by arises of giving to the patrons of these 
electric street railways the enjoyment of 
the beauties of boulevards heretofore de- 
nied them and reserved to those compara- 
tively few who live along the boulevard 
or who walked upon it or could afford to 
drive through it. True, the innovation will 
be very seriously objectionable to those 
who use the boulevard but are not using 
the electric railway. Comparing the num- 
ber of those who drive or motor in the 
boulevard with the number who pass over 
it in electric cars, it can hardly be doubted 
that in some cases regard for the greatest 
good and pleasure of the greatest number 
would warrant the extra cost, the increased 
danger and the serious interference with 
the quiet enjoyment of the beauty of the 
boulevard by the pedestrians and visitors in 
automobiles, carriages and on bicycles, due 
to the introduction of the electric railway. 
Of late years it has come to be consid- 
ered that the luxury and pleasure of going- 
over certain boulevards ought not to be 
confined to persons going to or from a 
park on foot or in horse-drawn vehicles, or 
in automobiles, but, in suitable cases, ought 
to be made available to those who use the 
electric street cars for business or social 
purposes, or merely for the pleasure of the 
ride, especially in hot weather, when the 
speed of electric street cars creates a grate- 
fully cooling draft. 
The only form of rapid transit a genera- 
tion ago was the steam railroad with its 
dense smoke, showers of cinders, clouds of 
dust, deafening roar of running gear and 
of wheels on rails, ear-splitting steam 
whistle, clanging bell, and distractingly 
loud puffing at starting and on grades. No 
one thought such form of rapid transit per- 
missible in a boulevard, or desirable near 
high-class residence property. Such houses 
as had to be built near it were built back- 
ing toward it, and parallel streets, when- 
ever possible, were laid out the depth of a 
lot from the steam railway. Also the rail- 
road right-of-way was left raw and rough 
and hideous after construction, and, except 
so far as nature was able to clothe the 
gash, so it remains on the greater part of 
most suburban steam railroads today. 
Usually, too, in the suburbs, the right-of- 
way is disgustingly littered with papers and 
rubbish. The result is that passengers in 
the trains are compelled to see the worst 
aspect of the worst part of nearly every 
settlement. 
But the introduction of electricity in place 
of steam has greatly changed public opin- 
ion, and electric rapid transit is becoming 
admissible in front of houses. 
In a few special cases it may be that a 
boulevard should be laid out with a reser- 
vation to be used for a rapid transit elec- 
tric railway, which, when constructed, 
would he depressed in most places but 
raised in crossing valleys, thus doing away 
with all grade crossings. Where land is 
not too expensive the side slopes could be 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
made easier than l l A to 1 (the usual rail- 
road slope). It would then be possible for 
the landscape gardener to make these 
slopes attractive. Vine clad, low fences 
would keep people off the tracks and at the 
same time screen from view the tracks and 
ballasted roadbed and the running gear of 
trains. If the electric power is conveyed 
in conduits and third rail no poles and 
wires would obtrude on the view. With 
electricity there would be no smoke or cin- 
ders and no puffing. With stone ballast, 
oiled, there would be no dust. In short, 
the only seriously objectionable circum- 
stance would be the roar of the running 
gear and of wheels on rails. The latter 
can be very materially lessened by an auto- 
matic device for dropping a trifling amount 
of water on the rails and both by dwarf 
vine-clad walls on each side of the tracks to 
deflect the noise upward and by using only 
massive masonry or concrete instead of 
steel trusses for all needed bridges or for 
viaducts where the railroad could not be 
on earth fill. Where steel viaducts are 
necessary much of the racket of passing 
trains can be absorbed in a bed of gravel 
under the ties. 
In some cases the two local tracks would 
be together, but usually one track would 
be on one side and the other on the other 
side of the rapid transit depression or em- 
bankment, so as to even up the advantages 
of accessibility to the adjoining private 
properties. 
To properly accommodate automobiles 
there should either be one drive exclusively 
for automobiles wide enough ordinarily for 
four or five streams of automobiles, or 
there may be two equal but narrower ways 
exclusively for automobiles, one on each 
side of the central reservation. In this 
case they could be “one way” drives. In 
some cases it might be feasible to put a 
separate way for the through traffic auto- 
mobiles next the fence of the depressed or 
elevated rapid transit electric railway, thus 
enabling all grade crossings of cross streets 
to be done away with. Branch drives would 
lead to the surface ways every mile or two. 
Tn most cases, however, owing to financial 
limitations, automobiles would be provided 
for merely by a special modification of the 
paving of one of the ordinary driveways 
or along one edge of each of two drive- 
ways. 
For horse-drawn vehicles there should be 
either one broad and one narrow drive or 
two drives of equal breadth. In case there 
is one wide and one narrow drive, afford- 
ing access to house lots, the wide one 
should be wide enough for standing ve- 
hicles next the curb and for two streams 
of slow-moving vehicles (one going each 
way) and for two streams of automobiles 
(one going each way), and this wide drive 
would be laid out with long curves and 
easy grades, while the narrow drive, being 
required only for access to lots and side 
streets, could curve more sharply and have 
233 
steeper grades, so as to more nearly fit the 
adjoining land and to save expense in 
grading. Its width would be merely suf- 
ficient for standing vehicles next the curb 
and for two streams of moving vehicles 
(one going each way). In case there are 
two drives of equal width, affording ac- 
cess to house lots and side streets, they 
could be made “one way” streets, with 
sufficient width for standing vehicles next 
the curb and one stream of slow-moving 
vehicles and one stream of automobiles. In 
the case of one wide and one narrow drive- 
way all of the narrow and half the width 
of the wide drive could be of binding 
gravel or water bound macadam, to be kept 
firm in summer by watering, for the horse- 
drawn vehicles, v'hile one-half only (say a 
width of 24 feet) of the wide drive would 
be of cement concrete, which is the cheap- 
est hard paving suitable for automobiles, 
but which is not suitable for horse-drawn 
vehicles. In the case of two equal “one 
way” drives a strip 12 feet wide of cement 
concrete paving in the side of the drive, 
toward the middle of the parkway, would 
ordinarily be sufficient for automobiles, the 
remaining width being binding gravel or 
macadam. 
There should be bicycle paths and, in 
the more rural parts of the boulevard, soft 
paths for horseback riding. 
The sidewalks should normally have a 
paved walk between two rows of trees 
growing in wide turf strips, but would vary 
according to circumstances. 
Lawns between the fence lines and build- 
ings must be considered as hardly less es- 
sential than grass strips in the parkway 
itself. If they cannot be secured by means 
of restrictions they should be secured by 
taking the land, thus making them legally 
part of the parkway, as :s the case in the 
city of Washington. 
Advantage should be taken of varying 
conditions of topography, existing improve- 
ments and real estate boundaries to vary 
the design of the parkway from a set pat- 
tern. 
A typical cross section for a modern 
rapid transit parkway is illustrated. 
Many people may say at once that this 
ideal style of wide parkways with provision 
for rapid transit and local electric railways 
and special automobile roadways, and so 
on, is financially utterly impossible of at- 
tainment. Perhaps it is under present laws 
and customs. Nevertheless, it would be no 
more than reasonable prudence in laying 
out parkways in Essex County to consider 
its relation to the probable future require- 
ments as to surface and rapid transit elec- 
tric railways and through automobile traf- 
fic and to call the attention of the public to 
the need of changes in the constitution and 
laws of the state, and even in the interpre- 
tation of the laws by the courts, by means 
of which the county can gradually be made 
a more agreeable and a more efficient place 
to live in and to do business in. 
