IN THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 15 
A consideration of these last two tables will make it clear that 
a marked change has taken place in the suburban and short 
distance travel of the steam railroads since the introduction of 
electricity as a motive power for street railways. The effect 
upon suburban travel may be very readily seen in summer by 
observing the electric cars which come from points within a 
distance of ten miles from the centre of the cities. At that 
season the open cars of the street railways are filled with those 
who in bright and warm weather gladly use, for their journeys 
to and from their work, a longer time than would be taken by 
a train on the steam railroad, and in this way get a ride in the 
open air away from the smoke and dust of the steam railroads, 
As cold weather comes on much of this travel returns to 
the steam railroads, although with the general use now made 
of large, well-lighted and well-heated cars many continue to 
use the electric roads in preference to the steam roads through- 
out the entire year. 
The street railway has an advantage over the steam railroad 
in its lower cost of construction, and this is in a large measure 
due to its location in the highways. One of the most impor- 
tant factors in the cost of a steam railroad, its purchase of its 
right of way over private lands, is eliminated from the cost of 
an electric railway by the grant to the latter of franchises to 
lay its rails and operate its cars on the surface of streets and 
roads already laid out. Some of the newer interurban roads 
have, it is true, purchased rights of way in order to shorten 
the lines when the highway has been crooked and the route 
circuitous, but these purchases have covered only short 
distances. 
In Massachusetts, with its dense population, there has been 
a constantly increasing demand for the elimination of the 
crossings of highways by steam railroads at grade, and the 
work of elevating or depressing the steam railroad tracks has 
also added very largely to the cost of construction of the latter, 
already far in excess of that of electric railways. 
The electric railway, with its flexible form of operation — 
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