M

ERIT does not insure the success of the city plan. Properly and successfully to conceive, promote and execute a plan is a task which requires unlimited effort. In any city-planning program publicity should be a leading consideration. Publicity can "make or break" the plan. The general public, in whose hands lies the power to accept or reject all municipal undertakings, has little or no idea of the fundamentals which underlie our cityplanning activities. In fact, there may even be said to exist a very general misunderstanding of all city-planning work. It is thus the purpose and the duty of the publicity campaign to relieve this condition.

In reality we are doing little actual city planning. Rather we should call it city replanning, for that which has generally been undertaken by our large cities is to straighten, widen or extend existing thoroughfares, to create a civic center close to the heart of the present city, to provide parks and recreation centers within our residential sections, or similar undertakings which should have been planned long before the actual necessities became apparent. Naturally this replanning is costly, for it means the destruction of expensive buildings and the condemnation of valuable property. In such work the immediate benefits may not appear to the public to justify the cost. The result is that city planning is usually condemned as expensive and ofttimes wrongly believed to be unnecessary. Here is where the publicity campaign becomes effective, for only in this way can these misconceptions be removed.

The good city plan strives for beauty in conjunction with utility. This is fundamental. The usefulness of any improvement is ofttimes lost sight of in an attempt to make it appear attractive, and as a result a misconception arises that the improvement has been planned primarily for beautification, is consequently expensive, and should be condemned as unnecessary. The task of the city planner is to prove that his work is practical and that beauty is an inexpensive adjunct. The value of landscape and architectural features is admitted, yet they must not be made the sole

consideration, for we are living in an age of commercialism and it is feared we know too little of the value of art. The success of city planning depends upon a proper proportion of practicability.

Many cities have made the fatal mistake of doing no more than to make a plan and then to leave it to advertise itself, trusting that its beauty, perfection, originality or certain of its special features will at once catch the public fancy and insure its success. This is usually fatal to good results.

There are many ways in which to familiarize the public with a plan. Newspaper publicity comes first. In its desire for mere news, however, the newspaper sometimes exploits only the more striking features of a plan and does little to show the importance of the complete scheme. Thus is given a wrong impression of what is proposed by the planners, an impression it is very difficult to set right.

By the Newark City Plan Commision little work has been done which has not had a most practical application to one or more of our many municipal problems. The Commission has studied, discussed and presented conclusions on paving, markets, street alignments, harbor improvements, transportation facilities and the like. Yet it has been difficult to convince the public that there is profit in city planning. After the unfortunate outcome of the market controversy the Commission realized more clearly than ever that its energies must be devoted largely to an educational campaign.

The market situation was most interesting and one similar in many ways to that of other cities. There is a large retail market very near the business center of the city, located on valuable property, housed in an old building, with a large open space for a farmers' market. The retail market serves less than 4 per cent of the population of the city. It was proposed to destroy the retail market building and erect a new one, on the farmers' plot, at an expense of about $700,000. It seems that even this large sum would not complete the building as it was laid out. This plan the Commission opposed.

As an alternative it suggested the build

A list of 1,000 business men was prepared, to each of whom has been sent all reports, pamphlets, etc., issued by the Commission. Lectures have been given before several men's clubs and other organizations. A postal card campaign was conducted, including the distribution of 1,000 of each of four city plan postals. A four-page city. plan supplement was issued by one of the daily newspapers. Several articles have appeared in local magazines and newspapers. Members of the Commission have furthered this work by preparing articles, making addresses and in other ways. The Commission has issued and spread broadcast a large number of reports. Its work is made a subject of study in some of the schools.

Apparently this plan of education has been helpful. Many improvements are now under way which seemed at first to be

hopeless of accomplishment. Two very important street improvements, recommendea two years ago by the Commission, have now been approved by the city authorities. A bond issue of $1,600,000 has been ap proved for one-the creation of a new diagonal street over half a mile long; and

$215,000 for the other-the straightening of Front Street. A new street sign ordinance has been passed, based upon a model prepared by the Commission. Legislation has also been obtained which permits more extensive street improvements than heretofore.

T

HE practices in vogue in highway freight transportation have not radically changed during the last generation, while the conditions of operation have continually grown more complex through the increase in volume of freight handled.

From my office window I look out upon one of the principal avenues leading from the business district of Boston to the freight yards of the Boston and Maine Railroad. From my observation of the traffic on this highway, it has been evident to me for many years that the movement of freight through our city streets has been conducted with very little effort to systematize the handling of the different lots of freight in an efficient and economical man

ner.

To substantiate this, let me cite one or two instances which have come to my notice which also show with what the railroad must contend in its effort to comply with the demand for efficient service. Observation of the terminal yard teaming in the B. & M. R. R. yards in Boston showed that in one day 10,264 horse-drawn vehicles handled freight to the outbound freight houses. The total outward tonnage for the week amounted to but 22,416 tons, which showed an average horse-vehicle load of only 36/100 of a ton each. Calculate the efficiency of a 5-ton unit operating under this load factor.

