CHAPTER VIII.
INTERURBAN AND CROSS COUNTRY WORK.
The most important class of electric roads at present
is that composed of tramways that have outgrown and
reached beyond their urban starting points and serve to
interlink cities and villages. These lines are important
and interesting to the engineer, since they are often sub-
ject to unusual conditions and require special treatment,
and they are of immense value and importance to the pub-
lic, because they tend to break down the industrial barriers
that have been artificially established between city and
country, and give to both some of the advantages now
peculiar to each.
There is nothing in the nation’s growth more menac-
ing to good government and the healthy growth of industry
than the rapid concentration of population and enterprise
at a small number of overcrowded spots.
The opening of easy channels of communication
through the country at large, increases enormously the
areas available for profitable manufacture and decent habi-
tation. Much has already been accomplished by the in-
terurban and suburban electric railway systems already
installed, and much more can be done by the extension
of these lines and the building of new lines through regions
that are now isolated.
Fig. 106, showing the connected system, of which Boston
is the center, gives a vivid idea of the extent of country
covered and the thoroughness with which the work of in-
terconnection is done in certain regions. $Still, large dis-
tricts are left untouched, giving ample room for further
extensions. ‘The districts already interlaced, however,
have an aggregate population of very nearly 1,250,000 in-