Part 8

Furthermore, there is need of more evergreen forests. The pine and hemlock have been largely removed from the mountain sources of the Ohio. But these trees prolong the melting of deep snows, even under warm rains, for several days longer than deciduous trees. The re-establishment of forests of conifers will therefore contribute to lowering the crests of floods by distributing the flow over five or six days instead of two or three. This is one phase of the work of river control.

On account, however, of the large areas of open farm-land that lie on the watershed of the Ohio and that cannot be reforested, additional means are necessary for storing the surplus storm water. There should be storage reservoirs such as are now being used at the head of the Mississippi River for regulating the flow of the river above St. Paul. These reservoirs must be on wooded watersheds; otherwise they will silt up and they will hold back some of the storm water and lower the height of floods, they will have an additional value for they can be used as reservoirs for domestic water supply. They can also be made to increase the dry season flow of the streams, thus furnishing a stable water power for industrial use and permitting steady navigation during summer and autumn when the water stage is frequently too low even for coal barges. Thus, by means of the forests will be secured not only a reduction in floods but also a greater earning capacity to the region through the development of the latent power of its streams.

The rivers, then, are at once the making and the menace of Pittsburgh. It is through the forests and by reservoirs that the menace can be removed and the highest utility of the streams established. The purity of the water for drinking purposes can thus be assured. This involves a betterment in the health of the community and an increase in the efficiency of the laborer. The equalization of the river flow can also be thus attained. And this involves, first, the lessening of flood losses, and, second, the increasing of the power of the streams to meet the exacting requirements of water power development. The lowering of the floods secures also a further betterment in health by improving the sanitary condition of the districts subject to inundations, and a betterment of economic conditions, both by giving the laborer more steady work during flood and low flow periods, and by opening to him, through the creation of new industries, a wider field of employment.

THE TRANSIT SITUATION IN PITTSBURGH

JOHN P. FOX

SECRETARY TRANSIT COMMITTEE, CITY CLUB OF NEW YORK; MEMBER TRAMWAYS AND LIGHT RAILWAYS' ASSOCIATION OF GREAT BRITAIN

Transit has a place in the study of living conditions in an industrial city like Pittsburgh. Many of the workers are dependent on street cars to take them to and from home, about their occupations, and to places of recreation. Cheap and efficient transit can enable families living under crowded and unhealthy conditions to move to larger, healthier, and less expensive quarters, and still to reach their work. Low fares and good service bring the operators in a suburban mill town in touch with the full resources of the labor supply in the central city, and also effect a large and direct pay roll economy for carpenters, plumbers, painters, and other city trades whose employes move from point to point during working hours. Again, in no place are people packed together more closely than in the cars, under more conditions favorable to the spread of disease and especially of tuberculosis. And among accidents, few are more numerous, more costly to corporation and community, and more unnecessary, than those caused by street cars.

The street railway system of Pittsburgh is a surface electric system, under the management of the Pittsburgh Railways Company. This company is the consolidation of many other companies, different groups of which had previously combined. The Pittsburgh Railways Company, again, is under the management of the Philadelphia Company, which largely dominates the gas and electricity supply. The Philadelphia Company is said to be controlled by nonresident investors. The present owners and local managers may well be without personal responsibility for the acts or omissions of their predecessors, and yet be crippled by exorbitant obligations to them. Their legal responsibility as to the performance of public service is, however, clear cut.

All the available through thoroughfares leading to the heart of the city from the South Side, North Side, and East End are occupied by the Pittsburgh Railways Company under franchises granted to its subsidiary companies, and as a practical proposition it is impossible to construct additional surface lines or extend surface transit facilities to new areas providing for the growth of the city, except in subordination to these strategic lines. This restriction of course does not apply to rapid transit lines,--subway or elevated.

The principal franchises to these streets held by the original companies appear to be indeterminate in duration, as in Massachusetts, the city having reserved the right to revoke a franchise at any time that a company failed to comply with all the conditions of the agreement. The terms of the original franchises (the Second avenue line being the exception to many of these points) provide for an annual compensation to the city, either a car tax and a percentage of the net profits or a fixed rental in place of one or both of the former. The streets must always be kept in good repair, and in certain cases, at least, clean (either from curb to curb, or along the car tracks). The city sometimes retained the power to alter the conditions, and notably reserved the right to purchase any road after twenty years, at a price to be fixed by five disinterested appraisers. Important provisions of these original franchises are not being observed by the existing company. These facts must be borne in mind in discussing both the equipment of the present system to meet the social needs of Pittsburgh, and ways open to the public to effect improvement.

