Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-03-27
RAPID TRANSIT fN NEW YORK

New York city is confronted with the serious need of a more rapid system of transit, and it is now the chief matter occupying the public mind. Every resi- dent of the city has an interest in the subject, and it would be very difficult to find ore tlat is accustomed to pay any attention to public questions who has not given consideration to the matter. On the correct solution of the rapid transit problem depends largely the fu- ture of the metropolis.
 The steady increase of population nec- essarily involves an equivalent extension of the area of the inhabited portions of the municipality far beyond the limits of what it has been wont to regard, and what must continue to be, for many years to come, the business centers and hence large numbers of the citizens must be compelled to reside at long dis tances from their places of business For them it is a very important problem how they can most speedily and safely get from their homes to their business | centers and back again. The street sur face railways have long ago proved their inadequacy to provide for this social need and the elevated roads, to which, under the pressure of urgent want, the most valuable franchises were con ceded without any adequate return to the taxpayers have already demonstrated that, while they may avail for a little while, they are only a makeshift after all, and that the city is as far as ever from permanent and effective system of rapid transit that will be sufficient for the passenger and business traffic and will keep pace with the growth of the city. Nor is it likely that the schemes proposed by Jay Gould, if they were allowed to hatch by watchful Mayor Grant, would be equal to the exigencies of the situation. The mayor himself, | who as a native of New York and iden- l tified with its interests, not less than as the chief magistrate of the city, has given the matter the fullest consideration, has shown by his action that he is fully alive to the necessity of providing such a sys- tenn without delay. In his recommenda- tion of a commission with power, in which the citizens of New York shall be adequately represented he has suggested the true way to arrange the details and make provision for such means of transit as shall be equal to all requirements while at the same time not interfering with present thoroughfares which are l nonocinnS for otc
 business to which they must still be de-
 voted.
 The failure of all previous schemes of rapid transit in New York has been due to the fact that they have been devised and legislated upon by men who had only their own profit in view rather than the interest of the city or the peo.
 pie. Mayor Grant proposes to reverse
 all this and not only put the interest ot
 the city to the front, but to make the citizens, who have to bear the burdens of taxation, the judges of the system offered to them, from which the munic
 ipality has as much right to expect
 reasonable revenue as have those t( whom such franchises are conceded v
 franchises that, as events have shown have coined millions for those who ob
 tained them in the past and will pay still better in the future. The popula
 young mayor is evidently on the righ
 track and the fact that he has obtained
 the support of the entire press nearly
 republican as we'll as democratic anC independent, IS sufficient proof that hi plan is devised in the best interest of the city and the people.
 If Mayor Grant should be the instru ment for giving to New York city bet ter and more thorough system of rapiC . transit, it would be one of the very bes recommendations he could have in any ' future political ambitions he might en
 certain.