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Published by: Harrington,
Kelker and De Leuw Plan Summary: By 1937, there had been substantial changes in transit prospects. The registration of passenger cars had grown at a rate which could not be ignored. Whereas there were 35,000 passenger motor vehicles registered in Chicago in 1915, the number had in creased to 335,000 by 1927 and to 501,000 by 1937. By 1962, nearly 900,000 passenger cars were registered in the city. Both the depression and the rise of the automobile influenced a plan and report prepared in 1937 by Harrington, Kelker and De Leuw. The Chicago Area Transportation Study's first regional Chicago transportation plan, published in 1962, described the 1937 plan this way: In the letter of transmittal that accompanied their report, the engineers stated that the objective of their study was "to paint the way to prompt relief from the unsatisfactory and progressively declining character of transit service which the city is now enduring; to stress... the important role which the private automobile has assumed as a utilitarian transit vehicle" and to stress the need for "extensive modernization of both surface and rapid transit facilities -- all to be operated with out competition as a unified system." The engineers did propose a unified transit system operation, but their plan was far different from those of their predecessors. The effect of much greater ownership of private automobiles, together with the more pessimistic outlook engendered by seven years of depression, must have been major factors in fixing the proposals arising from this study.
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