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August 22, 1908
RECORD AND GUIDE
375
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Copyrighted
1908, by
The
Record
&
Guide Co.
Vol.
Lxxxn.
AUGUST
22,
1908.
N
0. 2110
THE statement is made on apparently good authority that
the Public Service Commission is beginning to be very
open-mindetJ on the matter of elevated roads. It has been
examining the elevated roads in Berliu and certain other for¬
eign cities and has discovered that they can be constructed
in a wholly unobjectionable manner. The elevated struc¬
tures and stations can be constructed so as to adorn rather
than disfigure the streets through which they run; and the
trains can be operated with far less noise. Why, then, should
New York again fall back upon elevated rapid transit? The
Record and Guide welcomes this disposition on the part of
the Commission to consider at least the possibility of new
lines of elevated transit. Elevated trains are assuredly far
pleasanter for passengers than are those which run throirgh
subways, and if the structures can be made less of an eye-sore
the sooner the city returns to elevated tracks for certain
kinds of rapid transit the better. We do not want any more
elevated roads in Manhattan, because in this Borough, the
density of traffic is sufRcient to justify the building of sub¬
ways, but in the other boroughs the ease is different. It is
only for short distances over a few main streets that subways
can be profitably operated in the Bronx. Brooklyn or Queens.
The traffic is not dense enough to warrant the enormous
initial expense of constructing subways. In laying out rapid
transit routes for the outlying boroughs, elevated roads shonld
be freely used, and this policy would be of benefit to each
one of the localities mentioned, because a smaller cost of
initial construction wonld permit and .justify the early plan¬
ning of many additional lines.
PUBLIC opinion in New York is just beginning to under¬
stand the importance of the intrusion of the New Haven
Railroad into the local transit situation. It hae been obvious
for several years that the plans of the New Haven for the
development of its system in the Broux and Westchester
County demanded a subway from the Harleni River to the
Battery; but as long as the willingness of that railroad to
build such a subway had not been explicitly announced, any
discussion of its effect, if constructed, upon the whole transit
situation was more or less in the air. Now. however, that
the explicit announcement has been made that the New
Haven wants a subway from the Harlem River south, this
news profoundly modifies certain practical aspects of the
transit problem in Manhattan, It introduces a new and
powerful competitor into the field, and the existing situation
of this competitor gives it opportunities and rights which
should not and cannot be ignored. Hitherto the Record and
Guide has always favored the confirmation of the monopoly
of rapid transit in Manhattan now enjoyed by the Inter¬
borough Company. We have not. of course, believed in
granting the Interborough Company additional privileges,
except for fivll value received, and in ease that corporation
refused to offer full value the city would be justified in
building and operating an independent line or system of lines.
But provided a fair price could be obtained, the city had
more to gain from allowing the Interborough Company to
build up a complete system of rapid transit in Manhattan and
in the Bronx than by encouraging competition. Competition
in such a service merely means waste. Economy is promoted
,fby a monopolized service—properly regulated in the public
.interest and sufficiently contribirtory to the public treasury.
It is because the Record and Guide believed in a "monopolized
service that it has opposed the Broadway-Lexington avenue
route as laid out by the Public Service Commission. That
route has no meaning, except for the purpose of competing
with the existing snbway. It parallels the subway from
Forty-second Street south, and would, to a considerable ex¬
tent, merely divide up trafRc that already exists, instead of
originating new traffic. The interest of the city in getting
the greatest possible increase of service for tlie expenditure
of a certain sirm of money would be best promoted by an
extension of the present subway north from Forty-second
Street on the East Side and south from Forty-second Street
on tbe West Side.
THE* announcement that the New Haven is ready to build
a subway, necessarily modifies the former preference of
the Record and Guide for a monopolized service. The Con¬
solidated Railroad has a much stronger claim on the city
for an independent entrance into Manhattan than baa any
other inter-State railway in the neighborhood. After it has
constructed either the Westchester or the Portchester branch,
it will come down to the Harlem River with over fifteen sub¬
urban tracks, and obviously the interest of the people who
wil! use these tracks demands an adequate connection with
the business district downtown. No existing transit company
in Manhattan is in a position to supply the New Haven road
with any snfflcient connection, and it looks as if the only pos¬
sible way the Consolidated road can do justice to its passen¬
gers will be the construction of one or more subways. But a
subway whereby the New Haven would obtain entrance into
Manhattan would be a very different thing from the subways
sufficient for the needs of the Pennsylvania Railroad or the
Public Service Corporation of New Jersey, The New Haven
would need a iongitudinal tunnel of enormous capacity,
stretching frora one end of Manhattan to the other, and
capable, consequently, of developing a large local traffic.
Su'Ch a subway would naturally be independent of the gen¬
eral rapid transit system of Manhattan, yet, just because o£
the large amount of local traffic it would handle, its route
would have to be considered carefully in relation to the wliole
Manhattan transit system. It would necessarfly compete
with more exclusively local subways; and competition under
auch circumstances would be legitimate. To that extent the
Public Service Commission should deliberately plan to break
the monopoly of rapid transit now enjoyed by the Interbor¬
ough Company.
THE question is immediately suggested whether the
Broadway-Lexington Avenue route would be adapted to
tlie needs of the New Haven road. The Record and Guide
does not believe that it would. That route would develop
in the course of a few years after its construction, a volume
of local traffic hardly, if at all. inferior to that carried by
the existing subway, and in that event it would not be ade¬
quate to take care of the enormous traffic which would orig¬
inate along the existing lines of the New Haven road. The
New Haven would apparently have its needs much better
served by a straighter six-track subway, running south along
First or Second Avenue. It might manage to carry its
passengera for a few years in the Broadway-Lexington Ave¬
nue subway, but after a short while the congestion on that
line would probably be worse than that on any single subway
or elevated road now being operated in Manhattan. It has
always seemed to the Record and Gu'ide that a subway under
Broadway should be designed chiefly for Joea! traffic, just
because the local traffic along that thoroughfare is so dense,
and because the avenue is not wide enough even for four
tracks situated ou the same level. In case a subway under
Broadway is made to carry a large amouut of through ex¬
press traffic the service afforded to the local passengers will
necessarily fall below the desirable standard. However that
may be, the intrusion of the New Haven road into the rapid
transit situation has made it suddenly much more interest¬
ing and promising. • Unlike the Interborough Company, this
corporation is possessed of enormous resources and unim¬
peachable credit. It is in a pqjsition to carry out any plans
which it may have drawn, and in arranging to construct a
new subway, it is not in the same difficult situation as a
purely local company. It can enter Manhattan under the
same clause in the Rapid Transit Act which was passed in
order to meet the needs of the Pennsylvania Railroad Cora¬
pany for permanent right-of-way. All that is necessary is to
reach an agreement with the Public Service Commission
and the Board of Estimate aa to routes, plans, and terms: and
though this may not be an easy task, it is an easier one than
the task which confronts any possible competitor for a similar
privilege.
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