Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-03-04

line with a nationwide trend;
this is clear. The urban tram
sit systems of the United
States, including subway and
elevated railways. street rail-
ways, trolley buses and motor
buses, are carrying very nearly
the same total number of pas
sengerS that they did two de-
cades ago-in spite of a large
metropolitan populations. But
the number of passengers US
ing surface street railways has
declined to about one-fifth the
number of twenty years ago.
The number of streetcars in
existence in the United States
is well under one-siXth the
number in service in 1885, and
the number of miles of street
railway track has declined
proportionately. No new street.
cars have been ordered for use
in the United States for the
past several years. The few
remaining street railway oper-
atoms are almost entirely in
the larger cities. and most Of
them are rapidly being con-
verted to trolley bus and mo-
tor bus lines.
On the other hand, transit
riding generally is not nearly
keeping pace with the rapid
increase in metropolitan pop
ulations, as more and more
people locate in the suburban
areas beyond the reach of
mass transit. in areas where
the population is too thinly
distributed to make any form
of mass transit economically
feasible. In most suburban
areas, dependence upon the
automobile is almost complete.
This situation is. in turn,
made possible by the unprece-
dented prosperity of the past
few years, and by the avail
ability, without restrictions, Of
abundant supplies of petro-
leum fuels and rubber tires.
Streetcor's Advantages
In spite of its decline. the
street railway as a major form
of internal transportation for
large cities has several note
worthy advantages. 1t repre-
sents the most efficient form
of utilization of street capacity,
and is particularly useful in
moving large passenger loads
to, from, and within the most
congested areas. where limited
street capacities make it vir-
tually impossible to handle the
passenger loads entirely by
automobile, or even by bus.
1t has been estimated that,
on a normal type of city street,
automobiles can carry about
1900 people per lane per hour,
and on expressways about 5000
persons per lane-hour. Buses
on city streets can carry about
5000. Streetcars on surface
streets, however, can handle
an estimated 1880 passengers
per track per hour. In Wash
ington. lacking elevated or
subway rapid transit, the
streetcar is by far the most
efficient available means of
carrying people between home
and work, particularly in view
of the heavy street congestion
during rush hours.
Even though a decreasing
proportion of the metropolitan
population depends directly
upon transit, transit facilities
cannot be reduced beyond a
certain point. If everyone used
automobiles to get to work,
even at the rate of two per-
sons per car (Which is in excess
OF the present average, it
would be physically impossible
to provide parking space for all
of the automobiles within
walking distance of the places
of work without prohibitive
charges. The total ground and
floor area in parking lots and
garages would far exceed the
floor areas of governmental
and private Office buildings and
shops. The resultant spread