By BILL MILLER
Associate professor and director of the
Public Affairs Reporting Program at
Sangamon State University, he was a
reporter for 25 years and received over
20 Associated Press News Awards and the
national Edward R. Murrow Award for
investigative reporting.
Langhorne Bond
Illinois Secretary of
Transportation Langhorne
Bond administers the largest
code department in the state
and the largest highway
program in the nation. He
doubts that either Mike
Hewlett or Jim Thompson
would retain him In his
present post
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LANGHORNE BOND would much
rather spend his time racing a sports car
than sitting in the gallery of the Illinois
House of Representatives sweating out
legislative approval of the state Department of Transportation (DOT) budget.
But that is where the transportation
secretary usually finds himself during
the waning hours of each legislative
session. Those in the Illinois General
Assembly who have life and death power over key bills normally hold the transportation budget bill hostage until the
very last moment while legislators
barter with Bond over money for
highways in their districts.
In a wide ranging interview. Bond
conceded there is much "wheeling and
dealing" during those final hours. He also —
• doubts that Mike Hewlett or Jim
Thompson would retain him in his present post.
• wants no part of the federal bureaucracy in Washington.
• thinks railroads in the state are
heading for real trouble.
• agrees that public enthusiasm is
dimming for building more supplemental freeways.
• thinks that the 55 mile per hour
speed limit is unrealistic for Illinois highways.
Bond, 38, became secretary of the Illinois Department of Transportation
in March 1973, after serving as director
of the National Transportation Center
in Pittsburgh, Pa. Prior to that, he
served for two years as undersecretary
of commerce for transportation in the
U.S. Department of Commerce, where
he helped draft and push enactment of
legislation establishing the U.S. Department of Transportation.
For his $42,000 annual salary, Bond
administers the largest code department
in Illinois government with an annual
budget for fiscal year 1976 of $2.5 billion. Many of the nearly 8,000
employees are housed in a $12 million
building southeast of Springfield,
described as an "architect's dream,"
with an adjoining fish-stocked lake,
shaped in the form of the State of Illinois.
As president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Bond is the national
spokesman for counterparts from other
states. The Washington Monthly, in a
recent article listing "State Government
All-Stars," cited Bond as the "all-star"
among state transportation commissioners. Noting that Bond runs the
largest highway program in the country,
the magazine said, "Anyone with that
kind of power in that state must know
how to play. politics, and Bond does.
One of Bond's strengths is his understanding of federal programs."
Bond says Gov. Dan Walker has not
interfered in his administration of the
transportation department. "I have a
debt to Gov. Walker and I acknowledge
it for his tolerance of letting us do what
is right out here," he said. Bond also
praised the General Assembly for "not
having interfered with us either."
The following interview was made in
Bond's office on April 28:
Q: What sort of roadblocks has the
federal government thrown up to hamper road construction in Illinois?
A: Some of the problems we deal with
affect highway construction and also
any other public works project we may
undertake, such as airports, waterways,
railroads, and mass transit, to some
extent. One of them is lack of funding.
We don't have enough money for what
we think are the appropriate needs of
the State of Illinois, even given the size
of the Illinois highway program, which
is the largest in the country. We're still short.
Now, for example, the federal Environmental
September 1976 / Illinois Issues / 11
'I just don't see . . . how
our railroads can continue
to operate for many, many
more years in a solvent way
under private enterprise'
Protection Act, with which I
have no basic quarrel, gives an enormous lead time to construction projects.
One of my concerns is that the various
federal enactments — guidelines, regulations, and so on — apply to projects of
major scope, which I would fully agree
do have significant environmental
impact. Apparently the federal rules will
also apply to lesser projects which I
think do not have a significant impact
on the environment. But, everything is
delayed.
