Mr. DENTON. Give us the procedure you will follow in getting this land. Mr. MALONE. The Agency expects to establish a real estate or land acquisition unit. The personnel of this unit will direct the work of independent fee appraisers and will conduct within-house negotiations for the taking of easements and any purchases of land. We have statutory authority to acquire by condemnation, but we are required to negotiate prior to filing any condemnation suits. We will conduct all negotiations inside and under our statutory schemeMr. DENTON. You will set up a unit first, a land acquisition office? Mr. MALONE. A unit or office. up Mr. MCCARTER. A real estate or land acqusition unit will be set within the Agency to handle these functions. Mr. MALONE. The Department of Justice will handle condemnation litigation. Mr. DENTON. You will negotiate first? Mr. MALONE. That is right. Mr. DENTON. How much are you requesting in this estimate for land acquisition? Mr. LYON. $3.1 million, Mr. Chairman. Mr. DENTON. Then you will have to go out and negotiate on sales. Mr. MALONE. That is right. Mr. DENTON. If you cannot negotiate you will have to resort to condemnation? Mr. MALONE. That is right. Mr. DENTON. What percentage of condemnations are you likely to have? Mr. MALONE. I have no precise percentage figures, but from my general knowledge of the experience of the Redevelopment Land Agency, as an example, it is my understanding that a small percentage go to litigation. Mr. DENTON. I thought you would get a high percentage unless you offered high prices. Mr. MALONE. It is my understanding that a low percentage go to actual judgment in condemnation suits. Mr. DENTON. You file a suit and settle after suit is filed. Mr. MALONE. Very often, yes, sir. We expect that the bulk of the acquisitions will be negotiated. Mr. DENTON. It will take you 6 or 7 months to get a condemnation suit started in regular procedure. Mr. MALONE. We will need to determine what is a reasonable period for negotiation. I believe the Agency policy will be to permit as long a period as possible to negotiate settlements. It is premature to state just what that period will be. Mr. DENTON. Mr. Malone, how much delay to construction do you expect condemnation proceedings to cause? Mr. MALONE. We don't anticipate that the condemnation process will delay us in any case because we will operate under a declaration of taking statute where we will deposit the money in court, acquire title, proceed with the program. The property owner will have recourse to court on the question of compensation. Mr. DENTON. It looks to me as though it will take you quite awhile to get your land acquisition completed unless you are a miracle man. Mr. MALONE. It will take time, certainly, Mr. Chairman. Mr. DENTON. I don't believe you will ever obligate that amount of money in 6 months. PARKING FACILITIES Mr. DENTON. I understand that you plan to have parking facilities at 10 of the 29 stations. Give us a full description of what you plan in this connection. Mr. LYON. The precise nature of the parking facilities varies at each location. Some of these facilities are required to be in garages. Some are required to be in lots. The total estimated cost is $22 million. Mr. DENTON. What do you plan at Pentagon City? Mr. LYON. We propose to build a 2,000-space parking garage south of the Pentagon in the Pentagon City area. Mr. DENTON. Won't you have to park more than 2,000 cars there if you are going to have enough business to make it pay? Do you think you can get by with 2,000? Mr. HERMAN. We expect most of them to arrive by bus. This will alleviate traffic for many who still need or will want to drive. Mr. DENTON. Will you insert in the record a listing of the parking lots you plan and show the estimated cost of each? Mr. LYON. Certainly. (The information follows:) Mr. DENTON. At the Bureau of Standards what will you have? Mr. MCCARTER. That has not been determined, Mr. Chairman. Mr. MCCARTER. These estimates have been made on the basis of free parking. It always has been my pilosophy that you should charge 25 cents and do a good job. I found in one location in Chicago where we had free parking on an unimproved lot, just cinders, and so forth, we improved it, paved it, lighted it, put in automatic stations to charge 25 cents, and exactly the same number of people came. Mr. DENTON. You told us before you would have free parking. Mr. MCCARTER. Yes. Mr. DENTON. What consideration led you to adopt a policy of providing free parking. Mr. MCCARTER. That was done before I came to the agency. Mr. DENTON. Does that still hold? Mr. MCCARTER. My philosophy is to charge a quarter. I don't know how that will be determined finally. Mr. DENTON. What action do you propose to limit the use of these parking areas to transit customers only? In Mr. MCCARTER. It depends on the environmental situation. two locations in Chicago in business areas I worked it so that the people who used transit paid 25 cents but those who did not use transit paid 35 cents. We did this by providing parking gates where everybody coming in paid a dime. That opened the gate and let them in on the parking lot. When they passed the agent as they came out, they could buy a transit token for 15 cents to let them out. If they didn't pass the agent, in other words, they were parking but were not going to use transit, they would have to pay a quarter to get out. Mr. DENTON. Your fare was a quarter, and then he would have to pay a quarter to park? Mr. MCCARTER. That is right. Mr. HERMAN. We have not included that 25 cents in the revenue figures. This would be additional revenue or income for the system. Mr. DENTON. I was thinking of the cost of a person going to town. It would cost him 50 cents to get downtown if he paid a quarter to park. Mr. Herman. That is right. Mr. MCCARTER. If he parked downtown it would cost a lot more. Mr. DENTON. Take Pentagon City again where you plan to have 2,000 vehicles. The fellow that gets in the lot last will have quite a way to walk to the subway entrance. In addition to that, I imagine there will be quite a traffic jam if 2,000 cars attempt to get in the lot between 7 and 8:30 in the morning. What consideration have you given these problems? Mr. LYON. There is a preliminary plan of the parking lot included in the report. This has been given to people at the Pentagon, as well as the Virginia State Highway Department, for study. Mr. DENTON. You will let the Virginia State Highway Department work