Remarks Upon Signing Proclamation 3834 "National Defense Transportation Day and National Transportation Week, 1968."

Secretary Boyd, Chairman Staggers, and ladies and gentlemen:

I want to thank you for coming here this morning to be present as we proclaim the week of May 12 as National Transportation Week. We have designated Friday, May 17, as National Transportation Day.

The men and women who work in our transportation industry, we think, are richly deserving of this very small tribute that we want to pay them.

In times of peace, they have labored as the builders of this Nation. Their early network of canals and rivers was really the web of union that made this one nation. Later, it was the railroads, the roads, the highways and, finally, the airplane which enabled this Nation to move forward to greatness.

In times of war, the muscle and the initiative of our transportation industry has assured the quick and the full mobilization of America's defense resources.

These achievements give me confidence that we will always meet our transportation challenges, both the challenges of today and of tomorrow.

By 1985 we will have 75 million more people in this country who need transportation. We can estimate the average American will be traveling half again as many miles as he travels now. The problems he faces today are already severe problems. The traffic jam, the crowded airport have become far too common and too painful an experience for too many Americans. So it is going to take the combined efforts of all of us, particularly of government--Federal and local-as well as our private transportation industry to attempt to reverse this trend.

Fast, safe, and efficient transportation is indispensable to our future growth and to the security of our Nation, and indispensable to the safety of our citizens as well. We can grow only as much, and only as fast, as our transportation network permits us to grow.

We are trying to recognize these challenges and to face up to them. A year ago, with the cooperation of the Congress, we established a new Department of Transportation. For the first time now, we have a single department that is charged with creating a well planned, well coordinated, and truly national transportation system. Already, this Department has begun to strengthen the private and public partnership in the field of transportation. That partnership must continue to prosper if America is to continue its growth, continue to move more goods and more people across this great continent.

So, as we look back to mark the achievements of our dynamic transportation industry, we also look forward to its future triumphs. We look forward to the leadership of this very outstanding man of excellence who heads this Department--Alan Boyd. He has established himself as a proven executive, and one of our most valuable public servants. So I hope that all who serve in transportation--those in management, those in labor, and those in the various branches of government--will lift their eyes today to the new horizons and the new achievements that wait ahead.

Let us all resolve to make the next decade in transportation as creative and as inspiring as any in the long and magnificent history of this great industry.

Thank you very much.