of the White House on July 7, 

1919, headed to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, then followed the Lincoln Highway west. The convoy 

reached San Francisco on September 6. President Eisenhower cited this trip as opening his eyes to 

the Nation’s need for better roads, an understanding that, along with his experience on the German 

autobahn during and after World War II, led to his strong support for the Interstate System in the 

mid-1950s. 

Under Section 159, the route did not follow one highway, but assembled a collection of route 

segments that parallel the 1919 journey: 

(1) Interstate Route 70 between Washington, District of Columbia, and Denver, Colorado 

(2) Interstate Route 25 between Denver, Colorado, and Cheyenne, Wyoming; and 

(3) Interstate Route 80 between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and San Francisco, california 

(As noted earlier, I-70S was intended to carry traffic from I-70/I-70N in Frederick, Maryland, into 

the District of Columbia’s core. On October 3, 1975, Administrators Tiemann and Patricelli 

approved District Mayor Walter E. Washington’s request to withdraw the District’s highly 

controversial portion of the route. On May 18, 1975, FHWA approved Maryland’s request to 

change I-70N (Frederick to Baltimore) to I-70 and I-70S to I-270. I-270 terminates at the Capital 

Beltway (I-495). With this change, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway was 2,942 miles long.) 
1329 

Section 159 was clear on one point: 

Any law, regulation, map, document, record, or other paper of the United States in which 

such segments are designated or referred to shall be held to designate or refer to such 

segments as the “Dwight D. Eisenhower Highway." 

The name never took hold along a disjointed route that made little transportation sense, and the 

States had little interest in paying for signs to let the public know the name of this "route." 

Mapmakers never adopted the idea, either, since the public was not aware of the name. 

Finally, on October 14, 1986, TRIP sponsored installation of a commemorative sign in the tourist 

information center off I-70 (westbound) in Kansas City, Kansas. Susan Eisenhower, the former 

President’s granddaughter, attended. "My grandfather considered the interstate system as among 

his most lasting achievements. Today, on what would have been his 96th birthday, we can be 

thankful for his foresight and perseverance" in pushing for the Interstate System. [“Eisenhower’s 

Highway Role Honored,” The Washington Post, October 15, 1986] 

Congress tried again to honor President Eisenhower in 1990 in time for the centennial of his birth 

on October 14, 1890. On June 28, Senator H. John Heinz III (R-Pa.) introduced legislation to 

rename the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, the name specified in the FederalAid Highway Act of 1956, to honor the former President. Senators Dole (R-Ks.), Nancy Landon 

Kassebaum (R-Ks.), Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY), and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) cosponsored the 

bill, which proposed the name: “Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate Highway System.” 

After explaining how President Eisenhower pushed for the Interstate System, Senator Heinz said: 

President Eisenhower’s adherence to the vision of American mobility was most certainly the 

main driving force behind the creation of the modern Interstate Highway System. The 

Federal Highway Acts of 1954, 1956, and 1958 had as their impetus Eisenhower’s 

insistence that Congress and the administration act swiftly to address this Nation’s severe 

infrastructure problems. 

October 14 of this year marks Dwight D. Eisenhower’s centennial birthday . . . . As a 

Senator from Pennsylvania, where Eisenhower kept his Gettysburg home upon retiring from 

office, and privileged as I am to be a member of the Eisenhower Centennial Commission, I 

strongly believe it is befitting to pay tribute to and remember this great, late President by 

naming the Interstate Highway System after the man who strived so hard to make it reality. 

[Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate Highway System, Congressional Record-Senate, p. 

16444-16447] 

On October 4, Senator John F. Kerry (D-Ma.) introduced an amendment changing the name to the 

“Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways.” Senator Heinz again rose to 

speak on behalf of the new name: 
1330 

The late President demonstrated tremendous conviction to a vision of safe and expansive 

highways. From the moment he assumed the Presidency, Eisenhower’s aspirations for an 

efficiently mobile America translated into . . . significant advances, paving the way toward a 

modern highway system. Among Ike’s many, many lasting contributions to our Nation, 

none has more profoundly changed the shape of American life than the legacy of a modern 

system of highways. 

The Senate approved the measure the same day without a recorded vote. [Dwight D. Eisenhower 

Interstate Highway System, Congressional Record-Senate, p. 27484, 27493-27494]

Representative Glenn Anderson introduced the measure in the House on October 10: 

This bill rightfully acknowledges the contribution of the Nation’s 34th President in bringing 

about the enactment of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 that defined the purpose and 

extent of the Interstate System—the largest public works project ever undertaken in the 

United States. 

Several Representatives offered their support in comments inserted into the record. Representative 

Hammerschmidt referred to the strain on the highway system during the Korean War: 

President Eisenhower responded to this crisis by going to the Congress and the Nation’s 

Governors to ask for their cooperation in setting forth a grand plan. He drew a vision of an 

“articulated system to solve the problems of speedy, safe, transcontinental travel,” including 

metropolitan area congestion, bottlenecks, access highways, and farm-to-market movement. 

 

Today, as the Interstate System nears completion, we reap the benefits of President 

Eisenhower’s vision. It is clear that the Interstate System will continue to be the bulwark of 

our Nation’s highway network into the 21st century.

Representative Shuster referred to the vision of President Eisenhower and the Congress in creating 

the Interstate Highway System and providing the Highway Trust Fund that gave the United States 

“the best highway system in the world.” He continued: 

It is my hope, as I vigorously support this legislation and look forward to its passage, that 

we in this Congress have the same vision as we wrestle with the budget issues before us, the 

same vision to preserve and protect that highway trust fund so that 45 years from now those 

who stand in this well [where Representatives stand to address their colleagues] might be 

able to look back and say that Congress had the same vision, the same foresight as the 

earlier Congress and President Eisenhower did, and they provided for preserving that trust 

fund [so] that we were able in the 21st century to meet the awesome needs of continuing to 

provide the American people with the best highway system in the world. 

Representative Norman Y. Mineta (D-Ca.), the former Mayor of San Jose who had won election to 

the House in the Democratic wave of 1974, also inserted comments into the record: 
1331 

President Eisenhower made the Interstate a reality by his support of user-fee funding, and 

creation of the Federal Highway Trust Fund . . . . Passage of this bill today is both a fitting 

and proper way to commemorate the 100th anniversary of President Eisenhower’s birth. 

Without further discussion, the bill passed without a recorded vote and was ready to go to the White 

House for signature. [The Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways, 

Congressional Record-House, p. 28401-28402] 

President George H. W. Bush signed the legislation on October 15, 1990 (Public Law 101-427), 

one day after the centennial of Pesident Eisenhower’s birth. The name was amended by later 

legislation to the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways.

During a Capitol Hill ceremony on July 29, 1993, Federal Highway Administrator Rodney E. Slater 

(1993-1997) unveiled the Eisenhower Interstate System sign. FHWA designed the sign in 

conjunction with AASHTO, the Eisenhower family, the Eisenhower Center, and the Eisenhower 

Society. The former President’s son, John Eisenhower, was among the guests for the unveiling. 

Placement of the signs along the Interstate System was and remains voluntary. The States may, if 

they wish, place the signs along their Interstate highways, but are not required to do so. 

Bicycles Roll On

Section 124 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973 established Title 23, United States Code, 

Section 217 (“Bicycle Transportation and Pedestrian Walkways”). It began:

To encourage the multiple use of highway rights-of-way, including the development, 

improvement, and use of bicycle transportation and the development and improvement of 

pedestrian walkways on or in conjunction with highway rights-of-way, the States may, on 

Federal-aid highway projects, include to the extent practicable, suitable, and feasible, the 

construction of separate or preferential bicycle lanes or paths, bicycle traffic control devices, 

shelters and parking facilities to serve bicycles and persons using bicycles, and pedestrian 

walkways in conjunction or connection with Federal-aid highways. 

The States could use their non-Interstate formula funds for these purposes. The funds, from the 

Highway Trust Fund on a 70-30 matching basis, would come from the Federal-aid system on which 

the facility was located. However, the provision limited funds to $40 million nationwide each fiscal 

year, with a $2 million per State per year limit. Funds authorized for other Federal roads programs, 

such as Forest Highways, Public Lands Highways, and Parkways funds, also could be used for 

bicycle and pedestrian facilities.

The provision addressed the issue of motorized vehicle use of the trails: 

No motorized vehicles shall be permitted on trails and walkways authorized under this 

section except for maintenance purposes and, when snow conditions and State or local 

government regulations permit, snowmobiles. 
1332 

Section 124 originated in the House Committee on Public Works as Representative Koch’s Bicycle 

Transportation Act of 1973. He had introduced a similar bill in 1972, which the committee had not 

included in its version of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1972. Senator Cranston had introduced 

the measure in the Senate, which included it in its version of the 1972 bill. In the House, the 

measure was undermined, as Representative Koch had explained during his testimony before the 

House committee on March 22, 1973: 

The real stumbling block came on the floor of the House . . . during consideration of the bill. 

There was then and is now a real need to have separate bicycle paths independent of regular 

vehicular traffic, simply to stop accidents from taking place and also encourage people to 

use bicycles. I had offered my amendment to the highway bill, namely, to provide funds out 

of the Highway Trust Fund for bicycle paths, and a member of the committee arose with an 

amendment to my amendment at that time. It appeared as though the committee were 

accepting my bicycle bill.

But the amendment was very misleading since although it affirmed the committee’s desire 

to have bicycle lanes and to provide moneys for bicycles, the moneys were to come out of 

the general treasury funds, not the Highway Trust Fund. 

The committee said they would provide money but it would have to be in the normal 

priority [of the Appropriations Committee] and you know and I know those moneys would 

never by forthcoming. 

You also provided that the committee would not have anything to do with the bicycle bill, 

but that you would turn it over to the Secretary of the Interior, as opposed to DOT, so as to 

remove any real oversight on the part of this committee. [1973 Highway Legislation (Future 

Highway Needs), Hearings before the Subcommittee on Transportation, Committee on 

Public Works, U.S. House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, March 19-23, 

1973, Report 93-5, p. 505] 

With the failure of the 1972 legislation, bicycle advocates had another chance in 1973. 

In adopting a bicycle trail provision in its version of the 1973 bill, the House Committee explained: 

Bicycling is a popular and healthful activity attracting ever increasing numbers of 

participants of all ages. Over 85 million Americans own bicycles, and for the first time last 

year, more bicycles than automobiles were sold. 

A cheap-non-polluting form of transportation, the bicycle can make a significant 

contribution to the solution of the urban transportation problem. Recently, there has been a 

significant increase in the use of the bicycle as transportation to and from work. Competing 

with other vehicles on already congested streets, however, bicycle operators tend to 

aggravate existing problems of traffic circulation and safety. 
1333 

In 1972, the committee report noted, 1,000 bicycle riders died in crashes “and a significant 

proportion were related to vehicular traffic.” As a result, “it seems logical and equitable that trust 

fund resources be used to finance safety improvements for bicycle transportation as well.” 

The House measure allowed the use of Federal-aid system funds to construct, in conjunction with 

Federal-aid projects, separate or preferential bicycle lanes or paths, bicycle traffic control devices, 

shelters and parking facilities to serve bicycles and persons using bicycles. Funds for public lands 

projects could be used to construct bicycles routes in conjunction with trails, roads, highways, or 

parkways. The provision prohibited motorized vehicles except for maintenance purposes and, when 

conditions permit, snowmobiles. The report explained that, “If highway trust fund revenues are to 

be used to finance trails for bicyclists who pay no fuel taxes, such benefits should also be extended 

to snowmobiles who pay substantial fuel taxes. [sic]” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, 

Committee on Public Works, U.S. House of Representatives, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, House 

Report No. 93-118, April 10, 1973, p. 20-21] 

The Senate Committee on Public Works also included a bicycle and pedestrian measure in its 1973 

bill. After citing increased sales of bicycles, the committee report stated:

As a non-polluting form of travel, it could, if properly accommodated, increase the 

passenger-carrying capacity of present highways. In competition with other vehicles on 

already congested streets, however, bicycle operators tend to aggravate existing problems of 

traffic circulation and safety. This bill would try to ameliorate these conditions and at the 

same time accommodate a highly useful and healthful activity as well.

The Senate measure allowed Federal-aid highway funds to be used for separate or preferential 

bicycle lanes or paths, bicycle traffic control devices, bicycle shelters and parking facilities, 

pedestrian walkways, and equestrian trails on or in conjunction with Federal-aid highway rights-ofway. Similarly, funds for public lands roads could be used for construction “of ancillary projects 

authorized under this section in conjunction with new highway projects” and the discretion of the 

Department charged with administering the programs. A network of bicycle trails would help 

reduce the tragic toll of bicycle fatalities, with an estimated 1,000 killed in 1972. The measure 

“also could serve to reduce the number of pedestrian casualties,” estimated to be 400,000 injured 

annually with 10,000 of them killed:

Where separate walkways are not provided along busy roads, traffic capacity is restricted 

and dangers to pedestrians multiply. Overpasses or underpasses might be appropriate at 

certain locations. Dangerous situations created by pedestrians, hikers or horseback riders 

along the roadside could be remedied by low-cost separate walkways, trails or paths. 

Consequently, the bill would make funds available for the construction of such walkways 

(including overpasses and underpasses) and equestrian trails in connection with new 

Federal-aid highway projects in both urban and rural areas. 

The provision was not intended to fund construction of city sidewalks, “which traditionally has 

been and is a local responsibility.” The committee also did not intend “that projects would be 

constructed for joint use—for example, a trail to be shared by bicycle riders, pedestrians and 
1334 

horseback riders.” Each walkway, path, or trail “should serve only the type of transportation for 

which it would be built.” No motorized vehicles would be permitted except for maintenance 

purposes; the Senate did not make an exception for snowmobiles. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 

1973, Committee on Public Works, United States Senate, 93rd Congress, 1st Session, Report No. 93-

61, March 13, 1973, p. 18-19] 

The Conference Committee adopted the House measure but incorporated pedestrian walkways, 

added the national and State funding limits, and provided that bicycle paths may be built off the 

right-of-way of Federal-aid highways only if they accommodated traffic that otherwise would have 

used the highway. [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973, Conference Report, 93rd Congress, 1st

Session, Senate Report No. 93-355, July 27, 1973, p. 69-70] The conference provision generated 

little floor discussion and was included in Title I of the final bill.

The bicycle community greeted Section 124 with mixed feelings. It was a step forward, but 

bicyclists were tired of fighting automobiles for space on highway lanes, as the Knight News 

Service explained shortly after President Nixon signed the 1973 Act: 

To most side-swiped cyclists, that means a right to separate bike paths. So when the 1973 

Highway Act this month first authorized federal funds for the construction of such corridors, 

it sounded like a great pedal forward. It wasn’t, transportation officials say now. Instead of 

pumping more money into bikeways, they claim, the highway bill in effect clamps a lid on 

federal funds that were already being spent.

“Maybe that’s not what Congress intended,” one cycling enthusiast in the Department of 

Transportation grumbled. “They said they wanted to promote bicycling, and all that. But 

that doesn’t look like the way it’s going to work out.” 

The new limits on spending were the problem: 

To the layman, that may sound like plenty of money. 

But to officials in the Federal Highway Administration—which has already been doling out 

bikeway money for several years without specific legislative authorization to do so—it’s 

viewed as a pitifully low figure. “That spending ceiling includes other walkways and 

bikeways,” one FHA [sic] planner said, “and you can’t build a heck of a lot of walkways for 

$2 million. That just doesn’t leave much for bike paths, or even marking off a bike lane on 

an existing highway. Frankly, the highway act is restrictive rather than promotional.” 

FHWA had permitted States to use Federal-aid highway funds for bike trails, without spending 

limits, since 1971: 

But the red tape is still tangled, requiring that the trails be built only in conjunction with a 

federal highway, that they be located only on the right-of-way, and that a public agency 

assume the trail’s operation and maintenance.
1335 

The initiative to create these trails remained with the States, more than half of which had not 

pursued the option. For the most part, bicyclists had to fight for their space with multi-ton 

automobiles and other vehicles, as an FHWA official stated:

It’s a pretty bustling environment for a cyclist. And it doesn’t say much for our conviction 

that bicycles are a healthful, pollution-free form of real transportation that should be 

promoted. 

Birnbaum, the Department’s urban systems specialist, said, “It’s got to be worked on by all levels of 

government—and it isn’t necessarily just a money thing. We’ve got to start identifying the 

problems of non-motorized vehicles in a world designed for motorized ones. We’ve got to stop 

looking at bicycles as toys and realize that millions of adults are riding them to work every day.” 

[Knight News International, “It’s All Uphill for Bikes in the 1973 Highway Act,” The Baltimore 

Sun, August 28, 1973] 

After the energy crisis hit the country in October 1973, the bicycle took on renewed importance. 

Section 119 of the Federal-Aid Highway Amendments of 1974 attempted to reflect this reality by 

authorizing $10 million in FY 1976 funds “to be appropriated” to the Secretary for a Bikeway 

Demonstration Program. The Secretary could use the funds on a discretionary basis for 

construction of bicycle paths “for commuting and for recreational purposes.” The Federal share 

would be 80 percent. Congress appropriated only $6 million for FY 1976, the only year of the 

demonstration program. (Section 133(e)(2) of the Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation 

Assistance Act of 1987 repealed Section 119 of the 1974 Amendments.) 

In Title II, the Highway Safety Act of 1973, the conferees included a provision calling on the 

Secretary of Transportation to make “a full and complete investigation and study of pedestrian and 

bicycle safety” in cooperation and consultation with the States, their political subdivisions, and 

other interested private organizations, groups, and individuals. This measure originated in the 

House version of the legislation as a study on pedestrian safety, but was broadened by conferees to 

include bicycle safety.

