New-York tribune., 1922-08-29

ther delay If the attention of the pub
Tic were diverted from the cornmis-.
sion s program of actual RELIEF to con-
slider alternatives that are impossible
OF achievement and that are put forl
ward merely for the purpose OF fur4.
ther obstruction. If then the plans of
the Mayor are intended for serious
consideration, they will re promptly
referred nv the Board Of Estimate to
the Transit Commission. The COM
mission, ~ the law conteraplates, will
proceed ! n the natural course to hold
public hearings upon tham. and to
contain that would really aid con-
struefive program.
The commission, under ordinary cir
cum stances, would avoid any advance
comment of d positive sort unon the
particulars Of any matter likely ID be
submitted to 1t. In the consideration
Of any OF the particular routes the
Mayor proposes it certainly will follow
this rule. II may we'll be that some
Of the notifications suggested would
improve the routes ii has already laid
out and made public Upon the broader
features Of the Mayors scheme. in view
Of its publication so far ii advance Of
actual presentation either to the
Board of Estimate or to the commits
sion, we snail, however, be bound to
make passing comment. This the
proper information of the public will
require. AT the moment think 1t
necessary only to point out:
sFirst-That the Mayors plan. so
far as it promises an independent pro-
gram of subway building by the Board
of Estimate and Apportionment, is, to
repeat, wholly deceptive. for the reason
that nothing whatever can be done
along the line he suggests except upon
the initiation of the Transit Commits
sion.
borrowing Limitations
"SeconG--That the suggestion OF an
expenditure of S6o0, 100000 by the city,
within the limits of its legal bor-
yrowing capacity, and in addition to the
amounts that would be required to take
over the privately owned lines in the
dual system that is it proposed to
'recapture, and to the further sums
that would be involved in the ac-
QUESTION of elevated and surface fran
schise rights, the ripping down of ele-
waited structures and the ripping UP
of surface tracks, the purchase Of oper-
ating equipment for city wide bus
service, the building Of new tunnels,
DIiuSSs anu SO ol, az tuuiCfOus Ill tuo
extreme.
THE present legal borrowing capac-
ity of the city is already mortgaged
virtually out of sight by the city's
other present obligations. Moreover,
were there no encumbrances whatever
upon 1t, the cost of the recapture Of
the old lines would alone wipe it out;
and any additional borrowing capacity
realized within the next few years over
and above the sums which will annually
be required for docks, schoolhouses and
other municipal purposes not paid for
from taxation would not finance tenth
Of the system the Mayor Is proposing.
Mayors Price
Third. That the recapture of those
parts Of the existing system now op-
Grated under lease by the railway
companies would mean not an extern
sion Of the fve-cent fare system, but,
on the contrary, further disintegra-
tion and tearing apart of SO much Of
the 6ve-cent fare system as the Mayor
has left without realizing the slightest
corresponding benefit at any point
"Under the dual contracts the old
and new subways of the Interborough
Company, East Side and West Side
alike, were united in the one system
on the basis of common five-cent
fare. Every line in the elevated sys-
tenn of Brooklyn still held under prl-
vate ownership was at the same time
linked up on basis of universal
transfer and common fye-cent fare
with the Fourth Avenue subway in
Brooklyn and the Broadway line to
Fifty-ninth Street, Manhattan, and