PORT ECONOMICS

too evident in the road approaches to the piers and along
the waterfront of New York harbour. The weakness of
the scheme is that it still proposes to handle practically
all the freight now reaching Manhattan across the river,
and to maintain a high pressure-on the ferries which is
already felt to be excessive. The diversion of any con-
siderable portion of the traffic through the tunnel would
only result in transferring the congestion to the streets of
lower Manhattan. The problem, however, though inter-
esting, is peculiar to New York and we cannot afford
space to dwell upon it here. Every port more or less has
individualistic problems, which can only be dealt with in
the light of local conditions.

There is one aspect of the subject of Terminals to which
attention may be called before leaving the subject. It also
is mainly applicable to conditions in America, where the
railway systems have not been amalgamated as in this
country, resulting in the elimination of a good deal of
competition. Writing in 1924, the Chairman of the Port of
New York Authority made the following remarks: “ All
railroad officers contend that terminals in themselves are
unprofitable and require the investment of sums which
it is difficult for them to provide ; that their only hope of
return is out of the volume of long-haul business that the
terminals may enable them to secure. The result of
this is a great deal of circuitous routing of freight.” From
this point of view, the concentration of all railway terminals
at a port in the hands of a single company eliminates the
tendency to divert traffic from its most direct route.
Considerable trouble has been experienced in America in
this respect.

ROAD APPROACHES

Scarcely less important in its way than the systematiza-
tion of rail traffic at a port is the provision of adequate
road access to the quayside. In only too many cases the
widths of roadways forming the principal lines of traffic

RK