Colman McCarthy of The Washington Post, a columnist who occasionally wrote about bicycling 

issues, had highlighted the safety issue on July 9, 1974. Many communities were facing the 

complex issue of safety because “suddenly bicycles are no longer seen as sidewalk toys but as 

potentially dangerous machines in greater and greater use.” During the energy shortage, motor 

vehicle and pedestrian deaths had decreased 25 percent “while bicyclist deaths increased 39 per 

cent.” Colman pointed out: 

Despite this carnage, the Department of Transportation assigns no one to work full time on 

bike safety. Several workers of dedication do all they can between other assignments, but it 

is mostly personal interest, not agency policy, that moves them. An annual Congressional 

Bike Ride occurs—conveniently downhill—and newspapers make the mistake of sending 

photographers to snap pictures of the hearties. What is needed are pictures of the committee 

meetings in which Congress refuses to deal meaningfully with bike safety.
1336 

Bicycling safety was a complex issue, but in urban areas, the primary cause of crashes was the 

sharing of space by bicycles and motor vehicles:

When cycling in urban traffic, the biker is most conscious of getting creamed from behind, 

but authorities say that most of the accidents between cars and bikes occur in crossways. 

Thus, the danger to a cyclist is not from behind, but from ahead or to the side. This suggests 

that the cyclist is deluded if he thinks motorists are automatically reckless menaces and 

bikers are pure and righteous. Many bikers see cars as their natural enemy, when actually 

the most monstrous threat on the road can be another bicyclist. 

He quoted John Forester, described as “a California engineer and cyclist,” who testified at a recent 

Washington hearing that about 80 percent of bicycle crashes were caused by misuse of the bicycle. 

After discussing the different types and age groups of bicyclists, Forester said: 

For the almost-adult and adult cyclist, so far as we know, most accidents are still caused by 

either improper use of the bicycles in traffic or lack of the training in evasive maneuvers 

which should enable the cyclist generally to avoid the errors of other road users.

McCarthy was uncertain that separate bike paths were the answer:

Campaigns are currently on to lay down cement for bicycles. But there is no sound evidence 

that bikeways will lower the urban accident rate. Even if bikeways are available, it is open 

to question how many cyclists will use them.

He pointed out that a “natural bikeway exists along Massachusetts Avenue for nearly two miles” in 

Washington but “many cyclists avoid it, preferring to compete against cars for space on the road.” 

If only, McCarthy concluded, “bicycle safety could be kept as simple an issue as pedaling along on 

a summer afternoon on a rural road,” but any problem involving human behavior was inevitably 

complex:

For now it is not bikepaths or better bikes that will greatly increase safety, but only the 

extreme caution of the cyclist. His irresponsibility causes most crashes. Sadly, only a 

jolting flight over the handlebars, caused by a biker’s own softheadedness or lack of skills, 

is likely to awaken him to that uphill truth. [McCarthy, Colman, “Pedaling Bike Safety,” 

The Washington Post, July 9, 1974] 

NHTSA completed the report on bicycle and pedestrian safety in March 1975. The bland 

introduction summarized the legislative requirement and explained that the Department of 

Transportation had jurisdiction over pedestrian and bicyclist safety, but the safety of the bicycle 

itself was within the jurisdiction of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. (As noted earlier, 

the commission had issued a bicycle safety standard in 1974, to become effective in 1975. A 

footnote in the report noted: “Effective date of standard suspended indefinitely by Consumer 

Product Safety Commission, December 1974.”) [Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Study, National 

Highway Traffic Safety Administration, March 1975, p. 1-2] 
1337 

The largest section of NHTSA’s report was devoted to pedestrian safety (pages 13-64). The lack of 

uniformity among pedestrian laws caused confusion, resulting in lack of police enforcement. 

Officials lacked detailed data on pedestrian accidents for analysis, while safety efforts were usually 

directed at children, not adults. Not enough attention was being paid to pedestrian safety, hampered 

in part by funding limitations and lack of planning and staff at the State and local level. The 

executive summary listed NHTSA’s recommendations:

1) Effort should be made to provide uniform pedestrian laws across the nation to reflect the 

way “reasonable” pedestrians walk.

2) Statements of policy and/or directives relating to pedestrian should be established and police 

officers apprised of the importance of appropriate countermeasure activity. Pedestrian 

enforcement should be increased and made a higher priority item in traffic enforcement.

3) Accident records should be kept for pedestrians, and major epidemiological studies should 

be conducted to fill the gaps in knowledge on nonfatally injured pedestrians and victims of 

alcohol-related crashes.

4) Allocations of public funds for the creation and maintenance of pedestrian safety programs 

should be accelerated, and pedestrian safety should be made a significant component of all 

State highway safety programs.

5) Pedestrian-bicyclist safety educational programs should be broadened to include all ages and 

should be directed toward target groups with special messages for specific accident types.

The bicycle safety section (pages 65-101) reported that the legal status of bicycles and bicyclists 

should be defined more precisely to avoid confusion regarding rights-of-way and legal liabilities. 

Police needed more precise statements describing violations as well as policies and procedures for 

dealing with bicyclists. As with pedestrian crashes, data on bicycle crashes were inadequate for 

drawing conclusions on causes. Further, bicycle programs were typically a low priority in most 

States, cities, and counties as reflected in allocation of staff time and funding. The report 

recommended:

1) Police agencies should develop and promulgate written procedures describing methods of 

dealing with bicyclist violations and motorists who violate the rights of bicyclists. Police 

should be informed of the importance of their taking appropriate action against violations. 

2) Uniform criteria for recording and reporting accident data should be established nationwide. 

This is particularly essential for the further study of patterns of alcohol usage and 

development of countermeasures. 

3) Major emphasis should be placed on research designed to delineate specific causal/severity 

factors in bicyclist accidents and to devise effective, specific countermeasures where none 

currently exist. 

4) A substantial commitment of funds should be made by all levels of government to establish 

and maintain a bicycle safety program, expand research, evaluate current activities, and plan 

future programs.

For pedestrian and bicycle safety, the study “did not reveal any voids that could be filled by national 

legislation.” The problems were largely the responsibility of State and local officials, with 
1338 

solutions best “constructed around needs identified by analysis of traffic records and programmatic 

activities.” [Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Study, p, 2-4] 

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1976 amended Section 217 of Title 23 to change the national 

dollar limit from $40 million to $45 million and the single State limit from $2 million to $2.5 

million.

President Jimmy Carter

For President Ford to win a full term in the White House, he would have to overcome several 

obstacles, not the least of which was his pardon of President Nixon. In a televised Sunday morning 

address to the Nation just a month after taking office, President Ford explained on September 14, 

1974, that he was granting a pardon that read: 

Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon 

power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by 

these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses 

against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed 

or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974. 

President Ford explained that he was acting for “the greatest good of all the people of the United 

States whose servant I am.” However, many suspected a deal had been concocted to ensure 

President Nixon’s departure. Many people were angry that a trial of the former President had been 

averted. 

He had other problems, including lukewarm support within the Republican Party. Because he had 

never campaigned for the presidency, he had not built support within the party across the country. 

Further, conservatives saw President Ford as likable but too moderate. They despised Vice 

President Rockefeller, a liberal who had alienated conservatives in previous presidential runs, 

particularly in 1964 when he lost the nomination to the conservative favorite, Senator Goldwater. 

Conservatives also criticized the President’s foreign policy, including his work on an agreement 

that would turn the Panama Canal over to Panama. 

President Ford’s image, initially that of a man-next-door, had suffered, in part, from his portrayal on 

“Saturday Night Live.” Comedian Chevy Chase’s recurring and devastating portrayal of a 

bumbling, stumbling President Ford on the program—a portrayal that became for many a true 

portrait of the President who had once tried to halt stagflation with WIN buttons. When the 

President misspoke during one of the debates, claiming that Eastern Europe was not dominated by 

the Soviet Union, he confirmed Chase’s portrayal. 

Frustrated by the moderate leadership of Eisenhower and Ford, as well as President Nixon’s 

approval of liberal legislation, conservatives threatened to form a third party that would unite rural 

southerners and northern blue-collar workers. At a meeting in Washington’s Mayflower Hotel 

shortly after President Ford took office, the American Conservative Union and Young Americans 
1339 

for Freedom asked Governor Reagan to lead the effort. He declined, asking, “Is it a third party we 

need, or is it a new and revitalized second party . . . ?” 

At the urging of conservatives, Governor Reagan took on President Ford in the 1976 Republican 

primaries, leaving the bitter fight between them too close to call when the Republican Party held its 

nominating convention. Trying to demonstrate his appeal to northern moderates, Reagan 

announced his choice of a running mate, the liberal Senator Richard S. Schweiker of Pennsylvania. 

 The choice outraged conservatives without securing support for Governor Reagan from moderates. 

 President Ford, who selected Senator Dole as the Vice Presidential nominee, won the nomination. 

Senator Dole took on a “hatchet man” role during the campaign that proved unpopular with voters. 

By contrast, former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia (1971-1975) was a seemingly easygoing 

former Navy officer who had served under Admiral Hyman G. Rickover in his fledgling nuclear 

submarine program. (At the time, Georgia’s Governors could not succeed themselves.) A 

Christian, peanut processor, State legislator, and Governor, Carter’s image of honesty, decency, and 

intelligence was a welcome contrast to “Tricky Dick” Nixon and Spiro Agnew and the amiable 

current President. Carter easily won the Democratic nomination, in part by taking advantage of a 

reconfigured Democratic nominating system that had been put in place after the debacle of 1972 but 

that his better known opponents had overlooked. He chose Senator Walter F. “Fritz” Mondale of 

Minnesota as his running mate. 

Transportation was not an issue in the campaign, but both parties adopted platforms that covered 

the subject. The Democratic platform said:

An effective national transportation policy must be grounded in an understanding of all 

transportation systems and their consequences for costs, reliability, safety, environmental 

quality and energy savings. Without public transportation, the rights of all citizens to jobs 

and social services cannot be met.

 

It called for expanded flexibility in the use of Federal transportation funds for capital programs or 

operating expenses. “A greater share of Highway Trust Fund money should also be available on a 

flexible basis.” The platform also promised to change “the current restrictive limits on the use of 

mass transit funds by urban and rural localities so that greater amounts can be used as operating 

subsidies; we emphatically oppose the Republican administration's efforts to reduce federal 

operating subsidies.” 

The platform called for completing the Interstate System in rural areas, upgrading secondary roads 

and bridges, assuring balanced transportation services for urban and rural areas, and taking 

whatever steps were necessary to reorganize and revitalize the Nation’s railroads: 

A program of national rail and road rehabilitation and improved mass transit would not only 

mean better transportation for our people, but it would also put thousands of unemployed 

construction workers back to work and make them productive tax-paying citizens once 

again. 
1340 

The Republican platform also addressed transportation: 

. . . encourage the greatest possible decision-making and flexibility on the part of state and 

local governments to spend funds in ways that make the best sense for each community. 

Thus all levels of government have an important role in providing a balanced and 

coordinated transportation network. 

The Interstate System must be completed and maintained, but the platform added that the 

Republican Party “applauds the system under which state and local governments can divert funds 

from interstate highway mileage not essential to interstate commerce or national defense to other, 

more pressing community needs, such as urban mass transit.” 

The platform also supported “the concept of a surface transportation block grant which would 

include the various highway and mass transit programs now in existence [to] provide local elected 

officials maximum flexibility in selecting and implementing the balanced transportation systems 

best suited to each locality.” The block grant program would cover capital costs and operating 

subsidies. 

Further, Republicans called for research into more fuel-efficient automobile engines and more 

convenient, less expensive urban transportation, as well as correction of the “hopeless disjointed 

and disorganized” result when more than 50 congressional subcommittees have jurisdiction over 

parts of transportation legislation. 

Carter would win the election in November with over 50 percent of the popular vote. Historian 

James MacGregor Burns discussed Carter’s appeal:

By inauguration day Carter had acquired a lustrous media image. After years of drift and 

deadlock in government, a leader of proved competence—competence at running a business 

and a state, a submarine and a tractor, and those tough primary campaigns, a demanding, 

clearheaded man—seemed to have stepped forward. Even his appearance—his bluff, open 

face creased by a wide smile, his hair style that looked both stylish and rustic, his quick, 

buoyant ways—set him off from the gray, sedate men in high office. [Burns, p. 521] 

Smerk pointed out that transit interests were optimistic in 1977 as Congress worked on new 

legislation:

Mr. Carter’s victory was seen as good news for transit. Indeed, during the election process, 

a feeling emerged that the first year of the Carter administration would be a good one for 

transit. In his campaign, Mr. Carter had expressed support for mass transportation. For 

example, he informed the Democratic National Convention’s Platform Committee that “. . . 

arresting this deterioration [of existing transit programs] and completing needed work on 

new urban transit systems must become the nation’s first transportation priority.” In 

remarks to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mr. Carter called for a substantial increase in the 

amount of money available for mass transportation from the Highway Trust Fund, a larger 

operating subsidy, and a study of the feasibility of utilizing the trust fund device to finance 

all transportation modes. 
1341 

After the election, the transit industry was also generally enthusiastic about the selection of 

former Congressman Brock Adams (D-Washington) as secretary of transportation. On 

Capital [sic] Hill, Adams was a strong supporter of public transit. In 1973, Congressman 

Adams had voted to open up the Highway Trust Fund for mass transportation; in 1973-74, 

he backed legislative efforts which eventually found their way into the operating provisions 

of the 1974 amendments to the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964. 

The industry was also pleased that the slow but apparently steady growth in transit ridership 

continued in 1975, despite the sharp downturn in the economy. This was seen as evidence 

that the rising federal expenditure on transit was bearing some fruit. [Smerk, 143-144] 

While campaigning for President, Governor Carter had promised a national energy policy within 90 

days of his Inauguration on January 20, 1977. To develop the plan, he selected James Schlesinger, 

a Ph.D economist who had served as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (1971-1973), 

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (6 months in 1973 after Director Richard Helms had 

been fired on February 2 for not agreeing to block the FBI’s Watergate investigation), and Secretary 

of Defense (1973-1975). 

President Carter announced the energy plan in an address to the Nation on April 18, 1977, and an 

address to a joint session of Congress on the 20th. He called for the “moral equivalent of war” to 

“balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources.” He had borrowed the phrase 

“moral equivalent of war” from Dr. Schlesinger (who had borrowed it from 19th century 

philosopher, psychologist, Harvard professor, and author William James). We could, President 

Carter said, drift along as is for a few more years:

Our consumption of oil would keep going up every year. Our cars would continue to be too 

large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would carry only one person—the driver—

while our public transportation system continues to decline. We can delay insulating our 

homes, and they will continue to lose about 50 percent of their heat in waste. We can 

continue using scarce oil and natural gas to generate electricity and continue wasting twothirds of their fuel value in the process. 

If we do not act, then by 1985 we will be using 33 percent more energy than we use today . . 

. . If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social, and political crisis that will 

threaten our free institutions. 

Rejecting the do-nothing approach, President Carter established 10 principles that he said should 

guide the struggle to reduce dependence on oil. Government must take responsibility for the 

struggle, and people must understand its importance. Only by saving energy could we have a 

healthy economy. We must protect the environment. We must reduce dependence on foreign oil by 

making the most of abundant resources such as coal and developing a strategic petroleum reserve. 

Everyone must share in the sacrifices. Price must reflect the true replacement cost of energy. 

Government policies must be predictable and certain. Conserve the scarcest fuels and use those 

that are most plentiful. We must start now to develop unconventional sources of energy. 
1342 

The cornerstone of the policy was to reduce demand through conservation: 

Our emphasis on conservation is a clear difference between this plan and others which 

merely encouraged crash production efforts. Conservation is the quickest, cheapest, most 

practical source of energy. Conservation is the only way that we can buy a barrel of oil for 

about $2. It costs about $13 to waste it. 

He also set goals to reduce the growth rate in energy demand to less than 2 percent, reduce gasoline 

consumption by 10 percent, cut oil imports in half, establish a strategic petroleum reserve, increase 

coal production by two-thirds to more than one billion tons a year, insulate 90 percent of American 

homes and all new buildings, and use solar energy in more than 2.5 million houses. 

On April 20, he told a joint session of Congress that, “We must act now—together—to devise and 

to implement a comprehensive national energy plan to cope with a crisis that otherwise could 

overwhelm us.” He reiterated many points from his address to the Nation, including the point that, 

“The two areas where we waste most of our energy are transportation and our heating and cooling 

systems.” He said:

Transportation consumes 26 percent of all our energy—and as much as half of that is waste. 

 In Europe, the average automobile weighs 2,700 pounds; in our country, 4,100 pounds. 

Now, the Congress has taken fuel efficiency steps and set standards which will require new 

automobiles to have an average efficiency or mileage per gallon of 27.5 by 1985, instead of 

the 18 among new cars today. The entire fleet of cars is only 14 miles per gallon at this 

time.

To ensure the industry met these standards, President Carter said he would propose a graduated 

excise tax on new gas guzzlers. “We expect both better efficiency and also more automobile 

production and sales under this proposal.” 

He also discussed what he called “the most controversial and most misunderstood parts of the 

energy proposal—a standby tax on automobile gasoline.” He explained: 

We simply must save gasoline, and I believe that the American people can meet this 

challenge. It’s a matter of patriotism and a matter of commitment. 

Between now and 1980, we expect gasoline consumption to rise slightly above the present 

level. For the following 5 years, when we have the more efficient cars on the road, we need 

to reduce consumption each year to reach our targets for 1985. I propose that we commit 

ourselves to these fair, reasonable and necessary goals and, at the same time, write into law 

a gasoline tax of an additional 5 cents per gallon that will automatically take effect each year 

that we fail to meet our annual targets in the previous year. As an added incentive, if we 

miss one year, but are back on the track the next year, then the additional tax should come 

off. 
1343 

He added:

I will also propose a variety of other measures to make our transportation system more 

efficient. One of the side effects of conserving gasoline, for instance, is that State 

governments who have a limited amount of tax per gallon collect less money through 

gasoline taxes. To reduce their hardships and to insure adequate highway maintenance, we 

should compensate States for this loss through the Highway Trust Fund. 