it out? Mr. LYON. It is a cooperative project. They are looking at this in light of their current design efforts on the reconstruction of the Shirley Highway. Mr. DENTON. Who will be responsible for the operation of the parking area? Mr. MCCARTER. The Agency, or whoever is operating the system. DISPLACEMENT OF PERSONS AND BUSINESSES Mr. DENTON. It has been stated that there will be only 128 family displacements as a result of construction in connection with this project. Where will this take place and describe for the committee who will be responsible for relocation of these families. Mr. MALONE. This is related to the land acquisition problem. The Agency position at this time is that the unit acquiring the land will have responsibility for relocation, also. The act provides that the services of the DCRLA Relocation Office will be available for displacements resulting from the transit program. We will from the very outset of negotiation, by notice to land owners and occupants, apprise the people affected of their rights and assist them in obtaining the relocation services required. This will require planning based on the size of the family displaced, the housing requirements of the families, etc. The Agency will undertake to bring the displacee in, put him in contact with the central relocation office, and reimburse that office. Mr. DENTON. Do you have a unit set up for that purpose? Mr. MALONE. Not at this point. EQUIPMENT Mr. DENTON. For the next few moments I would like to discuss the actual operation of the system and passenger loads. Describe for the committee the type of the equipment you plan to use and the frequency of your scheduling. Mr. MCCARTER. On type of equipment perhaps I should answer. On a nonpaid basis I was president of the Transit Research Corp. which developed the quiet streetcars that you had here in Washington. That organization later was converted to the Institute for Rapid Transit, of which I was also the unsalaried president. Through that institute we developed the modern trucks and propulsion equipment in cooperation with manufacturers, so that there has been a tremendous amount of research in the last 10 years on equipment. The latest rapid transit cars on Lake Street in Chicago, for example, are air conditioned with static controls, maximum acceleration and deceleration, and so forth. The art is well developed in that field. We now need to determine the precise configuration of the equipment that will be used on the system here; that is, the size and so forth, but the general development of equipment is actually accomplished by the manufacturers of the equipment. There are three basic manufacturers, and all of them have modernized to an extent that the equipment will be the most functional, most beautiful, best lighted, and so forth. SCHEDULING Mr. DENTON. What about the frequency of operation? Mr. HERMAN. During the rush hour and all day, trains will run every 3 minutes except on the Connecticut Avenue branch where it will be 6 minutes on the section of the line above Florida Avenue and 6 minutes on the Columbia Heights line. Every other route will have trains running every 3 minutes. Late at night and early in the morning those times will be doubled. Mr. DENTON. Why did you schedule Connecticut Avenue at 6 minutes? The Connecticut Avenue Mr. HERMAN. For operational reasons. and Columbia Heights lines merge at a point above Florida Avenue. Trains will be 3 minutes apart below the junction point on Connecticut Avenue. On the downtown distribution segment on G Street it is every 90 seconds. VEHICLE AND WAYSIDE EQUIPMENT DEVELOPMENT Mr. DENTON. You say the industry develops most of the equipment? Mr. MCCARTER. Yes. Mr. DENTON. Why do you need $550,000 for development projects on vehicle and wayside equipment? Mr. MCCARTER. A portion of that is for wayside equipment, which includes substations which are to be developed for converting AC current to DC current, and so forth, to develop the configuration of the third rail, the feeder system, the signal system, and so on. Mr. DENTON. It does not include vehicles at all? Mr. MCCARTER. Funds are requested for both car development projects as well as wayside equipment development projects. Car development projects include body development, air conditioning and heating, underframe and draft gear, propulsion system and trucks, and car shop equipment. Wayside equipment includes track support methods, yard layouts, substation requirements, power distribution, communications system and fare collection system. Mr. DENTON. You do set up for vehicles and wayside equipment $550,000. Mr. MCCARTER. A substantial part of it, other than the car development projects will be on wayside equipment. Mr. DENTON. You have approximately $335,000 in the estimates for car body development projects. You indicate car body development, air conditioning and heating, under frame and draft gear, propulsion, expansion, and trucks. That is $335,000 of the $550,000 for car body development projects and I understood you to say that the manufacturer develops it all. Mr. MCCARTER. That is for performance specifications. Mr. DENTON. It costs $335,000 to prepare performance specifications when the manufacturers do the work, all the work? Mr. MCCARTER. I don't know that it will. If it does not we will not spend it. Mr. LYON. I would like to emphasize the nature of this particular fund request. We have our conceptual studies and a good idea of the dimensions of this equipment, including the vehicle itself. Our present task is a process of firming up these dimensions and all that it entails within very narrow limits. We are speaking inches for each of these items of equipment so we are confident, before we let the first final design contract, that the vehicle will definitely be Mr. DENTON. The manufacturer does that. If I bought an automobile I would not have a specification Mr. MCCARTER. The manufacturer, in building a rapid transit car, essentially has an assembly job. He builds the basic car and then buys the component parts from many other manufacturers. We have to have performance specifications so that we know he will meet all those standards. I agree with you. I hope we do not have to spend that money and I hope I can come back and say we didn't spend that much. Mr. DENTON. How much do you think you will need? Mr. MCCARTER. I don't know for certain. Mr. DENTON. How did you arrive at the figure? Mr. MCCARTER. By the engineers making these estimates. |