PUBLIC FACILITIES ARE ALL OF ADVANCED TYPE
Adequate Mail Service
Carriers in Dayton make five trips daily downtown and two trips in the outlying parts of the city. There are a main post office, a new parcel post building and tour classified carrier stations. There are 17 rural routes emanating from these various stations. Dayton is a heavy shipper of parcel post, a normal day's outgoing mail being reported as 20,000 packages. Dayton's increase in postal receipts during the last year was 18.8 percent; a quite phenomenal figure.
Police Efficiency High
Dayton has low insurance rates for automobiles, general liability, burglary and robbery Insurance. The Police Department is economically administered. The force is small on either a per capita or a street mileage basis and a comparatively small proportion of the men are assigned to traffic work. Yet there is little disorder or crime and property recoveries are large. Police pay is inadequate, but a small Increase has recently been granted.
Garbage Disposal On An Economic Basis
Dayton has one of the few successful municipal garbage reduction plants. Located in an outlying section, it receives garbage by rail and sells grease and tankage.
A Comprehensive Sewer System
Dayton is completely covered by separate storm and sanitary sewage systems with discharge (at present untreated) to the rivers; the sanitary discharges being concentrated at a down-stream point. Some of the sanitary sewage facilities are used jointly by the city and county. The flat topography of much of the city has necessitated skillful design. A disposal plant is now being provided. This will be located beyond the city limits on the Great Miami River toward the south.
Water Supply Thoroughly Safeguarded
The whole city has water supply at good pressure, with provision for increase of pressure in case of a second-alarm fire. The water comes from driven wells, from 50 to 100 feet deep. There are over 130 of these with an aggregate capacity of about 40 million gallons daily. The present main pumping station is steam operated but it is to be replaced in the near future by an electrically operated station of 80 million gallons daily pumping capacity. There are two electrically operated booster stations and three electrically operated well groups at the present time. The water supply is municipally owned and operated. Storage capacity is provided equal to 32 million gallons. The average daily water consumption is about 85 gallons per capita. The Dayton public supply is chlorinated under careful supervision.
There are two types of water rate; one is a flat rate for tire line service, which is very low. The other is a metered rate for any kind of service. This includes a minimum charge, which is also low. The consumption charge varies from 90 cents down to 45 cents per 1,000 cubic feet as the consumption increases. This is opposite to the type of variation practiced, for example, in Cincinnati. Dayton's rate scale is far more favorable to the industrial user or large user of water. For small users Dayton's rate is about average. For large users it is almost the lowest.
Fire Protection Reliable
Dayton's fire loss record is a favorable one. Losses have been uniform and low. Fire equipment is fully motorized. Dayton's classification from an insurance rate standpoint is third from the lowest, which is one point better than Columbus' classification and two points worse (higher rates) than Cleveland's. Dayton's position represents an advance from its former classification. Third class is pretty good for an Ohio city. Possibly Dayton's high buildings and other local conditions will prevent its looking forward to any improved classification in the near future.
The lowest insurance rate quoted on a fireproof building is 13.8 cents. Rates on dwellings are from 14 to 22 cents, according to the materials of construction and roof. A standard hazard brick building takes a rate of 16.9 cents it one story, and 21.4 cents it five stories. A standard hazard frame building enjoys a rate of 44 cents it one story, and 49 cents if three stories.
Dayton Has Cheap Power
Electricity is almost the only thing which is as cheap as, or perhaps, even cheaper, than it used to be. But this statement is generally true only of current produced in central stations. The Importance of hydro-electric power is greatly over-estimated in the lay imagination. Hydro-electric power is not necessarily cheap, and steam generated power is often cheap. Dayton has very cheap power, all steam generated. It is, however, within striking distance of one of the most important water power regions of the country and water generated power may very possibly be brought to Dayton soon. Perhaps because power is cheap, Dayton's industries consume a great deal of It. A large percentage of them obtain all their power by purchase from the local electric supply company. This concern, the Dayton Power & Light Company, has generating capacity in excess of 100,000 kilowatts, with two 20,000 kilowatt lines also entering the city from Cincinnati, at which latter point there are 200,000 kilowatts now available and will ultimately be 360,000 kilowatts. Thus there is a very genuine superpower system already in existence in the Miami Valley. During less than five years, Dayton's electricity consumption has about doubled.
