In 1873 a law was passed providing for the separation of grade when a town and railroad effected an agreement. The cost was to be apportioned by a Commission appointed by the Superior Court. This law did accomplish something, but hardly abolished existing crossings as fast as new ones were built. Under it the Fitchburg Railroad did away with twenty-five between 1875 and 1890, bearing varying portions of the expense. In 1885 an Act provided that the County Commissioners could order the abolition of a grade crossing on a petition of twenty legal voters if the cost would not exceed $3,000. Again, in 1888 the Legislature asked the Governor to appoint another Commission to investigate and report upon a scheme for gradual abolition and the method of apportioning the expense. In February, 1889, this Commission, composed of Kimball, Weber and Locke, submitted systematic plans, with estimates, etc., in which they fixed forty years as not an unreasonable length of time for the completion of the work. The next step came in 1890 with the passage of the Grade Crossing Law, which provided that the directors of a railroad or the authorities of a town or city could petition the Supreme Court for a Commission on the Abolition of a Grade Crossing. This Commission was to determine the manner of the separation and by whom the work was to be done, and how the expense was to be divided as between the railroad, city and State. Before the report was presented to the Court for approval it was incumbent upon the Commissioners to ascertain that the aggregate proportion of the State's liability in this connection would not exceed $500,000 per year for ten years. While on the one hand the Legislature authorized this expenditure of $5,000,000 to abolish the crossings of highways with railroads at grade, they granted charters indefinitely to electric lines to cross steam roads at grade. The New York State Board of Railroad Commissioners was created in 1882 and its membership appointed by the Governor. Among the functions which they immediately assumed was the question of public safety in connection with crossings at grade of railroads and highways. The consideration which this received and the complaints of unsafe conditions, as well as the complications and adjudications involved, led to the passing of the Grade Crossing Law, which went into effect July 1, 1897. Not only by the New York State law, but by the Massachusetts law, the method of elimination, as well as the apportionment of expense, is specific. The initiative is open to both the railroad and to the community, and the rapid progress of eliminations in these two States may be taken as an endorsement of the wisdom of such legislation, paving the way, as it does, for more progress on the question of eliminations than it is believed would ordinarily take place where no specific rule existed for the undertaking.