In addition, he supported creation of a U.S. Department of Energy, already under consideration in 

Congress. “Continued fragmentation of Government authority and responsibility of our energy 

program for this Nation is both dangerous and unnecessary.” 

Daniel Yergin pointed out that the 90-day time frame President Carter had given himself for 

announcing his energy plan worked against it. “Such haste did not leave enough time to build the 

requisite consensus and working relationships not just with committee chairmen in the Congress, 

but also with a broader base of interested Congressmen—or, indeed, even within the 

Administration.” There was another problem: 

The Administration was proceeding as though there was a crisis that would rally the nation; 

the public, however, did not think there was a crisis. And, in the course of pushing his 

program, Carter received a firsthand education in how special interests operate in the 

American system, including liberals, conservatives, oil producers, consumer groups, 

automobile companies, pro- and-anti-nuclear activists, coal producers, utility companies and 

environmentalists—all with conflicting agendas.

President Carter did get an Energy Department, authorized by the Department of Energy 

Organization Act, which he approved on August 4, 1977. The Department began operations on 

October 1, 1977, with Dr. Schlesinger as the first Secretary of Energy. [Yergin, 662-664] Other 

measures proved more controversial, especially those that imposed burdens to force people to 

change their behavior. 

New Thinking About Transportation 

Early in 1977, Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams indicated that he would be looking for new 

ways to think about transportation. On February 10, in his first major speech, he told the Consumer 

Federation’s Assembly in Washington that he would be holding a series of “Transportation Town 

Meetings” to talk with “government officials at the state and local level, the shippers and users of 

transportation and the people who travel the roads, the airways and the railways that are the 

department’s responsibilities.” He said President Carter had suggested the meetings. He also drew 

on his congressional experience: 

I learned as chairman of the Budget Committee the worth of the congressional budget 

process in setting priorities for spending within realistic estimates of revenue. This process 

permitted us to look at federal spending in terms of broad functional categories, rather than 

in a series of ad hoc decisions on authorizations and appropriations for individual programs. 
1344 

I believe we in the Executive Branch must begin to think in the same terms. Such an 

approach will enable us to decide how to shift the federal investment in transportation as the 

national needs change with time, rather than simply adding up the requests of each interest, 

even if they conflict.

He thought a combined transportation account would allow each mode to find the funding that suits 

it best and is fairest to the user and taxpayer

For example, mass transit should not be considered a service to commerce but part of urban 

development—a public service needed to restore our cities. The farebox will clearly never 

pay the costs of mass transit and private enterprise does not want to be involved unless 

subsidized. 

With Congress beginning consideration of transit legislation in 1977, the Senate Committee on 

Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held hearings on a new bill from Senator Williams. 

According to Smerk, the National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1977 (S. 208) reflected 

APTA’s three principal goals for the legislation:

The first was to increase the level of the major capital investment program in mass 

transportation to an average of $4.5 billion yearly over the next five years. The second goal 

was continued funding of the Section 5 formula grant program which was to end, under the 

existing law, in 1980. The APTA program called for $1.1 billion in Section 5 formula grant 

money in 1981 and approximately $1.25 billion in 1982. The third element in the program 

was for an effective urban street program as authorized under the Federal-Aid Highway Act 

of 1973. [Smerk, p. 144] 

With the Carter Administration outreach just getting underway, Secretary Adams requested a delay 

in considering the transit bills. Smerk wrote:

The first serious blow was the position taken by Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams 

in his testimony at the hearings on S. 208. Appearing before the subcommittee on housing 

and urban affairs of the Senate Committee on Banking on February 25, 1977, Adams told 

the group that the new administration wished to look at all issues and concerns insofar as 

transportation was concerned. The secretary made it clear that the administration did not 

wish to foreclose any options open to it in the future and that passage of S. 208 would do so. 

 He also dropped a bombshell when he said: “Fortunately, there is no urgent need to 

provide additional or extended program authorizations for the mass transit program . . . .” 

In other words, there was already enough money for urban mass transportation. This was 

not the message that presidential candidate Jimmy Carter had given regarding transit. 

[Smerk, p. 147] 

Secretary Adams’s conclusion about the lack of urgency stemmed from a new way of thinking 

about Federal-aid for transit. The previous Administration, he said, used a method of accounting 

that required $1.1 billion in new appropriations for UMTA through 1980. This was because the 

entire cost of each mass transit project was set aside when the contract was approved even though 
1345 

the funds would be needed incrementally over several years, not all at once. If UMTA put aside 

only the funds needed for the current year, the funds already authorized would be sufficient for 

now. “Accordingly,” he told the Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs, “it is not necessary 

to provide new authorizations at this time.” [National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1977, 

Hearings on S. 208, Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs, Committee on Banking, 

Housing, and Urban Affairs, United States Senate, 95th Congress, First Session, S-241-34, February 

1977, p. 396-419, see p. 399-400 for the section on a new way of thinking] 

In hearings on March 30 and April 6, the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation, 

now chaired by Representative “Bizz” Johnson, and its Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, 

headed by New Jersey’s Representative Howard, considered amendments to the Urban Mass 

Transportation Act of 1964 to provide operating assistance outside urbanized areas and help meet 

the needs of elderly and handicapped persons. 

When Secretary Adams testified before the subcommittee on April 6, he said the Carter 

Administration planned to take a close look at mass transit in the broader context of highways and 

railroads, as well as urban and rural needs. He said, “we really believe it is probably premature to 

do a piece of it since we are going to be doing the whole thing later.” [Mass Transportation 

Assistance to Meet the Needs of Elderly and Handicapped Persons,” Hearings on H.R. 5010, 

Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Committee on Public Works and Transportation, U.S. 

House of Representatives, 95th Congress, First Session, March-April 1977, p. 102-107, see p. 103 

for quote] 

His request for a delay in congressional action left transit interests worried because it was 

inconsistent with expectations raised by the President’s campaign statements. Their mood 

worsened when a handwritten note from President Carter to Secretary Adams became public. It 

was dated March 21, 1977: 

To Brock Adams: I suspect that many of the rapid transit systems are grossly overdesigned. We should insist on: a) off-street parking, b) one-way streets, c) special bus 

lanes, d) surface rail-bus as preferable alternatives to subways. In urban areas, no 

construction at all would be needed if a. b. c are required. 

Smerk described the reaction:

To say the least, supporters of transit, especially rail lines, were dismayed. It was hard to 

believe that this President Carter was the same man as candidate Carter who had called for 

more funds for transit. From anyone else the memo would not have been much of a 

problem; but as a writing of the President of the United States it was extremely bad news for 

transit proponents. In the aftermath of the memo, charges were leveled that the Carter 

Administration was looking more toward holding down the budget than doing anything 

particularly creative in dealing with the problems of energy, the environment, or the 

transportation realities of metropolitan areas. For his part, Secretary Adams viewed the 

president’s memo as nothing more than supporting the UMTA policy of examining 

alternatives before giving large grants for rail systems. [Smerk, p. 148-149] 
1346 

Despite the President’s note, or perhaps because of it, Secretary Adams and Senator Williams 

reached a compromise by mid-March on $5.7 billion for new projects over the next 5 years, 

compared with $11.4 billion in the Williams bill. The Washington Post reported: 

A Department of Transportation official emphasized last night that the administration has 

not yet “endorsed” the Senate aid plan but conceded that it is “moving a long ways toward . 

. . awfully close to” the Adams position. Enactment of such a program this year is uncertain 

because of a negative attitude toward a mass transit bill to date among House leaders.

Senator Williams said, “For states like my own, this legislation will mean the influx of millions of 

dollars to complete long-awaited and badly-needed projects.” The prospects for passage were 

“fairly good given the level of support from the administration.” He added: 

Even though this compromise legislation does not go as far as I hoped it would toward 

making mass transportation one of our nation’s top priorities, I think it will make it far 

easier for us to begin structuring the efficient and modern transportation system we do 

desperately need.” [Jones, William H., “Adams, Senate Find Compromise on Mass 

Transit,” The Washington Post, March 18, 1977] 

The Senate considered S. 208, the National Mass Transportation Assistance Act of 1977, on June 

23, 1977. Senator Williams began consideration by recalling President Carter’s April 18 speech to 

the Nation on energy. “The picture he painted was bleak indeed, a picture of the world’s greatest 

power entering into perhaps the most difficult period in its glorious history without well-developed 

solutions to a problem of unprecedented magnitude.” He quoted the section of the speech to the 

Nation about the waste of fuel by automobiles. 

Given the magnitude of the problem President Carter described, Senator Williams said he had 

“eagerly awaited the subsequent energy message which was to be a Presidential blueprint for our 

national energy policy.” While President Carter spelled out his energy policy in detail in his 

address to Congress, something was missing: 

I was more distressed over some of the omissions from the President’s speech—omissions 

which I believe could prove fatal to any energy policy. Specifically, the President failed to 

include mass transportation in his program enunciated at that time.

Mr. President [of the Senate], this neglect has triggered a storm of protest. The President 

has made a point of communicating with the American people and, in this case, they were 

listening carefully. In fact, almost two thirds of the American people agree that President 

Carter has failed to put enough emphasis on public transportation, according to a survey 

commissioned by a prominent magazine . . . . If public transportation—mass transit—is to 

gear up as the viable alternative to commuter use of the automobile, Congress must fill the 

gap left in the President’s energy program, and we have an opportunity to fill that gap, so far 

as we in the Senate are concerned, with the legislation that is before us.
1347 

The bill had been modified for “the express purpose of” accommodating Secretary Adams’ views. 

The Senate approved the bill without a recorded vote. Smerk described the amended bill: 

The bill authorized $4.75 billion for capital programs; $500 million in operating aid to nonurbanized areas was made available, utilizing funds already set aside for capital 

improvements in non-urbanized areas. Special aid was also provided to large cities and 

commuter railroads not operated by Conrail. The $125 million of Section 5 funds that had 

been “borrowed” for the 1977 transition quarter from fiscal year 1980 money was put back 

into the funds to be used in 1980. 

The bill also addressed the concern of large, transit-oriented cities about the distribution of formula 

grant program funds under the 1974 legislation. By giving equal weight to population and 

population density, the formula gave much of the funding to large cities in the south and west that 

had little transit infrastructure and to small urbanized areas that could not use all the funds:

Reflecting the concern of the larger cities, the Williams bill created a second “tier” of $295 

million to aid transit in the nation’s largest cities. The money was to be distributed under a 

formula to be devised by the secretary of transportation. It would be based on the share of 

the national total of revenue passengers, vehicle miles, and population, and it would be 

weighted by population density. The funds for this would come from recycling $145 

million in unused Section 5 operating funds that would otherwise be returned to the 

Treasury; in addition there would be new authorizations of $50 million annually for 1978 

through 1980. [Smerk, p. 153] 

(The Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 changed the start of the Federal fiscal year 

from July 1 to October 1 of each year. The “transition quarter,” the period from July 1, 1976, to 

September 30, 1976, had its own 3-month appropriations.) 

The Washington Star applauded the Senate action. Some critics called the legislation premature 

because “there still are unexpended funds of about $3.3 billion in the existing mass transit 

program.” Further, “The House has given no indication that it will act on mass transit legislation 

before late this year and may put it off until next year.” The Star added, “and the Carter 

administration has shown no great rush to develop a mass transit policy.” Despite what it called, 

the “dilatoriness” in the White House, the Star said, “It’s hardly premature to establish a federal 

policy that will assure federal aid for mass transit on a continuing basis.” The Star editorial 

explained:

There have been proposals to establish a mass transit fund, similar to the Highway Trust 

Fund, financed by federal taxes on gasoline, or from a portion of federal corporate profits 

tax, or from some other source. But this has not gotten off the ground. 

By contrast, “Senator Williams’ proposal is concrete.” If the Carter Administration would care to 

suggest a better idea, “let’s hear it.” The point was that “the Carter administration needs to have its 

feet held to the fire on mass transit. Passage of the bill in the Senate will help do that.” [“Mass 

Transit Legislation,” The Washington Star, June 26, 1977] 
1348 

For the remainder of the year, Secretary Adams worked with the White House on its surface 

transportation plans. An end of year retrospective in The Wall Street Journal illustrated the Carter 

Administration’s difficulty in addressing mass transit as part of its energy conservation proposal: 

One day last July, President Carter and some Cabinet-level advisers met in the White House 

to consider a plan offered by Transportation Secretary Brock Adams. Mr. Adams wanted 

the administration to urge Congress to pass a five-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax that would, in 

part, help finance improved mass-transit systems.

The President supported the idea, and told Mr. Adams to pursue it on Capitol Hill. So the 

Transportation Secretary phoned Rep. Thomas Ashley (D., Ohio), chairman of the special 

House committee writing an energy bill, to say the Carter administration would push the 

five-cent plan.

A puzzled Mr. Ashley asked what was going on. Lieutenants of James Schlesinger, the 

President’s energy chief, had already assured him that the administration would support Mr. 

Ashley’s own plan for a four-cent gasoline tax with most of the money to be spent on energy 

research and hardly any on transit. The Democratic majority on the committee had just 

voted to go ahead with the idea. Mr. Adams said, okay, forget he’d called. [Karr, Albert R., 

“Mass Transit Gets Short Shrift,” The Wall Street Journal, December 30, 1977] 

By December, Secretary Adams was ready to announce the Department of Transportation’s 

proposals. On December 7, 1977, he told the National League of Cities conference in San 

Francisco that the Nation’s $10 billion annual investment of Federal transportation funds could be a 

powerful tool in urban revitalization, rural mobility, increased employment, and energy 

conservation. Federal transportation dollars, he said, should help spur private investment and 

development. 

“But before we can begin using our funds in a more realistic and effective manner, we must alter 

the way in which transportation funds are distributed.” He listed four goals to improve the 

effectiveness of the grant programs (as summarized in a press release):

• Greater flexibility in the use of funds by elected state and local officials.

• To the greatest degree possible, establish a uniform matching ratio for local assistance in all 

transportation programs to eliminate bias in favor of the program offering the largest federal 

share.

• To simplify and consolidate the transportation planning program to assure that capital 

programs have been developed and approved through a comprehensive process that 

evaluates their impact on the environment and society. 

• To distribute a great portion of grant funds on a formula basis, thus eliminating the 

“grantsmanship game.”

To achieve these goals, Secretary Adams outlined a five-step plan: 
1349 

The first step, he said, would consolidate highway and transit planning grants and distribute 

them on a formula basis. This would enable state and local officials to complete plans for 

an entire transportation system.

Second, federal aid for urban systems to areas with more than one million people should be 

coordinated with existing public transit funding, the Secretary said. Local officials could 

tradeoff between highway and any transit projects, he said. 

Third, discretionary transit funding should be continued for the nation’s older cities in an 

effort to restore their economic vitality, Secretary Adams said. In addition, he said, most 

other transit capital and operating funds should be combined into a single grant that can be 

distributed on a formula basis. 

As part of this revitalization program, the existing rail transit and commuter rail systems in 

New York City, northern New Jersey and Chicago should be modernized, the Secretary said. 

“An accelerated schedule of work on these systems would result in immediate employment 

benefits, and would provide tangible improvement to transit systems serving millions of 

daily riders,” he said.

Fourth, if funds can be made available, a speedup in the construction of new rail transit 

projects should be considered to create increased economic benefits to these cities and 

complete the systems faster, Secretary Adams said. Construction of rail systems extensions 

[sic] are underway in Chicago and New York City, he pointed out, and commitments to new 

starts or major improvements have been made in Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo, 

Detroit and Miami. First segments of new systems should be started in the central city to 

make sure the benefits of the federal investment go first to the part of the city needing the 

most help, the Secretary said.

Fifth, Adams said, a formula grant program should be developed to improve highways and 

mass transit in all areas with an urban population below 50,000. To make the grants an 

effective tool for these small cities and rural areas, he said, “all needs—including operating 

expenses for transit—should be covered.” 

With President Carter’s approval, Secretary Adams circulated draft legislation to congressional 

committee staff in late December. News soon reached the press. In New York City, the initial 

reaction was favorable, especially since the proposal allowed substitute projects following Interstate 

withdrawals to be advanced at a 90-10 Federal-State matching ratio. Mayor-elect Koch said he was 

“delighted by the proposed legislation,” calling it “long overdue.” He added that it would “certainly 

have some impact on any decision on the Westway project.” He favored withdrawing Westway (I478), a proposed $1.16-billion replacement for the West Side Highway, and using the substitute 

funds for transit. As Mayor-elect, he and Governor Carey were studying which option, Westway or 

mass transit substitute projects, would produce the most jobs and greater economic impact. 

The New York Times reported that the withdrawal-substitution aspect of the Carter Administration’s 

proposal was “being greeted enthusiastically,” but urban officials were disappointed in the funding 
1350 

level: 4-years at a total of $45 billion, only a 10-percent increase over present levels. The proposal 

would end the Interstate construction program in 1982, leaving State and local officials until then to 

decide whether to use the withdrawal-substitution mechanism. 

The Times also discussed the Administration’s strategy for selling the proposal to Congress: 

The job of selling the new transportation ideas, given the traditional power of the protective 

“highway lobby” in Congress, could be formidable, transportation officials said. But 

Secretary Adams, in his proposal to the White House, emphasized the need to build a broad 

Congressional constituency for the overall transportation program. He called, for instance, 

for a program to repair or replace deteriorated bridges. This has a high priority among 

Congressmen devoted to roads and public works. It is thought that proponents of public 

transit would support bridge programs in exchange for help in enacting programs for 

increased mass transit assistance. [Meislin, Richard J., “Carter Backs Plan to Increase 

Funds for Mass Transit,” The New York Times, December 22, 1977] 

(Westway was added to the Interstate System in 1971 as I-478, but it quickly became one of the 

most controversial projects in the country. On December 28, 1977, the Carey-Koch panel 

announced its conclusion that construction of I-478 would produce substantially more jobs than 

using Interstate substitution funds for substitute mass transit projects. 

