TE 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 D E 515 045 
 
REPORT 
 
 OF 
 
 THE MAYOR'S COMMITTEE 
 ON PAVEMENTS 
 
 Appointed in October, 1 9 1 i , by Mayor Gaynor to investigate 
 
 and report to him on the present condition of the 
 
 pavements of the City and how they 
 
 can best be improved 
 
 NEW YORK, MARCH, 1912 
 
REPORT 
 
 OF 
 
 THE AYOR'S COMMITTEE 
 ON PAVEMENTS 
 
 Appointed in October, 191 1, by Mayor Gaynor to investigate 
 and report to him on the present condition of the 
 pavements of the City and how they 
 can best be improved 
 
 NEW YORK, MARCH, 1912 
 
MAYOR'S COMMITTEE ON PAVEMENTS. 
 
 J. O. BLOSS Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 JACOB A. CANTOR Ex-Pres't Borough of Manhattan. 
 
 L. BARTON CASE West End Association. 
 
 ROBERT GRIER COOKE Fifth Avenue Association. 
 
 F. B. DE BERARD The Merchants' Association. 
 
 JOSEPH L. DELAFIELD Washington Square Association. 
 
 THOMAS DIMOND Dimond Iron Works. 
 
 JOHN C. FAMES The Merchants' Association. 
 
 STEPHEN FARRELLY American News Co. 
 
 ERNEST FLAGG Fifth Avenue Association. 
 
 WILLIAM H. GIBSON Board of Trade and Transportation. 
 
 S. CARMAN HARRIOT Fifth Avenue Association. 
 
 CHARLES R. LAMB Municipal Art Society. 
 
 G. ROWLAND LEAVITT 
 
 RICHARD W. MEADE Pres't N. Y. Transportation Co. 
 
 W. W. NILES Attorney, n Wall St. 
 
 JOSEPH K. ORR Pres't N. Y. Team Owners' Ass'n. 
 
 WILLIAM H. PAGE Attorney, 32 Liberty St. 
 
 HENRY SANDERSON Pres't Automobile Club of America. 
 
 ALBERT R. SHA'TTUCK Automobile Club of America. 
 
 AARON C. THAYER Attorney, 32 Nassau St. 
 
 C. F. WIEBUSCH City Club. 
 
 iii 
 
 M259794 
 
OFFICERS AND SUB-COMMITTEES. 
 
 OFFICERS. 
 
 A. R. SHATTCCK. Chairman. F. 15. DE BERARD, Secretory. 
 
 ERXEST FI.AC.C, / 'iee-Cliainnan. T. O. lii.oss. Treasurer. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEES. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEE OX THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE 
 PAVEMENTS THROUGHOUT THE CITY. 
 
 F. B. DE BERARD, Chairman; RICHARD \Y. MEADE, 
 
 ROBERT GRIER COOKE, Jonx C. FAMES. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEE OX CONTROL OF STREET OPEXIXGS AXD 
 
 REPAIRS. 
 
 AAROX C'. THAYEK. Cliairnian; L. J!ARTOX CASE. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTJ-:E ON TJII-: \\VRIOUS TYPES OF PAVEMENT 
 
 IX GEXFRAE USE, THEIR COST AXD SUITABILITY 
 
 TO VARIOUS CLASSES OF TRAFFIC. 
 
 S. CARMAX HARRIOT. 
 JOSEPH K. ORR. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEE ON 1'RESICXT METHODS OV ADAI 1XISTRA- 
 TIOX AND THEIR DEFECTS. 
 
 \V. \V. NlLES. 
 
 AAROX C. TJIAYER. 
 
SUB-COMMITTEE ON INCONVENIENCE TO THE PUBLIC. 
 
 STEPHEN FARRELLY, Chairman; WILLIAM H. GIBSON, 
 
 J. O. BLOSS, CHARLES R. LAMB. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEE ON STATISTICS. 
 F. B. DE BERARD, Chairman; JOSEPH L. DELAFIELD. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEE ON FINANCE. 
 HENRY SANDERSON, Chairman; JACOB A. CANTOR. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEE ON SNOW REMOVAL AND GUTTER 
 
 FLUSHING. 
 
 ERNEST FLAGG, Chairman; THOMAS DIMOND, 
 
 ROBERT GRIER COOKE. 
 
 SUB-COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION. 
 
 WILLIAM H. PAGE, Chairman; AARON C. THAYER. 
 
 W. W. NILES, JOSEPH L. DELAFIELD. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 REPORT OF COMMITTEE: 
 
 IST PART : PRESENT CONDITION OF PAVEMENTS i 
 
 2ND PART : RECOMMENDATIONS 3 
 
 APPENDIX TO REPORT: 
 
 KINDS OF PAVEMENT IN USE 9 
 
 SUITABILITY OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF PAVEMENT FOR DIFFERENT 
 
 CLASSES OF TRAFFIC 10 
 
 DEFECTIVE METHODS 14 
 
 ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OF GOOD PAVEMENTS 37 
 
 COST OF PAVEMENTS 38 
 
 ECONOMY AND FIRST COST 39 
 
 ENGINEERING 40 
 
 INSPECTION 41 
 
 STATISTICS OF TRAFFIC 42 
 
 STREET OPENINGS, GUARANTIES AND REPAIRS 44 
 
 STREET RAILWAYS AND PAVEMENTS 45 
 
 SMOOTHNESS 46 
 
 CURBS, GUTTERS AND SEWER INLETS 47 
 
 DIVIDED RESPONSIBILITY 52 
 
 GRANITE PAVING BLOCKS 52 
 
 IMPROPER USE OF STREETS BY PRIVATE INTERESTS 54 
 
 REPORT: SUB-COMMITTEE ON PRESENT CONDITION OF 
 PAVEMENTS : 
 
 STONE PAVEMENTS 57 
 
 ASPHALT PAVEMENTS 59 
 
 STREET RAILWAYS 60 
 
 MAN-HOLES . 61 
 
PAGE 
 
 REPORT: SUM-COMMITTEE OX CONTROL OF STREET 
 
 OPENINGS AND REPAIRS 63-67 
 
 REPORT: SUM-COMMITTEE ON VARIOUS TYPES OF 
 PAVEMENT IN GENERAL USE: THEIR COST AND 
 SUITABILITY TO VARIOUS CLASSES OF TRAFFIC . 69-73 
 
 REPORT: SUM-COMMITTEE ON PRESENT METHODS OF 
 ADMINISTRATION AND THEIR DEFECTS: 
 
 HOLES AND DEFECTS CAUSED BY TRAFFIC 75 
 
 OPENINGS MADE BY SUB-SERVICE CORPORATIONS, PLUMBERS AND 
 
 OTHERS 75 
 
 OPENINGS MADE BY VARIOUS CITY DEPARTMENTS, MAINLY THE 
 
 WATER DEPARTMENT 76 
 
 INADEQUATE CONTROL OF THE WORK DONE BY THE SURFACE RAIL- 
 ROADS 76 
 
 WANT OF ENGINEERING CENTRALIZATION 76 
 
 DAMAGE TO PAVEMENTS RESULTING FROM USE OF STREETS BY 
 
 BUILDERS AND OTHERS 77 
 
 WANT OF EXPERT KNOWLEDGE UPON THE SUBJECT OF STREET 
 
 TAVING 77 
 
 REPORT: SUB-COMMITTEE ON INCONVENIENCE TO 
 PUBLIC . 
 
 REPORT : SUB-COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION 83 
 
 REPORT: SUB-COMMITTEE ON SNOW REMOVAL AND 
 
 GUTTER FLUSHING 85-86 
 
 PROPOSED AMENDATORY LAWS: 
 
 "A": RELATING TO PERMITS FOR THE REMOVAL OF PAVEMENTS 
 
 AND THE RELAYING OF SAME 87 
 
 "B": IN RELATION TO THE INSPECTION AND REPAIRING OF PAVE- 
 MENTS 9 1 
 
 "C": CREATING A PAVING BOARD AND DEFINING ITS POWERS 
 
 AND DUTIES 93 
 
 "D": To AMEND THE RAILROAD LAW, RELATIVE TO KEEPING 
 
 STREETS IN REPAIR 95 
 
 vii 
 
REPORT OF THE MAYOR'S COMMITTEE 
 ON PAVEMENTS 
 
 To THE HON. WM. J. GAYNOR, MAYOR. 
 
 Dear Sir: At the request of a joint Committee representing the Chamber 
 of Commerce of New York, The Merchants' Association of New York, the 
 Board of Transportation of New York and the Automobile Club of America, 
 we were appointed by Your Honor a Committee to report on the present con- 
 dition of the pavements and to make suggestions for their improvement ; our 
 work, therefore, naturally divides itself into two parts, one relating to the 
 present and the other to the future. 
 
 1ST PART. PRESENT CONDITION OF THE PAVEMENTS 
 
 The pavements of the City are and probably always have been very in- 
 ferior to those of the first class cities of the old world. How unnecessarily 
 bad they are at the present time can only be fully realized by one who has 
 carefully compared them with the pavements of the chief cities of Europe, 
 and notably those of England and Germany. 
 
 Many of our pavements, and especially those which are much used for 
 heavy trucking, are in a condition injurious alike to the health and economic 
 welfare of the community ; they are rough, uneven, often broken and ob- 
 structed, expensive to clean and impossible to clean properly ; they are incon- 
 venient to use ; excessively costly to maintain and are altogether a serious 
 handicap on the prosperity of the City. To continue the building of more 
 of the same kind would be most unwise and wasteful. 
 
 We do not wish to be understood as making an indiscriminate con- 
 demnation. There are several hundreds of miles of pavements in the 
 various boroughs which are fairly good, but they are for the most part 
 either newly laid or on streets where traffic is light. 
 
 A careful study of the methods used in the making and maintenance 
 of our pavements has revealed conditions which abundantly explain why 
 they are so bad. They are as follows : 
 
 1. Defective, and antiquated specifications and obsolete methods. 
 
 (See Appendix "Defective Methods" and the report 
 of the Sub-Committee on "Present Condition of Pave- 
 ments.") 
 
 2. Slovenly and careless workmanship. 
 
 (See Appendix "Defective Methods.") 
 
2 REPORT OF COMMITTEE. 
 
 3. Divided "responsibility, there being no one responsible head over 
 all public works in each of the boroughs. 
 
 (Sec Appendix "Divided Responsibility" and the 
 reports of the Sub-Committee on "Present Condition of 
 Pavements" and on "Inconvenience to Public.") 
 
 4. Insufficient supervision. 
 
 (See Appendix "Engineering," "Inspection" and 
 "Defective Methods.") 
 
 5. Interference by one department of the City government with another 
 in street work. 
 
 (See Appendix "Divided Responsibility" and the 
 reports of the Sub-Committee on "Inconvenience to 
 Public" ; "Control of Street Openings and Repairs"; 
 "Present Methods of Administration a-nd Their Defects." 
 
 6. Lack of co-operation between the City and railroad Companies, in 
 regard to that part of the pavements for which the latter are responsible. 
 
 (See Appendix "The Street Railways and the Pave- 
 ments"; also reports of the Sub-Committee on "Present 
 Condition of Pavements" ; "Control of Street Openings 
 and Repairs.") 
 
 7. Delay in making repairs and in closing street openings. 
 
 (See report of Sub-Committee on "Inconvenience to 
 Public"; "Control of Street Openings and Repairs," and 
 "Present Condition of Pavement"; also Appendix 
 "Street Openings, Guarantees and Repairs.") 
 
 8. Lack of a properly qualified force of Inspectors and assistants to 
 the engineers in charge of pavements. 
 
 (See report of Sub-Committee on "Control of Street 
 Openings and Repairs"; also Appendix "Inspection.") 
 
 9. Very little knowledge among our engineers, of the most approved 
 modern methods of paving as carried on in places outside of the United 
 States. 
 
 (See report of the Sub-Committee on "Present Meth- 
 ods of Administration and Their Defects," and Appendix 
 "Engineering.") 
 
 10. The system of long guarantees, for the maintenance of pavements by 
 contractors, which hinders prompt repairs. 
 
 (See report of the Sub-Committee on "Inconvenience 
 to the Public," and on "The Control of Street Openings 
 and Repairs," and the Appendix "Street Openings, Guar- 
 antees and Repairs.") 
 
 11. An almost complete lack of traffic statistics upon which to base an 
 intelligent estimate of the value of the various kinds of pavement usi-d. 
 
 (See Appendix "Statistics of Traffic.") 
 
REPORT OF COMMITTEE. 3 
 
 12. No proper system in force for determining by tests the value of 
 many of the materials used in paving and notably so as regards Granite and 
 Asphalt. 
 
 (See Appendix "Statistics of Traffic.") 
 
 13. Restrictive specifications, especially as regards Asphalt, which has 
 prevented genuine competition and given to one interest a monoply in the 
 making and repair of asphalt pavements in Manhattan. 
 
 (See Appendix "Cost of Pavements.") 
 
 14. Too much license given to builders in the use of the street in front 
 of new buildings which results in great hindrance to traffic and damage to the 
 pavements. 
 
 (See report of Sub-Committee on "Control of Street 
 Openings" and "Repairs"; also in the Appendix "Im- 
 proper Use of the Streets by Private Interests.") 
 
 15. The blockading or cumbering of the streets by other private in- 
 terests, and by snow, which under the present system of removal cannot be 
 disposed of rapidly. 
 
 (See report of Sub-Committee on "Snozv Removal 
 and Gutter Flushing" ; also in the Appendix- "Improper 
 Use of the Streets by Private Interests.") 
 
 16 No uniform standard or specification for the various types of pave- 
 ment for all the boroughs ; but in each borough the engineer in charge of 
 highways prepares his own specifications for street work which may or may 
 not be as good as those of some other borough. 
 
 (See report of Sub-Committee on "The Present 
 Methods of Administration and Their Defects.") 
 
 The conditions as enumerated have come about partly through inher- 
 itance, and partly through the general lack of special knowledge of paving 
 and the scant attention which has been paid to this important subject by 
 our technical schools. Habit too, has played an important part. Our people 
 are used to pavements of the kind we have, and few of them realize how 
 much behind the rest of the world we are in this respect. Our engineers 
 are not altogether to blame ; City officials have often disregarded their advice, 
 and many recommendations for improvement made by them have yielded no 
 fruit for that reason. 
 
 All these matters have been investigated and considered by this Com- 
 mittee, and many of them are dealt with at length in the Appendix, which 
 is made a part of this Report, and the Reports of the Sub-Committees which 
 are attached hereto. 
 
