Obstacles to Governmental Action

We prefer a lower threshold of significance, and therefore a wide variety of concerns deserve close attention—the goals of public officials and private groups concerned with mass transportation, the obstacles they have faced, the extent of their successes (however modest), and the conditions that have determined patterns of success and failure.

In the first decade after World War II, the environment for public action was inhospitable and disappointing—at least to those who sought a great initiative by government to meet mass transportation problems. Problems were certainly plentiful—some left over from the public agenda of the prewar era, others newly developing or reemerging. Since the 1920s, New Jersey commuter groups had urged that new rail lines be constructed across the

[15] Wood, 1400 Governments, pp. 144, 170, 175.

[16] It should be noted that in Metropolis 1985 Vernon occasionally offers comments that take a different position from the dominant Wood-Vernon argument outlined in the text. On page 182, Vernon notes that a "total breakdown in some critical service," such as mass transit, could result in "distorting the Region's development"; and on page 223, he argues that rail as well as highway services will be crucial in shaping the future of the Manhattan CBD. The implication, though not given much emphasis, is that government actions might have an important role even if they do not involve "massive changes" in policy and "comprehensive coordination of modes of travel."

Hudson, in order to reduce travel time and increase convenience for travelers from Bergen, Morris, and other New Jersey counties bound for Manhattan.^[17] Then, in the early postwar years, New York City's subway system generated large deficits; and the financial condition of the commuter railroads serving the region, already weakened in the Depression, began to show signs of severe distress by the late 1940s and early 1950s.^[18] Meanwhile, increasing automobile and truck congestion on the highways, caused in part by the absence of good rail and bus alternatives, led some observers to conclude that expanded mass transit service was essential for continued regional mobility and economic growth.^[19]

In the arena of highway policy—described in Chapter Six—when congestion and financial constraints were identified as "highway problems" in the early 1950s, the general direction for a solution seemed clear, and within a few years a detailed strategy had been devised and a massive response was underway. It seemed evident that more highways, bridges, and tunnels were needed; responsibility for action lay in the hands of government; and new taxes and a special trust fund were created to finance the extensive federal-aid highway program begun in 1956.

In the mass transit field, in contrast, no consensus emerged from the early discussions regarding the general approach to be followed or where responsibility for action lay, and prompt action did not follow. There were several difficulties in this policy arena. First, while road building was historically a government function, rail and bus service traditionally had been the responsibility of private entrepreneurs.^[20] Except for New York City's subway system, mass transit services were still provided in the early postwar years by private "profit-making" corporations. The governmental role was essentially passive, with state and federal regulatory commissions reviewing (and accept-

[17] As mentioned in note 4 above, several of the New Jersey rail lines terminated at the Hudson River, and passengers had to cross to Manhattan by ferry, bus, or the H&M transit service. The efforts of commuter associations and other groups, during the period 1922–1952, are summarized in New York Metropolitan Rapid Transit Commission and New Jersey Metropolitan Rapid Transit Commission, Joint Report (New York: March 3, 1954), pp. 54–62. (Hereafter, this document will be cited as NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report .)

[18] After the end of World War II, passengers deserted the rail lines and took to the high-ways, especially during noncommuting hours, and the trucking industry increasingly siphoned off the more lucrative freight traffic. By 1952, both the Long Island Rail Road and the H&M Railroad were in bankruptcy, while sharp passenger declines had led to reductions in rail service and to shaky financial conditions on several of the New Jersey railroads. See Owen, Metropolitan Transportation Problem, Chapter 3; Robert W. Purcell, "Special Report to the Governor on Problems of the Railroads and Bus Lines in New York State" (New York: March 12, 1959); NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report, pp. 12–13, 34–43, 63–68.

[19] See, for example, NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report, pp. 2–10, and the testimony of public officials, citizen groups, and others at the commissions' hearings in 1953, summarized in Joint Report, pp. 73–102.

