Transportation

Urban problems cannot be separated from transportation problems. Whether tying communities together, connecting one community to another or linking our cities and towns to rural areas, good transportation is essential to the social and economic life of any community. It joins workers to jobs; makes commercial activity both possible and profitable and provides the means for expanding personal horizons and promoting community cultural life.

Today, however, the automobile is the principal form of transportation in urban areas. The private automobile has made a major contribution to economic growth and prosperity in this century. But now we must have better balanced transportation—more of it public. Today, 15 times as much federal aid goes to highways as to mass transit; tomorrow this must change. At the same time, it is important to preserve and improve transportation in America’s rural areas, to end the crisis in rural mobility.

The Democratic Party pledges:

To create a single Transportation Trust Fund, to replace the Highway Trust Fund, with such additional funds as necessary to meet our transportation crisis substantially from federal resources. This fund will allocate monies for capital projects on a regional basis, permitting each region to determine its own needs under guidelines that will ensure a balanced transportation system and adequate funding of mass transit facilities.

Moreover, we will:

Assist local transit systems to meet their capital operating needs;

End the deterioration of rail and rural transportation and promote a flexible rural transportation system based on local, state and regional needs;

Take steps to meet the particular transportation problems of the elderly, the handicapped and others with special needs; and

Assist development of airport terminals, facilities and access to them, with due regard to impact on environment and community.