Evening star., 1909-03-11
LOCAL STREET GAR EVILS
RAILWAY COMMISSION HOLDS A
LONG MEETING.
Overcrowding of Cars Is Considered
Reports Of American Consuls on
Regulations Abroad.

| The street railway commission held a
/ long meeting yesterday to consider the
| question of overcrowding on local street
cars. The announcement was made some
| time ago that evidence had been furnished
| the District attorney on which to base
prosecutions against each one of the roads
| in Washington. 1t was stated at the time
! that while it was hardly hoped to intro
| duce milennial conditions here by which
every passenger could have the seat he
Daid for, there was much to be done to
| improve the conditions and that the city
roads especially could easily afford to
run cars enough to make passengers rea-
| sonably comfortable.
1t was stated after the meeting of the
commission yesterday that it was rather
surprising that the evidence in the hands
or the District attorney had not been acted
upon. The local commission some time
ago communicated with the State De-
partment and received a number of re-
ports from American consuls abroad.
showing how the overcrowding ordinances
worked in Europe. The report from
Dresden. especially. said that the ordi-
nance there prohibited any passenger from
boarding car where there was not a
seat. The police were authorized to sup
port the conductors in enforcing the Or
dinance, and the result was that the COM
panies were forced to put on cars enough
to. accommodate the traffic, and there
was no standing in the cars
The report from Consul Joseph Britain
at Prague said that there were very ex-
cellent regulations there to prevent the
overcrowding of cars, but that they were
den. according to Consul Bywater, were
enforced and worked satisfactorily.
Pay-as-You-Enter Cars.
There has been good deal Of discuss
sion over the "pay-as-you-enter" cars
just introduced into Washington. Only
one complaint has been received by Che
commission. and that was anonymous. 1t
deriared that the cars were a nuisance.
and that 1t was particularly bad not to
have the conductor inside where he could
make seat hogs move up and give
standing passengers room.
It may be said that the p. A. Y. f.
cars are working quite satisfactorily from
the company's standpoint. The conductor
gets all of the fares that are coming to
the company now and the company is
protected from damage suits through ac-
cidents to passengers getting off and on
the cars. Sometimes the cars are crowd
ed so that it is hardship for a passen-
ger to have to work forward and get of
the front end. Conductors in such a case
sometimes let passengers off through the
they do not. There seems to be no COM
pany rule on the subject. The commission
intends to call the attention of the COM
pany to this feature later.
1t was pointed out by one Of the MEM
bers of the commission that while it
might work a hardship on some Of the
suburban companies to put on a large
number of extra cars on which the men
worked only an hour or two q day. there
was no reason why the city lines. which
made a great deal more than the SUBJ
urban lines by shOrt-haul passages, should
not put on enough cars to accommodate
the traffic in the rush hours
Statement by Commission.
After the meeting of the commission
the following statement was given out:
1.-THE District electric railway commission
devoted some time to the discussion of the
crowded condition of cars, stating that
the district attorney had been appealed
to both by the interstate commerce COM
mission and the District electric railway
commission to expedite the prosecution Of
cases already submitted to him. such cases
being accompanied by data supplied by
the District electric railway commission.
for the purpose of preventing further vio-
latiOn Of law. and that every effort will
be made by the last named commission
to have these cases brought before the
court. Several weeks have elapsed since
the District electric railway commission
gave the district attorney the data neces-
sary to institute prosecutions"