May 23, 1908





RECORD  AND  GUIDE





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President,   CLINTON  W.   SWEET                        Treasurer.  F.  W. DODGE

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Side route at Broadway and Porty-second street, ,and;
rimning do-wn Seventh avenue, could be planned so as,
to have a station at Seventh avenue and Thirty-second.,
street, and an underground connection could easily be,
planned with the Pennsylvania and Long Island stations.
In arranging for the distribution and collection of these
250,0 0 0 or more daily travelers, it is of the utmost im¬
portance that the connection with the rapid transit systeni,
of the city should be made with every possible convenience,
and celerity. A delay of several minutes, such as would
be necessary in the absence of a Seventh avenue subway,
would mean a corresponding loss of business for shops
and places of amuseraent situated all over the city, and it
would increase by just so much the cost of transacting busi¬
ness in Manhattan. Of course both Mr. McDonald and Mr.
liea have special interests to serve, when tbey insist on the
necessity of a Seventh avenue subway; but iu this instance
the special interest of the corporations they represent co¬
incides with the inierest and the necessities of the traveling
public of New York.





Vol. LXXXL





MAT 23, 190S.





No. 2096.





A5AIN are the finances of the City of New York in a very
serious condition. The ability of the city to borrow
iuoney is more restricted at the present time than it has
beeu at any period in the history of New York. The debt
margin amounts to only a little over $1,000,000. On July
I it will be increased by about if 40,000,000, but this increase
will provide only a temporary relief. Practically the whole
of this sum will be required to carry on the important pub¬
lic works which have already been started; and account
must be taken of the probability that during the next year
the ificrease in the real estate valuation will not be much
more than half what it is during the current year. Ap¬
parently severe measures of economy will be necessary for
an indefinite period in order to make both ends meet. Every
proposed improvement which can be postponed will have
to be postponed, and the Board of Estimate will have to
be very cautious about committing the city to any large new
enterprises. There is no doubt, for instance, that under
the circumstances the city cannot afford the money neces¬
sary for the Fourth Avenue subway iu Brooklyn. That
subway should be re-advertised under the new law. If a
private company can be found to build and operate it, it
should be built at once; but if no such bidder is forthcom¬
ing, its construction should be postponed until a consti¬
tutional amendment is secured excluding stock issued for
subway construction from being counted as part of the net
debt of the city. It is evident, however, that measures of
economy, while they will relieve the temporary crisis, will
not meet the permanent situation. Manifestly the increase
in borrowing capacity derived from the annual increase in
the assessed valuation of real estate will not be sufficient
to provide the city with the money it needs for necessary
improvements. Since 1902 New York has spent not only
every dollar provided by the increase in the assessed valua¬
tion, but more than $100,000,000 besides; and out of all
this money a very small proportion was used for transit
purposes. Consequently, even if a constitutional amend¬
ment is passed placing stock issued for transit purposes
" in the same class as stock issued to pay for the new acque¬
duet, the city will still be unable to borrow as much money
as it needs. In the long run the assessed valuation of real
estate wili increase even more rapidly, but so will the needs
of the city for expensive improvements. What is to be
done? Surely some raeans should be taken to raeet in an
adequate way a situation which promises to be permanently
critical. This serious problem should receive attention from
the  Charter Revision  Comraission.





OPPOSITION seems to be gathering to the Broadway-
Lexington Avenue route, as projected by the Public
Service Coraraission. Vice-President Rea, of the Pennsyl¬
vania Railroad Co., has joined Mr, ,Jobn B. McDonald in pro¬
testing against the fact tbat the proposed route does not
provide any subway for the lower West Side. The 250,000
passengers, who wiil hoard and leave the Pennsylvania and
Long Island, trains at Seventh avenue and. Thirty-second
street wiil have to depend for access to the stalion upon
the surface cars or the elevated roads, and, in any event,
will be obliged to walk a block or two in order to find any
sufficient means of transit;, and it is perfectly obvious that
tliis irapprtent center of traffic should be connected with
the subway system as closely as ■ Is the (3rand Central
Station."     A    subway,    connecting   with    the    upper    West





THE great argument in favor of a Broadway subway is,
of course, that the line of Broadway is the line of
densest trafflc. This argument undoubtedly has great force,
A subway must eventually be built ou Broadway, no less
than on Seventh avenue. The projected..Broadway^Lexing.-
tou Avenue,route does not, however, use the line of Broad¬
way to the best advantage. It connects lower Broadway
with the upper East Side; whereas it would be far more
convenient to connect lower Broadway with the upper West
Side. At the same time it avoids entirely that very im¬
portant part of Broadway between Fourteenth and Porty-
second streets. The Record and Guide has always claimed
(and we see no reason to abandon the claim) that a Broad¬
way subway should be used chiefly for local traffic. All
along its line the business population is so dense, and the
local centers of trafflc so numerous, that a subway with
stations every four blocks and no express tracks would
provide the public with service raost needed. The thorough¬
fare is not wide enough for more than three tracks, and all
those three tracks should be used to make as many points
as possible along the line available for discharging and
receiving passengers. When the time comes a most useful
subway couid be constructed up Broadway as far north as
Thirty-fourth 'street.. Prom that point it could turn into
Sixth avenue and continue to the Central Park. It could
be connected by a subway across Fifty-ninth street with the
Blackwell's Island Bridge, and, by means of other cross-
town subways, with the express services on the east and
west sides. An underground road along the line described
above, pierced by as many stations as possible, would de¬
velop more traffic per mile than the proposed Broadway-
Lexington Avenue route, and would be a far more logical
outgrowth of the plan of Manhattan, The time has not
come for its construction; but it could be begun with profit
as soon as a lower West Side and an upper East Side
extension are finished.





THE friends of the Broadway-Lexington Avenue route
answer the advocates of a lower West Side subway
by the assertion that such a subway will be built in the
fulness of time; but this answer is not sufficient. To be
sure a lower West Side subway must be built in the course
of tirae, because its construction is demanded by the con¬
venience of the traveling public. The point is, however,
that the construction of the Broadway-Lexington Avenue
route will postpone a subway, which is immediately neces¬
sary in favor of one which is not immediately necessary.
South of Forty-second street the projected route parallels
the existing subway and merely divides traffic which can
be handled by one subway among two subways. It inter¬
feres with the construction of a lower West Side subway
just because it wastes upon a competing line money which
should be spent upon a non-competing line. . At any one
time only a certain number of subways will pay; and tho
only way to obtain the early construction of the. largest
possible addition to the transit system of the borougii is to
plan subways which interfere and compete as little as
possible one with another. A Lexington avenue connection
wilh the existing subway for the upper East Side, and a
Seventh avenue connection for the lower West Side, would
provide the maximum accommoilation for lhe public at a
minimum expense; whereas a Broadway-Lexington Avenue
route leaves the lower West Side wholly neglected, and
at the same time burdens-the whole subway system of Man.-