A second corollary on that is that I
think the "feds" tend to "over-proceduralize" almost everything. The guidelines that are published by various
agencies seem to me to go beyond what I
would call a tough-minded, limited
construction of the federal statute. For
example, the environmental impact
statements that we have to write for a
major project (and many minor projects) have to be reviewed in Washington
by, I am told, more than 100 agencies
and bureaus. None of the people who
look at them have seen the project
eyeball-to-eyeball. It is the nature of the
bureaucracy to think of something to
write down — a comment, a complaint,
a little change — and when you put them
all together in a package, you wonder
what the purpose of it all is. People are
protecting their own little claim to
existence by writing comments on all
these things. I really think the way the
system works now, in relation to
Washington, is anti-democratic. It is not
congruent with what I think the framers
of the U.S. Constitution had in mind.
Q: If you wanted to build a highway in
Illinois, say through a rural area, how
long would it take to get it under
construction?
A: There's no ironclad rule on it. The
average is from seven and one-half to
ten years from the time you start
planning a project until the time you can award a contract. But, that's the average
period. If there's a lawsuit and you get
tied up in court, if you have to go back
and do it all over again, it takes even
longer.
Supplemental freeways
Q: When the supplemental freeway
system was adopted back in the mid-1960's, it was supposedly designed to
allow any Illinois resident to travel no
more than 30 miles to reach convenient highway to drive to any city with a
population over 25,000. How close are
we to that goal and when will we reach
it?
A: We're a long way from it, and
furthermore, the realities of cost and
financing have intruded on the original
supplemental freeway plan. The Transportation Study Commission, which
originally created the supplemental
freeway program, is taking a hard
second look at it. They know there isn't
enough money, and also public opinion
is far from unanimous today in thinking
that a freeway is such a good idea. The
environmental problems are obvious.
There's a hard economic argument
about taking farmland, which is worth
an enormous amount of money today
and which will be supplying the world
food for years to come. So, all these
problems have caused people to look
again at the supplemental freeway
program.
Q: Including Langhorne Bond?
A: Yes, of course, as well as the
[Transportation] Study Commission
and the General Assembly. There are a
good many members of the General
Assembly who are opposed to building
supplemental freeways in their districts,
and there are some who are in favor of
them. Opinion is now divided. But, 10
years ago when this was all brought up,
there was unanimity that it was a good
idea. That is certainly not true now.
Q: Gas tax revenues are not increasing substantially because of the increased use of smaller, high-gas-mileage
cars. Do you have any figures on this
and how it will affect road building in
the future?
A: It can't be good. The trends are
nothing like the optimistic predictions
of growth of 10 years ago. However, we
had only a slight decline during the peak
of the energy crisis. Now we are back on
the uptake, at about half the rate of
growth that we had before. Maybe two
per cent or so is our growth rate now; we
were two or three times that some years
ago. I notice somewhat to my dismay
that there is an increasing tendency to
buy larger automobiles, instead of going
to more fuel-economical vehicles, and I
personally would like to see a continuation of the improvements in the road
system but a reduction in gas mileage in
cars. I think this is a good step for the
country to take even if it erodes our
revenues.
55 m.p.h. speed limit
Q: Do you feel, in view of our modern
highway system, that a 55 mile per hour
speed limit is realistic in Illinois?
A: My personal view is that I don't
like it very much. I speak as an employee
in a state that has a lot of flat, straight
roads. I think that what is appropriate
for the states of New York or New
Hampshire or some other eastern state
with shorter distances to travel is very
questionable for us out here where the
land is flat and where the distances are
long. I have personally had great
reservations about claims to safety
made for the 55 mile per hour speed
limit on the interstate system, but there
is no denying the fact that it does save
fuel. You know, we spent an awful lot of
money in Illinois on the freeway plan
and propose to spend a lot more to
enable people to travel at 70 or more
miles per hour. If we are restricted to 55
miles per hour and you can go that fast
on an existing two-lane road with little
delay — then all of our calculations
about consumer benefits, time saving,
and so on, are ruined, and we have probably over-invested an enormous amount
of money in high-design roads. The
roads were designed for more than 70
miles per hour. You could travel 80 or 90
miles per hour and still have geometric
soundness. That is also something the
[Transportation] Study Commission is
going to have to think about when they consider further freeway construction.
