RECORD OF TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS IN RELATION TO 191 



NECESSITY FOR DISTRICTING PLAN 



increase in the 181st Street station business over 1913 is 385,000 passengers. 

 The total business at that station during 1914 was 6,133,000. That is an 

 average of about 18,000 a day. . I count 340 days to a vear. During 1913 

 it was 16,000 a day, 1912, 14,000, 1911, 12,000. This is an increase of 

 50 per cent in three years. This is a station where the only means of getting 

 to the surface from the subway platform is by elevators. The unusually 

 large business at 181st Street is due to the extensive building around that 

 point. The same result is bound to come at any point along the route of 

 the rapid transit system if there is any sudden building. 



On the Broadway branch from 96th Street north before the subway 

 went into operation there were no rapid transit facilities. There was abso- 

 lutely no population in that area. The traffic during 1914 on the Broadway 

 branch was 44,000,000 passengers. That is more than 10 per cent of the 

 total business of the whole subway. 



The territory traversed was absolutely virgin territory before this rapid 

 transit line was located there. These figures show the tremendous effects 

 that transit facilities have in developing a new section. 



If there is no control or regulation over tenement buildings, the distri- 

 bution of the population which the transit lines are designed to effect will 

 be to a large extent nullified, and the tenements in favored sections will 

 continue to pile up on top of each other. 



If there is no control over housing or building" regulations such as 

 proposed generally in the program of this Commission the provision of 

 additional transit facilities simply increases congestion. In fact, I would 

 say, just at this particular time that the new rapid transit facilities are about 

 to be opened up, that this is the psychological time for the adoption of a 

 program such as is proposed by this Commission. In fact, if you do not 

 adopt a program such as is proposed by this Commission or a similar one 

 you will lose the benefit of the rapid transit facilities. 



Air space per subway passenger 



The subway cars are nine feet wide and fifty-one feet in length, includ- 

 ing the platforms. 



The height of the subway cars is twelve feet above the base of the rail. 

 The body of the car is about eight feet high. These dimensions give the 

 subway car a cubic content of approximately 3,672 cubic feet. Counting 

 200 passengers to the car each person would have v an air space of eighteen 

 and a half cubic feet. 



Standard for limiting subway congestion 



My theory is that rapid transit lines, or any municipal transit lines, 

 ought to be permitted a capacity at the rush hour, of about fifty per cent 

 over the seating capacity. The rush hour of course, is not the peak — the 

 peak, where the load is very much in excess of the average for the hour, is 

 fifteen or twenty minutes only in duration. I arrive at this carrying capacity 

 during the rush hour from the standpoint of permitting free circulation 

 in the cars. That has no bearing on the health standpoint. I had a talk 

 with Dr. Emerson, the Commissioner of Health, and he arrived at the same 

 conclusion from the health standpoint — about fifty per cent overload. 



You understand that we could not accommodate, or take care of the 

 business of New York on such a basis. We have to carry to business in 

 New York City, over all lines — surface, elevated and subway, somewhere 

 in the neighborhood of half a million people in one direction in one hour. 