[20] This tradition had plenty of exceptions, however. During the nineteenth century, in addition to providing land and other assistance to private railroad corporations, government units were at times actively involved in the development of rail service through "mixed corporations," which included both public and private funds as well as joint policy control. In New York City, the local government constructed the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) subway system beginning in 1904, and then leased it for operation to a private firm, and in 1925 construction was begun on a second city-owned system, the Independent (IND). See Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought, Chapter 3, and the sources cited in note 4 above.

ing or rejecting) proposals by rail and bus corporations to alter fares and service. There was no set of public officials with a mandate to act more directly in defining and proposing solutions to the growing mass transit problem, no recent history of public action that would lead the general public to expect government to take the initiative in this field, and no readily available source of public funds to underwrite mass transportation.

Closely related to the tradition of government non-responsibility was the fragmentation of government authority in the New York region. Rail and bus routes crossed municipal, county and state lines, and the fractionalization of formal and informal governmental power was even greater than in the highway field. Rail transport had no counterpart to the integrating efforts of Robert Moses with his many hats, or the Port Authority with its bistate jurisdiction. Moreover, because federal and state government efforts in the rail and bus field were essentially regulatory and passive, there was even less incentive for—and little tradition of—cooperative effort among relevant state and national public agencies.

In fact, the governmental and private groups in the New York region concerned with mass transportation were a remarkably motley crew, with limited political resources and an unpromising future. User interests were represented by the commuter organizations of North Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester, whose efforts to improve mass transportation and to involve the Port Authority in rail enterprises extended back to the 1920s. Yet by the early 1950s, these associations—the Inter-Municipal Group for Better Rail Service, the Transit Committee of Bergen County, the Westchester Commuters Group, and others—were devoting most of their energies to campaigns simply to save existing services. Thus they were caught up in continual rearguard action—with statements to the press and at regulatory hearings that did little more than resist efforts by the railroads to curtail service and increase fares.^[21]

The suburban railroads were far more interested in reducing or abandoning service on deficit-producing passenger lines than in improving mass transit. Rail spokesmen occasionally did argue that additional rail facilities were needed, and some urged the Port Authority and other highway agencies to help meet mass transportation needs. But their understandable concern with corporate solvency led railroad officials to adopt an essentially negative stance—cutting services and increasing fares, rather than devising imaginative programs of transportation improvement.^[22]

Then there were the business and civic interests that were anxious to maintain mass transportation services to New York City, Newark, and other downtown locations. Most of those active in this group were Manhattan-based associations which saw rail service stability as essential to the economic strength and dominance of the Manhattan CBD. A few viewed improved rail and bus service as part of a complex strategy for improving economic health and living patterns in the region as a whole. In the conflict between the railroads and commuter organizations, some of the civic-group spokesmen were sympathetic to the economic plight of rail corporations and their desire

[21] See NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report, pp. 54–60, 92, 101–102, and Jameson W, Doig, Metropolitan Transportation Politics and the New York Region (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), pp. 22–24.

[22] Ibid., pp. 21–22, and NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report, pp. 91–100.

to reduce deficit-producing services. Others agreed with suburban commuters that existing services should be maintained, while the search continued for other sources of funds to save public transportation.^[23]

In contrast to the highway coalition, then, the private interests concerned with mass transit policies differed greatly among themselves as to short-run priorities and long-run goals. They did not produce a coherent set of constituency demands that legislative committees and other government agencies would be compelled to weigh carefully as representing an agreed-upon program of action. Consequently the efforts of the rail interests to obtain effective government action were severely handicapped. The underlying problem—the limited ability of governmental actors to shape urban development when confronted by diverse constituency pressures—is one we have seen before, in the Chapter Four discussion of environmentalism and highways in the 1970s. We will see it again in the analysis of the older cities in the next two chapters.

