The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1906-04-10
Recent RECESSION Of Cash
Fare Transfers Rule Will
Increase and Equalize
Transportation Facilities
ABUSE OF PRIVILEGES
ENORMOUS COST TO TROLLEY
COMPANIES BY THE EXTEN-
SION on THE TRANSFER sYs-
TEN SHOWN BY FIGURES.

The recent RECESSION, by the railroads
comprising the Brooklyn Rapid Transit
system, Of the rule whereby transfer
was issued only for cash fare. is in
tended to increase and, so far as possi-
BILE, equalize transportation facilities in
all sections Of the Boroughs of Brooklyn
and Queens. This expansion of the
transfer privilege and the establishment
of lew transfer points will, it is hoped,
prove of reciprocal benefit to the public
and the companies.
These increased transportation facili-
ties, while provided for the same cost to
the passenger, result in increased expense
to the companies, and considerably dim
inish the lsh return per ride per pas
senger. Every extension Of the transfer
privilege is d concession involving a loss
to the companies, which can be best
shown by reference to the following fg-
ures. which exhibit the effect of transfers
upon the revenue.
The Inauguration of the rule above re-
ferred to. in December, 1908. that a
transfer should only be issued for cash
fare, was an effort to correct the abuses
of the transfer privilege then in effect.
Its effect was naturally to limit consid-
erably the transportation value of a cash
fare In 1902, the year before this or
der was issued. $1,000, 600 transfers were
issued and total of 100000, 600 passen-
gers carried, In other words, every
sixth passenger who paid cash fare left
the car on which that fare was paid and
completed his journey on another car, or
cars, by the aid of transfers
Had the transfer ticket never been de-
vised. and had these 81 100000 passen-
fares for the additional rides provided by
the transfer privilege. the cash receipts
of the companies would have been swell
ed by nearly 100000. The rule of
1908, while doubtless reducing the abuse
of the transfer privilege, did not, as
might logically have been expected. ma
terially lessen the proportionate number
of transfers to passengers carried. On.
the contrary, the record for that year
shows that one-sixth of the 365, 100000
passengers carried asked for and receiv-
ed transfers In 1905, the proportion of
cash fares to transfers still remained at
six to one. In January of the present
year the number of transfer passengers
had increased so that one in every five
passengers carried availed themselves of
the privilege.
With the increase of transfer facilities
in effect or about to be made effective,
the proportion of transfers to passengers
carried will doubtless greatly increase.
The growth of the Greater City, oc-
casioning the wider ramifcation and fur
ther complexity of the lines controlled by
the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company
will inevitably operate to swell the NUM-
ber of transfers issued by year and will
reduce to the companies the cash return
for each passengers ride.
In 1904 a comparison of the number
of passengers carried, and the total
amount Of receipts received in cash
fares, showed the actual value to the
companies for a single ride for eachgpay-
ing passenger to be .04O9 In other
words, the number of transfers issued
reduced the value of the FIVE cent fare
by almost one cent. Last year, by the
same means, the actual value of a single
cash fare was found to be O399 plus.
This reduction resulted, despite the enor-
NOUS increase Of traffic, from the fact
that the increase in transfers more than
kept. pace with the growth of traffic. A
comparison Of the figures for the month
of January this year shows the actual
cash value of a fare for that month,
proportion of transfers, to be .0393 plus