[Governor Carey and Mayor-elect Koch had differing motivations in considering Westway, as 

reporter Frank Lynn discussed in the Times: 

With the gubernatorial election coming up next year, Governor Carey needs Westway as 

evidence of his ability to provide strong economic leadership, especially after the recession 

that marked the first half of his term . . . . Mr. Koch, meanwhile, has had a difficult time 

with Westway as his constituency changed. As a United States Congressman living in 

Greenwich Village, he strongly opposed Westway on the ground that it would destroy some 

West Side neighborhoods and, by the very fact of its existence, attract more traffic to that 

part of the city. 

(During the campaign, Representative Koch initially opposed Westway, but as his prospects 

improved and he needed city-wide support, he shaded his position by saying he would support 

Westway only if the funds could not be diverted to mass transit. Later, however, he said that 

Westway would be an “economic and environmental disaster” that would “never be built” while he 

was Mayor. 

(On April 19, 1978, Mayor Koch dropped his opposition to Westway in return for Governor 

Carey’s pledge to maintain the 50-cent transit fare through 1981 and contribute $800 million, 

mostly from Federal sources, for mass transit projects in the metropolitan area. Mayor Koch 

announced his reversal at a news conference with Governor Carey in Albany. The Times reported: 

Mr. Koch, his face grim, offered no praise at all for the highway, asserting that he still 

favored spending the money on mass transit. But he said the $800 million mass-transit 
1351 

package proposed by Mr. Carey—to be shared 80-20 by the Federal and state 

governments—“seems to me to be extremely important to the city and state of New York.” 

(On August 7, 1985, the U.S. District Court enjoined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from 

issuing a landfill permit and enjoined FHWA from approving funds for Westway. At the joint 

request of Governor Mario M. Cuomo and Mayor Koch, Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth 

Hanford Dole approved withdrawal of Westway from the Interstate System on September 30, 1985. 

The 50-cent fare remained in effect until June 28, 1980, when it went to 60 cents. Governor Carey 

was reelected in 1978 with 53 percent of the vote and left office in 1982 after deciding not to run 

for reelection. [Lynn, Frank, “Westway or Not—Many Votes Per Mile,” The New York Times, 

December 25, 1977; Meislin, Richard J., “Study by Carey-Koch Panel Calls Westway Best for 

City’s Economy,” The New York Times, December 29, 1977; Weisman, Steven R., “Koch Backs 

Westway After Carey Pledges 50c Fare and More Aid,” The New York Times, April 20, 1978]) 

Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978 

In 1978, the Carter Administration continued its drive for energy conservation while focusing on 

decreasing the Federal budget. The President talked about his priorities in a speech on April 11, 

1978, to the American Society of Newspaper Editors: 

Potential outlay increases in the 1979 budget which are now being considered seriously by 

congressional committees would add between $9 billion and $13 billion to spending levels 

next year. The price of some of these politically attractive programs would escalate rapidly 

in future years. I’m especially concerned about tuition tax credits, highway and urban 

transit programs, postal service financing, farm legislation, and defense spending. By every 

means at my disposal, I will resist these pressures and protect the integrity of the budget.

Indeed, as opportunities arise, we must work to reduce the budget deficit and to ensure that 

beyond 1979 the deficit declines steadily and moves us toward a balanced budget. I will 

work closely with the Congress and if necessary, I will exercise my veto authority to keep 

the 1979 budget deficit at or below the limits that I’ve proposed. 

During its first year in office, the Carter Administration considered ideas such as a tax turnback of 

all highway user taxes except revenue for the Interstate System. It also considered creating a 

Unified Transportation Block Grant similar to the popular Community Development Block Grant 

Program from HUD. Based on discussions with highway and transit interest groups, the 

Administration submitted a less radical proposal on January 26, 1978, that recalled attempts by 

Presidents Nixon and Ford to modify the surface transportation programs. [Major Proposals] 

On January 26, 1978, President Carter sent a message to Congress proposing legislation for 

highway and transit programs. He proposed to consolidate more than 30 highway and public 

transportation grant programs into fewer and more flexible programs for urban and rural areas. He 

recommended a uniform Federal share for highway and transit projects, except the Interstate 

System. The proposal focused attention on closing essential gaps in the Interstate System, with 50 

percent of Interstate construction funds apportioned accordingly. Routes that were not covered by a 
1352 

completed environmental review or an application for withdrawal by September 30, 1982, would be 

removed from the System. All remaining segments would have to be under construction by 

September 30, 1986. 

In addition, the proposal consolidated six highway safety programs into one, while expanding the 

Special Bridge Replacement Program to include rehabilitation of deficient bridges as well as 

replacement. Planning funds authorized under the highway and transit programs would be 

consolidated to remove artificial barriers to transportation choice, with the planning funds going 

directly to MPO’s in urban areas with 1 million or greater population, rather than through the State 

transportation departments. 

President Carter said in a message to Congress about the proposal: 

One of the Administration’s important goals is to develop a well balanced national 

transportation policy, one which takes account of our increased sensitivity to the effects of 

transportation on the social and economic life of our cities and rural communities. The 

reforms which are proposed in this legislation are designed to make certain that the nation 

has an effective transportation system, which uses energy more efficiently, enhances the 

quality of life in our urban and rural areas, and helps expand our economy. 

He emphasized several features, including completion of essential gaps in the Interstate System. He 

said he proposed consolidating highway and transit planning funds as a single grant to “promote 

more efficient short-range and long-range planning by state and local officials.” He said:

The Secretary will review transportation plans for [MPOs] to ensure that they take 

reasonable account of such issues as air quality, energy conservation, environmental quality, 

accessibility to employment, effect on minorities, housing, land use and future development. 

He also discussed the two “compatible programs” established for highways and transit in all 

urbanized areas with a population of 50,000 of more: 

The highway program will consolidate five categorical programs, and all urban roads not on 

the Interstate or primary systems will be eligible for assistance. The transit program will 

provide assistance for the acquisition, construction and improvement of facilities and 

equipment for use in public transportation services and the payment of operating expenses, 

including commuter rail operating expenses. 

Funds will be apportioned by formula and the federal share for capital projects will be 

eighty percent. The highway formula will be based on urbanized area population. Up to 

fifty percent of the urban highway funds may be transferred to the Primary program or to the 

small urban and rural program. Up to fifty percent of the transit funds may be transferred to 

the highway program. Highway funds will continue to be available for transit capital 

projects.
1353 

Urban discretionary grants would be focused on “major expansion of bus fleets and new fixed 

guideway projects, including extensions of existing systems, and joint development projects.” 

President Carter concluded his message by saying:

In proposing the reforms contained in this legislation I recognize the critical relationship 

between transportation, energy and development in urban and rural areas. I believe that 

these proposals will lead toward energy conservation and better land use. The enactment of 

this legislation will bring new opportunities and responsibilities to State and local officials, 

will respond to the problems of the present . . . programs, and will help to place the surface 

transportation system on a sound financial basis. 

The goal, Smerk pointed out, was “to set up a means by which, eventually, all transportation 

programs in the president’s budget would be separated into a single, functional classification.” 

Looking at it from a transit perspective, he continued: 

The key elements of Secretary Adams’ proposed program would have brought about some 

major changes for transit. All routine bus and rail modernization and rail rolling stock 

grants would be shifted away from the discretionary program of Section 3 of the Act and be 

placed in the formula grant program of Section 5. The formula grant program was proposed 

for a two-year extension, with a funding limit of $1.9 billion in fiscal 1979 and $1.95 billion 

in fiscal 1980. 

At local initiative, up to half of the formula funds could be used for highway projects. Total 

authorizations would be based on a formula embracing population, population density, and 

commuter rail mileage, so that the sums would be equal to the amounts then available under 

the existing law in Sections 5, 17, and 18. Remaining funds would be allocated on the basis 

of rapid transit route miles, the number of buses over twelve years of age, and bus seat 

miles. No more than 50 percent of the formula funds could be used for operating assistance, 

and operating assistance projects would be limited to one-third of total operating expenses. 

This latter feature would replace the maintenance of effort and local share requirements of 

the existing Section 5 program. 

The secretary proposed that discretionary funds for capital improvements under Section 3 of 

the Mass Transit Act be limited to new systems, major extensions of existing transit 

systems, and very large bus projects. The Section 3 program was to be authorized for a fiveyear period, beginning at $1.65 billion in fiscal 1979 and rising to $1.85 billion by fiscal 

1983. The authorization for Section 3 would include $775 million each year for Interstate 

substitution projects, with the federal share for the substitution increased to 90 percent (from 

70 percent under the existing law. [Smerk, p. 153-154] 

Secretary Adams emphasized an important point that would be repeated many times in coming 

years:
1354 

In the past we spent federal tax funds to expand transportation. The Interstate system–more 

than 90 percent of which is now open–testifies to the success of that effort. Now we must 

redirect highway and public transportation programs toward making all our systems better, 

safer, longer-lasting and more efficient. 

This proposal represents a transition from policies and programs appropriate to the 

formative years of our highway network to those better geared to an era of scarce, costly 

energy and growing urban needs. 

For that reason, the proposal, if enacted into law, would direct the Secretary to consolidate FHWA 

and UMTA, and possibly other elements of the Department, into a single transportation agency. 

The Carter concept met the same fate as those of his Republican predecessors. As Elizabeth Parker 

observed, it made one mistake common to the earlier proposals. It “coupled flexibility with less 

money, which could hardly be viewed as attractive to any of the parties.” Congress was not ready 

to combine highways and transit, nor were the interests backing the two modes. [Major Proposals 

to Restructure the Highway Program]

As for the transit interests, the Carter Administration’s proposal was a disappointment, especially 

considering the funding levels. These interests much preferred the bill introduced by New Jersey’s 

Representative James J. Howard, chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation. The Surface 

Transportation Assistance Act of 1978 (STAA) called for $4.4 billion for transit and included the 

highway provisions Secretary Adams had proposed. [Smerk, p. 154] 

Through the summer, the legislation was delayed by concerns over funding levels and the illness of 

Chairman Howard: 

Some delay was also caused by the combination of the highway and transit elements into 

one bill and by the fiscally conservative noises coming out of the White House, as the 

administration savored public thoughts and feelings on inflation and taxation. As an 

example, the Carter administration asked for $47 billion over a four-year period with a 

renewal of the Highway Trust Fund for four years; the House Public Works and 

Transportation Committee approved a bill for $66.5 billion that also extended the Highway 

Trust Fund for six years. Such discrepancies raised the obvious concern over a presidential 

veto at worst, and long sessions of a conference committee to iron out differences at best. 

A factor that was both good and bad for transit was its decision to combine forces with the 

highway interests to get a joint bill through Congress. The transit industry did not wish to 

compete with the highway interests because of the danger of losing in any serious 

confrontation. The argument that had successfully led to the opening of the Highway Trust 

Fund to transit use in 1973 was no longer valid. Thanks to inflation, the unexpectedly rapid 

deterioration of the Interstate Highways, and a growing problem with highway bridges, there 

was not enough money in the trust fund or in its future expected revenues to handle the job 

of rehabilitating the nation’s road system, much less to provide a significant source of 

money for transit. [Smerk, p. 156] 
1355 

Although Members of Congress were eager to adjourn by mid-October for the 1978 mid-term 

elections, neither House had approved a bill over the summer and into fall. In late September, the 

House and Senate committees began moving their bills. 

The House bill, at $66.5 billion, exceeded not only the President’s funding level but the capacity of 

the Highway Trust Fund. The bill also contained many earmarks, prompting The Washington Post

to refer to this “awful piece of legislation” as the Pet Projects Protection Act. “Any member of the 

House who doesn’t have a special project in this bill ought to feel shortchanged.” As an example it 

cited:

Among the more interesting pork-barrel projects in this bill is one of $30 million for a 

demonstration project involving the use of “high-speed water-borne transportation 

equipment” between Sandy Hook State Park in New Jersey and New YorkCity. The bill 

originally called for “jetfoil transportation” between the two points, one of which—Sandy 

Hook—just happens to be in Rep. Howard’s district. [“The Pet Projects Protection Act,” 

The Washington Post, September 14, 1978] 

During House consideration of his bill on September 15, Representative Howard told his colleagues 

that the bill was “a wholly new approach” to meeting the Nation’s surface transportation needs: 

For the first time in our history, we are addressing in a single legislative package the 

destructive congestion of our cities and the equally destructive isolation of small-town, rural 

America, where millions of people must travel daily over inadequate, dangerous roads and 

highway bridges to bring their goods to market, their children to school. 

He acknowledged that the bill was ambitious: 

It is the largest highway/mass transit program ever presented to the Congress. It calls for the 

longest spending authorization period ever proposed for a total highway and safety program. 

Despite “what you may have heard or will hear in the course of this debate,” the legislation was not 

“a budget-busting bill.” Representative Howard explained that two-thirds of the funds authorized 

by the bill “will come directly from the assured resources of the user-supported highway trust fund, 

without adding 1 cent to the present gasoline tax,” while the remainder was within the 

congressional budget limits for general Treasury outlays. 

Title I called for more than $8 billion a year from the Highway Trust Fund for the Federal-aid 

highway program in FYs 1979 through 1982. This amount included $3.625 billion to $4 billion a 

year for Interstate construction to speed completion. For Interstate 3R, Title I proposed $175 a year 

for FYs 1980 and 1981 and $275 million a year for FYs 1982 and 1983. The bill continued nonInterstate programs at essentially existing levels, but the funds could be used for 3R work on nonInterstate routes:

I call particular attention to this provision because it marks a significant departure in our 

national highway policy, as a result of which greater emphasis will be placed on upgrading 
1356 

and improving the safety and efficiency of the roads we now have in place rather than on 

merely building more and more miles of new highways.. 

The bill also addressed safety concerns. Much progress had been made, he said, since passage of 

important vehicle and highway safety legislation in 1966, but with 47,000 people expected to lose 

their lives in 1977, “we still have a long way to go.” The legislation funded FHWA’s and 

NHTSA’s permanent highway safety programs and provided funds “to help the States enforce the 

55-mile-per-hour speed limit.” In addition, the Secretary would have the authority to reduce any 

State’s Federal-aid funds “for failure to comply with enforcement standards and guidelines.” 

Representative Howard said that “far and away the most significant safety measure” was the 

measure for bridge replacement, which was expanded to cover rehabilitation: 

In title II of this bill, we propose annual authorizations of $2 billion a year for the 4 fiscal 

years 1979 through 1982, with 90 percent of project cost to be funded out of the highway 

trust fund. 

Title III retained the existing UMTA formula grant programs for capital and operating assistance at 

the existing levels of $850 million for FYs 1979 and $900 million in FY 1980, but provided an 

additional $900 million a year in FYs 1981 and 1982. The authorization retained the present 

apportionment formula based half on population and half on population density. In view of 

testimony that heavily urbanized areas needed greater help than possible under this formula, the bill 

added a “tier II” formula that authorized $250 million a year for FYs 1979 through 1982: 

Our committee agreed to continue the half-and-half population/population density for these 

“tier II” grants, with the proviso that 95 percent of the funds would go to the 33 urbanized 

areas in the United States that have populations of 750,000 and more and the remaining 15 

percent to smaller urban centers.

In addition, Title III authorized $1.86 billion a year in discretionary grants for public transportation, 

“but tightens up on the Secretary of Transportation’s authority by establishing specific categories 

with specific dollar amounts to be earmarked each year . . . .” The categories included bus and busrelated purchases, fixed-rail rolling stock, rail modernization, new starts and extensions, and 

planning and technical studies. 

Title IV was a Buy America requirement for domestic acquisition of products and supplies used on 

Federal-aid projects. 

The House passed the bill on September 28 by a 367-to-28 vote after adopting amendments that 

reduced total expenditures to $60.9 billion, still more than the President’s fiscal demand. The bill 

authorized $11.1 billion a year for the Federal-aid highway program and $4.1 billion for capital and 

operating assistance for mass transit programs. The bill got around the problem of spending more 

than the Highway Trust Fund took in by authorizing the Federal-aid highway program to spend 5 

years of income in 4 years. [Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978, Congressional 
1357 

Record-House, September 15, 1978, p. 29602-29618; Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 

1978, Congressional Record-House, p. 32293-32321] 

The Senate had considered the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1978, S. 3073, on August 18. 

Introducing the bill, Senator Bentsen described it as “a 2-year, $16 billion bill of direct and 

immediate importance to every State in this Nation.” In view of needs, “S. 3073 is lean legislation; 

make no mistake about it.” The focus was on accelerating completion of the Interstate System and 

continuing 3R funds to protect the taxpayers’ investment in the System. It expanded the Special 

Bridge Replacement Program to cover rehabilitation of deficient bridges. [Federal-Aid Highway 

Act of 1978, Congressional Record-Senate, August 18, 1878, p. 26897-26949] 

On September 28, the Senate considered the Federal Public Transportation Act of 1978, introduced 

by Senators Williams and Brooke of Massachusetts. After summarizing its provisions, Senator 

Williams said:

Mr. President, this legislation marks the first reauthorization and major revision of the 

public transportation program since passage of the Landmark [sic] National Mass 

Transportation Assistance Act of 1974. Following a decade of experience in public 

transportation, that act signaled a substantial Federal commitment to the further 

development, improvement, and continued operation of mass transit systems in our urban 

areas.

He recalled Senate passage of the earlier version of the bill on July 23, 1977, but said he had 

introduced the public transit portion of President Carter’s proposal as S. 2441. The committee held 

3 days of hearings: 

The message at these hearings was clear: We must reaffirm and strengthen our commitment 

to public transit; we need a simplified program; we need funding levels that allow us to 

preserve and improve our existing systems, and we need to tighten up the administration of 

the program. 