Though the steam roads have played an important part in the past, the growth of Pittsburgh is now chiefly along electric car lines. The radiation of surface lines from the business center out over the district seems quite complete, especially considering the topography of the city and the suburbs. Large areas of vacant land available for single houses, can be reached for five cents from the business district.

While the radiation of surface lines may be satisfactory, the equipment and operation are exceedingly unsatisfactory, as every practical man in the railway company will admit. The present system has its base located on the point between the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Most of the lines begin as loops through these business streets, operating without transfers between the different lines and without through cars.

A five-cent fare carries one varying distances from this business center, before a second fare is charged. The longest ride for one fare is about eight miles; while a continuous ride of fourteen miles on another route, costs fifteen cents. Passengers cannot change cars in the business center without paying two fares, and a ride across the city and suburbs may cost as much as twenty-five cents. Free transfers, are given between many lines before they enter the downtown district; but no transfers are issued after 11:30 P. M., and none on holidays such as the Fourth of July, when travel is heaviest.

The cars till recently have had no cross seats, longitudinal seats having been used, according to the company, "to allow an extra large capacity," viz., standing capacity. Trailers are run at the rush hours. A line of express cars runs east from the business center to East Liberty, through Liberty avenue, making few stops, though the speed on sample runs was found to be sometimes slower than that of cars on the parallel Penn avenue. The speed of the cars is fast enough for surface operation, except when the power is poor, on steep grades or in the congested district. The service is very unsatisfactory both as to the few cars run and as to the amount of standing, which is inexcusably large. The rails are of the girder type, one obsolete in first-class systems; and are in very bad shape everywhere. The property is very much run down, except for a few new pay-as-you enter cars. The only real rapid transit in Pittsburgh is furnished by the Pennsylvania and other steam railroads, the common time scheduled from the Union Station to East Liberty being ten minutes by train, against thirty minutes by surface express cars.

Before taking up in detail the discussion of improvements on existing lines, it may be well to touch on the financial condition of the Pittsburgh Railways Company, and to consider whether the property can afford to make such improvements; for one hears the excuse for bad conditions that the company is not earning a dividend and was forced even to reduce the service. The Boston Elevated Railway Company, which operates all the surface, elevated and subway lines about Boston, is regarded as a very prosperous concern, paying dividends of from six to eight per cent. the net earnings per car mile after paying taxes being 6.54 cents. The Pittsburgh Railways Company, according to its last public report, had net earnings, after paying taxes, of 12.55 cents per car mile, about double the amount of the Boston company. This is a most remarkable financial showing, and at once raises the question, where does the money all go to and why cannot more of the excessive profits be diverted to better service and equipment? The Boston company is operating to-day three subways and one elevated line, besides having contracted to build two more subways and another elevated. It is obvious that the Pittsburgh Railways Company could not only give a first class service on existing lines, but could also assume the fixed charges of a real rapid transit system, if profits were not diverted to pay excessive rentals and other fixed charges on the many companies consolidated at different times. Some way must be found to cut down these exorbitant charges, for the present management can hardly expect the public to endure existing conditions much longer, when the earnings are so vast. People in other cities, when really aroused, have found ways to bring the most intrenched monopolies to terms.

The congestion of cars in the business district of Pittsburgh is a very curious phenomenon. Most people, seeing the frequent blockades at street junctions in the rush hours, would say that there were already too many cars on the streets, and that the overcrowding is a necessity, only to be remedied by building a rapid transit line. Others, however, see that the terminal loops cause much of the congestion, and that by rearranging or abolishing these, even more cars could easily be handled in and out of the crowded center. As a matter of fact, at no place in Pittsburgh does the number of cars passing hourly reach even half the maximum number found possible in other cities; 43 cars in thirty minutes was the largest number counted by the writer, against 128 cars in Berlin. The maximum Pittsburgh hourly rate on a single track would be 86 cars; Boston has scheduled 220 an hour; Berlin runs as many as 256; while Brooklyn handles over 300. At the busiest junction in Pittsburgh, the writer found a rate of 276 cars an hour in all directions, against 557 in Berlin, where there were many more vehicles besides.