Moreover, in contrast to the widespread and growing use of automobiles, the most directly involved constituency—the users of mass transit service—comprised a small percentage of the region's population, and in the case of rail commuters a declining proportion as well. Between 1930 and 1952, automobile registration in the three states increased sharply, while railroad commuter traffic dropped by 25 to 60 percent. By 1952, trans-Hudson commuters from North Jersey who used mass transit comprised just over 3 percent of the population of the nine northeastern counties, with more than one-third of this fraction relying on bus rather than rail. The proportion was somewhat higher in the Westchester-Connecticut sector, and highest on Long Island, where LIRR commuters made up just over 5 percent of the Island's burgeoning population. When non-rush-hour rail travel was added, the Long Island total rose, but only to 8 percent.^[24]

Of course the number of residents potentially affected by mass transportation was far larger than the modest number who made regular use of the region's rail and bus services. As noted earlier in this chapter, the loss of public transit services, especially in commuter hours, would lead to massive highway congestion, and probably to long-run changes in residential and commercial location patterns that would be traumatic for Long Island, West-chester, and some North Jersey areas. Yet there was no widespread sense of concern on the part of the general public, because the main rail and bus services continued, even while some of the carriers slid toward bankruptcy. Throughout the first postwar decade, the commuters and their local communities found they could rely on their state utility commissions to resist the

[23] See, for example, the views of the New York Chamber of Commerce, Citizens Union, Avenue of the Americas Association, and Regional Plan Association, quoted in Joint Report, pp. 5–7, 85–89, 102. The views of the RPA are discussed more fully above in Chapter Five.

[24] The increase in automobile registration during 1930 to 1952 was 104 percent in New Jersey, 71 percent in New York State, and 138 percent in Connecticut. During this period, railroad commuter traffic declined by 59 percent in New Jersey, 25 percent in Westchester County, and 42 percent on Long Island. These totals, and the ratio of passengers to population in 1952 cited in the text, are based on figures compiled by the Port Authority, the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources, and are summarized in NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report, pp. 10–13, 32–33, 44, and 52. See also Port of New York Authority, Metropolitan Transportation 1980 (New York: 1963), Chapters 20–22.

railroads' efforts to raise fares and reduce the frequency of service.^[25] Fares did creep upward and both the quality and frequency of service declined, but only slowly, incrementally, while most of the region's populace looked on, complacently.

Those who favored governmental action to aid mass transportation faced not only public indifference, but active opposition as well from some members of the highway coalition. In the view of Robert Moses and his colleagues, government funds for urban and intercity transport should be funneled primarily into roads, not rail; and the planning and construction of new highway systems should go forward without any attempt to coordinate road and rail facilities. Local taxes paid by the railroads might be "scaled down," and subsidies to meet crises might even be provided from general government funds. However, any attempts to redirect the flow of moneys from highways and bridges, or to tie highway development to broader transportation planning goals, were vigorously opposed.

Underlying the resistance of the highway agencies and their supporters to involvement in mass transportation was the fear that the deteriorating rail services were a "bottomless pit" whose voracious needs for additional funds would destroy the ability of the Port Authority, Triborough, and their fellow road agencies to maintain their freedom of action, bountiful resources, and political independence—and thus their ability to build new bridges, tunnels, and highways.^[26]

Despite these obstacles, the first postwar decade was not a period of inactivity in the mass transit field. Indeed, some significant action did take place: a new transit authority took over operation of bus and rail services in New York City; the state intervened to support the Long Island Rail Road; and state governments in Albany and Trenton created a joint commission to draw up a long-range program for the New York region.^[27] However, these efforts also illustrated the weaknesses identified above—in governmental structure and leadership, in program goals, financing, and constituency support—and left the major problems unresolved.

Responding to a Transit Crisis in New York City

In New York City, government had been involved in construction and operation of rail transit services since the turn of the century, and by the early 1940s the city's Board of Transportation had responsibility for subways, elevated railways, and bus services throughout most of the city.^[28] Although lim-

[25] On the railroad's mounting financial problems, and the attitudes of state utility commissions and the Interstate Commerce Commission, see Michael N. Danielson, Federal-Metropolitan Politics and the Commuter Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), pp. 12–20, 24–31.