In another observation in a trucking concern hauling approximately 180,000 tons of merchandise annually, the ratio of loaded and empty mileage of the horse vehicles was found to be 241: 143, while the actual moving time represented but 22.95 per cent

Of course these figures show the actual conditions studied in one city during but a comparatively short period. Nevertheless they indicate a lack of efficiency which is alarming when we consider that the public has to pay the bills. It is not fair to the railroads or to the public that the high grade of efficiency attained in one division of freight transportation should be handicapped by failure to improve the street transportation that occurs at each end of the railroad transportation, thereby causing an unnecessary increase to the consumer in the cost of the commodities transported.

Were the teamsters and shippers alone concerned, conditions would be bad enough; but it must be remembered that, from the time a freight car is placed in the freight terminal yard for unloading, the railroad is at the mercy of the consignee, so far as that particular piece of equipment is concerned. The load may be such as could be readily removed in a few hours' time. Nevertheless, either through inadequate facilities for handling or because the time is not particularly convenient, or possibly because the consignee considers the full free time allowance as his inalienable right as prescribed by the National Code of Rules, this full free time-and in many cases more -is consumed in unloading. In saying "in many cases more," I speak conservatively, for (to quote from the reports issued by the Interstate Commerce Commission) $9,379.524 of the gross income of the railroads of the country in 1911 consisted of penalties received for the detention of freight beyond the free time limit. Do not misconstrue this as being a desirable source of income to the railroads, because such is

demurrage carries with it a loss of $2.35 in the earning capacity of the cars held beyond the free time limit. Calculated on the basis of the demurrage receipts for the year ending June 30, 1911, the loss to the railroads in the earning capacity of their freight equipment amounted to more than $10,482,700, above all revenues from demurrage.

The most serious aspect of the whole situation is the fact that the average car detention is constantly increasing. This is evidenced by the reports for New England for the years 1911, 1912 and 1913, which show an average car detention for these years of 1.58 days per car, 1.63 days per car, and 1.66 days per car, respectively.

During all of this period the National Code of Demurrage Rules was in effect. To be sure, the increase is very slight, being but 8/100 of a day per car, but it assumes considerable proportion when based upon the three million cars included in the figures from which this average was compiled. Expressed concretely, it amounts in the aggregate to 240,000 car days; or, expressed in terms of cars, the railroads of New England have been called upon to increase their equipment by 800 cars within three years at a cost of nearly a million dollars merely because of the inefficient system under which the freight is handled beyond the railroad's terminals.

If we pursue this line of thought a little further, we find that this increased freight car detention time not only makes a proportionate decrease in railroad working equipment, but seriously affects terminal yard facilities, the expansion of which is definitely limited by city real estate values and the conditions of the surrounding properties, inasmuch as the railroads are surrounded by industries that have secured available sites along the line of the carriers in order to be easily accessible to transportation facilities.

In this quandary the railroads must seek the coöperation of the business world in working out the problem of securing the best transportation possible from the shipper to the consignee, not only by the railroad, but by street. The aim of well-managed manufacturing enterprises is always to effect the greatest economy in the cost of production that is consistent with the standard of quality and price of the manu

factured product demanded by the con

sumer.

It has been evident in past years that a multitude of small railroads not operated as a system cannot produce the quality of transportation demanded in the United States. The result has been to amalgamate these small lines into powerful systems of railroads. However, when we consider the trucking industry in our various cities, wet find a multitude of teaming concerns that are operating independently without any attempt at coöperation or a consolidation along the lines of greater economy or increased efficiency.

It is commonly said that in our large. cities the teamsters are not making any money, but are securing a bare existence in their particular field of industry. When we consider the lost motion and waste which characterize the effort of these innumerable teamsters to handle their traffic without coöperation with others similarly engaged, it is not surprising that they are not growing rich. These various trucking concerns perform under contract about 60 per cent of the street haulage of freight in our larger cities. Most of the business houses prefer to hire this service, because they themselves have been unable to solve the problem of handling it for themselves -largely because of failure to apply scientific study to its intricate propositions.

A Plan for Co-ordinating the Railroad and Highway Movement of Merchandise The remedy is apparent. It lies in the coördination of the railroad and highway movement of merchandise with a consolidation of the trucking interests, resulting practically in an extension of railroad operating methods beyond their terminals. The principal advantage of this plan to the railroads lies in a train schedule system of operation and a marked reduction in the detention of freight on the railroad premises.

There is no reason why a powerful and efficient trucking organization of this nature should not effect an enormous saving over present cost. It could also render greatly improved service through the employment of scientific and efficient methods of operation, and a truck-dispatching system worked out along the same lines as are