The overcrowding of the Pittsburgh cars is either intentional or due to bad operating methods. The seating capacity of the present surface lines has been far from reached. Take Fifth avenue at Smithfield street, for example. In one half-hour in the evening from 5 to 5:30 P. M. about 2,290 passengers were carried east one night in forty-three cars, thirty-two being motor cars and eleven trailers. If every motor car had hauled a trailer, and four additional pairs of cars been run, every passenger could have been seated, whereas 785 were obliged to stand, or more than fifty per cent of those seated. The total number of cars in one hour would only be 144 against 256 in Berlin. If the company had cross seats in all the cars, merely seventeen more trailers on Fifth avenue, added to the present number of motor cars, would have seated all the passengers, with a total of only 120 cars an hour. In Berlin the street railway company provides as many as 3,116 seats in half an hour, and the London County Council as many as 3,538 seats, against the 1,504 in Pittsburgh.

It may be wondered how it is possible to get so many cars past as in Berlin. It is done by fine traffic regulation by the police, who use careful judgment, and do not hold up traffic too long in any one direction, as is common in other cities, even in London, the home of street regulation. Again, the Berlin tracks are so good and the motormen so careful, that the latter operate cars over switches and junctions at speeds which are never seen in Pittsburgh, car following car with amazing rapidity. And the Berlin manager proposes to run even more cars.

In no city does the writer recall so much standing required of passengers as in Pittsburgh. It would appear to be the company's object to run few enough cars to make people stand on every trip throughout the day, and as nearly the whole length of each line as possible. There is little relief during the slack hours, as every car, sooner or later, seems to have its standing load. In other cities of the country, a marked change of policy towards the public has shown itself in the largely increased number of seats furnished. It is a question whether it is a good policy for any public service corporation, no matter how securely intrenched, to continue the policies of the past.

It is one thing to allow a few persons who like it to stand on the car platform; it is another to require it of mothers, overworked girls, the tired, the ill, the infirm. No one knows how much disease is spread through such crowding. In no place are conditions more ripe for infection,--with the extreme of personal contact, the mixture of every class, the constant rubbing against one another and the holding of dirty strap. Under such conditions, when a consumptive coughs, who is safe?

The seating capacity of a city car line seems hardly to have a final limit, for some new way is constantly found to squeeze in more or larger cars. To get some figures by which to judge Pittsburgh, let us take the 256 cars run hourly on a single track in Berlin, or call it 250. If double-deck cars were run in Pittsburgh, of the same length and width as the largest cars now in use, each could easily seat as many as 120 passengers. This would allow a perfectly feasible capacity of 30,000 seats an hour, against a rate of 3,008 actually found on Fifth avenue.

Why double-deck cars are not run in this country is a mystery to every English manager and to not a few Americans. They nearly treble the seating capacity, and yet weigh no more than our wastefully heavy rolling stock. They give passengers decent room and air space. They are far more economical even than trailers. Roofs on these cars are now enclosed, and smoking is made possible all the year round. They can climb and descend hills more quickly and safely than single-deck cars of equal capacity, because more weight can be concentrated on the wheels. Two types have been designed for Pittsburgh of the same length and width as existing cars, both having an enclosed roof adapted for winter. The higher one would have 120 seats. The other type, low enough to go under existing railroad bridges, would furnish ninety-eight seats on one car, with four entrances each side. If such cars had been used on Fifth avenue the night when 2,290 passengers were counted in half an hour, they could have furnished seats for every person, with seven per cent excess. Only twenty-five cars instead of forty-three would have been needed, which would have required fifty men against the seventy-five actually employed for the 1,508 seats. To furnish more seats with trailers would cost more than the present system; but double-deck cars would cut thirty-three per cent off the operating expense, and the company would gain more than the immense monetary saving. They would lose less fares, have the good will of the public, and fewer accidents. The new pay-as-you-enter cars are the most expensive thing with which to furnish seats, and they take twice as long to load as a double-deck car, the introduction of which would appear to be the wisest move the company could make, as well as the best thing for the public.

