New-York tribune., 1902-05-07
CROWDED OPEN CARS HERE
ORDINANCES WOULD GIVE NO RELIEF.
1T is SAID.
A METROPOLITAN OFFICIAL SUGGESTS THE
EDUCATION OF THE PUBLIC AS
POSSIBLE SOLUTION.

With the approach of warm weather the over
crowded surface car has come back to plague
the travelling public. In the rush hours in the
evening nearly every northbound car in Broad
way is crowded to its full capacity with seated
and standing passengers before it reaches Canal
st. The latter lurch forward with the stopping
and starting OF the car and the ride is any
thing but comfortable both to those who are
standing and their more fortunate fellow trav-
elers who have obtained seats Attempts have
been made TO pass ordinances forbidding the
railroad company from carrying more passen-
gers than the seating capacity of a car will per-
nit, but IL is agreed that such ordinance
would have no effect upon people who are clam
oring to get home from business early in the
evening.
1t seems that open surface cars were imper-
fectly constructed to begin with. Enough space
has been allowed between the seats to accom-
mocate in addition to the seated passengers.
line of standing passengers. The women suffer
most from the evil. The chivalry of men seems
to desert them after they have obtained seat
in open car. and they rarely arise that
woman may become seated, and a woman who
boards standing room only is obliged
to stand before a line of seated men. clinging as
best she can to the back of the seat before her
or to the shoulders of the person occupying it.
This situation is always embarrassing, but can
not be avoided while the seats are so arranged
An official of the Metropolitan Street Railway
Company suggested to a Tribune reporter yes
terday that the only way to remedy the evil Is
to make it a misdemeanor for person TO board
a car that is already crowded to seats. He
thought that ordinances against the carrying OF
standing passengers would have no effect upon
people who are determined to lose not second
in getting home at night.
THE open cars were not constructed for peo-
pie to stand in" he said because there IS no
way of holding on, except to grab the shoulder
of the person sitting in front. 1t ought TO De a
misdemeanor for person to force his way into
a car after all the seats are taken There IS
nothing now to prevent such thing II would
require an athletic conductor before each seat.
which would mean nine conductors to car. to
keep people from boarding. conductor can
only be in one place at time. while the whole
side Of the car is open At the crossings at
Fulton and Houston SITS. the conductor, and even
the policeman, are powerless to check the peo-
pie. who swarm about the cars like flies about
a mOlasses barrel The railroad doesn't want
1t, and what you want to do is to educate the
THE open car was distinct advance in
civilization. and was not intended 10 accom-
modate standing passengers: but the citizen
has devised a way Of standing up in IT, There
are six hundred thousand passengers to bring
down town every morning and an equal number
to take home every night. In the morning they
are distributed over three or four hours while
in the evening they all swarm to the cars at the
same time and that makes the congestion. We
run cars in Broadway on an eight second head
way, and IL a beer truck happens to stand on
the track at Canal-st. for minute, there is a
block of cars over which you could walk to the
Battery without jumping. Broadway, from the
Battery to Twenty-third-st., has ten times more
traffic than any like strip in the world. If
there was law against people standing up IN
the cars. there would be a murder at Fifty
ninth-st. and Lexington-ave. some wet night.
The people want to get home"