SENATE .... No. 190.
Commonniealtl) of jnoBsadjueetta.
Senate, March 12,1879.
The Committee on Street Railways, to whom was referred
the petitions of L. A. Bigelow and others, and Charles E.
Powers and others, severally asking for an act of incorpora¬
tion to establish elevated railways in the city of Boston ; and
also the remonstrances of Nathaniel J. Bradlee and others,
Samuel Little and others, and Peabody and Whitney and
others, remonstrating against the granting of any charter for
an elevated railway in the city of .Boston, — having heard all
the parties, make the following
REPORT.
Tlie Committee has given long and patient attention to the
evidence and the arguments for and against these petitions.
Whatever affects the welfare and progress of Boston affects
the whole Commonwealth. We cannot forget what the
Commonwealth has done to develop its railroad system with
the end in view of making its capital a great commercial
city. With the old and tried Boston & Albany in full ac¬
tivity ; with the Hoosac-Tunnel line, our golden gate to the
grain-fields of the West, doing an ever-increasing business;
with the grand enterprises of the New-York & New-Eng¬
land reaching out to assured success ; with the Massachusetts
Central born again, promising well; with our other well-
established lines centring in Boston, —we cannot but imagine
that with the sure and not remote revival of business we are
LIBRARY
BUREAU OF RAILV.'A ' ECO'.'OVIi^
WASHINGTü.g, Ü. C. H ^2
APR 25 1911
2
ELEVATED RAILWAYS.
[Mar.
about to realize the fruition of our hopes, and that Boston
is to expand and grow, and reap the harvest so plentifully-
sown and so expensively nourished.
The new Boston requires special attention at our hands.
It demands that we shall give it all the facilities for the
transaction of its business that the skill of man and the in¬
genuity of modern science will provide.
Among the problems in the life of a great city is the mat¬
ter of rapid transit from home to business.
These petitioners claim that Boston is deficient in that re¬
spect ; and they ask for chartered rights and privileges in
elevated railways through the streets of the city, and they
promise in return to relieve the want.
They are met by several classes of remonstrants. One
class consists of the property-holders along the line of the
proposed elevated railways, who represent that their property
would be largely depreciated.
Another class consists of the street or surface railways
already chartered and operated, who claim that they have
rights in the streets under their charters which would be
greatly injured or ruined by the proposed legislation.
And then the city- of Boston and the town of Brookline
protest against the use of the streets for such structures and
conveyances.
And all the remonstrants agree in asserting that no such
public exigency exists as to justify the Legislature in char¬
tering such radical innovations upon the existing order of
things.
The Bigelow petition was signed by three gentlemen, who,
so far as appeared in the hearings, had no special interest in
the city of Boston, save to get a charter which they believed
would be of great value to themselves firstly, and secondly
to the public who might use the road if constructed.
The Powers petition represented large interests and prop¬
erty in Boston, mainly in the street and steam railways. It
was evidently presented as a measure of protection against
the attempted intrusion of other parties, — against a novel
rival in the transportation of passengers in the streets.
From the last statement we exclude the leading petitioner
and one or two associates, who apparently sincerely believe
in elevated railways for Boston, and really desire to construct
the same.
1879.]
SENATE — No. 190.
3
The cases for both petitions were candidly and ably pre¬
sented, while all the witnesses on behalf of each appeared
to be pecuniarily interested in the success of one scheme or
the other. The Bigelow bill as proposed left the whole
matter of location to the local authorities. The Powers
petition asked for a certain location ; and, as a result, the
property-holding remonstrants are found mainly upon the
designated streets.
As the only existing operated elevated railways in this
country are in New York, comparison was naturally made
between that city and Boston.
The elevated railway became, in some degree, a necessity
in the city of New York. That city consists of a long and
narrow strip of land, averaging about a mile and a half to
two miles wide, and about sixteen miles in length. The greater
part of the city is laid out in broad parallel avenues extend¬
ing from north to south, with cross-streets at right angles to
these avenues. The business portion of the city is at the
lower end of New-York island : probably two-thirds of the
heaviest commercial and jobbing interests are concentrated
below Chambers Street, and probably at least two-thirds of
the money made in New York is made within that limit. A
similar piece of territory in size and commercial importance
would be represented by that portion of the city of Boston
bounded by Charles River and the harbor, and enclosed with¬
in a line drawn through Arlington, Boylston, and Essex Streets
to the water. Within the territory referred to in the city of
New York there are comparatively few residences, and no
steam-railroad station on the island within a distance of four
miles. Within the territory, or on the outskirts of the ter¬
ritory, referred to in the city of Boston, are the steam-railroad
stations of the Boston & Providence, Boston & Albany, New-
York & New-England, and the Old-Colony Railroads, on the
south ; the Lowell, Eastern, Boston & Maine, and Fitchburg
Railroads, on the north ; and the ferry leading to the Lynn
narrow-gauge road as well. These railroads radiating from
the business centre of Boston, and each and all of them
within ten minutes' walk of the centre of the city, — either
the City Hall or the State House, — radiate from this busi¬
ness centre in every direction.
