I believe this has been done successfully in some places in this country. Obviously, in doing anything like this, the location and placing of such parking facilities needs to be worked out in cooperation with those who are supposed to be benefited.

My sixth point: Because of the importance of parking location and cost, government should have the power to regulate the size, location, entrances, exits, and rates of privately provided facilities.

I do not mean that the public parking authority itself should so regulate private parking facilities. This would be regulating their competitors. But I do believe that some governmental agency should consider total parking in critical areas as a public utility and so regulate the provision, the amount, location, and price of facilities. In a number of central area studies it has been shown that it is necessary to adapt a rate structure such that in locations where it is important for short-term parkers to park, to have available to them, that the rate so be adjusted that it favors the short-term parker, and that in farther out locations, people who want to park all day would have rates adjusted to their needs.

In the Pittsburgh central district, it was proposed that the garages for short-term parkers for business calls or for shopping be in garages within 400 or 450 feet of destinations, and that the all-day parker should have facilities on lots in the periphery of the business area and within, I think it was, some 800 or more feet of the destinations.

If the private facilities were to be regulated as to location, amount, and price, it would be necessary, I think, for the public agency itself to be regulated by the same public agency.

That, I believe, concludes what I have to say.

Senator TYDINGS. What do you mean by "balanced transit"? Would you go a little bit into that?

Mr. MITCHELL. Any plan for transportation for a city or metropolitan area tries to provide means of transportation, whether highways for the use of private automobiles or buses, or rail transit, or other high-speed transit on separate rights of way. It tries to provide these according to the most effective and efficient way of carrying the quantities of people needed to be carried from one place to another.

What I mean by a balance is the combination of facilities which is most effective and efficient to do the necessary job. This can be found out through an adequate metropolitan area transportation study.

Incidentally, I think the rather silly bickering that is going on in Washington between the highway interests and the public transit interests is a bar to this kind of understanding and planning. I hope that Washington now is growing out of this juvenile stage of planning. Senator TYDINGS. In other words, the highway movement of traffic and the transit movement of traffic should complement each other?

Mr. MITCHELL. They should complement each other because they are both trying to move people, and what is the most effective and efficient way to get this done. In New York, for example, at the city planning commission, to which I am consultant, we have strongly urged that the city build no more major express highways leading into the central area of Manhattan because it is already so clogged that a taxi driver doesn't like to take you from the east side to the west side. We have urged, instead, that whatever public revenues are available be used to improve rapid transit into Queens, Long Island, and areas

not presently as well served as they should be. We have suggested that there be a moratorium on more parking, if possible, in certain mid-Manhattan areas.

Senator TYDINGS. I also gather when you talk about a balanced transportation system, you include not only highway transportation and mass transit, but also parking facilities?"

Mr. MITCHELL. It is an essential part of both of them, sir.

Senator TYDINGS. Mr. Mitchell, you have been extremely helpful. I appreciate very much your coming down from the University of Pennsylvania. We are delighted to have had you with us. Thank you very much.

Mr. MITCHELL. It has been a privilege, sir.

Senator TYDINGS. Our next witness will be Prof. Royce Hanson, associate professor of government and public administration at American University, and staff member, Washington Center for Metropolitan Studies.

STATEMENT OF PROF. ROYCE HANSON, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITY, AND STAFF MEMBER OF THE WASHINGTON CENTER FOR METROPOLITAN STUDIES

Mr. HANSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I come not as an expert on parking, but as a student on organization and urban government, concerned with the policy problems that are involved in providing an effective transportation system, as a part of the general problem of urban organization. My comments, then, are addressed here to the analysis of the public policy problem involved in parking generally, and I hope somewhat specifically in the Washington metropolitan area, and to the policy and organizational means which might be used to meet it.

Senator TYDINGS. Since I have a million constituents in the Washington metropolitan area, I am extremely interested in anything which might affect them.

Mr. HANSON. I thought you might be, Senator.

