New 'Master Plan'? Rail Transit Studies: They Come and Go

TRENTON—Hudson County and other North Jersey commuters needn't hold their collective breath while awaiting the results of new mass rail transit studies urged upon the Port of New York Authority by Gov. Hughes. For at least 45 years, they have witnessed "master plans" come and go.

All of them were keyed to a swift ride across the Meadows into and out of Manhattan. All of them came to grief from several causes: lack of engineering feasibility, public apathy, but most of all the lack of big-time money.

WHAT THE New Jersey governor has proposed to PA Executive Director Austin J. Tobin, in essence, is a study of how to hook up the railroads which now cross the Meadows to speed people to their jobs. Should the trackage be physically linked, which would mean costly changeover of power systems and equipment?

Or should there be transfer stations somewhere between Harrison and Secaucus?

Moreover, it must be some system which would justify the expenditure of large amounts of Federal money. The Port Authority is expected to answer Hughes in the affirmative, shortly.

Our own historical research started with the proposal in 1921 by L. Alfred Jenny, a prominent engineer who had helped build Grand Central Terminal.

Jenny’s idea was for a "belt and loop" which would solve the twin problems of moving both passengers and freight between North Jersey and New York City. He proposed:

FIRST, a loop rapid transit system, beginning at New Durham in the Hackensack Meadows, then going east under the Hudson River to about 57th St., then down Manhattan under Broadway to a point near the Hudson & Manhattan tunnels and tracks. At Jersey City, it would have had links to other railroads and then run up to the point of origin at New Durham.

SECOND, at all points where the line intersected with other Jersey railroads, transfer stations were to be provided—something like they're talking about today.

THIRD, trains would have run in both directions, permitting commuters to choose the shortest route to their Manhattan destinations.

The “belt” part of the plan was for handling freight not intended for New York, thus relieving congested freight terminals within New York City.

The Jenny plan stirred favorable excitement, but the New York-New Jersey Port & Harbor Development Commission, which the two states had created to solve the transit mess, turned it down.

Jenny kept offering his “loop” plan with variations for the next 30 years. In 1948, an elaborate version was recommended — but again unsuccessfully — by then Gov. Alfred E. Driscoll.

The Port and Harbor Development Commission, incidentally, became the Port of New York Authority in 1922. With few exceptions, it kept out of the rail picture until in the last few years when it took over the H & H debts and all. This was the culmination of a long editorial campaign by The Jersey Journal on the theme that rail and rubber were both factors in transportation and profits from either should help support the other.

Faced with disinterest by P.A. in the early 1920s, harried commuters turned to Trenton for help, and the Legislature created the North Jersey Transit Commission.

This commission took a famous traffic census in 1924 to determine just how many commuters there were, where they came from, and where they were going. That census was used by sponsors of various plans for many years, even after the figures were out of date.

In 1926 the commission came up with its own “master plan.” It, too, proposed a loop system starting at New Durham, then traveling east to 57th St., then down Manhattan under Madison Ave., and West Broadway to the Battery.

Unlike the Jenny scheme, it ignored the H. & M. Tubes. Instead, it proposed a new tunnel from the Battery to a connection in Jersey City with the Jersey Central. From Jersey City the proposed line, like Jenny’s, continued north to New Durham.

A year prior to the commission’s proposal, Col. W. J. Wilgus, a well-known rail consultant, had come up with his own costly solution in a study for the New York Regional Plan, financed by the Russell Sage Foundation.

Wilgus proposed a brand new rapid transit link between Jersey and New York at about the site of the present George Washington Bridge, and another trans-Hudson link at the Battery. The plan involved the two new north-south subway lines in Manhattan, some intra-New Jersey arteries to feed the system, a new outer belt with a causeway across the Lower Bay to serve points farther south in New Jersey, and some Long Island trackage.

In 1928 the Regional Plan Assn. came up with still another idea, altering the Jenny plan somewhat but still maintaining the “loop” idea.

All of these plans call for convenient transfers between the Jersey rail lines and the New York subway system.

In 1928, also, the Port Authority formed the Suburban Transit Engineering Board, consisting of representatives of all the railroads, the North Jersey Commission, and some New York agencies.

After spending $220,000, the board submitted a preliminary report merely discussing a new “loop” plan by Jenny with possible extensions. The board folded in 1930, and so did the North Jersey Commission.

Meanwhile, of course, the need for improved rapid rail transit was increasing; the Port Authority was building terminals and bridges for rubber-tire traffic; the rubber-tire traffic was taking needed revenue away from the existing rail lines, and those rail lines as a result were letting their equipment deteriorate.

The whole answer during the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s was still more “plans.”

There was a 1934 plan — abandoned when it was discovered it wouldn’t pay — to bring all New Jersey, Westchester and Long Island lines into a new mid-Manhattan union station.

In 1935 a new organization (the N.J. Transit Committee, with Jenny as consultant) held over 100 mass meetings to beat drums for another ambitious “loop” plan — Lyndhurst to North Bergen, under the Hudson via a tunnel at 50th Street, thence down Madison Avenue, over to 5th Avenue, down West Broadway to the Battery, and through a new tunnel to Jersey City.

In 1938, the Port Authority did come up with an eight-point plan for a new tunnel from New Durham under the Palisades to 51st Street and Rockefeller Center. But the Jersey Legislature, disappointed, directed the P.A. to make another study. In 1939 the P.A. asked for more time, and nothing more was heard of the proposal.

Of all the plans, the one that came closest to success was that of the Metropolitan Rapid Transit Commission headed by the late former State Sen. Edward J. O’Mara of Jersey City.

The Commission’s “final solution,” submitted to both New York and New Jersey in 1958 after a $1,100,000 study urged creation of a bi-state rapid transit district. It would float bonds, build and operate a $500 million rail loop hooking in all the New Jersey railroads at transfer stations in the Meadows with the New York subway system.

The New York legislature agreed. The New Jersey Senate agreed. But the Assembly knocked the plan down. The northern Jersey counties, though standing to benefit, simply didn’t want to pay their 65 per cent share of an annual $12 million operating deficit while New York counties were paying the other 35 per cent.

Had the O’Mara plan been accepted, the system would be in operation today and there would be no problem.

A few years after its demise, Col. Sidney H. Bingham, a noted rail consultant who once headed the New York subway system, came up with his own $31 million tri-state transit system. But few people heeded.

For at that time, the Tri-State Transportation Committee was getting organized. With its organization in 1961, Gov. John Dempsey of Connecticut said:

“I think we are all a little tired of study committees. Today we are going to appoint a committee to study the study committees.”

And that’s what the Tri-State Transportation Committee has been doing.