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Another measure affecting the Commission had reference to the conveyance by the Canal Board to The City of New York of rights and easements for rapid transit purposes through Barge Canal terminals and property. Still another provided a method for the removal of the elevated railroad spur on 42d street, Manhattan. Another gave the Commission the exclusive right to prescribe the maximum number of passengers to be carried in any street car in New York City.

Chapter 692 gave the Commission authority to eliminate the menace to life and property caused by the operation over the street railroad tracks on Central Park West, while Chapter 612 amended the Rapid Transit Act in relation to the time within which an appeal might be taken to the Appellate Division from a final decree in condemnation proceedings. Chapter 666 provided that a small portion of Queens Borough, annexed to Brooklyn under an Act of the Legislature of 1915, be included within the eighty-cent gas area. Other measures had to do with minor matters before the Commission.

COMMISSION TEN YEARS OLD

The Commission on July 1, 1917, completed its first decade, having been organized on July 1, 1907. New York City has witnessed very great changes in that period. The Commission, acting as a rapid transit board, has under construction the Dual System of rapid transit, which has been described as the greatest single engineering undertaking in the world's history and involving a otal expenditure close to, if not in excess of, $400,000,000. The record of the decade in the regulation of public utilities includes the supervision over stock and bond issues amounting to nearly $700,000,000; the disposition by investigation or otherwise of more than 15,000 complaints, and the beginning of more than 2,200 formal hearings or investigations. In a large number of these proceedings orders have been issued calling for improvements and betterments in the service, operating conditions and equipment of the companies within the Commission's jurisdication. In the same decade, baggage companies, terminal railroad companies, stage coach and bus line companies, electric conduit companies and steam companies have been brought within the jurisdiction of the Commission.

In its ten years of supervision over gas and electric companies the Commission has tested a grand total of nearly 4,000,000 gas meters and almost 6,000 electric meters. The period has also seen the annual street railroad traffic increase from 1,315,000,000 to 1,918,000,000 passengers, the increments averaging nearly 70,000,000 a year. Such a rapid growth has provided a serious problem, both as to regulation of existing lines and construction of new lines.

WORK IN 1917

The work of the Commission in 1917 was varied in character, its powers being considerably amplified by the passage of Chapter 719 of the Laws of 1917, previously referred to, in regard to the New York Central West Side track problem.

The Dual System of rapid transit authorized by Chapter 4 of the Laws of 1891 and amendments, known as the Rapid Transit Act, is approaching completion. This great system was established in 1913 under the agreements known as the Dual Contracts. Many of the lines are finished and in use, while several others are so nearly complete that trains will be running before the end of 1918. The Commission has continued to let new contracts for construction and for other work on the rapid transit lines, to supervise the construction in progress, and in addition has advanced the final plans for the work still to be undertaken.

The "peak" of rapid transit construction was reached during 1916, when more work was in progress, although not quite so large a working force was employed as in 1914 and 1915. The total value of work done in 1917, on the basis of final and partial estimates of contractors, was only about $6,000,000 less than in 1916. The working force on subway construction, however, had been reduced at the close of 1917 to about 11,000 men, approximately half the greatest number employed at any previous time.

The Commission has continued during the year the regulation and supervision of common carriers and other public service corporations, under the Public Service Law, the Railroad Law, the Transportation Corporations Law and other statutes.

Rapid transit contracts awarded during the year were in the aggregate $4,998,323.84. The total of Dual System contracts awarded, under way or completed on City-owned lines, exclusive

of the First Subway, now is $201,338,337.18. Of the 41 contracts awarded in 1917 one was for what is termed general construction, two for structural steel, eight for station finish, three for track installation, eight for track materials, and nineteen for miscellaneous purposes. The construction contract amounted to $257,164; structural steel contracts to $1,456,055; station finish contracts to $2,237,112.26; track installation contracts to $368,861.75; track materials contracts to $302,297.13, and miscellaneous contracts to $376,833.70.

