![]() ![]() (Roads were unique among transportation modes in that the Constitution also grants Congress the power to “establish Post Offices and post Roads” which was a factor in the development of the road program.) For most of American history, the federal government’s role in transportation was viewed as a subset of Congress’s authority under the Constitution “to regulate Commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states…” (A good summary of the development of Commerce Clause jurisprudence can be found in the Law Library of Congress annotated Constitution starting on page 176.) That power to regulate went along with a separate power to spend money “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.” In 1916, when debating the first federal-aid roads bill, legislators could not agree whether or not federal aid for good roads was justified under the Commerce Clause, but they did agree that Congress did have the power to write checks to states, which is why the highway program is federal “aid” (reimbursements to states for programs run almost entirely by states) instead of a more direct federal program. The question of whether mass transit is primarily about transportation or is instead primarily about urban and community development has been around since the very beginning of the federal role in mass transit, and the answer that a person gives to that question today often determines what types of mass transit they think should be funded. ![]() Although UMTA was “transportation,” I believe mass transit funding could have been utilized by HUD to enhance and support their other development programs. Though I thought this was the right decision at the time, I now think it was a mistake. The ultimate, Solomon-like decision was to put it with Housing and Urban Development temporarily, until it could move to a new Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA) to be created within the DOT. Our task force, along with the White House and the Bureau of the Budget all engaged in the debate. There were valid arguments for either placing it in the Department of Transportation or letting it remain in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. One thorny issue, however, was what to do with urban mass transit. Many decisions about what to include in the Department were fairly straightforward. In his memoirs, published later that year (buy a copy!), Boyd expounded on this further: ” (The whole interview is here – part 1, part 2, part 3.) But I think it would have been more successful. I think it is so critical to housing, in retrospect, I didn’t think about it at the moment, you gotta have it, it’s transportation, period. Boyd about the decision as to whether or not mass transit was more about transportation than it was about urban development, he responded “we won with it, but in retrospect, I think it was probably the wrong decision. It was, therefore, quite a surprise when in part 3 of our interview, when I asked Sec. He then shepherded the bill creating DOT through Congress. Boyd was not just the first SecDOT – immediately prior to that, he was Under Secretary of Commerce for Transportation, and in that role, he ran the Johnson Administration’s task force that recommended creating a DOT. I started thinking about this issue two years ago, when Alan Pisarski and I were lucky enough to get the opportunity to interview Alan Boyd, the first Secretary of Transportation, in conjunction with the USDOT 50 th anniversary celebrations. (The reorganization plan that made the move took effect on June 30, 1968). Tomorrow marks the 50 th anniversary of the decision to move federal support for mass transit out of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where it began, and into the Department of Transportation, which marked the official switch from thinking of mass transit as primarily an urban affairs program to thinking of it primarily as transportation. The primary purpose, or function, of a government program is used to assign that program its place in the overall budget ( functional classification – done in the federal budget at the budget account level) and is often used to determine in what federal department or agency the program should be housed (and which set of Congressional committees have primary oversight of the program). Every federal program has had the following question asked about it at least once: “What is the primary purpose of this program?” ![]() The question sounds flippant, but from the perspective of the federal role in funding mass transit, the question is crucial. ![]()
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