The Routes Not Taken Page 20
The New York State Suburban Transit Commission, a legislative group evaluating all the plans, held a hearing at City Hall on July 16, 1925, seeking additional input. LIRR Vice President George LeBoutillier opposed the MTS, believing it was redundant to the operation of the LIRR. He thought more could be accomplished by providing additional subway service to Queens. James A. McCarthy of the Fifth Avenue Association called for the line to be built from Westchester to connect with the LIRR’s tracks and run into New Jersey. James W. Dansky of the Eighth Avenue Business Men’s Association thought there wasn’t enough subway service on the West Side (the start of service on the IND’s 8th Avenue–Washington Heights line was seven years away). He proposed building the Westchester line down the West Side. Lawson H. Brown of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce wanted the Westchester route extended to connect with the LIRR in Brooklyn.36
Figure 7-9. The North Jersey Transit Commission’s Interstate Loop line.
W&B President Leverett S. Miller expressed reservations with the WCTC plan in December 1925. Brinckerhoff and Agar had envisioned the line running into Lower Manhattan. Miller’s thinking was more in line with the MTS concept of having the line terminate at a station in the Bronx. He thought this would reduce transportation costs and actually make the trip easier for his riders.37
Figure 7-10. An NJTC map showing the extension of IRT lines to New Jersey.
Miller thought he had had a better idea. On February 4, 1926, he proposed a W&B extension from its terminal at 133rd Street and Willis Avenue in the Bronx to St. Nicholas Avenue and West 125th Street in Harlem, connecting with the subway and elevated lines intersecting 125th Street. Miller thought this would decentralize and better distribute suburban riders in Manhattan. He believed most W&B riders were already traveling to points north and west of Grand Central Terminal, and that this would make travel easier for them. No consideration was given to cost or financial arrangements.38
The final WCTC report was released on April 26, 1926, following up on earlier proposals. It called for trains from the New York Central Railroad, the New Haven Railroad, and the W&B to run into a tunnel from a station at 149th Street, allowing for a transfer to the IRT and then continuing downtown as a “deep tunnel” line under Madison Avenue. A branch line would serve Grand Central Terminal, allowing for transfers with the subway lines there. Other trains would run to the City Hall area via Madison Avenue, Broadway, University Place, and West Broadway.
Figure 7-11. This North Jersey Transit diagram for an unbuilt railroad terminal from 1926 includes an extension of the Flushing line from Manhattan (upper right).
Brinckerhoff estimated the project’s cost at $150 million ($1.82 billion in 2009 dollars) for a four-track line, and $95 million ($1.15 billion in 2009 dollars) for two. He stressed the connectivity this line could have with intersecting transit lines on the way to City Hall, and pointed out possible connections with the development of further extensions connecting with the LIRR in Brooklyn, the Jersey Central Railroad, the H&M in Jersey City, and the SIRT in Port Richmond and St. George.39
Cost was again the daunting factor. There was little chance the Westchester County Board of Supervisors would take action, given the investments they were making in other public works projects, including their county’s highway system.40 The WCTC plan was tabled41 and not considered again until 1928, without any change in its fate.42
Interest in developing a suburban transit system went on. On June 9, 1927, Agar led a delegation of Westchester representatives to meet with George S. Silzer, the chairperson of the Port of New York Authority, to discuss commuter rail concerns. After trying to get Brinckerhoff’s plan funded within their county, Agar and his group knew that a more regional approach was needed and turned to the Port Authority for help.
The Port Authority had received a request from the New Jersey Legislature to play a role in the development of a suburban system. Out of this came the Suburban Transit Engineering Board (STEB), which would examine the proposals and develop a master plan. The engineers from the local Transit Commissions, the BOT, and the Nassau County government participated; Turner was its chairperson. The STEB carried out an origin / destination survey of Westchester County commuters and evaluated a survey done in New Jersey by the NJTC.
Figure 7-12. An NJTC map showing the extension of the 14th Street–Canarsie line to New Jersey.
