Road Motor Progress in Bombay.
Page 19
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REPORTING upon a suggestion for increasing taxes on motorbuses; the Bombay Municipal Commissioner statesthat in allowing such vehicles to run in the streets of Bombay the Commissioner of Police accepted his suggestion that pneumatic tyres should be insisted upon in all cases. One of the results of this rule is that the wear and tear to the roads caused by bus traffic is infinitesimal as compared with what it would have been were solid tyres used as they are on lorries and other vehicles.
The Commissioner, says that a good Many attempts have been made to run bus services under these conditions, and there can be no doubt that those which are now running contribute very materially to the convenience of the public. The fares charged are three or four times as high as the tramway fares,
but, even so, it is, he adds, questionable whether bug servides in Bombay can be made to pay. At any rate, it would, in his opinion, be a bad policy to discourage the starting of bus services by charging a special rate of wheel tax on the vehicles employed. So far as the damage to roads is concerned, the bullock cart is probably the worst offender, whilst the heavy solid tyred motor lorry comes next in order of destructiveness. Pneumatic-tyred vehicles do not, in ordinary circumstances, do serious damage, but the damage done to road surfaces is not the only point which should be considered in connection with the vehicular traffic of a city. Every stable, whether far horses or for bullocks, is at least a potential centre for the breeding of flies, and it would undoubtedly be an advantage to the city from the sanitary point of view if mechanical transport vehicles completely superseded animal-drawn vehicles, and in the Commissioner's view this replacement mngt take place in the not very distant future. Meanwhile, he thinks it would be against the public interest so to increase the taxation on mechanical transport vehicles as to retard the process of replacement.