The rapid development of Winnipeg and the extension of its residential districts to points remote from the business section has made its people more than ever dependent upon the street railway system and its facilities for promptly transporting them to and from their places of employment.
The time required for this service represents just that much money, since unnecessary delay robs the employer and employed of a commensurate period of work.
In many respects, the street railway of Winnipeg will compare most favorably with that of other and much larger cities. Generally, the cars themselves are of modern design, of excellent appearance and comfortable interiors. They are large and clean. So that in point of equipment the local system is quite as good, if not better than that which serves more populous cities.
But a comparison of the manner of operation might not disclose a similar equality for the Winnipeg system. It is the opinion of qualified observers that in no city of Winnipeg's size is so much time lost in moving passengers to and from their homes and places of business, or are patrons compelled to accommodate themselves to a rate of speed which involves immeasurable delays in meeting business or social engagements.
One of the most general drawbacks is the apparently deliberate method in vogue in this city of starting cars from the intersecting streets. Ordinarily the discharge and taking on of passengers at intersections such as Portage avenue and Main street is characterized by the slow movements witnessed at the docking and loading of steamships. This practice may be due to large degree to the habits of passengers themselves. But it is the obvious duty of the street railway management, in that case, to educate their patrons to the desirability of moving quickly.
The time lost in loading cars and sending them from intersecting streets, as well as in discharging passengers, appears to be utterly unwarranted. In many other cities the passenger who was not ready to leave the car the moment his destination was reached would find himself carried beyond the stopping off place. It is not desired that the management resort to drastic methods to expedite traffic or to hustle passengers. The great majority of patrons are anxious to get to their destinations in the shortest time possible, and they would doubtless heartily second any effort on the part of company officials to remedy what is generally admitted to be one of the most serious defects of the local system.
And this can be done without resorting to a rate of speed which would menace foot-travellers or invite collisions with other vehicles. Nobody wants the cars to travel at a speed inconsistent with public safety. The happy mean ought to be readily ascertained, to the end that the annoying delays to which the patrons of the system are subjected may be done away with while affording the proper safeguards for those who are traveling on foot.
It would seem that the civic authorities could with propriety and a sense of public service institute an inquiry and obtain data from other cities for purposes of comparison. If it is a fact that in the matter of prompt and efficient movement of streetcars Winnipeg is behind other progressive communities it is hardly to be doubted that an adequate method of meeting present exasperating conditions would follow.