Evening star., 1935-12-16
TRANSIT HEARINGS
OPENED WITH CASE
AGAINST SERVICE
Elgen Predicts Order for
Bus and Rail Improve
mentS Before Jan. |.
COMMISSION ENGINEER
is FIRST WITNESS
Three Volumes of Complaints on
Hand and $50 Civic Representa-
tives Are Due to Speak.

Surrounded by three large volumes
of written complaints about Capital
Transit Co. service, and a score of
civic leaders standing by to add a
verbal protest, the Public Utilities
Commission today began its long
contemplated series of public hearings
20 find out what is wrong with WASH
ington's mass transportation system.
Before the hearings started, how
ever, Riley E. Elgen, chairman, pre-
dicted orders would be issued by jan
uary / for improvements in both the
bus and rail service of the company.
The three piles of written protests,
containing 333 letters. were placed in
front of members of the commission
by James L. Martin, its secretary, as
exhibit A against the transit company.
All the letters were received either by
the commission or Peoples Counsel
William A Roberts. since August 1,
and many of them included more than
one indictment against the company's
service.
Civic Representatives.
Approximately $50 civic representa-
tives are scheduled to testify before
the hearings close. Arrangements
have been made to call them in re-
lays to prevent any undue waste of
time.
The commission itself started at the
outset of the hearings to make a case
against the transit company by call
ing as the first witness the commits
sions chief engineer, Fred A. Sager,
who supervised the recent trouble
shooting" investigation of both bus
and rail service.
Sager introduced in evidence series
Of 80 graphed charts, depicting by
lines and figures some Of the frailties
and shortcomings in the transit COM
pany's service. These charts, however,
covered rail operations only.
Schedule Seen Ignored.
Sager took up the entire morning
explaining the charts. pointing out
where failure to maintain uniform
service due to so-called broken head
ways" had caused overcrowding on
some cars while other cars that
trailed closely behind were without g
full passenger quota. In other cases
Sager revealed. the company did not
send cars out according to schedule
but sandwiched them in at different
periods thereby creating irregular
service.
The severest criticism was leveled at
the Fourteenth street line. One OF
Sager's charts noting observations OF
northbound service at Thomas Circle
December 10. between 3 and 5 pm.
it was explained. showed an extraordi-
nary situation Of extreme overload
ing" of cars and a shortage of 29
scheduled cars.
The most comprehensive chart re-
vealed the observations of commission
inspectors at Nineteenth street and
Pennsylvania avenue December j, be-
tween 1:50 and $3.50 pm, in connec-
ton with weStbound service on the
Cabin John, Potomac Heights, Rosslyn
and Tenleytown lines. Failure of
cars on these lines to maintain an
even headway, Sager said, resulted in
q large excess in passenger seats.
Car II Minutes Late. Charged.
The chart depicting service on the
New Jersey avenue line based on OBJ
Servations of northbound cars Decem-
ber 2, from las pm. to pm,
showed that three cars scheduled on
that line ran on the Florida avenue
line and that another car scheduled
to arrive at the point of observation
at 2:o4 pm. did not arrive until
2:2l pm.
Observations at Fifth and F streets
December IL of operations of west
bound cars on the Mount Pleasant
line between 1880 am. and am,
according to Sager, revealed that
some cars did not start on schedule,
that there were a number of breaks
in headways, and seven cars sched-
uled to run did not run, but that
seven others not scheduled to run
did run, but were from 20 to 80
minutes behind the time of those
scheduled.
Chairman Elgen announced that
proposed one-man car operations
would not be considered at this time
but would be made the subject of a
separate hearing. He regards this
subject as so large and believes ii
will involve such a quantity of testi-