where the average housewife or anyone else can drive in, pull a tab, and when she leaves she pays a single attendant 25 cents or 50 cents if she spends all afternoon.

That system is being paid for through bonds. One man handles a garage of 1500 to 2000 cars.

You mean to tell me that when I go down here and someone has to take my car and someone delivers it, all these people you have working and I have been in many of your garages, that this is efficient compared to what we have in the way of modern parking in many areas of the country?

Mr. LYON. If we were going to discuss that in detail I would be happy to discuss it with you. I don't know whether now is the time or place.

We have had repeated reference here to antiquated methods of parking in Washington.

Mr. SISK. It is antiquated. I remember thirty years ago you were doing the same thing. I can see no change.

Go right down on Pennsylvania Avenue where you have a place between the Willard and the Washington Hotel. You are using exactly the same method as thirty years ago.

Mr. LYON. Very true. The primary reason is the size of the lot if you want to get into specifics. It does not allow for the self-parking situation you talk about.

We also have facilities in the city which have self-parking and which have the arrangement you talk about.

Mr. SISK. Pretty few and pretty far between.

Mr. LYON. There are attendant parking facilities in every major metropolitan city in the world.

Mr. SISK. I am sure there are some but this makes a case as to what many of us need to do, and that is the power of condemnation to go ahead and establish an efficient and economic operation for proper handling and parking of automobiles.

Mr. LYON. I don't think one necessarily follows the other. You took one instance of private enterprise in development of a shopping center and used the same application to downtown with the government doing the same thing for the downtown merchant. The two are not compatible.

Mr. SISK. Proposals pending do not say the government will pick up the tab. It provides even for handling it through private sources provided they can bid and meet the requirements.

Is there anything in any of the bills, let us say my bill or Mr. Nelsen's bill, and a number of other bills, is there anything in there which precludes private parkers or which would drive private parkers from Washington?

Mr. LYON. Private parkers?

Mr. SISK. People like yourself?

Mr. LYON. Yes, sir, I think so.

Mr. SISK. I don't follow you on that when it specifically provides that arrangements can be made with private operators to handle these facilities. Is that correct?

Mr. LYON. Most of them have language which states they would encourage private operation.

Mr. SISK. I won't take more time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ZwACH. Mr. Lyon, as I sit here I have a problem of trying to ascertain the depth of the concern of your organization for adequate parking, whether parking is your prime concern or whether it is incidental to other businesses. I have been sitting here just listening. I live on Fifth and H Streets, so I do live in your fine city.

I note that you say that your Association represents 94 percent of the off-street facilities. Fifteen people represent 94 percent of the parking.

Do they own these facilities?

Mr. LYON. They own and lease and manage. There are 15 firms.

Mr. ZWACH. Most of these are above ground parking facilities? You also have some ramps?

Mr. LYON. Yes, sir.

Mr. ZWACH. This is the only business that you are engaged in?
Mr. LYON. No, sir.

Mr. ZwACH. It is the only business that the other parking members are engaged in? Are they also speculators and developers?

Mr. LYON. I have not analyzed each member separately. There are those who are specifically only in the parking business. There are those who are engaged in other business endeavors.

Mr. ZWACH. Would you say the prime concern of your people is adequate and reasonable parking facilities in the City of Washington? Mr. LYON. Yes, sir.

Mr. ZWACH. Not developing and speculating?

Mr. LYON. Developing and speculating? I don't understand your question.

Mr. ZWACH. I mean those who own the property and use it for parking only incidentally until you can move into something else. Is your private concern to just use it for parking while it is cleared and the main purpose is not really parking for the public but to try to make money on this so you can sell it and develop it?

Mr. LYON. I cannot comment on anybody else but I would like to submit to you the record of our particular company which I think will respond in some detail.

We have developed a number of sites. We have developed them in the form of garages and single purpose structures and multi-purpose structures. We have never developed a building which did not contain parking. We have never developed a building which did not contain parking in excess of any requirement or in excess of the building requirements.

I don't see that there is anything in any way of the nature you seem to infer-speculation. This is a good business, of course.

Mr. ZWACH. Speculation is part of the business. I am wondering if parking facilities is your business and main concern or whether somebody else will have to concern himself with adequate parking.

If you are doing it we do not have to be concerned about it. If you are not doing it and your business is something else then we have to be concerned about it.