[26] On the views of the highway coalition in the first postwar decade, see, for example, the statements by Austin Tobin of the Port Authority and by Robert Moses at public hearings in 1953, reprinted in part in NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report, pp. 77–82.

[27] Another important mass transportation project was the construction of the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan, discussed in Chapter Six.

[28] As indicated earlier (note 20 above), in the early 1900s the city government had constructed the IRT subway line and leased it for private operation, and in 1925 the city broke ground for a second line, the IND. Meanwhile, in 1913, the private Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (later Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit, the BMT) began a subway line. By the end of the Depression, the BMT line, as well as the elevated rail lines built by private entrepreneurs and many of the bus lines inNew York City, had abandoned their profit-seeking aspirations and sold out to the city government. The Board of Transportation also took over operation of the IRT, leaving only the Staten Island Rapid Transit line and some bus routes in the private sector. For additional details, see the sources cited in note 4 above.

ired to New York City, the operation was immense: The board served several million passengers each weekday over hundreds of miles of rail and bus routes. In spite of heavy usage and large city subsidies from its general tax coffers, however, deficits mounted during the first postwar decade, and additional funds were needed to meet operating expenses and finance new construction.

The city government believed these needs should be met without raising the fare; higher fares, it was argued, would increase the diversion of riders to private automobiles, especially during non-rush hours, thus adding to traffic congestion while providing little net gain in total revenues at the fare box. Moreover, increased fares would be particularly burdensome to the city's lower-income residents—who might take out their resentment against the city fathers at the ballot box.

In weighing these factors, city officials were, of course, considering mass transit policy in the context of other policy goals. But their ability to translate this broader perspective into action was sharply constrained. Except for increased fares, the two major sources of possible funds to meet transit needs were (1) siphoning off toll revenues from the Triborough and other highway authorities, and (2) increasing general tax levels within the city. State laws creating the highway authorities had placed the first option beyond the reach of city officials, unless the state consented—an unlikely prospect, particularly in view of the adamant opposition of Moses and his colleagues. And the second option would have required the state to grant additional taxing authority to New York City.^[29]

Governor Dewey and the state legislature rejected both of these alternatives, and instead in 1953 replaced the Board of Transportation with a new Transit Authority which was organized to provide a stronger financial base for mass transportation in New York City. The new authority was required to meet its operating expenses from its own revenues, and would be able to increase fares as expenses rose. Yet the Transit Authority was given no borrowing power, so final responsibility for funding capital improvement still rested with New York City. This effort to "solve" the city's transit crisis by relying on the fare box and local tax funds failed as deficits mounted in subsequent years. However, Albany's intervention provided a precedent for still deeper state involvement in the region's mass transportation quagmire.^[30]

A Railroad Is "Practically Reborn"

Meanwhile, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) tottered on the edge of disaster. The region's preeminent commuter rail carrier in terms of passengers

[29] There was, of course, a third possible source of funds for mass transit—transferring money from other city programs. In practice, use of this option was highly constrained by constituency demands for larger expenditures in every major sector of its budget, a problem explored in detail in the next two chapters. Moreover, the magnitude of transit deficits dwarfed the funds that could have been reallocated at the margin.