The twenty square miles, or thereabouts, in the city of
4
ELEVATED RAILWAYS. [Mar.
New York, was provided with steam transportation by one
railroad, which ran as near to the business centre of [he city,
at City Hall, as the following places in the outskirts of the
city of Boston, and no nearer: viz., Upham's Corner in
Dorchester, Washington Park in Ward 21, the Parker-hill
Reservoir in Ward 22, the farthest point of Longwood in
Brookline, the Beacon Park in the outskirts of Brighton,
Harvard-College grounds in Cambridge, the Somerville
station on the Fitchburg Railroad, the Somerville Centre
station on the Boston & Lowell, the nearest point of Med-
ford, the Saugus Branch and Eastern Railroad junction in
Everett, the Chelsea station on the Eastern Railroad, and
nearly as far as the Breed's-Island station on the Narrow-
Gauge. Within this circuit just mentioned there is, in the
city of Boston and its environs, about three times as much
territory as within the city of New York below the Forty-
second-street station ; and passengers desiring to come to
the city of Boston to transact their business can be brought
within ten minutes' walk of any part of the business centre
by steam communication over nine different radiating lines
of railroad. No complaint, so far as the Committee could
learn, had ever been made as to deficiencies in rapid-transit
accommodations in New-York City below Forty-second Street
by passengers residing and doing business below that street.
But the upper parts of the island were not considered desira¬
ble places of residence, and had been left as farming-land
in a great measure, because of the lack of rapid transit, and
the superior facilities in the way of residence afforded by
places across the river, in Brooklyn, Jersey City, and other
outlying towns. It was to build up this distant territory of
the city of New York, and retain within it the population
which did business in the city, that the elevated railway was
contrived as a means of rapid transit.
This difference in the topography of the two cities shows
that there is less necessity for rapid-transit communications
in Boston than there was in the city of New York ; and no
complaints have been made that the citizens of the city of
Boston and vicinity are not provided with reasonable facili¬
ties of getting to and from their places of business. When
the time comes for additional facilities to be afforded, a
system of branches and connections between the different
1879.J
SENATE —No. 190.
5
railroads — such as now exist in the Milton Branch of the
Old Colony, in the Dedhain Branch of the Boston & Provi¬
dence, in the New-York & New-England Branch of the Bos¬
ton & Albany, in the Grand Junction Branch of the same
road, in the Mystic River Branch of the Boston & Lowell —
can, undoubtedly, be afforded by the steam-railroads alreadj'^
existing, as feeders to the main lines of steam communica¬
tion ; and even, perhaps, each branch utilizing two or more
of the trunk lines for this purpose. Steam-railroads could
thus be built in the ordinary way, paying land-damages, as is
usual for the construction of steam-railroads, and without
sacrificing any of the public streets, or injuring property with¬
out provisions for compensation.
It would be a very serious thing to devote the public
streets of a large city to the purposes of steam communica¬
tion in such a way as to prevent the owners of property
abutting upon those streets from recovering such damages
as the new use of the street might impose upon their prop¬
erty. There cannot be a doubt that the construction of an
elevated railway would result in a severe disturbance of val¬
ues along the line of the road ; and, although in time this
disturbance might adjust itself, it is certain that there Avould
be serious trouble occasioned to the business and family
occupants of buildings along the line of the road. Such
a trouble has become manifest, to a considerable extent, in
the city of New York ; and it is not yet determined what
the result will be upon property, nor how matters are to ad¬
just themselves. It is therefore advisable not to make, except
under the pressure of overwhelming public necessity, any
step in the directing of a disturbance of values, by devoting
the public streets, on which the most valuable real estate in
the city abuts, to any new use. This public necessity has
not arisen in Boston as yet. It may never arise ; and, until
it does, the Legislature of Massachusetts may as well await
the results of the New-York experiment. Both the plans
presented to the Committee contained clauses which the Com¬
mittee think would have cut off, so far as the Legislature
could cut off, claims of the owners for compensation for dam¬
age occasioned to their property.