 2ND PART.-RECOMMENDATIONS 
 
 We respectfully submit the following : 
 
 i. That all work which has to do with the laying, opening and restoring 
 
4 REPORT OF COMMITTEE. 
 
 of pavements which is carried on within the limits of any borough, includ- 
 ing transverse roads on streets through parks; but excepting driveways 
 within the area of parks, be placed exclusively in the hands of the President 
 of that Borough, so that there may be one responsible head over such work, 
 and thus remove all cause for disagreement and lack of co-operation between 
 the different departments of the government. Experience has shown that 
 the provision contained in Sec. 391 of the Charter which gives to the 
 Borough President within his borough, control over the making of openings 
 in streets and repairing of the pavement, etc., is inoperative in practice, al- 
 though by law he has that power. (See report of the Sub-Committee on the 
 Control of Street Openings and Repairs.) In practice the issuing of 
 permits without conditions as to the opening and restoring of the pave- 
 ments by other departments, is simply a form and does no practical good. 
 If all work affecting the pavements were wholly in the hands of the Borough 
 President then there would be no doubt as to where the responsibility lay 
 for failure to do the work properly. 
 
 (Sec report of the Sub-Committee on the "Present 
 Methods of Administration and Their Defects," and 
 Appendix "Divided Responsibility.") 
 
 2. That there be a complete reversal of the policy of the City in regard 
 to pavements, and that ultimate economy rather than cheapness be made 
 the governing consideration in their construction and maintenance. We 
 are firmly of the belief that the very best quality of materials and the very 
 highest grade of workmanship should be used in making pavements. We also 
 believe that the pavement best suited to the traffic it is to bear will prove 
 the most economical to the City, regardless of first cost. It is manifestly 
 unreasonable to expect good results from poor workmanship, unsuitable 
 materials and defective methods of construction ; and it is equally clear that 
 if good results are to be obtained in paving they can be had only by the 
 use of the same methods which insure them in all other kinds of construc- 
 tion, viz. : good material and workmanship, honest dealing, skillful design 
 and intelligent supervision. 
 
 (See report of the Sub-Committee on the various 
 types of pavement in general use, their cost and suit- 
 ability to various classes of traffic, and the Appendix 
 "Economy and First Cost." ) 
 
 3. That the City make its own purchases of all materials used in pav- 
 ing direct from the producer, and thus obtain better prices and a better 
 quality than it now gets. This plan would permit of the supervision of ma- 
 terials before delivery, and remove the temptation which the contractor now 
 has to benefit by the use of poor ones. The City can make purchases of this 
 sort more advantageously than the contractor, because its credit is higher 
 than his, but the contractor can deal better with labor than the City can. 
 
 (See Appendix "Granite Paving Blocks.") 
 
REPORT OF COMMITTEE. 5 
 
 4. That those in charge of street work, and especially the chief en- 
 gineers of highways in the various boroughs, be sent abroad to study the 
 paving methods in use in the principal cities, and to obtain information 
 which may be of use to them and of benefit to us in the improvement of 
 our pavements. 
 
 (See Appendix "Engineering" ; "Statistics of Traffic" ; 
 "Economy and First Cost," and "The Advantage of 
 Good Pavements.") 
 
 5. That those methods which they find have given the best results in 
 foreign cities, be adopted, so far as practical, for our use at once, and without 
 the loss of time and money which would be necessary in carrying out art 
 elaborate system of experiment to discover what is well known elsewhere. 
 
 (See Appendix "Economy and First Cost" "En- 
 gineering" and "Statistics of Traffic") 
 
 6. That the engineers be furnished with a competent corps of assistants, 
 preferably young graduates from our engineering schools, who may bring 
 to the work new life and interest and from whose ranks the upper grades 
 in the service may in time be supplied. 
 
 (See Appendix "Inspection.") 
 
 7. That steps be taken immediately to insure the obtaining of reliable 
 statistics of traffic and a thorough knowledge of the value of the different 
 materials used in paving without which intelligent work is impossible. 
 
 (See Appendix "Statistics of Traffic.") 
 
 8. That all street openings be made and closed by the City at the ex- 
 pense of the person for whom the opening is made, and that this be done 
 with the greatest possible despatch, and on all important streets, as far as 
 possible, at night. Any unnecessary delay in doing the work for which 
 the street was opened by the person for whom the opening was made, should 
 be visited with a heavy fine. 
 
 (See reports of Sub-Committee on "Control of Street 
 Openings and Repairs"; "Present Methods of Admin- 
 istration and Their Defects"; also Appendix "Street 
 Openings and Repairs.") 
 
 9. That all repairs to pavements be made by the City, and that each 
 borough have an adequate repair plant. 
 
 (See reports of the Sub-Committees on "Control of 
 Street Openings and Repairs"; "Present Methods of 
 Administration and Their Defects"; also Appendix 
 "Street Openings, Guarantees and Repairs.") 
 
 10. That all future guarantees for maintenance, if any are made, be 
 either on the German plan, the contractor agreeing to maintain the pave- 
 ment at an annual progressive rate of payment per square yard, to be paid 
 to him in each of the years of the guarantee, or else that the necessary 
 
6 REPORT OF COMMITTEE. 
 
 repairs be done by the City at the contractor's expense according to a fixed 
 rate per square yard ; the City being adequately secured. 
 
 (See Appendix "Street Openings, Guarantees and 
 Repairs" ; also reports of Sub-Committees on "Incon- 
 venience to the Public" and on "Control of Street Open- 
 ings and Repairs.") 
 
 n. That in the construction of future pavements, all the defects pointed 
 out under the heading of Defective Methods in the Appendix be avoided, 
 and that the new pavements be built as far as practicable, in accordance with 
 the recommendations contained in said Appendix. 
 
 12. That all dead and unnecessary tracks be removed from the streets. 
 
 (Sec Appendix "The Street Railway Companies and 
 the Pavements.") 
 
 13. That the street railroad companies be governed by the same rules 
 which apply to individuals in the opening and closing of pavements. 
 
 14. That all future manholes be constructed in accordance with an 
 approved design and be set perfectly flush with the pavement and the covers 
 flush with the rims. 
 
 (See report of Sub-Committee on "Present Condition 
 of Pavements," and Appendix "Defective Methods." 
 
 15. That more stringent regulations than now exist be established for the 
 use of the street by contractors for the storage of building material ; by the 
 transportation companies for the storage of merchandise and by the push- 
 cart men in peddling their wares. 
 
 (See report of Sub-Committee on the "Present Meth- 
 ods of Administration and Their Defects" ; also the 
 Appendix "Improper Use of the Streets by Private 
 Interests.") 
 
 1 6. That a trial on a large enough scale to prove conclusive, be made 
 of the sewers for the removal of snow without the use of carts, and if 
 successful, that this system be extended as rapidly as possible. 
 
 (See report of the Sub-Committee on "Snow Re- 
 moval and Gutter Flushing.") 
 
 17. That a trial be made of the French method of flushing out gutters 
 daily with a view to its general introduction here. 
 
 (See report of the Sub-Committee on "Snow Re- 
 moval and Gutter Flushing.") 
 
 18. That the kinds of pavement hereafter used for the different streets 
 and the plan for their arrangement conform to the recommendations of the 
 Sub-Committee on "The Kinds of Pavements in General Use and Their 
 Suitability for the Different Classes of Traffic" and which forms a part of 
 this report. 
 
 (See Appendix "The Suitability of Different Types 
 of Pavement for the Different Classes of Traffic.") 
 
REPORT OF COMMITTEE. 7 
 
 19. That there be a paving board consisting of the chief engineer of 
 the Boa/d of Estimate and Apportionment (who shall act as President), and 
 the engineer in charge of highways of each of the boroughs, whose duty it 
 shall be to standardize specifications relating to all work which has to do with 
 the pavements throughout the city to determine the quality of the materials 
 used and to establish such standards of workmanship and methods of con- 
 struction as may seem to them best calculated to insure pavements of the 
 greatest ultimate economy and the most satisfactory service to the public. 
 
 20. That the necessary steps be taken by legislation and the revision of 
 methods in departmental procedure, to carry these recommendations into 
 effect. To which end, with regard to those which most require legislation 
 we annex a series of draft bills at the end of this document : 
 
 (a) Amendment of the present City Charter as to Sec. 391 re- 
 lating to permits for removal of pavements, and the relay- 
 ing of the same, annexed and marked "A" 
 
 (b) Amendment of the same by the addition of a new Section 
 39 1 -A relative to inspection of pavements, annexed and 
 marked "B" 
 
 (c) Amendment of Chapter X of the same by the addition of 
 a new title with four sections, providing for the creation of 
 a paving board to have power to prescribe standard forms 
 of contracts and specifications relating to paving, etc., 
 annexed and marked "C" 
 
 (d) Amendment to Section 178 of the Railroad Law relative 
 to paving by surface railways so as to shorten notice to 
 five days, annexed and marked "D" 
 
 The above recommendations are the result of a careful study of this 
 whole matter and represent a great deal of work and thought by the mem- 
 bers of the Committee during the last three months. The information upon 
 which we base our conclusions will be found in the following Appendix and 
 in the reports of the Sub-Committees which are attached hereto. 
 
 We feel it incumbent upon us to *tate that while in our opinion sub- 
 stantial improvement will follow from the immediate adoption of our recom- 
 mendations, much in matters of important detail still remains to be con- 
 sidered. We therefore suggest that the Committee be continued to make 
 such other reports as, in its judgment, may be required, or may be 
 requested by you in the premises. 
 
 Respectfully submitted by the Committee, 
 
 ERNEST FLAGG, 
 
 Vice-Chairman. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 THE KINDS OF PAVEMENT IN USE 
 
 Information furnished by the City shows that at the beginning of 1911 there were 
 in the various boroughs 2,096.90 miles of pavements of all kinds, exclusive of those 
 under the jurisdiction of the Park, Dock and Bridge Departments, divided as follows: 
 
 Eight hundred miles of macadam, 864 miles of block and sheet asphalt, 355 miles 
 of granite and trap block, and 86 miles of other kinds, distributed as follows : 
 
 Manhattan 
 
 Kind of Pavement Miles 
 
 Granite and Trap Block 
 
 without foundation ... 22.11 
 Granite Block with con- 
 crete foundation 86.98 
 
 Brick 
 
 Wood Block 14.30 
 
 Sheet Asphalt 260.59 
 
 Block Asphalt 52.99 
 
 Macadam . . ". 4.63 
 
 Not classified 
 
 Cobble Stone . 
 
 Brooklyn Bronx Queens Richmond 
 Miles Miles Miles Miles 
 
 140.73 38.89 34.03 
 
 3.20 
 
 Total 
 Miles 
 
 238.96 
 
 27.24 
 
 
 
 2.69 
 
 Il6.9I 
 
 2.42 
 
 74 
 
 9-93 
 
 4.24 
 
 17-33 
 
 2.22 
 
 3-40 
 
 5-71 
 
 1.32 
 
 26.95 
 
 394-76 
 
 38.74 
 
 20.35 
 
 -46 
 
 714.90 
 
 26.29 
 
 49-99 
 
 10.26 
 
 9-53 
 
 149.06 
 
 1 10.08 
 
 146.70 
 
 335-52 
 
 194.12 
 
 79L05 
 
 10.85 
 
 1.83 
 
 9-38 
 
 10.22 
 
 32.28 
 
 9.46 
 
 
 
 
 9.46 
 
 Total 441. ( 
 
 724.05 280.29 425.18 225.78 2,096.90 
 
 THE SUITABILITY OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF PAVEMENT 
 FOR THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF TRAFFIC 
 
 Sheet and block asphalt and wood block pavements are so much alike in their gen- 
 eral characteristics that almost any traffic suitable for one is equally suitable for 
 another, and it would therefore seem that ultimate economy alone should govern in 
 choosing between them. These pavements are only proper for streets where traffic is 
 not of the heaviest type; their chief advantages are: comparative noiselessness and 
 superior sanitary qualities owing to the facility with which they can be kept clean. 
 Their disadvantages are their comparative short life and the poor foothold which they 
 afford to horses. ! l *i 'I 
 
 This latter consideration is very important. No truckman with a horse drawn load 
 will use them when wet, if it is possible to do otherwise, and team drivers will 
 often make long detours to find granite pavements, even of the poor type which we 
 have, rather than use streets paved with asphalt or wood. Drivers of heavy teams will 
 also almost always keep to the railroad tracks on streets where the pavement between 
 them is of granite block, rather than to use the smoother material with which the rest 
 of the roadway is covered, and great injury to the pavement is caused thereby. 
 Asphalt has the additional disadvantage of becoming soft in hot weather, in which con- 
 dition its tractive qualities are impaired. 
 
I0 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 GRANITE BLOCK PAVEMENTS : 
 
 So long as traffic conditions remain about as they are at present, it would seem that 
 all streets where much heavy trucking is done should be paved with granite. 
 
 It must be borne in mind, however, that traffic conditions are about to change. The 
 automobile is destined to supplant the horse almost entirely in cities, and it is probable 
 that this change is not so far distant as many of us may think. With the machine 
 driven vehicles will come heavier loads than it is practicable to carry with horses and 
 our future pavements must have more substantial foundations than are now thought 
 necessary in order to sustain these greater weights and heavier usage. Fortunately, 
 almost any kind of wearing surface is suitable for the automobile, provided it is suffi- 
 ciently smooth, so the convenience of the horse may still be the governing factor in its 
 choice. 
 
 As an illustration of the rapidity with which traffic conditions are changing, we 
 need only say that a few years ago a stone pavement would have been entirely unsuited 
 to Fifth Avenue on account of the noise. To-day a smooth stone pavement would not 
 be altogether so because the horse has almost disappeared from that street more than 
 eighty per cent, of the traffic being by automobiles. 
 
 It is altogether probable that stone pavements will assume a place of greater 
 importance in the future than they have in the past for several reasons. 
 
 ist. Because we will learn how to lay them in the English way, so that they will be 
 almost as smooth and pleasant to use as any other pavement. 
 
 2nd. Because when properly laid and of the right material they will be found to be, 
 by far, the most economical pavements to use, and 
 
 3rd. Because when so made, they are as well suited to motor vehicles as to horse- 
 drawn ones. 
 
 SMALL STONE CUBES : 
 
 This is a kind of pavement as yet untried here, but which is being extensively used 
 in Europe. Germany has found it profitable to cover hundreds of miles of her roads 
 with it, the old macadam being used as the foundation. Pavements of this sort are 
 less noisy than brick, almost as smooth, less slippery, less expensive and much more 
 durable. There is undoubtedly a great future for them and we should lose no time 
 in introducing them here, for they would fill a much felt want by giving us a durable 
 and comparatively cheap pavement for roads of fairly heavy traffic. 
 
 Mr Brodie, speaking of an experimental pavement of this general type at Liver- 
 pool, says : "The whole surface has been laid on a 6 inch concrete foundation, so that 
 there may be no settlement; and as experience has already shown that there is no 
 possibility of side movement even with sharp or triangular stones embedded in the 
 pitch mixture, it would appear that the conditions of the full-sized set paving have 
 been arrived at as nearly as possible in the cheaper coating. Assuming, as may well 
 be the case, that such a pavement should have a life of thirty years under the average 
 conditions of traffic on country roads, it would appear that a cheap and durable surface 
 coating may in this way be obtained." (See Figs, i and 2.) 
 
