OCR Text |
Show years been used widely by recreation craft, and in fact such use has been of prime importance in justifying certain coastal harbor and channel im- provements. Likewise there long has been a notable development of recreational boating on the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi. On other inland waterways the physical situation has not in all cases favored small boating. The open channel improvement of the middle and lower Mississippi and Missouri Rivers has im- proved, to some degree, the attractiveness of these waterways to small recreation craft, but develop- ment of small boating on an appreciable scale usually has followed canalization (i. e., dam and reservoir) type improvements. On the Tennessee, where canalization of the main stream has been accomplished by an inter- connected system of high multiple-purpose dams, together with storage dams on the tributaries, public response to the recreation opportunities has been consistently high at both main-stream and tributary projects. User Charges on Waterways Whether user taxes or tolls should be charged for the use of the waterways, to pay for the facil- ities provided at public expense, involves ques- tions of practical feasibility, of political and eco- nomic objectives of water resources and transpor- tation development, of equity between competing carriers, and of regulation of freight rates and transportation services. Waterway improvement has been almost en- tirely publicly financed from general funds. Dur- ing the past few decades, in which there has been a general intensification of the waterway im- provement program, water carriers have handled a gradually increasing proportion of the total ton-mileage handled by all modes of transporta- tion. It is anticipated that this trend will con- tinue. Highway users now pay practically the full burden of development of intercity highways through highway user charges, such as gasoline tax, registration fees, although in the early days of the use of motor vehicles, general taxes paid a large share of the cost. Railroads now provide their own right-of-way and roadbed, but in the early period of their development they were sub- sidized by land and other grants. Similarly, pipe- lines finance their facilities. It would seem rea- sonable to inquire whether public financing of waterway development without assessing water- way user charges is not a contributing factor in the trend toward the continuously increasing pro- portion of the total ton-mileage being handled by the waterways. The traditional policy of the United States and other countries has been to construct and maintain waterway facilities for the free use of the- public. A notable exception is the Panama Canal, where tolls were established to avoid in- ternational complications which might have re- sulted from diverting too much traffic from the privately financed, toll-operated Suez Canal. Advocates of toll-free waterways justify their po- sition on the grounds that the benefits from low- cost transportation are so general and widespread, not only to the direct users but to the whole Nation, that it is desirable to treat the cost as a part of general Government services. Demands for waterway tolls have arisen only since exten- sive river improvements were started after World War I and, up to the present, are being pressed only for the inland waterways other than the Great Lakes, excluding also ocean harbors and channels. For full consideration of tolls, it is necessary to consider waterway user charges not only in the form of controversial "tolls" such as those levied on the "super-highways," but also in the form of fuel or ton-mile taxes, licenses, or other means of taxation. It is, however, a historical fact that Congress intended that the same toll-free policy should ap- ply to the rivers as to other navigable waterways, as is shown, for example, in article 4 of the North- west Ordinance of 1787, which declared: The navigable waterways leading into the Missis- sippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into 211 |