Viewing page 220 of 507

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Helicopter Air Service Program    211

This committee has heard instructive and eloquent testimony, from the chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Board and from others, on behalf of this course. 

You have heard of the advances in technology and in experience that have enabled the carriers to increase their revenues sharply while lowering their costs as well. And you have seen the projections indicating that subsidies will be necessary after 1970. 

To this I would add only two points. The first relates specifically to New York Airways, which serves the Greater New York area--airports such as La Guardia, John F. Kennedy, and Newark; towns as far separated as Teterboro, New Jersey, Bridgeport, Connecticut, White Plaines, New York, and Rockville Center, Long Island--and the metropolis of New York City itself. 

In the New York metropolitan area alone live 14 million people. And though they occupy a relatively small place--considering that they exceed in number all but two of the States--they are hours apart in travel time. 

To get from Manhattan to Kennedy Airport for a 6-hour flight to Los Angeles often take more than an hour; at rush hour, when businessmen are finished with their day's dealings, it may take that long to get to La Guardia, which is well within the city limits. 

New York depends on commerce, and commerce relies heavily on air transportation. In a very real sense, New York's future depends on its accessibility to and from airports. 

Helicopters can take a businessman from the center of town to his plane in 7 minutes. No other available form of transportation comes close to this performance.

The second point I offer is that the results of these experimental helicopter programs will be of great benefit to other cities; to the air transportation industry in general; and to the national interest. 

The problems which now confront New York City, and the other cities in question here, will soon confront many others. In the next 40 years, the urban population of the United States will double.

This increase is bound to affect surface travel time--which means that we may produce a supersonic airliner only to find that it takes more time to get from the city to the airport than the aircraft spends in the air. 

Indeed, this is already the case between New York and Cleveland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Washington. 

Air transportation, as this committee knows, has made great contributions to the development of American industry and trade--able to locate near raw materials, labor, and markets, yet remain in touch with the financial, legal, and commercial centers of the great cities. 

Many states which have acquired new industry have done so because it was possible to fly to New York, or Los Angeles, or Chicago, and return in a day's time. If the urban transport picture gets worse, however, only helicopters offer the possibility of continuing this development. 

Finally, I would stress how little is asked here. The total expenditure over the next five years would be 13.4 million dollars. In many cases, a few miles of road built under the Federal highway program have cost that much. We have spend $27 million on Dulles