Among the functions included in the new Department were those of the Bureau of Public Roads, which together with a new National Highway Safety Bureau formed the Federal Highway Administration; of the Federal Aviation Agency, formerly an independent agency, which became the Federal Aviation Administration; of the Urban Mass Transportation Administration, transferred bodily from the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and the functions of a new unit, the Federal Railroad Administration. All these were termed "modal" administrations headed by “modal” administrators. The purpose was, of course, to bring about better coordination of the Federal effort in the different modes under a national transportation policy to be developed by the Secretary. The first incumbent of that office was Allen Boyd, formerly Under Secretary for Transportation in the Department of Commerce, and with the change in administration in 1969, he was succeeded by John Volpe, formerly Federal Highway Administrator and, at that time, Governor of Massachusetts. Both men were qualified by solid experience in transportation and in administration.
While the assembly of transportation functions in a single department of the executive branch was a forward step, coordination of programs could hardly be fully effective so long as three different congressional committees on each end of the Capitol retained jurisdiction over the different functional areas. And to complicate coordination still more, three administrations were “modal” in fact, aviation, railroads, and highways. But urban mass transportation was not modal at all, but geographic and functional in its area of responsibility.
In the planning area, still another complicating factor was the establishment within the Federal High-way Administration of the Office of Policy Planning. This office was not to take any functions from the Bureau of Public Roads’ Office of Planning, but to work with other modal administrations, with the Secretary’s staff, and with other agencies such as the Bureau of the Budget in general policy matters. One function was shepherding reports, such as the 1968 Highway Needs Report, to Congress through the approval channels within the Department and the Bureau of the Budget. The office was also expected to consider and propose long-range policy and action programs in the areas of highways and highway safety, but for various reasons, principally inability to staff the office adequately, it never quite reached its anticipated potential. The major efforts in planning remained, as intended, within the Bureau. Subsequently a reorganization under Secretary Volpe brought the functions together, as Francis Turner, who served as Director of Public Roads under Lowell Bridwell, the first Federal Highway Administrator under the Secretary of Transportation, succeeded Bridwell with the change in administration. The new Office of Planning was organized in two sub- offices each under a director, one called Policy Planning that dealt generally with long-range planning and relationships with other government agencies and the Congress, and one called Highway Planning that dealt primarily with the cooperative planning and programing activities of the States and local jurisdictions. It was within the Office of Highway Planning that research and development in the planning method produced the striking advances in transportation planning, particularly at metropolitan scale, but also extended the statewide and national scale as well.
Even with all these complicating factors, the 1968 National Highway Needs Report[1] was transmitted to Congress by Secretary Boyd, the report having been approved by the Bureau of the Budget on January 31, 1968, meeting the requirements of S.J. Res. 81. In line with the AASHO decision, it included a gross estimate of costs, as estimated by the State highway departments, of bringing the administrative systems up to standards agreed upon by the joint AMA–AASHO–NACO[N 1] committees and the Federal agencies, including the Bureau of the Budget. By emphasizing that the estimate was that of the State highway departments, Federal endorsement was avoided, and perhaps with justification, considering that the cost of improvements needed to meet the accepted standards totaled $294 billion for the 20-year period 1965 to 1985. There was concern that the sheer magnitude of the estimate, without similar estimates of 20-year needs in other modes, might induce such substantial increase in Federal authorizations for highways that other modes might suffer, relatively at least, if not absolutely.
The $294 billion figure was indeed a staggering figure, although not so startling when considered on the basis of cost per vehicle-miles of travel as later studies reported, and it stood in sharp contrast to the cost estimated by the States in the 1954 study of $216 billion for the 30-year period of 1955 to 1984. The difference reflected higher design standards, higher urban costs brought about by the unanticipated urbanization of the country, higher unit construction prices, and just the added costs occasioned by delays in meeting current needs as they developed.
In general terms the report outlined a desirable direction of future policy as follows:
1. Continuing assistance to the States for improving the efficiency and safety of the highway system in both rural and urban areas. (Studies would be necessary to redefine the Federal-aid systems and enable sound economic analyses to reveal how and where the investment of Federal funds would be most beneficial in terms of national objectives; general economic and social benefits; and transportation service to people and commerce.)
2. Greater stress than in the past on the improvement of urban transportation and the development of transportation plans calculated to raise the quality and satisfaction of urban life.
3. Additional emphasis on the coordination of highways with other modes of transport, both intra- and interurban, to ensure the optimum provision of the best features of all modes and continuing emphasis on making the highway a salutary influence on the environment, both in rural and urban areas.
- ↑ American Municipal Association–American Association of State Highway Officials–National Association of County Officials.
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- ↑ House Comm. on Public Works, 1968 National Highway Needs Report, 90th Cong., 2d Sess. (Comm. Print 90-22).
