Evening star., 1936-01-03
Traffic and Public Service

An ideal street railway or bus service
is one that provides an even flow OF
vehicles, in accord with schedules, suffi-
cient at all hours to carry all passengers
to their destinations without long waits
and without crowding. Such a service
is difficult, perhaps impossible, to pro-
vide. The regularity depends upon the
state of the general traffic, Of which
the service vehicles are part. 1t depends
also upon the weather, from which the
public service vehicles suffer in times OF
inclemency along with other users OF
the streets. 1t depends also upon the
demand for transportation, which varies
greatly during the working day.
Washington is particularly difncult
field of public transportation because OF
the fact that the heaviest demand upon
the service comes within two hours in
the day, between eight and nine o'clock
in the morning and four-thirty ard f1ve-
thirty o'clock in the afternoon. And
within those two hours also occurs the
heaviest street use by individual trans
port units. In no other city does such
concentration occur within so brief a
period.
Yesterday the head of the Capital
Transit Company, speaking before the
Public Utilities Commission in rejoinder
to the complaints that were recently
voiced at a sequence of hearings, de-
INJURED to the course pursued in evoking
those complaints, through a question
naire sent to citizens associations and
to individuals mo business institution
in the United States" he said, could
stand up under such a systematic attack
as that" That was rather like begging
the question. The test of the matter lies
in the validity of the complaints. II
the protests, pleas and criticisms OF those
who thus invited expressed themselves
frankly were justified the remedy lies
not in casting doubt upon the ethics OF
official solicitation of grievances but in
the adoption of measures to meet these
criticisms and complaints. This, indeed,
the Transit Company president under
takes to do, so far as may be possible.
Probably there will never be an ideal
public transport system in washington,
or, indeed, in any other American city,
such as will give everybody seat in a
vehicle without waits and with maxi
mum of coverage of area. But 1t can
be approached more closely than does
the present system, and that, it would
seem, is to be sought by the transit COM
pany. The congestion morning and aft
ernoon is not durable short of drastic
rearrangement of the working hours OF
those who serve the largest employer,
the United States Government, nearly
if not quite, one fourth of the total popu-
lation of the area moving toward COM
mon center in the morning and away
from 1t seven or eight hours later.
No one questions the existence Of
traffic problem" in Washington. 1t
demonstrates itself daily. Unfortunately
the very remedies suggested and in part
adopted for its solution have tended to
aggravate it, the segregation of certain
lanes Of travel for one-way service, the
installation Of signals that are both con-
ducive to free movement and adverse to
it, the intolerable nuisance of persistent
protracted parking on heavy trafic
streets. Something must be done about
it, is the universal cry, but nothing Is
done, and perhaps nothing can be done
short Of the most drastic of municipal
operations, reduction of the number of
private vehicles employed for twice
daily transport in opposition to the
public transport service and the con-
sequent freeing of the streets for the
established travel agencies, coupled with
prohibition of the use Of the street for
private car storage. Will such remedies
be undertaken? It may be questioned,
even though on all sides are to be heard
pleas for such measures of relief.
Esn Ts1afI