HIGHWAYS

Our vast network of highways, which account for 90 percent of travel and 80 percent by value of freight traffic goods movement, is deteriorating.  If current trends continue, a major proportion of the Interstate pavement will have deteriorated by the end of the 1980’s.

Arresting the deterioration of the nation’s system of highways is a high priority objective for the 1980’s.  We must reorient the Federal mission from major new construction projects to the stewardship of the existing Interstate Highway System.  Interstate gaps should be judged on the connections they make and on their compatibility with community needs.

During this decade, highway investments will be needed to increase productivity, particularly in the elimination of bottlenecks, provide more efficient connections to ports and seek low-cost solutions to traffic demand.

My Administration has therefore recommended redefining completion of the Interstate system, consolidating over 27 categorical assistance programs into nine, and initiating a major repair and rehabilitation program for segments of the Interstate system.  This effort should help maintain the condition and performance of the Nation’s highways, particularly the Interstate and primary system; provide a realistic means to complete the Interstate system by 1990; ensure better program delivery through consolidation, and assist urban revitalization.  In addition, the Congress must address the urgent funding problems of the highway trust fund, and the need to generate greater revenues.

MASS TRANSIT

In the past decade the nation’s public transit systems’ ridership increased at an annual average of 1.1% each year in the 1970’s (6.9% in 1979).  Continued increases in the cost of fuel are expected to make transit a growing part of the nation’s transportation system.

As a result, my Administration projected a ten year, $43 billion program to increase mass transit capacity by 50 percent, and promote more energy efficient vehicle uses in the next decade.  The first part of this proposal was the five year, $24.7 billion Urban Mass Transportation Administration reauthorization legislation I sent to the Congress in March, 1980.  I urge the 97th Congress to quickly enact this or similar legislation in 1981.

My Administration was also the first to have proposed and signed into law a non-urban formula grant program to assist rural areas and small communities with public transportation programs to end their dependence on the automobile, promote energy conservation and efficiency, and provide transportation services to impoverished rural communities.