1. Wisconsin has an established tradition of achievement for implementing Great River Road development.

2. Wisconsin's Division of Highways is prepared to the fullest extent possible to make productive use of its appropriate share of available funds (in terms of comprehensive study and readiness to establish schedule priorities).

3. Both measurable and implied benefits are assured by the investment of additional funds to implement the Great River Road concept.

Congress should act to assure Federal exercise of responsibility to assist the states in Great River Road development. Your favorable action will not only benefit the states involved and their people, it will help preserve and make available a national heritage for the people of all States.

TESTIMONY OF HON. ALVIN BALDUS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN

Mr. BALDUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I think the bulk of my testimony will be to call attention to the Great River Road, and to compliment the committee and the Congress and look forward to develop that concept, which I think needs to be protected and nursed.

It is somewhat beneficial to attend other committees and sit in on the discussions to see the kinds of problems you have to deal with, but I think a good look at the Great River Road concept will convince you that that really is a step toward developing a scenic road, a road that is historical and one of the early arteries of the country, the river, which was then the highway. It has great recreational benefits along with both farm-to-market, and community-to-community commercial benefits that are a part of it.

I think the most important thing is that that is going to be a concept that you the committee, or this Congress is never going to have to be worrying about in generations ahead, because the development of that will be an enduring thing that we will all be proud of for generations. Thank you.

Mr. NOWAK. Fine. Thank you very much for the testimony, I know that this highway has an economic value as well as other values to the area which have been made more than evident by yourself and Mr. Oberstar, and I certainly want to thank you for your patience in staying with us all of this time to be part of the record, and I wish to compliment you on getting involved in a very important project for

your area.

Mr. BALDUS. Thank you.

Mr. NOWAK. Are there any other questions?

Mr. JOHNSON. I would just like to welcome our colleague here. This has been a matter that I have had experience with for 17 years now. The Representatives from your State and other States have all made their requests of the various chairman, and we are with our third chairman now, Bob Jones, and I am sure that the older members of the committee are well acquainted with this project, and have been fairly sympathetic to it.

But we still have the problem to be resolved, as you point out. I think you have covered every high point that has been brought to this committee's attention, and thank you very much for your testi

mony.

Mr. BALDUS. Thank you. There is something like 264 miles of it. all in my district, and I have traveled it all, and I can assure you

that if you are able to do that, you would agree with that concept more heartily.

Mr. NowAK. Are there any other questions?

[No response.]

Mr. NOWAK. Thank you very much, and we appreciate your testimony.

It certainly gives me much pleasure to welcome before the committee a person I and many other people who are involved in transportation throughout the length and breadth of this country consider to be the foremost expert, at least on a par with anybody, who has come up with forward thinking in this area-the commissioner of the State Department of Transportation for the State of New York. I know that the work that he has done has put him in good standing not only with the present administration, but with past administrations. He is one of the unique individuals who stays over and over from Republican and Democratic administrations. Everybody who has actually worked with him knows of his dedication and his experience, and has come to believe that his leadership has made transportation in New York State in the last several years finally get to the point where accomplishments have been real and not just talked about.

I know that the dedication and balance that he has used in his work throughout the State has certainly been appreciated. I know that our committee will take his testimony especially into very serious consideration. It does reflect what I believe is the new and very unique anticipation of the problem of a broad transportation policy.

So, commissioner, it is certainly a pleasure to have you before our committee.

Mr. SCHULER. Thank you very much, Congressman Nowak.

Mr. NOWAK. Commissioner, would you just identify your colleague whom you have with you?

Mr. SCHULER. Yes, I have with me F. David Schad, who is chief of our policy development group, and I appreciate the very fine comments you made in introducing me to your committee.

TESTIMONY OF RAYMOND T. SCHULER, COMMISSIONER, NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, ACCOMPANIED BY F. DAVID SCHAD, CHIEF, POLICY DEVELOPMENT GROUP, NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION Mr. SCHULER. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make note that I appeared before this subcommittee before, and also before the full committee, and always appreciate the interest and attention that you give to the effort that we are making in New York.

I am especially pleased to introduce David Schad because you compliment our department. Our department is a very deep and broad agency, and no single person in the leadership is all that brilliant. Our accomplishments come from very fine professionals; I am pleased to have David at the table with me.

I think as you know my responsibilities in New York State are across all modes. We probably are unique as a department for transportation in the Nation, and the only department organized in the way that we

are. We have direct responsibility for all modes: air, rail, water, highway, and a canal system which we own and operate within our State, as well as for a State operating assistance program. We administer this program for the metropolitan area of New York City, including the subway system, the Long Island Railroad and the commuter rail systems, as well as for the regional authorities throughout our State in Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and the capital district.

Additionally, our department is responsible for the economic regulation of transportation. We have, therefore, combined in one agency the planning, promotion, development, construction, and economic regulation for all modes. And it is on that basis that I am pleased to come before your committee. Transportation is an integrated whole and it is on that basis that we must approach the problems that we have. I am very keenly interested in the legislation that you have before you because it is a part of that whole.

The distribution of funds among the various transportation modes certainly doesn't reflect a sober and objective approach to national needs. According to the 1974 National Transportation Report we are spending 23 percent of the national transportation dollar on air transportation, and only 4.3 percent on transit.

Federal support is needed for both modes, but I doubt that the 23percent and 4-percent split was decided by any rational process. That is why I think the work of the subcommittee and committee is so important in trying to approach these issues across the board, and taking a hard look at all modes.

I might just make a note too that, for purposes of clarification, if you compare that to person trips, or miles, or however, the funding split is overwhelmingly an overbalanced national investment in one mode versus the others.

