USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 40
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RAILWAY VS. TRAMWAY-The railroad bridge at India Point had been constructed in 1835 as an approach to the Providence station of the Boston and Providence Railroad. After the passenger service had been diverted to the Union Station, the bridge continued in use for freight trains of both the Boston and Providence and the Providence and Worcester approach- ing the freight yards and wharves along the south waterfront; it was used also by the pas- senger and freight trains of the Providence, Warren and Bristol Railroad, which maintained a passenger station in India Street near Fox Point. The India Street station was not favored ; in 1886 the Providence, Warren and Bristol was authorized to lay rails on South Water Street to Crawford Street, and to erect a station over the river between Planet and Crawford Streets, with the purpose of establishing a terminus nearer the centre of the city. The railroad com- pany failed to carry the plan through to completion, and the option lapsed. Fifteen years later, after changing from steam locomotive to electric power, the railroad company found itself balked in its wish to establish a terminus nearer than India Street to the centre of the city, by an exclusive franchise for the operation of electric tramways in the streets of Providence granted to the street railway company.
An act of the General Assembly, 1891, authorized towns and cities to grant exclusive franchises to public service corporations engaged in furnishing water, gas or electricity, or operating street railways or telephones. The franchises were limited to twenty years, and conditional (1) upon payment of a tax of three per cent. annually on gross earnings, and (2)
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upon maintaining current rates for service without increase. A later statute, 1895, authorized exclusive franchise for twenty-five years; and in 1898 street railway franchises were made "perpetual"* at the option of the companies by the provisions of a statute levying a state tax of one per cent. on gross earnings (additional to the municipal franchise tax), provided that all earnings in excess of eight per cent. should be paid into the general treasury. For practical purposes the new statute imposed a state tax of one per cent. on gross earnings; at that time the capitalization of public service corporations was based upon earning capacity, or the ability to pay dividends, rather than upon capital investments. Instead of increasing dividends, new capital stock was issued; thus earnings could be kept under eight per cent. The new state tax became operative with respect to companies that formally accepted the provisions of the statute, the consideration for acceptance on the basis of a contract with the state being a continuation of the company's franchise so long as the tax was paid.
When, therefore, the Providence, Warren and Bristol wished to enter the streets of Providence from its own right of way, it found that it must bargain with the Rhode Island Company, which had an exclusive franchise for electric tramway service in Providence. An arrangement was made for connecting the two systems by crossover switching in East Provi- dence, and, for a few days only, the heavy cars of the Providence, Warren and Bristol were brought into Providence over the rails of the tramway company crossing Washington Bridge. The railway cars were splendidly planned for rapid service on the company's own roadbed, but were too large for narrow city streets. It was found also that the wheel flanges did not fit the grooved rails used by the tramway company, that the trolley equipment was enough different to occasion inconvenience, and that the cars stalled on curves that were ridden easily by the smaller street railway cars in service. The city engineers doubted the safety of Washington Bridge under the heavy load of the new cars, and the city council by ordinance defined the maximum weight and size of vehicles that could be used on the bridge at measurements that would exclude the large and heavy railroad cars. The railroad company abandoned the project, and for a time the Providence, Warren and Bristol company moved its electric trains across the railroad bridge at India Point and through India Street by steam locomotive traction.
The railroad bridge at India Point was ordered rebuilt in 1900. Four years later the rail- road company was authorized to construct a tunnel through and under the East Side hill and a bridge across the Seekonk between Red Bridge and Washington Bridge. The completed system crosses the Seekonk from East Providence on a double-track bridge with tilt-lift draw, passes through a tunnel below all street levels east of the East Side hill, out of the hill and on a viaduct across North Main Street and Canal Street in Providence, and enters the Union Station from the east end. The tunnel affords continuous track connections with the main lines through the Union Station, and with the east shore lines, and the Providence and Wor- cester and Boston and Providence in East Providence. The project was carried through with a view to establishing connections for fast freight and passenger service to northern and east- ern places, as well as with the lines to Warren, Bristol and Fall River, using the almost straight line from India Point to Boston via East Junction. Other legislation in 1904 authorized the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company to acquire and consolidate other railroads operating in Rhode Island, as part of a gigantic scheme for controlling railroad serv- ice in all parts of southern New England.
MUNICIPALITY VS TRAMWAY-The introduction of horse car service occasioned little friction. The cars were small and might be operated on single track with occasional turnout switches; the speed scarcely attained that of ordinary horse-drawn vehicles. The conveni- ence of providing "rapid transit" for the people generally who could not afford private car- riages was recognized, and the service was popular. In Providence the development of Roger Williams Park and of other parks that could be reached by the new car service tended to link
*See State Public Utilities Commission vs. Rhode Island Company, 43 R. I. 135.
