The New York Subway, Its Construction and Equipment. Interborough Rapid Transit Company
York has biennial elections. The road could not be completed in two years, and the attitude of one administration might not be the attitude of its successors.
The engineering difficulties were well-nigh appalling. Towering buildings along the streets had to be considered, and the streets themselves were already occupied with a complicated network of subsurface structures, such as sewers, water and gas mains, electric cable conduits, electric surface railway conduits, telegraph and power conduits, and many vaults extending out under the streets, occupied by the abutting property owners. On the surface were street railway lines carrying a very heavy traffic night and day, and all the thoroughfares in the lower part of the city were congested with vehicular traffic.
Finally, the city was unwilling to take any risk, and demanded millions of dollars of security to insure the completion of the road according to the contract, the terms of which were most exacting down to the smallest detail.
The builders of the road did not underestimate the magnitude of the task before them. They retained the most experienced experts for every part of the work and, perfecting an organization in an incredibly short time, proceeded to surmount and sweep aside difficulties. The result is one of which every citizen of New York may feel proud. Upon the completion of the road the city will own the best constructed and best equipped intraurban rapid transit railroad in the world. The efforts of the builders have not been limited by the strict terms of the contract. They have striven, not to equal the best devices, but to improve upon the best devices used in modern electrical railroading, to secure for the traveling public safety, comfort, and speedy transportation.
The road is off the surface and escapes the delays incident to congested city streets, but near the surface and accessible, light, dry, clean, and well ventilated. The stations and approaches are commodious, and the stations themselves furnish conveniences to passengers heretofore not heard of on intraurban lines. There is a separate express service, with its own tracks, and the stations are so arranged that passengers may pass from local trains to express trains, and vice versa, without delay and without payment of additional fare. Special precautions have been taken and devices adopted to prevent a failure of the electric power and the consequent delays of traffic. An electro pneumatic block signal system has been devised, which excels any system heretofore used and is unique in its mechanism. The third rail for conveying the electric current is covered, so as to prevent injury to passengers and employees from contact. Special emergency and fire alarm signal systems are installed throughout the length of the road. At a few stations, where the road is not near the surface, improved escalators and elevators are provided. The cars have been designed to prevent danger from fire, and improved types of motors have been adopted, capable of supplying great speed combined with complete control. Strength, utility, and convenience have not alone been considered, but all parts of the railroad structures and equipment, stations, power house, and electrical sub-stations have been designed and constructed with a view to the beauty of their appearance, as well as to their efficiency.
The completion of the subway marks the solution of a problem which for over thirty years baffled the people of New York City, in spite of the best efforts of many of its foremost citizens. An extended account of Rapid Transit Legislation would be out of place here, but a brief glance at the history of the Act under the authority of which the subway has been built is necessary to a clear understanding of the work which has been accomplished. From 1850 to 1865 the street surface horse railways were sufficient for the requirements of the traveling public. As the city grew rapidly, the congestion spreading northward, to and beyond the Harlem River, the service of surface roads became entirely inadequate. As early as 1868, forty-two well known business men of the city became, by special legislative Act, incorporators of the New York City Central Underground Railway Company, to build a line from the City Hall to the Harlem River. The names of the incorporators evidenced the seriousness of the attempt, but nothing came of it. In 1872, also by special Act, Cornelius Vanderbilt and others were incorporated as The New York City Rapid Transit Company, to build an underground road from the City Hall to connect with the New York & Harlem Road at 59th Street, with a branch to the tracks of the New York Central Road. The enterprise was soon abandoned. Numerous companies were incorporated in the succeeding years under the general railroad laws, to build underground roads, but without results; among them the Central Tunnel Railway Company in 1881, The New York & New Jersey Tunnel Railway Company in 1883, The Terminal Underground Railway Company in 1886, The Underground Railroad Company of the City of New York (a consolidation of the last two companies) in 1896, and The Rapid Transit Underground Railroad Company in 1897.
All attempts to build a road under the early special charter and later under the general laws having failed, the city secured in 1891 the passage of the Rapid Transit Act under which, as amended, the subway has been built. As originally passed it did not provide for municipal ownership. It provided that a board of five rapid transit railroad commissioners might adopt routes and general plans for a railroad, obtain the consents of the local authorities and abutting property owners, or in lieu of the consents of the property owners the approval of the Supreme Court; and then, having adopted detail plans for the construction and operation, might sell at public sale the right to build and operate the road to a corporation, whose powers and duties were defined in the Act, for such period of time and on such terms as they could. The Commissioners prepared plans and obtained the consents of the local authorities. The property owners refused their consent; the Supreme Court gave its approval in lieu thereof, but upon inviting bids the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners found no responsible bidder.
The late Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, as early as 1884, when legislation for underground roads was under discussion, had urged municipal ownership. Speaking in 1901, he said of his efforts in 1884:
"It was evident to me that underground rapid transit could not be secured by the investment of private capital, but in some way or other its construction was dependent upon the use of the credit of the City of New York. It was also apparent to me that if such credit were used, the property must belong to the city. Inasmuch as it would not be safe for the city to undertake the construction itself, the intervention of a contracting company appeared indispensable. To secure the city against loss, this company must necessarily be required to give a sufficient bond for the completion of the work and be willing to enter into a contract for its continued operation under a rental which would pay the interest upon the bonds issued by the city for the construction, and provide a sinking fund sufficient for the payment of the bonds at or before maturity. It also seemed to be indispensable that the leasing company should invest in the rolling stock and in the real estate required for its power houses and other buildings an amount of money sufficiently large to indemnify the city against loss in case the lessees should fail in their undertaking to build and operate the railroad."
Mr. Hewitt became Mayor of the city in 1887, and his views were presented in the form of a Bill to the Legislature in the following year. The measure found practically no support. Six years later, after the Rapid Transit Commissioners had failed under the Act of 1891, as originally drawn, to obtain bidders for the franchise, the New York Chamber of Commerce undertook to solve the problem by reverting to Mr. Hewitt's idea of municipal ownership. Whether or not municipal ownership would meet the approval of the citizens of New York could not be determined; therefore, as a preliminary step, it was decided to submit the question to a popular vote. An amendment to the Act of 1891 was drawn (Chapter 752 of the Laws of 1894) which provided that the qualified electors of the city were to decide at an annual election, by ballot, whether the rapid transit railway or railways should be constructed by the city and at the public's expense, and be operated under lease from the city, or should be constructed by a private corporation under a franchise to be sold in the manner attempted unsuccessfully, under the Act of 1891, as originally passed. At the fall election of 1894, the electors of the city, by a very large vote, declared against the sale of a franchise to a private corporation and in favor of ownership by the city. Several other amendments, the necessity for which developed as plans for the railway were worked out, were made up to and including the session of the Legislature of 1900, but the general scheme for rapid transit may be said to have become fixed when the electors declared in favor of municipal ownership. The main provisions of the legislation which stood upon the statute books as the Rapid Transit Act, when the contract was finally executed, February 21, 1900, may be briefly summarized as follows: