I know you are aware of the objections of trying to put too much traffic through District streets. You have conflict between residents, pedestrians, and vehicles, and the object of the exercise is to get only the proper amount of traffic on the District streets and to utilize freeways and heavy-duty arterials to carry the heavy volumes of traffic. Mr. GIAIMO. You don't have to explain this chart, Mr. Airis, but without objection we will put this in the record also and I think it points out at a glance the seriousness of the problems here and the many things that have to be done to cope with it.

(The chart referred to follows:)

MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE AND GOODS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

ANNUAL INCREASE IN TRAFFIC 3 TO 7 PERCENT PER YEAR

Mr. AIRIS. We think so. The freeway construction and subway construction are the heavy duty items; freeways are already taking heavy traffic that would otherwise be using the street system, and I point to the Southwest Freeway which is carrying at the present time something like 75,000 to 80,000 vehicles a day that would otherwise be using the city streets.

Now that amount, when the system is completed, should go up to 100,000,000 vehicles a day.

The last chart I would like to display shows the results of what the freeways will carry.

(The chart referred to follows:)

94-690-68-pt. 2

Mr. AIRIS. At the present time the limited access freeway-type facility constitutes only 2.8 percent of the 1,100 miles of District streets and highways-2.8 percent, yet they are carrying 15.5 percent of the traffic.

I won't go into the other categories, but you can just glance at the chart and see what the other categories are carrying; local streets for instance constitute 57.1 percent of the street system, yet they only carry 10.7 percent of the traffic. It should be reduced even below that, which is what we are trying to do. Now, when this rather minimal system that is proposed here is completed, it will constitute only 29 miles in length and constitute only 4.5 percent of the street system,

yet will carry a whopping 35 percent of all travel. With the other parts of the program, we would hope to reduce traffic through the use of the subway system, through use of mass transit buses, and through introduction of other means of travel. This would constitute the programs for improvement for a long time in the future. Now, that is my answer to your question.

TRAFFIC INCREASES AT GREATER RATE THAN POPULATION

Mr. RIVARD. Mr. Giaimo, I might expand on one item in reference to the problem you brought up on figure 1, with respect to increase of population. Actually in a 15-year period 1950 to 1965 there was approximately 1 million increase in population in the area. We keep continuous traffic counts in the District, both 24-hour and peak hour. In that period of time, it exactly doubled. With 1 million increase in population there was doubling of traffic.

Mr. GIAIMO. In other words, although the population less than doubled itself and increased 1 million, the traffic grew in greater proportion.

Mr. RIVARD. And that is pretty consistent nationwide.

Mr. GIAIMO. Traffic increases at a greater rate than the population increases.

Mr. RIVARD. That is consistent nationwide, such as with our forecast of 1990 for which we are designing the system now and talking about 42 million population or an increase of 2 million. In other words, where the increase of 1 million population in 15 years doubled the traffic, we are looking to designing for twice that amount of population increase and we feel our minimum system has to be built. This is in addition to the subway system.

ESCALATION OF CONSTRUCTION COSTS

Mr. GIAIMO. Now, isn't it a fact from past experience that when we get into these giant Federal public work projects and I think the Corps of Engineers has had a tremendous amount of experience in this that the longer we delay these projects, the escalation cost increases at a greater rate, isn't that so?

Mr. AIRIS. Well, generally I think, yes. It depends of course on general conditions. I tried to show you on an earlier chart about what has been happening here in the way construction costs have been escalating. I think they are factual but must be considered order of magnitude.

Mr. GIAIMO. I have seen testimony concerning other type projects where they indicate escalation costs are certainly in the neighborhood of 5 percent a year, if not more, so we can expect that to happen here. Also, when we plan these projects, are they underestimated in the sense that when they are completed we find out that our estimates were below what the final price is?

Mr. AIRIS. We try to estimate them exactly.

Mr. GIAIMO. I know you do.

Mr. AIRIS. But the common practice is because of later thinking and changes in the system, changes in location, the costs go up. Part of this amount is, of course, just plain escalation of cost and part of it is due to change in design.

STATE OF UNCERTAINTY AFFECTS ENGINEERING PLANNING

Mr. GIAIMO. I just have one other question. In your general statement, on page 3, reference is made to have the request which was forwarded to the Secretary of Transportation over a year ago and as yet no official answer has been received and on page 4 again there seems to be a lack of decision on the part of the Secretary, but all of this, the effect of all of this certainly seems to me to delay and to leave your Department in a state of uncertainty; isn't that so?