If the time shall ever come in which the construction of
elevated railroads in the city of Boston is a public necessity.
6
ELEVATED RAILWAYS.
[Mar.
in the opinion of the Committee the act authorizing it should
provide for the payment of all damages to estates abutting
on streets in which it is constructed. The effect of paying
damages will be, of course, to increase the cost of the road,
and thus make the fares higher. To this extent it will be a
burden on the passengers of the road ; but a road cannot be
a public necessity unless there are passengers who are willing
to pay what the transportation on it really costs. If a road
cannot support itself on this basis, it is not needed. To com¬
pel persons to forego the special damages suffered by them
from the construction of an elevated railroad, is, in effect, to
confiscate so much of their property for the benefit of a pri¬
vate corporation and its passengers ; or, in other words, to
compel them to contribute so much of their property to such
corporation ; or, in plain language, to rob one set of indi¬
viduals for the benefit of another. It would seem to be quite
enough that the municipal corporation receives no damages
for injuries to its property and rights. Certainly, property-
owners in the damages they originally received for the con¬
struction of a highway — which in cities is generally a
benefit to the remaining land, for which benefit the property-
owners have been compelled to make allowance — have never
received any compensation at all for any such damages as an
elevated railroad run by steam would inflict, because the
erection of such a railroad was not one of the probable uses
of the highway when the land was taken, and the damages
originally assessed.
The street-railway facilities of the city of Boston are at
present exceedingly good, and no complaints were made
against any of the companies for not performing their full
duty to the public. The gentlemen in charge of these
street-railways have shown themselves very competent to
manage the business in their hands ; and as there can be no
doubt that the chartering of an elevated railway, or at any
rate the construction of an elevated railway, to supply the
wants now served by the surface roads, would create a serious
disturbance of values in the investments in those roads, it
seems proper, that, when the exigency arises for adding to
the present means of transportation, the companies now in
charge of the business should have an opportunity to enter
into it, and serve the public in the future as they have in
1879.]
SENATE — No. 190.
7
the past, and thereby save their stockholders from the
financial disaster which would come upon them in case a
new system of transportation were independently introduced.
One of the plans presented to the Committee was for a
single-rail railroad, to be operated by compressed-air engines.
The single-rail railroad, it was confessed, was an experiment,
and compressed air was comparatively untried for locomotive
purposes. In a scheme of this magnitude, we do not think
that any part, and particularly the three most important
parts,—the roadway, the motive power, and the carriages,
— should be experimental. Even should time demonstrate
the safety of the structures in the streets of New York, even
if these structures should be endurable in the narrow sti'eets
of Boston, it must be borne in mind that Boston is sur¬
rounded by bridges over navigable waters.
These bridges are drawbridges. So far as the Committee
know, not even the experiment of constructing an elevated
steam-railway structure upon a pile bridge has been at¬
tempted.
The whole system of elevated railways can hardly be re¬
garded as a system demonstrated to be safe, convenient,
practical, and beyond the cavil of engineers ; and, until the
present structures in use have been thoroughly tested, it is
hardly worth while to submit the success of a great enter¬
prise like this to the hazard of an experiment of very doubt¬
ful probability. The elevated railways in New York will
hardl}'^ average landing their passengers more conveniently to
business than passengei-s are already landed by the existing
steam-railways which approach or reach the business centre
of Boston.
A belt of land which should include Wards 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, and 23, would very fairly
represent the area of the city of New York, and the dis¬
tances from the business centre as far up as to include Cen¬
tral Park. A similar belt including Wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, 10, and 12, the city of Chelsea, and the towns of Revere
and Saugus, would represent it in another direction. A
similar belt, including Wards 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12, the cities
of Cambridge and Somerville, and the towns of Arlington
and Belmont, would represent it very fairly in another direc¬
tion. It will be seen from this that the New-York distances
8
ELEVATED RAILWAYS.