The report of the Auditor shows that the expenses of the Commission for the year 1917 were $3,253,809.17, of which $3,001,420.14 was met from the treasury of The City of New York, while $252,389.03 was paid by the State. This was, by far, the largest share of the Commission's expenses borne in any year by the State, which has previously paid only the salaries of the Commissioners, Secretary and Counsel, amounting to $91,000 annually. Under legislative enactment in 1916, however, provision was made that on and after July 1, 1917, the expenses of the Commission incurred in regulatory work should be paid by the State. The expenditures for the City were made under the Rapid Transit Act, and a large share of the amount embraced engineering and city superintendence charges in the construction of the new rapid transit lines, which will be charged to the cost of construction and eventually repaid to the City by the amortization, through earnings, of such cost.

It is estimated that the expenses for 1918 will be about $2,945,000, of which $2,246,000 will be paid by the City, while the remainder, $699,000, will be a.State charge. In this instance the share of the State is seen to be larger, proportionately, than for 1917, which is explained by the fact that the State's share of the expenses in 1918 will be for twelve months instead of for six months, as in 1917.

The employes of the Commission numbered 1,885 on December 31, 1917, the smallest number in several years. There were 2,025 at the close of 1916. As the work of constructing the Dual System draws to a close the number will be still smaller, the drafting, engineering and supervisory forces required in that great work being steadily reduced. Of the force as it existed in 1917

about 1,404 were engaged in rapid transit work and the remainder assigned to regulatory duties.

LABOR AND MATERIALS

The record of rapid transit construction during 1917 is a record of progress under circumstances discouraging alike to the contractors, the Commission and its engineers. Conditions totally unexpected have arisen as a result of the war. The Commission's resources of men and materials have been taxed to the utmost. Nearly 260 of the Commission's employes, as well as two members of the Commission itself, are now in the country's service, either on land or sea. Some have already participated in the fighting in France; members of the Commission's engineering staff, now members of the 11th Railway Engineers, having shown great valor in the fighting at Cambrai at the end of November.

The drain upon the Commission's engineering staff was serious, nearly 100 men being taken by draft and enlistment from one engineering division alone. It so happened that this particular division was engaged in highly important work, and upon its advancement depended the opening of important new rapid transit lines. It has been extremely difficult to replace these drafted and enlisted employes and others who have left to take positions that war demands have opened up. The Commission has been obliged, in some instances, to ask the Government to delay calling to the colors certain technically trained men whose services were greatly needed, and to withhold summoning others until the rapid transit and regulatory work of the Commission could be so adjusted as to take care of the extraordinary emergency presented. The situation has called for a display of greater energy on the part of those remaining in order that the work might be pushed to conclusion as fast as possible, first, that the traveling public of New York, so greatly in need of relief, might receive the transit benefits to be derived from the Dual System operation, and second, because completion of the work would release technically trained men to serve the Government in its time of need.

At the time the United States entered the war, April 6, 1917, there were in process of manufacture in steel mills and elsewhere thousands of tons of construction materials for use in the Dual

System work. These materials included steel, iron, tile, paints, cement, rails, cables, etc. Millions of feet of timber were being sawed in southern mills to supply the ties and stringers for the new lines.

Contractors engaged both on City-owned and on companyowned lines faced a scarcity of labor practically unequalled. These employers were in a difficult position, because their bids. had been based upon prices for materials and labor prevailing in previous years. They found themselves in some cases unable to compete with the demands for labor in other callings where wages were at a premium, or were forced, as in some instances, to pay rates exorbitant in comparison with bid prices in order to maintain sufficient working forces. Coupled with these general conditions were congested conditions at the mills, shops and manufacturing plants. Freight blockades, lack of steamship space, embargoes, etc., were additional hardships encountered. For two years the prices of materials have steadily risen, and when it is considered that practically all orders for the Dual System work were placed in 1915 and 1916, it will be understood that manufacturers were reluctant to fill such orders at market prices far higher than the contract figures.

These difficulties account in part for a marked decrease in the quantity of materials received during the year 1917 and inspected by the engineers of the Commission. However, by special effort of the inspectors at the manufacturing plants, and of the Commission itself, to obtain priorities in deliveries, the materials for those contract sections most urgently desired for early operation were given preference, and either were delivered or in process of delivery at the end of the year. Representations were made to the United States Government by the Commission as to the need for completion of the New York transit system, with the result that some preference was given to steel and other materials for subway work. The Government was impressed with the importance of replacing the temporary falsework over the streets with the finished structure underneath at as early a date as possible.

The entry of the United States into the war diverted to National use practically every type of material used in subway construc

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