Metropolitan Transport

Position Regional Council Took on Recommended Legislation Outlined

The writer of the following letter is Deputy City Administrator, City of New York, and executive secretary, Metropolitan Regional Council.

The New York Times has taken a consistent position in support of closer regional cooperation among the communities in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan area. An excellently written editorial of June 13 analyzed the proposal for a bi-state transit agency, taking issue with the Metropolitan Regional Council, which had opposed the creation of such an agency.

The editorial expressed regret that the council, "founded to promote a common attack" on mutual regional problems, had rejected "the only practical remedy in prospect for dealing with metropolitan rapid transit ills." The action of the Metropolitan Regional Council did not, as the editorial implied, result from a posture of timidity, but rather one of strength.

The members of the council–both Republicans and Democrats, representing a variety of ideological viewpoints–voted unanimously to oppose the specific legislation that had been recommended by the Metropolitan Rapid Transit Commission. They rejected the legislation precisely on the ground that it is neither practical nor a remedy.

Feeling on Issue

At the same time, and unanimously, the council made clear its desire that a powerful regional effort be made to solve our clogging transportation in the area. So strongly did these elected officials feel on the issue that the resolution upon it authorized the council itself to draft a new measure in the event the one then before the New Jersey Legislature should be killed.

The members of the council not only recognized the necessity of better instruments of regional transit, but for the first time jointly accepted the responsibility for pursuing this objective. I submit that this is a substantial step forward in regional cooperation.

Had the legislation been discussed in advance with the elected officials in the area, an accommodation might have been achieved. The objections are not based alone on the financial aspects of the proposed plan, nor entirely on the points so well argued in your editorial. Equally significant in the eyes of the officials is the view that rail transit problems can never be solved separately from automobile traffic. This view is expressed with increasing frequency by transportation engineers and by political scientists cognizant of metropolitan area problems.

The continued fragmentation of traffic from transit, the continued fragmentation of one part of the region from another, the continued chopping-up of the transportation problems into bits and pieces, the continued competition of the various means for bringing people and goods in and around the region–these were the root sources of objection. The officials felt that a step taken now toward congealing the separation of traffic and transit would, in the long run, be disastrous.

Stand of Counties

The point was expressed sharply by the representatives of Westchester and the towns of Fairfield County, Conn. They felt that no set-up should be created which does not include them from the beginning. On the point made in the editorial that "there are good arguments for not making the district bite off too large a chew" at the beginning, the Westchester and Fairfield people argue that funds and transit facilities may be committed to a Jersey transit solution, which would make it difficult to work out proper arrangements later for commuters in the counties to the north of New York City.

Control of the proposed bi-state district would be by counties. Governmentally, this structure has a variety of defects. Several cities indicate they would not accept county domination over transit, particularly when the cities feel inadequately represented on county boards. Inevitably, we shall eventually have in this region a transportation agency.

Opposition of the Metropolitan Regional Council to the specific legislation before the New Jersey Legislature is not a setback. On the contrary, it has enabled officials of the area for the first time to view the problem in its totality and to prepare for acceptance of their responsibilities in dealing with it. And solutions may come more swiftly than would be possible from a legislative proposal containing so many weaknesses.

Maxwell Lehman. New York, June 17, 1958