“What difference does it
make whether you turn to the left or right in traffic?” the public asked.
“One is as simple as the other.” And with that comment the general public
outside British Columbia proceeded to forget the task the province
undertook a few weeks ago—a tremendous, difficult and costly task—when it
changed its traffic regulation to conform to that obtaining in the rest of
America.
Two remarkable facts have been emphasized by the introduction of the
“turn-to-the-right” rule in British Columbia, where previously the British
rule of “turn to the left” had been in force since the coming of the first
colonists.
First, the change was so well organized that scarcely a serious accident
resulted in all the province. Second, the change cost hundreds of
thousands of dollars. The street railway company found that it cost
something over a million dollars to change from left- to right-hand travel
over its three hundred and sixty miles of track.
Indeed it was the infinite number of costly changes in connection with
rail travel that constituted the chief objection to introducing the rule
many years before. If anyone has supposed that it was only necessary to
“run the cars in the other direction” or “on the right-hand track,” he has
no idea of the labor involved to make that possible. Take the matter of
the cars themselves. Many of the cars had to have their loading platforms
changed. There were nearly three hundred that had to be rebuilt, and such
a task could not be completed over night. The change was executed in
advance and temporary provision was made for continuing the old method
until the date when the new rule went into effect.
The changing of the track switches was another big task which the layman
did not think of at first. There are many switches in every railway system
so constructed that the switch automatically stands open to send the car
which has the right of way around the crossover. But in British Columbia
all such switches were made to send the cars to the left—a fact which
involved hundreds of changes and required a large amount of new steel.
Likewise the simultaneous introduction of the use of these switches meant
a vast amount of temporary construction for left-hand travel until the
time of the final change.
In still another matter—the location of suburban and rural
stations—changes had to be made at heavy expense. A large number of these
had to be moved so as to accommodate the traveling public. Many stations
near large cities are so located that passengers going to the city have
the use of the station, since the waiting at the station is made at the
beginning of the round trip, not at the end. Not only stations, switches
and cars, but trolley wires and the banks in curves of railway tracks had
to be altered.
While this change had been agitated for years, the thing which was largely
instrumental in effecting its adoption, despite formidable opposition, was
the fact that motorists from other parts of America avoided British
Columbia for fear of accidents when they encountered left-hand traffic. On
the other hand, the great majority of the resident population was
necessarily more or less accustomed to right-hand travel by reason of
excursions which they continually make to points outside the province.