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questions, and in the increasing mass of vehicular street traffic, which makes some 

 of our cities veritable pandemoniums. Luckily it seems that we are likely 

 through the skill and energy of our engineers to meet these difficulties in more 

 than one way. The cycle, which commenced as an amusement and went on as a 

 fashionable craze, has now settled down into being the poor man s horse, ihe 

 number of our working population that use the cycle for going; to and from the r 

 work is already very large and is steadily increasmg and their use of tbe foads 

 must be considered. Then came the motor-car, developed m i ranee to such an 

 amazing extent, and which seems now likely to be developed to an equal extent in 

 this country. After many years of objecting to the use o the overhead trolley 

 svstem, our town authorities seem now to have determined that the only way ot 

 relieving street traffic is by an enormous development ot e ectrical tramways and 

 on all sides we find the large towns rivalling one another in the extent ot the 

 tramway systems which they have either acquired or are laying down tor them- 

 selves. It seems opportune now to point out that a great deal of mischief may 

 accrue by this indiscriminate use of tramways, and for those who are considering 

 these matters I bring forward a few facts which are worthy ot notice. Ut course, 

 in new countries, or in new towns in old countries, where the roads are rough and 

 bad, anything in the nature of a tramway using rails is an improvement on a road- 

 way ; but when we are dealing with cities which already possess well laid out and 

 well paved streets on which all kinds of wheel traffic can be carried on with a 

 minimum of rolling resistance, it seems wrong from an engineering point ot view 

 to break up the surface of these streets for the purpose of laying tramways, and tor 

 the following important reasons : Traffic carried on a roadway by vehicles, whether 

 horse-drawn or by cycle or motor-car, differs from traffic carried on rails chiefly m 

 that the former vehicles possess an important power, viz., that of overtaking, wmcn 

 is not possessed by the latter, that is to say that vehicles on the plain road surface 

 can overtake a stopping or a slower vehicle going in the same direction without 

 interferin- with other vehicles, whereas on rails the vehicles going one way must 

 always remain in the same relation to one another, so that the speed of vehicles 

 on rails must always be regulated by that of other vehicles going in the same 

 direction. Street tramways, for instance, must stop to set down and take up 

 passengers : this limits the speed average and the number ot vehicles per mile ot 

 track, for if there be not sufficient intervals between the vehicles they would have 

 to stop and start nearly simultaneously. Thus the carrymg capacity of the best 

 modern electrical tramway is limited by this want of overtakmg power. 1 have 

 made careful inquiry from those who have great experience in tramways not on y 

 in this country but in America and on the Continent, and I find that it is generally 

 admitted that the maximum carrying capacity of an electrical tramway in one 

 direction is 4,000 passengers per hour carried past any given point, i tncl 

 that a full-gauge suburban or metropolitan railway crowded to its fullest extent 

 cannot carry more than 12,000 passengers per hour. _ Now most of us have often 

 seen large crowds taken away from a point of attraction by omnibuses and horse- 

 drawn vehicles, and have noticed that the crowded omnibuses almost touch one 

 another and yet can go at a fair rate of speed. In this case at eight miles per 

 hour speed 14,000 passengers can be carried from a given point per hour. 



Up to the present a public motor-car service has not yet been instaUed ot any 

 magnitude to enable us to compare the carrying capacity of motor-cars with that 

 of horse-drawn omnibuses, but owing to the reduced length of motor-cars com- 

 pared with that of omnibuses, and on account of their greater speed and greater 

 control, motor-cars can now be built to deal with great crowds at an even higher 

 rate per hour than that noted above. It appears certain, therefore, that although 

 the provision of electrical tramways is undoubtedly an economical means ot carry- 

 ing passeno-ers, yet that these tramwavs cannot be laid in existing thoroughfares 

 without considerably reducing the total road carrying capacity at times of heavy 

 pressure of traffic, and as it appears likely that either for the daily transport of the 

 workers to and from their homes to places of employment, or for taking great 

 crowds out into the country for pleasure purposes, a motor-car service carried out 



