Visiting the Construction of the New York Transport System Then and Now - Coursework Example

Infrastructure Application and Review: VISITING THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW YORK TRANSPORT SYSTEM THEN AND NOW of Date Submitted Infrastructure Application and Review: VISITING THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW YORK TRANSPORT SYSTEM THEN AND NOW Introduction Transportation means and transportation routes are all part of social development especially among those developed cities around the world. It could not be denied that these particular elements of social development in human generations naturally create the possible chances for better economic growth and faster progress for human societies. Hence, for these reason, transportation infrastructures are note to be the primary foundations of modern societies geared towards modernization and urbanization. In this particular research, understanding how the said transport infrastructures actually affect the development of New York City in USA shall be critically assessed. Through this particular assessment, the possibility of creating the link that exists between the transport system and the economic as well as social development of the society being catered upon in this reading. THE SUBWAY: New York’s Best and Primary Transport System THE tunnel diggers gazed in disbelief at what they had uncovered. The year was 1912. Deep beneath the streets of New York City, while excavating an extension of the newly built subway, they had broken into a large hidden chamber. The room was magnificently furnished—like a palace! Along its length were mirrors, chandeliers, and frescoes. Wood paneling, crumbling with age, still adorned the walls. In the middle of the room stood a decorative fountain, its bubbling long silent. The room led to a tunnel. To the workers’ astonishment, there sat a graciously decorated 22-passenger subway car on its rails. Had there been another subway under New York before the one they were digging? Who could have built this place? A Historical Background of the Structure Underground passages have been in use for mining, supplying water, and military exploits for thousands of years. Mechanized underground transport of passengers, however, came about much more recently. In the early 1800’s, thoroughfares in London, England, were choked with every imaginable type of contemporary vehicle, not to mention pedestrian traffic. Thousands crossed the Thames daily, either by ferry or over London Bridge. At times, progress was so slow that merchants could only watch helplessly as the produce they were trying to get to market withered in the sun. Marc Isambard Brunel, a French engineer living in England, had an idea that would eventually help to alleviate some of London’s transportation troubles. Brunel had once observed a shipworm working its way through a piece of hard oak. He noted that only the head of the little mollusk was protected by a shell. The shipworm used the serrated edges of its shell to bore through the wood. As it progressed, it left behind in its burrow a smooth protective coating of lime. Applying this principle, Brunel patented a large cast-iron tunneling shield, to be pushed forward through the ground by jacks. As workers removed the earth from inside the shield, the shield would prevent collapse. As the shield progressed, other workers would lay bricks on the inside surface of the new tunnel to support it. Using his shield, Brunel successfully completed the world’s first underwater tunnel through soft earth, under the Thames, in 1843. In doing so, he demonstrated the feasibility of tunnel construction and prepared the way for the development of modern subways. In 1863, the world’s first subway system opened between principal railroad terminals in London, and in 1865, Brunel’s tunnel was purchased to expand the system. That tunnel still forms part of the London Underground. On Safety and Legitimacy Subterranean transport has never been without its opposers. In the 1800’s many people, believing that a fiery hell lay somewhere inside the earth, feared going underground. Additionally, many people associated dark, dank tunnels with contagion and a poisonous atmosphere. On the other side of the issue, city planners had become passionate in their desire to do something about congested urban roadways. Subways became a major topic of political debate. There was reason for concern regarding subway air quality. Various ventilation schemes were tried out, not all successful. Some took advantage of the air movement produced by the trains; others had vertical shafts with street-level gratings at intervals, powerful fans, or systems combining methods. To counter the psychological barriers to entering dark, underground passageways, stations were outfitted with gaslights. Against such a background, the forgotten New York subway that workers stumbled across in 1912 came into being. NEW YORK and The New Innovation on Transportation Across the Atlantic from London, another talented inventor, Alfred Ely Beach, puzzled over the equally dire traffic situation in New York. As the publisher of the journal Scientific American, Beach was a promoter of modern solutions to old problems, such as clogged streets. In 1849 he offered a radical plan: “Tunnel Broadway,” one of the most congested streets, “with openings and stairways at every