One of its findings was that north–south New Jersey service was as desirable as service to New York City.43 This was reflected in a NJTC plan that harked back to Jersey City Mayor Frank Hague’s Boulevard subway line.44 A route was proposed that would run from Port Richmond on Staten Island and then connect with the SIRT’s North Shore line, via the then-proposed Bayonne Bridge, and with Manhattan via the then-unbuilt George Washington Bridge. The Palisades route would connect with cities along the Hudson River, the H&M, and lines proposed by the NJTC.45 The NJTC later called for two other New Jersey rapid transit lines, one connecting Paterson, Passaic, and Newark and the other running from Hackensack to Newark via Rutherford.46
The proposal for rapid transit tracks on the George Washington Bridge was part of the plans of both the STEB and the Port Authority. A 1926 Port Authority report stated:
As a result of our studies it now appears quite feasible … to build the bridge initially for highway traffic only, but with the provision, at a small extra expenditure, for the future accommodation of rail transportation or additional bus passenger traffic.… If and when accommodation for rail passenger traffic or for bus passenger traffic, across the bridge becomes necessary, two or four lanes, or tracks, or either form of such traffic can be added on a lower deck.… The question as to whether, and to what extent, rail passenger traffic should be provided for on the bridge is still under consideration, and the cooperation and advice of the transit authorities in the two States has been sought in order to arrive at a satisfactory solution.47
Drawings accompanying the report showed two or four tracks built as part of a lower deck. As we’ve seen, that solution has not yet been achieved.
That was not the only Hudson River crossing considered. Along with the Interstate Loop plans was a proposal to build a bridge crossing the river to enter Manhattan at West 57th Street, but it ran afoul of the federal government. The Department of War wanted to have a vertical clearance of 200 feet above the river at its center and 185 feet at its pierhead lines. The plans for the 57th Street Bridge called for a 175-foot clearance at its center. The additional price of increasing the bridge’s height made it less feasible, and ultimately made a bridge 121 blocks to the north in Manhattan more viable.48 While the idea was considered, no proposal for tracks on the George Washington Bridge ever advanced beyond the planning stage.
Figure 7-13. A 1926 diagram for what will be the George Washington Bridge showing room left for rail traffic.
The Regional Plan of New York looked at developing an overall transit network. Harold M. Lewis, their executive engineer, working with Daniel L. Turner, developed a report, Transit and Transportation, incorporated some aspects of the earlier plans, brought back some of Turner’s proposals for the subway system, and set the framework for the proposals to expand the subway system that the BOT would issue over the next decade.
Figure 7-14. The first step of the Regional Plan.
Figure 7-15. The second step.
New versions of the Queens Parkway line were considered. One connected it to the Queens Boulevard line in Elmhurst, near the Woodhaven Boulevard–Slattery Plaza station. Another went into eastern Queens via Union Turnpike, rather than Black Stump Road. The Interstate Loop and other NJTC lines were discussed with a Midtown extension to the LIRR and a northern extension under 3rd Avenue, linking with the three commuter rail lines serving Westchester in the Bronx at the 149th Street Union Station first called for in the MTS Plan.
As a second step, the Regional Plan proposed rapid transit links crossing the George Washington Bridge, to Brooklyn to link up with the LIRR, and from Staten Island using the
Narrows Tunnel. The plans for the Staten Island line also called for new western connections to New Jersey and an eastern extension to link with the LIRR in southeastern Queens.
