The Construction of New York City's Subway System Essay

The Construction of New York City's Subway System - Essay Example The New York City subway system disperses in Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, and Bronx (Ruhl Web). Most significantly is the fact that the New York City subway system is not all-underground as only a few tracks run underground with the rest manifesting some levels of elevation (Range 19). The Times Square stands out as the busiest station of the New York City Subway. The City of New York owns the New York City Subway system with further leasing to the New York City Transit Authority for management. Many lines in the subway offer both express and local services where fare payment is usually through the Metro card. However, children and the disabled enjoy free rides and reduced fare respectively. As stated herein, the subway system proves to be cost-efficient in US where the Citizens Budget Commission reported in 2011 affirmed its effectiveness where it records the lowest cost per passenger. This paper will address the construction of the New York City subway system in details. It will eq ually consider the significant inventions and renovations that have taken place since its first inception. The construction of the New York City subway system entailed a lot of engineering work, masonry, electrical, human and machine labor. As such, apart from requiring well-trained engineers, the construction equally consumed huge capital investment. Indeed, since it was one of its kinds in New York a lot of lobbying, prior planning, legislation, and objective design was necessary in serving the intended purpose of effective transportation. As such, various subsections under the mandate of variant subcontractors undertook the construction of the New York City subway system. The construction process involved excavations, support of railway tracks, and tunnel work. It also included masonry work, plastering, construction, reconstruction of sub-surface structures, restoration of street surface, erection of steel, and painting of tunnel walls (Deyo Web). Consequently, the construction o f the NYC subway system adopted five types of construction (The Interborough Transit Company 35-40). This included the construction of the typical subway close to the surface with steel bulb-angle columns supporting the tacks and flat roof and "I" beams for supporting the roof. Then there was the construction of the flat roof typical subway where steel bulb-angle columns support the concrete construction. Additionally, there was the construction of the elevated road on steel viaduct and the concrete lined tunnel that involved concrete lined open cutwork and rock tunnel work. Lastly, the construction of the NYC subway system also encompassed the cast-iron tubes. These modes of construction took place in various sub sections (New York City subway Web). For a fact, the construction of the NYC subway system took many years to come to fulfillment. Notably, the talks on building an underground rail system in New York started as early as 1863. However, the main stakeholders shelved this th ought for some time, as it was until later in 1868 that Alfred E. Beach had to rely on the New York City Central Underground Company charter to build a test section of tunnel 350 feet long under Broadway. Subsequently, the Commodore Vanderbilt mandated the New York City Rapid Transit Company to initiate the sub-surface railroad construction in 1872. However, this plan had to wait for the passing of the referendum in 1894 to generate financial