James Oberstar: “Transportation is a public service. It is a means of moving people and goods in the public interest. And every…”

“Transportation is a public service. It is a means of moving people and goods in the public interest. And every industrialized nation in the world supports, with public funds, their public transportation. Let us not fool ourselves. The freight railroads would like to say, oh, we do not use public funds. But to get the freight railroads started in America, the United States Government gave them land. Every other section of land from the Mississippi River to the West Coast, the Pacific Ocean to build their railroads. Without that land and the rights to the minerals and the lumber on that property, they would not have been able to build these railroads. They are still living off the profitability of the land that they were given in the public interest to serve the public interest. And the same with aviation. Yes, there is a passenger ticket tax that pays for a great deal of our airport improvement program, air traffic control system; but the public funds pay for at least 15 percent of air traffic controllers' costs, pays for the research and development and new ideas in aviation. And our highway and transit system, the passengers do not pay for every mile of road construction or every new bridge construction. A good deal of that comes out of public funds, either at the county, State, or city level. And maritime just as well.…”