December 17, 1973

Israeli Premier G Meir on Dec 16 says that Israel will not discuss peace settlement with Syria until Syrians turn over list of Israeli POWs and let Red Cross visit them; says this decision does not prevent Israel's participation at conf with Egypt and Jordan

Ital carabinieri on Dec 16 launch hunt for kidnappers of J P Getty 3d, who was released on Dec 15 after 5-mo abduction; he is recovering from nervous exhaustion in private clinic; father, P Getty Jr, vows revenge on abductors; mother, G Harris Getty, says boy was kept blindfolded for most of 5 mos and was forced to sleep face-down for last 2 mos

MTA on Dec 16 says public response to first half-fare Sunday on commuter rrs is 'encouraging'

Census Bur rept shows that only 27% of NYC residents who hold jobs drive cars to work, far smaller percentage than in other major met areas; points out that although city's comparative plenitude of subway, bus and rr facilities for mass transit constitutes great advantage in facing growing energy crisis, large proportion of commuters in outlying counties use auto to reach their jobs; over 80% of commuters from Suffolk and Rockland Counties drive cars to work, while 72% of those in Nassau and 63% in Westchester use autos; in region as whole, where 640,000 cars transport workers to their jobs each day, at least four-fifths carry only driver; rept, taken from study of soc and econ characteristics of commuters on each of 125 met areas in US, covers 5 counties of NYC and 4 nearest suburban counties in NYS; detailed information is not available on NJ or Conn residents who work in NYC; details on travel patterns; MTA Chmn W J Ronan says bur findings point out that mass transit in NYC met area is major asset that many other areas do not have; NYC Budget Dir D A Grossman estimates that subway system can handle 50% increase in riders with little difficulty; subway ridership has been declining over last few yrs; NYC Mayor Lindsay's Emergency Energy Com chmn M Musicus notes that when dept stores and other large employers try to arrange car pools, they find that most of their rank-and-file employes use public transportation to get to and from work; says persons driving to work are not 8-to-5 employes, but managerial and exec group; survey, taken from information in '70 census, finds that public transportation--subway, bus or rr--is used by 56% of workers in NYC and by 47% of those in 9-county met area; Census Bur spokesman R Forstall says survey's data will receive 'very intensive' use by local traffic planners; sketches of 5 NYC boros based on census information; graph compares percentage of workers who use auto to get to work in major US met areas and percentage of workers who remain in their home county; illus

state govts, fearing substantial decline in gasoline tax revenues in '74, are planning to suspend or delay hundreds of million of dollars worth of planned rd projects; if gas consumption dips 5% in '74, minimum projected by most analysts, projected tax loss would be almost $800-million, and a 15% decrease would jolt hwy budgets with tax shortfall of more than $2.3-billion; motorists pay more than $15-billion annually to Fed, state and local govts at gasoline pump, and almost all of it is spent on hwy construction and maintenance; Fed officials said last wk that it is possible that significant decline in hwy travel could undermine debt-repayment schedules of many toll facilities; there is also growing shortage of asphalt (a petroleum product) that could seriously delay hwy bldg