The nation's last major privately owned urban-transit line, O. Roy Chalk's 1,099-bus D.C. Transit System, Inc., is about to pass into public ownership. President Nixon late last month signed a bill authorizing the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to acquire deficit-plagued D.C. Transit and three smaller suburban bus companies. W.M.A.T.A., a public agency created in 1967 to plan and develop the capital's proposed $2.98 billion rapid rail transit system, will pay at least $50 million for the package, and will spend a like amount on modernization.
D.C. Transit's demise marks the end of an...
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