Evening star., 1934-07-16
BUSES DISCUSSED.
FOR TWO AVENUES.
TO REPLACE CARS.
Connecticut and Wisconsin
Lines Must Be improved
or Substitution Made.
HEARINGS ON ENTIRE
PROBLEM SCHEDULED
Exhaustive Surveys Are Pushed
for Reorganization of Dis
trict System.

Substitution of buses for street cars
on Connecticut and Wisconsin avenues
is being considered. Public Utilities
Commissioner Richmond B. Keech
disclosed today as preparations we're
being made to hold hearings August
on the whole street car versus bus
situation.
Keech pointed out that tracks on
Connecticut avenue are in such poor
condition now that they must be re-
placed, while on Wisconsin avenue the
noise Of street cars suggests subStitu-
tion Of motor vehicle transportation.
1T might be question right now, /"
the commissioner said, of whether 1t
would be more economical and more
sensible to abandon the street car
tracks on Connecticut avenue and
run bus line out there than 1t would
be to repair the track line and face
additional expense of giving it new
cars.
Overhead Wires in Question.
While on the subject of recon-
ditioning the Connecticut avenue
tracks, we now have to consider that
that area is no longer rural, but that
1t is a congeSted area and should not
have its present overhead trolley line,
and that brings up question of ter
rife expense in installing an under
ground trolley system"
Transportation experts now are
pushing exhaustive surveys of the Dis
tricts public carrier system with a
view to recommending specific re-
routing of street car and bus lines
Keech said he had discussed with
John H. Hanna, president of the
Capital Transit Co., the question OF
Kidding the streets of the noisy 30
year-old cars. Hanna said his COM
pany recognizes the necessity Of put
ting new rolling stock into service, but
has delayed the purchase of new cars
because of the companys disappoint-
ment in the development of street cars
in recent years.
The industry, Keech quoted Hanna
as saying, has spent hundreds of thou
sands of dollars in the development
of street cars and today, with expert
mental cars running in Philadelphia
and Chicago, experts are disappointed
in the slight progress and compare
lively small advantage which the new
cars have over the old.
Buses Make Advance.
While the street car manufactur-
ing companies have made admittedly
slow progress, Keech continued, bus
builders have made rapid strides in
developing a public carrier with
marked advantages over the earlier
type. Buses, carrying 40 passengers
and operating as economically as
earlier types with half the capacity
now run with an estimated life OF
seven years, compared with the f1ve-
year span expected of their "anceS-
tors"
Those two factors alone-a lack
of development in the street car in
duStry and the marked advance in the
bus field-bring us right up against
the question Of whether it would be
wiser and more economical to re-
place many of our present street car
lines with bus service" Keech said
Besides these factors, there is the
admitted improved f1eXibility of the
bus over the street car, particularly
in cases of breakdown and conges-
ton AS a matter of fact, it's quite
possible now that the rerouting hear
ing of August will open up for us
the whole question OF street cars ver-
sus bus transportation.
Keech said that so far as the COM
mission is concerned. it plans to make
no specific recommendations, but will
accept the study of the experts on its
face value, The Ultimate solution fol-
the Districts traction problem, he
said, probably will be a combination
of recommendations made by all eX-
pertS.