In the field of metropolitan ground transportation, the highway trust fund has provided an effective source of support for metropolitan transportation planning as well as construction. If a national airport's trust fund were to be established, a small portion of this fund could be similarly earmarked for cooperative metropolitan airport system planning as a part of the comprehensive metropolitan planning process.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you see or hear the statement submitted by the National Capital Planning Commission?

Mr. SCHEIBER. I am sorry I was not here this morning to hear it. The CHAIRMAN. In that statement they discuss regional cooperation of airports; that is, airport planning, and then airport operation. I understand that you really have not had the money to do a really comprehensive planning study of air transportation, but have you considered what type, if any, mechanism might be available to really tie in the airports to make certain that they cooperate with each other, such as your Metropolitan Transit Authority here, or say Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission? Have you done any thinking or planning about that?

Mr. SCHEIBER. We are aware of various proposals for special metropolitan aviation agencies and other proposals under which all of the airports in the region might be brought under single ownership and control.

However, to this point we have not yet developed an organizational position on the matter.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you been able to give it much thought or have you not reached that step yet?

Mr. SCHEIBER. I would prefer not to comment on that yet since our board has not had a chance to review that in depth.

The CHAIRMAN. Working out the machinery for cooperation in an effective working relationship between your various airport authorities would be one problem, would it not?

Mr. SCHEIBER. It certainly would since Dulles and National are under Federal control whereas general aviation are under private or local control. We will have to work toward cooperation even under the existing conditions and the ownership and control would have to come later.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the role that Washington National Airport should play in the future of regional air transportation?

Mr. SCHEIBER. In November of 1968 our board of directors endorsed a resolution developed by Delegate Charles Doctor of Montgomery County which has been submitted for the consideration of the Maryland General Assembly.

That resolution indicated our belief that as rapidly as possible flights should be diverted from Washington National so that the present dangerous, overcrowded, and noisy conditions prevailing in and around that airport could be alleviated without delay. We have taken the position that they should be diverted to either Friendship or Dulles, whichever would be most convenient in view of the flight scheduling question. The CHAIRMAN. Do you endorse the regional concept of air transportation in your statement?

Mr. SCHEIBER. Yes; we most certainly do.
The CHAIRMAN. And also airport utilization?

Mr. SCHEIBER. Yes, we do, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Scheiber. We appreciate the effort you have made to be with us.

We will certainly try to help with the possibility of seeing that the FAA cannot come up with some grants, or a funding situation, to help regional cooperative metropolitan planning agencies working in a metropolitan situation. The deeper we get into this hearing, the more I see that is necessary.

Mr. SCHEIBER. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Prof. Dorn C. McGrath, Jr., chairman, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Government and Business Administration, the George Washington University.

We appreciate your trouble in arranging to be with us and in preparing your statement.

We would be delighted to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF DORN C. McGRATH, JR., CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING, SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Mr. McGRATH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It is a privilege to have the opportunity to testify here today. I would like to comment on three aspects of the airports serving Greater Washington: The regional nature of these airports as a system of facilities; the problem of airport access; and the problem of environmental impact implicit in airport planning and operation. It is important to consider these aspects together, because the problems of airport access and environmental impact have important implications for maintaining the viability of the regional airport system.

There can be little doubt as to the importance of the three major airports-Dulles, Friendship, and Washington National-to the Washington metropolitan region and its hinterland. Washington National Airport has been among the busiest commercial airports in the entire country. Flight operations at both Dulles and Friendship Airports have been growing steadily. Operations at the Washington airports, Dulles and National, accounted for the sixth largest volume of enplaned passengers in the United States in 1966. Projected passenger traffic demand for the three-airport system indicates a total of 14,480,000 enplanements, which would rank the Washington-Baltimore system fifth in the Nation by 1975.

Together, the three major airports of the Baltimore-Washington area are a fundamental resource for regional growth and development. They offer the potential for the region to enlarge its already significant role as a burgeoning center for world travel required by the functions of government.

But the two cities have the additional advantage of an airport system with capacity to accommodate its projected growth in aviation more easily than any other east coast metropolitan region. This advantage results from the fact that the Washington-Baltimore region

is served by not one, but two airports which are still relatively free of encroachment from development that might tend to conflict with their future more intensive use.

Scheduled air carrier traffic projections provide a useful indicator of Washington's advantage in this respect. This component of aviation growth is expected to increase by about 160 percent from 1965 to 1980 for the major hubs made up of airports in the Boston, Philadelphia, Washington-Baltimore, and Miami metropolitan areas. In each of these cities, the existing major airports are too small to provide for needed new runways or other facilities, and expansion plans pose major problems of cost and community disruption. In the New York hub, where a 137-percent increase in air carrier operations is expected by 1980, the situation is even more critical, as evidenced by acute air traffic congestion and the unsuccessful attempts over the past decade to establish a fourth jet airport for the New York-New Jersey region. One result of these conditions may be a gradual shifting of business activity dependent upon aviation to the Washington-Baltimore area, where the inexorable buildup of air carrier operations can be handled by the major airports comprising these hubs. The two cities, apart from Washington's obvious importance as the National Capital, occupy a strategic position in the Atlantic megalopolis, and even without the potential pressure of a shift of business activities away from the areas with overburdened air transport systems, the projected growth of airport traffic of the Washington-Baltimore hubs alone will stimulate much new investment.

The economic impact of growth in regional aviation is reflected not only in airport investment, but also in the development of offsite facilities of many kinds and in the creation of new jobs. The regional purchasing power of such jobs can have a major multiplier effect. A study of the importance of aviation to the economy of the New Jersey-New York metropolitan region showed that the primary air transportation industry, which employed about 51,000 people there in 1959, accounted for an annual payroll of more than $340 million. It was estimated that this amount represented only about one-third of the actual revenue derived from aviation activities in that metropolitan region.

