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.
[Illustration: FOR PROFILE LINES AND CAR ROUTES, SEE MAP FACING PAGE
784.]
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.
[Illustration: PROFILES OF PITTSBURGH