12 / September 1976 / Illinois Issues
Q: Some critics question whether the
public really favors spending all the
money we do on mass transit systems. What are your views?
A: Public transportation is vital to
Illinois and to other states. 1 think it is as
much a need in an urban area as a good
road system is in a rural area, because
that is the only way people can get
around, especially at peak hours and if a
family is not rich enough to own several
automobiles. But the cost is going up at
a greater rate than anyone anticipated.
The RTA [Regional Transportation
Authority] problem in Chicago, for
example, is vexatious. Really, it is a
wage matter. Eighty to 85 per cent of the
cost of any given transit system in any
city of the United States is for labor, and
wages have certainly gone up at a rate
faster than anyone anticipated. Nationwide, I feel there is some resistance to an
unchecked increase in the cost of
operating transit systems, which is to
say, to the cost of labor settlements.
Q: Illinois is considered the second
largest railroad state in the country.
What do you see happening to railroads
in the state?
A: The long-run outlook for railroads
in Illinois, under the present free
enterprise system is very cloudy — even
negative. In the eastern states the Penn
Central system was the first to collapse,
and this had some impact on Illinois
because we are at the very western edge
of the Penn Central system. There are
other railroads in Illinois that are on
equally shaky financial ground. My
personal view is that it is only a matter of
time before some crisis hits them. At
least three roads in Illinois — the
Northwestern, the Milwaukee Road
and Illinois Central Gulf — suffered
heavy losses during the first quarter of
calendar year 1975 when the economy
was down, automobile shipments were
down and operating costs were up. I just
don't see, given the problems the
railroad industry has in general, how
our railroads can continue to operate
for many, many more years in a solvent
way under private enterprise. The
Congress has got to do something to
solve the problem. The state government can hardly do anything. It is a
national problem.
Q: Do you relish sitting up in the
gallery of the Illinois House or Senate in
the 11th hour of legislative sessions
sweating out approval of the Transportation Department budget?
A: There are a lot of other things I'd
rather do than sit over there and wonder
how it's going to go, but I'm not made of
porcelain china, and if I didn't want to
do that sort of thing, I'd do something else in life.
Q: That's the time for wheeling and
dealing, isn't it? Some lawmakers want
to get certain things out of you. Do you engage in that?
A: Of course. How would you deal
with the General Assembly otherwise?
Members are both advocates for their
districts and for Illinois, and as a general
rule, they are not obligated to love
appointed bureaucrats like myself. But,
they have their right not to love appointed bureaucrats, and they have
every right to question me on what I do.
The future
Q: If Jim Thompson or Mike Howlett, when elected, asked you to stay on, would you?
A: 1 don't know who is going to be the next governor, and I don't know what
their intentions are. But, I think there is
every reason to think either one of those
men would want to appoint his own
secretary of transportation and other
heads of cabinet agencies as well. That is
the democratic way. They are entitled to that.
Q: Assuming you are not reappointed, what is in the future for Langhorne Bond?
A: I don't know what the next step is.
I haven't given it a great deal of specific
thought because there is a lot of time left
here, and I have no intention of leaving
early. In general, I have never done
anything that has been more rewarding
than working in state government. I
used to work in the federal government,
so I have seen both. We in state
government are far more flexible than
the "feds" are. We can make decisions
and they are carried out. The problem
with the federal government, in my
judgment, is not so much precipitous
and high-handed action as the inability
to take any action. Everything is tied up
for interminable lengths. Local and
state government is flexible, more
politically astute, and I mean that in a
complimentary way. It is more attuned
to the people's wishes. I personally
would prefer to do something like that
again because it is such fun and so
fulfilling. Going back to Washington
holds no great attraction for me.
September 1976 / Illinois Issues / 13