Mr. AIRIS. I could say this, sir; it makes engineering planning very difficult and chaotic. We rush ahead and stop and I don't believe any engineering organization can plan and execute work properly when they are faced with these conditions.

CONSULTATION BETWEEN SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION AND

AREA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENTS

Mr. GIAIMO. During the entire period of time stated, neither the Secretary nor his principal aides have consulted with the Highway Departments of Maryland, Virginia, or the District of Columbia, although all are vitally concerned if the Secretary is actually contemplating changes in long-established routes. Can you enlarge on that at all? Have the highway departments of these three jurisdictions made efforts to call this to his attention and try to consult with him? Mr. AIRIS. Well, the Department, of course, is part of the District government and while we have much contact with the local division engineer of the Bureau of Public Roads, the decisions are not made at that level. We understood from the statement made by the Secretary of Transportation at the hearings of last December that he would be in contact with the three highway departments. Now, that has not happened. There has been no direct contact. Now, I know Mr. Fletcher has had some contact. Just what, I am not exactly sure, and that is the best answer I can give to your question unless Mr. Fletcher wants to supplement it.

Mr. GIAIMO. Do you have anything to say, Mr. Fletcher?

Mr. FLETCHER. There have been some contacts I think Mr. Airis is aware of, but no decisions of any kind arrived at. In fact, we were in the middle of one of those meetings and a phone call came from Mr. Airis stating the court ruling, and we stopped the meetings. There have been no meetings since that time. The court decision is what stopped it.

Mr. GIAIMO. Thank you. Mr. Patten, do you have any questions?

HUMAN VALUES

Mr. PATTEN. Yes, but I don't know whether I should bother Mr. Airis about the whole question of how we are growing. My interest in it doesn't start in the District of Columbia. We have similar problems in all of our large cities and we say in the same breath that our cities are becoming decayed. Certainly many people are seriously worried about New York City. We are talking about human values. We are talking about this matter of living. I wonder if a citizen of the District of Columbia was happier and better off in 1940 as a person. I mean by that human values and being able to walk along the street and be able to rent a place to live, whether he was better off in 1940 than he is this

year; whether we should sit here and allow 2 million more people in Metropolitan District of Columbia in my mind is a very serious question; whether we should proceed with more concrete and steel. When you think of people I don't know if it is an improvement. I was raised and lived all my life in a nice one-family house and I come here to Washington in what is the great urban renewal where people lived at low cost. Now, I only have to pay $250 a month for a room I use three night a week and, and I feel like many, that I am living in a cage. Go to my cage on the seventh floor and I am locked in. This is not the kind of living I have always had or neighborliness. I don't even know who lives next door to me and certainly I don't know who lives above me or below me. In fact, I have a tendency to avoid everybody and not get complicated, to be alone. I am happy to go home and really meet my neighbors. I am just wondering if your Department has all these answers. What have you on human values? What kind of city will the District of Columbia be with 5 million people and 10,000 more miles of concrete and steel?

You know, I always objected to using the word "ghetto." If I were a Negro, there would be no ghetto in the District of Columbia for me. That would be a misnomer. A ghetto in my mind is some place where by law you are restricted to live, like the Jews in Warsaw could not live except in a ghetto. You think of a corral. And while you were talking I was thinking of the Chinese Wall and the Berlin wall. I tell you, may not have had a ghetto but as I look at that ring of concrete and an estimate of 42 million people in the metropolitan area by 1990, we may actually have a ghetto. We may be walled in by highways. I am going to vote 100 percent with my chairman. I am convinced as we now live and we now plan, he is right about the transportation needs.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

I know the average person I meet isn't a very happy person. He has commuter problems. He is forced to buy a home he can't afford and he is in debt, and he is a frustrated person. The so-called high-class college graduate I have to work with is a frustrated person.

Now, I am not going to blame the disorders.

When I sit here with this welfare load, reading about the mentally retarded and illegitimate children and all of the social problems, I am wondering of these 2 million people we are going to get, who are they going to be? Are they going to add to the economy? Will they be assets or liabilities?

Yesterday in the agriculture bill we were told only 6 percent of the American people help feed us, in agriculture production, and they claim every year the curve decreases and cities increase.

Now, I know you are an engineer and you don't want to cover all these questions of human values-but I just wonder if in your study of your charts we have something about people, something about the human values, about neighborhoods which we are destroying.

I know the people that came from Europe. They go to a church. They've grown and prospered.

I think in our city we are going backward as far as human values are concerned. As far as happy living goes. Is it our fault?

Now, all this has nothing to do with your budget and I don't want to burden you. Much has been written about this. Much has been said