Parking must be considered as an essential ingredient in modern urban planning and in the design of an urban transportation system. A system of highways and mass transit facilities needs suitable support in parking. The transportation system of a city can be impaired both by inadequate mass transit service and inadequate parking facilities. Moreover, the character of cities is affected by the kind of parking system which it offers and by its cost and convenience. For business areas to flourish in the modern city, they must be accessible for people who must travel by car. Traffic congestion exacerbated by inadequate parking can greatly contribute to the economic decline of business districts. Such a condition affects both downtown and older suburban commercial districts. The decline of strong core activity may also adversely affect the economic planning of the entire region. Development patterns which further accentuate dependence on automobile transportation tend to be accelerated. Parking becomes a major consideration in locations of employment centers. This may lead to diseconomies in land use through abandoning high cost land. to substandard economic and residential use.

In the development of new areas, in the redevelopment of the city, in the design of a general transportation system a place to park should be a prime consideration. Parking, in this light, as a part of the total transportation system, should be designed to serve the publicly arrived at objectives for the city and the metropolis. To a considerable extent parking is a public service which must be provided for by government in order for the transportation system to be effective. At the very least, parking is as much a public utility as a bus system or taxis.

The location of lots and their regulation to encourage adequate service to the community is as vital as the regulation of rates and routes. of public transportation facilities. While there is no imperative for either public or private ownership, it is imperative that parking facilities, whether public or private, be located and operated in a manner to enhance the vitality of strong commercial and cultural centers and to help balance the transportation system.

In many major cities this means the existence of a public parking agency with the power of eminent domain and with regulatory authority over location and rate structures. It does not make sense for either downtown or the suburbs for parking to be a tool of speculative land sales. Here today gone tomorrow parking now on temporarily vacant lots is not a parking program.

These general considerations would seem to lead to certain general conclusions if a parking program is to be authorized by legislation:

1. The public parking agency should be required to develop programs which are consistent with comprehensive development plans for the metropolitan transportation system and for commercial centers. 2. The public agency should have authority to make both public and private parking facilities conform to public needs.

In discussing the Washington parking problem it is first important. to understand that it has several dimensions. It is also important. that parking be considered an integral part of the metropolitan transportation system. Finally, the agency or agencies charged with solution of the problem should be organized and empowered to assist in the comprehensive planning and development of the metropolitan

area.

First, let us examine the separate dimensions of the problem. Three basic groups require parking facilities; automobile commuters, customers, and particularly in Washington, tourists. A large part of the current problem arises from the use of the same facilities by all three groups, resulting in the all day preemption of downtown parking space by commuters.

Over use of existing facilities by commuters stems from the joint inadequacies of fringe parking and transit service. Additionally, the area has not planned customer parking facilities to complement business development, nor had it provided an adequate system of tourist reception to the capital. If the parking problems are to be approached successfully, these separable but interrelated dimensions. must be comprehended in the solution.

The first problem is commuter parking. That gets to the problem of your constituents, Senator.

Downtown spaces can be made more available for customers by providing an extensive system of fringe parking and express bus serv ice into the downtown area.

The study and the figures that the Federal City Council developed, it would seem to me a 5-year goal of several thousand spaces does not seem unreasonable. Combined with the eventual creation of rapid rail transit, this might stabilize traffic congestion at its present level, and also avoid creation of a greater deficit in downtown parking space. Spaces in fringe lots should allow us to prevent a worsening of congestion in the downtown area.

Yesterday I obtained some figures from the traffic engineers in the District of Columbia government and they tell me that there is a normal annual growth in traffic coming into the District of Columbia on the order of 5 to 10 percent a year, which means that in a good many years the automobile traffic into the District of Columbia is running at a rate double the rate of increase in the metropolitan population.

If we can stay even with traffic, apologizing for making that a goal, we can plan the additional downtown facilities in a more orderly fashion. This system could be in operation before rail transit is in operation. Part of it could be expanded to meet rail terminal needs. Part-and then more could continue as bus served lots. It will be

10 years before subways serve the suburbs at least. In the meantime, fringe lots and express buses should be used to the maximum extent possible.