 ORDINARY MACADAM PAVEMENTS: 
 
 These are only suitable for country roads and for streets in the newer parts of the 
 City where traffic is very light and where the property values will not warrant a 
 pavement of a more substantial type. When laid with brick gutters and cement curbs 
 they present a very attractive appearance. As traffic becomes heavier in such places 
 they could be advantageously covered with a wearing surface of "durax," which is so 
 much used in Europe, the old macadam forming the foundation. (See Fig. 3.) 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 ii 
 
 /.-/. 1. Pavement of small granite cubes recently laid in Liverpool with a concrete foundation and 
 
 a bed of granite chips which become thoroughly impregnated with the pitch grout. These 
 
 blocks measure only 2 l / 4 inches each way. Note the one-foot rule lying on the 
 
 surface, also the lack of any crowning between the rails and the care with 
 
 which the surface of the pavement is kept flush with the rails. 
 
 ^:V^z^/-. ; ^inUv^Uv\\\v 
 
 Fig. 2. The pavement shown in i i s . * u 
 
 plugged with small granite chips. A pavement of this kind is * 
 over, and when properly made is probably the most econo 
 
 Fig. 1 being grouted with pitch. Note that the joints have 
 ps. A pavement of this kind is very smooth and pleasant to ri 
 nade is probably the most economical kind that can be built. 
 
 have been 
 de 
 
APPKXDIX TO REPORT 
 
 Pig. 3. Pavement known as Durax. Tlie blocks are very small, the largest dimension being only 
 about 3 inches. They are often laid on an old macadamized road as a foundation. 
 
 BITUMINOUS MACADAM PAVEMENTS: 
 
 Roadways of this sort occupy a place midway between the ordinary macadam, or 
 what is here called water bound macadam, and asphalt. They cost not much more 
 than half as much as an asphalt pavement with its foundation, and if properly made 
 and maintained, will give almost as good service in places where traffic is light, but 
 the success of this kind of road is peculiarly dependent upon prompt repair. The 
 secret of the success of the fine macadam roads of Europe lies in the continuous 
 repairs which they receive repairs which commence with the laying of the road and 
 which are continued daily as long as it is in place. The little success which we have 
 with such roads is largely due to the neglect of this requirement. This necessity for 
 continuous repairs applies with equal force to the ordinary macadam and to bituminous 
 macadam roads, the only difference being that with the bituminous macadam the 
 defects do not develop so rapidly and are not so numerous. 
 
 There are two general ways of making bituminous macadam pavements, each of 
 which has its advocates. By one method the bituminous material is mixed with the 
 stone before it is put in place, and by the other the stone is impregnated with it after 
 it is in place. Excellent pavements have been made in both ways, but by the latter plan 
 much more care is required and there is greater chance of failure. This is a matter 
 for the engineers to work out. 
 
 Macadam roads of the ordinary type are often treated with more or less success 
 by the use of heavy oils or bituminous mixtures spread on the surface and covered 
 with grit. Excellent results may be attained in this way under proper maintenance, 
 but the maintenance to be effective must be of the kind which we do not have; that is 
 to say, continuous. The bituminous mixture with the grit forms a sort of carpet or 
 crust over the stone bed, and, if always maintained intact, will preserve it for a very 
 long time; but all depressions must be filled as soon as they appear and the crust must 
 never be allowed to wear through. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 3- A. Machin 
 
 Machine used for cutting Durax. The small irregular cubes used in making this kind of 
 pavement are the only paving stones which can be cut by machinery, thus 
 making it the cheapest stone pavement there is. 
 
14 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 VITRIFIED BRICK AND SLAG BLOCK PAVEMENTS : 
 
 During the last two or three years, imported slag blocks have been used here, notably 
 in Richmond. They are very expensive and make a good pavement when properly laid. 
 They have not been in use here long enough to permit of a correct estimate of their 
 value, but the present indications of wear do not seem to warrant their high cost. 
 
 Vitrified brick when properly made serves fairly well for pavements of moderate 
 traffic, but it is noisy and its durability so uncertain that we cannot recommend it 
 except for special cases. 
 
 DEFECTIVE METHODS. 
 
 Members of the Committee visited all the Boroughs to investigate the various kinds 
 of pavement in general use with a view to ascertaining their relative suitability and 
 economy; to study the methods employed in their construction, and to take note of 
 such defects as seemed to be typical of bad methods of construction or maintenance. 
 Attention was paid chiefly to those pavements which had been most recently laid and 
 which afforded the best examples of the kind now most approved by the City officials. 
 
 The older pavements where traffic was at all heavy were uniformly found to be in a 
 deplorable condition and the newer ones showed unmistakable signs of speedy decay. 
 The reasons for these conditions are perfectly apparent to any one who is acquainted 
 with the best European methods of paving and the remedy equally plain. 
 
 Perhaps the chief cause for our backwardness in this matter is due to provincialism. 
 Our specifications have been antiquated and our methods primitive. Processes have 
 been used which have long been obsolete in the first-class cities of Europe; few of 
 our engineers have ever been abroad and have little knowledge of what is being done 
 except at home. They are used to the slovenly workmanship of our contractors and 
 seem to accept it as something beyond their control. 
 
 One of the chief defects of our pavements is insufficient foundation. 
 
 In the Manhattan specification there has been no satisfactory provision for consoli- 
 dating the soil after the ground has been trimmed and graded to receive the concrete; 
 some of the engineers holding that where a street has been in constant use and the pave- 
 ment is to be relaid the soil is sufficiently consolidated already by the traffic and that 
 there is no use of tamping or rolling it. This is not always true. Pipes are often 
 laid before the pavement is put down and the loose soil which is caused by trimming 
 and grading should most certainly be carefully consolidated to receive the foundation. 
 Any one can understand that if there is unequal settlement the foundation must 
 crack, and if part of the ground is firm and part soft, failures will surely occur. 
 There are innumerable places throughout the City where the street foundation has 
 failed, and we believe that many such failures have been caused by this neglect to 
 properly consolidate the soil before laying the concrete. It should not be necessary 
 to argue about so fundamental a principle. The concrete of which the foundation is 
 made is often of a very poor quality; we saw some being removed by the use of 
 a pickaxe which was so soft that the pick entered an inch or more at every stroke ; 
 even where the materials are good the mixing and placing is so slovenly done that the 
 result is bad. 
 
 We saw foundations in White Street which had been down several days. The 
 surface was so rough and uneven that at places there was a difference in level of an 
 inch in one foot of surface, at others we were able to dig holes in it two inches deep 
 with a small stick. In Baxter Street we saw new concrete which was even rougher 
 than that already mentioned ; the surface was full of depressions of from one to one 
 and one-half inches deep ; and at one place one of us dug a hole four inches deep in 
 concrete seven days old with the toe of his shoe. Several blocks further along the 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 15 
 
 same street we saw the concrete being mixed and put in place. On one side of the 
 mixer were eight men throwing in stone and on the other two men throwing in sand. 
 The sand and cement were being forced in by screws presumably in the proper 
 proportions, but there appeared to be no attempt to measure the stone. We saw the 
 City's Inspector. He said the only gauge was his eyes; he thought he could tell near 
 enough in that way whether the mixture was right. The only guide for the grading 
 was a row of sticks driven in the center of the roadway about ten or twelve feet 
 apart and marks on the curbs. The ground where the concrete was being laid was 
 little better than a quagmire, the surface being all cut up by the barrow wheels and 
 the depressions full of standing water. The inspector saw no reason for consolidating 
 the soil. The thickness of the concrete varied greatly, but the average appeared to be 
 as much as the specifications called for. The City was doubtless paying for good 
 work and receiving the most slovenly kind, but probably quite as good as usual. 
 
 A whole series of defects is due to our method of dealing with street car tracks. 
 One has only to go through any street in the City where tracks are laid to see how 
 objectionable they are to see that the pavements which abut them are ruined if they 
 have been down for any length of time, and that the new pavements show symptoms of 
 failure along the rails almost as soon as laid. The reason for this is due to several 
 causes : 
 
 i. The rails are not flush with the pavement; thus a rut is deliberately made at 
 the very place where the greatest care and ingenuity should be used to avoid one, for 
 the wheels of vehicles naturally run in such a rut and in a short time deepen it. If 
 the wagon wheels are not of the same gauge as the track, one runs along the rail and 
 the other makes a rut outside of it. (See Figs. 4 and 5.) It needs no argument to show 
 
 Fig. 4. Pavement on West Street opposite the Whitehall Building showing ruts along tracks and at 
 
 two feet beyond them. Note the softness of the granite. The white on the stones made 
 
 by the powdered granite is so recent that it has not had time to become dirty, 
 
 and it does not take dirt long to accumulate on this street. 
 
i6 
 
 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 5. Pavement in Furman Street, Brooklyn. Typical example of the destruction of pavements 
 
 by improperly laid car tracks. The rut to the right of the right car track is made by the 
 
 right wheels of trucks whose left wheels run in the left track; about balf the wear 
 
 which the pavement receives on this side of the street is thus concentrated 
 
 on a strip about eight inches wide. 
 
 that the more uniform the traffic over the whole surface the longer will be the life of 
 the pavement. 
 
 2. The cavities at the sides of the rails are not properly filled with cement mortar 
 when the pavement is laid, and that part of it which abuts the rail has no sufficient 
 lateral support and is readily crushed or forced under the rail. We will call attention, 
 later on, to specific cases where this has occurred in pavements which have been 
 finished only a few weeks. 
 
 3. The pavements are crowned between the tracks thus destroying the 
 proper contour of the street surface and guiding wheels towards the tracks, 
 the very place where it is most disastrous for them to run and also causing 
 unnecessary irregularities of the surface. (See Fig. 6.) 
 
 4. The tracks are not made of a proper section, being too wide and dished 
 out on the upper surface making a groove in which wheels of vehicles naturally 
 run. (See Fig. 6.) Sometimes the rails are of the old-fashioned strap kind laid on 
 wooden sleepers, which, of course, greatly aggravate the evil. (See Eigs. /, 8 and 10.) 
 This type of rail, fortunately, is fast going out. It is certain that no more of it 
 should be allowed in any part of any of the Boroughs. 
 
 5. Asphalt is laid up to the tracks which should never be done. Asphalt 
 seldom abuts the rails in European cities. The practice is condemned by the 
 highest authorities on paving. The movement of the rail is certain to cause 
 leaks almost immediately; and the water which enters speedily disintegrates the 
 asphalt. The crowning between the tracks conducts the water to these points of 
 weakness and aggravates the mischief. The tracks should be bordered with a 
 toothing of stone or brick as is the practice in Europe. (See Eigs. 8 and g. ) 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 6. Car track at Fourth Avenue and 22d Street on the new granite pavement. The unwork- 
 manlike character of the pavement and the carelessness in the grading are here illustrated. 
 The rail is \ l /n inches below the general level and some of the adjoining blocks 
 project about an inch above others. The softness of the granite is 
 indicated by the abrasions on the stones. 
 
 F 'S- 7. This shows a car track which must have been set at least 3% inches below the adjoining 
 
 stones, for it is that much below them now, and they have worn down considerably although 
 
 the pavement is comparatively new. The extreme softness of the granite can be 
 
 seen by the appearance of the blocks. This is a typical case. 
 
i8 
 
 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 
 Fig. S. Typical case of car track of the strap kind in connection with an asphalt pavement 17th 
 
 Street near 4th Avenue. 
 
 Fig. 9. Typical case of failure of asphalt along car tracks 4th Avenue between 27th and 28th 
 
 Streets. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 10. Car track in front of 178 .South Street. This shows a rut at the side of the rail 3J4 inches 
 
 deep; partly due to wear and partly to the fact that the rail was originally set more than 
 
 3 inches below the stone. The softness of the granite can be seen by the white on 
 
 it which is caused by the scraping away of the surface by wheels. 
 
 6. The way the tracks are laid at intersections and curves is ruinous to the 
 pavement as any one may see for himself who will take the trouble to examine 
 such places. The tracks are laid with an utter disregard of the convenience 
 of every one who uses the streets except the railroad companies. On curves, 
 where it is possible to do so, the outer rail is raised with little reference to the 
 contour of the pavement, but in perfect accord with the supposed interests of 
 the railroad companies. Such a case may be seen at the South Ferry. (See Figs, 
 ii and 12.) 
 
 7. It is the custom of the railroad companies to pave the spaces between 
 the tracks with a different kind of material from that used on the rest of the 
 street, a highly objectionable practice, as the street surface should be uniform 
 in order to insure uniform wear. 
 
 8. It is also the custom of the Railroad Companies to provide hand holes 
 at frequent intervals say 10 or 12 feet on both sides of the slot. These covers 
 are often placed from a half inch to an inch below the level of the pavement 
 (see Fig. 13), forming a series of depressions destructive to the vehicles which 
 use the streets and to the comfort of one riding over them. 
 
 Car tracks as laid here are most detrimental to the City's interests and 
 certainly should not be allowed except where absolutely necessary, yet thirty-three 
 miles of dead and unused tracks are in place; and in certain streets such as the 
 Bowery and West 42nd St., there are four tracks where two would suffice. 
 (See Fig. 14.) We are glad to say that seven miles of unused tracks have been 
 removed by the present administration. 
 
 It seems hardly necessary to specify locations where the above defects are 
 apparent; one has only to examine the pavement along the tracks on almost 
 any street to see them. 
 
20 
 
 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 . 11. Curved track at South Ferry. A typical case illustrating the lack of uniformity between 
 the grade of the rails and the street surface. Here the depression amounts to 
 an inch and five-eighths in a distance of about two feet. 
 
 Fig. 12. Intersection of tracks in Whitehall Street opposite Front Street typical of the small regard 
 
 paid by the railroad companies to the convenience of the other users of the streets. 
 
 Here one track is a full inch above another which adjoins it. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 F:g. 13. Hand hole adjoining slot opposite 290 Broadway. This is typical of hundreds of the 
 
 same sort. 
 
 Fig. 14. Dead car track on Lafayette Street north of White Street. These tracks are not in use, but 
 are a great detriment to traffic. The rut beside the track here shown is more than 2 inches deep. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 /"/. 16. The top of this cover is three inches below the general surface of the pavement and it must 
 
 be a pretty strong wheel which can pass over it with impunity. There 
 
 are hundreds of others like it. 
 