CC
MAIN STREET, PAWTUCKET
NURSES' HOME, SAYLES MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, PAWTUCKET
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the system with the need for fresh air and recreation. The advent of the electric tramway introduced new problems and sources for friction. The overhead trolley with poles and wires offended a not too well developed sense of the "city beautiful"; the speed of the cars, exceed- ing that of horse-drawn vehicles ; the size and particularly the width of cars and the need for wider highways; and eventually double tracking on most main lines to accommodate the demand for more frequent trips-all of these were new problems affecting the companies, the municipality as the agency responsible for public highways, and the general public which patronized the trolleys.
Almost immediately two radically different opinions related to the extension of street tramway service developed. Company officers assumed that the tramways were public service organizations furnishing a very necessary means of internal transportation, and that the increase in travel made possible by the companies imposed upon municipalities an obligation to widen streets or build highways to accommodate the traffic; on the other hand, municipal officers and a large number of citizens viewed the tramway companies as responsible for the demand for new and wider streets and as obligated to finance the improvements. The diver- gence of opinion reached an acute stage in Pawtucket, and was one of the causes contributing to the bad feeling displayed during the trolley strike .* Relations were somewhat more har- monious in Providence, but there was disagreement occasionally as to the equitable allocation of the expense of street widening.
The problem of providing satisfactory transportation for the East Side was difficult of solution because of what a visitor from Chicago called "an Alpine situation." Two solutions had been tried-the routing of horse cars on a long detour south to avoid climbing the hill, and the building of the cable-tramway. The General Assembly chartered the "College Hill Tunnel Company" in 1872, and in 1874 authorized the construction of a tunnel from South Water Street at any point within 150 feet from Crawford Street to an easterly terminus at Amy Street. The tunnel was not constructed because capital was not available. The construc- tion of "easy grade" streets planned to climb the East Side hill by bias-slant instead of straight-on lines against the hill was suggestive. Thus, North Main Street was carried by an easy slant up the hill to a junction with Benefit Street; Waterman Street detours somewhat by an easy curve to the southeast, affording a rest and an easy connecting link between two straight-on sections working directly east ; and the grade on College Street, from South Main to Prospect Street, was modified from its natural slant. The General Assembly in 1900 authorized the city to expend $200,000 for a new street of easy grade from South Water Street to Prospect Street, but the city did not build the street. Eventually the solution of this problem was undertaken by the construction of a tunnel, 1914, from North Main Street south of Waterman Street by an easy grade to Thayer Street, from which cars are operated north, south, east and west to reach all parts of the East Side beyond the hill.
The new tramcars with higher speed suggested a new element of danger in public high- ways ; the state Railroad Commissioner in 1894 recommended equipment with fenders, and in 1897 asked for legislation requiring automatic brakes and wheelguards or fenders, and for- bidding or regulating riding on running-boards. The agitation over fenders was most urgent. The railway company insisted that the mattress type of projecting fender, resembling some- what the cowcatcher on a steam locomotive, was unsatisfactory for town and city streets; and that the projecting unyielding gridiron type of fender in common use elsewhere was not actually a safeguard. Whether the company's objection was a reason or an evasion (it was termed the latter by advocates of fenders), eventually a new type of automatic-drop wheel guard fender was introduced by most lines operating in Rhode Island. In actual experience the number of accidents because of running down pedestrians was much less than had been anticipated, because the walking public soon accommodated itself to the new speed of traffic.
*Chapter XXIII.
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RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY
The automatic wheel guard fender has worked well in most accidents, but the most effective safeguard against accidents still is careful operation of cars and watchful care by pedestrians.
Other quarrels developed over the use of streets, such as that in Newport arising from the wish to bar electric cars from Bellevue Avenue; in a case taken to the Supreme Court it was held that rails could be laid across the avenue to connect the rails in two streets ending nearly opposite each other at Bellevue Avenue,; thus making possible a line connecting the centre of the city with the bathing beach. The franchise legislation required a town or city council which ordered rails removed from any street to assign to the street railway a con- venient parallel street.
THE TRANSFER QUESTION -- The public patronizing the street cars was more immediately interested in the question of "transfers." In Rhode Island most horse car routes had been built on lines radiating from a centre, and the electric cars followed the same routes or new ones planned similarly. Most horse car routes served two sections, a trip consisting of a ride across the city through the centre. A patron might ride for a single fare from terminus to terminus or from any point to another point on the line; but a patron wishing to ride from point to point not on continuous lines must change cars at the centre and pay two fares. There was discussion, which the companies quieted sometimes by alternating termini, so that a patron might find opportunity for several cross-centre direct connections.
