Sympathy for Tram-Users.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18408, 15 June 1925, Page 10

Sympathy for Tram-Users.

It is perhaps a little risky to let Chris tchurch know that, its traffic problems are not the worst in the world. Bond Street, as Mr George Gould pointed out in a letter in Saturday's "Press," has busier spots than even our Bank Corner, and it may at least be suspected that there are more breathless moments on Broadway. There seem in fact to be more bewildered and idissatisfied persons among New York's five millions at the present time than in all the vast multitude between Sockburn and North Beach. The New York "Times," which is not a scaremonger, and which takes no pleasure at - all in exposing American weaknesses, ; confessed the other day that the demand for better transportation is the "most angry since the City began "to expand in 1840." Precisely how the people expressed themselves on the subject in 1840 it does not say, but it quotes an editorial of 1864 which could hardly be said to breathe con-

tentment: "People are packed into the "cars like sardines in a box. The " seats being more than filled, the pas"sengers are placed in rows down the " middle, where they hang on by straps "like smoked haras in the grocery " trade. . . . The foul, close air is " poisonous, and for these reasons most "Jadies and gentlemen prefer to ride "in the stages, which cannot bo " crowded so outrageously, ; and which " are pretty decently ventilated." It will also perhaps mollify those nightriders on our trams who wait for the names of streets that they never hear or cannot identify to know that there were worse annoyances on Broadway buses before most. of the people- in Christchurch were born. "Modern " martyrdom," one journal declared over fifty years ago, "may be succinctly defined as'riding in a New " York omnibus. From the beginning " to the end of the journey a constant " quarrel is progressing. The driver " quarrels with the passengers and the "passengers with the driver. There "are quarrels about getting out and " quarrels about getting in. . . . There " are quarrels about change and " quarrels about the ticket swindle. " The driver swears, and the passengers " swear back, and so the omnibus rolls "along, a perfect bedlam.on wheels." But curiously enough, though all these discomforts were most pronounced in the horse era, the horse-car died hardest of all. It is a little astonish-, ing to read that breathless New York was still using horse-cars in 1913 —and would possibly have been using them yet in the suburbs if the State Legislature had not passed a law making it a misdemeanour to "operate a horse"car in cities of the first-class." But it was perhaps the adventure of having to "lose their sense of smell, develop "the capacity to shut themselves up " like patent umbrellas, be able to hang "to a platform by the lids of their "eyes, or hold drunken men and un- " steady women on their lap" that kept the masses stubbornly attached to the horse-tracks long after cables and overheads and subways had carried transport into its fourth and present era. In New York as in Christchurch there was a legendary period of oxcarts. . There was a period, unknown to Christchurch, when the public rode in stages, "huge hulking contraptions "like overgrown private carriages, "painted in gaudy colours and each " with its own name emblazoned on "its sides"j and after the stage, but long before it bad disappeared, the horse-car arrived. The first tram-car in New York—it was the first also in the world —made its revolutionary journey up the Bowery in 1832, though twenty years passed before the new idea was popular. And now, seventy years after the victory of fixed tracks and iron rails, the public are protesting more fiercely than they have ever done before that the delays, dangers and discomforts of city transport are beyond endurance. We mention the fact not to encourage the Tramway Board, but to convey to an exasperated public.that it has at least five millions of sympathisers.