[Mar.
wliere elevated railroads are a necessity, and the vacant land
to be brought into use by the elevated railroads, are very
different from those in the vicinity of Boston. The elevated
railroads of New York are a necessitj''for distances as gre,at as
or greater than those of the Harrison-square station, on the
Old-Colony Railroad ; the Mount-Bowdoin station, on the
Boston, Hartford, & Erie ; the Jamaica-Plain station, on
the Boston & Providence ; the Brookline station, on the New-
York & New England; the Allsten station, in Brighton;
the Cambridge station, on the Fitchburg ; , the Elm-street
station, on the Lexington & Arlington; the Willow-Bridge
station, on the Boston & Lowell ; the Spring-street station,
on the IMedford Branch; the Edgeworth station, on,the Sau-
gus Branch ; the Chelsea station, on the Eastern Railroad ; or
the Breed's-Island station, on the Narrow-Gauge. Within
that distance, which is the average distance of the four-mile
circle from City Hall, there was hardly any necessity for
steam communication in the city of New York. There cer¬
tainly is no necessity for additional steam communication in
Boston or its neighborhood ; that is to say, for additional
trunk lines. The accommodation given by elevated railways
to passengers in the city of New York, above the eight-mile
line from the Battery, is comparatively slight, as that part
of the city is at present sparsely huilt, except at Harlem,
which was already pretty well accommodated by the New-
York & Harlem Railroad. Within this eight-mile line in
the city of Boston and its vicinity are already located the
following railroad-stations : —
On the Old Colony, six, — Savin Hill, Harrison Square,
Neponset, Atlantic, Wollaston Heights, and Quincy; on the
Shawmut and Milton Branch, nine stations, — Field's Corner,
Melville, Centre Street;, Ashmont, Cedar Grove, Neponset,
Granite Bridge, Milton Mills, and Mattapan ; on the New-
York & New-England, seven stations, — South Boston,
Dudley Street, Bird Street, Mount Bowdoin, Dorchester,
Mattapan, River Street ; on the Woonsocket division of the
same railroad, four stations, — Brookline, Reservoir, Chest¬
nut Hill, and Newton Centre ; on the Boston & Albany,
eight stations, — Cottage Farm, Allsten, Brighton, Faneuil,
Newton, and Newtonville; on the Boston & Providence
and branches, eleven stations, — Roxbury, Boylston, Jamaica
1879.]
SENATE —No. 190.
9
Plain, Forest Hills, Mount Hope, Clarendon Hills, Hyde
Park, Roslindale, Central, Highland, and West Roxbury; on
the Boston, Lowell, & Nashua, and its branches, thirteen
stations, — East Cambridge, Milk Row, Winter Hill, Somer-
ville Centre, Willow Bridge, College Hill, Medford Steps,
West Medford, Mystic, Elm Street, Lake Street, and Arling¬
ton ; on the Boston & Maine and branches, nine stations,
— Charlestown, Somerville, Edgeworth, Maiden, Oak Grove,
Wyoming, Melrose, Stoneham, and Medford; on the East¬
ern, thirteen stations, — Somerville, Everett (two stations),
Chelsea, Revere, Belmont, Maiden, Faulkner, Maple wood,
Broadway, Linden, Franklin Park, Cliftondale ; on the Fitch-
burg and branches, twelve stations, — Charlestown, Prospect
Street, Somerville, Cambridge, Brick-yards, Belmont, Wa-
verley. Fresh Pond, Mount Auburn, East Watertown, Union
Market, Watertown ; on the Narrow-Gauge, ten, — East Bos¬
ton, Beachmont, Wood Island, Pavilion, Harbor View,
Winthrop Junction, Breed's Island, Revere Beach, Ocean
House, Atlantic House. This list of one hundred and one
stations sufficiently indicates the present facilities for steam
communication in the vicinity of Boston ; and this system of
radiating roads, which has caused from time to time so much
agitation in the Legislature, and has been so frequently con¬
demned by engineers and by the Railroad Commission, has
now indicated for itself a reason of existence for the first
time, and should not be overlooked in considering the ques¬
tion before the Committee. And that steam-railroad system,
if corrected of the annoyance of its crossings at grade, — as
it readily might be, if the Legislature took hold of it with a
will and determination to remedy the abuse, — is,capable of
vastly increased usefulness.
We think we have shown the difference in the situations
of New York and Boston. We are reminded that New York
has a vastly larger population to transport than Boston.
The system is yet on trial in New York, having thei'e not
been in operation a year. If we thought that any material
interest of Boston would suffer by delay, we would gladly
sanction a charter for an elevated railway at the present
time. But, in the opinion of the Committee, there is yet
neither public demand nor public exigency. Hence the con-
10
ELEVATED RAILWAYS. [Mar. 79.
elusion of the Committee is, that the petitioners have leave
to withdraw.
For the Committee,
NATHAN M. HAWKES.
In connection with the report, the Committee has deemed
it proper to print the testimony and the arguments of the
counsel representing the various interests, so far as the same
have been furnished.
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