FREE INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE 



THE ELIMINATION OF GRADE-CROSSINGS IN CITIES 



19 



The Long Island Railroad Company recently issued a placard which reads 

 as follows: 



TO AUTOMOBILE OWNERS AND CHAUFFEURS 



The moral the Long Island Railroad is trying to point out 

 in its campaign against reckless automobile driving over 

 grade-crossings is this : 



It is better to wait at a railroad crossing than at a doctor's 

 office. 



The only sure way to avoid being struck by a train is to 

 STOP BEFORE YOU CROSS. 



This Company has spent $15,000,000 ehminating 305 

 crossings. It spends $25,000 a month — $300,000 a year — 

 to protect those crossings that still exist. 



We are doing our part. Won't you do yours? 



In order to show that under present traffic conditions in large cities the 

 danger to pedestrians is not confined to railroad crossings at grade, the data 

 given in Table 3 are enlightening: 



TABLE 3 



COMPARISON OF CASUALTIES TO PERSONS AT GRADE-CROSSINGS OF RAILROADS 

 AND STREETS, WITH CASUALTIES TO PEDESTRIANS WHO WERE STRUCK OR 

 RUN OVER BY VEHICLES ON STREETS IN CHICAGO 



The above list does not include street cars. 

 * Record is for automobiles only. 

 Railway Age Gazette, October 8, 1915. 



This table shows that about five times as many people were killed in Chi- 

 cago in crossing ordinary streets in 1914, and thirty times as many injured as 

 there were at railroad grade-crossings. It would, therefore, seem that, in 



