The New York Rapid-transit Subway

Proceedings.] DISCUSSION ON NEW YORK SUBWAY. 107 of fact, only about one-half of the length was shallow subway, and Mr. Haigh, one-quarter was elevated railroad, a much cheaper form of construc- tion. He could not quite reconcile the figures in the Paper. The minimum cost quoted for the shallow subway construction was given as about €200,000 per mile of single road, which meant over £400,000 for double line. The first contract was he believed £1,000,000 for the portion of the work represented on the long sections in Figs. 2, Plate 5—that was, without the section under the East River represented in tunnel. The latter was let for a very small sum; the tender was £400,000 for the construction, irrespective of the terminals, and the work could not possibly have been done for that amount. Another tender put forward at the same time was £1,400,000 and the work could not have cost mucli less. Therefore it was necessary to know whether the £10,000,000 for the construction of the whole system included the contract for the 3 miles comprising the East River tunnel at £400,000, an amount which must certainly have been tendered in order to keep the whole system in the same hands. Tubes could not be made in London for anything like the figure mentioned by Mr. Cuningham, namely, £120,000 per mile. Some figures which had been brought forward in the discussion were not very different from his own. Taking a general average of the tubes in London already made, he found the cost to be about £550,000 per double mile, including construction, stations, cost of promotion, land, equip- ment, and power. Deducting land, power, and equipment, the cost was about £300,000 per mile of double line of 12-foot tunnel, and that was the figure which he proposed to compare with the New York Subway, in showing what might have been the approximate cost if the subway had been made on the tube system. Those familiar with London tunnelling and dealing with mains and sewers would know that what had been done in New York could not possibly be done in London ; and although it was possible that some shallow subways might have been made in those districts in which tube tunnels had been made, the same method could not have been applied. Even if it could, economy would not have been effected, because in those places the expense of diversions and other matters was such that the cost would not have differed much from the £300,000 per mile he had alluded to. The shallow Metropolitan railway between Paddington and Aldersgate Street, which was made in the sixties, cost for construction £186,000 per mile ; but in those days the prices of labour and of materials were less than half what they were now, and therefore the figures were not comparable. With regard to comparison of the cost of the tunnels of New York and what might