DECREPIT TRAMWAYS

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 219, 16 June 1925, Page 9

DECREPIT TRAMWAYS

INCREASED USE OF MOTOR OMNIBUSES IN ENGLAND. The report of the Government auditor on the working of the London County Council tramways for the year ending March 31, 1924, definitely establishes the fact that these tramways have ceased to be a source of profit, and from being an asset have become a liability (says the “Daily Mail”). Owing to a heavy decline in passenger receipts the system was worked at a loss and a sum of over £160,000 had to be drawn from the reserve fund. This fund has now almost vanished, and any further losses will have to be met from the rates. . « , j The position in London is paralleled by the position throughout the country. Everywhere tramways are suffering from the competition of the motor-om-nibus,’ except in a few cities wliose municipal authorities have been able by police or other regulations to exclude the more efficient form of . transport from their streets. The existence of tlie cumbersome, out-of-date, dangerous tramway has become a serious financial problem and a constant cause of traffic congestion. _ . , So obvious are the deficiencies of the tramway to those who do not see trafllc through political spectacles that a tendency has set in to abandon tramways and substitute motor vehicles. Oxford and Cambridge, which used to be considered the “homes of lost causes,’ led the movement, though they followed in the wake of the great American city of Boston, which more than 20 years ago banished the tramway from its central area, finding it an intolerable nuisance. At the present time Darlington, Doncaster, and Ipswich have begun clearing out their tramways and substitut *2 motor-omnibuses, which take their current by troljey from overhead wires arid cause much less obstruction. Numerous other municipalities are intioducmg ths trollev motnr-nmn’bus.