History
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy sent a major transportation message to the U.S. Congress. It called for the establishment of a program of federal capital assistance for mass transportation. Said President Kennedy: "To conserve and enhance values in existing urban areas is essential. But at least as important are steps to promote economic efficiency and livability in areas of future development. Our national welfare therefore requires the provision of good urban transportation, with the properly balanced use of private vehicles and modern mass transport to help shape as well as serve urban growth."
President Lyndon Johnson signed the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 into law, which passed the House by a vote of 212-to-129 and cleared the Senate 52-41, on July 9, 1964, creating the Urban Mass Transportation Administration. The agency was mandated to provide federal assistance for mass transit projects, including the initial $375 million in capital assistance over three years mandated by the act. In 1991, the agency was renamed the Federal Transit Administration.
Read more about this topic: Federal Transit Administration
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)