New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-12-11
225,OOO IN RUSH HOURS.
SUBWAY TO CARRY THEM
Engineers Erpect Capacity of 500
Cars an Hour.

The Interborough Rapid Transit Company.
whose subway will be in operation about May
l. expects to carry $4,000 passengers an hour
night and morning IN the rush hours The off,
cials expect that the traffic will reach that
volume for about two and half hours. morning
and night.
The company is getting things in condition
for carrying this maximum volume of traffic
very soon after the trains running New
cars are being received rapidly, and everything
indicates a smooth working road as soon as it
Is warmed up" The engineers. a Tribune re-
porter was informed yesterday, calculate that
trains running from thirty to thirty-five miles
an hour (the designed speed of the express
trains) cannot with safety be operated on
shorter interval than two 70 two and a half
minutes. and then only when the equipment is
in the most perfect condition and when the en-
ployes are thoroughly drilled. Thirty trains an
hour on the two express tracks and fifty trains
an hour on the local tracks. where the speed IL
much slower. ii is said will be the average maxi
mum capacity Of the road. With eight cars on
each express train and six cars on each local
train, proposed, it viii have a capacity of
$50 hour. The seating capacity
Of each viii be hfty-two persons, but It is
likely that eighty to the will be carried in
the busy hours. as Newly Yorkers, when bent on
getting home to business. stand on the order
northbound tracks at night and the two south
bound tracks in the morning will carry about
forty-fve thousand passengers an hour. or for
the five rush hours, taking night and morning
together about two hundred and TWENTY-FIVE
thousand.
The engineers estimate that the elevated and
surface roads bring to and carry away from the
business district a total of about one hundred
and forty-fve thousand people an hour. If the
subway next summer does as we'll as its build
ers hope. 5000 OF these. temporarily at least
will be taken care Of by the subway
Wall Street men supposed to be closely in
touch with the interests in co1SS4 of the Inter
borough Rapid Transit Company said yesterday
that the Belmont people would not make any
move this winter. either with the Rapid Transit
Commission or at Albany, to get franchises for
extensions OF the subway
The company" said The Tribune's informant
will not lay out any new work until it has
found Just what il has got IN The way Of
dividend Garner The Interborough has assumed
the burden OF paying interest on an investment
OF S56oO0OOO as a tunnel rental. It started
out to get an electrical equipment for S6OOOOOO
and has put into it. or will have, by the time
the road Is running, about S16OOOOO0"
rms enormous financial burden, coupled with
the TACT that the bond market at this time is
not Al all promising, has perhaps shaped the
poncy which, according TO Wall Street gossip
me L-lltL borough people nave adopted.
The company" continued the spea ker wants
70 know what the people are going to do and how
Lhey Ike the road EReore they build bigger. II
Inc Bronx shows signs OF rapid building up as
II probably VIII, then the company may at no
alstant day, urge the building of a new East
Sloe line But II is more likely if the Rapid
Transit Commission urges additional trafic ia
clltles 10 suggest that an additional track be
oulAI on the Second-ave. elevated line mas
much as such an addition could be built in \
year or two, while new subway would take
three years build.
Without additional legislation at Albany the
city viii not be able lend its credit for the
bciIolng or any more subways There is q mar
gln OF less than S6,OO0O0O left for subway
purposes under the act authorizing an expendi-
Lure or S90ODoOUO for the present subway
rms SbOeDOOJ will not go a great way in the
construction OF new tunnels. II would be SUI
ncent for the building of the spur between
ForIy-second-sJ. and Union Square but that
sIlp OF new tunnel would not be a large ele-
rnent IN taking care OF the steadily growing
VoIume OF traffic which may be expected in this
city IN the next five years"