(c) Much of the through-downtown traffic was eliminated from the estimate to reflect the shortening of the system.

The factors used to expand morning peak-hour inbound traffic to an annual total and the method for calculating revenues are the same as those set forth in appendix volume V, pages 29-36, 45-46 (printed hearings, p. 26).

Intradowntown traffic is estimated at 80 percent of the amount for the larger system. It was assumed, in other words, that the single G Street line, traversing the principal business and commercial areas of the city and serving the Capitol, the Pentagon complex, and the Navy Weapons Plant would attract 80 percent as much intradowntown traffic as would have been attracted by that line and the Independence Avenue line together.

The factors used to estimate nonfare box revenue are the same as those set forth in appendix volume V, pages 48-49 (hearings, p. 26). Operating costs.-Estimated operating costs are based on a complete schehuling of the abbreviated system. As was true of the estimates previously submitted, these estimates were developed by the Agency with the assistance of cousultants who are transit operations experts. Based upon the schedules, a daily total of 30,765 rapid transit and 4,712 commuter railroad car-miles will be required in order to accommodate forecast 1980 traffic.

The Agency estimates that car-mile operating costs would amount to 80.50 cents per mile. This estimate is about 19 percent higher than the 67.61 cents estimated for the larger system. Some of the reasons for this increase are the facts that:

(a) A much higher proportion of the total system would be in subway and this would result in proportionately higher maintenance

costs.

(b) With a smaller system and closer station spacings, average speeds would be reduced resulting in lower vehicle utilization, somewhat higher vehicle maintenance expenses and higher wage costs per car-mile.

(c) Power costs would be higher principally because, due to closer station spacing, a greater proportion of each vehicle operating hour would be consumed in acceleration, and a smaller proportion of time would be spent at cruising speed.

(d) General and administrative expenses would be higher since many of these items are relatively fixed in nature and will be incurred even though the system is smaller.

The table below compares the car-mile costs estimated by the Agency with those experienced by other major rail rapid transit systems.

Abbreviated system.

Chicago (1961).
Cleveland (1961).

New York (1961-62)_

Cents 80.50

63. 71 48. 07

74.59

Operating expenses for the rail commuter operations were estimated to be at the same level as previously estimated.

Vehicle and other depreciation expense was calculated on the same basis as was used for the larger system. The basis for these estimates is set forth in appendix volume V, page 61 (hearings, p. 26).

route will traverse a residential area of the county. The rapid transit system will have a greater prospect of use and value if it is routed along more densely populated lines heavily travelled by county residents.

Ideally the route for the system would be Wilson Boulevard. It would help strengthen the existing business district in Clarendon and would avoid the destruction of open space and homes that added right of way for a rapid transit system along Route 66 would require.

In addition, I would suggest that consideration be given to a subway system, preferably for buses, for the Arlington route. I realize that the cost of the system could be great. However, I strongly suspect that when the cost of extra right of way on Route 66 plus the losses from obliteration of open spaces and existing structures is balanced against the cost of the subway and the added benefits of the system to the economy of the area, the subway system would be found to be less expensive than the Route 66 proposal.

I am grateful for this opportunity to submit this statement. I urge the committee to report favorably on the pending bills subject to the foregoing comments. Very truly yours,

ARLINGTON, VA.

Hon. BASIL L. WHITENER,

Chairman, House District Subcommittee,
Washington, D.C.

ROBERT J. CORBER.

CHEVY CHASE, MD., July 30, 1963.

DEAR MR. WHITENER: As part of the public urgently affected by the matter your committee is considering, I wish to go on record as urging that the NCTA plan be adopted. This does not rule out freeway systems which would be a necessary part of a good transportation system. It would prevent Washington from becoming the sprawling ugliness of Los Angeles and give us the advantages enjoyed by the residents of Philadelphia and its suburbs.

In Boston and in Philadelphia I have enjoyed the freedom of deciding whether the car was a necessity in my plans for the day, or whether I could take a clean, nongaseous electric train to get me to my destination, or a subway for all or part of the trip.

In neither city have I experienced the gagging, nauseous smell of fumes from buses which pervades the downtown streets of Washington. Furthermore, trains run on predictable schedules, and subways are not susceptible to the delays of buses or of travel by one's own automobile.

