DEVELOPMENT OF STREET RAILWAYS
quickly the short distance he travels, or one who for some
other reason prefers to ride rather than walk, he is in a posi-
tion to pay for this special accommodation, and the result
greatly benefits those who are obliged to use the street cars
for comparatively long distances.
On the other hand steam railroads, with their fixed stops,
can easily establish rates of fare which shall correspond
exactly with the distance travelled.
Reduction of fares on street railways does not usually take
place by the introduction of a smaller cash payment for a
single fare, but on some roads tickets are sold at a reduction
provided a moderately large number of fares are pald for at
one time by the purchase of tickets. To a still greater
degree reductions of fare are indirectly accomplished by the
grant of free transfers to connecting lines of the same SyS-
tem, and by extensions of the distance which can be trav-
elled for one rate. Both these methods benefit the long
distance traveller, and one of the complaints is frequently
heard of the street railway system of fares is that every-
thing is done for the benefit of the suburban and long
distance traveller at the expense of the traveller within the
city. This is undeniably true, but the short distance traveller
pays for the special service rendered him, a service which
partakes of the nature of a luxury.
The rapid development of electric street railways has had
a considerable influence on the distribution of population
and also upon real estate values, and has modified to a marked
degree the density of population in the larger cities and their
suburbs. A street car drawn by horses ran at an average
speed of about seven miles an hour, and accommodated about
one-half the number of passengers now carried on an electric
car running at speeds as high as twenty-five miles an
hour in suburban and country districts. This increase in
speed has led to a great increase in the area which may be
served in a given time. It may be assumed that one hour
represents the limit to which people are restricted as the time to
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