et eo UM BON Ustis hl ten 33 
‘Our present transportation system is unbalanced, 
inefficient, inequitable, antiquated, and 
grossly destructive of our environment. 
—Sen. Charles H. Percy 
MR. PERCY’S TESTIMONY ON MARCH 16, 1972, 
BEFORE THE STATE COMMERCE COMMITTEE ON THE 
NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION DEVELOPMENT & FINANCING ACT: 
I welcome this opportunity to testify on S. 1344, the National Transporta- 
tion Development and Financing Act of 1971, a bill I introduced on March 
23 of last year. 
Simply stated, the purpose of this legislation is to insure the develop- 
ment of a rational, balanced, national transportation system that serves the 
needs of all the people. 
Our present system—and I use the word ‘system’ euphemistically—is 
abominable. It is unbalanced, inefficient, inequitable, antiquated, and 
grossly destructive of our environment. 
The imbalances in our transportation system are best seen in the per- 
centages of Federal money allocated for fiscal 1971 for each of the various 
modes. The percentages are as follows: 
Highways 62.9 
Aviation 20.9 
Water transport 12:8 
Mass transit 2.8 
Railroads 6 
Federal financing for highways pours forth at an annual rate of $5 bil- 
lion, while for mass transit, it trickled out last year at the comparatively 
meager rate of $400 million. And for our entire rail passenger system, we 
parceled out only $140 million. 
As of last year, the Highway Trust Fund had a cash balance of $3.6 
billion in unused funds. At the same time, the Urban Mass Transportation 
Administration had a backlog of unfulfilled capital grant applications for 
$2.6 billion. 
The inefficiencies of our system are blatant. We spend more time travel- 
ing by car from city centers to airports than we do by plane from city to 
city. We waste more time looking for parking places, once having reached 
our destination, than we do in getting there. We sometimes fly from New 
York to Chicago in one and one-half hours and then spend another hour 
circling over O’Hare in a holding pattern. 
In the face of evidence as solid as highway concrete, we ignore the 
inverse correlation between automobile efficiency and population density. 
The more people and cars there are, the less space to move around there 
is, and, consequently, the less mobility we have. 
