About every five miles there will be an express station. Here the people will climb down eight feet, or sixteen if going the opposite direction, and board a train that is not bothered with frequent stops and can hence make very high speed.
The following is a sample specification of Roadtown train service as submitted by William H. Boyes, using the Boyes Monorail System at a speed of only ninety miles per hour. Line from New York to Philadelphia, ninety miles. Daily traveling population, one to a family, 250 per mile, 11,250 to go each way. 3,916 per hour for three rush hours. Speed, ninety miles per hour; time of round trip, two hours; trains five minutes apart; stations, five miles apart. Trains, twenty-four; seating capacity per train, 336; capacity of express service, 4,032 hourly. Local trains oscillating between express stations each to carry 224 passengers per hour, eighteen required.
This specification submitted by Mr. Boyes gives a remarkably small equipment for the traffic handled compared with present figures. The chief difference is due to the high speed. There are many who will not believe that a ninety-mile schedule will be maintained, not so many perhaps as would two years ago have refused to believe that man could fly from New York to Philadelphia, an account of the accomplishment of which lies on my desk as I write. For those to whom seeing is necessary to believing, the speed above may be cut in half, which will then be about that in the New York Subway. The express trains will then run on a two-and-a-half-minute schedule and twice as many will be required, but the cost will still be much lower than present day commuting service and efficient enough to make the entire Roadtown from New York to Philadelphia as accessible for commuters as is now a suburban home fifteen miles from New York and a half mile from the railroad station.
The single train on the local track will make a round trip between express stations about every fifteen minutes. Those near the middle of the section will catch the train going in either direction, as the time for the express to travel the distance of one express station is negligible. In each Roadtown home there will be an electric buzzer which, when the switch is so turned, will announce the approach of a train in sufficient time to allow one to get to the station. The buzzer will have two distinct sounds, one for trains in either direction.
Roadtown parcels, such as are not cared for in a small mechanical carrier described in Chapter VI, will be hauled on the local trains. Roadtown freight service will be at night on the express tracks, the trains stopping at stations located at suitable distances and distinct from the passenger stations. At these freight stations there will be elevators or inclines delivering freight to or receiving it from the land outside, while furniture, etc., for the houses will be elevated to the platform above and carried on the very early trips of the local trains to one’s door.
Wrecks on such a railroad system can only occur from actual breaking of some working part, a comparatively rare cause of present wrecks. The local track collision cannot occur as there is only one train in a section. On the two express tracks, “tail-end” collisions will be prevented by a block system that turns off the power automatically when trains approach within a certain distance of each other. This system is in operation in the New York Subways.
The Street Upon the Roof.
Private stairs from each home will lead down to the monorail platform and up to the roof. In the center of the roof will be a promenade which will be covered, and in the winter enclosed with glass panels and steam heated. On the outer edges of the roof will be a path for bicyclists and skaters, who will use rubber tired roller skates. The monorail, which is the business transportation system of Roadtown, will be placed out of sight and run at high speed, but the roof promenade will be the “street” for recreation and pleasure. In winter the promenade will be a continuous sun parlor; in summer a shaded walk. There will be benches in alcoves along the way and occasional towers over the promenade and tower effects along the edges of the roof beyond the cycle paths or some other architectural effects to break the monotony. These towers will be used as coöperative centers, such as stores, cooking and power, recreation, schools, nurseries, etc. The tower effects are matters of architectural ingenuity, and many architects are already interested in finding ways to lend variety and beauty to the Roadtown as they have to our existing public ways.
Certainly no street or boulevard in the history of the world was ever more uniquely located. The splendid view to be obtained from such a promenade in a dust-free and smoke-free country can hardly be pictured to a city bred man or a countryman jogging along the hedge and weed throttled country road. The view across the near gardens and more distant grain fields, and back over woods and hills to the dim line where land meets sky, will cure forever a score of Latin-named diseases which the eye specialist tells us come from gazing through the dust-laden street or across the dingy court into our neighbor’s kitchen window.
It is upon the roof that the Roadtown will be upon dress parade. Here maids with their lovers will stroll of evenings and matrons with their baby carriages on Sunday afternoons. It is here that children will have never ending sport. Skating and cycling can have an unprecedented opportunity to develop for health and pleasure. It is here that Easter hats will be shown and neighbors’ crops discussed and new acquaintances made and local pride developed.