Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-07-09
A MEDIEVAL FERRY SYSTEM
SHOWS NEED OF A BRIDGE
ministration to Blame for Blocking
Holiday Traffic Over the Delaware

river ferryboats had happened on the
Fourth of July or on Sunday evening,
when the train boats were weighted to
the limits of their capacity with holiday
crowds, catastrophe would have been
! almost certain.
Even after the ban had been placed on
| excursion traffic, the ferries were crowded
| uncomfortably and dangerously. What
was lacking was bridge.
Business men at the shore resorts who
are tabulating the losses due to the with
| drawal of excursion trains can do better
| than blame the railroad administration
| officials. They can blame their own poll
! ticians and ours and, in the end them
selves and the general public for habit
of mind which delays almost every great
| public improvement in America for a
generation or two, while those in author
ity grope and wrangle and make their
| bargains.
The furtive and foolish method adopted
by the railroad officials to discourage
shoreward traffic, the talk of mythical
"troop movements" reveals the hand of
the amateur in railway affairss Appar-
emily, what the railroad administrations
! representatives were thinking about was
the Phladelphia-Cam ferry system.
| The river boats could have carried no
more people. The medieval inefficiency of
| the whole ferry system in any crush was
| demonstrated again. If the traffic had
been increased by 20 or 80 per cent there
would have been endless confusion or
worse. This fact palliates the railroad
10 o;,1
| excursion tickets. 1t does not relieve it
| of blame for an unnecessary and silly fib
There is little or no room for addl-
| tional ferryboats on the river because
almost all the workable slips are in use
now. The railroads may be excused if
they refuse to build others while bridge
is almost within sight. Whoever suf-
fered loss or inconvenience must prepare
to suffer again under similar circum-
stances.
If business men and commuters, motor
owners and hotel men and the public
generally had been less tolerant of Off
cial inefficency, if they had turned
sharper scrutiny in the past upon the
methods and motives that delayed the
Philadelphia and Camden, they would
not now be subject to losses, incon-
venience and even danger by an outworn
and weakened link in a most important
line of communication and travel.
New Jersey was twenty years late in
getting seriously started on the Delaware
bridge project. Pennsylvania and the
Pennsylvania Legislature were even more
backward minded. Now Philadelphia
City Councils are furthering the delay.
In the course of time the bridge will
| be built, just as the Parkway was opened
after generations of futile criticism and
discussion. Yet the need of bridge to
| Camden was made apparent when the
| first practical automobile made its ap-
! pearance. In the meantime every COM
muter, every traveller and every one who
drives an automobile to or from New
Jersey for one purpose or another con-
tributes enormous tolls to political ineffi-
| cheney.
If it were possible to estimate the costs
of the ferry system to the general public
in money, in energy and time wasted it
would be demonstrated beyond a doubt
that enough money has been frittered
away in the last twenty years to build not
one bridge, but two.
When people are ordered to stay at
home on holiday because the railroad
system cannot accommodate them, it
| might be supposed that there would be a
general desire to inquire into the reasons
| for SO unusual an edict. General COM
plant should be aimed beyond the rail-
! road administration.
The public is continuing to pay for its
own negligence. 1t is paying in in
creased annoyance and inconvenience as
well as in money.
| New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Camden
and Philadelphia should be as closely re-
lated in any modern system of transpor-
tation as they are related in their busi-
ness and social affairs. The two states
and the two cities are, in fact, divided
by barrier and that barrier is the Della
ware ferry system. The sort of develop
ment that is normal elsewhere has ceased
in parts of Philadelphia and Camden and
in large areas of New Jersey and Penn
sylvania to await the construction of an
adequate connecting link over the Della
ware river.
The attitude of City Councils here is
regrettable. 1t has served to nullify
temporarily all of the work accomplished
by forward-minded men in the two states
The Legislature at Harrisburg and the
Legislature at Trenton finally admitted
the necessity Of bridge between this city
and Camden-after the need had been
apparent for twenty years. Councils
ought to find the money at once. By
Withholding relatively small appropria,
ton that might easily have been made
before the summer adjournment the pre-
liminary work on the Delaware bridge
has been delayed for six months OF
longer. Are mass-meetings or a river
catastrophe necessary to force action?