The lengthening of lines, the increased patronage of street cars, and the popular belief that electric traction was cheaper and vastly more profitable than horse cars brought about renewed discussion, and a demand that the companies should furnish service that would make it possible for a patron to travel from any point on the system to another point for a single fare. The railway companies' first proposition to meet this demand was embodied in the transfer act of 1896 for Providence, which directed the street railway company to transfer passengers at intersections of connecting lines through transfer stations. The transfer sta- tions were to be located on land owned by the city of Providence and leased rent free to the company. The principal transfer station was to be at Weybosset Bridge, which was the centre of the system, but other stations were to be provided at other places to accommodate the public patronizing connecting lines without the necessity of traveling to the centre. The act was mandatory in form if accepted by the company;} the city of Providence objected to the requirement of providing sites for transfer stations, and the discussion reached quickly the status of the debate on the locus of the obligation to widen streets.
The old street railway station at Weybosset Bridge, which had been for many years con- sidered a nuisance because of sanitary, if for no other reasons, was removed in 1898. At about the same period the street railway company undertook systematically a new routing of its lines in Providence in such manner that Dorrance Street at Westminster became the defi- nite centre of the system, past which every street car passed. The removal might be asso- ciated with the westward movement of the retail trade centre from its earliest location at Cheap- side, the old name for part of North Main Street, west of the river to the Arcade location by the middle of the nineteenth century, and thence onward until Dorrance Street marked almost its most remote eastern limit by 1900. Some there were, however, who pointed to the new Union Trust building at the corner of Dorrance and Westminster streets, and alleged a pur- pose of the President of the Trust Company-Marsden J. Perry, who was also a powerful influence in the railway company-to use the railway to bring all Rhode Island to the doors of his bank; it might be just as true that Perry chose the site for the bank with reference to the centre of the railway system, and the retail district. The transfer station plan had been discarded by 1901, when the new trust building was occupied, and the work of rerouting the trolley lines had been practically completed.
tState vs. Newport Street Railway Company, 16 R. I. 533.
#Thus resembling the perpetual franchise act.
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A new free transfer act, to be accepted by the company, was enacted in July, 1902, which provided for the issue of a transfer ticket on request of a patron who designated his destina- tion at the time fare was paid. Transfers were not transferable from person to person, could be used only on intersecting lines, and were punched when issued to indicate destination. On interurban lines transfers were valid for riding for a single fare between two points within a town or city. This system was accepted. So far from decreasing revenues, the transfer system in operation had the effect of making the cars more popular. The form of transfer ticket was changed later, and less emphasis was placed on destination. The practice of charg- ing for transfers was introduced as part of a plan for increasing revenues after the trolley system had passed the crest of prosperity. One other venture in regulating trolley service, a ten-hour law for conductors, gripmen and motormen, led to a strike* in 1902; the act was emasculated in 1902, by making its provisions practically optional instead of mandatory.
MARAUDERS IN CONTROL-The Rhode Island Company was authorized, in 1902, to acquire and consolidate other public service corporations; it had already begun to move in this direction, and it had within a short time brought electric tramway systems as completely under its control, as had the New Haven the steam railroads. It had also begun to link up interurban systems in such manner as to parallel the steam railroads, and to compete, by offer- ing frequent and convenient service at lower rates, for short-haul patronage. Consolidation was principally the preliminary strategy for a contest between the systems, although it should be noted ( I) that so far as the railroads were concerned economy could be achieved in admin- istration and better service on long hauls promoted by consolidation, and (2) that improvement in power transmission systems, as well as economy in administration, favored consolidation of electric traction companies.
The contest between rival steam railroad and electric railway in Rhode Island eventually became part of a war extending beyond the borders of Rhode Island and involving financial interests of national reputation. The decisive battle was fought in Wall Street, resulting in the retiring of the unsuccessful competitors of the New Haven Railroad, and the emerging of the latter with much plunder as the result of the campaign. It is more than a casual coin- cidence that the international telegraph code name for the New York, New Haven and Hart- ford Railroad Company is "Marauders." The Wall Street movement was aimed principally at Charles W. Morse and his associates, who had established a line of steamships between New York and Boston, which competed with the railway, and who were promoting the West- chester electric railway as part of a high-speed rapid-transit system intended to connect New York and Boston and to rival the New Haven railway lines. Morse and his associates, includ- ing Marsden J. Perry, President of the Union Trust Company, were caught in the kind of trap that is used in Wall Street when one great financial interest plans to defeat or absorb another. Rumors that Perry had lost his fortune precipitated a run on the Union Trust Company, which closed its doors after two days, in order to conserve the interests of its creditors .; The trust company had assets which, though non-liquid, could be disposed of in a reasonable time so favorably as to make it possible to pay all claims ; eventually it did, after a receivership, and continued business as a solvent institution. As a result of the Wall Street campaign control of the Rhode Island electric traction system passed to Morgan and New Haven interests. Thus it happened eventually that the New Haven controlled its own rail- roads, including practically all steam railroad service in Rhode Island; the Rhode Island elec- tric system, also consolidated ; and most of the steamboat lines operating regularly in and out of Narragansett Bay. It came to be true that a person who wished to travel in or leave Rhode Island must patronize the New Haven road unless he walked or traveled in a private conveyance; and the same was true of persons entering the state. The New Haven also
*Chapter XXIII.