[30] For further information on the origins and characteristics of the Transit Authority, see Sayre and Kaufman, Governing New York City, pp. 323–343 (passim ), and the sources listed on pp. 346–348.

per year, the LIRR steadily lost traffic to the expanding highway network in the postwar years, entering bankruptcy in 1949. A study commission appointed in 1950 by Governor Thomas Dewey recommended that a state authority be created to purchase and operate the railroad, but that proposal was rejected in Albany as the "road to socialism." Instead, state officials sought ways to continue the floundering line under private ownership. Finally, in a much-heralded state effort that departed from traditional passive state regulation, the LIRR was restructured in 1954 as a private "railroad redevelopment corporation" and given tax concessions, unusual freedom in setting fares, and other assistance which—state officials argued—would permit the railroad to emerge by 1966 as a self-sufficient private rail carrier. In the words of its publicists, the LIRR was "practically reborn" as the result of this plan,^[31] but in reality the program was so modest that only a very optimistic observer could expect it to succeed, particularly if the competing highway system on Long Island continued to expand. By the early 1960s declining passenger traffic, deteriorating service, and new deficits would force wary state officials to embrace public ownership as advocated by the Dewey Commission in 1951.

Toward Broader Regional Action

Beyond these halting efforts to meet short-term crises, there were some attempts during the first postwar years to identify broader goals and strategies—concerned with stabilizing and improving rail and bus services across the region, and with planning that included both highway and mass transportation programs. The Regional Plan Association urged that a "balanced transportation system" be developed. Goodhue Livingston of the New York City Planning Commission publicly advocated creation of a regional transportation authority to take control of the funds and duties of Triborough, the Port Authority's bridges and tunnels, New York City's buses and subways, and the Long Island Rail Road. Other public officials and private groups took similar positions.^[32]

The most important action generated by this broader concern was the creation of the Metropolitan Rapid Transit Commission (MRTC) by New Jersey and New York in 1954. The bistate agency was empowered to study the region's transit problems and to recommend action to meet existing needs. In its initial meetings, the commission interpreted its mandate broadly, to include an analysis of rail and bus problems, and the preparation of a general plan for transportation development for the region.

The obstacles to an extensive study of this kind, however, were considerable. The states had set up the commission, but their support was more rhetorical than substantive. A program of action was needed, they agreed, but the $50,000 appropriated by each state was barely enough to hire a small staff, much less begin a comprehensive study. Behind this lukewarm support lay a

[31] This was the phrase used in the LIRR pamphlet, Facts 'n' Figures about the Long Island Rail Road (New York: no date, ca. 1968).

[32] See, for example, Henry Fagin (planning director of RPA), "Toward a Balanced Regional Transportation System," Regional Plan News 34 (May 1952), p. 1, and the views of the RPA, Livingston, the Westchester County Planning Commission, and others included in NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report, pp. 2–17, 22–24, 85–102.

basic political weakness: the regional transit problem had only limited constituency appeal. East of the Hudson, New York City's leaders were concerned primarily with the subway problem, and Long Island's officials had exhausted their energies in seeking state action for the LIRR. There was greater concern in Westchester and New Jersey, but no sense of crisis impelled local residents to press for larger appropriations. Moreover, the MRTC study was not directed to meeting current emergencies but toward long-range solutions.^[33]

In addition, the goal of the commission—comprehensiveness in transportation planning and financing—was viewed with mixed feelings in Trenton and Albany. Would it mean, for New Jersey, direct involvement in the massive financial problems of the New York subway system? Would state officials in Albany find their ability to meet "their own" problems handicapped by the need to negotiate with Hudson County politicians and contentious leaders of other local fiefdoms? And beyond these themes of fragmented perspective, the states—and especially the governors—wondered if they really wanted to grasp the nettle of mass transportation leadership. If the MRTC did carry out a comprehensive study and recommended long-range solutions, it seemed inevitable that the pressures for action would flow to the governor's office—whether to appropriate large amounts of state funds, or to battle Robert Moses and a phalanx of Port Authority experts and their fellow highway coalition leaders. The lessons of the recent LIRR and Transit Authority struggles, and of skirmishes over the years with Moses and his friends, were that the costs of such active leadership might well outweigh the benefits.