Mr. Donald Gingery who seems to be actively lobbying for his own best interests may represent some of the residents of Montgomery County but there are many of us who strongly disagree with all that he stands for, whether it be a massive freeway system or zoning that is to his benefit and not to the future growth (orderly) and benefit of the county. I disagree with the stand of the Triple A on this question but I deeply appreciate the good service I get from them.

From newspaper accounts the situation seems unnecessarily complicated by the intrusion of the MATC into the matter. Can the chairman advise the MATC that when he feels their information is needed, and if it is needed he will call on them, and that until that time, they are welcome to be auditors but not participants in the hearings? No one group should be allowed to make confusion confounded. This is a matter too important to all of us and to the city of Washington, and decision should not be too long delayed.

Sincerely yours,

LAURA A. MERRILL.

THE RECORD PUBLISHING CO., Silver Spring, Md., August 2, 1963.

Hon. BASIL WHITENER,

Chairman, Subcommittee No. 6, House District Committee,

Old House Office Building, room 445,

Washington, D.C.

SIR: I am asking that you place the enclosed editorial "End the Transit Nightmare" in the record of the hearings on the recommended transportation system for the National Capital region.

We are a newspaper of 18,000 paid circulation in Montgomery County, and the largest weekly newspaper in the State of Maryland.

21-468-63-30

Another major asset of your proposed system is the location of the rapid transit terminals outside the congested area. It will give people the opportunity to board the system beyond the major areas of traffic tieups, which is essential in order to attract people to rapid transit. Furthermore, such location of terminals will prove advantageous to the private bus companies who are an essential supplement to the rapid transit operation. I know from experience that by permitting the bus companies to deliver passengers to rapid transit terminals before the buses become involved in downtown congestion the rapid transit system will enable the bus companies to achieve substantial savings in operating expenses. As I stated in my testimony before your subcommittee, the most serious threat posed to the financing stability of bus companies is not rapid transit-it is the increasing traffic congestion in the downtown area.

While I strongly endorse H.R. 8929, I would be less than candid if I failed to state that I still feel that ultimately the system should be extended along the lines of the original transit development program. In fact, one of the great virtues of the system that would be authorized by H.R. 8929 is its flexibility and the fact that it will be relatively easy to extend it wherever future growth takes place.

I strongly urge the passage of H.R. 8929, which would provide Washington with effective rapid transit now, and a solid basis for growth in the future.

Sincerely yours,

Avco CORP.

DONALD C. HYDE, Member.

Hon. BASIL L. WHITENER,

NEW YORK, N.Y., October 31, 1963.

Chairman, Subcommittee No. 6, Committee on the District of Columbia, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: On July 9, 1963, as Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Finance of the National Capital Transportation Agency, I testified before Subcommittee No. 6 of the House Committee on the District of Columbia in support of H.R. 6633 and H.R. 7249, bills to authorize the prosecution of a transit development program of the National Capital region. In light of the introduction on October 24, 1963, of your bill, H.R. 8929, to authorize the prosecution of a more limited transit program than that contemplated by the earlier bills, I wish to apprise the subcommittee of our Committee's views concerning the new bill.

The composition of our Committee and its role in NCTA's work are described in my earlier testimony. Our Committee's function has been to assist and advise the Agency in the preparation of a suitable plan for financing its transit development program. We endorsed the Agency's recommended financial plan for the larger transit system and regarded it as an excellent businesslike approach. In our judgment the financial plan originally recommended by the Agency follows to the letter Congress instruction that proposals for financing transportation improvements within the National Capital region should provide as far as possible for the payment of all costs by persons using or benefiting from such facilities and for the equitable

sharing of any remaining costs among the Federal, State, and local governments.

Please be advised that our committee has reviewed the Agency's recommendations for financing the more limited program envisaged by H.R. 8929. With one exception the new financial plan retains the basic features of the Agency's earlier recommendation. It proposes that the expense of constructing and equipping the abbreviated system be provided through a combination of Government grants and the sale of federally guaranteed transit revenue bonds in the private market. The plan departs from the original recommendations in that it calls for an acceleration in the timing of the $120 million Federal grant and the $21.7 million District of Columbia grant proposed originally. The plan does not contemplate any increase of the Federal and District financial outlays originally proposed.

While the committee necessarily recognizes that the abbreviated system cannot attract as many passengers and do as much to alleviate congestion as the larger system, the committee is nonetheless convinced that the transit facilities proposed in H.R. 8929 represent an economically viable undertaking and will of itself make an important contribution to the relief of traffic congestion in the District of Columbia. In short, it is our view that the abbreviated system represents a significant first step toward improved areawide mass transportation.

