Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-09-11
THE DAY OF CHEAP FARES.


Il
VIII Hastsa Its Coming.
i
Six tickets tor Is eents' I wish that shal
sentence were rsvsssed and 1t read Tweuty-
five tickets for SIX cents and then it would be
. pleasure TO ride in street cars" So spoke a
young man IN . city public conveyance the
other day in the hearing of q STAR reporter.
reading from the sign on the cash box. keen
looking man across the aisle heard also, and
when the contsmplativs young man had
| dropped OF the rear end of the vehicle he
spoke his thoughts aloud:
II do not know why it should not be &C. ~
He bent his glance at the reporter and seemed
to address himself to him. I'VE are in an age
OF progress and thore il no reason why we
should not 60 ahead in the line of cheap trans
portation as we'll as of rapid transit A limit
must soon come to the speed of city surface
roads; indeed: am not at all sure that it has
| not been reached in the case OF the cable and
electric lines After that limit has been at
| tanned what is there for tho enterprise of the
! owners OF the lines to spend itself upon other
than the reduction OF the cost of maintenance
| Of roads ana the corresponding ohsapening of
| the fsre2 Such thing as competition in
street railroad lines does not exist Just Mt pres
| ent to any marked degree, most of tho lines
running to special points that are not touched
| by others
| FUTURE COMPETITION.
"But the time is near at hand when, by
| means Of the advanced ideas of iocomotion,
and the improved facilities of construction of
roads and their support, rival lines will be able
| to be pushed into almost every space that seems
to be at all profitable. In such a city as WASH
| ington there is no demand for such q state OF
things at present, but when Washington grows
| to be big city, mean a very big city-such
as 1t will become in time, then We shall see
I vntn tvv NJ
different railway lines for the patronage of the
public There will be time, / say, when
cents will be considered too much for q ride
| on ono Of these cars, and although do not be-
lieve that our wistful young friend who has
| just left us will realize his dream of cheapness
| yet there will be some very much more salts
| factory rates produced than those that prevail
| Mt present. The only objection, the only OF
| stacle in the way of this, is our currency. Peo-
pie do not like to carry pennies around with
coin that is convenient to handle 1t has been
adopted as the standard of the rate It does
not represent anything like the actual cost Of
running the road where the expenses and the
patronage arc at all we'll balanced, but on the
other hand it produces q large profit. OF
course there are poor lines, and some almost
bankrupt ones. but not many. When horses
are replaced by machinery and cars will carry
from three to five times as many people as they
do now, the relative cost OF maintenance will
| easily reduced to 3, or even 21S, and there
would still be princely profit on the invest-
ment Then the little legend on the money
box could be made to read Ten tickets for Is
cents. and perhaps the young man would be
partially satisfied.
REMINDER OF THE PAST.
"You doubtless remember hearing tie re-
frain Of poem that was. am afraid, response
BILE for good deal of sleeplessness during it's
vogue-the immortal Mark Twain classicized
(which ran something like this-you need
not listen ii you are afraid of remembering it
too long:
"A blue trip slip for three-cert fare
butt trip slip for fve,cent fare.
And all in the presence Of the passenjsire
81 may have mixed my colors and fares
up bit, but that Is the theory of the pro-
duction. quoted it to remind you that
once upon a time-it sounds almost like a
fairy story, does 1t not?-men could ride just
as far as they wanted and pay by the yard. so
to speak. That is, there was system whereby
one could order q certain amount of trans
portation, pay for IL in advance and take it as it
came from the machine. But that did not
work very long; in fact. do not think that it
was in vogue in very many cities. You sec.
the trouble was that the world is still wicked
and there are such depraved men afoat on the
surface OF civilization that one cannot always
depend on finding ones next-door neighbor to
De lOneSt. But tnat cannot De helped. Well,
az was saying, the system had to depend on
the honesty of the passengers, for, unless q
conductor was an unusually smart fellow, they
might pay for certain sized ride and then
forget to get of at the right corner.
1T DID NOT WORK WELL.
Then, too, il was difficult to divide the line
up in the right sort Of spaces. man living
in your block might have to pay three cents for
his ride home, and I, who got on at the: same
place wonld be taxed Ave il told the truth
and got of at the right place simply because
happened to live three blocks above. I'll were
honest and had but three cents in my pocket
would have to walk three squares. So you see
the thing did not work we'll, and the present
system of a general fare Of five cents was
adopted, this being about the average rate for
all distances. or course there might be plan
OF making the fare large, for the longer dis
tances, but even this would be cumbersome,
owing to the fact that people get onto a car at
all points along the line.
No; all there is to do is to wait until theeom-
panies shall see that as soon as they lower the
fare to three cents and sell ten tickets for a
quarter their cars will be carrying more than
twice as many people, and there will be less
grumbling. What. this your corner? Well,
goodbye"