Creation of a successful fringe lot system will not be simple, but it is fundamental to any sensible solution then of the problem. It could be started as an experimental program with Federal assistance. It will have to involve development of public parking facilities which can be served efficiently by buses and some which will be convertible to service by rail transit. An effective program will require cooperation between governmental agencies and both downtown and suburban business interests. It will require the assistance of the transit companies.

Fringe parking facilities should be planned and constructed on a metropolitanwide basis. Responsibility for planning, construction, and operation could easily rest with the NCTA for this or its successor, Interstate Compact Agency. This Agency already has the basic powers needed if modifying legislation is provided along with the mandate to act.

It already has the power to construct terminal parking facilities. It would need additional power to construct lots which would be served by buses and not by the rail transit system.

Senator TYDINGS. Do you mean the authority in the act is not sufficiently broad to permit them to construct parking facilities that are not directly tied into a rail system of transit?

Mr. HANSON. That is how I read the act. I think its authority is limited solely to terminal parking facilities.

Senator TYDINGS. That is not my recollection of the act, but it is not important here. If your interpretation of the act is correct, then the act should be extended, because certainly the rapid transportation system in the District should cover more than simply rail rapid transit.

Mr. HANSON. Certainly it will. It seems to me that it is most important that we not break up the parking program into a series of compartments and have one agency operating downtown parking and another agency operating transit terminal parking, and another agency operating fringe parking lots. I think this would enhance the

already difficult problem of intergovernmental cooperation that exists just within the District, let alone the metropolitan area.

Since the system benefits both the suburbs and downtown, it should be financed on a metropolitan basis.

In its first stages, fringe parking should be developed through maximum exploitation of existing lots which have excess space which could be made available and for commuter parking. Church lots, stadiums, government-owned land and shopping centers are prime possibilities. Studies already completed have located a number of feasible projects. Regional shopping centers in particular could find considerable economic advantages in providing fringe parking spaces. Existing facilities should be utilized as fully as possible. Then additional lots, strategically located to reduce congestion and to serve the future transit system, should be developed.

A basic concomitant of the fringe lots is low cost, efficient transit. This means three things. Fringe parking should be free. Bus service should be frequent and cheap. And buses serving fringe facilities should be routed to minimize en route stops and transfers.

Rates should be reduced to at least the prevailing level for the District of Columbia. This should be done even if a subsidy is necessary. It is no worse to subsidize the commuter through transit than through construction of more highways. The objective is to liberate downtown parking spaces by giving the commuters a competitive means of getting to work. And the objective of reducing traffic congestion is also served.

I do not mean here to indicate any disfavor for the construction of an adequate freeway system. I think for the freeway system to work as has already been pointed out this morning, parking facilities are going to be necessary and the use of transit is going to be necessary. Senator TYDINGS. Professor Mitchell said that you need a balance. As I understand it, the fringe lots would provide the commuter with a competitive means of getting downtown which first of all might be cheaper, and might be quicker, and certainly, would mean less wear and tear on him, because he would not have to fight the traffic in and out.

Mr. HANSON. In the study of fringe lots which I have seen, two factors are important. One is the time involved in a trip to work, and the primary consideration in time involved seems to be the amount of time the commuter has to wait for a bus. For that reason, we need to operate, I think, on an experimental program which is possible under the transit improvement programs that the new Department of Housing and Urban Development has, demonstration programs to provide at least a year and a half of trial for some fringe lots to see if we cannot make them work by a combination of adequate service and low rates.

The value of fringe parking-rapid transit facilities is not confined to downtown. Its economic advantages for suburban business centers has already been suggested and for areas like Bethesda, it can provide another, badly needed development tool to forestall economic disaster resulting in part from traffic congestion and inadequate parking which is at least comparable with anything downtown. Fringe lots can also serve shoppers' buses in the nonrush hours of the day.