“All means of transportation should be planned to furnish direct routes not only to the older business centres but to the new ones which are arising or may be expected to develop,” Lewis wrote. “Short hauls between residences and places of work will do much to relieve congestion.”49
The STEB proposed variations of the Interstate Loop with connections to the LIRR in Brooklyn and Queens. They made no proposals for Westchester connections, feeling that schedule and operational adjustments at Grand Central Terminal were what was needed to relieve congestion on the northern routes.50
The Committee on the Regional Plan for New York and Its Environs followed both its plan and the STEB’s with a proposal a month later to build a terminal in the Long Island City section of Queens, over the Sunnyside Yards. This would enable connections between the STEB’s line, the LIRR, the subways at Queensboro Plaza, and the northern commuter lines, which would use the Hell Gate Bridge to reach Queens and the Sunnyside Yards.51
The STEB released additional reports on ridership counts. No action was taken, due to the Depression’s effects on commuter traffic and transit funding.52 The NJTC issued a report in 1931 reiterating the routes proposed in its earlier plans and discussing further extensions into the northern, western, and southern reaches of its service area.53 The STEB analyzed ridership trends, but ceased planning activities until ridership levels justified resumption of that work.54
The shortage of funding didn’t stop people from proposing commuter rapid transit systems. In 1936, New Jersey’s legislature passed a resolution asking the Port of New York Authority to report on ways to connect the counties adjoining the Hudson River with New York City via rapid transit. The Port Authority responded with a revised version of the STEB plan.
The PA’s Interstate Loop would run to 6th Avenue and West 51st Street and then westward to New Durham, where it would meet the Erie Railroad, which would be electrified to serve Manhattan. A spur in New Jersey would run to Staten Island, linking with the SIRT in Port Richmond. Connections with the LIRR and the northern commuter lines, and a north–south line in Staten Island connecting the SIRT’s Tottenville line with the line coming from New Jersey were proposed as a second phase.
The Port Authority estimated the cost of the plan’s first phase at $187 million ($92.6 billion in 2011 dollars, according to MeasuringWorth.com), which wasn’t there to be spent.55 It would be more than two decades before the Port Authority would operate rapid transit service.
The Regional Plan Association built on the Port Authority’s plan with one of its own a year later, calling for a northern extension of the Interstate Loop, under 2nd Avenue to 149th Street and linking with the New York Central Railroad. They revived the plan for a terminal in Queens, running a spur into that borough, where it would link with the LIRR, the subways and extensions of the New Haven Railroad, and the W&B running from the Hell Gate Bridge. This was seen as a way to revive the W&B, which had ceased operations at the start of the year.56
The Interstate Loop was again proposed in 1957. The Metropolitan Rapid Transit Commission, created by the state legislatures of New York and New Jersey, proposed a new version connecting with the BMT’s Broadway line by the Battery and north of the 57th Street Station. The line would make transfers with the H&M and the commuter rail lines in New Jersey. It was estimated that the line would cost $400 million to build ($3.05 billion in 2009 dollars).57
The Port of New York Authority played a primary role in the organization of the Suburban Transit Engineering Board and issued a suburban rapid transit plan in 1937, but did no more until the 1960s. The H&M was in bankruptcy in 1961; the system McAdoo and Dos Passos succeeded in building was in decline.
The Port Authority bid $20 million ($150 million in 2011 dollars according to MeasuringWorth.com) for the H&M and budgeted to spend more. The plan also involved improving linkage with the commuter rail lines in New Jersey and discontinuing the ferry lines that the railroads still operated across the Hudson River.58 This led to a significant change in Lower Manhattan.
Plans for the World Trade Center then called for it to be built along the East River, in an area bordered by Fulton Street, South Street, Old Slip, and Pearl Street. As part of the Port Authority’s plan, it would be built along the Hudson River, with the Hudson Terminal and other buildings in the area demolished to make room for it.
Despite protests by area property owners and businesspeople who would be displaced by the World Trade Center’s construction, the plan proceeded. New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and New Jersey Governor Richard J. Hughes reached an agreement on January 22, 1962, for legislation to enable the purchase of the H&M by the Port Authority. The Port Authority took over operation of the H&M on July 26, 1962, with that line becoming known as the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corporation (PATH).
Daniel L. Turner retired in 1933, following the end of the Suburban Transit Engineering Board’s planning work. He died on March 12, 1942, leaving a huge legacy in the development of the transit system in the New York metropolitan area. With the construction of the East Side Access program and the 2nd Avenue subway now in progress, springing from plans he helped to develop eight decades ago, that legacy continues to grow.