 I'ig. 17. Madison Street near New Bowery, showing careless setting of manhole covers. One 
 corner is flush with the pavement and the other 1 '/? inches below it. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 18. Manhole cover at Greenwich and Cortlandt Streets. The center of this manhole is about 
 
 two inches below the rim. It belongs to the Water Department. Every wheel which passes 
 
 over it receives a heavy blow. If the City itself supplies covers of this sort, what 
 
 can be expected of private corporations? This is a typical case. There 
 
 are hundreds of others of the same kind. 
 
 j?j g 19. Manhole at the corner of Fourth Avenue and 22d Street in the new granite pavement 
 
 which was to have been a sample of good workmanship. One corner of one cover is V/2 
 
 inches below the level of the pavement and the other cover is equally out of grade. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 20. Manhole cover in Chambers Street opposite the Court House. We saw a loaded truck 
 pass over this hole with the result shown in the photograph. 
 
 Fig. -l.-Manhole cover opposite 558 Broadway,-the lid being 2JJ inches below the rim. This wa 
 
 by the Water Department. The damage to running gear of wheels caused by a 
 hmg of this sort can hardly be estimated, and that covers of the kind should 
 be deliberately made would seem incredible were they not in evidence. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 25 
 
 Another conspicuous defect and a source of great annoyance and injury to 
 traffic is the improper shape of, and careless way in which the manhole covers 
 are set, the rims are frequently above the pavement and the covers below the 
 rim. (See Figs. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21.) On lower Broadway cases can be seen where 
 the covers arc from two to two and one-half inches below the rims. 
 
 One of the chief causes of failure is due to the general poor quality of the 
 materials used. 
 
 What has been said thus far applies to all kinds of pavement alike. 
 
 \Ye will now call attention to some typical defects in pavements of the four 
 principal kinds. 
 
 GRANITE BLOCK PAVEMENTS : 
 
 r\lost of the granite used is of poor quality which is far too soft and quickly 
 wears away. (See Figs. 4, 6, 7, 8.) So far as we are able to find out, there is no 
 standard of toughness established by the City and no sufficient test is made 
 to find out how a granite will wear before it is accepted; but no granite, how- 
 ever good, could wear well under our specifications, for no granite can wear 
 well unless the street surface is smooth, its contour uniform, and the traffic 
 well distributed over it; and this is not possible with our present methods of 
 construction. The trouble is mainly due to the following causes all of which 
 might perfectly well be avoided as they have been avoided in the best European 
 pavements: 
 
 1. Stones too large and uneven which causes them to tilt or ride. 
 
 2. Joints too wide caused by the great irregularities in the size and shape 
 of the blocks, so that the wagon wheels enter them, wear away the edges and 
 make ruts which are destructive alike to pavements and vehicles, a hindrance to 
 traffic and an unnecessary cause of noise and annoyance. (See Fig. 22.) 
 
 Fig. 22. Car track on New Chambers Street east of New Bowery showing failure along the car track, 
 
 depression being about 3 inches in a distance of 4 feet. Observe the great width 
 
 of the joints, and the softness of the granite shown by the abrasions. 
 
26 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 3. Too thick a sand bed which is made necessary by the roughness of the con- 
 crete surface of the foundation and by the great irregularity in the size of the 
 paving stones. This is a most important point; for, when the sand bed is thicker 
 than about one-half an inch it is not possible for the paver to make a true sur- 
 face; he digs away the sand with his paving tool, plants the block, and has no 
 other gauge for the grade than his eye, and when the work is done the surface is 
 necessarily uneven. This is remedied in Europe by finishing the concrete foun- 
 dation with smoothing irons (see Fig. 24) and shaping it carefully by the use of 
 templates (see Fig. 25), to the exact contour of the street. Upon this perfectly true 
 surface is spread a half-inch bed of fine gravel ; with blocks far smaller than we use, 
 of an almost uniform size, and with the concrete surface to guide him, the paver can 
 lay the stone so true that there is no apparent wave in the pavement. 
 
 4. The lack of impermeability. With the thick sand bed, the great depth 
 of the granite blocks and the irregularity in the size of the joint, it is impossible 
 to make the surface water tight; when grouted the pitch cools before it reaches 
 the bottom of the joint and the sand prevents it from spreading under the block 
 even when it does reach the bottom; leaks occur and disturb the sand bed, 
 causing depressions and irregularities in the road surface. The remedy for this 
 is to use blocks of small size of uniform shape and a thin bed of fine gravel 
 not sand under them, so that when grouted, the pitch will completely fill the 
 joints and thoroughly impregnate the gravel bed on which the stones are laid 
 and thus make a perfectly impervious surface. 
 
 5. Too soft granite which quickly wears away under the blows of the wheels 
 and is often crushed by them. (See Figs. 26 and 27.) Instances of this can be seen in 
 lower Broad Street, in Front Street, east of Whitehall Street and in other 
 places almost wherever one chooses to look for them in pavements of this kind. 
 
 Fig. 24. English tool used for smoothing concrete for foundations. This instrument when properly 
 
 used produces a surface which is true and smooth without the use of fine stuff. 
 
 Its use should be introduced here without delay. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 27 
 
 . 25. An English granite block pavement being laid in Liverpool. Observe the smoothness of 
 
 the concrete foundation. This can best be seen in the immediate foreground where the clean 
 
 edge of the concrete is shown after the removal of the center which was used in 
 
 shaping it. The surface was smoothed with the tool shown in the last figure. 
 
 The blocks are being laid on a very thin bed of fine gravel. 
 
 I'ig. 26. Old pavement in Broad Street opposite No. 107. Most of the stones have been crushed 
 
 or split by the traffic. Originally they were all of about the size of the larger ones. Their 
 
 softness can be seen by the white on the surface of the blocks which indicates 
 
 that every passing wheel grinds off some of the surface. 
 
28 
 
 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 27. More broken blocks in the same street. 
 
 6. Stones too wide. Some of our engineers hold that it will not do to use 
 granite which is very hard because it wears slippery, but all danger of this sort 
 is avoided in Europe by simply using smaller stones, the frequency of the joints 
 affording the necessary foot-hold for the horses. In this way the hardest granite 
 can be used and that kind only will give the best service. 
 
 Perhaps the most discouraging feature of this whole business is the com- 
 parative failure of the recent attempts to improve our granite pavements by 
 the engineers. Instead of frankly accepting European methods which have 
 proved satisfactory, they have adopted half-way measures which will not answer. 
 
 It was proposed to lay on Fourth Avenue, a new stone pavement which should 
 be entirely free from defects of the older ones. The Vice-Chairman of this Com- 
 mittee in a conference with Mr. McAneny and his engineers pointed out numer- 
 ous defects in the new specifications before the work was commenced. They 
 assured him that as far as possible, these defects would be remedied in the superin- 
 tendence, which would be of the most rigid kind. They were not able, how- 
 ever, to live up to that promise, because the specification was fundamentally 
 wrong. The foundation was rough and uneven as usual and the sand bed 
 thick as a necessary consequence, and because too much latitude had been 
 allowed in the size of the stories. Although the blocks used were somewhat 
 smaller and more evenly cut than the old ones, they were still far too large, 
 rough and of a proportion which the best European practice condemns. The 
 result is: the surface is wavy and uneven and not properly graded; manhole 
 covers and tracks are out of true, and already, although the work is hardly 
 finished, it has begun to fail in numerous places. Our Committee found such 
 places along the rails where the pavement had sunken from one-half an inch 
 to one and a half inches. This can be seen along the west side of the rails at 
 many points from Sixteenth St. north. We noticed one manhole cover which 
 adjoins the rails and which was so poorly set that one corner of it is an inch 
 above the surface of the pavement. (See Fig. 28.) 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 29 
 
 Fig. 28. Manhole cover in the new granite pavement, Fourth Avenue and 20th Street. This cover 
 
 sets so it slopes the wrong way and is so tilted that it projects 114. 
 
 inches above the adjoining stone. 
 
 At. Lafayette St., where the pavement was still being laid, we measured 
 stones in the last three rows as follows: 
 
 One stone n l /2 in. long x 434 in. deep. 
 
 " " 3 l /> in. wide, 5 in. deep. 
 
 " " ii J/2 in. long, s l / 2 in. deep. 
 
 " " n l /2 in. long, 4^2 in. deep. 
 
 ii in. long, 4 l /2 in. wide. 
 
 " " 1 1/4 in- lng> 5 m - wide. 
 
 " '' 4 in. wide at one end, 3*4 in. at the other. 
 
 ' " 4^4 in. wide, 5^4 in. deep. 
 
 " " 3 in. wide at bottom, 4 in. at top. 
 
 " n l /2 in. long and 5 in. wide at top. 
 
 5 in. wide, 5 in. deep. 
 
 " " 4-)4 in. wide at one end and 4 in. at the other. 
 
 " " 4 l / 2 in. wide next to another 4 in. wide. 
 
 The joints varied from l /% to % of an inch. 
 
 Without going into the question as to whether such stones were contrary to 
 the specifications, we can say that with them it is impossible to make a thoroughly 
 good pavement. 
 
 At 22d Street we found a manhole cover down two inches. (See Fig. 29.) 
 Further along we found the car rail i l /> inches above the stone, at another point i l /2 
 inches, at another point i->6 inches, at another point 2% inches. (See Figs. 30, 31, 
 32, 33, 34-) 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 29. Manhole at east side of Fourth Avenue and 21st Street another example of workmanship 
 
 on the new Fourth Avenue pavement. One side of the cover is about flush with the rim 
 
 and the other is about two inches below the rim. This is a typical example of 
 
 manhole covers in other parts of the City. 
 
 
 Fig. 30. This illustrates failure of the new granite pavement on Fourth Avenue at a point opposit 
 
 Union Square. There is a depression at tile side of the rails of 2]4 inches in 
 
 a distance of four feet, due to slovenly workmanship. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 31. Car track opposite 356 Fourth Avenue. This illustrates the failure of the pavement where 
 
 it abuts the rails. The blocks have been forced down more than I 1 /? inches below the 
 
 general level, although it has only been in use two or three months. 
 
 Fig. 32. This shows a depression of 2 l / 2 inches at the side of the rail in the new granite block 
 
 pavement on Fourth Avenue opposite No. 258. At the time of making the photograph the 
 
 pavement had been in use about two or three months. The defect is due to the 
 
 general poor workmanship and particularly to the neglect to properly fill 
 
 the webb of the rail with cement mortar. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 33. Car track at Fourth Avenue and 2_M Street. At this point the pavement has sunk 1; 
 
 inches below the rail. The new Fourth Avenue pavement where this occurs is called 
 
 Improved Granite Block pavement, and was intended to equal any 
 
 foreign pavements of the kind. 
 
 Fig. 34. New granite pavement, Fourth Avenue, showing failure at the rails and a depression of 
 
 almost two inches in a distance of four feet. The manhole cover slopes to the 
 
 rail instead of awav from it as was intended. 
 
ASI'H.' 
 
 Mo 
 
 nnrl r'. 
 
 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 33 
 
 ASPHALT PAVEMENTS 
 
 Most of the older asphalt is laid over old stone pavements. They do not stand 
 and cannot be expected to stand when made in such a way. Fortunately this is a 
 practice which has now been abandoned. But if the new concrete foundations are to 
 be made as already described, they will hardly prove better. 
 
 When the smooth surface of the asphalt is once broken then the body of 
 the material speedily disintegrates. When laid to abut car tracks the move- 
 ment of the tracks opens the joints and admits water, which has carefully 
 been conducted to these points of weakness by crowning between the tracks, 
 and the bad effects of this are greatly aggravated when the cavities at the sides 
 of the rail are not thoroughly filled. The pavement almost invariably fails 
 quickly along the rails. It is also apt to fail in the gutters which are not gen- 
 erally so well graded that all the water can run off. The life of these pavements 
 is also greatly lessened by the presence of mud on the surface. On the East 
 and West sides of the City we found the streets often in a very dirty condition, some 
 being covered with wet mud and there was a great deal of rubbish, ashes and other 
 refuse in the gutters. 
 
 We believe these pavements would last much longer if they were more 
 carefully graded; the surface of all of them is wavy so that they do not properly 
 drain. When the streets are wet, small pools of water can be ?een standing on 
 them at frequent intervals and decay begins almost invariably in such depressions. 
 
 In Baxter St. between White and Canal Sts., we found the new asphalt very 
 carelessly graded. In one place there was depression of y 2 inch in four feet. In 
 Madison St. near Grand we saw asphalt, laid in 10x19, where the car tracks stood 
 well above the surface. 
 
 It would be easy to make an interminable list of defects but there is no 
 necessity to do so. One has only to examine any asphalt paved street to see 
 them for himself, and our purpose here is simply to point out typical causes of failure. 
 
 WOOD BLOCK PAVEMENTS : 
 
 Many of the defects in this kind of pavement are due to the causes already 
 mentioned; that is to say, poorly graded foundations so that the surface of 
 newly laid streets is wavy permitting moisture to stand in depressions on the 
 surface and along the gutters; to the lack of proper rilling of the cavities at the 
 sides of the car tracks and to leaks. The new wood pavement on West 23rd St. 
 is very poorly graded. We saw standing pools in the gutters and the surface 
 is full of depressions which will constantly become worse. Although the work 
 is hardly finished, the pavement has failed along the tracks, being crushed in 
 places and forced under the rail. Between 7th and 8th Avenues, the surface has 
 sunk away from the tracks at certain points, and between gth and loth Avenues, 
 we measured places where the depressions ranged from I to i$i inches. (See 
 Figs. 35, 36, 37, 38, 39.) Such a place can be seen opposite No. 325; opposite 
 No. 333, the wood has been forced l / 2 inch below the manhole cover. This 
 pavement already needs prompt repair. Opposite No. 357, the pavement along 
 the tracks has been crushed i% inches; and opposite No. 421, i l / 2 inches. Op- 
 posite No. 443 the gutter is down \Y^ inches in 4 feet. 
 
 Another cause for the failure of the wood block pavements is because the 
 blocks are too shallow. Our 4 inch blocks are at least one inch less in depth 
 
34 
 
 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 35. Failure along track of new wood block pavement in 23d Street, opposite No. 515. The 
 
 pavement has sunken \ l / 2 inches having been forced under the rail, the 
 
 webb not having been properly filled. 
 
 Fig. 36. Failure along track of new block pavement in 23d Street, opposite Hotel Chelsea. 
 The depression here is l^i inches. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 35 
 
 Fig. 37. Failure along track of new wood block pavement opposite 357 West 23d Street. 
 
 Depression of 1 '/ 2 inches. The dark shadow on the right of the rail shows how 
 
 the pavement has sunken below it. 
 
 Fig. 33. Failure along track of new wood block pavement opposite 325 West 23d Street. 
 
 Depression of 1 inch. Note the shadow along the rail. This pavement was hardly 
 
 completed when the photograph was taken. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 I''ig. 39. Failure along track of new wood block pavement opposite 321 West 23d Street. 
 The blocks have been crushed and are down 1^ inches. 
 
 than those commonly used abroad, and are therefore more easily crushed and 
 split, the fiber being so short as to have little vertical strength. Recently blocks only 
 3J4 inches deep have been used. 
 
