Word: transition
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Unfortunately, squabbling among local communities slows the selection process. Since most rapid transit authorities encompass at least two and sometimes as many as eight city and county governments, new plans tend to become ensnarled in local rivalries and prejudices. Virginia Governor John Dalton has just sidetracked a planned 1% sales tax in the state's northern counties that would have helped support the Washington Metro underground-and-elevated rail system. Detroit's plan for a southeastern Michigan transit system is being blocked by opposition from adjoining towns whose leaders say that they must pay more than a fair...
Still, some heartening progress is taking place. Baltimore is digging its first subway, an eight-mile system scheduled to open in late 1982. In April, Buffalo began construction of a 6.5-mile subway and elevated transit system, which is expected to be completed in 1984. Last month Miami broke ground for a 20.5-mile elevated rail system that will run north-south through the city. Late last month Atlanta put into operation the first 6.7-mile segment of MARIA (for Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority). In the next two years, 13.7 miles of the proposed 53-mile subway-and-elevated...
...worry in Atlanta: What happens next? So far, the city has received more federal cash per capita for transit construction than any other U.S. urban area, but UMTA has not made any substantial commitments for funds after 1981. MARTA'S advocates are especially fearful, since the Federal Highway Administration plans to widen the expressways next to one main route of the proposed MARTA line. Unless MARTA can grow into a full-fledged network of interlocking routes, it will end up an uneconomic and inconvenient half measure that hould not have been started in the first place...
...nation's two other relatively new subway-and-elevated train systems are having mixed results. Ridership has purted 15% in the past year on San Francisco-Oakland's seven-year-old BART system (for Bay Area Rapid Transit), but it las been able to handle the crowds efficiently. Washington's newer Metro has coped as best it could but still has too few cars to accommodate the mobs. Even before they leave the first station, trains often have standing room only. Metro also is ridden with bugs: brake defects have forced cars to be withdrawn from service...
...benefits from a rebirth of mass transit would be great. Daily, the U.S. would save hundreds of thousands of barrels of petroleum. Equally important, the cities would be unclogged, and the environment would be freed from the soot and hoots of millions of autos crawling slowly to destinations that mass transit could reach more speedily and economically...