Arizona republican., 1899-06-09
Arizona Day by Day
 Live News Taken From Territorial Exchanges.


 fort has reached a point where there | is little left to be desired. Accident: affecting life and limb on a modern
 passenger railway have been reduced i to percentage % low that it is ac-
 tually safer to travel on railway than to walk along a city street.
 Tt Is possible that for some time to 1 ccme long distance travel will con- tinue to follow the same general lines as TOW exist. Steam locomotives may give place to machinery operated by electricity or compressed air; the two 1ails may in process or time become one. Cars, both passenger and freight, ! nay be still further improved, but in the main the railway system of 135g will be simply an improvement on what exists today, with an ever-pres- ent speed limit of less than 100 miles an hour.
 There is a department of railway travel, however, that demands and will experience radical changes, and that is urban and suburban rapid tran sit of both passengers and freight; it Is the crying need of the day. Mu- inequalities and corporations are nov ing heaven and earth to provide better means for transporting the millions of 4EOA II IuOlI uOul6S lO CnGlr OIlcES and work shops. Conditions, instead of improving, grow steadily verse In all the large centers exceeding half a million population the congestion of street railway 1ines-horse cars, elec- t1ic cars or cable cars and elevated rcads-iS a constant menace to health. fife and properly
 Extension along the lines of exist ing methods is almost al a standstill, New York, the second city in the world, seems helpless before the ever growing problem. Twice every day d struggling mass Of humanity wastes precious hours in slow, tedious jour- hey between work and home. There Is no more room for surface lines of railway. The extension of the ele- vated system means the ruination of valuable streets. What is wanted is some method that will practically an initiate distance and at the same time remove from the city streets the dan gers and defects of the present sys- tems.. One possible solution occurs to me.
 Tt requires no effort of the imagina- ticn to see an extension of the pneu- mat1c tube system now in use in the largest cities. A view of New York. London, Paris or any other large city In l95u may show something after this fashion: Dustless, asphalted streets With nc noise of damaging gong or steel shod hoofs; clean, unbroken pave ments across which pass with noise less rush rubber tired, horseless car- riages; no deathly tracery of electric lines CT network Of smoke begrfmcd elevated trestle' work. Instead, at con- venfent intervals, the small stations of the Pneumatic Underground Trans portation company. The passenger will step into an automatic elevator which gently lowers him to the track. IT such name can be applied to a system that has no track Incandes- cent lamps light the underground sta ton and the air is pure and sweet. Accompanied by other suburban resi- dents the passenger enters a iuxuri- ously appointed car whose arched sides and ceilings disclose it's tubular construction. The conductor touches an electric button which closes the door softly and gently; there is a dis tinct but hardly perceptible forwariI motion as the car starts, and in almost an instant, SO rapid has been the mo- ticn, the trip has been made from he Battery to Forty-second street, and the silent elevator lifts the passenger Into the sunshine before the Grand Central station. Harlem is reached two minutes later, and from here the system branches out tcI distant sub nrbs. In connection with the pneu- matic underground railway, automo- bile carriages and long, slim. single rail cars distribute passengers to their Homes in an incredibly short time.
 The pneumatic transit system may De extended to include neighboring cities, and the effect will be practically to annlhilate all distances of less than enc hundred miles, which is about the maximum at which it will be neces- sary or desirable to use pneumatic transit for suburban trains. The use or this distance destroying system will add several hours a day to the leisure time Of busy men and bring residence districts located thirty to eighty miles away within ten CT twenty minutes run of business districts. The diff cultleS in the way of practical appli- cation of the pneumatic tube system are not greater than confronted the inventor of the steam railroad Of to- day The principe Is now In active service on a smaller scale, and the workings of it excite ncl comment V hatever. New York Sun
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