8
The Battle of the Northeast Bronx, Part 2
The New York, Westchester, and Boston Railway’s last trip arrived in White Plains at 12:40 A.M. on January 1, 1938. One hundred fifty members of the Allied Civic Associations and other community groups met with John H. Delaney and Charles V. Halley, Jr., on January 12. They wanted the Board of Transportation to obtain the W&B’s Bronx tracks and resume operations. Delaney said he didn’t think it would be profitable.
Preliminary engineering work for Burke Avenue was underway. A field office opened at 3238 White Plains Road; the BOT awarded a contract to John S. Fitz Associates in 1937 to locate building lines along the route. Surveys were done along the New York Central’s right-of-way in Bronx Park for the viaduct crossing the park. It would consider obtaining the W&B’s tracks after that, if they were still available.1
But would they be available? Robert Moses’s plan had gained momentum. At his urging, James J. Lyons, Arthur V. Sheridan, and other officials inspected the right-of-way on February 5 to consider its use as an express truck highway with a bus line stopping by old W&B stations. Moses stated that “pleasure cars” could also use it.2 The Board of Estimate allocated $5 million for Burke Avenue on February 17, but Bronx and Westchester groups still sought the W&B’s revival.
Mayors Dominic Amato of North Pelham and Harry Scott of New Rochelle stated that all options for the W&B should be explored before Moses’s plan. Frederick G. Schmidt, majority leader of the Westchester County Board of Supervisors, equivocated: “Of course, what we need most is the railway, but if it is impossible the establishment of express highways on the railroad bed might be the solution.”3 Supervisor Harold W. Davis thought a “fast trolley system” was feasible.4 The United Civic Association of the Bronx supported Moses’s plan.5
The Bronx Home News supported a “rapid transit bus line” connecting with the Burke Avenue line: “The express bus service is an especially important feature of the project, for the N.Y., W, and B. (and its right-of-way) by all means should be retained for transit purposes.… Rapid transit, by all means, should come first, but the truck highway plan, as such, has considerable merit.”6
Some Westchester real estate brokers opposed Moses’s plan. Leo O. Rostenberg of White Plains said, “The communities along the railroad are essentially residential, and represent investments of many millions of dollars. Trucking would certainly hurt these fine communities just as it ruined the fine residential character of the Boston Post Road.”7
Westchester State Senator Pliny W. Williamson sought the W&B’s reactivation:
If the villages and cities affected by
the railroad desire to form some kind of an inter-community authority to take possession of the railroad, I am willing to assist by presenting the necessary legislation in Albany …
… Everything within reason should be done to revive the railroad. It should be done for humanitarian reasons and to save the homes and assessed valuations along the line.8
Assembly Member Peter Quinn sponsored a resolution calling for a legislative committee to study resuming W&B service. He didn’t believe that a state authority was useful. The economy would make difficult the sale of bonds to operate the revived rail line:
Our only hope is in evolving a plan whereby the receiver appointed by the Federal Court and the bondholders can be persuaded to surrender their interests in return for the bonds of a State Authority at a considerable discount on the face amount of their present outstanding obligations.
This plan would obviate the need of selling any bonds and would remove all problems of financing from the already involved situation.
The only and best way to work out such a plan and reduce it to the form of a legislative measure is through the agency of a committee of the Legislature with authority to confer with all the interested parties and receive from them official offers for the surrender of their holdings in return for the bonds of a state authority.9
Bennett E. Siegelstein spoke as a representative for a Westchester homeowners group who claimed they had the financing to keep the line in operation.10 The New York, Westchester, and Boston Company’s Employees Protective Association, representing former employees, wrote to Senator Wagner, seeking help.
The Allied Civic Associations of Old Eastchester met at Breinlinger’s Hall on March 10. William E. Schramek reported that state legislators would file bills calling for an authority to operate the W&B if the Westchester Board of Supervisors wanted it. They did; despite his earlier opposition, Quinn filed matching legislation creating the Westchester and Bronx Railroad Authority. The legislation passed and went to Governor Lehman for his signature.