Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-01-07

raphy. Worcester is pre-eminenty
city of hills. The number within the
limits of this city is several multiples
of seven Rome's number. TraV-
ell in every direction between
points any ways distant seems to be
confined to one single thoroughfare.
| Others however closely situated at
one point, widely dtverge at the other
or else lead over higher ground and with
much less favorable grade.
Compare with a city practically Level
| and laid out upon regular lines like
philadelphia: there car tracks could
traverse every alternate street, yet
through travel not suffer, as the remain
! ing streets would parallel and lead III
the same general direction without ma
| terial increase of distance. l believe
| Worcester has only two important
| business streets thus conditioned, ana
short ones at that. Green street has
parallel in Washington street and Front
street one in Mechanic; such others as
are laid out In parallel lines will be found
! far different as regards grades. Beacon
street for Instance, which has long ana
! heavy grades and several of them; yet
/ it is considered by many far preterapie
| to Main street to drive over, and IS ull-
lied by much teaming that formerly
! Travelled over southbridge street This
gives an object lesson of the straits 10
which our people are put. Our mann
| thoroug1hfAraS (arteries, so to speak. J
are nearly all in valleys. They nave all
! been surrendered to railway companies;
the inconvenience and danger expe-
rienced now is not likely to grow less,
| but is to be felt more and more as the
! city increases in size.
To obtain relief, to make SUCH hlgn-
ways again adequate to the purposes
for which they were originally intenueds
and to furnish facilities for travel pc
tween the distant sections OF this elty
as direct and desirable as our various
business interests need and demand,
many if not all the following changes
will be required:
Southbridge street would need to
widen from Myrtle street to Jackson
street; Shrewsbury street, widen from
! East Worcester street to Belmont street
Church street, widen; Improvement pc
made to Union street, north and south
of Foster street.
! A new street from Park street south
erly on the old railroad location, to con-
meet with Beacon street, an extension
of Norwich street to Front street, and
thence across the common to connect
with the one last mentioned; new street
from Foster street north to Lincoln
square; Chandler street widen between
Main street and Piedmont; Murray ave-
nue. extend to Austin street; Madlsoh
and Myrtle widen from Main street 10
Salem street; Burnside court extend TO
Portland street; Allen court extend east
erly to Salem street. These four are
needed to relieve congestion about the
post office. Salem street widen between
Madison street and Salem square; Park
street widen between Salem square and
Trumbull square and Pleasant street be
relieved by a parallel street on the
south, running from Main street as faI
west as Hawley or Merrick street, and
be freed from car tracks, the franchise
for same to be transferred to this new
street. The work of widening should be
b, on a more liberal scale tha1 is row Gus
tonary; sufficient room should be made
on one side of those streets having cal
tracks to permit two teams to safely
pass each other between a moving cal
and other teams standing at the curb
, this means 80 feet at least between curt
and rail, nothing less would satisfacto-
frily accommodate through travel AND
meet thereby the prime conditions of the
problem. Only 5 miles of the SO now
} meet this requirement, the Boulevard
Belmont and a section of the West
/ Boylston street make up most of this.
Twenty-Five miles or y Of the whole
IS so conditioned that one team at the
curb, blocks the way and forces all 9th
ers upon the tracks Millbury street is
will be made for that and for Water
/ street as we'll, when Harding street is
made continuous from Franklin street
to Cambridge street; large sections of
this already exist; it might be best to
shift tracks to this street from both the
others.
A few other changes would be needed
to make complete plan of relief. They
would necessarily await the time when
ORC do occifO a oh nd
location of Union depot settled upon
These would include work on South
bridge street south Of Jackson The ex-
tension of Gold street to Quinsigamond
avenue, making two street extensions
under the B. & A. r. r., to intersect
Gold street, one opposite Hermon
another opposite Madison street.
A joining of Prescott and Crescent
streets when the Garden street grade
crossing is abolished, in such a manner
as to form one continuous street par
! allel to Lincoln street, increasing the
/ capacity of Grafton street to Grafton
square Extending Harding street on
the site of the viaduct to Bridge street
when the viaduct is removed, and a
! widening of Manchester street: the wild
ening of Grafton street from Grafton
square to the city line should now be
listed with the first group.
All of this before travel through our
city Is made anyways expeditions and
safe and a selection of routes between
distant points can be made over which
to drive without a canopy of electrical
charged wires and without the racking
now suffered by man, beast and vehicle
from gridironed street surfaces. Nothing
more should be said about greater Wor-
ceSter until this work is ACCOMPLISHED.
1t may well be called Gigantic task, .
impossible to consider under the stat
utes now in force, which has so effect
ually prevented doing separate sections
of the aggregation.
The present law prescribes limit of
10 years to loans for such work; it may
be founded in wisdom, so far as it ap-
Piled to the natural development and
extension of streets, but tends to dis
! courage the doing of such work on a
broad and farsighted plan, so essential
to the welfare of a growing city, and in
the line of true economy.
This and the law fixing limit to
our borrowing capacity have been prime
factors in bringing us to the present
crisis, also to the too frequent adoption
of temporary expedients in treating
matters of public improvements. Since
desperate diseases require desperate
! remedies, and this matter cannot go on
from bad to worse forever, why not
seek for some method of relief? Con-
siderations of economy, self-preserva-
ton, pride, present needs, and future
growth of our city, and above all duty
to posterity, demand that action be
taken.
The innovation of the double-track