Start Date
4-1969 8:00 AM
Description
There has been much half-serious talk about its being easier to get to the moon from Washington than it is to get to Boston. This persiflage seldom raises the issue of whether it is as desirable to get to Boston as it is to get to the moon, although even in this new administration the Harvard-MIT traffic in bureaucrats—incoming as well as outgoing— suggests that it is. I would not, however, want to try a benefit cost analysis of the relative social values of the two terminal objectives; i.e., based on bureaucrats versus astronauts. Nor will I suggest that perhaps we might all gain if occasionally they changed places —if the bureaucrats became bureaunauts and the astronauts became astrocrats. I must admit I don't know very much about the problem of getting to the moon, but I do know a little—beyond personal reactions as a traveler—about getting to Boston, and so I shall retreat from further comparisons — envious or invidious —and concentrate on Boston.
As I am sure all of you are generally aware, productivity in long distance passenger transportation has increased phenomenally in the last 10 years. For hauls over 2000 miles, it is on the order of four fold; i.e., we get four times greater results in 1968 than we did in 1958. This increase, of course, results from increases in aircraft size, aircraft speed, mechanical efficiency and so on. The rise in productivity has been without question extraordinary and has given long distance travel a remarkable stimulus. Most of you have forgotten, if you ever knew, what it was like to go across the country in a DC-3.
High Speed Ground Transportation
There has been much half-serious talk about its being easier to get to the moon from Washington than it is to get to Boston. This persiflage seldom raises the issue of whether it is as desirable to get to Boston as it is to get to the moon, although even in this new administration the Harvard-MIT traffic in bureaucrats—incoming as well as outgoing— suggests that it is. I would not, however, want to try a benefit cost analysis of the relative social values of the two terminal objectives; i.e., based on bureaucrats versus astronauts. Nor will I suggest that perhaps we might all gain if occasionally they changed places —if the bureaucrats became bureaunauts and the astronauts became astrocrats. I must admit I don't know very much about the problem of getting to the moon, but I do know a little—beyond personal reactions as a traveler—about getting to Boston, and so I shall retreat from further comparisons — envious or invidious —and concentrate on Boston.
As I am sure all of you are generally aware, productivity in long distance passenger transportation has increased phenomenally in the last 10 years. For hauls over 2000 miles, it is on the order of four fold; i.e., we get four times greater results in 1968 than we did in 1958. This increase, of course, results from increases in aircraft size, aircraft speed, mechanical efficiency and so on. The rise in productivity has been without question extraordinary and has given long distance travel a remarkable stimulus. Most of you have forgotten, if you ever knew, what it was like to go across the country in a DC-3.
Comments
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