One of the most objectionable features of the Pittsburgh railway system is the looping back of all cars in the business district, without either through cars or free transfers between the north, south, east, and west sides of the city. In the expensive days of horse cars, there was more excuse for short hauls and double fares; but for the wealthy Pittsburgh electric system, there is no excuse for not serving the entire district, at least within the city limits, for a five cent fare. Boston has had through cars across the city for about twenty years, and for ten years the company has had no higher fare than five cents for the entire Metropolitan district of a dozen cities and towns. The longest ride is at least sixteen miles, with free transfers given at about forty points. Berlin has the most complete system of through cars, connecting every part of the city for a single fare, allowing a ride of thirteen miles or two hours for two and one-half cents.

It seems very doubtful if the present restricted plan of operation pays nearly as well as would through cars and single fares for the entire city. The loops tie up many cars and men in the business district, because of the long stops at a few points and the slowness of switching. But one thing is certain, and that is the gross injustice of a ten cent fare across the city. Its tendency to isolate such public institutions as the Carnegie Institute, the Technical Schools, the University of Pittsburgh, is a very serious matter. An apprentice who attends the evening courses at the Technical Schools three nights a week, pays $5 a year for his tuition. If he has to ride each way, it costs him about $7.80 a year from only the nearest part of the city, $15.60 from the rest. Is this good public policy toward the ambitious workman who is unfortunate enough not to live within the favored zone? Is it good sense that the railway company shall charge twenty cents a round trip to so many who appreciate the free advantages of the Carnegie Institute, and thus bar many of the poorest from ever reaching its doors? The company may reply that all such public institutions should be located in the business district, where all lines center. But the city must grow beyond that congested triangle, and why should not the company's policy grow as well? The same question might be asked in connection with the company's refusal to give transfers after 11:30 P. M., and on the holidays when travel is heaviest. Altogether, it is not a matter for wonder that the public is a unit against the railway.

The whole fare system of Pittsburgh needs careful scrutiny. Should workmen's fares be introduced, to give every family a chance to live where it can find the best house, the most congenial neighbors, and the desirable surroundings, and yet get to work without exorbitant car fares? The London County Council, from its workmen's homes, seven miles out in the suburbs, gives a ride to the city, with a seat for every passenger, for two cents at the rush hour. One London steam road gives workmen an eleven mile ride for two cents each way. English managers say that American companies throw away large profits by maintaining too high fares. The question of public policy to consider about workmen's fares is not whether more people could be carried or whether they would pay, for foreign experience has settled these points, but whether more riding is necessary and desirable, that is, whether satisfactory living conditions can be provided within walking distance of where people work.

A feature of transit requiring more attention is the matter of car ventilation. The Pittsburgh company is said to be trying a method of artificial ventilation for its cars. For such densely packed spaces, a constant supply of fresh air is an urgent necessity. A downward movement of warm air, if found practicable, would be the most hygienic and economical. The car transoms should have handles attached to make proper opening and shutting easy. At the present time, there is often too much cold air blowing into the cars, because there is no easy way for the conductor to close the ventilators. The coal stoves should be banished from the interiors.

While there are spitting signs in the cars for the instruction of passengers, some of the employes appear to be the subjects who need most attention. The constant expectoration of motormen through vestibule doors, and the fouling of front steps, are practices that are not conducive to health or happiness.

To reduce the wear and tear on the nerves of the community the noise from car operation ought to be much less. Excessive gong ringing is far too common in Pittsburgh. Ninety-four blows in a minute is a ridiculous frequency. One sound from a good gong is enough to inform a vehicle that it is in the way. Too much pounding simply exasperates a teamster. There should be very little need of gong ringing anyway. A properly trained motorman slows down for pedestrians and obstructions, and does not rely on the gong to get them off the track before he is too near for safety. For the car gearing, the London mixture of sawdust and oil should be tried in the gear cases. The London cars almost startle one with their quietness. They are kept in perfect order, with no loose parts to rattle, no bad rails to pound over. While the Pittsburgh rail joints are often quiet, the tracks at junctions are in a condition most injurious to the cars, and a cause of excessive noise, there being actual gaps in the rail heads over which the cars must jump. Bad track maintenance has allowed much corrugation to creep in, viz., little waves along the heads of the rails, which are both noisy and expensive. The unfortunate supplanting of magnetic brakes by air brakes will increase the flat wheel nuisance. Worn trolley wheels cause unnecessary noise overhead. Rails on curves should be greased.