100 years ago in The Record
Friday, July 6, 1917
“Just what is the story of the present demand for a sixcent trolley fare in Troy and Albany?” The Record asks on today’s editorial page. The United Traction Company, which provides streetcar service to the capital region, is one of 28 companies seeking approval for a fare increase from the state public service commission. The current local streetcar fare is five cents. Representatives from more than thirty municipalities attend today’s public service commission meeting in Albany. Led by Troy mayor Cornelius F. Burns, the president of the New York State Conference of Mayors, they oppose the fare increase. The Troy Chamber of Commerce has not yet taken a public stand on the fare question, but secretary C. Arthur Metzger denies reports that the Chamber “had decided to consent to a six-cent fare with universal transfers.” He tells our reporter that those reports draw “a conclusion without the slightest foundation.” The mayors’ conference warns that “some of the great business interests seem inclined to take advantage of temporary periods of war and stress like the present to secure extraordinary advantages for themselves which shall be of a lasting character.” Traction companies may be out to “exploit for their own benefit the temporary condition of upheaval and unrest caused by the world at war at the expense of the general public.”
Our editors can’t comment on the other 27 traction companies, but they don’t buy the “financial balderdash” peddled by United Traction and its corporate owner, the Delaware & Hudson Railroad.
The D&H went deep into debt to make United Traction into a local monopoly. Their spending was “justified only as a scheme to stifle competition,” our editorial writer claims, “This end was accomplished by paying much more than the lines were worth.
“It is needless to say that the Delaware and Hudson brought the United Traction company at an enormous over-valuation. As an example of high finance that transaction has been a ‘horrible example’ for many years. And ever since then the railroad company has been expecting the traction company property to pay a regular and liberal dividend.
“Naturally it has been impossible. To accomplish the desired end it became necessary to … let the physical condition of the road and its rolling stock decline until to-day it is run down at the heels.”
Whatever the company claims, commuters know that “accommodations are very imperfect, that the attitude of the powers that be is scornful towards public convenience, and that the company sings a continuous poverty song.” Having “spent money like a drunken sailor,” the D&H “wants the public to refill its purse.”