S. 2441 preserved the concepts in the original bill, while advancing the purposes the President 

identified and incorporating other measures that the Senate had approved in past years: 

In its totality, I believe the reported bill, S. 2441, reaffirms the Federal commitment to 

public transportation, responds to the increasing public acceptance of public transportation, 

and will maximize the potential role that public transportation services can have on solving 

the problems of energy conservation, urban development, and environment[al] preservation. 

Senator Williams recalled the history of transit:

In the last several years, the public transportation program has played an increasingly 

important and productive role in our total transportation system. Almost 30 postwar years 

of declining transit ridership have ended. In every year since 1973, ridership has increased. 
1358 

On a nationwide basis, ridership has increased 10 percent since 1973—an increase of almost 

500 million riders annually . . . . 

[An] effective transit program is a critical element in any comprehensive plan to preserve 

our environment, conserve our energy resources and solve our urban problems. To make 

the transit program more effective, we need to make it more flexible and enhance its ability

to help each community meet its own transportation and transportation related needs . . . . 

The catalog of mode and system choices has become much larger in recent years. In great 

measure, this is due to the 10 years of UMTA-assisted development of new methods and 

new technology, and the Federal commitment to improved transit that this program 

represents.

He said of S. 2441: 

This legislation—S. 2441—would vastly improve the framework in which these choices 

must be made. It would provide a more flexible program that allows our communities, 

regions and States to examine their transportation needs, plan a rational, balanced approach 

to meeting these needs, and, in partnership with the Federal Government, finance the 

programs and projects that are decided upon. 

Because of committee jurisdiction issues, Senator Williams also let his colleagues know that the 

bill would be offered as an amendment to the Committee on Environment and Public Works’ 

Federal-Aid Highway Act, S. 3073. [Federal Public Transportation Act of 1978, Congressional 

Record-Senate, September 28, 1978, p. 32135-32179] 

On October 3, the Senate completed work on its combined bill by substituting S. 3073 for the 

approved House bill and calling for a conference to resolve differences. The Senate approved the 

bill without a recorded vote and designated Senators for the conference. [Federal-Aid Highway Act 

of 1978, Congressional Record-Senate, October 3, 1978, p. 33191-33195] 

On October 12, The Washington Post reported that conferees had agreed on a $51-billion, 4-year 

surface transportation bill that cut $15 billion from the House bill: 

The final figure was agreed to last night after hours of hard bargaining and after President 

Carter personally met with key conferees to push for a lower authorization than the House 

side was considering. Although Carter never used the word veto in the Tuesday morning 

meeting, the possibility of such action clearly weighed heavily on the minds of conferees on 

both sides. 

Several conferees said the president told them he would sign a bill totaling $52.4 billion. 

Under a complex technicality it is possible to interpret the conference version as a $53.8 

billion bill, which exceeds the level the president suggested. That is because the conferees 

agreed not to limit the amount of money that could be appropriated for transit projects 

funded through the abolition of planned interstate highway segments. 
1359 

Senator Bentsen told reporters, “There is still an element of risk, but the Senate conferees will do 

our best to get the president to sign it. We’re willing to take the risk.” The risk was that if the 

President vetoed the bill, the Highway Trust Fund would run out of money in the absence of an 

extension, and 39 States would soon be without Federal-aid highway funds. 

Representative Howard was not happy with the bill or the President’s vigorous push to cut the 

funding level. He said, “We think this bill is responsive to the transportation needs of the country 

and we think it would be signed by any reasonable president.” 

He attributed some of the concern about the budget to the effect of California voters’ approval of 

Proposition 13 on June 6, 1978. Officially called the "People's Initiative to Limit Property 

Taxation," Proposition 13 capped property taxes that were a major source of revenue for State and 

local officials. It also restricted statewide tax increases to those that could pass the State legislature 

by a two-thirds vote. Reduced taxation to support smaller government had been a battle cry of 

conservatives for many years, but the movement took on renewed public awareness when California 

voters approved Proposition 13. [Feaver, Douglas B., “Transit-Highway Conferees Agree,” The 

Washington Post, October 12, 1978] 

 

(The chief proponent of Proposition 13, Howard Jarvis, became an apostle of relief for taxpayers 

even as California officials decried the impact of the measure on services funded with general 

revenues rather than dedicated funds such as the State gas tax. It also had the unintended 

consequence of giving Republican legislators in California little incentive to compromise on tax 

issues since passing tax legislation was so difficult after Proposition 13.) 

With Congress planning to adjourn on October 14, the future of the bill was unclear, as Smerk 

described:

There was still serious concern over whether or not the president would sign the bill, 

because he was being advised by the Office of Management and Budget that the bill was too 

costly. On the other hand, the president was being advised by Secretary Adams and several 

White House aides to sign the bill . . . . As night fell on the Capitol, it was clear that 

Congress would have to run a marathon all-night session on October 14 in order to complete 

the necessary work on tax cuts and energy legislation. [Smerk, p. 157-158] 

The energy legislation was in trouble in the House, as evidenced by an October 13 procedural vote 

that passed with only one vote to spare, 207-206. 

Saturday, October 14, was a frantic day on Capitol Hill as the House and Senate raced through bills 

on their way to adjournment. The Post described one exchange that took place on October 14: 

It was late Saturday night, and the chief of President Carter’s congressional liaison team, 

Frank Moore, and Carter’s press secretary, Jody Powell, were making one last effort to win 

House votes for the president’s energy program. Powell and Moore established themselves 

in an anteroom off the House floor, where they received a series of visitors. One was Rep. 
1360 

James Howard (D-N.J.), chairman of a subcommittee that had drafted a highway bill Carter 

deemed too expensive. 

Powell asked Howard how he was going to vote on the energy legislation. 

Howard asked Powell whether Carter would sign the highway bill. 

Powell and Moore both said they could not make a commitment for the president. At that, 

Howard turned to one of the House leadership’s vote-counters to ask how he was being 

listed on the energy legislation.

He was listed as a supporter of the energy package, the staff man replied.

“Well, make that ‘No’”—and I’ll take three other New Jersey democrats with me,” Howard 

huffed. 

Soon afterward Speaker Tip O’Neil [sic] placed a call to Carter. The president said he 

would sign Rep. Howard’s highway bill. [Russell, Mary, and Kaiser, Robert G., “Nonstop 

34 Houses of Waltzing, Stumbling, Struggling,” The Washington Post, October 16, 1978] 

The Senate approved the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978 without a recorded vote. 

In the early morning hours of October 15, the House did the same. [Surface Transportation 

Assistance Act of 1978—Conference Report, Congressional Record-Senate, October 14, 1978, p. 

37489-37498; Conference Report on H.R. 11733, Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978, 

Congressional Record-House, p. 38574-38581] 

Congress also approved a series of energy bills. 

President Carter approved the STAA without ceremony during the evening of November 6, 1978. 

As Elizabeth Parker said, the final legislation “bore little resemblance to the administration's 

proposals, although it did consolidate some programs to allow more flexible mass transit and 

highway funding and made some more progress toward the goal of combining highway and transit 

planning processes.” [Major Proposals] 

Secretary Adams, in a statement, called the legislation “a historic act, because it confirms as a 

matter of national policy that we are going to have public transportation in place as an alternative 

for the 1980’s.” The 1978 STAA “gives us the tools to provide alternatives to the automobile.” He 

added, “It also allows us to shift to the problems of maintaining and improving the country’s great 

Interstate Highway System. We will be streamlining the bureaucracy to meet these challenges,” he 

added in reference to the plan to combine FHWA and UMTA into a single agency. 

The 1978 STAA included: 

• Title I – Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1978. 

• Title II – Highway Safety Act of 1978. 
1361 

• Title III – Federal Public Transportation Act of 1978. 

• Title IV – Buy America. 

• Title V – Highway Revenue Act of 1978. 

It substituted a 4-year authorization period for the traditional 2-year authorization period of past 

Federal-aid highway bills. The 1978 STAA authorized $51.4 billion for FYs 1979 through 1982, 

with $30.6 billion for highways, $7.2 billion for highway safety, and $13.6 billion for public 

transportation. The Federal share for non-Interstate projects on the Federal-aid systems was 

increased to 75 percent (up from 70 percent). 

For the Interstate System, the 1978 STAA authorized $3.5 billion a year for FYs 1981-1982 and 

$3.25 billion for FY 1983 (compared with $3.25 billion a year in FYs 1979-1980). Interstate 

authorizations continued at $3.625 billion for FYs 1984 through 1990, which was the new target 

date for completion. The legislation authorized separate funds for 3R work on Interstate routes in 

service over 5 years: $175 million a year in FYs 1980-1981 and $275 million a year in FYs 1982-

1983. The Federal share for 3R work was reduced to 75 percent (down from 90 percent). 

Congress included measures in the 1978 STAA to speed completion of the Interstate System, 92 

percent of which was open to traffic (39,050 of 42,500 miles) at a cost thus far of about $63 billion. 

 As described in an FHWA summary of the legislation: 

A significant change was made in the availability of Interstate apportionments. They are 

now available only until the end of the fiscal year for which they are authorized. Since 

Interstate authorizations are apportioned 1 year in advance, this provision means that 

Interstate apportionments are now available to a state for 2 years before they are subject to 

lapse, as compared to the previous 4-year availability. If a state does allow funds to lapse, 

those funds will be made available to other states who have used up their own 

apportionments and have additional Interstate projects ready to go. 

Under previous law, a state could replace one Interstate route with a substitute Interstate 

route, of increased mileage but at no increase in cost. This is no longer allowed as a result 

of the 1978 Act. However, the lid on the costs of the substitute routes already approved is 

lifted and full funding of those routes will be permitted. 

The legislation let State and local officials retain the option of requesting withdrawal of 

controversial urban Interstate segments and committing funds in an equal amount for public 

transportation or other highway projects in the same area, but only until September 30, 1983: 

After that date, there can be no further transfer of Interstate credits except for routes under 

litigation on the deadline date. The federal share of the substitute projects is 85 percent. 

This is a change from previous law, which specified that the federal share would be 

whatever percentage was permitted for the particular substitute project, i.e., 80 percent for 

mass transit, 70 percent for primary, secondary, or urban highways. 
1362 

The act requires that all environmental impact statements for all routes or route sections to 

be constructed on the Interstate System must be submitted to the Secretary of Transportation 

by September 30, 1983. Further, all Interstate routes or substitute projects must be either 

under contract for construction or construction must be underway by September 30, 1986, if 

sufficient Federal funds are available. The consequences of not meeting these requirements 

will be removal of those routes from the Interstate System, or withdrawal of approval on 

substitute projects. Also under the law, states will be allowed to use abandoned Interstate 

rights-of-way on withdrawn routes for a wide variety of public purposes without the 

repayment of federal funds already received.

Public purposes included a transportation project eligible under Title 23, a public conservation or 

public recreation purposes, or other purposes that the Secretary of Transportation determined are in 

the public interest. Action on such uses must begin within 10 years of withdrawal. 

(Westway was under court review on September 30, 1983, allowing for its withdrawal in 1985.) 

Title II continued FHWA’s and NHTSA’s safety programs, but with significant changes in several 

programs. The most significant was replacement of the Special Bridge Replacement Program with 

a Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program:

The federal share is raised from 75 percent to 80 percent, 5 percent higher than other major 

federal-aid categories. Major rehabilitation of unsafe bridges is permitted for the first time, 

in addition to replacement. Eligible for funding is the rehabilitation or replacement of 

highway bridges over waterways, topographical barriers, other highways and railroads. Offsystem bridges are eligible for the first time—at least 15 percent and up to 35 percent of a 

state’s bridge funds must be spent for off-system projects unless the Secretary grants a 

waiver in the case of a state that does not have sufficient needs off-system to justify such 

expenditures. 

Most funds for the new bridge program were authorized for formula apportionment based on each 

State’s inventoried bridge needs compared with the nationwide total. However, the legislation set 

aside $200 million a year that the Secretary could use on a discretionary basis for replacement or 

rehabilitation bridge projects costing over $10 million. 

Title II also consolidated safety construction programs by establishing a Hazard Elimination 

Program combining the former roadside obstacles and high hazard programs. Hazard Elimination 

and Pavement Marking would continue until 1982 when Pavement Marking projects would be 

carried out under the Hazard Elimination Program. The Federal share would be 90 percent: 

The act also requires each state to inventory all hazards to motorists and pedestrians on 

public roads, set up a priority list and implement a schedule of projects. Also required of 

each state is an evaluation of the projects carried out under this program. 

Similarly, Title II consolidated categories for reducing rail-highway crossing hazards on and off the 

Federal-aid systems. Eligible items included grade separations, highway relocation, and relocation 
1363 

of a segment of rail line when it is the least expensive alternative. At least half of the authorized 

$190 million a year had to be spent to install protective devices at rail-highway crossings. 

Among other programs, Title II authorized funds to help States enforce the 55 m.p.h. speed limit 

($50 million for FY 1979 and $67.5 million each for FYs 1980-1982). 

For transit, Title III authorized a total of $13.58 billion over 4 years, plus $1.58 billion for the 

discretionary capital grant program for FY 1983 as well as an unspecified amount for substitute 

mass transit projects selected in place of Interstate highway projects. The legislation also restricted 

and refocused transit assistance, as the summary explained:

• Discretionary and formula grants are restricted, transferring routine bus capital and 

commuter rail needs to the formula program. 

• The discretionary program is focused on major investment projects and incorporates 

provisions for urban initiatives and intermodal coordination. 

• A new formula grant program is established for transit capital and operating assistance to 

rural and small urban areas.

• Funding for formula grants to urbanized areas is significantly increased. 

Eligibility for the Discretionary Capital Grant Program (Section 3 of the Urban Mass Transportation 

Act of 1964, as amended) continued for new fixed guideways and extensions of existing ones, 

modernization of existing mass transit facilities and equipment, and construction of new facilities 

and equipment. In addition, Title III established eligibility for introducing new technology into 

public transportation services, joint development and urban initiatives projects, and commuter rail 

projects that would mitigate any adverse effects of the Northeast Corridor rail service project to 

upgrade the tracks for faster Amtrak service between Washington and Boston. Existing contract 

authority for this funding was cancelled, making the discretionary program subject to the 

appropriations process. 

The legislation also changed the Urban Mass Transit Program for capital and operating formula 

grants (Section 5). The program for routine capital bus purchases was shifted from Section 3 to 

Section 5 and the categorical grants programs in Sections 17 and 18 for commuter rail operations 

were abolished. A new commuter rail/fixed guideway program was established in Section 5. The 

Section 5 programs retained contract authority and apportionment to all urbanized areas based on 

population and population density. 

Further, the 1978 Act authorized a “second tier” of $250 million a year for operating and capital 

assistance under the Section 5 program. Eighty-five percent of the funds were to be apportioned to 

33 urbanized areas over 750,000 in population, again based on a formula involving population and 

population density. The remaining funds were for smaller urbanized areas. As noted earlier, this 

tier was compensation for larger areas.

The 1978 STAA also added a program under Section 18 providing operating and capital assistance 

funds to establish and maintain transit programs in areas with fewer than 50,000 residents and two 

programs to assist intercity bus carriers in new Sections 21 and 22. 
1364 

Title IV provided that with certain exceptions, any articles, materials, and supplies purchased with 

grant funds under the 1978 STAA for projects whose total cost exceeds $500,000 must have been 

mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States. 

Title V extended highway user taxes to 1984 and the Highway Trust Fund to 1985. This section 

also modified the Byrd Amendment enacted as part of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956: 

This refers to the previously required reduction in Interstate apportionments alone when 

anticipated Trust Fund revenues were inadequate to cover expenditures. Now, a pro-rata 

reduction of all apportioned Highway Trust Funded programs will be required. 

[Source: The Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978, Federal Highway Administration, 

reprinted August 1979] 

Section 141 of the 1978 STAA authorized $20 million a year (FYs 1979-1982) for the bicycle 

program, with half from the Highway Trust Fund and half subject to appropriation from the general 

Treasury. The funds could be used for construction of bikeways and “nonconstruction programs or 

projects which can reasonably be expected to enhance the safety and use of bicycles.” These grants, 

subject to a 75-25 matching ratio, were in addition to formula funds for projects that were eligible 

under Section 217 of Title 23. Section 141 also provided that the Secretary shall not approve any 

highway project “that will result in the severance or destruction of an existing major route for 

nonmotorized transportation traffic and light motorcycles, unless such project provides a reasonable 

alternative route or such a route exists.” 

In addition, the provision modified the introductory sentence of Section 217 as proposed by the 

Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (revised language in italics): 

To encourage energy conservation and the multiple use of highway rights-of-way, including 

the development, improvement, and use of bicycle transportation and the development and 

improvement of pedestrian walkways on or in conjunction with highway rights-of-way, the 

States may, on Federal-aid highway projects, construct new or improved lanes, paths, or 

shoulders; traffic control devices, shelters for and parking facilities for bicycles; and 

pedestrian walkways. 

The new language beginning “construct new or improved” replaced: 

. . . the States may, on Federal-aid highway projects, include to the extent practicable, 

suitable, and feasible, the construction of separate or preferential bicycle lanes or paths, 

bicycle traffic control devices, shelters and parking facilities to serve bicycles and persons 

using bicycles, and pedestrian walkways in conjunction or connection with Federal-aid 

highways. 

The Senate committee’s report indicated that its “bill amends existing law to make clear that 

projects to serve bicycle traffic may be approved as independent Federal-aid projects or as part of 

other improvements to a Federal-aid route, so long as the project enhances service provided by a 
1365 

Federal-aid route.” [Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1978, Report of the Committee on Environment 

and Public Works, United States Senate, 95th Congress, 2d Session, Report No, 95-833, May 15, 

1978, p. 17] 

The Washington Post had ridiculed Representative Howard’s bill as the Pet Projects Protection Act. 