corner. This subterranean passage is to be laid down with double track, with a road for foot passengers on either side.” During the following two decades, other transportation developers also presented rapid-transit proposals for New York. All of these were ultimately voted down. Corrupt political strongman Boss Tweed did not want any competition with surface transportation companies, the source of much of his illegal income. But the resourceful Mr. Beach, who had never abandoned his idea, outwitted the boisterous Boss. Beach obtained a legal franchise to construct a pair of adjacent tunnels, too small for transporting passengers, under Broadway. These were to serve “for the transmission of letters, packages and merchandise” to the main post office. He then applied for an amendment allowing him to build just one large tunnel, purportedly to save expense. Somehow his ruse went unnoticed, and the amendment was approved. Beach went to work immediately but out of sight. He dug from the basement of a clothing store, removing the dirt by night with wagons having wheels muffled for silence. In just 58 nights, the 312-foot [95 m] tunnel was finished. Beach was very conscious of the gagging pollution in the London subways, a result of using coal-burning steam engines. He impelled his car with a “rope of air”—the pressure from a huge fan built into an alcove on one end of the tunnel. The air gently pushed the car along at six miles [10 km] per hour, though it could have gone ten times faster. When the car reached the other end of the line, the fan was reversed to suck the car back! To overcome people’s lingering hesitancy to venture underground, Beach made sure that the spacious waiting room was abundantly illuminated with zircon lamps, among the brightest and clearest then available. And he furnished it lavishly with plush chairs, statues, curtained false windows, and even a grand piano and a goldfish tank! The little line was opened to an unsuspecting public in February 1870 and was an immediate, stunning success. In one year, 400,000 people visited the subway. Boss Tweed was furious! Political maneuvering ensued, and Tweed persuaded the governor to approve an opposing plan for an elevated train costing 16 times as much as the pneumatic underground system proposed by Beach. Shortly thereafter, Tweed was indicted, leading to his imprisonment for life. But a stock-market panic in 1873 turned the attention of investors and officials away from subways, and Beach finally sealed up the tunnel. So it rested in oblivion until it was accidentally unearthed in 1912, more than seven years after the opening of New York’s present subway in 1904. A portion of Beach’s original tunnel later became part of the present City Hall Station, in downtown Manhattan. The Developmental Reports through the Years A little more than a century ago, there was an air of anticipation in Hungary. In 1896, Hungary was to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of its founding. By the end of the 19th century, the country’s capital, Budapest, would be among the largest cities in Europe. Already its streets were overcrowded. A surface electric railway was proposed for the millennium celebration, to lighten the load. But the idea was not what the municipal authorities were looking for, and the proposal was rejected. Meanwhile, the London Underground had excited the imaginations of transportation planners in other countries. One such expert in Hungary, Mr. Mór Balázs, put forward the idea of an electric subway. This was approved, and construction began in August 1894. The subway was built using the cut-and-cover method—an existing roadway was dug up, and rails were laid below street level. A flat roof was then built over the trench, and the roadway was replaced. On May 2, 1896, the 2.3-mile [3.7 km] subway was inaugurated. A ride in its individual electrically propelled cars was a great improvement over the sulfurous experience endured by riders on the first London Underground! A few days after it opened, King Francis Joseph I visited the new system and approved its being named after him. During the politically stormy times that followed, however, the line was renamed the Millennium Underground Railway. It was the first subway on the European continent. Soon, others followed. In 1900 the Paris Métro went into operation, and Berlin began subway service in 1902. For Hungary’s 1,100th anniversary in 1996, the underground railway was restored to its original beauty and style. Tiny white tiles and wine-red ornamental borders decorate the station walls. Station names stand out—framed in tile on the wall. The iron pillars have been reconstructed and are painted green to evoke the atmosphere of the past century. The central station of Budapest includes a railway museum, where you can see one of the original subway cars—over 100 years old! Exhibits relating to the construction of the Millennium Underground Railway as well as the more modern Budapest Metro are also on display. Today subways ferry passengers underground in major cities around the world. In some the old problems of noise and air pollution have been joined by the challenges of graffiti and crime. But many systems reflect the gracious, aesthetic, and practical ideals of early subway designers. The desire to expand and improve mass transit remains strong. Subways have recently been completed or are