The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1899-02-26
FUTURE WITHOUT HORSES
GREAT CHANGES COMING TO CITIES
WITH ELECTRIC VEHICLES.
New York Looking Forward to
Smoother Pavements, Cleaner Streets
and Better Public Health.
New York Sun.

time, out the last decade mas seen the pass
ing of the horse car and the rise of the
cable, and now the passing of the cable and
the rise of the electric power, and with cleo
tricity still in its infancy there are some
who profess to see it's passing as a street
motive power and the rise of other powers
that can be manufactured more cheaply.
Ten years may really be a long time for the
bringing about of the transformation that is
promised, if the last ten years may be taken
as showing the possibilities of development.
The horse is to be driven out of trade.
There is no doubt about that, so far as the
city is concerned. What the cable and cleo
tricity have done for the street-railroad sys-
TENS electricity or air or gas or some other
power is to do for all manner of street
traffic. The horse is to go, and with him are
to go dirt and dust and cobblestones and all
the clatter and bang and noise of street
traffic as people know it to-day. The cable
and electricity wrought wonderful changes,
but 1t was only in one line. With the pass
ing of the horse from trade as wonderful
changes in many lines are to come. Probably
no one mind at the present time can con-
ceive all the changes that are to be, but
many of them are obvious and will occur to
almost every one.
The first and most important will prob
ably be in the matter of street paving. New
York has made wonderful strides in the
way Of improved street paving already.
Every year for the past ten years miles and
miles of asphalt have been laid in place
Of the old cobbles or Belgian block pave
ments. There isn't any question about the
superiority of this pavement over the old
style, but under present conditions its avail
ability IS limited to the streets where the
traffic is not the heaviest. 1t is not avail
able in Broadway or the streets along the
river fronts, for instance. The heavy trucks
with iron or steel tires will cut into it, and
the cost of keeping 1t in repair would be
tremendous If it should be laid in the streets
where heavy trucking make up the greater
part of the street traffic. With the passing
of the horse and the introduction of vehicles
that carry their own motive power, steel
and iron tires also go, and the rubber and
pneumatic tires come into universal use.
Asphalt pavements, no matter how heavy
the traffic, will then be available. They will
also be necessary. The paVementS may not
be of asphalt. They may be of steel or iron
or some other substance, but they will be
smooth like asphalt. Cobbles. Belgian blocks
and granite blocks will go with the horses
and the iron and steel tires. The whole city
will be smooth paved. Bicycling will be pos
sible everywhere. Cab riding will be a pleas
ure no less than bicycle riding. 1t will be
without straining your voice, and We'll all
go gliding along instead of humping and
]0ltingg e along 10 ga as n %et feet en w ss there %eat9 are 5 nows
but there will be no more Of the shiny,
greasy black mud that makes a wet day IN
the city a terror, particularly to women.
CLEAN STREETS.
More important from the point Of view of
health and general comfort and pleasure
than the new pavements will be cleanliness.
The streets will be kept clean without
breaking the bank accounts of the taxpay-
ers. In the first place, as everybody knows.
asphalt or smooth pavement is easy to keep
clean. A man with a broom can sweep
three times as much smooth pavement in a
given time as block pavement. If he is a
good sweeper and does his work thoroughly,
when he finishes the pavement is clean; but
in the case Of block pavement, no matter
how thoroughly he does his work the pave
ment will not be nearly so clean as the
asphalt. 1t is not necessary to hire men
with broomS to sweep asphalt. An asphalt
pavement can be flushed and made clean in
a sixth of the time that it takes to sweep
it. and no dust is raised in the process. So
all the danger that arises from inhaling the
dust of the street now stirred up in the
process of cleaning will be done away with.
If, as the doctors say. much Of the disease
that exists is due to the inhalation of dust
and dirt the death rate should certainly be
lowered considerably.
But there is another element in this mat
ter of clean streets, Two-thirds of all the
street dirt that at the present time afhicts
New York is caused by the horses them
oClNGS, CllA III IllC passing Va CAIC OlSC
this two-thirds of the dirt will disappear.
1t costs the city of New York now nearly
100000 a year to clean the streets, and,
with all respect to the street cleaning COM
missioner, It may be said they are not half
cleaned. New York streets never have been
and never can be cleaned satisfactorily if
present conditions should continue without
the expenditure of a vastly greater sum than
the big sum that is now expended. There
were complaints even when Colonel Warning
was at the head Of the department of street
cleaning and was working wonders. With
the new pavements and the cause of two
thirds of all the dirt removed, the clean
ing Of the streets would cease to be the
great problem hat it is now. Forty miles
Of the best asphalt pavement, guaranteed to
last fifteen years, can be laid for the amount
of money it costs New York annually for
half cleaning the streets.
AS the streets VIII be clean there will be
practically no dust. What a boon that will
be, anybody who is compelled to go out on
a windy day can testify. Every housewife
curtains, worth thousands upon thousands
of dollars are damaged every year by the
plague of street dust from which the city
properly to air the house, and the dust
will come in. There is no escaping it.
There Is still another point In the mat
ter of cleanliness that is to come with the
passing of the horse from trade. 1t is that
cleanliness breeds cleanliness. Clean
streets will tend to greater n~eatneSs on the
part of the community generally.
LESS NOISE.
Next in Importance TO the cleanliness n
new pavements that will follow the passing
Of the horse is the reduction Of the noise
and clatter of the street traffic. That has
also to do with the general health of the
community. The clatter and bang of the
present traffic, the doctors say, has much
to do with many nervous diseases prevalent
in the city. Trucks travelling over asphalt
pavement don't make half the noise they
do when they bang along over granite
blocks. Rubber-tired vehicles travelling
over asphalt or smooth pavement are prac-
tically noiseless. Stand in Fifth avenue any
evening and you will be impressed with this
fact. Coach after coach will roll by, the
only noise being made by the iron-shod
hoofs of the horses that draw them.
Now and then there will come one that
Is as n~oiseless as a horseless Hg. The
horses are shod with rubber-padded shoes.
OF course noise will not be wholly done
away with, but the clatter and bang will !
give way to the bell or gIdanger signal
of the horseless vehicle. But the bells on
twenty h~orseless carriages ringing in uni
son don't make the noise that one empty
truck does as it rattles along the street.
It will be possible to sleep mornings. The
milk wagon. with its sleep-destroying
~clatter, will be a thing of the past. De-
livery wagons and trucks that start out
at 6 o'clock and now make sleep after that
hour almost impossible, will be robbed of all |
their sleep-destroying qualities. Sleep In
the early morning hours in the city Will be
less liable to disturbance than II IS now in