The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-11-02
Telephons Main 4soo
NEEDLESS vIADUcT DELAY

NEEDLESS VIADUCT DELAY
 Despite the heavy and constantly increasing losses to which the busi- ness interests of this community are subjected day after day because of eneedless consumption of time and la- bor incident to the railroad grade sscrossings; in face of the menace to life and limb of thousands of people every day in the year, not to speak of the annoyance through delay and ln- convenience, nothing has been off cially done to provide relief, and the community continues to suffer hard ships from this source that are fast becoming intolerable. The initiative in this pressingly needed relief is a direct obligation of the city commits sion, which has the authority to act and to which the people look for pro- tection. The responsibility cannot be evaded. There is no justification nor excuse for delay. Many conferences have been held and voluminous corre- spondence conducted with no practical results. Though plans have been long since worked out, and there is no req son why construction should not have been under way long ago, the situa- ton becomes steadily worse with the rapid growth of population and the large increase in industrial and com- mercial activities. The question is heard every day: What will the city do about it?
 Nobody questions the pressing need for relief. Nobody, not even the rail- roads which maintain these death traps, undertakes to justify or defend the situation. There is probably not a city of this size anywhere which is subjected to so unjust and burden some a condition, which becomes worse with each passing day. Every year there are many deaths, injuries and narrow escapes at the dangerous crossings. The loss to business through innumerable blockades of street traf- fic would in a short while represent enough to finance the necessary via ducts and underpasses.
 The claim made by some that the railroads cannot find the money with which to provide the necessary safe guards for this great growing, pro- ductive, generous city and district is absurd. No other city in the South gives the railroads so large patron age as does Birmingham. This is steadily increasing. The railroads do not plead financial inability to provide their own needs through which to hold and increase business. When a hurricane sweeps away trestles and bridges and destroys road-beds along the coast, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad immediately finds the finan- cial means with which to repair the damage. A few years ago when freshets and floods destroyed road beds and bridges of the Southern Rail- way in the Western North Carolina district, that system had several thou sand men at work in forty-eight hours and spent millions of dollars repairing the damage. In surprisingly short while the great task was completed, and traffic in that district became normal. A handsomely illustrated book of several hundred pages was published and distributed from the railroads headquarters showing with what remarkable speed and efficiency the entire work was done.
 That book emphasized that the rail- roads can quickly finance great under takings that directly involve their own interests. Do they imagine that the subjection of two hundred thousand people to constant dangers and stead fly increasing losses in community which is one of their most generous patrons, does not affect them, as we'll as the rights and welfare of all these people and all these industrial and commercial interests? Or that think ing people take any stock in the theory that the railroads cannot find the money to finance their obligations and undertakings?