 Earmarks had been growing for years. The 1978 STAA contained many special interest provisions 

affecting only one or a few projects. It also continued the proliferation of “demonstration projects” 

intended to demonstrate the value of some activity in a location specified in the law or the 

legislative history. For example, despite the Post’s ridicule of Representative Howard’s earmark 

for his congressional district, he ensured its survival in Title III as a transit demonstration project: 

Section 320. (a) The Secretary of Transportation shall carry out a demonstration project 

using high-speed water-borne transportation equipment and facilities and operating in, and 

in the vicinity of New York, New York, for the purpose of determining the feasibility of 

utilizing this technology in providing certain public mass transportation service. The 

Secretary shall report to Congress the results of such project no later than September 30, 

1981, together with his recommendation. 

(b) There is authorized to be appropriated to carry out the provisions of subsection (a) not 

to exceed $25,000,000 

Other demonstration projects in the 1978 STAA included acceleration of bridge projects, access 

control, bypass highways, connector primaries, impact of increased unit train traffic, integrated 

motorist information systems, railroad highway crossings, and restricted access, to cite a few.

In later years, the “demonstration project” would become a standard feature of surface 

transportation legislation, with long lists of projects that would give the Federal-aid highway 

program a growing reputation as a pork barrel program. 

Surface Transportation Administration

With the 1978 STAA a law, Secretary Adams held a November 9 press conference to release a draft 

proposal for a Surface Transportation Administration. The new agency would be headed by an 

Administrator, a Deputy Administrator, and an Assistant Administrator. Associate Administrators 

would head offices for Administration; Policy, Planning and Budget; Program Management 

(Delivery System); Technical Assistance; Safety; and Research, Development and Demonstrations. 

Staff offices included Legal, Public Affairs, Civil Rights, and the National Surface Transportation 

Institute (replacing the highway training program administered by FHWA’s National Highway 

Institute).

The field structure included 10 region offices and 52 division offices in the States, the District of 

Columbia, and Puerto Rico. During the transition, requests for highway and public transportation 

funds would be handled as usual. Gradually, responsibility for decisions would be shifted to region 

and division officials. [Adam’s [sic] Proposal for New Surface Transportation Administration to 

Combine FHWA and UMTA,” Better Roads, December 1978, p. 14-15] 
1366 

The new agency would have about 5,500 employees (4,900 from FHWA, 600 from UMTA) and a 

total budget of around $11 billion. In a joint statement, Federal Highway Administrator Karl S. 

Bowers and UMTA Administrator Richard S. Page endorsed the proposal, which would streamline 

the “grant delivery process and provide a more efficient use of federal manpower.” 

Secretary Adams explained that the merger would be “the culmination of an evolutionary process 

that has brought about the gradual convergence of highway and public transportation programs.” 

He added:

This Congress clearly recognized the need for a highway-mass transit partnership by this 

year addressing those programs in a single legislative package. The bill Congress 

produced—the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978, signed by the President this 

week—gives us the final building block for a new surface transportation organization. 

With the Interstate System nearing completion, “We must redirect our emphasis to maintaining this 

nationwide basic system and coordinate its use into a single surface transportation system.” He 

added, “The restoration of public transit is not a subject of debate. It’s a fact of national policy.” 

The proposal would not alter funding levels of the highway or transit program: 

I am committed to maintaining the integrity of the Highway Trust fund and to establishing a 

separate and dependable funding mechanism for public transportation. 

Dealing With the Energy Crisis

On November 9, 1978, President Carter approved the energy bills that, as The New York Times put 

it, “should deliver about half of what the President asked for when he introduced the legislation as 

the ‘moral equivalent of war.’” He signed the National Energy Conservation Policy Act, the Power 

Plant and Industrial Fuel Use Act, the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act, the Energy Tax Act, 

and the Natural Gas Policy Act. 

Speaking in the East Room of the White House with Members of Congress and Secretary 

Schlesinger behind him, President Carter said, “This is a day of great progress for our Nation and of 

great personal satisfaction to me as President . . . . Today we can rightfully claim that we have a 

conscious national policy for dealing with the energy problems of the present and also to help us 

deal with them in the future.” He recalled the challenges the Nation faced in recent months:

Events of the past 18 months have underscored the importance of this legislation. A severe 

natural gas shortage during one of our more severe winters, a crippling and unpredictable 

coal strike [that began December 6, 1977, and lasted 110 days], the severe imbalance of 

payments in our Nation’s trade, a deterioration in the value of the American dollar, and 

more recently in Iran a threat to a major source of world supplies—each of these problems 

has either aggravated or portends the aggravation of our domestic inflationary pressures. 

And each of them has made worse or would be making them worse in the future without this 

legislation on the desk before me. 
1367 

The bills, he said, encompassed the major principles he had outlined in April 1977: use energy 

efficiently, encourage energy production in the United States, and shift the country toward more 

abundant energy supplies, including coal and renewable supplies such as solar energy. 

The coal conversion and energy tax legislation would shift consumption away from oil to plentiful 

coal while using tax credits to encourage development of renewable energy sources. “The promise 

of solar energy, use of biomass and others has been too long neglected as a major source of supply.” 

The Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 would end 30 years of controversy on how to regulate natural 

gas. “This act will for the first time provide a uniform national market for natural gas, with 

adequate incentives for producers to increase their production in a sustained and dependable and 

efficient way, and also to guarantee consumers increased long-range supplies of this valuable source 

of energy and also with predictable and moderate price increases.” (James F. Flug of Energy 

Action described the removal of price controls from natural gas as “the functional equivalent of 

surrender in the moral equivalent of war.”) 

The utility rate bill would encourage State regulatory agencies to prescribe rates oriented toward 

conservation. The Department of Energy and interested citizens would be able to “intervene in 

protecting themselves and protecting the Nation’s resources.” 

The gas-guzzler tax survived in the Energy Tax Act; it applied only to automobiles (defined in the 

law as four-wheeled, manufactured for use on public roads, and rated as at least 6,000 pounds gross 

vehicle weight). A 1980 model year car that failed to get at least 15 m.p.g. would be taxed $200-

$550, depending on mileage rating. The tax would increase gradually until 1986 model year 

automobiles were subject to the tax if they did not get at least 22.5 m.p.g, with the tax ranging from 

$500 to $3,850 (less than 12.5 m.p.g.). The Times described the taxes as “milder than originally 

proposed.” 

President Carter praised the “conservation incentives that are embedded in this legislation,” calling 

them “very substantial.” He added:

Mostly these incentives, as encompassed by the wisdom of the Congress, rely on natural 

market forces of a free enterprise system to accomplish the purpose. The government 

regulatory intrusion is minimized, and I hope and believe that with additional experience in 

the administration of these laws, this trend can be accentuated and made more rapid itself.

He concluded with a summary of the bills: 

I would like to say also that overall, these bills, the utility rate reform, energy taxes, energy

conservation, coal conversion, natural gas bills which I am signing, will enable us to save by 

1985 about 21⁄2 million barrels of oil per day. This is not as great as the original goal in the 

proposals that we made to Congress, but it’s a substantial basis on which we can predicate 

future achievements in additional conservation of energy. 

After his statement, the President asked several of the assembled officials to say a few words. One 

was Representative Ashley. According to the transcript, he said, 
1368 

Representative Ashley. Well, thank you, Mr. President. I’ve got to be very candid with 

you. I hope you never send us a legislative package like the number you did on us last 

April. [Laughter] 

The President. You’ve got my promise. [Laughter] 

Secretary Schlesinger, who spoke last, called the bills “the most massive legislative package ever to 

come out of the Congress.” He added, “It is a good beginning . . . but we have received here about 

60 to 65 percent of the savings in oil in 1985 that you originally suggested. And we will have to do 

better.” (In a subsequent speech, he said, “The response was less close to William James’ moral 

equivalent of war than to the political equivalent of the Chinese water torture.”) 

Later that day, President Carter was in Kansas City, Missouri, for a speech to the convention of the 

Future Farmers of America. In response to a question on the energy bills, he said he was sure 

additional legislation would be needed to achieve his goals: 

I've not given up on my original proposal that there should be a constraint on the excessive 

consumption of oil and therefore the excessive importation of oil. How we'll go about it, I 

don't yet know. 

As the Times explained:

The original energy legislation, intended to reduce America’s dependence on imported oil, 

was to have cut oil imports by 4.9 million barrels a day from the 11.5 million barrels a day 

that might otherwise have been imported in 1985. By contrast, the legislation that Congress 

delivered after a year and a half of maneuvering, compromises, and lobbying by nearly every 

vested interest in the United States, can be expected to reduce oil imports by 2.4 million to 

2.9 million barrels a day from what they might otherwise have been, the Department of 

Energy estimates. 

That official estimate, however, has been widely questioned by opponents of the legislation, 

who have flooded this city with their own projections, ranging from modest cuts to small 

increases in oil imports. And, privately, most Government officials and industry executives 

concede they don’t really know what effect the bill will have on imports of oil. 

At least, according to experts consulted by the Times, the legislation “strikes one generally positive 

note to the nation: It is unlikely to add much, if anything, to the inflation rate.” (The rate was then 

about 7.6 percent.) [Yergin, 662-664; Halloran, Richard, “Energy Act is Signed; Limits Seen,” The 

New York Times, November 10, 1978] 

Despite President Carter’s effort to address the country’s energy needs, the Nation was not ready 

when the second energy crisis occurred in early 1979 following the revolution in Iran that replaced 

the Shah of Iran with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in February 1979. He transformed the country 

into an Islamic Republic. The change disrupted the flow of oil from Iran, previously the second 

largest oil supplier to the world. Worldwide supplies declined 4 to 5 percent, but the uncertainty of 

availability caused the price of oil to increase 150 percent. Yergin attributed the unusually large 
1369 

increase in price to panic resulting from growth in oil consumption; disruption of contractual 

agreements between the oil companies and Iran; the disparity between governmental actions to 

lower prices while oil companies bid them up; and increases by oil-producing nations in the “rent” 

they charged the companies pumping their oil. Yergin added: 

Finally, there was the sheer power of emotion. Uncertainty, anxiety, confusion, fear, 

pessimism—those were the sentiments that fueled and governed actions during the panic. 

After the fact, when all the numbers were sorted out, when the supply and demand balance 

was retrospectively dissected, such emotions seemed irrational; they didn’t make sense. Yet 

at the time they were indubitably real. [Yergin, 685-686] 

With the oil shock of 1973-1974 in mind, oil companies bought oil to stockpile in excess of 

immediate need while oil consumers, including motorists, began “hoarding” gasoline: 

Down the consumption chain, industrial users and utilities also furiously built inventories as 

insurance against rising prices and possible shortages. So did the motorist. Before 1979, 

the typical motorist in the Western world drove around with his tank only one-quarter full. 

Suddenly worried about gasoline shortages, he too started building inventories, which is 

another way of saying that he now kept his gas tank three-quarters full. And suddenly, 

almost overnight, upwards of a billion gallons of motor fuel were sucked out of gasoline 

station tanks by America’s frightened motorists. 

These and other factors increased the price of oil from $13 a barrel to $34 dollars. [Yergin, p. 687] 

On March 28, 1979, in “one of those coincidental tricks of history,” the Three Mile Island nuclear 

plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, failed in a near-catastrophic manner. For those seeking 

alternatives to oil, the nuclear option now appeared doubtful. “Altogether, the accident contributed 

to the gloom, pessimism, and even fatalism that was now gripping the Western world.” Yergin 

summarized the result:

For consuming countries as well as for the oil companies, it appeared to be every man for 

himself. Prices continued to climb.

To the American public the reemergence of gas lines, which snaked for blocks around 

gasoline stations, became the embodiment of the panic. The nightmare of 1973 had 

returned . . . . As gas lines spread across the country, the oil companies were once again 

public enemy number one. [Yergin, p. 691-692] 

President Carter, who had come into office promising to implement an energy plan, quickly became 

the target of pleas and criticism from those seeking a quick end to the crisis: 

By mid-March of 1979, two months into the crisis, Eliot Cutler, his chief White House 

energy advisor, was already warning of the “darts and arrows coming at us from all 

directions—from people who want to get rid of the regulatory structure, from people 

concerned about inflation, from people who want a sexy and affirmative program, from 
1370 

people who don’t want the oil companies to profiteer, and generally from people who want 

to make life politically miserable for us.” [Yergin, p. 693] 

On April 5, President Carter addressed the Nation, calling the energy problem “very serious—and 

it’s getting worse.” The country was not producing enough oil, gas, and coal; was buying too much 

from foreign countries; and was wasting too much energy. The energy legislation he had approved 

in November 1978 was already providing benefits, but his proposals for oil conservation had not 

been enacted. Now, the country had to act without delay: 

There is no single answer. We must produce more. We must conserve more. And now we 

must join together in a great national effort to use American technology to give us energy 

security in the years ahead.

He announced a series of steps, including decontrol of oil prices, coupled with a windfall profits tax 

on excess earnings of oil companies. He also called for conservation: 

I will set targets for our 50 States to reduce gasoline consumption and ask each State to meet 

its target. The timetable will be strict. If States fail to meet their targets when gasoline 

shortages exist, then I will order mandatory steps to achieve the needed savings, including 

the weekend closing of service stations . . . . 

In addition, I ask each of you to take an important action on behalf of our Nation. I ask you 

to drive 15 miles a week fewer than you do now. One way to do this is not to drive your 

own car to work every day. At least once a week take the bus, go by carpool or, if you work 

close enough to home, walk. 

This action can make a significant difference to our country. For each day that we do this, 

we can save hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil. This will help to hold down the prices 

of fuel, and you obviously will save money you otherwise would have spent on gasoline. 

As needed, on a temporary basis, I may extend certain environmental deadlines and make 

regulatory changes to help avoid serious shortages of gasoline. 

He called for an Energy Security Fund with revenue from the windfall profit tax:

The energy security fund will let us pursue a sound strategy of energy research and 

development. In years to come, we can then design automobiles, buildings, appliances, and 

engines that serve us better and use less energy.

We can improve mass transit and make our entire transportation system cleaner, faster, and 

more efficient. We can broaden the use of our huge coal deposits by turning coal into clean 

gas, liquid, and solid fuels. 

He took several steps to demonstrate his commitment to personal conservation. Among them, he 

installed solar panels on the White House roof and wore sweaters to encourage people to turn down 
1371 

their thermostats. For the American people, these efforts seemed trivial compared with the long, 

frustrating gas lines:

Most of the nation now seemed to be in the grip of the gasoline shortage. A survey by the 

American Automobile Association of 6,286 service stations nationwide showed that 58 

percent were closed Saturday, June 23, and 70 percent were closed on Sunday, June 24, 

leaving Americans with very little gasoline on the first weekend of the summer. 

Independent truckers were conducting a rowdy, violent nationwide strike, now three weeks 

old, to protest fuel shortages and rising prices. A hundred truckers snarled rush-hour traffic 

for thirty miles along the Long Island Expressway, infuriating tens of thousands of 

motorists. Soaring gas prices were not the only problem. Inflation was also moving up to 

an unprecedented level. [Yergin, p. 694] 

In July, Saudi Arabia complied with the request from the United States to increase oil production, 

but the short-term impact did not solve the long-term problem:

Nor could the extra supplies do much immediately to cool the hot temper of the American 

public. As a result, Carter was compelled to do something, and to be seen doing 

something—something big, something positive, something that seemed to offer the longterm solution. [Yergin, p. 695] 

President Carter gave a fireside speech to the Nation on July 15, 1979, declaring: 

I want to talk to you right now about a fundamental threat to American democracy . . . . I do 

not refer to the outward strength of America, a nation that is at peace tonight everywhere in 

the world, with unmatched economic power and military might . . . . 

The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that 

strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the 

growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for 

our nation . . . . 

He said the “erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the 

political fabric of America.” He continued: 

The confidence that we have always had as a people is not simply some romantic dream or a 

proverb in a dusty book that we read just on the Fourth of July. It is the idea which founded 

our Nation and has guided our development as a people. Confidence in the future has 

supported everything else: public institutions and private enterprise, our own families, and 

the very Constitution of the United States. Confidence has defined our course and has 

served as a link between generations. We've always believed in something called progress. 

We've always had a faith that the days of our children would be better than our own. 

Our people are losing that faith, not only in government itself but in the ability as citizens to 

serve as the ultimate rulers and shapers of our democracy. As a people we know our past 

and we are proud of it. Our progress has been part of the living history of America, even the 
1372 

world. We always believed that we were part of a great movement of humanity itself called 

democracy, involved in the search for freedom, and that belief has always strengthened us in 

our purpose. But just as we are losing our confidence in the future, we are also beginning to 

close the door on our past. 

In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our 

faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human 

identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered 

that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've 

learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no 

confidence or purpose. 

The symptoms of this crisis of the American spirit are all around us. For the first time in the 

history of our country a majority of our people believe that the next 5 years will be worse 

than the past 5 years. Two-thirds of our people do not even vote. The productivity of 

American workers is actually dropping, and the willingness of Americans to save for the 

future has fallen below that of all other people in the Western world. 

As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for 

schools, the news media, and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or 

reassurance, but it is the truth and it is a warning. 

These changes did not happen overnight. They've come upon us gradually over the last 

generation, years that were filled with shocks and tragedy. 

We were sure that ours was a nation of the ballot, not the bullet, until the murders of John 

Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. We were taught that our armies 

were always invincible and our causes were always just, only to suffer the agony of 

Vietnam. We respected the Presidency as a place of honor until the shock of Watergate. 

We remember when the phrase "sound as a dollar" was an expression of absolute 

dependability, until 10 years of inflation began to shrink our dollar and our savings. We 

believed that our Nation's resources were limitless until 1973, when we had to face a 

growing dependence on foreign oil. 

These wounds are still very deep. They have never been healed. 

People looked to Washington for answers, but “found it isolated from the mainstream of our 

Nation’s life.” Washington, he said, had “become an island.” 

The energy crisis was, he said, real. “It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our Nation. 