 Failures also occur by reason of expansion ; we saw numerous places where 
 this had occurred. A good example of it can be seen on Jerome Avenue between 
 the car tracks. 
 
 MACADAM : 
 
 There are, still, within the City limits more macadam than any other single kind 
 of road, viz.: 791 miles exclusive of that under the jurisdiction of the Park Depart- 
 ments. These roads are in a chronic state of disrepair. Ordinary macadam is no 
 longer suited to roads near a large City even if built and maintained in the most 
 scientific way, for they cannot sustain heavy automobile traffic, but when made with 
 the use of a bituminous binder they may answer a very useful purpose. 
 
 The chief defects in our macadamized roads are due to insufficient sub-soil 
 drainage and to the lack of that continuous maintenance without which no road of 
 this kind can prove satisfactory. Standing moisture on the surface and a soggy 
 bed are the main causes of decay. In order to overcome these difficulties more 
 care must be taken to properly drain the sub-soil, by the use of ditches and 
 drains, and the surface must at all times be kept free from mud and standing 
 water; they should be constantly swept as they are in Europe and all imperfec- 
 tions and depressions repaired as soon as they make their appearance. The only 
 feasible way to deal with roads of this kind is to divide them into small sections, each 
 one in charge of a road man, working under the direction of a competent engineer, 
 whose duty it is to repair defects daily as they make their appearance. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 THE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES OF GOOD PAVEMENTS 
 
 37 
 
 If the condition of a City's pavements is a fair gauge of its civilization, as 
 has been maintained by high authority, New York must rank low in the scale. That 
 its pavements are an unmistakable evidence of provincialism, there can be no doubt. 
 It should be the earnest wish of every one who has the interest of the City at heart, 
 that it should have better pavements for its own credit, if for no other reaosn, even if 
 they impose a heavier burden on the community. 
 
 That no such result would follow, but on the contrary, an immense pecuniary gain, 
 the experience of many European cities amply proves. 
 
 There is no City on earth, which stands in greater need of good pavements 
 than Manhattan Borough. Owing to the physical conformation of the island 
 the traffic is confined within narrow limits and the only possible way to avoid 
 congestion is to keep the main arteries always free, open and in good condition. 
 
 If they are clogged or out of order, the whole organism which goes to make up 
 the City is injured and its activities suffer. It should be remembered that we are 
 using streets which were designed to accommodate a City of four or five stories and 
 are building one of three or four times that height ; the streets can adequately accom- 
 modate the pressure thus being put on them, if at all, only by making them available 
 for use to the fullest possible extent. One properly paved street free and open is worth 
 two which are poorly paved and partly obstructed, and a street with a roadway wide 
 enough to permit the passage of a double line of vehicles on each side is the equivalent 
 of two which can accommodate but a single line. Fortunately most of the roadways 
 can be widened as Fifth Avenue has been, and no time should be lost in doing so in 
 streets which are most congested. The usefulness of lower Broadway, for instance, 
 would be almost doubled if its roadway were three or four feet wider on each side 
 of the car track and this space which is so sorely needed in the roadway is now lost 
 to the public because stoops and areas in front of the buildings occupy land which 
 belongs to the community. Nothing could be more beneficial to the pavement than 
 such a widening, for the broader the roadway the more evenly traffic distributes itself 
 over it and the more uniform the wear. 
 
 There can be no question in the mind of one who has made a careful study 
 of the matter that if our streets were maintained in as good condition as those of 
 the chief cities of Great Britain the tractive effort required in the moving of merchan- 
 dise through them would be reduced one-half and that congestion of traffic would 
 also be reduced in like proportion. 
 
 The financial gain which would result from such a condition is too great to 
 grasp; it staggers the imagination. When one thinks of the loss which our 
 bad pavements occasion, in the millions of horse-power wasted in dragging loads over 
 their rough and uneven surfaces, in the delays caused by street obstructions, in the 
 vast and unnecessary wear and tear on horses, vehicles and harness, automobile tires, 
 in the smallness of our loads as compared with those of Europe, the aggregate becomes 
 appalling. 
 
 All this can be perfectly well avoided and we can have pavements of the 
 highest type at a less annual cost per mile than those we now have if we only do 
 as has been done in other places and introduce modern methods of dealing with them. 
 
3 8 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 COST OF PAVEMENTS 
 
 There is often a great difference in the price paid for pavements of the same type, 
 even in the same borough, on account of local conditions which affect the cost of 
 construction, the chief of which is the great expense of hauling. This amounts to about 
 30c. per ton mile. Therefore it is not possible to give prices which will apply to all 
 pavements of the same type, but, in a general way, the following list gives a fair 
 average of the cost of recent pavements of the kinds mentioned without their 
 foundations : 
 
 Granite Block $2.20 to $3.00 per sq. yd. 
 
 Iron Slag Block 2.75 to 3.00 
 
 Wood Block 2.20 to 2.60 ' 
 
 Asphalt Block in Manhattan J-75 to 2.30 
 
 Sheet Asphalt " 1.50 to 1.75 
 
 Asphalt Block in other Boroughs.. 1.50 to 1.75 
 
 Sheet Asphalt " " -85 to 1.30 ' 
 
 Bituminous Macadam, about -9 
 
 Ordinary Macadam, .60 
 
 It will be seen that asphalt in Manhattan has cost a good deal more than in the 
 other Boroughs. This is because the specifications have heretofore been drawn to favor 
 special interests at the City's expense. 
 
 A comparison of 700 contracts made during the last six years in Manhattan and 
 Brooklyn shows that the additional cost per square yard in Manhattan has been 39C., 
 but when it is remembered that the cost for hauling is higher in Brooklyn, the distance 
 being greater, and that many of the streets of heavy traffic there are paved with 
 asphalt, it will be seen that 3Qc. may not represent the full loss per square yard. The 
 asphalt paving industry in this country in the past has often been corrupt and New 
 York has been one of the chief losers thereby. Improper relations have existed 
 between contractors and City officials and restrictive specifications were used which 
 prevented genuine competition and were an outrage upon the taxpayers. A taxpayer's 
 suit, Matthews vs. Keating, brought attention to the matter, and under Mayor Strong 
 a specification was adopted which permitted competition. 
 
 On May 2Oth, 1904, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment adopted a specifica- 
 tion, the result of which was to prevent all genuine competition. One week later, 
 May 27th, 1904, this order was rescinded so far as it affected Brooklyn, but it still 
 remained, and has remained in force in Manhattan up to about the present time. As a 
 result of this the City has lost a very large sum; just how much, we cannot say, but 
 probably as much as 400. per square yard on all the work that has been done during 
 the last six years. 
 
 Some idea of the extent of the loss can be gathered from the fact that 4oc. per 
 square yard, if calculated only upon the asphalt pavements which are now actually in 
 place in Manhattan, would amount to $2,603,917. The City's loss first and last must 
 have been several times this amount. 
 
 When the present administration came in it found this specification in force ; 
 measures were taken to discover what justification there was for it, and when it became 
 convinced that there was none, steps were taken to do away with it, and the necessary 
 action to that end was obtained from the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 39 
 
 ECONOMY AND FIRST COST. 
 
 When the importance of better methods of construction and the use of a 
 higher grade of materials for street work is urged upon our engineers, they 
 usually agree, but say that the cost would be greater; that when an appropriation 
 is made here for paving, the chief object to be attained is to spread the im- 
 provement over as great an area as possible; first cost taking precedence of 
 ultimate economy. They deplore this condition, but maintain that it exists and 
 that they are powerless to remedy it. 
 
 There is a good deal of truth in what they say, and the same difficulty will 
 exist to a certain extent, in almost any new community. Where large areas of 
 outlying property are to be laid out in streets and the cost of the improvement 
 assessed on the land, expensive pavements would often cost more than the 
 property could stand ; but this consideration should not apply to the older por- 
 tions of the City and especially to Manhattan. 
 
 Here the original pavements have practically all been laid; their cost was 
 borne by the property, benefited in the first place ; it now rests with the City at large to 
 maintain them and ultimate economy and efficiency should govern in replacing them. 
 
 There can be no greater fallacy than that cheapness in pavements means economy. 
 Our officials, in the past, have generally proceeded upon the theory that to 
 obtain the greatest area of pavement at the least outlay per square yard is to 
 work for the City's interest and there has been rivalry among some of them to 
 produce what was thought to be the best result of this kind. 
 
 Boulnois, formerly chief engineer of the City of Liverpool, says : It is an 
 absolutely proved fact that the pavement best suited to the traffic it is to 
 sustain is the most economical one to lay, regardless of first cost. 
 
 This fact has been proved over and over again by the experience of European 
 cities and it is accepted unconditionally by the highest authorities on paving. 
 
 In 1872, acting under the advice of its Chief Engineer, the Municipality of 
 Liverpool began laying the very best type of impervious stone block pavements, 
 as being the kind best suited to the traffic on its principal business streets; this 
 was done regardless of first cost, on the theory, as above stated, that the best 
 pavement would also prove the most economical. After forty years of the 
 continuous application of this policy, the result has been that the cost per mile 
 of maintaining the pavements of Liverpool in their present high state of effi- 
 ciency, including interest on the cost and all sinking fund charges, has fallen 
 about 25% below what it was before that policy was adopted and when inferior 
 pavements were in use; at the same time the gain to the community, through 
 the improved condition of the streets, has been too great to estimate. 
 
 The sooner we learn this same lesson the better. Pavements are not tempo- 
 rary affairs; when one is laid it is intended to be used until it is worn out; the 
 City must always maintain it; it is therefore manifestly for the City's interest to 
 use only that kind which shall give the best results at the least annual cost and 
 it is quite evident that no pavements built on defective lines can do this. Our 
 present methods are as extravagant as they are inefficient and the loss which results 
 therefrom to the community, would not be tolerated were its true proportions 
 known. 
 
 It is high time that we take heed of these matters. Are we so well suited 
 with our pavements that we are willing to continue making more of the same 
 kind? This is precisely what is going on now as our investigations have shown 
 and we think that a sharp halt should be called. 
 
40 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 There is no good reason why we should not profit immediately by the ex- 
 perience of Europe. We have bad pavements and most European cities have 
 good ones. Why then should we not adopt their methods so far as they are 
 applicable, and thus advance at one step to the point they have reached? Why 
 indulge in costly experiment to find out what is already perfectly well known 
 elsewhere? It would cost far less, save time and be much better to send our 
 engineers to investigate street work in places where it is good. The matter is 
 not so difficult but that it might be readily learned by intelligent men, of the kind 
 available, in a very short time. 
 
 ENGINEERING 
 
 Street paving is a branch of engineering which has been sadly neglected in 
 this country. Although many of our engineers engaged in it have had a good 
 education in general engineering, they have had no special training in the science 
 of paving except what they have been able to pick up for themselves in the 
 course of their duties. We have no schools devoted especially to paving and road 
 making such as the great ficole des Ponts et Chaussees of France; and so far as 
 we have been able to learn there are courses devoted entirely to it in few of our 
 technical schools. 
 
 Xo one can talk with our engineers in charge of paving in the various Boroughs 
 without being impressed by the fact that they are either groping in the dark in regard 
 to many important matters, each one trying to find out for himself what ought to be 
 done, or else proceeding along the old defective lines and simply doing as others 
 have done, here, before them. There are no fixed standards of excellence and little 
 or no knowledge of what is going on outside of the United States. 
 
 This is not intended as a reflection on these men, many of whom are of high 
 character and attainments, greatly interested in their work and sincerely desirous 
 of improving it by every means in their power. The fault lies with the system 
 and the lack of attention which has been given to this important study by our 
 technical schools and municipalities. 
 
 This lack of special knowledge relating to paving is costing the City very dear. 
 Our Departments of Public Works are trying to find out by costly experiments 
 many things which might easily be learned from Europe; or else spending vast 
 sums of public money on pavements that, because of inherent defects in their con- 
 struction, are doomed to failure before they are laid. Besides the loss to the 
 municipality which this policy involves, a heavy burden is thrown on the users of 
 the streets because of their rough surfaces and chronic condition of disrepair. It 
 is not too much to say that the tractive effort required in moving merchandise in Man- 
 hattan might easily be reduced by one-half if our pavements were of as good a quality 
 and maintained as well as those of many first-class European cities. What this 
 saving would amount to can only be conjectured, but that the sum would be 
 stupendous, no one can doubt. 
 
 One who has not made a careful study of the American methods of paving, in 
 comparison with those of Europe, can have but a faint conception of our backward- 
 ness, for instance : Although an immense amount of what is called "Durax"' in 
 England and "Kleinpflaster"' in Germany has been laid in Europe and especially 
 in Germany, it is doubtful if there is a single square yard of it in this country. 
 (See Fig. 3.) 
 
 Again: Years of study, experiment and observation have convinced the best 
 paving engineers of Europe that stone block pavements should not be grouted 
 with cement. This practice makes a hard, noisy pavement, difficult to repair, 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 41 
 
 having no resiliency whatever and one which when it is worn is altogether unsat- 
 isfactory. Yet our engineers are now beginning to use that method. In time, 
 they will discover, as the European engineers have done, that the practice is bad, 
 but why go to so much expense for the knowledge? A study of the pavements 
 of almost any English city would convince anyone that stone block pavements 
 should not be grouted with cement and the lesson could be learned in that way 
 for a tythe of what the same knowledge will cost under the present plan. 
 
 It would be perfectly easy to go on and fill page after page, with examples of 
 the antiquated and obsolete methods which our engineers are using in the work 
 they are doing and which might all be easily avoided by studying conditions and 
 practices in other countries which are more advanced in these matters than we 
 are; but to do so here would be but to repeat a great deal of what has been already 
 said under the heading "Defective Methods." 
 
 INSPECTION 
 
 It is perfectly evident to us after our investigations that if we are to have pave- 
 ments of a modern type, it will be necessary to infuse new life into the depart- 
 ments in charge of the work. Under the primitive methods heretofore used it was 
 not thought necessary that the inspectors should have any special technical train- 
 ing, and there are few of them who are competent to do things in a more scientific 
 way in the future than they have in the past. 
 
 Our engineers are intelligent men whose ideas, as regards paving, might easily 
 be brought up to date by a study of European pavements, and we have already 
 recommended that they should be sent at the City's expense to places in Europe 
 where the science of paving is most advanced; but even with the knowledge 
 which can thus be obtained they must have more highly trained assistants than 
 at present, and \ve are entirely of the opinion that there should be a large 
 number of inspectors appointed, who are qualified engineers and who can lay 
 out and superintend the work of paving in a scientific way. At present, in some 
 of the Boroughs, the inspectors receive four dollars a day and they are gen- 
 erally laid off during the winter months. If they were men of a higher grade, 
 properly equipped with the necessary technical training, they could be employed 
 most usefully during those months in assisting the Chief Engineer and in pre- 
 paring for the work which they would have to superintend during the rest of 
 the year. The most competent would rise to the higher positions in the service 
 to the great benefit of all concerned. 
 