Finally, the commission itself—composed of five members appointed by each governor—was internally divided as to its purposes. Some commissioners were deeply devoted to the goal of comprehensiveness in study and, ultimately, in action. But other commission members had reservations. A comprehensive study would require larger funding than seemed likely. Also, a wide-ranging approach would surely lead to conflict with the highway coalition. An MRTC program that called for integrated planning and funding might result in no action at all, in view of the impressive influence of highway leaders in both states. For MRTC's more cautious members, the better part of valor would be a study focused on feasible ways of providing public support to meet growing commuter rail deficits, and on possible new rail construction—without a direct attempt to confront the "rail versus road" issue.

These weaknesses in political support, financing, and internal cohesion made the MRTC highly vulnerable to outside influence. The organization most interested in shaping the commission's efforts was the Port Authority. While fashioning its joint arterial studies with Robert Moses into a public relations success in 1954–1955, the Port Authority was dismayed by the public pronouncements of some MRTC members, who argued that highway expansion had caused rail-service deterioration, and that "grandiose" road plans should be halted until the MRTC completed its study. As a bistate agency like the MRTC, the Port Authority was the most explicit object of commission criticism. Moreover, it was directly involved in two decisions, made in 1954,

[33] The discussion of the MRTC is drawn from Jameson W. Doig, Metropolitan Transportation Politics, Chapters 3–8.

not to provide opportunities for rail transit by excluding rail lines on the Narrows Bridge and on the lower deck of the George Washington Bridge.^[34] As a wealthy and politically skilled agency, the authority also had the resources needed to neutralize the commission. Thus the Port Authority offered the financially strapped study group a half million dollars to conduct its surveys—if the commission agreed to exclude from the studies any work on a general plan for rail and road facilities, and if the authority were given joint policy control over the surveys. With no other source of funds available, the commission accepted.^[35]

Thus the widely heralded comprehensive study became instead a detailed analysis of possible ways to improve the financing and quality of rail service. The commission's final report in January 1958 proposed the creation of a bistate Transit District, supported by local tax revenues. The district's taxpayers would absorb the deficits of the region's passenger railroads, and meet the costs of a proposed bistate rail loop and other improvements. The proposal was endorsed by Manhattan business and civic groups, New York City newspapers, and some commuter groups in New York, where the philosophy of local tax support for rail was already wellaccepted due to the local financial assistance long provided to the city's rapid transit system.

The district bill was forwarded to Albany and quickly passed, in March 1958. In New Jersey, however, as noted in Chapter Five, these proposals were received with less than wild enthusiasm, as widespread aversion to local tax support for rail facilities was combined with suspicion that the proposed improvements would mainly benefit Manhattan. The subject of acrimonious hearings in the state assembly in November 1958, the district bill succumbed a few weeks later. So the attempt to devise a comprehensive regional program, begun rather promisingly in the early 1950s, died finally in early 1959, a casualty of the three-way conflict among the advocates of regional planning and mass transit improvement, the road coalition, and local spokesmen who were wary of the costs and loss of autonomy that might result from a regional effort.^[36]

[34] Rail facilities across these two bridges had long been advocated by transit proponents in order to improve rail transit between New Jersey and Manhattan (across the George Washington Bridge), and between Staten Island, the other boroughs of New York City, and Long Island (across the Narrows). The decision to exclude rail lines was made during the 1954 Port Authority-Triborough arterial highway studies, and was based, according to the two agencies, on traffic, engineering, and cost considerations. However, the Port Authority's plans for the lower deck did include structural reinforcement so that rapid transit facilities could be added "at any future time," even though "rail rapid transit across the Hudson does not appear to be an immediate prospect." PNYA and TBTA, Joint Studies of Arterial Facilities (New York: January 1955), pp. 8, 30, and 40.

[35] The authority then joined with New Jersey's Democratic governor, Robert B. Meyner, in a series of tactical maneuvers that forced all the New Jersey commissioners to resign. Meyner's main interest was to replace the five members, all of them holdovers appointed by the previous governor, Republican Alfred E. Driscoll, with his own choices. The New Jersey members were also the most vocal critics of the Port Authority's vehicular projects, and the authority, seeing an opportunity to exclude these opponents from the MRTC, worked closely with Meyner in achieving that goal. See Doig, Metropolitan Transportation Politics, Chapter 5.

