OCR Text |
Show tion and water utilization programs can then go forward to the greatest regional and national advantage. RECOMMENDATIONS The Commission therefore recommends that: 1. The Nation should continue the improve- ment of its inland and intracoastal waterways to standard depths as an important objective of com- prehensive multiple-purpose basin programs. This part of water resources development should be integrated into a broader program designed to provide the Nation with an economical and efficient coordinated transportation system in- cluding railroads, motor transport, waterways, and airways. In such a coordinated system all forms of transportation should be considered as complementary rather than competitive with each other. 2. Waterway charges should not be considered as yardsticks for railroad rates, but rather as rates for traffic which, in the coordinated transporta- tion system, can move more economically by water than by rail. In order to assure the greatest over-all contribution of the transportation system to the Nation's well-being, railroads should not be permitted to establish discriminatory rates on railroads paralleling waterways. 3. Decisions as to user charges, or tolls, for water commerce should be worked out as part of the whole problem of reconciling and making workable a coordinated transportation system. But with rates for all forms of transportation based on full costs, an interconnected system of modern waterways, coordinated with land trans- portation, should be able to sustain itself with tolls based on full costs and yield returns on the public investment, while contributing to most economic use of the Nation's resources. 217 |