 If there is any one thing more clear than another in regard to the paving 
 situation in this City, it is that we should break away from the old traditions 
 and defective methods which have given us our present pavements, and proceed 
 along modern and scientific lines. To do so requires a new element in the depart- 
 ments ; men without experience in paving; that is to say: without the kind of 
 experience which has been acquired here in the past ; inspectors who are bound 
 by no traditions of bad workmanship, but who are ambitious to do good work 
 in a modern way and who have the necessary technical training. Our Colleges 
 are turning out hundreds of young men every year who would be available for 
 this work, and these are the men that every City engineer whom we have seen, has 
 expressed a wish to employ. 
 
 But the Civil Service Commission holds a different view and has established 
 an age limit of 24 years, on the ground that the inspector should have expe- 
 rience. We believe that this is a mistake ; that the engineers are right and know 
 better what is wanted than the Civil Service Commission ; that the experience 
 
4 _ APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 which is needed is the kind which can be quickly acquired from the very able 
 men under whom they would work. At the age of twenty-four the ablest young 
 men from the Colleges have already found employment and they are not available 
 as they would be if they could be taken just after graduation. 
 
 STATISTICS OF TRAFFIC 
 
 It is impossible to overestimate the importance of obtaining reliable statistics of the 
 traffic to which roads and pavements are subjected. Without definite data of this 
 kind the engineer is at sea; instead of dealing with facts, he is reduced to guess work. 
 
 No small part of our backwardness in road building and paving is due to the fact 
 that we have never taken the trouble to accumulate the necessary information upon 
 which to intelligently base our work; there is an almost complete lack of statistics of 
 this kind. 
 
 In the most advanced European countries the information supplied by the statistics 
 of tonnage and wear is the guide in all work relating to roads and pavements. The 
 European engineer knows in advance what tonnage may be expected to pass through 
 a given street in a year and how much tonnage per yard of width the kind of pave- 
 ment he lays may be expected to sustain. 
 
 To ascertain these facts it is necessary to take actual count of the number and 
 kinds of vehicles passing given points on the roadways during certain intervals of time 
 and to roughly calculate their weight. 
 
 In France the importance of this is so well understood that enumerations of the 
 sort are made every sixth year throughout the whole country. The census is taken at 
 innumerable points on all the many thousands of miles of National and Departmental 
 roads, and lasts the entire year, the count being made every thirteenth day, so that it 
 shall fall on different days of the week, the better to strike a fair average. On the 
 National roads alone there are more than 5,000 points of observation. The enumeration 
 is made by the most reliable men in the road service from five and six o'clock in the 
 morning until nine o'clock in the evening; the night traffic is counted at less frequent 
 intervals. By means of the information thus obtained and the equally careful meas- 
 urements of wear, the engineer can work with certainty, for he knows the tonnage 
 which the roadway has carried at any point and how it has behaved under it. 
 
 All first-class European cities have similar systems in operation, and street work- 
 is done on a scientific basis, not on one of guesswork. The engineer knows how much 
 tonnage his pavement has been subjected to per yard of width and what it has cost 
 to sustain that tonnage ; he is thus able to determine the relative economy and value of 
 the different kinds of pavement used. 
 
 We are only just beginning to awake to the importance of obtaining such informa- 
 tion, and calculations of traffic tonnage are now being made in different parts of the 
 City, but not with that thoroughness which the importance of the matter demands, and 
 it will be many years before we can accumulate the data which our engineers ought 
 to have had long ago. 
 
 In 1872 one of the principal streets of Liverpool was paved in sections of equal 
 length with granite blocks taken from different quarries, each section to a quarry ; 
 this was done in order to determine which kinds of granite would be most advanta- 
 geous for the City to use. After five years, many of the granites showed unmistakable 
 signs of wear, and one kind was so worn down that it had to be replaced, being in 
 a ruinous condition, while that of an adjoining section was uninjured; even after 
 twenty-one years of the same usage, this latter kind was almost unaffected, and still 
 showed the original quarry irregularities on the faces of the blocks, the only indication 
 of wear being a slight rounding off of edges. This quality of granite was therefore 
 adopted for use by the City and is the only kind used there to-day. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 43 
 
 Could there be a more convincing illustration of the necessity for knowing the 
 wearing quality of the different kinds of granite used for paving purposes? 
 
 If certain sorts will not stand five years under a traffic which makes scarcely any 
 impression on another kind after 21 years, it is manifestly essential that the engineer 
 should be able to distinguish between them. In view of those facts is it not extraor- 
 dinary that our engineers should specify no definite qualifications for toughness and 
 wear, except such as can be ascertained by the general appearance of the material? 
 In none of the Boroughs has any definite test been required for granite used for 
 pavements while many millions of dollars have been spent on them. 
 
 It is perfectly practicable to fix a standard of toughness which can be determined 
 at a testing laboratory, and it is certain that no granite should be accepted for a 
 pavement in this City in the future until samples of it have been subjected to, and 
 satisfactorily withstood, such a test. 
 
 Mr. Brodie, City engineer of Liverpool, says : "It is now generally admitted by 
 those who have studied the question that the most reliable measure of the durability 
 of a road surface is its tonnage-life, or the total tonnage of traffic it will carry before 
 requiring a renewal of the surface ; any intelligent roadman can quite easily take a 
 census of the traffic passing along a given road and divide it into classes from which 
 approximate tonnage may be readily arrived at. 
 
 "In Liverpool it has been customary to take occasional records of the numbers 
 and classes of vehicles passing along the principal traffic streets, and to reduce those 
 records to a standard of tons of traffic per yard width of carriageway per annum ; and 
 a great point would be gained for the more accurate comparisons of wear and costs 
 of street and road surfaces if this standard which has long been in use and found 
 satisfactory could be universally adopted in this country. 
 
 "It is also important that, if possible, practical standards of wear should be arrived 
 at for the materials which can now be obtained in almost uniform quality and condition 
 from the best known quarries and other sources of supply, and it appears likely that 
 useful standard figures of wear based on actual results of tonnage-life over road 
 surfaces could, with a little co-operation, soon be fixed for each. 
 
 "The result of tests made in Liverpool has been to show that there is practically 
 only one type of material economically possible for all classes of stone road surface 
 in that district, and the splendid road materials coming from the Pennaenmawr and 
 other quarries in Caernarvonshire have proved to be not only the best and most 
 lasting, but at the same time happen also to be the cheapest stone available for streets 
 within cartage distance from the dock quay." 
 
 All this, except the last paragraph, applies with equal force here, and we are glad 
 to be able to say that the Borough President of Manhattan has promised to put down a 
 section of pavement on one of our principal streets of the kind of stone above men- 
 tioned and laid in precisely the same way that it is laid in Liverpool, so that the wear, 
 cut and appearance of the material can be observed in comparison with our granites. 
 We shall then have a gauge by which to determine whether we have any equally good. 
 
 We find that immense quantities of different kinds of pavement have been laid, 
 apparently, at random with no certain knowledge as to which is the best for the 
 money. In Queens Borough a great deal of asphalt block pavement has been laid at a 
 cost of about $1.75 per square yard, as against about $1.00 per square yard for sheet 
 asphalt. Is the block asphalt worth this difference of 75c. per square yard over the 
 sheet asphalt? No one seems to know; there appears to be no reliable information 
 upon which to base an opinion; no statistics showing the average tonnage life of each 
 are available ; but it appears on the face of it that a great amount of the City's money 
 has been wasted ; for, assuming that ten years is about the fair average life of either 
 of these pavements, then this 75c. per square yard additional which the block asphalt 
 costs would, with interest, amount to enough to pay for another new pavement of 
 sheet asphalt at the end of the term. 
 
44 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 One thing is perfectly clear from all this, viz.: The sooner our present methods are 
 reformed, and this kind of work placed on a scientific basis, the better for all concerned. 
 
 It must be admitted that we have no reliable statistics as a guide for our engineers 
 in street works now, and while we are obtaining them, why should we not take 
 advantage of what has been accomplished in places where such knowledge exists? 
 This could easily be done by sending some of our engineers to England, where enough 
 could be learned in a very short time to repay the City a thousandfold for the outlay. 
 If we proceed by our present methods it will cost many years of labor and millions 
 of dollars to acquire a knowledge which might be gathered in a few weeks abroad by 
 men of the high intelligence of many of those now in the employ of the City. 
 
 STREET OPENINGS, GUARANTIES AND REPAIRS. 
 
 When one speaks of improving our pavements he is generally met by the remark 
 that we can never have good ones because we tear them up so often. 
 
 While it is true that we do make street openings more frequently here than in 
 older countries where building is better done and where there is not the same necessity 
 that there is here to constantly rebuild, yet the fault does not lie so much in the 
 number of openings made as in the method of making them. 
 
 If one tried to devise the worst possible plan for doing this work, he could hardly 
 find a better model to follow than the New York method, for that insures the maxi- 
 mum expense, delay, inconvenience and trouble to every one concerned. 
 
 Responsibility for the work is divided among the person in whose interest the 
 opening is made, the City, and the contractor who originally laid the pavement. 
 After the work is done for which the opening was made, the earth is thrown in and 
 the pavement roughly restored, in which condition it lies for an indefinite period, 
 which may vary from two weeks to as many months, ostensibly to allow the earth 
 to settle ; when the contractor who laid the pavement in the first place finds time to 
 attend to it, he sends his men and restores it to a more or less perfect condition. 
 
 It can be readily understood what an amount of red tape and delay such a system 
 involves. There is no reason whatever why pavements should not be restored imme- 
 diately after the work is done for which they were opened. If the soil is carefully 
 rammed, every particle taken from an excavation can be put back into it again, and 
 this is true even in virgin soil. The notion that the street must remain open for the 
 earth to consolidate is preposterous, and causes an immense amount of inconvenience 
 and unnecessary expense, for such breaks in the pavement are a hindrance to traffic 
 and cause damage to vehicles and to the adjoining pavement. 
 
 All this trouble and delay might be avoided by placing the responsibility for all 
 street openings in the hands of the Borough President, whose duty it should be to 
 make the opening, close it, and restore the pavement. The person for whom the 
 opening was made should be charged with the cost of the work, and pay a heavy 
 penalty for any delay over a reasonable allowance of time for doing that for which 
 the opening was made. 
 
 A large part of the present trouble is caused by the vicious system of requiring 
 long guaranties from contractors to keep the pavement in order after it is laid, which 
 makes it necessary that they should have charge of restoring it after it has been 
 disturbed. This system is a source of great inconvenience to the public and loss to 
 the City. Of course, the City pays full price for any such guaranty. The contractors 
 add the estimated cost of keeping the pavement in repair for the time specified to the 
 amount of the bid, and whether repairs are made or not the City pays for them. 
 
 The fact that the pavement is put down under a guaranty tends to make supervision 
 by the City less stringent than it otherwise would be ; the contractor naturally tries to 
 make his pavement as cheaply as he can, and if it outlives his guaranty, that is all he 
 cares for. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 45 
 
 If repairs are required before the expiration of the term of the guaranty, the 
 contractor, if he does not shirk them altogether, often makes them unwillingly 
 and neither promptly nor well; even the best contractors like to wait until there is 
 enough to do to make it worth while to send their men and apparatus to the district 
 where the repairs are required. 
 
 If the work was done without guaranty except for the first year, and upon care- 
 fully drawn specifications to which the contractor was rigidly held, lower bids could 
 be obtained, and what repairs were necessary could be made promptly and well; 
 After a pavement is once laid the responsibility for its maintenance should be entirely 
 in the hands of the City. 
 
 The system of laying street pavements under a long guaranty is one of the very 
 worst features of our methods, and it has a great deal to do with the present condition 
 of the pavements in New York. 
 
 REPAIRS : 
 
 It is the opinion of every City engineer with whom we have conversed that the 
 various boroughs should have their own repair plants and that all repairs and all 
 street openings should be made by the City. 
 
 The only doubts which have been expressed as to the wisdom of doing away with 
 the long guaranties relate to asphalt pavements and to the fear that, with the City's 
 present inspection force there could be no certainty of its getting as good a pavement 
 without a guaranty as with one; but this difficulty might, in the opinion of some of 
 the engineers, be overcome by the employment of a competent chemical staff to inspect 
 and test the materials used. 
 
 There can be no doubt but that the establishment of these repair plants would 
 greatly lessen many of the present evils, and it is fortunate that a beginning has been 
 made in this direction. 
 
 THE STREET RAILWAYS AND THE PAVEMENTS 
 
 We have already called attention to the destructive effect of car tracks upon 
 pavements as they are constructed here. 
 
 In this City as in most others, both at home and abroad, the railway com- 
 pany is responsible for the pavement between its tracks and for a certain dis- 
 tance beyond them on both sides. 
 
 As it is not very practicable for the companies to lay these narrow strips 
 beyond the tracks, the work is generally included in the contract which the City 
 makes for the rest of the pavement, the traction company paying its share of 
 the cost; but the space between the tracks is generally paved by the railway 
 companies, without reference to any other consideration than their own in- 
 terests. These companies have discovered that granite pavements are more 
 economical for them than those of the composition or wood block types, so 
 that kind is usually laid, regardless of what the rest of the street may be paved 
 with. 
 
 This arrangement not only detracts very much from the usefulness of the 
 street, but is unsightly, unpleasant for traffic and destructive of the pavement. 
 It is well known that the more evenly the traffic is spread over the surface 
 of a pavement, the better the service it will give, and the longer its life will be. 
 If the street is divided into three strips, which happens when the center is 
 paved with a different material from the sides, then the inclination of the traffic 
 
46 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 is to keep to one of those strips, causing the wheels to run in nearly the same 
 place on each of them and producing excessive wear which soon destroys the 
 pavement. 
 
 The disadvantages of such an arrangement has long been recognized by the 
 paving engineers of Europe, for which reason the utmost pains are usually 
 taken, not only to keep the rails absolutely true and flush with the pavement, 
 but to avoid any suspicion of crowning between them ; in this they have suc- 
 ceeded so well, in most English cities, that there is no inclination whatever for 
 the wheels of vehicles to follow the tracks as they do here; and nothing could 
 better illustrate our backwardness in matters relating to paving than the fact 
 that we deliberately construct pavements so as to bring the wear upon them 
 where it will do the most harm. 
 
 It is well known here, as it is in Europe, that the movement of the rails by 
 expansion and contraction will open up the joints between them and any com- 
 position pavement which may abut them, causing leaks, and that such leaks are destruc- 
 tive of the pavement. (See Fig. 9.) This is one reason why the traction com- 
 panies prefer to pave between their tracks with granite. Notwithstanding this, our 
 City authorities let these pavements abut the rails. The difficulty is generally 
 avoided in Europe by providing a toothing of granite or brick along the tracks, 
 and this treatment, when carefully done, is entirely practicable and presents a 
 very attractive and workmanlike appearance. 
 
