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REAL ESTATE
AND
(Copyright, 1917, by The Record and Guide Co.)
NEW YORK, JULY 7, 1917
PRESENT STATUS OF SUBWAY CONSTRUCTION
Review of Progress Accomplished During the Current
Year—When New Links May be Expected to Operate
*~r* HE end of 1917 will witness many
*- of the important trunk lines of the
Dual System of rapid transit in partial
or complete operation unless conditions
caused by the w^ar give rise to a situa¬
tion in the materials and labor markets
tending either to halt subway and ele¬
vated railroad construction or to ham¬
per it seriously. It is the hope, how¬
ever, of the Public Service Commission
that work can be sufficiently advanced
within the next few months to permit
the early opening of certain important
lines, particularly the Lexington avenue
line and the Seventh avenue line, which
will afford very great relief to the pres¬
ent traffic conditions in Manhattan.
The pressure of the w^ar is already be¬
ing felt to some extent with re¬
spect to deliveries of materials, par¬
ticularly steel, and steps have been
taken to expedite these deliveries.
The Commission has gone to con¬
siderable pains to set forth to high
government officials the need which ex¬
ists for an early completion of the sub¬
way work and to urge consideration of
the transit needs of New York as a mat¬
ter of the greatest public importance.
It is not known to what extent the
army draft will embarrass the various
contractors in their very considerable
task of securing a sufficient amount of
labor to carry the work forward. That
there will be more or less of an effect is
generally expected. In what measure
the men employed upon public work will
be considered exempt by the Govern¬
ment, if at all, is not known.
Last February the Record and Guide
presented a review of the rapid transit
construction under the Dual System of
contracts. At the beginning of 1917
about 100 track miles of the 345 track
miles of the Dual System were in use.
Since that time some sixty additional
track miles embraced in the Dual Sys¬
tem have been placed in operation, and
there is good prospect that before the
summer is oyer a considerable additional
track mileage will be in use.
The most recent Dual System facility
to be placed in operation was the so-
called West Farms Connection, an ele¬
vated structure extending from the
Third avenue elevated railroad at 143d
street, through private property, Willis
and Ber.sren avenues to a connection
with the West Farms branch of the first
subway, which the Interborough Rapid
Transit Company opened on July 1. The
line will^ be utilized for elevated rail¬
road trains which, in morning and eve¬
ning rush hours, are now operated froin
and to the Freeman street station on
the West Farms branch of the subwav,
respectively.
The opening of this connection will
give marked relief to the condition of
extreme congestion, which has prevailed
for a number of years at 149th street
and Third avenue. In addition, the
s:rade crossing connection between sub¬
wav and elevated lines at 150th street
and Third avenue will be eliminated. In
other words, the elevated trains which
now operate for a part of the trip over
the West Farms branch of the first
subway, connecting with the Third ave¬
nue line at 150th street, will be diverted
so that thev do not pass th ? 149th street
station and do not use the i^rade cross-
mg at 150th street.
Another important facility will be
placed in partial operation within a few
weeks. This is the Broadway subway,
through which the New York Consoli¬
dated Railroad Company, one of the
Brooklyn Rapid Transit associated or¬
ganizations, will soon run trains from
the Manhattan Bridge, through the Canal
street subway to 14th street and Broad¬
way, carrying the five-cent rapid tran¬
sit fare from Brooklyn northward to
the latter named point. As fast as other
parts of the Broadway subway are com¬
pleted they will be placed in operation
and it is hoped by the end of the year
operation will have been extended at
least as far north as 42d street, although
this is somewhat problematical owing to
the doubt existing as to general condi¬
tions in the near future.
Additional Connections.
The Broadway subway will connect
with the Fourth avenue subway in
Brooklyn by way of the Manhattan
bridge; and, as was explained in the pre¬
vious article in the Record and Guide,
another connection will eventually be
had between the Broadway and the
Fourth avenue subway by way of
the Whitehall-Montague street tun¬
nels, which were "holed through"
under the East River last month, ad¬
vancing the last of the tubes of the two
new down-town rapid transit tunnels be¬
tween Manhattan and Brooklyn well to¬
ward completion.
Within the next few weeks the Inter¬
borough Rapid Transit Company will
place in operation an extension of its
Second avenue elevated line over the
Queensboro bridge to a connection with
the_ Astoria and Corona lines in Queens.