The apparent influence of major airports on the value of land in large contiguous areas is another aspect of their regional significance. The trend of land values in suburban areas has been steadily upward under the pressure of growth in most metropolitan areas. The installation of utilities, and especially highways to serve new airports tends to accelerate the rate of appreciation as developers and speculators take advantage of the new accessibility and services provided.

The increase in land value around airports comparable to those of the Washington-Baltimore region has been spectacular in some cases. Land for Chicago's O'Hare Airport was acquired in 1947 at a cost of $400 to $500 per acre, according to airport authorities, but by 1960, an acre of vacant land of the same character cost the city as much as $20,000. Later reports indicate that current land prices in the same area exceed $50,000 an acre. Reported experience at other airports reflects similar escalation.

For example, at San Francisco's International Airport land actually under water available in 1957 for $300 an acre, now commands $60,000

an acre and more. Major airports have influenced surrounding land values generally upward, because of their operational needs for more room or because of the need for nearby land for business and industry oriented to air transportation.

These trends underscore the regional importance of the major airports and suggest the urgent need for immediate local planning to permit advance land acquisition wherever possible for new schools, parks, and other public facilities that new people with new jobs will

need.

PROBLEMS OF AIRPORT ACCESS

A regional airport and the cities it serves should exist in a symbiotic relationship each providing what the other needs. Ground transportation, however, is often where this vital relationship breaks down. It breaks down because of the immense difficulties of keeping a balance between the traffic channel capacity needed to guarantee easy access to the airport for its actual users, and the channels needed to handle regional traffic generated only indirectly by the airport and by the other, more obvious, pressures of city growth. It has become a truism that highways in urban areas fill up almost as soon as they are built. Under these conditions, the highway system can become the Achilles heel for the airport and the city alike.

Nowhere is there more eloquent proof of this problem than in the New York-Washington corridor, where the door-to-door travel time for the experimental high-speed train from Washington to Manhattan is within minutes of the airlines' 500-mile-an-hour jet shuttle service, even without chronic air traffic delays. The airlines are almost helpless to improve their position when faced with the fact that a typical Washington traveler on this route will have to spend 2 of his 3 hours' total time in cars and buses when he tries to fly to New York. It recalls the parable of the race between the tortoise and the hare. Under these conditions, it is not difficult to understand why the Metroliner, which, incidentally, carries the equivalent passenger load of about two typical shuttle service jets between New York and Washington, is already sold out in both directions for 2 to 3 weeks in advance.

Still another example of problematic ground transportation is provided by the Los Angeles International Airport. Studies there revealed that the principal limiting factor on the airport's ability to cope with 1980 traffic would not be parking or runways, or instrument landing systems, or passenger gates, or baggage handling systems, but the ground access system serving the airport site. Present street and freeway capacity can carry only about 40 percent of the total volume of traffic that flight operations will generate. This brings to mind an interesting image of a major airport filling up with people that cannot be hauled away, but for the airport authorities and regional businessmen it is no joke.

It is imperative to plan for the growth of airports and their groundaccess systems simultaneously. A highway development program, prepared to insure the integrity of ground access to an airport is always vulnerable, and to the degree that it is, so is the airport system of any metropolitan region. Oddly enough, the cities and towns through which the regional highway network spreads, and for which it is built, can

become its worst threat. This is because of the fact that highway traffic is intrinsically a function of land use, over which localities exercise principal control. The linkage between urban land use and traffic is crucial, especially in the Washington metropolitan area, where employees are entirely dependent on automotive transport of their journey to work.

It is important to recognize that the municipalities which have the power to control the intensity of land use and development through zoning and other regulations, also have the capability to cause and to prevent critical traffic overloads in key sections of the regional highway system on which airport access depends. Encouraging new development in the absence of clear plans and rigorous commitments, at both State and local levels, to deal with the highway traffic component of the land use change is the surest way to cancel the "airport access insurance" that the highway plans and programs of the WashingtonBaltimore region to seek to provide.

PROBLEMS OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

The advent of the jet engine in commercial air transportation only a decade ago ushered in a new era of airport planning. Unfortunately, few cities and airports were willing to recognize this openly until 5 or 6 years later. The result has been nothing less than environmental blight for very large populated areas because of severe aircraft noise exposure. This has resulted, in turn, in the imposition of operational restrictions on air carriers in some areas, substantial public expense to remedy intolerable community noise conditions in others, and a considerable amount of frustration, litigation and political difficulty for the aviation industry, including airport operators.

Aircraft noise presents both a problem and an opportunity for the growth of aviation in the Washington-Baltimore region. The problem is obvious in the immediate environs and some flight paths for Washington National Airport, where the increasing intensity of flight operations imposes a growing burden of noise exposure on houses, schools, and some outdoor and indoor entertainment activities. The community noise exposure problem associated with Washington National Airport has resulted already in the introduction of some flight restrictions and special operating procedures for aircraft using the airport. Functionally, the airport and many of its neighbors appear to have reached an uneasy accommodation on the matter of noise. However, trends in the growth of aviation, including the introduction of regular regional helicopter service, and the intensifying pattern of development in the vicinity of National Airport, suggest that the noise problem will persist.

The Washington National Airport noise problem can be controlled by keeping limits on the number and types of aircraft using the airport, and on their operating schedules until really quieter aircraft are in use. It can be relieved, also, by setting some limits on residential and other noise-sensitive development on land in exposed areas. Such limits represent compromise-compromise with local development objectives for vacant land, and compromise with maximum design capacity of the airport. A substantial compromise with residential peace and quiet