 All the City officials, with whom we have discussed the matter agree that 
 there is no branch of their work which is beset with so many difficulties as 
 their dealings with the railway companies; they find it very hard and often 
 impossible to induce them to co-operate in the matter of paving, and this lack 
 of co-operation causes the City great loss, and the people much inconvenience. 
 
 It seems highly desirable that some arrangement should be contrived whereby 
 the City may have the power to pave between the tracks, at the expense of the 
 railway companies. 
 
 As matters now stand, when a railroad is in the hands of a receiver, it is 
 quite impossible to have proper pavements between the tracks, as the traction 
 companies have no funds available for paving purposes, the amount which can 
 be spent being determined by the Public Service Commission. This con- 
 dition we found to exist in Queens Borough. 
 
 SMOOTHNESS 
 
 No quality which a pavement can possess is more important than smoothness. 
 Every irregularity in the surface is a source of weakness and of ultimate failure. As 
 the wheels are drawn over a road, the wear which they cause is almost in proportion 
 to the obstacles encountered. If the pavement is rough as our stone ones are, or if it 
 is broken, the wheels pound, and the pavement is subjected to heavy blows which soon 
 wear it away and otherwise destroy it. In almost all our stone pavements one can find 
 places where the blocks have actually been crushed or split from this cause. If the 
 pavement is of wood block, asphalt or any other composition material and the surface 
 is wavy, the depressions will hold water and speedily lead to failure; in such pave- 
 ments disintegration almost invariably commences in these places. In macadam roads 
 depressions of this sort are the chief cause of wear, and especially so since the intro- 
 duction of the automobile. The rapidly passing wheels throw out the standing water 
 with great violence, carrying with it the binder or fine stuff from between the stones, 
 thus causing the pot holes which make their appearance so rapidly on such roads 
 when subjected to heavy automobile traffic. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 47 
 
 In some places in Europe the smoothness of roads and pavements are tested by an 
 instrument called a "viagraph," which has somewhat the appearance of a sled (see 
 Fig. 40) ; it is fitted with a mechanism which is so contrived that when it is drawn 
 over a road surface, the irregularities are automatically recorded. (See Fig. 41.) 
 These instruments should be introduced here, and contracts for pavements should be 
 made upon the basis of a certain standard of smoothness to be determined by them. 
 
 It should be remembered that since the advent of the automobile, smoothness for 
 pavements is even a more important quality than it was formerly. The shock which 
 a swiftly moving vehicle receives when it meets an obstruction is much more violent 
 and destructive in its effects than if it were proceeding at a more moderate gait, and 
 no matter how the force of the blow may be disguised from those riding in the car by 
 springs, pneumatic tubes or otherwise, the destructive effect of the blow remains the 
 same and is absorbed by some part of the mechanism, causing injury either to the tires 
 or frame. 
 
 The loss sustained yearly by the citizens who use automobiles, by reason of the 
 roughness of our pavements, must be very great in the aggregate. 
 
 CURBS, GUTTERS AND SEWER INLETS 
 
 CURBS : 
 
 A peculiarly characteristic feature of our streets is the general shabby and 
 dilapidated appearance of the curbs. (See Fig. 42.) They are built on the same 
 mistaken notion as the pavements, viz., that cheapness stands for economy. 
 There is no need to say that curbs of the kind we make are not suited to the 
 work they have to perform. One has only to look at almost any curb which 
 
 I-'ig. 42. Curb in front of 107 Broad Street. This is an old curb and an extreme case, but it shows 
 how entirely unsuited blue stone is as a material for curbs and how unsightly they become. 
 
4 8 
 
 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 40. Yiagraph being drawn over macadamized road. This instrument is used for testing the 
 
 smoothness of roads. 
 
 Fig. 41. Mechanism of the Yiagraph. The pointer "I automatical!} 
 
 encountered in the road on the paper band "T." 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 49 
 
 PROFILE OF 
 ENGLISH CURB 
 
 .; .' CONCRETE: :.'' 
 
 PROFtLE. OF 
 
 CURB 
 
 has been in place a few years to see that it is broken, worn, oat of line and of 
 unsightly appearance. Our curbs are generally made of blue stone, very roughly 
 dressed, from five to six inches in thickness. These curbs cost from 75c to $r.oo 
 per running foot, have a comparatively short life, if kept in order, and a flimsy 
 and unsuitable appearance from the start. Granite curbs set in concrete would 
 cost from $1.25 to $2.00 per foot, would last several times as long and would give 
 to the pavements a finish and solidity which is now entirely lacking. 
 
 But even the best of curbs cannot stand well or retain their good appearance unless 
 they are properly designed, and ours seldom are. As we build them there is no slope 
 on the face to receive the impact of wheels which striking on the edge of the stone 
 soon wear it away and spoil it. The bad effects of this faulty design can be seen on 
 almost any curb which has been a year in place. In most European cities the curbs 
 are so cut that there is a bevel of an inch or more starting from the point where the 
 curb meets the pavement and sloping back to the surface of the sidewalk. (See Fig. 
 43. When wheels strike a curb of this sort they meet this sloping surface and the 
 upper edge of the stone is protected. 
 
 SEWER INLETS : 
 
 Nothing can better .illustrate the little ingenuity that has been brought to bear 
 on our street work than the arrangement of sewer inlets. These are generally on 
 the corner, where wheels can most readily run into them ; and are often de- 
 pressed as much as one foot and some are even eighteen inches below the level 
 of the adjacent pavement and are both dangerous and unsightly. (See Fig. 44.) 
 In certain places on Staten Island, instead of a single opening on the corner 
 there are two, one on each street at a little distance from the corner. When 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 44. Sewer inlet corner South and Broad Streets. This shows a typical sewer inlet at the corner 
 of a street precisely at the point where the wheels of vehicles turning the corner are 
 most apt to run into it. The depth of 14^ inches is not at all unusual, 
 there are many which are still deeper. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 Fig. 45. Sewer inlet at the corner of Fourth Avenue and 22d Street. This shows an attempt to- 
 
 remedy the defect illustrated in the last photograph. The iron grating answers the purpose 
 
 fairly well at first but in time the stone at the corner will wear away so that wheels 
 
 can find their way in between it and the grating. The appearance of the 
 
 stone shows how wheels run against it and how rapidly they wear it 
 
 away. This inlet is in the new Fourth Avenue pavement 
 
 and illustrates the careless workmanship in the 
 
 laying of the stones and the irregularity 
 
 of the shape of the blocks. 
 
 arranged in this way they can be made smaller and without the excessive de- 
 pression in the pavement which is so objectionable; but we believe they might just 
 as well be dispensed with altogether and the surface water run directly into the sewer, 
 the opening being protected by a grating. By this arrangement both the cost of the 
 basins and the expense of clearing them would be saved. Nothing which could find its 
 way through this grating would injure the sewer. 
 
 GUTTERS : 
 
 Several of our engineers have expressed a preference for gutters of a dif- 
 ferent material from the pavement. In most English cities where stone pave- 
 ments are used the gutter is formed of long flat stones called channels. These 
 are solidly bedded on a concrete foundation; they serve the double purpose of 
 forming a smoother runway for the water, and, with the substantial granite 
 curb, of imparting to the pavement an appearance of solidity and good work- 
 manship which is most attractive. 
 
 Our streets are generally so poorly graded that the gutters do not drain 
 properly and after a rain the water stands in shallow pools on them. This 
 standing water is very detrimental to most pavements and especially so to those 
 which are made of wood or asphalt. There is not much wear from traffic along 
 the gutters and if they were paved with brick or some other material, which 
 would not be affected by water, the appearance of the pavement might be im- 
 proved and its life prolonged by so doing. 
 
5 2 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 DIVIDED RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 No small part of the trouble with our pavements is due to divided responsibility 
 and to the lack of co-operation which exists between the various City departments 
 having to do with street work on the one hand and the street Railway Companies on 
 the other. It seems to us that the most sensible, and indeed the only practical way 
 to overcome these difficulties, is to make each Borough President responsible for all 
 the Public Work having to do with pavements which are carried within the limits of 
 his Borough, and that the paving between the car tracks be done by the City upon the 
 same plan which is now followed in paving the narrow strips outside the rails for 
 which the Railway Companies are responsible. We assume that these companies have 
 certain fixed rights, but with the present reasonable management it should not be 
 impossible to carry out such an arrangement. 
 
 It is manifestly impossible to fix responsibility if there is no one responsible head, 
 and it is perfectly apparent that as matters now stand there are many heads often 
 working at cross purposes. This system, or lack of system, involves many and vexatious 
 delays, a poor quality of work, endless annoyance and great loss. 
 
 We believe that the simplest plan to overcome the difficulty will prove the best, and 
 that the most simple one is to place the whole matter in the hands of the head of the 
 Borough, and hold him responsible. 
 
 GRANITE PAVING BLOCKS 
 
 One of the most striking points of difference between our methods and the 
 best European practice in the making of Granite pavements, relates to the size 
 of the blocks used and the way they are cut. Generally speaking, our blocks are 
 large and rough with a considerable variation in size, while the European block 
 is smaller and much more exactly cut. For many years in Europe there has been 
 a constant tendency towards the use of blocks of smaller size, and especially 
 so in Italy, Germany and England. In many Italian cities blocks of very small 
 size have long been used and these are often laid in combination with what the 
 English call "Wheelers," that is: long narrow block and smooth hard stone or 
 
 Cu6e 
 
 Jmprovcct //etu Vor/'c 
 Rvvinc? Slock . jj> , 
 
 Old Nenj )/orK 
 
 nil 
 
 act tke sa/me 
 
 rig. 46. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 53 
 
 granite, forming tracks on which the wheels of vehicles may run, while the 
 horses keep to the small stones which afford them a better foothold. 
 
 In some of the cities of Northern England, notably Liverpool, Birmingham 
 and Manchester, Granite block pavements have been perfected to a degree not 
 reached elsewhere. For streets of the heaviest traffic, oblong blocks are used 
 which measure about 6*4 inches deep, 3*4 inches wide and from five to seven 
 inches long. These proportions have been found to give the best results. The 
 stones should not be much longer than they are deep, otherwise they are liable 
 to tilt and become misplaced, or to crack. If they are wider than 3^ inches, 
 they do not afford a proper foothold for horses. Cubes of 4 inches and 3^ inches 
 have been largely used, but for heavy traffic they are only practicable when made 
 of the toughest material, otherwise they will crush. Recently cubes as small as 
 2*4 inches have been used, laid on a bed of Granite chips above a concrete base 
 and thoroughly grouted with pitch. (See Figs, i and 2.) It is needless to say that a 
 pavement of this sort can only be practicable when made of the very best quality 
 of Granite. If made of Granite as soft as has been used in New York in the 
 past, they could not stand, for the stones would crush. 
 
 Until quite recently Granite pavements were made of stones, which according 
 to the specifications were to measure from seven to eight inches in depth, from 
 3 l / 2 inches to 4^ inches in width and from seven inches to twelve inches in length, 
 and the joints allowed were three-quarters of an in inch wide. Here we have a variation 
 a full inch in the width and depth of the stone, or a permitted variation in cross 
 section of about 30%. In practice the variation in the size of the blocks often 
 exceeded this liberal allowance, and the joints often exceeded three-quarters of 
 an inch, as any one can see who will take the trouble to look at the blocks in 
 our pavements of this sort. 
 
 According to the Liverpool specifications the maximum deviation in the size 
 of the blocks is ^-i nc h in depth and breadth or a permitted variation of about 
 20%, and as the size of the stones is actually tested by callipers before acceptance, 
 the permitted variation is rarely exceeded. The width of the joints is only one- 
 half of what we allow. 
 
 Only recently, and following the agitation of the subject by the Paving Com- 
 mittee of the Fifth Avenue Association, our engineers have begun the use of 
 stones of smaller size than the old ones. These are specified to measure from 
 434 inches to 5*4 inches in depth; from 3^ inches to 4 l / 2 inches in width, and 
 to be from seven to eleven inches in length. Here we have again a permitted 
 variation of about 30%, in cross section. While the length of the block, eleven 
 inches, to its least permitted depth, 434 inches, is sure to result in failure by 
 the splitting of the stones under traffic, according to European practice, blocks 
 having a depth of 4^ inches should not be longer than about five inches. More- 
 over, the liberal allowance for variation in size which the specifications permits, 
 is exceeded in practice, as our investigations have shown. (See "Defective Methods," 
 also Fig. 46.) 
 
 In order to obtain the best terms for Granite blocks, the City should use 
 those of different sizes for different purposes. Instead of adopting one standard 
 size, as at present, there should be several, from 2% inch cube to a stone as large 
 as an English sett. By so doing the quarries would be enabled to use up all of 
 their material instead df wasting half of it as they do now, and there would not 
 be that temptation to "run in" blocks of irregular size which otherwise (under 
 the present plan), must be wasted. If it were known that there would be a 
 demand for paving blocks of these various sizes, the quarries would sort the 
 blocks as they were made, keeping each size by itself; in this way not only could 
 practically all the granite quarried be used, but blocks of uniform size could 
 always be had for any one particular piece of pavement. 
 
54 APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 THE IMPROPER USE OF THE STREETS BY PRIVATE INTERESTS 
 
 The chief offenders in this respect are builders, transportation companies, 
 dealers in country produce and pushcart men. The streets were built and are 
 maintained at the cost of the taxpayers and they should be preserved for the 
 use of the public. 
 
 The occupancy of the roadway in front of new buildings by contractors is 
 unnecessary and should not be allowed. The benefit which this misuse of public 
 property affords to the individual is far more than offset by the inconvenience it 
 occasions to the public and the injury which it does to the streets. Neither should 
 building contractors be allowed to damage pavements and leave them in that 
 condition until the completion of the work. Notable instances of this kind can 
 be seen on Broadway opposite the Post-Office at the present time (see Figs. 47 and 
 48), and on the streets around the new Municipal Building at the other side of the 
 Citv Hall Park. 
 
 17. -Mrnadway !>rt\w-rn lian.-lay Street and Park Place, looking northeast from Mavclay ti 
 
 and showing twisted car tracks, due to sinking of the street near the center of the 
 
 block, and along the western side of the street. January 3. 1912. 
 
APPENDIX TO REPORT. 
 
 55 
 
 The municipality has constructed at vast expense a broad marginal street 
 along the North River which ever since its completion has been monopolized to 
 a great extent by private interests and rendered well-nigh useless to the public. 
 
 The dealers in country produce cumber the sidewalk in many of the streets, 
 especially in the lower part of the City, and line the roadway with wagons which 
 
 ig. 48. Hroaciway between ISarclay Street and Park Place, looking east across Broadway and 
 
 showing the irregular surface. 
 
 often stand in the sanie place for more than twelve hours at a time, hindering 
 traffic and interfering with the proper clearing of the streets. 
 