[36] Before being defeated in the New Jersey Assembly, the district bill had squeaked through the Senate by a one vote margin, with the support of Governor Meyner and indirect but crucial assistance from the Port Authority. On the legislative battles, see Doig, Chapter 8.

Elements of a Solution: Realistic and Otherwise

There was a certain air of unreality about the mass transit debate as it was carried on throughout the first postwar decade and extended into the late 1950s.

On the one hand, some state officials and other government leaders assured the public that tax concessions and other modest measures would enable the bankrupt LIRR to emerge as a healthy private carrier, that creation of a transit authority would provide a long-term solution for the subway system, that the commuter railroads could survive if they kept their fares low and thus attracted more traffic, and that long-range solutions to the region's transit needs could be found through reliance upon that "horn of plenty" called the Port Authority. In the absence of widespread crisis that would compel action by elected leaders, it was far easier for state officials to describe such half-measures as "solutions," to avoid direct responsibility, and to utilize their own limited time and funds on other state problems and programs.

The most articulate advocates of better mass transportation and coordinated development took a very different view, but they rarely paused to weigh feasibility or compare notes on priorities. Three major elements of a strategy for solving mass transit problems were sounded by these partisans, and then amplified by the press so that they set the framework for reformist thought during this period:

1. Any government action, if it were to be effective, must be broad in areal scope. It was argued that the problems of the LIRR and the subway system were intertwined,^[37] that the New Haven and New York Central lines would soon face financial difficulties similar to those of the LIRR, and that the several New Jersey railroads, already in financial straits, might be able to retain passenger traffic if they could be extended into Manhattan with transfer stops on the subway system. But to those who held these views, such as the New York Times and the MRTC, the answer was not to use existing centers of government power—for example, at the state capitals—to provide leadership and funding to meet these interrelated regional problems. Instead, a new layer of government, embracing a dozen or more counties in two or three states, should be created, and through this imaginative approach would come salvation—once interstate rivalries and taxpayer suspicion had evaporated, and vigorous leadership at the new regional level had emerged.^[38]

2. Planning and coordination should be "comprehensive intermodally," encompassing rail and bus, truck and automobile, and taking into account the relationship between changes in rail and highway services, on the one hand, and patterns of land use in the region, on the other. Analytically, this was a reasonable position, in view of the evidence that changes in any one of these

[37] For example, the subway system had been extended into eastern Queens, and with its traditional use of a fiat fee the average deficit per mile increased; at the same time, commuters from western Nassau County found subway service more conveniently available as the system pushed eastward, and thus commuters were siphoned off from the (more expensive) LIRR to the subway system, adding to the LIRR deficit.

[38] For illustrations of this line of reasoning, see the material cited in Doig, Metropolitan Transportation Politics, Chapters 4–5 and 7–8.

areas strongly affected program needs in the others.^[39] As the argument was applied to the New York region, however, it was often extended beyond the bounds of political feasibility and perhaps of intellectual defensibility. Thus one prominent critic advocated as the first step toward a solution the creation of a Regional Transportation Authority to control all rail and road facilities—and all existing transport authorities—in the metropolitan area. The new agency would at once place tolls on all toll-free bridges, thus diverting passenger traffic to rail lines.^[40] Perhaps extremism in the service of good planning was no moral vice, but it surely left the mass transit advocates vulnerable to the barbs of skeptics and opponents. As Robert Moses commented in 1953, reviewing the arguments for region-wide and intermodal coordination through new public agencies:

There are always those who glibly advocate an official, all-powerful regional agency to take over these problems on the curious assumption that difficulties will disappear with regional consolidation. . . . Putting all of the problems into a big new shiny basket is just a way of hastening their trip to the dump heap or the incinerator.^[41]

