WHICH DOES THE JOB?

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 124, 21 November 1931, Page 12

WHICH DOES THE JOB?

TKAJf OR BUS ?

STREET SPACE AND LOAD

By "Passenger."

"It is generally accepted," reports Mr. Daniel L. Turner, consulting transport engineer, Now York, "that one of the great advantages of motor-buses is their flexibility of movement." But this flexibility, he argues, is nullified by congestion of street traffic. Such congestion is not solely or even mainly caused by tramcars. Street congestion results largely from the automobile traffic itself. If there are sufficient buses and automobiles in the street they will cause a congestion nullifying flexibility of movement. Where parking is permitted, congestion is intensified.

In punting out that flexibility of movement cannot bo realised without freedom of movement, Mr. Turner writes: "Thero must be room in the traffic Janes for one bus to pass another and to continue along without intereforence. Under tho congested conditions in Fifth avenue the advantage of flexibility is largely lost. The buses are compelled to trail each other almost all the time. When one bus can pass another, it is not able to gain much time because it cannot get a free run. Even when a bus lias obtained a full load and does -not have to stop to take in passengers, it still has to trail along."

RETAEDATION BY PARKING.

Mr. Turner adds that the spe-ed of buses is brought down as low as 2.95 miles an hour. He quotes tho New York police opinion that both tramcars and buses are responsible for much of the congestion of traffic; and he also blames "cruising" taxi-cabs and too liberal parking. In a report on London traffic by Mr. S. A. Maddocks occurs the remark: "It frequently happens that in heavy traffic buses cannot reach their stopping places, and people will often be seen making their -way at considerable risk through the traffic, either to board, or to depart from, a bus moving in the middlo of the roadway."

If flexibility of movement fails through lack of freedom of movement, what other tests can be applied as between tramway traffic and motor traffic? One test is tho amount of street space (per passenger carried) occupied by various types of passenger vehicle. A survey was made of all the traffic leaving the down town area of a typical Canadian city during the evening rush hour, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., and the following points were hold to be established: —

(1) Automobiles comprised 89.25 per cent, of all passenger vehicle movement, •carried only 15.53 per cent, of all passenger traffic, and occupied 09.78 per cent, of street spaco taken up by all passenger vehicles. (2) Tramcars and trailers numbering 67S occupied a gross area of 510 square feet of street spaco each, and carried 54,543 passengers. They therefore occupied an average of 6.4 square feet of street space per passenger carried.

(3) There were 30 buses which occupied a gross area of 330 square feet of street space each, and carried 727 passengers. The buses therefore occupied 13.6 square 'feet of street space per passenger carried. (4) There were 5594 automobiles which occupied a gross area of 140 square feet of street space each, and curried 10,142 passengers. Automobiles therefore occupied 81.4 square feet of street spaco per passenger carried. SPACE PER PASSENGER.

The above findings apply to peak traffic. It would be, well if similar surveys were made of traffic in other cities, to test tho superiority of the tramcar from the standard of street space per passenger carried. Such a test would be particularly valuable in a city where street-widen-ing and parking space are twin problems of urgent importance, Ceitainly the Canadian figures do not suggest that tramway services arc obsolete. .