The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1907-07-23
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP
Of STREET CARS
sU5JECT OF ELABORATE REPORT
BY NATIONAL CIVIC FEEDER
ALTON COMMISSION.
! NE lICAE SERVICE BEST
Great Ertainc Municipal Ownership
sysaem inferior In Every Respect
says VIM. j.. Clark--2rof.
Pareon1 Differs.


New York. July 21.--'fhe operati n
Of British street railways by municlp.
alities anl privately owned corpora
tions respectively, is considered in
great detail In TWO reviews OF e2-
PERT reports on the subject made to
the Ma ionnl Civic Federation Com.
micsion on Public Ownership. The
reviews we're prepared by members
OF the c mmission after an exhaustive
investigation OF the systems treated
and were made public today. They
are based upon technical reports
complied by expert engineers VINO
with the reviewers, spent several
months in the British cities where The
several lines are operated The rc.
views are by William j. Clark OF
New YORK. as an opponent OF munl-
equalization, and Prof Frank Parsons.
Boston, as an advocate Of pthlic
ownership and operation, Mi Clark
is general manager Of tho foreign de-
Tartment of the General Electric com
pany. Professor Parsons has been
student OF municipal ownership for
yeras and is the author OF several
" rka ON that subject among them
THE Railways, the Trusts ana The
People
American Service More Extensive.
Mr.. Clark points out that no Amer
lean street railroads were inyestiga-
ted by the Commission and the only
tramwy installations directly investi-
gated in Great Britain were those
owned by the municipalities Of Man
chester, Liverpool, Glasgow and the
London County Council and those
owned by the following private com
panies: London United Tramways,
Dublin United Tramways and the
Norwich Electric Tramways. The
writes calls attention 10 thp fact that
the entire development Of street rail
ways in the United States has been
accomplished by private enterprise
and that this has permitted the con
struction Of extensive systems sery-
ing entire communities and linking
them together irrespective of municip-
al boundary lines. On tho ether
hand since 1894 at least, Municipality
controlled traction systems have been
confined to a great extent, within the
narrow limits of their respective muni-
cipaities Mr. Clark here enters into
a statistical statment Of the facilities
enjoyed by the urban inhabitants of
Great Britain ms compared with tho
town and city population of the Uni
ted States. In 1902. the town and |
city population TO each mile OF tram
way track was 12l7G while in tho |
United States there was mile of !
track 10 each ,51G of town and city |
population. In Great Britain there |
was one car for each 37G0 of popula- |
tion while in the United States there !
was one car to 574 city residents. |
Thus, the urban resident of the United |
States had comparatively more than |
six and One-half times the number of |
cars available fer his use than were
available to the British inhabinnt
The British systems carried 1,39i,-
452,9S3 passengers and the American
5,j21,509 SGT. and OF these .0G2 4O3 1872
or practically 30 per cent of the Brit
sh total were transported free on
transfers.
Crowded Cars
Mr. Clark takes up the charge that
the traction cars in the United States
are over-crowded and declares that
the the figures given above show that
on the basis of passengers carried per /
car per year. the American car aver
ages only 90 5s5 passengers per year
as against 1872, iG3 per year carried by
The average car in the United King.
dom While the Briton paid an aver.
age of 2.2G cents. against an average /
of 3.75 cents in the United States the
writer p-ints out that the formers
facilities for travel were from y q |
- per cent of those enjoyed by the
American passenger In 1902 there
were two British cities OF more than
100000 population. seven with pop-
ulatiOns Of from $4,000 to 1905 900. and
- with from % 600 to $4,000 inhahi-
tanis. without street railways but ia
the United States there was no city
& more than 25.O0O people without
traction service.
Prom 1899 to 1909 the length Of
tramway line mot iraSSl in the Uni-
ted Kingdom increased 536 miles OF
from giS TO 1854 miles. while in the
United States in the same period
there was an Increase Of 10.755 mileE.
or from 5.7s5 TO l6.53s miles This
great extension Of service in ths
United States resulted in an actual
decrease in the nrmber ~ passengers
carried per mile Of line. On this p-int
NJ Clsrf saws.
These features clearly demon
strate that the British policy has been