Forty five years later DOT has grown to a $77 billion a year federal bureaucracy; the U.S. has the lowest accident fatality record in history, and the Highway Trust Fund is broke because users won't pay for it.
Over the weekend the U.S. Department of Transportation celebrated its 45 anniversary since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the law that created it by combining 31 agencies and their bureaus into DOT.
“In a large measure, America’s history is a history of her transportation,” Johnson said on October 15, 1966.
“Our early cities were located by deep water harbors and inland waterways; they were nurtured by ocean vessels and by flatboats. The railroad allowed us to move east and west. A thousand towns and more grew up along the railroad’s gleaming rails.
“The automobile stretched out over cities and created suburbia in America. Trucks and modern highways brought bounty to remote regions. Airplanes helped knit our Nation together, and knitted it together with other nations throughout the world,” said Johnson.
Johnson called out three areas DOT should concentrate on:
- To improve the safety in every means of transportation, safety of our automobiles, our trains, our planes, and our ships.
- To bring new technology to every mode of transportation by supporting and promoting research and development; and
- To solve our most pressing transportation problems.
Forty five years later DOT has grown into a $77 billion a year federal bureaucracy, and the U.S. the lowest accident fatality record in history. (See U.S. Budget Deficit Officially at $1.299 Trillion in FY 2011 )
