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96     HELICOPTER AIR SERVICE PROGRAM

common. Any high school principal will tell you of the problem he has controlling the parking not only of his teachers' cars but also those of his pupils. 

The United States now has a population of about 190 million. By 1970, according to Census Bureau projections, it will be 209 million. By 1975, 226 million. Most of this population growth will occur in metropolitan areas located along the Atlantic coast from New England to Florida, on the Pacific coast, and in States bordering the Great Lakes and in the Southwest. 

The growing Los Angeles region will pick up more than 1.3 million new residents in the next 5 years and more than 3.5 million new inhabitants by 1980. Another 1.2 million people will be wrapped around New York by 1970 and an additional 2.7 million between now and 1980. The Chicago metropolitan area will gain a half-million residents in 5 years and 1.3 million in the next decade. 

Right now, for example, 7 million people live in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The western sector of this metropolitan area has a population of 923,000. This is more than Baltimore. The San Fernando Valley has a larger population than Houston. Orange County has more people than Cleveland; the Pomona Valley, more than Newark. 

If this problem of transportation in urban areas is not to become a major brake on the productivity of our cities, imaginative solutions must be found. Many solutions are being considered and many will be needed. 

We have built expensive highways. We will have to build more. But land for highways in urban areas is becoming increasingly scarce. And when this land is available, its acquisition is becoming prohibitively expensive. Combined land acquisition and construction costs of highways in some urban areas now runs as high as $50 million a mile. 

The helicopter, of course, has a flexibility which none of the other forms of transportation operating on the surface can provide. It can follow in its services the movements of the population over the years. and it is not necessary to tear up tracks or tear up highways in order to permit the helicopter to meet the transportation requirements of the community wherever they turn out to be. 

We will have to apply a whole new kit of transport tools. This might well include the high-speed railbed such as is proposed for the Northeast Corridor from Boston to Washington, even at a final cost of from $2 to $4 billion. We are also talking of multimillion dollar monorails and new subway systems. 

In considering this complex picture, Congress wisely thought of the possibility of developing an economically self-sufficient device for jumping over the tangled ground transportation problem, not only for passengers, but for small mail and cargo. 

The technology to make this possible has been with us for some time in the helicopter. The last three Presidents of the United States have made extensive use of helicopters to avoid ground transportation tangles. The device is practical, safe, and does the job. 

Today in New York, a passenger can fly by scheduled helicopter to Kennedy Airport in 8 minutes instead of taking up to an hour in heavy traffic. Soon a new heliport will open on the Pan Am Building