Highways and Highway Transportation

by George R. Chatburn

A MODERN RURAL PASSENGER BUS

© Underwood and Underwood

A NEW YORK CITY “STEPLESS BUS”

It Has an Emergency Door, with Wire Window Guards, and will Seat 30 Persons.

Buses are made both single and double deck. The latter are in demand where traffic is large and also where sight-seeing is an important item, the upper deck being usually open to the weather.

The fare charged by the bus is either the same or in many cases a little higher than that by the trolley car, but the bus has the advantage in that it can travel over streets where the trolley is not allowed, can usually make better time, and can load and unload at the curb, thus avoiding danger from passing vehicles, a matter of no little importance to timid passengers. The trolley car is able to haul large numbers at a less expense. In such cases no passenger transportation is cheaper. But the field for the auto bus is wide and no doubt it will come more and more into competition with the street car and steam railroad lines. The former, whose single and primary business is transporting passengers, are already complaining bitterly of the inroads made upon their business by the privately owned automobile and motor bus. The automobile is the larger factor because there are more automobiles than buses. Since about every tenth person owns a machine which can accommodate from two to seven passengers, one can readily see the importance of this item to the traction companies. The result has been a falling off in passenger fares, which the companies have endeavored to offset by increasing rates, and this in turn has only accentuated the trouble by driving more men to automobiles. The only way the street car can hope to compete with the motor car is by keeping its rates low and hauling large numbers of passengers. The handiness of the automobile, going at the instant wanted, avoiding the usual walk of two or three blocks to and from a car line at the beginning and the end of the journey, the consequent saving in time, coupled with the exhilarating effect of riding rapidly through the open air furnishes a great handicap which the traction companies will have difficulty in overcoming. About the only things the street car has in its favor are cheapness and dependability. It can no doubt be shown that it is cheaper to patronize the trolley than to own and operate the average car. The street car will go in rainy or snowy weather when motor cars must be laid up. But the average American does not count cost; he thinks more of his own comfort and doing as his neighbors do, i.e., being in style. It may become necessary, as stated in another chapter, for the public to take over the street-car lines, run them at as low rates as possible for the accommodation of those who cannot afford motor cars, since their work is an absolute necessity to the community, and charge any deficit to the taxpayers.

There seems to be another feasible and legitimate use for the motor bus which may help the street car companies as well. That is extensions by means of buses at the ends of the car lines or into territory not well served by them. The bus might collect passengers from an outlying district and bring them to the car line where the trolley can take them on to the heart of the city. Thus motor buses will become feeders rather than competitors of the regularly established traction lines. The car companies should attempt to take advantage of this sort of thing, using either the trackless trolley or gasoline motor, as may be thought the more suitable for the situation in hand.

Cross-country motor service has proven quite feasible and scores of buses now leave every large city for the surrounding smaller towns. The bus seems to negotiate a 50-mile trip very easily at a speed of approximately 20 miles per hour including stops. These buses or stages carry from 12 to 20 passengers and are operated by one man; they are well sprung and equipped with pneumatic tires. For country traffic seats cross ways of the car are much more comfortable to the rider than lengthwise seats. Their usefulness seems to lie in suburban traffic or as feeders to railroads.

Such buses are also largely used as carriers of children to and from consolidated schools. The little red school house, wherein began the educational training of so many of our great men, of which silver tongues have orated, whose virtues have been painted in poetry, and praises commemorated in song, cannot stand against the superior advantages of the consolidated graded school brought near to the pupils by the advent of the automobile. Since each consolidated school with about five teachers replaces eight to ten ungraded schools, and since it is easier and cheaper to maintain and heat one consolidated school than eight ungraded schools, the advantage is economical as well as educational.