Rates for residence and commercial lighting range from eight cents downward per kilowatt hour. Ordinary power rates are based on the number of hours' use of the demand; on a sliding scale downward from 6.6 to 2.4 cents gross per kilowatt hour with quantity discounts ranging up to 44 percent. High tension current is available at slightly lower prices. Large power consumers, taking 6,600 volt current, may utilize a rate which is based jointly on demand and consumption. Two examples of the sort which might be encountered in ordinary practice lead to illustrative rates o( 2.581 and 1.696 cents per kilowatt hour. The rate structure is such as to permit of rates below one cent; and, in fact, in connection with the new city water works plant it seems probable that the actual rate charged may be less than one cent per kilowatt hour.
District Steam Heating System
The Dayton Power & Light Company furnishes over a considerable area within the central part of the city a generally available supply of steam. The magnitude of the business is indicated from the fact that it required last year the use of 66,000 tons of coal. There are over nine miles of mains and services. Two rate schedules are published. Under the ordinary heating schedule there is no minimum charge. The factory steam schedule leads to somewhat lower rates, but the rates are based on the price of coal and may be adjusted from month to month it necessary. This latter service is available only where the underground mains now exist or where a reasonable amount of business is guaranteed. Under either schedule the total cost of steam is apt to be approximately twice the cost of coal burned by the consumer to do the equivalent amount of heating at the present price per ton of the cheapest steam fuel. Since, in the average plant, coal cost is about one-halt the total power cost, the use of district steam supply does not necessarily increase cost of the consumer. Naturally it saves him large amounts which would otherwise be spent for plant equipment, reduces tire hazard, eliminates a great deal of worry, etc. All condensation is drained at the consumer's premises.
Natural Gas
Dayton's channels of natural gas supply have recently been augmented. Present gas rates, which range from 50 to 60 cents in summer, and from 50 cents to one dollar in winter, per 1,000 cubic feet, Increasing as the consumption increases, expired on March 21, 1926. The Dayton City Commission has passed an ordinance fixing a rate "beginning at 70 cents find stepping down gradually, as the consumption increases, to 55 cents; thus reversing the present method of variation. This new schedule took effect on September 1, 1926.
Street Car Service
The local trolley fare In the city of Dayton is five cents with transfers at one cent (including interline transfers). Dayton has an almost record breaking number of street transportation lines under separate managements. There are no less than four purely local traction companies, besides several interurban lines which reach the center of the city. There are seven interurban lines in all. There is, however, only one line of local buses. The traction companies are not prospering and one interurban line has recently been abandoned. This is a situation not peculiar to Dayton and should not call for undue pessimism. Receiverships in interurban and street railway operation are quite the order of the day and the present is a period of readjustment, brought about by automobile and motor bus competition. The local traction companies can probably not continue with the five cent fare even though immune from bus competition, unless some concessions are made. The city area Is well served by existing trolley lines, with few real lacks of service and more overlaps than omissions.
The engineers of the City Plan Board have reported in favor of reducing the number of local routes from eleven to nine (involving consolidation of lines at least for purposes of operation) and have submitted a detailed routing scheme which seems to have many advantages, especially looking toward the city's future.
Motor Buses for Interurban Traffic
Southwestern Ohio's many good roads and progressive road building policy have favored the interurban motor bus. Dayton has a radical network of such bus lines, moving along main arterial highways; some of them engaged in interstate transportation. The electric interurban lines also form an extensive radical system, some of them extending into Indiana.
There is a reasonable degree of specialization of territory as between the two facilities, but the two compete in reaching most of the larger centers.
Bus fares, on the whole, are somewhat higher than electric line fares.
Express Service Unusually Good
There are 28 branch express offices with pick up and delivery limits covering the entire settled portion of the city, and equipment fully motorized. There are dally express cars (some daily except Sunday) to all important points. The express rate structure has a common basis throughout the country and calls for no special discussion.
Telephone and Telegraph Facilities
Dayton has 18 telephones per 100 population as compared with the national average of 13.1, There are direct wires to Detroit, Cleveland Chicago, and New York. Telephone rates involving Dayton subscribers are now before the Public Utilities Commission for adjustment.
Telegraph rates are arranged on a zone system, and (generally speaking) the comparison between one city and another may be interred roughly from a look at a map. Dayton, however, has somewhat higher rates via the Western Union lines to southern points, as compared with Cincinnati than the respective mileage would suggest. There are two telegraph companies in Dayton. The Postal Telegraph standard rate from Dayton to points in Ohio is 25 cents, as compared with Western Union rate of 30 cents. The former company has some differential rates to southern points.
Each company has direct multiplex lines to Cincinnati, Cleveland and Chicago. . In addition, the Western Union has such lines to Columbus and New York. About 14 factories or establishments in Dayton have direct Western Union wires to their own premises. About 11 have direct Postal Telegraph lines. Cable rates out of Dayton are practically on the same basis as those of Cincinnati.
Return to "Facts About Dayton" Home Page
