Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-03-22
MOVING PLATFORM FOR
NEW YORK SUBWAY
EIGHTY MILLION DOLLARS MAY
BE EXPENDED
Financiers Backing Plan to Equip on'
foreground Lines with New
Apparatus

NEW YORK, March 2l.-ElBHty
million dollars will be available If the
public service commission accepts tIe
plans of the Continuous Transit Secur-
tiles company for the construction OF
eight subways and their equipment
with moving platforms or continuous
trains. The engineers of the commas
sion began their investigation tues
day and will be ready to report IN
about two weeks to the board, which
will determine whether one or all or
any of the routes shall be undertaken.
The project, which Lemuel Ely
Quigg. as "accelerator" was ordered
to kill by the Metropolitan Securities
company in 1905, is backed by E. Z.
Ripley, president of the Atchison, To-
peka & Santa Fe railroad; Moses Tay-
lor Pine, Stuyvesant Fish, Stephen 5.
Palmer, president Of the New Jersey
Zinc company; August Heckscher,
president of the Commonwealth Real
Estate company; Albert r. Gallatin of
Schmitt & Gallatin, John f. O'Rourke,
president of the ORourke Engineering
Construction company; Cornelius Van
derbilt and Max z. Schmidt, originator
of the improvements in the new meth
cd of transportation.
Practically Adopted Once
The old Rapid Transit board prac-
tically adopted the plan, but through
some influence, which never has been
disclosed, the Endorsement was with
drawn and on May Is, 1905, the plan
was rejected. Up to that time about
$4,000 had been expended in the prep
aration of drawings. The total expen-
diture for that purpose to date is APP
proximately $4,000. What attitude the
Interborough or McAdoo interests may
take when the report of the engineers
comes up for action is problemat1cal,
but the projectors believe there will be
no opposition because the proposed
subways will be feeders for the exist
ing system.
Route No. 1 is planned to extend
from Battery place, under Broad and
Nassau streets, to Park Row. thence
under Centre street to Delaney, and
across the Williamsburg bridge.
Route No. is to start near Des-
brosses street and North river, run
thence under Canal street and over
the Manhattan bridge to terminal at
the Brooklyn bridge plaza, where route
No. 3 begins and continues over the old
bridge, under City Hall park to War;
rem street, thence to Vesey and under
that thoroughfare to Washington mar
ket.
Route No. 4, to be the first con-
structed if the plans are approved, is
to run diagonally from Union square
to Forty-second street and Seventh
avenue.
Route No. 5. the original route
planned five years ago, which Quigg
knocked out, extends from Ninth to
Seventh avenues under Thirty-fourth
street.
Route No. 6 is designed to connect
the east and west sides, under Four
teenth street from Ninth avenue to
Avenue A.
Route No. is to pass under Twen-
ty-third street fromb Eleventh avenue
Route No. is to extend under Fiji
ty-ninth street from Ninth avenue
| across the Blackwell's island bridge
! to Jackson avenue.
| Two expert engineers from the pub
| lie service commission spent part OF
Monday and Tuesday in going over
the plans with Max E. Schmidt at his
| office, As Broadway. They will report
| to Henry B. Seaman, the chief engi-
neer, who in turn will go over the
scheme and report to the commission
Bion J. Arnold. the consulting cleo
trical expert of the board, Endorsed the
moving platform plan in a report
| made last May.
Moving platforms for the convey
ance of passengers were suggested
| forty years ago, but never reached a
practical demonstration until 1898,
when the practicability was shown at
the Worlds fair in Chicago. In 1896
they were installed at the Berlin expo
sition and again at the Paris exposi-
ton of 1900, where 100000 passen-
gers were carried. The name gave
rise to popular misconception, and
| there was a general belief that the
plan contemplated a moving sidewalk
on the open street, because the dem
onstration was above the ground sur
| face.
The actual moving platform now I'M
| der consideration must occupy a sub
way. the construction of which would
be about the same as the present sub
ways. but the cost of operation, as
proved in Berlin, Paris and Chicago,
is one-eighth of the cost of the ele-
waited road and one-thirteenth that of
| the subway.