THE THREEPENNY TRAM FARE.

Evening Star, Issue 12884, 6 August 1906, Page 6

THE THREEPENNY TRAM FARE.

MORE THAN RESIDENTS CAN AFFORD TO PAY AND ABSURDLY DEAR BY COMPARISON. Our article-on Saturday stated the argument that residents at or near the tram termini cannot and will not try to pay a threepenny fare—that they resent the charge as' unjust, and are walking or cycling to evade it. . The objection iS not to a fee of threepence. The person who wishes to ride to St. Clair or Normanby once in a while does not mind ' paying threepence; he would probably not be put off from his purpose if asked for fourpenoe. The grievance is in regard to the multiplication of. threepences, amounting, as already Bhown, to about £1 a week for a moderate-sized and economical family if they take the trams to and from business. In practice, it may be assumed, few such families do spend £1 a week on tram fares. They haven't got it to spend. So they walk. And hence the limited patronage the cars have" after passing the penny section. Our people arc being encouraged to walk. This view of the case was enlaigcd upon in our article last Saturday. Wo. deem it right to undeceive those of our citizens who imagine that because' the cars start from tlie Post OiHce with a good load thev are doing the pass nger traffic. As a matter of fact the rule is that half or twothirds of the passengers get- out after travelling one section, leaving the cars to go on with a very small party—sometimes none at all—to their destination. For U>e proof of this let the councillors ask their own conductors. But our first proposition is. we think, abundantly clear, and we pass on to another view of the question. What are the passenger fates bv the suburban trains? On the railway you- have a choice of several scales of fares. The tramway authorities say this cannot he done—that one. scale and one onlv must be stuck to. otherwise there will be leakage and loss and chaos and earthquakes, to sav nothing of the chance of war hot ween several of the Great Powers. And, while our city councillors beli-ve this, thev know very well that the railway people'are ready to take fares in half a dozen different ways, and in practice do. in that manner meet the varying nerds of the public, without any risk to the sanity of the officials or any fcnr of befogging the Minister about his balance-sheet.. Mr A. Duncan, our respected a.nd popular station-master at Dunwhn. mnk «s a-fuss about issuing tickets of differing -values, ano his clerks will civilly sell yon what you :, s k for making no more bother about obliging a customer than the grocers assistant does when asked for a pound of tea by one woman and a pound of sugar bv another He would be r-oii"f d a mveer sor t of shopman who insisted upon s-Iling only tea. or nothing but. starch, for fear ho iruent ™pt into a muddle !

Well, if you go down to the Duwdin railway station you will find there posted up a tabic showing the- different sorts of tickets issued to suburban p^.sseng=rs Or* soptfan of tWs taW<l de;i]s - vWi worlcers tickets. A worker's weekly ticket entitles the holder to one outward and one homeward trin per day. The outward journey must be by a train that arrives at its destination • before 8 a.m.. but the holder may return by any twin, mail and express trams excluded, "after 9 a.m. For such a ticket the charge is Is 6d to Ravensbourne »A miles), 2s to Port Chalmers (8 miles), ard 2s to MoseieJ (10 miles). This means: On the Raven-bonme trip, 3d for five miles; to Port, 4d for sixteen miles; to Mosgiel, 4d for twenty miles. To be fair, these workers* tickets on the railway must be compared with workers' tares on the tramway, and this is how it pans out to the worker who has the misfortune to live at St. Clair-.

To Ravensbourne and back, 5 miles urain) ,j To Port Chalmers and back"l6"miks (tram) 4d To Mossirf and back, 20 miles (train) '.'.'. 4d To St. Qair and back, 6 miles (tramway) 4d There it is in plain English and plain b<rnres—twentv miles for 4d by the train • suc ™"«s for 4d by the tramcar. Evfrrbodj may not know that on a workers car you We to jay 2d to or from fct. Llair but such i? the case. The oononctor collects a penny to start with on leaving town, and another penny on turning the Forburv road corner. If you give him i penny for the first two sections and then offer him a. token for the last section, or if you board tie oar at Forbury road corner and tender a token for that section to St. Clair, the conductor will probably tell you that you ought to pay a penny cash. The conductors are civil enough, as a rule, but they seem to have an idea that on a workers' car any one separate section must be paid for in cash. Whether this is a misunderstanding or an order from the office, nobody seems to know, but it causes irritation, especially with passengers who having walked one or two sections wish to ride the last section and don't know till they are on board whether it ia a workers' car or not.

This, however, is a side matter. The point is that the worker who travels by tramcar gets for fourpence less than a, third of what is given on the railway for fourpence! Now is it understood why our families are tying to get houses near the railway line so as to avoid the tramcars? Look for a moment at another of the railway tables —the table of yearly tickets to suburban stations. Sticking to the same three stations as fairly illustrative of the ]K>sition, we find that a. yearly ticket to Ravensbourne costs £2 ss, to Port Chalmers £7 15s, to Mosgiel £8 12s 6d. Provided with such a ticket there is no restriction as to trains or times—the holder may, if he choose, keep travelling forward and backward from early morning till the theatres are out. And what does it cost him? Here is the calculation for Ravensbourne:—£2 5s is 540 d, and that divided by 313 (the number of week days in the year) gives as nearly as possible one penny three farthings per day. For l|d a day one can travel between Dunedin and Ravensbourne as often as he likes! In practice there are many who use season tickets fox two trips a day each way—to town in the morning, home to lunch, "back to town in the afternoon, and home at the end of the day. If he so desire, the holder may also run up to the theatre or a meeting in the evening without asking anybody's leave; he may even take a fancy to hear a City clergyman, on Sunday. But take the common case of a man who makes the two trips each way per day, and this is how he stands in comparison with his penalised brother at St. Clair or Normanby:

The Ravensboume resident gets off by paying _ lfd The St. Glair resident is charged 12d Our readers can figure out for themselves the advantages enjoyed by the Mpsgiel or the Port Chalmers resident as against the person who travels to a tramway terminus". The data are £7 15s per year to Port (8 miles) and £8 12s 6d to Mosgiel (10 miles). We choose Ravensbourne as the example simply because the distance is pretty nearly the same as to St. Clair. The pernickety may argue that St. Glair is a bit further. So it is. To be precise, three miks from the Hotel Metropole at St. Clair, would be to about the Octagon. He who cares to may make a point of this and -welcome. There are miles of margin in favor of the railway. Somebody may seize hold of the fact that the railway fares we are quoting are for second class. That is true. And he may point out that there is no second class on the tram cars. That also is true. The quc&tion is, whether there is any class at all for the terminus traveller on the trams. He generally has to stand till the penny section travellers get out, and whilst being bumped about he has just as much comfort as if riding in a cattle truck. To any question about class, the obvious answer is that on the train you get a seat; on the trams you do if you are hicky or if you core to fight wtfch women anddaJdreuj-aod

the balance <rf comfort is ■vwy mnch witA the trains. • With which obvious oanchrskrn we eat for the day. There is more to come.