ways—authorization of a new system, the Federal-Aid Urban System, and of expenditures of funds on exclusive bus lanes.
The authorization of the Urban System presumably was attributable, at least in part, to the findings of the 1970 Highway Needs Study, which focused attention on the disparity between functional and administrative systems in urban areas, as well as to the increasing demands of city officials for more Federal aid. The study in effect confirmed their position. Thus the new system concept was established. The Federal-Aid Primary and Secondary Systems would still extend into and through urban areas to form a connected statewide network. The Urban System would, in urbanized areas, serve the heaviest corridors and major centers of activity to aid intra-city movement. No route on the Urban System could be on another Federal-aid system, and each route must connect with another route on the Urban System or one of the other Federal-aid systems. And the System must be selected by the appropriate local officials and the State highway departments in cooperation (the local officials appeared first, it may be noted) and on the basis of the “3C” process.
That this step in recognition of urban street and highway needs was taken rather gingerly is seen in the funding authorized for the different programs. Funds were continued for the fiscal years 1972 and 1973 at its same level as for 1970 and 1971 for the “ABC” program, and with the traditional 45-30 distribution between them. The $1.1 billion authorization was divided 45 percent for projects on the Primary System, and 30 percent for those on the Secondary System, each available for either rural or urban portions. The remaining 25 percent was available only for sections on either system within urban areas. In addition, $100 million was authorized for each year for the new Urban System, but as an offset, the authorization for TOPICS was reduced from $200 million to $100 million. As another apparent offset to this foot-in-the-door approach to aiding urban areas, $125 million was authorized for projects on the Federal-Aid Primary and Secondary Systems only outside urban areas, 60 percent on the Primary and 40 percent on the Secondary Systems. Finally 50 percent of the authorization for Federal-aid primary and secondary funds for use in urban areas could be applied to the Urban System.
The other significant departure from tradition was seen in section 111 of the 1970 Act which authorized the use of Federal-aid funds for the construction of exclusive or preferential bus lanes, and for facilities such as bus loading areas, shelters, and fringe or corridor parking areas to serve bus or other mass transportation passengers. This action gave specific authorization to a program for encouraging the greater use of buses, an idea that had been urged for several years by the Bureau of Public Roads.[1] Administratively the Bureau of Public Roads had held that it would be appropriate to reserve a lane for the exclusive use of buses if so doing permitted the movement of more passengers than would result from its general use by all vehicles. Despite Bureau, and later Federal Highway Administration, urging, few State highway departments had been sympathetic to this approach to aiding urban public transportation, California and Wisconsin being notable exceptions.
By the time the Federal- Aid Highway Act of 1973 was approved on August 13 of that year, the 4-system hierarchy, initiated in the 1970 Act, had become firmly established, and authorizations were made in terms of the new concept. With the Interstate System funds authorized under earlier legislation, the old ABC 45–30–25 relationship was finally dropped, and authorizations made separately for the Federal-aid highway rural, Federal-aid secondary rural, and Federal-aid urban programs. The annual amounts for the last 2 years, 1975 and 1976, of the 3-year authorization, built up slightly from 1973, were $700 million for primary rural, $400 million for secondary rural, and $800 million for urban. In addition $300 million was authorized for extensions of the Federal-Aid Primary and Secondary Systems within urban areas.
Other provisions of the 1973 Act showed more positive concern over the urban program. The authority to construct highway facilities for public bus transportation was extended to include participation in the purchase of buses, and after July 1, 1975, for the construction of fixed-rail facilities and the purchase of rolling stock from Federal-aid urban funds. No new authorization of funds was provided, however, and to benefit from such applications of funds, a city must have the project included in the program of the State highway department.
A more significant departure, however, permitted a State, at the request of local officials and when found to be in accordance with the results of the “3C” process, to delete Interstate System links and apply the amount of funds thus saved to a nonhighway public transportation system. The funds involved would not come from the Highway Trust Fund, however, but would be drawn in the same amount from general funds.
Another provision authorized $50 million for each of 3 years for a “special urban high density traffic program,” for the construction of highways, not more than 10 miles in length, connecting to the Interstate System, if conforming to the results of the “3C” process, in areas of high population density and heavy traffic congestion that will serve the urgent needs of commercial, industrial, airport, or national defense installations.
Still another section of the 1973 Act redefined the manner of selecting the Urban System by requiring not that it be selected by local officials and the State highway departments in cooperation, but by “. . . the appropriate local officials . . . with the concurrence of the State highway departments . . . ,” thus moving a step beyond the 1970 Act in enlarging the authority of the local officials. The System still must be in conformity with the “3C” process, however, which is a cooperative process.
These provisions and others relating to special interests or matters of local concern cannot help but leave the impression that the Congress was acting more on the basis of accommodating different groups or interests in program details or in minor expansion of traditional boundaries of highway policy than on the basis of long-range plan or policy goals. That
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- ↑ Transit and Federal Highways, address by E. H. Holmes before the Engineers Club of St. Louis, Apr. 23, 1964, presented on behalf of Federal Highway Administrator Rex M. Whitton.