This \vill offer the first through rapid
transit connection with lower Manhat¬
tan, it now being necessary for passen¬
gers who use the Queens lines to trans¬
fer to and from the Queensboro subway
at the Grand Central subway station.
Details of service have not yet been
worked out but it will furnish new and
quick transportation to the northern and
northeastern sections of Queens from
the business sections of lower Manhat¬
tan.
Opening Main Portions.
The Commission hopes that it will be
possible to open the main portions of the
Lexington avenue subway and the Sev¬
enth avenue subway during the coming
autumn, so that both of these lines will
be in complete operation during the
heaviest rush of winter traffic. Every
possible effort is being put forth to that
end in order to permit the handling of
tlie Interborough subway traffic, which
last winter prrcw to excessive and pre¬
viously unheard of proportions. It is
believed the normal annual expected in¬
crease, amounting to several hundred
thousands of passengers daily will bring
this traffic total to a new high figure
during the winter pf 1917-1918.
The existing or first subway is con¬
sidered as having reached the point of
traffic saturation during rush hours and
at times last winter it became necessary
to restrict the entrance of passengers to
the Grand Central subway station dur¬
ing the evening rush hour. That sta¬
tion is the controllincr point in Inter¬
borough subway operation and in point
of the number of passengers passing
through it daily is the largest under¬
ground railroad station in the world. On
several occasions the subway traffic ex¬
ceeded 1,350,000 passengers daily.
A portion of the Seventh avenue sub¬
way from Times Square south to the
Pennsylvania station is already in serv¬
ice, operation having been begun on
Sunday, June 3, when shuttle trains
were run between the two points named,
giving for the first time a subway service
to the Pennsylvania station and inciden¬
tally for the first time a subway con¬
nection between the two great railroad
terminals in Manhattan, namely, the
Pennsylvania station and the Grand Cen¬
tral terminal. More than 3.000 persons
daily are being transported by this shut¬
tle service and the number is increasing
constantly.
A portion of the Jerome avenue branch
of the Lexington avenue subway is also
in operation from the 149th street (Mott
avenue) station to Kingsbridge Road.
The line is a three-track subway from
149th street to 157th street, and extends
thence over River and Jerome avenues
as a three-track elevated railroad. The
first trains over the portion of the line
placed in service were run on June 2,
and already the trains are carrying sev¬
eral thousand persons daily. The
service now given, however, is nec¬
essarily limited, as the only downtown
connection of this line at the present
time is by way of the West Farms
branch of the first subway, which is
reached at the 149th street station of the
Lexington avenue line, where stairways
and mezzanines give direct access to the
Mott avenue station of the first subway,
directly beneath and at right angles to
the Lexington avenue line station. Even
the partial operation now had, has ma¬
terially reduced the running time be¬
tween the Kingsbridge Road station and
downtown points, to residents along and
in the vicinity of Jerome avenue from
five to ten minutes.
Lender conditions of operation such as
are proposed for the future it will be
i-ecessary to place both the Seventh
avenue and Lexington avenue lines in
service concurrently, inasmuch as in
connection with the existing subway,
two through subway trunk lines will be
created in place of the one now existing.
In other words, the Seventh avenue line
will be connected up at 43d street and
Seventh avenue with the first subway
to the north of that point to constitute
a new west trunk line while the Lexing¬
ton avenue line will be connected near
Grand Central station with the first sub¬
way south of 42d street and form the
new east subway trunk line. Through
operation will be had on both lines.
At the 149th street station on the
Jerome avenue line and the Mott ave¬
nue station of the West Farms branch
of the first subway a physical connec¬
tion now being completed" will make it
possible to operate a great many of the
W^est Farms branch trains by'way of
the Lexington avenue line. Great relief
to conditions as they now exist in the
first subway, where approximately two
West Farms branch trains are operated
to every Broadway branch train, will be
afforded and nearlv a one hundred per
cent, increase in Broadway line service
will be possible.
Practically all of the excavation neces¬
sary for the Lexington avenue and the
Seventh avenue lines has been com-
RECORD ATSD GUIDE IS IN ITS FIFTIETH VE.UI OP CONTINUOUS PUBLICATIOxN.
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