Correspondence. Passenger Transportation in the United States.

Abstract

remarked that his experience of the subject was limited principally to fighting his way in and out of ca,rs during "rush " hours on the elevated and surface car systems in Greater New York about 10 years ago. His surviving impression was one of admiration for the organization which effected the transport of such immense numbers of people a t a marvellously cheap rate, coupled with a feeling of de.r.out thankfulness that he was no longer one of the human units so transported. The Author was a past master in the art of designing those heartless New York stations where the hapless passenger, once started on a stream of traffic, had no chance of turning aside until the stream stopped, even though the '' transportee " desired it never EO strongly. Nulla vestigia retrorsum ought to be, if it were not, the motto of the Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners of New York City. I n such systems the human being was looked upon as an animated parcel-its dimensions, weight, rate of unassisted progress, airconsumption, and other characteristics were all carefully tabulated, nnd stations, cars, seats, and other apparatus were all calculated to fit it with no little nicety. The elusive factor was the number of parcels to be dealt with in a given time, which, in spite of every effort, seemed t o defy forecasting or the provisions made to meet it during "rush " hours. The absence of regulations as to seating produced the most extraordinary crowding, which, though in the main good-natured, was by no means pleasant, especially in a company of both sexes. The New York subway referred to was under construction while Mr. Berridge was in that city, and he had noticed particularly the freedom accorded to the builders compared with that accorded in London, where he had also had some experience in this class of work. I n London a shaft was sunk here and there, surrounded by an ssthetically-decorated hoarding, inside which the works progressed almost unnoticed by the general public. During the construction of the New York subway the whole of the streets affected were opened in every possible place, and large gasand water-mains were deviated on trestles over the sidewalks in a very workmanlike but unpresentable way. He had a vivid recollection of being prevented just in time from stepping off a surface car into a subway excavation 20 feet deep, alongside which the-car had stopped, and which was absolutely unprotected. The