These are facts and we simply must face them.” He reiterated his proposals for achieving energy 

independence, including his call for mass transit: 

I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline 

rationing. To further conserve energy, I'm proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the 

next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I'm asking you for your 

good and for your Nation's security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public 
1373 

transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed 

limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation . . . is an act 

of patriotism. 

He proposed to commit $10 billion to mass transportation over the next 10 years and asked people 

“to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park 

your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel.” 

He also directed Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams to develop proposals for reducing oil 

consumption through conservation measures as well as increased transit use. Further, he embraced 

a synthetic fuels plan, similar to the plan that Vice President Rockefeller had advocated in 1975. 

To pay for the new initiatives, President Carter called for an energy security corporation to raise $5 

billion by issuing bonds. He also sought a windfall profits tax on oil companies benefiting from the 

increased price of gasoline:

These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the 

windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well spent. Unlike the billions of 

dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by 

Americans to Americans. These funds will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and 

unemployment. 

On August 22, Vice President Mondale announced details of the plan during a speech in a historic 

train depot in Hoboken, New Jersey. The President’s mass transit proposal had increased to $13 

billion based on the windfall profits tax. Without the added revenue, the Vice President said “there 

will be no dough,” adding, “Without the windfall profits tax, all this is just rhetoric.” Better Roads

summarized the proposal outlined by the Vice President: 

The administration “initiative” outlined by Vice President Mondale in a speech in Hoboken, 

N.J. provides for a $16.5 billion transportation energy program consisting of four 

components: a $13.5 billion public transportation investment to supplement UMTA’s 

normal projected appropriations; a $2.5 billion auto-use management program [for car and 

vanpooling]; a $200 million fuel economy technology assessment program; and an $800 

million basic automotive research program . . . . 

The administration initiative proposes to add $13 billion over a 10-year period to UMTA’s 

normal projected appropriations of $27.5 billion and a projected $9.5 billion of state/local 

match to provide a $50 [b]illion 10-year capital funding program for transportation . . . . 

The intended goal is to increase public transportation capacity by up to 50% and 

accommodate up to 15 million more passengers per day by increasing local bus purchases, 

stepping up the pace of rail modernization, and expediting completion of new rail starts 

which already have been approved. [Waldron, Martin, “Mondale Offering Higher Transit 

Aid,” The New York Times, August 23, 1979; Nickel, William J., “Transportation Energy 

Program Needs $16.5 Billion ‘Initiative,’” Better Roads, October 1979, p. 14] 
1374 

In an interview, Assistant Secretary of Transportation for Budget and Programs Mortimer L. 

Downey explained, “The overall strategy is to achieve energy savings in transportation while 

preserving mobility for essential travel.” The plan had three major prongs: providing substitutes 

for automobiles, operating the existing fleet more efficiently, and improving the efficiency of the 

vehicles. He said the Administration expected the biggest boost from $5.4 billion for buses that 

“we can get produced and on the streets in the decade when we need the savings.” [Wilkins, Roger, 

“Urban Officials Are Encouraged by Emerging U.S. Transit Policy,” The New York Times, August 

27, 1979] 

The initial reaction to the July 15 speech had been favorable, but commentators soon came to refer 

to it as President Carter’s “malaise speech.” He had not used the word “malaise,” but the 

descriptive word came to summarize the pessimistic tone of the speech. As Burns explained: 

In July 1979, thirty months after he entered the White House, Jimmy Carter faced a crisis of 

confidence. It was in part a lack of confidence in him, as people waited in gas lines, worried 

about energy supplies, and were squeezed by inflation rising toward an annual rate of more 

than 13 percent. It was even more the President’s loss of confidence in himself, his 

leadership, his government. He suddenly postponed what was to have been his fifth speech 

on the energy crisis and repaired to Camp David to consult and to think. [Crosswinds, p. 

591] 

For 10 days he considered the future of his presidency, taking advice from over 130 people invited 

to meet with him in his retreat. He emerged with a plan to reorganize his Administration. To show 

he meant to shake things up, the President asked all his Cabinet Secretaries to submit their 

resignations. He accepted five of them, including those of Secretary of Health, Education, and 

Welfare Joseph A. Califano, Jr.; Secretary of the Treasury W. Michael Blumenthal; Attorney 

General Griffin B. Bell; Secretary of Energy Schlesinger, and Secretary Adams. 

Adams had clashed with White House staff, in part over direct access to the President and White 

House dissatisfaction with his top aides. Secretary Adams also had objected to an OMB decision to 

reduce the President’s $10 billion mass transit proposal by $350 million a year. After Hamilton 

Jordan, the President’s Chief of Staff, told Adams he could stay if several of his aides left, Adams 

issued a statement on July 19, 1979, indicating he was thinking about whether he should stay: 

My decision depends on a number of factors, including the commitment of this 

administration to mass transportation and moving Detroit towards a fuel-efficient 

automobile, the direct accessibility of the president to the Cabinet, and the responsiveness of 

those with enhanced authority in the White House staff to the Congress and the American 

people. 

The statement infuriated Jordan, who informed Adams he would have to meet with the President on 

July 20. The President accepted the resignation, telling his staff later that day that, “I strongly 

believe there must be direct Cabinet access to the President, a Cabinet officer must work directly 

for the President—not for the White House staff.” [“Exit of a Cabinet Member,” Better Roads, 
1375 

September 1979, p. 14, and Feaver, Douglas B., “Adams: Team Man Bucks the Squad,” The 

Washington Post, July 20, 1979] 

With the departure of Secretary Adams, the idea of following enactment of the 1978 STAA by 

creating a Surface Transportation Administration also came to an end. Smerk explained that on a 

theoretical level, the idea had some appeal:

A prime argument for such an action was that, because of the federal hiring freeze imposed 

by President Carter to help cut down federal spending, it would be impossible to hire the 

additional personnel needed by UMTA to supervise the mass transportation program 

properly, as well as speed up delivery of federal transit funds. The proposal for joining the 

two agencies asserted that major efficiencies would be gained and that the delivery process 

would be accelerated. With the federal [Interstate] highway-construction program winding 

down, the FHWA was assumed to have excess personnel. By merging the FHWA and 

UMTA, it was expected that there would be sufficient personnel to handle both jobs. 

Moreover, the FHWA’s delivery mechanism, with an office in each state, would be helpful 

in delivering transit funds. The mechanism would involve the Washington Headquarters, 

ten regional offices, and fifty-two divisional offices mainly located in state capitals . . . .

As proposed, the Surface Transportation Administration (STA) was an excellent example of 

bureaucratic thinking: personnel were viewed as interchangeable blocks, with the 

expectation that arranging them in “neat stacks” would produce “neat results.” Such naïve 

thinking entirely disregarded the delicate relationship that have to be developed between the 

staffs of bureaucracies on the local, state, and federal levels in order to make any program 

involving the three levels of government truly work effectively and efficiently. [Smerk 161-

162] 

Neither the highway nor transit interests thought the merger was in their interests:

As a program it seemed to have academic promise, but not much more, because it neither 

reckoned with constituencies that had already developed nor did it figure out how to make 

the several programs work satisfactorily. Fear of the UMTA bureaucracy being swallowed 

by the FHWA bureaucracy was a factor; furthermore, both highway and transit proponents 

felt they would be hurt by the change. Change was a terrible thought to all participants in 

the programs. [Smerk, p. 170] 

Given the lack of enthusiasm by highway and transit interests for the merger, the idea never gained 

traction in Congress. 

According to news accounts at the time, President Carter considered several choices for 

Transportation Secretary, including Representatives Howard and Mineta and Massachusetts 

Lieutenant Governor Thomas P. O’Neill III, Speaker Tip O’Neill’s son. [Walsh, Edward, 

“Administration Continues Its Search for Appointees to Fill Top Positions,” The Washington Post, 

July 25, 1979] 
1376 

On July 27, Jody Powell announced that President Carter had selected Mayor Neil E. Goldschmidt 

of Portland, Oregon, to be Secretary of Transportation. Powell quoted President Carter as saying: 

Mayor Goldschmidt is known as an aggressive and innovative mayor with outstanding 

administrative abilities. He understands from personal experience the transportation needs 

of local governments. [Walsh, Edward, “Carter Names Two Mayors to Cabinet,” The 

Washington Post, July 28, 1979] 

Mayor Goldschmidt, 39 years old, had long been an advocate for the poor and oppressed. In 1964, 

he had gone to Mississippi to help register rural African-Americans to vote. After serving on the 

Portland City Council, he ran for mayor in 1971 on a platform of neighborhood preservation and 

downtown revitalization. He took office in 1972 and was reelected in 1976. His staff included 

Ronald A. Buel as chief of staff. Buel was the author of the 1972 book Dead End: The Automobile 

in Mass Transportation, in which he said that freeways were “in a very important way, inherently 

destructive of the landscape through which they pass, be it urban or rural.” [Buel, p. 78] 

Mayor Goldschmidt was the only Secretary who, in his previous position, had used the 

withdrawal/substitution provision that originated in the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973. One of 

the most controversial highway proposals in Portland was the Mount Hood Freeway, a 5.1-mile 

connector in the Powell Boulevard corridor linking I-5 on the west and I-205. On February 24, 

1976, the State amended its withdrawal request with the pending 1976 Act in mind. Administrators 

Tiemann and Patricelli approved the request on May 3, 1976, just 2 days before President Ford 

signed the 1976 Act. The letter acknowledged that the 1976 Act, which had not been enacted, 

provided that the provisions of Section 103(e)(4) were retroactive to 1973. 

Mayor Goldschmidt also oversaw the withdrawal of I-505, a 3.17-mile route along U.S. 30 (Yeon 

Avenue) northwest out of Portland. In response to Governor Victor Atiyeh’s request, Administrator 

Tiemann and UMTA Acting Deputy Lillian C. Liburdi approved withdrawal of the route from the 

Interstate System on December 14, 1979. 

Mayor Goldschmidt was also known for the Portland Transit Mall. As The New York Times

explained following his nomination: 

Mr. Goldschmidt overcame opposition from several downtown merchants and property 

owners to close parts of two major streets to private cars while providing exclusive lanes for 

transit buses and wide, tree-lined, brick-paved walkways for pedestrians. Now, most of the 

merchants who complained of the projects – what the city calls a “transit mall” – are saying 

it has been the catalyst for a strong resurgence in the area, including the construction of 

several major office buildings. [Lindsey, Robert, “New Transit Chief Praised for Role in 

Portland,” The New York Times, August 2, 1979] 

The mall opened on December 11, 1977, with a formal dedication in March 1978. Louis Scherzer, 

an official of a Portland savings and loan, said, “Goldschmidt was bucking both business and labor 

on that proposal, but the energy situation has proven him correct.” [Feaver, Douglas B., 

“Goldschmidt: People-Mover and Shaker,” The Washington Post, July 28, 1979] 
1377 

When President Carter selected Mayor Goldschmidt to be the next Transportation Secretary, the 

transit community was delighted. APTA’s Stokes had accompanied Mayor Goldschmidt on a 2-

week trip to Europe with other local and Federal officials, headed by Assistant Secretary Downey, 

to study urban solutions. They had returned just days before the announcement. Stokes said of the 

secretary-designate, “He was such a shining light, he made us all look good.” Neal R. Peirce, a 

columnist on urban affairs, wrote: 

Goldschmidt is a thoughtful student of government; his keen and exhaustive analyses, 

covering both the substance and politics of any issue, can leave a listener panting 

intellectually in an effort to keep up. Oddly enough, he combines that seriousness with an 

affable manner and capacity to be one of the funniest men in American politics. An 

inveterate prankster, he’s been known to bring tedious meetings to a quick end by lobbing 

peanuts at windy speakers. 

Goldschmidt is new to the Transportation Department, but not to the issue. A decade ago he 

held the remarkably advanced view that mass-transit declines, freeways carving up 

neighborhoods and parks, and the suburban shift of jobs all contributed to inner-city poverty 

and were solvable only through an integrated, modern transit system.

As mayor, Goldschmidt helped kill off two proposed inner-city freeways, and played a 

major hand in building Portland’s remarkable transit mall, running 11 blocks each way on 

parallel downtown streets. Autos are almost entirely banned, buses move rapidly, and the 

scene is adorned with glass and bronze kiosks for shelter, handsome sidewalk bricking and 

sculpture, and the world’s first closed-circuit television system to provide bus arrival and 

departure information. 

Pierce thought “it would be surprising if he didn’t use his position to give mass transit a major 

boost.” He added: 

Americans, he thinks, talk too much of transit deficits and don’t, as Europeans do, see 

transit as an integral part of a city’s social context. He is impressed by Europeans’ ability to 

get higher transit fares, thus cutting subsidies, by high-quality, reliable transit. Yet he thinks 

Americans, after a lag in the ‘50s and 60s, are building up cadres of mass-transit 

professionals the equal of those in Europe. 

If you detect in that analysis a thoughtful, questioning but fundamentally optimistic man, 

you understand Neil Goldschmidt. [Pierce, Neal R., “Cabinet Pair are Gilt-Edged 

Municipals,” The Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1979] 

President Carter approved a recess appointment for the new Secretary rather than waiting for 

Congress to return from its August recess. Mayor Goldschmidt took the oath of office as interim 

Secretary on August 15. The Senate later confirmed his appointment. With the Surface 

Transportation Assistance Act of 1978 having authorized funds through FY 1982, he would have 

little impact on the highway or transit programs during his short term in office.
1378 

(Secretary Goldschmidt served as Governor of Oregon from January 12, 1987, to January 14, 1991. 

 On May 30, 1989, he requested withdrawal of the I-205 bus lanes and substitution of light-rail. 

Federal Highway Administrator Thomas D. Larson and UMTA Deputy Administrator Roland J. 

Mross approved the withdrawal on September 22, 1989. As noted earlier, this action was the final 

withdrawal-substitution under the program authorized by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1973.) 

Meanwhile, as Congress and the Carter Administration became increasingly focused on balancing 

the budget, numerous proposals for increasing funds for mass transit, including ideas for 

establishing a mass transit trust fund, failed in the election year of 1980. 

Whatever confidence the American people had in Carter in late 1979 was further undermined on 

November 4, 1979, when Iranians took over the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 U.S. 

diplomats hostage. The crisis would last 444 days, until January 20, 1981, and would be one more 

factor undermining President Carter in the 1980 presidential election. 

His opponent, former Governor Reagan, offered an optimistic view of the Nation if he became 

President. On July 17, 1980, Governor Reagan’s speech accepting the nomination of the 

Republican Party included these comments about the energy crisis: 

Those who preside over the worst energy shortage in our history tell us to use less, so that 

we will run out of oil, gasoline, and natural gas a little more slowly. Conservation is 

desirable, of course, for we must not waste energy. But conservation is not the sole answer 

to our energy needs.

America must get to work producing more energy. The Republican program for solving 

economic problems is based on growth and productivity. 

Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched 

because the present administration seems to believe the American people would rather see 

more regulation, taxes and controls than more energy. 

Coal offers great potential. So does nuclear energy produced under rigorous safety 

standards. It could supply electricity for thousands of industries and millions of jobs and 

homes. It must not be thwarted by a tiny minority opposed to economic growth which often 

finds friendly ears in regulatory agencies for its obstructionist campaigns. 

Make no mistake. We will not permit the safety of our people or our environment heritage 

to be jeopardized, but we are going to reaffirm that the economic prosperity of our people is 

a fundamental part of our environment. 

 

He picked primary campaign rival George H. W. Bush as the Vice Presidential candidate.

During the campaign, Governor Reagan asked voters, “Are you better off than you were four years 

ago?” Voters responded by giving Governor Reagan a landslide victory over President Carter. 
1379 

Reagan won the popular vote by almost 10 percentage points (43.9 million to 35.4 million) and the 

electoral college by 489 votes (representing 44 States) to 49 for Carter. 

In addition, the Republicans took over control of the Senate. Senator Williams was now part of the 

minority on the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, the base for his longtime 

advocacy of mass transit. By then, Senator Williams’ effectiveness in the Senate had been 

undermined by events unrelated to his years of effective mass transit advocacy. 

Senator Harrison A. Williams

Senator Harrison “Pete” Williams, who did so much to address the need for mass transit in the 

Nation’s cities, continued his advocacy through the 1970s. However, on February 2, 1980, law 

enforcement authorities revealed that he had been one of the targets of a 2-year undercover FBI 

investigation “in which agents posed as businessmen and Arab sheiks willing to pay bribes” to 

Members of Congress and State and local officials. The front page story in The New York Times

the next day explained:

The agents, claiming to represent a wealthy Arab sheik, and in some instances posing as 

Arab sheiks, met with the officials through 1979 in a variety of locations . . . . It was during 

these meetings, according to authorities, that undercover agents pretending to work for the 

sheik’s business, called Abdul Enterprises Ltd., paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the 

officials.

The operation, nicknamed Abscam, had caught Senator Williams in a plot involving a titanium 

mine. In May 1979, undercover agents agreed to lend $100 million to the mine if Senator Williams 

“would accept an interest in it – without paying for his share – and use political influence to obtain 

government contracts for the venture.” In a June meeting in Arlington, Virginia, he agreed to the 

terms:

According to authorities, the Senator personally took possession of stock certificates for the 

titanium mine last August at Kennedy International Airport, as he was about to catch a plane 

for Europe . . . . 

Senator Williams, a 60-year old Democrat, was apprised of the allegations through his press 

secretary yesterday. 

The Senator told the press secretary, Michael McCurry, that he was not aware of the investigation. 

He added, “Honestly, I can say I don’t have any comment on this.” 