We share the Agency's feeling that if meaningful relief is to be provided within the reasonably near future, improvements must be undertaken at once. H.R. 8929 calls for facilities limited largely to the District of Columbia. Acceleration of Federal and District grant funds will make this possible and recognizes the special Federal interest in the District.

Our committee urges the prompt enactment of H.R. 8929.
Sincerely yours,

JAMES R. KERR, President.

ARCHITECT OF THE CAPITOL

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 30, 1963.

Hon. JOHN L. MCMILLAN,

Chairman, Committee on the District of Columbia,

House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This will acknowledge your letter of October 24, 1963, forwarding a copy of H.R. 8929 (a modification of H.R. 7249), relating to construction of a rapid transit system, and requesting my additional comment and report thereon.

After I appeared before the subcommittee July 24, 1963, and expressed concern about the proposed system running through the U.S. Capitol Grounds, representatives of the National Capital Transportation Agency came to my office for consultation. At two meetings with this group, we outlined our objections to their plans affecting the Capitol grounds and were assured that any portion of the system within the Capitol grounds would be restudied with a view to making it acceptable to this office and the Congress.

Since, as indicated in my earlier statement, plans have been prepared for underground garages and certain other facilities immediately

that an all-bus system could possibly handle rapid transit requirements by 1980 and thereafter. It is only necessary to reread pages 44 to 46 of the 1959 Mass Transportation Survey Report to realize how impossible an all-bus transit system would become.

The other is the thought that a smaller subway system, limited mainly to the District of Columbia, could replace the regional system; in other words the tracks would go only halfway to Rockville or halfway to Falls Church. Supposing the New York Central had laid its tracks only halfway to Chicago; or the Union Pacific only halfway to California. It does not make economic sense. Nor does it solve the problem of daily traffic snarls which will worsen steadily until we give the region an attractive alternative to commuting by automobile.

REPORT OF THE WASHINGTON PLANNING & HOUSING ASSOCIATION ON RECOM-MENDATIONS FOR TRANSPORTATION IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION Basically, Washington's transportation is a city planning problem. Reduced to its simplest terms, a city consists of people, places, and connections, the principal connections being the transportation system which conveys the people to places beyond walking distances. The more people can be brought close together for trade and social life, the better the city. The symbol and center of this urban interchange is the traditional "downtown," without which a city is as nothing.

Although modern communication and air travel have improved man's ability to do business over great distances, there is as yet no perfect substitute for doing business and exchanging goods face to face. Therefore, if Washington is to increase its efficiency and capacity to conduct government and business, as forecasts indicate it must, it should plan for increased concentration at the central place and for increased connections to the central place from other places. Existing methods of transportation to the central place are saturated, and it is no longer desirable to bring more people to the center by surface trans-portation because the city street system is fixed and it is impractical to enlarge it except at great sacrifice. After consideration we discount the following systems as major factors in increasing existing central street capacity: Widening or underpassing existing streets with attendant destruction of adjoining property improvements, sidewalks and street trees; cutting new highways across the city with attendant community disruption, displacement, and loss of tax base; and using existing surface streets for increasing mass surface transit by forbidding the use of streets or lanes to automobiles in many downtown areas, thus denying the use of city streets to the people who live in the city, many of whom must use their cars for business.

The city street system, limited as it is by existing conditions, should be reserved to serve primarily these functions:

(a) Government.

(b) Commerce.

(c) The needs of people living in the city.

(d) Tourists and visitors seeking attractions only the central city can offer.

It should not, and cannot, serve people who prefer to bring their cars with them, when they come to, or pass through, the central city on their way to work each day. As the NOTA report points out some way must be found to transport some one-quarter million of these people without strangling the center city.. They must be transported to and through the central city somehow other than on the surface streets.

We believe that the Transportation Agency has recommended the best of available non-surface-transportation systems-rail rapid transit.

As mentioned, the transportation plan is a city planning problem. We feel that the NCTA plan for a balanced regional system of highway and modern rail rail rapid transit facilities has been conceived with full reference to and consideration of the year 2000 plan endorsed by the President. Any transportation plan not so considered would be worthless. We are particularly enthusiastic about the ability of the rail rapid transit system forcefully to attract future development along the corridor which is the basis of the year 2000 plan and away from the green wedges which will be the saving grace of metropolitan life. We believe that after completion of the rail transit system it will