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American Ground
Transport*
Page 5
“During the succeeding 40 years, the National Highway Users
Conference [now Highway Users Federation for Safety and Mobility (HUFSAM)]
has compiled an impressive record of accomplishments. Its effect, if not
purpose, has been to direct public funds away from rail construction and
into highway building. At the State level, its 2,800 lobbying groups have
been instrumental in persuading 44 of the Nation’s 50 legislatures to
adopt and preserve measures which dedicated State and local gasoline tax
revenues exclusively to highway construction. By promoting these highway
‘trust funds,’ it has discouraged governors and mayors from attempting to
build anything other than high- ways for urban transportation. Subways and
rail transit proposals have had to compete with hospi- tals, schools and
other governmental responsibilities for funding.. Prom 1945 through 1970,
States and localities spent more than $156 billion constructing hundreds
of thousands of miles of roads. During that same period, only 16 miles of
subway were constructed in the entire country.”
Comparing the highway
lobby’s strength with transit organization muscle, Snell notes that “the
three leading transit lobby group; are financially weak and torn by the
conflicting interests of their membership. The American Transit
Association, the largest element of the transit lobby, operates on an
annual budget of about $700,000 which must be apportioned between the
conflicting political needs of its bus and rail transit manufacturing
members. . The third and smallest element of the transit body, the
Institute for Rapid Transit, operates on a meager budget of about $200,000
a year. In short, HUFSAM and [the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association]
alone outspend the three principal transit organizations by more than 10
to 1."
And, ironically, the GM presence
extends even to these promoters of transit—“Due to its position as the
Nation’s largest producer of bus and rail vehicles, it is a major
financial contributor to both the American Transit Association and the
Railway Progress Institute. It is also an influential member of the
Institute for Rapid Transit.”
Viewing future
prospects, the Snell report sees the auto industry attempting to thwart
the kind of mass transit development which could provide the impetus for
continuing growth: ". . . General Motors is engaged in a continuing effort
to divert Government funds from rapid rail transit, which seriously
threatens the use of cars in metropolitan areas, to GM buses, which fail
consistently to persuade people to abandon their autos. In place of
regional electric rail systems, for instance, it promotes diesel-powered
“bus trains” of as many as 1,400 unite, each spaced 80 feet apart. Instead
of urban electric rail, it advocates the use of dual-mode gas/electric
vehicles which would be adapted from GM’s minimotor homes. In sum, the
auto-makers embrace transit in order to prevent it from competing
effectively with their sales of automobiles.”
The Snell report’s objective, as
stated in its introduction and summary, is to promote the reorganization of
the nation’s auto industry into smaller, more competitive units which would
broaden opportunities for future transportation diversity. “By proposing to reorganize these firms
. . . [the report] does not pretend to offer a blueprint
for better transportation. Rather, it seeks to eliminate
an otherwise insuperable obstacle to that end.”
Copyright © 1974 by Third Rail Press, © 1999
by The Composing Stack Inc.
Reprinted by permission. Not
responsible for typographical errors.
*Quotations in this article are taken from
“AMERICAN GROUND TRANSPORT, A Proposal for Restructuring the Automobile,
Truck, Bus, and Rail Industries,” © 1973 by Bradford C. Snell. Excerpts
used by permission of the author
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