3. The third crucial element of a program to meet the region's mass transit needs was, of course, money. Not just modest tax concessions, not simply funds to eliminate grade crossings, but a sustained inflow of millions of dollars to meet the deficits of the New York subways, the Hudson tubes, and the region's eight private rail carriers. By the mid-1950s, the total yearly deficit had reached nearly $100 million; and to this might be added additional millions to replace old commuter cars and modestly improve the quality of service on the rail lines, subways, and government-owned bus lines—thus stemming the loss of commuters and other passengers to automobiles.

That kind of money quickly catches the attention of governors and other elected officials, who as quickly move out of the line of fire, hoping that their terms of office will end before any sizable mass transit burden is laid at their political doorsteps. But even $100 million strikes no sparks in the heart of a mass transit evangelist, if such sums yield no dramatic new projects to fire the mind. For those who would put their personal stamp on the future—for rail-builders as for road-builders—larger sums, to achieve visible and enduring results on the scale of a Narrows Bridge or a World Trade Center, are needed. To the members of the MRTC, their "Narrows Bridge" was a $350 million rail tunnel and transit line, joining the New Jersey railroad systems to a new subway line under Manhattan. For others, a modern passenger rail terminal in Manhattan, with new tunnels to bring all

[39] This was the perspective taken, for example, by Wilfred Owen in the first edition of his volume, The Metropolitan Transportation Problem (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1956). Owen's analysis was widely read and discussed in the New York region and nationally.

[40] This was the position taken by Goodhue Livingston, commissioner of the New York City Planning Commission; see the summary of his views in NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report, pp. 89–90. Another commentator, H&M Railroad president William Reid, urged that the building of vehicular facilities simply "be stopped" as an initial step in ending the "tremendous shift from rail to rubber." See his comments in the Joint Report, p. 91.

[41] Quoted in NYMRTC and NJMRTC, Joint Report, pp. 78, 79.

New Jersey trains directly into the terminal, would fit the imagination if not the pocketbook.^[42]

How could such sums be secured? A central element of the rail coalition's response—especially after the defeat of the Transit District bill (with its reliance on local taxes)—was "pooling." That is, funds generated by rail and road agencies would be pooled, and then used by the new metropolitan authority or other agencies to meet needs which, under a general plan, had highest priority. In reality, this would mean (in their view) that excess revenues from the Port Authority, Triborough, and other highway agencies would be siphoned off to meet the deficits of rail and bus operations.

Even without dramatic new construction, the potential bill for mass transit needs would be large enough to block achievement of the roadbuilders' own dreams. To protect their interests, the road agencies sought to discredit the pooling concept by emphasizing the gigantic total costs involved. Thus in 1958, confronting New Jersey legislators anxious to bring Port Authority money and skill to bear on the rail problem, Austin Tobin generously estimated the region's mass transit deficits at $150 million a year. Tobin thought it was "awfully clear that the Port Authority couldn't assume one little part of this . . . without assuming it all."

Behind the Tobin smokescreen was an element of real concern. Admittedly, neither the Port Authority, nor Triborough, nor the New Jersey Turnpike Authority could absorb the entire transit deficit, but it would be financially feasible for any one of these agencies to absorb part of the total. When combined with other state and federal moneys, such contributions might provide enough funds to achieve modest goals if not grand plans for mass transit. But the platform of the mass transit advocates—large amounts of money, intermodal planning, and regionwide scope—did not direct the attention of elected officials toward smaller, more manageable increments. Tobin and his colleagues eagerly accepted this monumental frame of reference, insisting that any attempt to force the authorities to meet large deficits and carry out grandiose plans would simply put an end to these paragons of "nonpolitical corporate management" which had served the region's development needs so well.^[43] The result, as the decade of the 1950s drew to a close, was continuing division and debate, deteriorating mass transit service, and no feasible plan of action.