Transportation is one of the major fields for both public and private
investment. Our facilities for transportation and communication must be
constantly improved to serve better the convenience of the public and to
facilitate the sound growth and development of the whole economy.
Federal capital outlays for transportation facilities are expected to
approximate 519 million dollars in the fiscal year 1947. State and local
governments may spend 400 million dollars. Private investment, over half of
it by railways, may approach 1,150 million dollars.
The Congress has already taken steps for the resumption of work on
improvement of rivers and harbors and on the construction of new
Federal-aid highways. Much needed work on airports can begin when the
Congress enacts legislation now in conference between the two Houses.
The Federal expenditure estimates for the fiscal year 1947 include 53
million dollars for new construction in rivers, harbors, and the Panama
Canal and 291 million dollars for highways and grade-crossing elimination,
assuming that the States expend some 275 million dollars on the Federal-aid
system. Additional expenditures for highways totaling 36 million dollars
are anticipated by the forest Service, National Park Service, and the
Territory of Alaska. Civil airways and airports will involve expenditures
of 35 million dollars under existing authority. Additional Federal
expenditures exceeding 20 million dollars (to be matched by States and
municipalities) may be made during the fiscal year 1947 under the airport
legislation now in conference between the two Houses of the Congress.
The United States now controls almost two-thirds of the world's merchant
shipping, most of it Government-owned, compared with little more than
one-seventh of the world's tonnage in 1939. This places a heavy
responsibility upon the Nation to provide for speedy and efficient world
commerce as a contribution to general economic recovery.
The estimates for the United States Maritime Commission and War Shipping
Administration provide for the transition of shipping operation from a war
to a peace basis; the sale, chartering, or lay-up of much of the war-built
fleet; and for a program of ship construction of some 84 million dollars in
the fiscal year 1947 to round out the merchant fleet for peacetime use.
Federal aids, subsidies, and regulatory controls for transportation should
follow the general principle of benefiting the national economy as a whole.
They should seek to improve the transportation system and increase its
efficiency with resulting lower rates and superior service. Differential
treatment which benefits one type of transportation to the detriment of
another should be avoided save when it is demonstrated clearly to be in the
public interest.