Federal formulas and requirements for uniformity actually result in a geographic distribution of transportation funds on the basis of national averages which rarely, if ever, reflect local needs.

Federally mandated priorities among the modes must be followed by the States and local governments-no matter what the local circumstances-if they are to recover the federally collected funds. I know we cannot reform our program overnight, nor can we reform it only in terms of the Federal-aid highway bill.

But we can make a start, a start which includes overcoming the shortcomings of our existing highway programs. The principal faults I think we should tackle in the current legislation-and you all have clearly identified them-are funding inflexibility, excessive categorization, rigid and inappropriate standards, and irrelevant formulas.

As an aside I would like to make note of the fact that we make very expensive national needs studies for all modes of transportation and then do not follow them in any way in the distribution of funds.

Despite all of our collective pride that previous Federal acts permit fund transfers to transit projects, in reality only about 18 percent of the non-Interstate national highway dollar is subject to possible

transfer.

By that I mean that 82 percent of all the non-Interstate Federal highway expenditure must be made for highways, no matter what the relative needs might be. Not only does the Federal Government mandate this level of highway expenditure, but it ordains how much

must be spent, in each of 37 different categories of highways and highway projects.

The effect of so many special programs with their particular funding and development requirements is to unnecessarily complicate and delay rational programing and the meeting of your congressional objectives while, at the same time, forcing States and local governments to distort their priorities simply because the money is there, and if it is not used, is lost.

Our system of major highways largely has been built, and our Federal highway program is now emphasizing local and off-system facilities. Therefore, the Federal Government must at least be as willing as we are to rethink the design standards that are applied to local streets and roads if we are to avoid needless delay, expense and adverse social, energy, and environmental impact in providing needed facilities.

I will not recite in detail the horrors of our trying to advance a project in New York City known as the Ocean Parkway under the Federal Aid Urban System. I am sure that other colleagues in the Congress will recite that to you, or have already done so in your committee meetings.

But we are fighting about the height of a curb, whether it should be 8 or 13 inches. The Federal Highway Administration is thwarting your intent to provide Federal aid to off-system projects. The project isn't going forward and the fight continues.

I submit that we need two types of cures working in tandem to streamline administration of the highway program-additional flexibility to use funds and a drastic reduction in uncoordinated procedural requirements posed by the Federal Highway Administration. A variety of legislation has been proposed, some of it progressive and some of it misguided, in my opinion. I am not going to try and sit here and nitpick individual bills, but to set out some concepts from which we would view those proposals.

I would also like to make note that whole recognition of my recommendations are unlikely to be realized in this or immediately following sessions. I know from some of the questioning earlier by Congressman Shuster that I must be a realist at this table.

But I am hopeful, however, that we will make progress eventually, even as we have in the past 2 years. In the broad transportation sense, I do not believe we can continue with an array of separate, uncoordinated modal programs. We have to bring together all modes and programs from local transit to Interstate highways, waterways, airways, and railroads. As I pointed out, we have done that in New York State.

We operate under a legislatively mandated statewide master plan for transportation, for all modes, public or private, operating within our State. I think that should be our approach nationally.

We have to fully integrate the modes and programs not only philosophically and in broad brush planning exercises, but in day-to-day project programing. We have to pull together the operating programs and capital programs, and both of these with regulatory policy and practice, as we have done in New York State.

I question whether we should continue to make special allocations for one mode or another through the creation of trust funds. Perhaps there is a larger public purpose to be served by creating a unified trans

portation trust fund. I can appreciate, however, arguments that transportation should be subjected to the same competition for funds as health, education, and the host of other public programs.

In any event, the time has come within transportation for some sort of systematic and rational coordination of policies, plans and programs. I believe you are addressing yourselves to that through various mechanisms, whether through the unified trust, or a national transportation policy.

Within the highway element of that coordinated program I believe we need to take a critical view of the roles of the several layers of government from the Federal establishment on down. You know, we started off by getting the farmer out of the mud, and we have progressed to the near completion of the Interstate System. I believe that we should be moving quickly to complete that system, but I further believe that we should be initiating a new program to safeguard the public investment in that national system by providing funds-to maintain the structural and functional integrity of the completed Interstate System.

As to the rest of the highway program, the 36 other categories, I say it's time we got the Federal Government out of the highway business. It started as a Federal aid program, but today it is truely a Federal program. It makes no sense to have Federal agencies involved in the details of each of tens of thosuands of individual projects throughout the Nation in every State, county, town and village, and in projects ranging in cost from a thousand, to tens of millions of dollars.

It is time we freed State and local agencies so they can better deal with transportation problems which are essentially State, region, metropolitan, and municipal concerns. Elected officials, technical experts, and the people at those levels know what their needs are, what their own values are, and understand the trade-offs necessary to achieve a responsive and a responsible combination of facilities and services.

The administration has suggested that the States be permitted to pick up in their own tax structures 1 cent of the 4 cent Federal gasoline tax. I suggest the Federal Government retain its 1 cent, along with the taxes on lubricants and highway users, rubber and diesel fuel for the completion and preservation of the national interest Interstate Highway System. The States should have the option to collect the remaining 3 cents with which to build the transportation facilities they need and to support transportation services, as each State deems appropriate.

This approach was discussed at the recent meeting of the Council of State Departments of Transportation where it was included among the options found acceptable in dealing with the trust fund question. I understand that this approach is also endorsed by the National Association of Counties and by the National Governors Conference.

The various bills before you contain proposals which can materially improve our highway program. I would single out the following as having particular merit:

Collapsing the multitude of categorical programs into four major funding groups; interstate, urban, rural, safety. We would prefer complete felxibility in using funds within these groups.

I also think of particular merit is the issue of increased flexibility in the substitution of transit and highway projects for Interstate highways.