Mr. LYON. In the main my business has been, since 1949, in the parking and development of parking facilities.

Mr. ZWACH. In the buildings that your people have developed I note you mention each businessman should completely furnish his own parking facilities. There is some merit in this.

When you put up buildings do you always include adequate parking facilities for all the people and for the public?

Mr. LYON. Yes, sir.

Mr. ZWACH. You have always included adequate parking for employees and for the public?

Mr. LYON. Yes, sir.

Mr. ZWACH. I have been in Washington just a couple years. I am merely observing and as a member of this Subcommittee I want to make an assessment. I do see some parking problems in your good city although I will admit that since the days of the rioting there has not been so much of a problem.

You would not say, then, that in the business of your Association parking is incidental to other interests? Your main concern is adequate parking for the people?

Mr. LYON. That is right.

Mr. ZWACH. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DowDY. I believe you said when you build a building you provide parking for occupants of the building, and an excess for public parking in line with your business. Is that right?

Mr. LYON. That is correct, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BROYHILL. A charge was made during our previous hearings, I believe by a member of the United States Senate, and I have heard it made on other occasions, Mr. Lyon, that the parking industry here in Washington is not primarily interested in parking, but is only operating parking enterprises incidental to land and real estate speculation, and just does not have the interest of the Washington community at heart in so far as providing parking is concerned. Perhaps this is a natural charge to be made by people favoring a different approach to a solution of the problem.

It might be well for you people, if these charges are not true, to clarify your objectives and to defend yourselves in that regard. Mr. Zwach is apparently concerned about it because he has heard those charges that you folks were unscrupulous profiteers, and land speculators, and not professional parking people.

Mr. LYON. I submit, Mr. Congressman, that if we were to look at the membership of the Washington Parking Association and we were to take the firms, several of the oldest parking concerns here-Doggett Parking Company, which has been in the business since 1925 or 1926, Sweigert Parking which has been in the business approximately the same length of time, District Parking which has been in the business the same length of time-here we talk about a span of time that encompasses from 1925 until 1968. I have seen no evidence of any of those going out of business.

You have many of the so-called in-betweeners who have come into the business since 1946, 1947, 1948. Our company was founded in 1947. We have been actively engaged in parking since that time. It has been our primary effort and interest.

If we took our membership I am sure you would find relatively few people who have been in the parking business here locally less than five or ten years. Most have been far in excess of that and have maintained a pattern of growth and expansion which we are rightfully proud of.

Mr. BROYHILL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Dowdy. Thank you, sir.

At this point, we'll include in the record a statement prepared by Mr. Barbour, Legislative Consultant, Washington Parking Association.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT BY HARRY A. BARBOUR, LEGISLATIVE CONSULTANT, WASHINGTON PARKING ASSOCIATION

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, my name is Harry A. Barbour, I am Legislative Consultant to the Washington Parking Association.

With the fullest measure of respect for the gentlemen who sponsored S. 944 and H.R. 14053, neither bill merits consideration by your Subcommittee at this time. Lack of proper research on the part of the sponsors' staff members has resulted in bills being drawn which, if enacted into law, would create chaotic conditions in downtown Washington.

It is clearly apparent that neither sponsor knew at the time his bill was drawn, or if he did know, he completely ignored the fact, that the Central Business District is to be redeveloped under Urban Renewal; that the Federal Government has donated $984,000 of public funds to draw up plans for that redevelopment; that those plans which are in the final stages of development by the National Capital Planning Commission after some two years of study, are now almost complete and ready for publication; that they were originally scheduled for publication by the end of 1967, but that the task was so huge, they are now scheduled for publication this Spring. (Authority: Mr. Thomas Appleby, Executive Director of RLA).

Those plans will describe in detail the Site-uses under the redevelopment plan for the area between Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W., and Massachusetts Avenue, N. W., and from North Capitol Street to 15th Street, N. W.

To create another quasi-government agency to operate in conflict with the Redevelopment Land Agency, with both having the powers of eminent domain, and with neither responsible to the other, could result in nothing but chaos.

Under the terms and conditions of both bills, the parking agency could condemn any property it chose, regardless of who owned it, just so it claimed it proposed to construct a parking facility. It could erect office and commercial buildings in competition with private enterprise, by-passing the real estate interests and ignoring completely the plan of the National Capital Planning Commission for which the Federal Government spent almost one million dollars. The Honorable Senator from Arizona, Mr. Hayden, denounced the Tydings bill because he claimed it gave unlimited power to the parking agency, with no vestige of control over its spending or operations.

