CHAPTER VIII 

 MINIMUM RATE BASED ON FRONTAGE 



The frontage of the lot affects materially the total length of the piping 

 system. Therefore there seems no other element which can serve so well 

 and so justly as the measure of the constant yearly assessment as the length 

 of frontage of the property. Committee on Meter Rates, Freeman C. 

 Coffin, Chairman, Jour. N.E.W.W. Assn., Vol. XIX, 1905, p. 325. 



The minimum charge as outlined by the report of the Com- 

 mittee on Meter Rates of 1916 reflects solely the costs to the 

 works in connection with the service and meter for which a ser- 

 vice charge is made. The Committee did not include as part of 

 its service charge any part of the expenses growing out of the 

 distribution of water through the pipes in the streets. Service 

 charges have been otherwise proposed and used which are greater 

 relatively than those proposed by the Committee and which do 

 reflect in part the cost of distribution. 



In rates that have been suggested by decisions of the Wis- 

 consin, Pennsylvania and New Jersey Public Service Commis- 

 sions, service charges according to the size of meter have been 

 suggested, sufficient to carry in addition to the direct costs of the 

 service a part of the general cost of the distribution of the water. 



The Coffin Committee on Meter Rates * made a suggestion 

 of great merit in this connection. This suggestion has received 

 less practical consideration than it deserves, but the underlying 

 idea is reflected to some extent in water rates in use in a 

 number of large cities of this country. 



The idea was that the service charge should be based on the 

 frontage of the property. 



The method, in the words of the Committee, is as follows: 



* Jour. N.E.W.W. Assn., Vol. XIX, p. 322, 1905. 

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