Bridges v. Ferries

Highway traffic, like many another thing, follows the cheapest route. Operators of the New Orleans-Pontchartrain toll bridge have made this unhappy discovery. The great span was born under politics, and politics in the form of free state ferries across the lake, caused its financial demise. This month, after a year's profitless operation, it went quietly into bankruptcy, unable to meet interest charges on its $5,500,000 construction cost.

Behind its failure is a story of petty Louisiana politics. Each bidder for the bridge franchise secured the services of a former Governor as counsel. When the New Orleans investment house of Watson-Williams won the bid, a retaliatory political campaign was begun for free ferries and a free bridge. Gov. Oramel Simpson campaigned for re-election on a free-bridge platform. So did Huey P. Long. Long won. Gov. Simpson, retiring, threw the free ferries into cut-throat competition with the private bridge, pending construction of a state bridge on which no tolls would be charged. Under Gov. Long the state bridge is almost finished.

Two reasons exist for lack of public sympathy for the toll bridge: 1) it charged cash to cross; 2) "Yankee" dollars built it.

In New York where there are no free ferries, some bankers with $25,000,000 in cash and ample credit were last week seeking permission to build a colossal toll bridge across the narrows from Staten Island to Brooklyn. A narrows bridge is opposed by the War Department, which foresees New York Harbor clogged by its debris in case of war.