under construction in such cities as Bangkok, Medellín, Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, and Warsaw. Would the first subway designers be surprised at all of this? Perhaps not—such widespread use is exactly what they foresaw a century and a half ago. Certainly, today, in New York, subways play a great part in the development of the said city as part of the world economy. It is through this particular infrastructure that New York is able to come up with the most effective procedures of attracting investors and other business operators in the city. Yes, it is through this that the economic system of New York is assured to continue growing through the years of global economic development. Overall Analysis of the Competency of Subway in New York NEW YORKERS find that often the fastest way to get around the city is by means of the “hole in the ground”—the New York City subway system. Over 50 large cities around the globe have underground railway systems, or subways, and others have systems under construction. Some subway systems are cleaner and more efficient than New York’s, but claims author Stan Fischler in his book Uptown, Downtown, “no subway is . . . more exciting, more complex, more diverse, and more colorful than New York’s.” system stirs strong emotions—pro and con. Subway systems were developed as the solution to urban traffic congestion. In 1863 London opened the first subway, using steam locomotives. Needless to say, though, the steam, soot, and smoke produced a less than desirable atmosphere in the tunnels. But such was the price of progress. Soon Glasgow, Budapest, Boston, Paris, and Berlin also had subway systems. New York was a relative latecomer to the subway scene, but as its population soared, the need for such a system became apparent. Proposals for rapid transit, however, were successfully blocked by corrupt politicians who had financial interests in surface transportation. As the traffic situation became more and more unwieldy, the city was forced to take a temporary step: the elevated railroads, or Els, and these began operating in the 1870’s. They were unsightly and noisy, and since steam locomotives were used, soot and cinders often rained on the people below. New York began full-scale subway construction in 1900. But instead of tunneling deep below the ground as had been done in London, New York boldly opted to use a newer approach. The plan was to dig a large trench; lay a roadway at the bottom; reinforce the bottom, sides, and top with steel girders; and replace the street over this structure. The advantages? For one thing, it was cheaper and faster than tunneling. In addition, commuters could gain access to the train by using a brief flight of stairs rather than riding an elevator. There were problems, though. Business was seriously disrupted during construction. Sewer, water, gas, steam, electrical, and telephone lines posed constant difficulties to the builders. The large-scale excavations also threatened to weaken the foundations of some large buildings. At times, Manhattan’s varying terrain required the builders to tunnel deep below the surface through solid rock. Nevertheless, for four long years, New Yorkers endured the noise, nuisance, and disruption of subway construction. But when the trains started running in the fall of 1904, all was forgiven. Indeed, the subway was an instant success! During its first year of operation, an average of over 300,000 persons a day rode the rails beneath the city. One cannot stand back and gaze at the entire subway system as one can look at the Empire State Building or the Brooklyn Bridge. Nevertheless, the subway system dwarfs these somewhat more obvious marvels. Why, in one 50-mile [80 km] section, there is three times as much steel as there is in the Empire State Building! The entire system has over 230 miles [370 km] of route with over 820 miles [1,300 km] of track, making it one of the most extensive in the world. Conclusion The system has also had a dramatic impact on the development of the city itself. Most of the tens of thousands of people who work in the business districts come either from other parts of the city or from outlying areas. Workers can escape Manhattan’s legendary traffic tie-ups and parking problems by simply taking a subway ride. The subway is thus the lifeline for many New York businesses. Soaring operational costs have increased the fare over 20-fold since operation began! Still, it is not the highly profitable enterprise it once was. Huge government subsidies keep the trains running. Yet, subway cars and stations are sometimes filthy and poorly maintained. New equipment is quickly vandalized. Needed repairs on tracks and other equipment have often been neglected. Delays and cancellations—once rare—are not uncommon. Nevertheless, the subway is a vital and necessary part of life in the city, and New Yorkers tend to accept such inconveniences with stoic resignation. References: CONNECTICUT TO ALTER ITS TURNPIKE TOKENS, SOLVING SUBWAY ISSUE", The New York Times, December 15, 1982, p.1 ACCORD PUTS AND END TO THE GREAT TOKEN WAR", The New York Times, November 7, 1985. Types and Methods of Construction". IRT: The First Subway. www.nycsubway.org. Retrieved on November 27, 2008. Cudahy, Brian (2003). A Century of Subways: Celebrating 100 Years of New Yorks Underground Railways. Fordham University Press. Read More