The People

A Coherent Transportation System In 1965, transportation represented about 20 percent
of personal consumption expenditures. There were thirty-five agencies with transportation-related
responsibilities, with a cumulative annual budget of more than $5 billion. Many of us in government had talked for years about how to improve the situation.

In 1966, President Johnson revived the idea in his State of the Union address: “I recommend that you help me modernize and streamline the federal government by creating a new cabinet-level
Department of Transportation, [which] is needed to bring together our transportation activities. The
present structure...makes it almost impossible to serve either the growing demands of this great
nation or the needs of the industry, or the right of the taxpayer to full efficiency and real frugality.”