790 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It is to be hoped that the complete statistics relating to rapid 

 transit in cities will enable the public to determine, with reason- 

 able accuracy, the relative economy of the different powers used. 

 This is a question which is vital to the interests of city and subur- 

 ban communities, and which leads to the ethical consideration of 

 the problem of rapid transit. That power must eventually be 

 used by which passengers can be transported from their homes to 

 their places of business and return at the least possible expense, 

 and the greatest possible safety commensurate with high speed. 



The necessity of living in sanitary localities, in moral and 

 well-regulated communities, where children can have all the ad- 

 vantages of church and school, of light and air, becomes more and 

 more evident as municipal governments undertake to solve the 

 problems that are pressing upon them. If it be desirable to dis- 

 tribute the population of congested districts through country dis- 

 tricts, means must be provided for safe, rapid, and cheap transit 

 to the country districts; or,- inversely, if it be desirable to build 

 up the suburban areas, the jjeople must be supplied with cheap 

 and convenient means of reaching the localities within which 

 they earn their living. 



The reduction of fares, through improved means of rapid 

 transit, however desirable, is really a minor question. It is prob- 

 ably true that by a slight reduction from a five-cent fare the head 

 of a family engaged in mechanical labor, earning perhaps five 

 or six hundred dollars per annum, might save enough to pay 

 taxes, or to offset church and society assessments, or to furnish 

 his family with boots and shoes, in any event extending his power 

 'pro ianio for the elevation of his family; but he does more than 

 this when speed is taken into consideration. By the old methods 

 of transit from suburbs to the heart of a city a working-man going 

 into the city of Boston was practically obliged, while working 

 ten hours at his usual occupation, to spend an hour on the horse- 

 railway, when now, on one line, by the use of the electric car, he 

 can go to and return from his place of work in half that time, 

 thereby actually adding to his own time half an hour each day, 

 practically reducing his working time from eleven hours to ten 

 and a half hours without reduction of wages and without in- 

 creased expense for transportation. The question of raj^id transit, 

 therefore, as seen by this simple illustration, becomes an ethical 

 consideration ; for if there is anything to be gained by adding to 

 the time which men have at their disposal for their own purposes, 

 for intercourse with their families, for social improvement, for 

 everything for which leisure is supposed to be used, then the 

 question of rapid transit is one of far greater importance than 

 that of saving money either to the man who uses transportation 

 or to the company that secures dividends upon its stock. I be- 



