RAPID TRANSIT. 791 



lieve, therefore, that all the efforts that are being made to secure 

 convenient and cheap rapid transit in great cities are those which 

 should bring to their support the help of all men who are seeking 

 the improveraient of the condition of the masses. 



Business extension in cities is crowding the street area. This 

 area is precisely the same in old cities like Boston, New York, 

 Philadelphia, etc., for the present population and business opera- 

 tions that existed a century ago. The crowding of streets with 

 the transportation essential for the movement of goods increases 

 with great rapidity, but when the crowding is augmented, per- 

 haps doubled, by the presence of the means of transporting pas- 

 sengers, the difficulties involved are almost appalling. With 

 every increase of population the companies having in charge 

 transportation facilities must, in order to accommodate the pub- 

 lic, add more cars and more animals — if animals are the motive 

 power — and so rapidly add to the already crowded condition of 

 streets. This process is one which attacks the health and the 

 safety of the people. The presence of so many horses constantly 

 moving through the streets is a very serious matter. The vitia- 

 tion of the air by the presence of so many animals is alone a suffi- 

 cient reason for their removal, while the clogged condition of the 

 streets impedes business, whether carried on with teams or on 

 foot, and involves the safety of life and limb. It is a positive 

 necessity, therefore, from this point of view alone, that the prob- 

 lems connected with rapid transit should be speedily solved, and 

 this feature demands the efforts and the support of sanitarians. 

 With the removal of tracks from the surface, and with tunnels 

 built in such a manner as to be free from the dampness of the 

 old form of tunnel, as has been done in London, and to secure 

 light and air and be easy of access, all the unsanitary conditions 

 of street-railway traffic will be at once and forever removed ; and 

 if private capital can not be interested to a sufficient extent to 

 undertake such measures, then municipal governments must see 

 to it that the health of the community is not endangered by sur- 

 face traffic. When this question is allied to the ethical one, and 

 when one considers the advantages to be gained, first, through 

 securing rapid transit from the crowded portions of cities to the 

 suburbs, and, second, by removing rapid transit traffic from the 

 surface to underground viaducts, the importance of the whole 

 problem becomes clearly apparent, and not only the importance 

 of the problem but the necessity of its solution. 



The statistics given by the census officers seem to indicate that 

 as a matter of economy the very best equipment can be used with- 

 out increasing the tax upon individual passengers. If under- 

 ground roads can be used without at first increasing such tax, 

 and still offer a reasonable compensation for capital invested, the 



