The Succession of Transportation Problems.—Each period in history has its own special problems in transportation. At the begin ning of the last century horse-drawn vehicles were the chief means of transportation on land. Therefore the chief problem was good wagon roads. Macadam and Telford became famous by making roads which were hard, smooth, and durable under the wear of horse-drawn vehicles. Then an era of canal-building began. It was checked, however, by the invention of the steam locomotive. Canals could not compete with railroads, partly because they were almost limited to level regions, while the railroads could penetrate among the hills. The Erie Canal, which had been expected to solve many problems of transportation, , gradually declined in usefulness. Some canals, such as the one from New Haven to Westfield near Springfield, were abandoned and their beds were actually used for railways. For a while the railways prospered greatly and the transportation problem was thought by many people to be solved.
The electric trolley car introduced a new factor. It took from the railroads much of their profitable suburban passenger traffic, and then invaded their interurban traffic and even their express and freight traffic. Geographically, however, the trolley lines were limited to places where the population was dense. There they prospered greatly, but in many places their promoters overshot the mark and built lines where the population was not dense enough to support them.
Next the automobile was invented. It quickly began to compete with the trolley lines and greatly diminished their profits not only because people rode in their own cars, but because jitney lines were established. When the auto-truck came on the scene, its greater freedom of movement enabled it to obtain much of the express business which the trolley lines had built up, and helped to put many of them into financial straits. It also began to compete with the railroads and to increase their financial troubles. The auto-truck, like all its prede cessors, is reaping a rich harvest for a time, but it is in danger of over reaching itself. Today in well populated areas like New England it costs from 15 to 50 cents per ton-mile to ship by auto-truck, and only from 5 to 6 by rail including trans-shipment. Nevertheless, the convenience of the truck, the diminution of breakage, and the prompt ness of the service make people willing to pay the higher rate. The trucks, however, tend to defeat their own object; they spoil the roads thus causing delay, and raising the cost of auto truckage by increasing the expense of maintaining the vehicles under the rough usage of the poor roads.
Another mode of conveyance, the airplane, has yet to show what it will do. Thus far it promises only to supplement the railroads by carrying passengers, mail and light express matter for which great speed is especially urgent.
Let us sum up the different types of land transportation by showing the geographical conditions to which each is best adapted. The horse now finds his chief use in carrying small loads short distances in cities, in working on farms where there is not enough work for tractors or the ground is too rough or soft for t hem, in hauling loads or working as a pac animal in rugged and sparsely settled regions where the populatio is too sparse to support good roads or too backward or inert to acctutm late the capital needed for good roads. Trolley cars are chiefly adapte to regions almost the opposite of those where the horse is still used They find their chief field in transporting the dense population of indus trial centers where people of moderate means do not own automobile and where the distance from home to work is rarely over six miles Where interurban trolley lines connect cities they assume almost th character of railroads.
The automobile finds its chief sphere among fairly prosperous people, especially where the population is dense enough for good roads but not so dense as in the regions where trolley cars are most profitable The automobile regions include the outer and more prosperous suburb of cities, and the prosperous farming regions where the land is level The auto-truck is the freight carrier of the city, and is fast the freight carrier of the farmer and of all sorts of business for distance up to 50 or 100 miles in densely populated regions, and for much longs distances where the population is too scanty to support railroads. It greatest value lies in its reduction of trans-shipment. Its future depend. on the roads. Its companion on the farm is the tractor which is adapte I to level land, large farms, and rich soil.
The place of the railroad is not yet wholly clear, for the railroad i the means of conveyance whose functions have been taken over by the newer inventions. The railroad, however, shows little sign o losing its place as the carrier of freight and passengers for distance: over 40 and in some cases 250 miles, although that work is taken by th( automobile in sparsely places, in recreation centers, and in som other cases. Finally the function of the airplane is to carry passenger and valuables at high speed even where trains arc available and also i places where neither roads nor railroads are well developed.