The total cost of the work, according to the contract signed by Mr.
McDonald, was $35,000,000. Dividing this amount by the total length of
the road, which is 109,570 lineal feet, we have the unit cost a lineal
foot $315, or a little less than unit of cost of the Boston Subway,
which was $342 per lineal foot.
The road belongs to the city. The contractor acts as an agent for the
city in carrying out the work, and he is the leaser of the road for
fifty years. The work was paid for as soon as the various parts of the
road were completed, and the money was obtained from an issue of city
bonds. During the fifty years’ lease the contractor will pay the
interest plus 1% of the face value of the bonds. This 1% goes to the
sinking-fund, which within the fifty years at compound interest forms
the total sum required for the redemption of bonds.
This first New York Subway has been extended to Brooklyn, and more lines
will be built so as to form a complete underground railway system to
accommodate the ever-increasing traveling crowd of the American
metropolis. No new method of construction has been devised yet. The only
variation from the illustrated methods has been where the subway is
built underneath the Elevated Road which had to be strongly supported
during the construction of the subway. This has been done in two
different ways, either by supporting the columns of the Elevated Road by
means of two wooden A-frames abutting at the top and leaving a large
space close to the foot of the column where a pit was excavated to the
required depth of the subway, or by attaching the columns to long iron
girders placed longitudinally and resting with both ends in firm soil.
CHAPTER XVII.
SUBMARINE TUNNELING: GENERAL DISCUSSION.--THE SEVERN TUNNEL.
GENERAL DISCUSSION.
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