PUBLIC OWNERSHIP VERSUS PUBLIC CONTROL 795
average daily traffic is: Glasgow, 485,000; Boston, 1,000,000. The Glasgow rolling-stock consists of about 680 cars of all kinds ; the Boston company owns over 3,300. The average number of cars operated in one day in Glasgow is now about 450 ; in Boston, 1,300. Thus Boston operates one car for every 770 passengers carried each day; Glasgow, one car for every 1,077.
This difference is reduced, however, by the fact that prac- tically all the Glasgow cars are "double-deckers," seating from 50 to 55 passengers. A car seating 55 provides for 25 inside and 30 on the roof. The equipment of the Boston system is varied, including 174 elevated-railway cars seating 48 passengers, with comfortable standing-room for 50 more; nearly 1,600 surface- railway box-cars of different sizes, the great majority seating 34 passengers each; and more than 1,500 open cars for summer use, seating from 40 to 60 according to the number of benches. In winter, therefore, although Boston operates about 40 per cent, more cars in proportion to traffic than Glasgow, the average seating capacity of a car on the Glasgow system is greater than that of Boston surface cars by an even larger percentage; but this does not apply to carrying capacity. The standard surface car on the Boston system is 25 feet long, exclusive of platforms ; in Glasgow, only 1 7 feet ; which means, of course, less standing- room inside. And there can be little doubt as to which of the two evils is to be preferred, for winter travel standing-room inside a warm car, or a seat on the roof, exposed to the cold and fre- quently to storms. This exposure to weather, by the way, is a permanent feature of " upper-deck " travel on the Glasgow cars, summer or winter ; a second roof, or cover of any sort, has been found impracticable on account of the many bridges under which the cars must pass.
A new type of box-cars, the largest size that can be used on many of the crooked streets, and seating 36 passengers, is being installed on the Boston lines. And it is somewhat unjust to the Boston system, moreover, to estimate the average seating capacity solely on the basis of standard surface cars, even though there are i, 600 of these and only 174 of the elevated cars, which seat 48 each. An elevated car runs many more miles in a day than a
