The New York Rapid-transit Subway

Proceedings.] DISCUSSION ON NEW YORK SUBWAY. 97 the street in less than 1 minute, as reported. The whole train-load Mr.Boardman. thus got away from the fumes. “ Fire-proof " construction was only partially fire-proof, and was not altogether protective against fire and fumes where there was a strong electric current. He did not wish to say anything further on that subject, except to ask the members to compare dangers of that kind in a subway and in deep- level tubes. Another thing to be considered was what might be termed the saleable value of the transportation offered by the tube and the subway. New York local-station platforms were about 16 feet below the street-level, and were reached by openings on the sidewalk, down a flight of straight steps to the centre of the platform. A person in a hurry would accomplish that in less than 10 seconds, and an ordinary person could take his ticket, drop it into the box, and reach the train in less than 30 seconds as an average. On a tube the average time of reaching the train from the street might well be put at 2 to 3 minutes, depending on whether the passenger had to wait for a lift. To reach the platform involved a considerable amount of physical exertion, probably enjoyed by healthy persons, but deterrent to passengers who were not healthy or who objected to walk the long passages, apart from the waste of time. In New York City, the subway was paralleled on the surface by fast electric cars. In London there were motor-omnibuses running parallel with the lines. In New York, owing to the saving of time and the ease in reaching the station, people preferred to travel by the Subway for distances of a mile or more. The Author’s recommendation of a shallow subway for New York seemed to have been justified by the result. Its capacity during the busy hours had been long over-taxed, and it was now in contemplation to increase the train-service from thirty trains per hour on the express tracks to forty trains per hour, each of seven cars. From Mr. Rosenbusch, the lift-engineer of the the Underground Electric railways, Mr. Boardman had obtained calculations adapted to Brooklyn Bridge station where 21,000,000 tickets were issued in one year, a week-day average of 65,000, and it was estimated that 60 per cent, of the average daily booking occurred during the five busy hours, and on special days there was a large increase over the average. That meant a one-way movement of more than 8,000 passengers per hour. Mr. Rosenbusch assumed the working-capacity of the standard tube lift to be 1,000 persons per hour one way, and from that he estimated that eight lifts under ideal conditions, and twelve lifts under ordinary conditions—standby, breakdown, and so on—would have been necessary for the present traffic of Brooklyn Bridge station, if there had been a deep tube there. With an increase of 33 per cent, in the traffic it would be a heavy [the INST. C.E. VOL. CLXXIII.] H