For those reasons, and to protect the Federal Government's $984,000 investment, I respectfully recommend that both S. 944 and H.R. 14053 be tabled. It is unfortunate that both sponsors approached the subject with a fixed idea that the only way to help relieve the parking situation was to create a public parking agency with unlimited powers, with authority to issue $50 million in bonds, and which would demand that the District of Columbia Government donate from its treasury in excess of $1 million each year for 40 years (the life of the bonds), at a time when the District Government is hard pressed to find funds to meet the spiraling cost of municipal services.

Exactly one week ago today, on February 20, Mr. Walter Washington deplored his inability to increase the salaries of Policemen, Firemen and School Teachers, without imposing additional taxes on District property owners in order to provide the money.

Yet, each of the bills under consideration here today would compel District property owners to donate more than a million dollars a year, represented by on-street parking meter revenue and exemption of property taxes on some of the most expensive real property in the city, to help pay interest and principal on the bonds.

The same rosy-hued arguments, the same theoretical projections; the same promises of sufficient income; are being made to your Subcommittee as were made by the advocates of the Stadium bond issue, and all those arguments, projections, and promises were wrong. Not only does the Stadium income fail to meet principal payments, but it fails to pay the interest, which has made it a

gigantic white elephant that creates another burden on the shoulders of District taxpayers.

Will these bonds be different? Let us take a look, ignoring emotion, based on cold, historical facts.

In a recent check made with the National Parking Association which has members in every major city, it was learned that the Association could not name one major city in the United States in which a parking agency had been established, which parking agency was paying its way without subsidization by the city, and many were not paying their way even with the subsidy.

Did creation of a public parking agency solve the parking problem? It did not! Every major city in the United States that created a public parking agency finds its parking problems greater today than before the parking agency was created, which proves beyond question, that creation of a parking agency is not the answer.

Private enterprise, particularly in Washington, has proved its ability to provide more and more parking facilities as economic conditions permit. The United States Bureau of the Census listed Washington fourth of all major cities in the country in the number of off-street parking spaces provided by private enterprise, exceeded only by New York, Los Angeles and Detroit. Such cities as Chicago and Philadelphia, with their millions of population, trailed Washington. The free enterprise parking industry has provided more than 3,000 additional spaces since the date of the Census Report. It is requested that a copy of the Census Report which is attached to this statement, be made a part of the record.

Gentlemen, as Senator Hayden said of the Tydings bill, "it is bad". It is not in the best public interest. To create a public parking agency under present circumstances will not only create chaos, but will be equivalent to pouring $984,000 of taxpayers' money down the drain, because the parking agency would not be subject to the redevelopment plan.

I respectfully recommend, again, that both bills be tabled, and that the downtown redevelopment plan about to be released, be given the consideration it deserves.

Please accept my thanks for the opportunity given me to present this statement.

DISTRICT TRAFFIC VOLUME UP 4 PERCENT!!!

Traffic count figures for November, 1966 indicate that vehicular traffic within the District of Columbia generally continues to increase at about 4 percent a year. Deputy Director for the Bureau of Traffic Engineering and Operations of the D.C. Department of Highways and Traffic, Daniel J. Hanson, said that, "Traffic across the Anacostia River bridges increased at a rate of a little over 8 percent compared to November, 1965. The greatest increase on an Anacostia River crossing was on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge, where volumes were up 12.7 percent over the same month last year."

On the Potomac River crossings, the greatest increase was found to be on the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. Traffic on this six lane Bridge was up nearly 30 percent compared to the same period last year. The Bridges leading directly into the District showed an average increase of 2.4 percent while the average for the Potomac Bridges was 5.3 percent. Traffic on the Memorial Bridge where reconstruction work has not yet been completed, was down nearly 14 percent from last year.

Despite construction work on New York Avenue, N.E., the Bladensburg Road approach to the city showed a 10 percent increase in traffic. Mr. Hanson also noted that "Traffic on the Southwest Freeway continued to climb, with an 11 percent increase over last year.

(For further information, please contact the D.C. Department of Highways and Traffic, Bureau of Traffic Engineering and Operations-Phone No. 629-4715)