All of the meetings between undercover agents and Senator Williams and other targets were 

videotaped, while telephone calls were wiretapped. The results were to be presented to a Federal 

grand jury. [Maitland, Leslie, “High Officials Are Termed Subjects of a Bribery Investigation by 

F.B.I.,” The New York Times, February 3, 1980] 
1380 

Senator Williams was indicted on October 30, 1980, for pledging to use his position to obtain 

government contracts for the titanium mine and accepting a concealed reward in the form of stock 

in his lawyer’s name that the Senator personally accepted in the taped airport meeting in August 

1979. He also was indicted for agreeing to help the sheik enter and remain in the United States. 

On May 1, 1981, a jury found him guilty of each charge in a nine-count indictment, including 

bribery, conspiracy, unlawful gratuity, conflict of interest, and interstate travel in aid of a 

racketeering enterprise. The Senator told reporters, “Of course I’m very deeply disappointed at 

what we just received. In my heart I know I did no wrong.” [Fried, Joseph P., “Williams is Guilty 

on All Nine Counts in Abscam Inquiry,” The New York Times, May 2, 1981] He was fined $50,000 

and sentenced to 3 years in prison, but was free on bail while he appealed the conviction. 

Following an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee, the Senate debated for 5 days in March 

1982 whether to censure or expel Senator Williams. On March 11, 1982, Senator Williams 

dropped his defense against the ethics charges and resigned, telling reporters he did so only after 

Senators Inouye and Cranston promised they would ensure an investigation began of the FBI’s 

conduct in the Abscam affair. During his resignation speech, he attempted to document the 

wrongdoing and entrapment that led to what he considered his improper conviction and that would 

lead to his vindication. “In considering this matter,” he told his colleagues, “I did not want the 

Senate to bring dishonor to itself by expelling me.” He concluded: 

I would say that my wife, almost daily, refers me to St. Paul’s letter to Timothy and his 

description of his fight. My wife has described it in terms of a description of “our fight.” 

“I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.” 

So it is with sorrow I leave friends here in the Senate that I have enjoyed so much . . . . I 

have given the best I had to the U.S. Senate. I leave with sorrow, yes, but resolve, too, to be 

with you, with all of you, as we continue our mission, public or private, to strengthen this 

land of ours and make it better—make it better for the people that we are elected to serve.

I thank the Senate as I announce my intention to resign. I have made that decision. I leave 

in good spirit, good heart, and strong resolve to continue the things that I believe in and feel 

deeply about, worked all my life with, and enjoy. I feel no stain. I have been strengthened. 

I thank you, all of you. [Senator Harrison A. Williams, Jr., Congressional Record-Senate, 

March 11, 1982, p. 3973-4006] 

On December 5, 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously refused to hear Senator Williams’ 

appeal of his conviction. With rejection of his final appeal, he served 2 years in a Federal 

penitentiary in Newark and the remainder of his sentence in a halfway house. 

(Also convicted were as a result of the Abscam sting were Representatives John W. Jenrette, Jr. (DSC), Richard Kelly (R-Fl.), Raymond F. Lederer (D-Pa.), Michael J. “Ozzie” Myers (D-Pa.), and 

Frank Thompson, Jr. (D-NJ).) 
1381 

Senator Harrison A. “Pete” Williams, Jr., died on November 17, 2001. His Times obituary began: 

Harrison A. Williams, Jr., the Democratic senator from New Jersey who used his 

considerable power to further the interests of labor and education before being convicted of 

bribery and conspiracy in the Abscam scandal, died on Saturday. He was 81 and lived in 

Bedminster.

To the end, he denied committing any crimes, arguing that the sting had entrapped him, a claim that 

failed to reverse his convictions on appeal. He had, he claimed, been convicted of “a dishonest 

crime,” which he defined as “when somebody else creates the situation for which you are 

convicted.” In 2000, President Bill Clinton denied the former Senator’s request for a pardon. 

The obituary cited his achievements in the Senate, including: 

In 1970 [he] became chairman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee. In that post, 

he backed the interests of migrant workers, women, coal miners, the disabled and the 

elderly. He wrote the Occupational Safety and Health Act and sponsored the creation of the 

federal urban transit program. He was the first chairman of the Select Committee on Aging. 

 [Martin, Douglas, “Ex-Senator Harrison A. Williams Jr., 81, Dies; Went to Prison Over 

Abscam Scandal,” The New York Times, November 20, 2001] 

The Interstate Founding Fathers

On June 26, 1996, 450 highway boosters gathered on the Ellipse to celebrate the 40th anniversary of 

the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. The event, 

sponsored by the American Highway Users Alliance, featured Vice President Al Gore honoring 

four Founding Fathers of the Interstate System: his father, Senator Al Gore, and Representative T. 

Hale Boggs, two of the authors of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956; former Federal Highway 

Administrator Francis C. “Frank” Turner; and former President Eisenhower. Senator Gore and 

Frank Turner were on hand for the event, while Representative Boggs’ wife, former Representative 

Lindy Boggs, appeared for him. Susan Eisenhower represented her grandfather.

The site had been selected because it had been the spot where the 1919 Army transcontinental 

motor convoy began its 2-month journey west. Each of the four founders or their representative 

received a crystal replica of the Zero Milestone marking the convoy’s starting point 

Vice President Gore said:

Our nation's greatest accomplishments, whether the Interstate Highway System or the 

Marshall Plan or many others, are often those that receive bipartisan support. The Interstate 

Highway System has meant so much to America. It is virtually impossible to overstate the 

importance of this investment. Its creation led to an unprecedented period of national 

growth and prosperity. Simply because we cannot ever adequately measure all of the 

benefits which have come from this system, they will never all be fully recognized. But it 

dramatically improved transportation safety; it dramatically stimulated commerce; it 
1382 

enhanced our national defense and security. The Interstate Highway System has literally 

changed the way we work and the way we live.

It has done something else, too, something that cannot be measured by dollar signs or 

statistics. The Interstate Highway System unified our great and diverse nation in an era 

when social and cultural changes were speeding up so rapidly. The differences between 

different parts of America might well have been enhanced in ways that could have led to 

new divisions in our land except for this great, new unifying force. As President Clinton 

has said, "It did more to bring Americans together than any other law in this century." And 

by so doing, it gave our citizens and still gives our citizens . . . the very freedom that defines 

America.

Of President Eisenhower, Vice President Gore said: 

President Eisenhower, of course, holds a special place in all of our hearts because of his 

leadership in preserving our freedom in World War II and then his leadership during 

unusually challenging years when he served as President. He came home and then helped 

pave the way so Americans could be freer still, enjoying among other freedoms the freedom 

to travel America on modern highways that are safe and that are now the marvel of the 

world. 

He said that Representative Boggs “led the way in the House of Representatives by taking on the 

gigantic task of creating a funding mechanism for the Interstate Highway System. “ When he took 

on a task, “there was no question that he would get the job done. And he did, by crafting the 

Highway Trust Fund, the master financing plan for this historic project.” 

The Vice President recalled that in 1994, American Heritage magazine named Frank Turner one of 

10 individuals who changed life for all Americans but whose names might not be widely known to 

their fellow citizens. He said that “those who worked on the Interstate Highway System certainly 

knew his name; and historians of the great project know and honor his name; and each and every 

one of us has benefited from his work.” 

As for his father, the Vice President had much to say: 

I was always amazed at how the voice that reminded me to do my homework could be the 

same voice that argued so eloquently in the Senate for the Interstate Highway System. I'm 

grateful that he did both. I remember vividly as a 10 year old, well even younger than that, 

going to the committee that he chaired and listening to the debates and discussions. 

He recalled how their trips between Carthage, Tennessee, and Washington shortened from 18 hours 

to 11 as more and more of the Interstates opened. “I always believed that one of my father's 

principal motivations for playing the role he did was to shorten that trip—not a particularly 

profound observation.” He was, he said, honored as Vice President to honor all four of these 

visionaries, but “you can imagine it gives me special pride to present him with this memento.” 
1383 

Despite several reminders from FHWA’s unofficial historian, the gala organizers decided not to 

honor the other primary author of the 1956 Act, Representative George Hyde Fallon. Senator Gore 

and Representative Boggs accomplished many things in their long and varied careers in Congress 

and both are well known to historians for reasons other than highways, but Representative Fallon 

had focused all his energy on one topic: roads. He had done more than Senator Gore or 

Representative Boggs to develop the 1956 Act and secure its passage, but as they moved on to other 

issues, he continued to advance the cause of good roads and the “sanctity” of the Highway Trust 

Fund until he was defeated for reelection in 1970, partly because of that support. 

The 6-foot, 2-inch Congressman was known as "The Big Man from Baltimore," where he was born, 

raised, married, and resided throughout his congressional career. Since his election to the House in 

1944, he had commuted daily to Capitol Hill on the Pennsylvania Railroad. Although he would 

play a pivotal role in creation of the Interstate System, he disliked driving, especially freeway 

driving. [Schwartz, Gary T., “Urban Interstates and the Interstate System,” Southern California 

Law Review, March 1976, p. 434, footnote based on interview with Fallon] 

A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, he worked in the business his father had founded in 1904, 

the Fallon Sign Company. He won his first elected office in 1939 to become a member of 

Baltimore's City Council. Following his election to the House of Representatives in 1944, he 

devoted little time to the family business, which was later dissolved.

A transportation writer, Duane L. Cronk, described Fallon in 1957: 

[He] is surprisingly modest. He is courteous, but not suave. He is no orator, and couldn't 

make a soap-box speech if he had to. But he is relaxed and congenial, and makes friends 

easily. [Cronk, Duane L., “‘Big Man’ From Baltimore,” Highway Magazine, November 

1957, p. 214] 

Highway construction was his primary issue, but he looked after his Baltimore District from his 

position on the Public Works Committee. For example, he obtained funds for development of 

Baltimore's port and was a strong backer of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. (In the 1950s, 

BPR built the Federal portion of the parkway, from the District to Jessup, Maryland, for the 

National Park Service, with Maryland building the remainder of the route into Baltimore. It was 

completed in 1954.) When he ran for reelection in 1954, he was the only Democrat endorsed by 

The Baltimore Sun. "No apologies are necessary for this choice," the editorial said, "the good 

citizens of the Fourth district, whether Democrat or Republican, should vote for Fallon for 

Representative." 

He was a workhorse, little known outside Washington and highway circles. One of the few times 

he was in the national spotlight occurred on March 2, 1954, when Puerto Rican nationalists opened 

fire on the House of Representatives from the House gallery. Representative Fallon was one of five 

Congressmen who were injured. Years later, he recalled that the House was debating a Mexican 

labor bill. When he heard shouting and shooting, he stood up and was shot in the hip. He fell to 

the ground where he remained until doorkeepers and visitors subdued the shooters. The five 

congressmen shot on that day survived. Fallon, the last of the five still in Congress, told a reporter 
1384 

in 1966 that they met for lunch each year on the anniversary of the shooting. It was, he said, an 

exclusive club. They had drawn straws for the four pistols and the flag used during the attack. 

Representative Fallon won a pistol that he kept in his office as a souvenir. [Flowers, Charles V., 

“Fallon Recalls House Shooting,” The Baltimore Sun, February 26, 1966] 

His greatest accomplishment, of course, was the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Cronk 

described the moment when the House, which had defeated Representative Fallon’s bill in August 

1955, approved his revised bill, including Representative Boggs’ Highway Trust Fund in Title II: 

In the speaker’s chair, Sam Rayburn announced the very significant results of the vote: 

“Yeas—388; Nays—19” 

In the rear of the chamber a tall, balding, well-built legislator, rising to his feet, was 

immediately surrounded by colleagues, pressing in to congratulate him. It was a moment of 

well-deserved personal victory for George H. Fallon, Congressman from Maryland’s Fourth 

District . . . . His colleagues were sincere in their praise for his efforts.

So was the entire nation. The next day hundreds of newspaper editors, lauding the program 

to free a congestion-bound America, also paid tribute to the Congressman whose leadership 

had helped to assure its success. The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph, speaking for grateful 

motorists across the country, declared: “Representative George H. Fallon, Democrat of 

Maryland, deserves a national round of applause.” [Cronk, p. 212-213] 

The Fallon Bill went to the Senate where it was modified by the Senate Committees on Public 

Works and Finance before the Senate approved it after a 14-hour session by a voice vote on May 

29. A Conference Committee completed its work on June 25 and the following day, both Houses 

approved the measure, largely the work of Representative Fallon and Boggs and Senator Gore. 

Senator Gore and Representative Fallon issued a joint statement, calling the bill “the greatest 

governmental construction program in the history of the world.” Fallon added: 

The American people will ride safely upon many thousands of miles of broad, straight, 

trouble-free roads, four to eight lanes wide, criss-crossing America from coast to coast and 

border to border, built to the very highest standards that our highway engineers can devise. 

In 1959, AASHO presented the George S. Bartlett Award to Representative Fallon, an honor 

bestowed by AASHO, ARBA, and the Highway Research Board on an individual who has made an 

outstanding contribution to highway progress. Presenter J. N. “Jack” Robertson, former Director of 

Highways for the District of Columbia, quoted the same Sun-Telegraph editorial as Cronk, but 

continuing its praise: “A less patient and fair legislator would have thrown up his hands weeks ago. 

 Fallon’s method was to give everybody concerned a hearing whether in or out of Congress, on or 

off of his committee.”
1385 

After all his years of service, Representative Fallon was defeated in the Democratic primary on 

September 16, 1970, by Delegate Paul S. Sarbanes, 22,602 votes to 20,160. The Baltimore Sun

reported the following day: 

Mr. Sarbanes had attacked Mr. Fallon on various fronts, including the Congressman’s age 

and health (Mr. Fallon was hospitalized recently with a gall bladder ailment), criticizing 

what the delegate called Mr. Fallon’s remoteness from his constituents, and scoring his 

close ties with the highway and transportation lobbies, and his support of the Nixon 

administration’s Vietnam war policies.

Fallon conceded defeat, but a reporter interviewing Fallon the next day said: 

It was as if the veteran, 13-term, 68-year old Democratic lawmaker could not really believe 

his defeat in Tuesday’s primary election . . . . 

He did not know what he would do after leaving office and wasn’t even sure what his pension 

would be. He was “surprised” by the upset, but conceded that, “Mr. Sarbanes put on a very 

vigorous campaign, the most vigorous I’ve ever seen in my district.” He had “mixed emotions,” 

adding, “you don’t get into this to lose, but this does relieve me of a lot of pressure.” In retrospect, 

he thought, perhaps he should have started campaigning sooner. Still, he said, “I have no regrets.” 

[Samuel, Paul D., “Fallon Concedes, Admits Surprise,” The Baltimore Sun, September 17, 1970] 

AASHO, during its annual meeting later that year, honored Representative Fallon with a Certificate 

of Appreciation. Accepting the certificate on “George Fallon’s Day,” he said: 

I have no fears of what might happen to this great committee in the future because when I 

leave it, John Blatnik who has been sitting on my right and who has been on the committee 

for 24 years will take over as chairman. I don’t know of anybody that is more competent 

and more knowledgeable of the public works committee than John Blatnik. 

He continued: 

Along with subcommittee chairman John Kluczynski, Bob Jones and Jim Wright and the 

cooperation that we have always had from the republican side of the Committee, there is no 

task too great for them. I have no fear of the accomplishments that they will perform in the 

future.

He expressed his gratitude to AASHO: 

Over the years I have been involved in Congress with many people, but nowhere have I felt 

so much at home as being with the American Association of State Highway Officials; you 

represent America in the finest sense. [“Presentation of Certificate of Appreciation to Hon. 

George H. Fallon,” American Highways, January 1971] 

Years later, The Baltimore Sun reported: 
1386 

After leaving office in 1970, he stayed out of politics, tending mainly to leisure activities, 

lunching in downtown Baltimore with friends, and pursuing private business interests . . . . 

In an interview several years ago, Fallon said he had many offers after public office to return 

to politics or lobbying but that he turned them all down, saying, “I had 32 years in public 

office and that’s enough.” 

The last few years of his life were dominated by the emphysema that would take his life at age 77 

on March 21, 1980, at Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. Obituaries referred to his role in 

launching the Interstate System; The New York Times said in its March 24 obituary that his 

“advocacy of public works programs brought him the appellation of ‘the father of the interstate 

highway system.’” But an obituary in the Baltimore Evening Sun on March 25 pointed out: 

At the close of his 13 terms in Congress, complete with major-committee chairmanships, 

Who’s Who in America promptly dropped him (what had he done lately?)

An editorial in The Baltimore Sun on March 25, 1980, recalled his election defeat: 

The slight that most disillusioned Mr. Fallon was how voters in North and Northeast 

Baltimore could reject the father of the Interstate Highway System. “I thought I was helping 

people,” he told a reporter shortly after his defeat.

Although largely forgotten today, Representative Fallon was honored in 1971 when President 

Nixon signed legislation naming the Federal Office Building (opened in 1967) at Hopkins Plaza in 

Baltimore’s Charles Center the George H. Fallon Federal Office Building, a name it still bears. 

That same Evening Sun obituary said that, “After his help with bridges, harbor, the airport and other 

public works [in the city], the building they put his name on was Charles Center’s least worthy, 

architecturally.”

During the ceremony when that building was named in his honor, former Representative Fallon 

gave a brief speech: “It’s nice to be remembered.” 

________________________________________________________________ 

A Note on Sources 

“Busting the Trust” contains citations on sources throughout the text. Unless otherwise noted, The 

American Presidency Project (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/) maintained on line by the 

University of California, Santa Barbara, is the source of presidential speeches, messages, and 

statements. Heinonline’s U.S. Congressional Documents collection is the source of House and 

Senate debates (http://www.heinonline.org/HOL/Index?collection=congrec&set_as_cursor=clear).

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Transportation Library was the source of many 

documents unique to the Department, such as press releases and speeches. The library also 

maintains congressional reports associated with Federal-aid highway legislation. The library’s 

subscription to ProQuest – Legislative Insight supplemented these resources
1387 

(http://www.conquest-leginsight.com/legislativeinsight/LegHistMain.jsp;jsessionid=FD67F018F670E2118C128237DDFEE

A9F).

 

These resources were essential to the research and writing of “Busting the Trust.”