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The total of U.S. cars is now 62 million, and it is growing faster than the population. Billions of dollars are being spent to build new roads and expressways that sometimes cost up to $30 million a mile. Los Angeles has spent $800 million in the last decade, Detroit $76.8 million since 1955, and Boston $125 million for a three-mile central artery. For every acre of floor space constructed, suburban plants now need two acres of space for their commuting workers' cars. Some cities, notably Los Angeles and Detroit, devote up to two-thirds of their downtown areas to streets and parking areas.
"What a Waste." Despite the auto's onward rush, the core of the commuter problem is still the railroads, the most efficient of the facilities for moving people in and out of big cities. A double-track commuter line can carry five times as many people per hour as a four-lane superhighway. To build enough highways for the 30,000 commuters who travel into Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania Railroad would cost $611 million. If everyone who now rides the trains into New York decided to drive, a third of Manhattan would be needed just for parking space. The auto is an inefficient commuter tool, carries only an average 1.7 commuters. Soviet Premier Khrushchev, inspecting crowded San Francisco highways, exclaimed what every American knows: "What a waste." But if commuters need the railroads, most railroad men are sure that they can do without the commuter. Well over half of the 360 million people who ride trains each year are commuters, yet they contribute only 20% of all passenger fares. Railroad men complain that for every $1 they get from the commuter, the road must spend up to $1.50 just to keep him moving. Many commuters are convinced that the bookkeeping is tricky, that the roads charge too big a share of passenger expenses to them. But the roads only conform to Interstate Commerce Commission bookkeeping regulations. The New Haven claims it lost $8,400,000 on New York commuters last year. The New York Central lost $4,500,000 on commuters, the Pennsylvania $10 million, the Southern Pacific $1,000,000, the Milwaukee $320,000.
Railroads try to face up to the problem in different ways. On some, where the passenger is a small part of traffic, the management goes along with the loss; it can make it up in freight profits. But on a few roads such as the New Haven, where passenger revenue makes up 47% of the total, freight income is not enough.
Largely because of its commuter deficit, the New Haven lost $4.3 million in 1958, another $10 million in 1959. As a result, President Alpert frankly admits that the road has gone steadily downhill. Service has deteriorated: cars are often dirty, broken seats go unrepaired, and commuters joke that management plays a game called "hide the locomotive," as they wait in the station for an engine to pull the train out.