¡Chapter XXVII.
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RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY
bought, as opportunity offered, wharf and dock sites and rights, so that its control of water- ways was as complete almost as that of overland rail routes. It needed a revolution almost to break the monopoly. The New Haven was compelled to release control of some properties in 1914, under the Sherman anti-trust law.
THE BICYCLE AND GOOD ROADS-Meanwhile a new factor affecting transportation and travel in Rhode Island was rising, although its future influence scarcely was perceived when, in 1886, the Bristol County Wheelmen obtained a social corporation charter. Clubs of bicycle riders at the time were principally social or sporting organizations; the bicycle was passing from the era of the high wheel to the "safety" model, and the pneumatic bicycle tire was being introduced, laughed at at first, to be sure, as are most innovations, but making its way to popu- larity. Eventually it made the bicycle itself so popular that all the state was awheel, and thus began a movement for better roads to accommodate bicycle riders. The influence of the bicycle appeared in legislation, such as (1) the act of 1896 forbidding the throwing of tacks, glass and other substances injurious to bicycle tires in streets or highways; (2) the act of 1898 providing for the construction of sidepaths along streets and highways to be reserved for bicycle riders ; (3) the act of 1900, providing for a sidepath commission consisting of a cyclist from each county with authority to construct sidepaths, three to six feet wide, from fees paid voluntarily by cyclists.
More might have been accomplished by the sidepath commission, probably, if the move- ment had not become merged in a general interest in better roads. The General Assembly in 1892 appointed a commission to examine and report on the condition of state highways, and two years later appointed a state commission, with authority to construct state highways and apportion the cost in part to towns. The roads commission was authorized in 1895 to build sample macadam roads three yards wide and not more than one-half mile long, for demonstra- tion purposes. In the same year the General Assembly defined in the statute law the respon- sibility of towns and cities for highways and bridges, ordered the appointment of highway surveyors, and the elimination of grade crossings where practicable. Progress toward the improvement of highways was underway, and to protect new and old roads, the minimum width of wagon tires was prescribed in 1897 and 1902 with reference to weight of load and size of axle. The State Board of Public Roads was created in 1902, with power to employ an engineer and to construct state highways, ordered by the General Assembly. The early road building program was financed for the most part by loans, obtained through bond issues approved in 1905, 1908 and 1911. At a special election in June, 1913, a proposed highway construction loan was rejected 12,383 to 6,629 for approval, while at the same time a bond issue for charitable institutions was approved 14,828 to 5,201 for rejection. The decisive rejection of the highways loan was clearly not accidental ; the majority against was too large, and it had been given when another loan was approved. The reason was dissatisfaction with the results of the road building program. Early construction was of water-bound macadam, and the roads wore out rapidly under heavy traffic; the electors had grasped the incongruity of issuing long-term bonds to build roads which had disintegrated years before the bonds matured and the loans were repaid. Eventually, the road building campaign was carried for- ward and financed from the proceeds of registration and license taxes on automobiles, a three- cent tax assessed on towns, additional to and with the general state tax, and the acceptance of federal aid. The tax on property was replaced by a tax on sales of gasoline. The quality of public highway construction has improved steadily with the introduction of new processes, including oil and tarvia bound macadam, and cement, until in 1930 Rhode Island has achieved a national reputation for the excellence of its road system both in quality and the number of roads traversing the state in all direction.
The automobile is essentially a twentieth century vehicle, although steam, electric and
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gasoline-driven internal engines had been invented and used in vehicles earlier than 1901. A few enthusiastic Rhode Islanders, alert to the possibilities of the new vehicle obtained a charter for the Rhode Island Automobile Transportation Company in 1899. The earliest use of auto- mobiles in Rhode Island, aside from machines used in racing contests while the gasoline engine was still a toy, was principally commercial. Automobile delivery from retail stores and the use of an automobile truck by the "Providence Journal" to deliver bundles of papers to newsstands were novelities. It was not until the state public road system had opened up routes between towns and cities and through open country and woodland that the automobile became popular as a pleasure car. Registration of automobiles and motorcycles was required by law in 1904, the fees being appropriated for the construction and maintenance of roads. The development of automobile transportation and the extension of public roads in Rhode Island were closely interrelated, and the combined effect has been the inauguration of passen- ger and freight service that has had a marked significance for railroad and electric traction systems.
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