APTA President William Millar Statement to the Senate
Committee on Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs
January 18, 2007
Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on the security and safety of public transportation systems. We appreciate your interest in public transportation security, and we look forward to working with you.
ABOUT APTA
The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is a nonprofit international association of more than 1,500 public and private member organizations including transit systems and commuter rail operators; planning, design, construction, and finance firms; product and service providers; academic institutions; transit associations and state departments of transportation. APTA members serve the public interest by providing safe, efficient, and economical transit services and products. More than ninety percent of the people using public transportation in the United States and Canada are served by APTA member systems.
Mr. Chairman, public transportation is one of the nation's critical infrastructures. We cannot overemphasize the critical importance of the service we provide in communities throughout the country. Americans take more than 9.7 billion transit trips each year. People use public transportation vehicles over 33 million each weekday. This is more than sixteen times the number of daily boardings on the nation's domestic airlines.
In particular, we want to recognize and thank this committee for its leadership in advancing legislation that enhances the federal role in protecting transit users against terrorism. The Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee has unanimously approved transit security bills in each of the last two Congresses, both of which also passed the Senate unanimously, and its leadership led the successful effort in the Senate to amend the port security bill last year to include a transit security authorization. We appreciate the committee's decision to make transit security a priority in the new Congress, and the work you have done with the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and other committees with jurisdiction over homeland security.