 Pushcart men line the roadway of certain streets with their stands and other- 
 wise interfere with traffic in other parts of the City. 
 
 The use of the streets for such purposes is illegitimate and should not be 
 allowed. 
 
57 
 
 REPORT OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE 
 ON PRESENT CONDITION OF PAVEMENTS 
 
 Your Sub-Committee on the Present Condition of Pavements has made a general 
 investigation of the pavements in Manhattan, Brooklyn and The Bronx and reports 
 thereon as follows : 
 
 While your Committee has not undertaken to make a comprehensive survey of 
 all of the pavements, it has passed over a considerable number of the principal 
 streets, and is able to summarize the general conditions and to set forth some of the 
 apparent causes of the defects noted. 
 
 STONE PAVEMENTS 
 
 These may be conveniently divided into the Ancient Type, the Intermediate Type, 
 and the Present Type. 
 
 ANCIENT TYPE. This designates granite and Belgian block, laid on sand. No new 
 pavement of this class has been laid for several years, the type having been abandoned 
 as unsuitable, but upwards of 177 miles were in service, at the beginning of 1911, 
 exclusive of that in the Borough of The Bronx (the data for which is not obtainable). 
 This is divided as follows : 
 
 Manhattan 22 miles 
 
 Brooklyn 123 " 
 
 Queens 29 " 
 
 Richmond 3 " 
 
 Practically all of this pavement in the various boroughs is in intolerable condition, 
 because of fundamental defects inherent in the type, which preclude permanence of 
 alignment and make impracticable the maintenance of even a reasonably smooth sur- 
 face. Although repairs are constantly in progress, they result only in the removal 
 of some of the most aggravated or dangerous defects and do not produce any 
 approximation to a good pavement. Outlays for maintenance upon these pavements 
 is highly uneconomical, as the result is of little benefit and the need for further outlay 
 is continuous. The entire extent of these radically poor pavements should be removed 
 and be replaced by a better type as speedily as possible. 
 
 A number of the cross streets in Lower Manhattan have this obsolete type of 
 pavement. The pavements in these streets are continuously in extremely bad condition, 
 despite the fact that frequent and extensive so-called repairs have been made during 
 several years past. It would probably be impossible to find an extent of ten feet any- 
 where in any of these streets where the surface conforms to the proper profile, and 
 nearly every square yard contains protrusions or depressions, frequently of several 
 inches extent. These Defects are greatly aggravated by the condition of the manhole 
 settings and covers which are more fully discussed below. 
 
 The defective condition of stone pavements on sand, outlined above, is characteristic 
 of and general to those pavements wherever found. It is not due to laxity or 
 neglect on the part of the present administration but to inherent fundamental defects 
 which cannot be cured or effectively palliated. The only remedy is new pavements of 
 better type. 
 
58 PRESENT CONDITION OF PAVEMENTS. 
 
 THE INTERMEDIATE TYPE. One prime defect of stone pavements on sand \vas an 
 unstable foundation. To overcome this difficulty concrete foundations were adopted 
 in the Intermediate Type of Pavement; and all the stone pavements laid in this 
 City in recent years have been on concrete. 
 
 The old pavement, however, had other serious defects, and all these, without 
 exception, were continued in the Intermediate Type. These defects are : 
 
 (a) Large size of blocks 
 
 (b) Irregularity of blocks 
 
 (c) Too wide joints 
 
 (d) Imperfect grouting of blocks 
 To these were added 
 
 (e) Defective concrete in foundation 
 
 (f) Imperfect surfacing of concrete 
 
 Because of the imperfect surfacing of the concrete foundation and the irregularity 
 of the bottom surface of the blocks, a sand cushion of one inch or more is required 
 to bed the block, and this frequently permits the block to ride or tilt, because of its 
 uneven bottom surface and unequal bottom support. It also tends to an uneven upper 
 surface. Because of the depth of the block, the grout chills before reaching the 
 bottom and does not cement the bottom properly. This, together with the wide 
 joints, permits slight motion of the blocks which opens the joints and permits the 
 percolation of moisture. If the concrete be poor, as is often the case, some disintegra- 
 tion follows, the soil below is softened, and settling of the surface follows. Wide 
 joints also cause increased rounding of the edges of the block, and thereby produce 
 a markedly ridged surface in place of the more nearly plane surface produced by 
 small blocks. 
 
 While, therefore, the Intermediate Type, by reason of the substitution of concrete 
 for sand foundation has resulted in a substantially improved surface, it still retains 
 important characteristic defects, which are evident wherever it has been in use for 
 a few years, and which are sufficient to condemn its continued use. 
 
 Until very recently this type of pavement large, rough granite blocks of irregular 
 dimensions, laid with wide joints, on concrete has been accepted as a wholly acceptable 
 substitute for the earlier discredited granite and sand pavement. 
 
 Although a great improvement over the older type, it is still far from ideal. Of 
 this pavement Manhattan has 87 miles and Brooklyn 44 miles. Typical examples 
 may be seen in Broadway between Chambers and Canal Streets and in Lafayette Street 
 where the characteristic defects noted above may be observed. 
 
 While the general surface of these streets is fairly uniform, numerous defects 
 in detail are found at close intervals. Occasional slight depressions indicate a slight 
 breaking down of the foundation. These are especially observable along the street 
 car rails, at cross walks, and about manhole openings. The joints are wide and 
 irregular, and in consequence the surface is much ridged in places, owing to wear at 
 the edges. In streets of very heavy traffic, these defects are emphasized, and the 
 surface is generally uneven. 
 
 PRESENT TYPE. This designates stone pavements recently laid upon concrete founda- 
 tions, composed of granite blocks considerably smaller in all dimensions than those 
 formerly used, more carefully dressed, having narrower joints, and well grouted. 
 This type has been adopted in Manhattan. Brooklyn and The Bronx, and it has 
 been laid in several streets in each Borough. It recognizes and avoids some of 
 the defects of the Intermediate Type, and if laid in strict accordance with speci- 
 
PRESENT CONDITION OF PAVEMENTS. 59 
 
 fications, doubtless provides a standard of stone pavements higher than any hitherto 
 used in this City It is nevertheless open to criticism in certain details of construction, 
 which are explained by another Committee. 
 
 Examples of this pavement are those in Fourth Avenue and Mulberry Street. Their 
 surface in general is much smoother and more uniform than that of any preceding 
 stone streets. In the case of Fourth Avenue, however, frequent depressions are 
 already observable although the pavement is almost new along the street-car rails, 
 due either to poor construction or defective specifications. 
 
 Pavements of this class observed in Brooklyn and The Bronx showed uniform 
 and relatively smooth surface, and were in excellent condition. 
 
 None of this new pavement has yet been subjected to a long enough test to demon- 
 strate its ability to maintain a uniform surface under traffic conditions. 
 
 ASPHALT PAVEMENTS 
 
 The extent of asphalt pavement in use in this City at the beginning of 1911 was 
 approximately as follows : 
 
 Sheet Block 
 
 Manhattan 260 miles 53 miles 
 
 Brooklyn 395 " 26 " 
 
 Bronx 39 " 49 
 
 Queens 20 " 10 
 
 Richmond ^2 " g l /2 " 
 
 Assuming originally good construction, the chief problem connected with this 
 class of pavements is effective maintenance of the surface. This comprehends : 
 
 (a) Defects caused by traffic 
 
 (b) Openings for sub-surface construction 
 
 (a) DEFECTS CAUSED BY TRAFFIC. 
 
 At the present time these are relatively few compared with conditions of former 
 years. In a trip of some sixty miles in Brooklyn not more than half a dozen traffic 
 holes were noted, and those were small and recent. In this respect the surface of 
 the asphalt pavements was in admirable condition, indicating effective inspection and 
 prompt repair. In Brooklyn a municipal asphalt repair plant is in operation, by means 
 of which the Borough President is enabled to promptly enforce the maintenance 
 obligations of contractors, formerly enforcible only after considerable delay. It should 
 also be noted that most of the asphalt pavements of Brooklyn are comparatively 
 new, that the traffic is relatively light, and that difficulties of maintenance are there- 
 fore not so great as in Manhattan. 
 
 A survey of the avenues and many of the cross streets in Manhattan below I35th 
 Street showed that, with relation to traffic defects, the condition of most of the asphalt 
 pavements is fair. With certain exceptions noted below, not many traffic holes were 
 found to exist. No large or old traffic holes (aside from those on the streets 
 excepted) were noted, and repair gangs were seemingly keeping closely up with their 
 work. Members of your Committee who in previous years several times minutely 
 inspected every street in, Manhattan are qualified to compare existing conditions of 
 maintenance with those of the past, and to state that so far as traffic defects are 
 concerned the asphalt pavements of Manhattan are far better than in former years. 
 
 An exception to this general condition is 7th Avenue South of 23rd Street, whose 
 surface is extremely bad. The pavement was laid nearly ten years ago and the 
 asphalt is so far decomposed as quickly to disintegrate under the action of moisture. 
 Constant and general repairs are necessary to maintain the surface in even approxi- 
 
60 PRESENT CONDITION OF PAVEMENTS. 
 
 mately smooth condition. This process of constant repairing required by the age and 
 wornout condition of the pavement, was recently intermitted for a short time, with 
 the result that numerous holes speedily developed and at the time of observation the 
 surface generally, over the area indicated, was in very defective condition. This was 
 due to the fact that the responsible contractors had recently retired from business, 
 and had sub-let the maintenance to another contractor whose equipment at the 
 moment was inadequate. Immediately following our inspection the Borough President 
 served a notice requiring summary repairs, which have since been made. 
 
 (b) OPENINGS FOR SUB-SURFACE CONSTRUCTION. 
 
 In former years openings made by plumbers and in connection with building 
 operations were permitted to continue unrepaired indefinitely, and existed in great 
 numbers. The conditions in this respect have greatly improved. Relatively few 
 service openings were observed, and those seen were obviously new, indicating 
 that openings of this class are no longer neglected for a considerable time, but 
 are repaired with reasonable promptitude upon completion of the underground 
 work. 
 
 Openings made by public service corporations likewise appear as a rule to be 
 repaired with an improved degree of promptness, few instances of neglect in this 
 particular having been observed. Certain apparent exceptions were, however, 
 noted. 
 
 One of these was in Greenwich Avenue where a large extent of pavement 
 throughout two blocks had been torn up to find a gas leak a case of emergency. 
 The extent of the destruction and the otherwise bad condition rendered it desirable 
 to repave the entire street instead of repairing it, and before so doing to effect 
 the removal of the unused car tracks. The preliminaries necessary to this action 
 were pushed as rapidly as possible, but could not be completed in time to permit 
 the new pavement to be laid before cold weather. As soon as this became evident, 
 orders were given for the temporary resurfacing of the defective places, and this 
 has since been done. 
 
 Openings made by the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity are 
 frequent in the lower part of the City where the installation of the high-pressure 
 service has been in progress. The restoration of the pavements is provided for 
 by contracts made by the Water Commissioner, over whose terms the Borough 
 President has no effective control. The process of restoration is therefore very 
 dilatory, and much of the complaint of bad pavements is due to this cause, namely, 
 the delay of contractors employed by and responsible to the Water Department. 
 
 In a lesser degree the same criticism applies to the operations of the Fire 
 Department in its installation of new fire-alarm connections. The work is carried 
 on without regard to public convenience and without reference to the physical 
 possibility of prompt replacement of the pavement. In this work it was recently 
 proposed, in the Borough of Manhattan, to make over 1,000 openings at one time, 
 at the beginning of the Winter, most of which would of necessity have remained 
 open until Spring. 
 
 STREET RAILWAYS 
 
 In all parts of the City observed by your Committee, particularly in Brooklyn, 
 the condition of the pavements between and adjacent to street railway tracks is 
 in general inferior and often decidedly defective. 
 
 There is seldom any considerable extent of these pavements whose surface is 
 fairly uniform with that of the remainder of the street. In the case of asphalt 
 pavements, that portion immediately in contact with the rails, is usually more or 
 less disintegrated, at frequent intervals sunken below the level of the rail-head, 
 
PRESENT CONDITION OF PAVEMENTS. 61 
 
 small ruts along the outer edges of the rails are common, and at crossings, the 
 surface is generally badly broken. 
 
 In the case of stone pavements the tiers of blocks next the rails seldom maintain 
 their proper surface, even the newest pavements showing some depressions and 
 inequalities at this point, because the blocks have no proper support against the rails. 
 In the older stone pavements sunken blocks, considerable depressions and general 
 inequality are frequent. 
 
 These defects are often present, within the track area, in streets whose condi- 
 tion otherwise is satisfactory, from which it may be assumed that the maintenance 
 of the track area (which is delegated to the street railways) is not as effectively 
 cared for as the adjacent areas under the direct care of the Borough President. 
 
 The care of the pavements within and bordering the tracks is a franchise 
 obligation of the companies. The obligation of repair can only be enforced by 
 the Borough President after thirty days' notice, and under this limitation defects 
 continue much longer than should be permitted. 
 
 MAN-HOLES 
 
 The variations in the types of man-hole frames and covers, and their unequal 
 projection is one of the gravest defects in the pavements of Manhattan. This is 
 particularly true as to stone pavements. 
 
 In some cases both the frame and cover project above the general level of the 
 surrounding pavements. Immediately adjacent may be seen others which are 
 below the general level. The result is an alternation of hillock and depression, 
 with ruts and holes due to the unequal impact of traffic. Occasionally several 
 man-holes of varying types may be found closely grouped, no two of which are in 
 true relation to each other or to the surface. An example of these defects may be 
 seen at the intersection of Leonard and Lafayette Streets. 
 
 An objectionable type of man-hole cover in use in Manhattan, is dish-shaped 
 or concave, so that even if the frame is in proper plane, the cover itself makes an 
 abrupt depression two inches in depth. No valid reason for permitting the use of this 
 type of cover can be given. 
 
 A marked contrast in this particular is seen in Brooklyn where the man-hole 
 frames are accurately surfaced with the pavement, and covers of a uniform type, 
 flush with the frame and the pavement, are in use in the newer pavements. 
 
 Your Committee believes that the excellent and commendable condition of the 
 asphalt pavements in Brooklyn is in large degree due to the existence of a city 
 asphalt repair plant in that Borough, through whose operation the Borough Presi- 
 dent is enabled to enforce prompt performance by maintenance contractors of 
 their obligations. 
 
 In the Borough of Manhattan while the Borough President has of late been 
 able to secure fairly prompt repairs by contractors, instances have arisen as set 
 forth above in which this has not been the case. A city repair plant will un- 
 doubtedly greatly strengthen the ability of the Borough President in this respect. 
 
 Your Committee is further informed that while the aggregate plants of the 
 maintenance contractors under obligation to the City are entirely adequate to 
 effect prompt repairs 'during the Summer and Fall, they are not adequate, under 
 present methods, to promptly cope with the cumulated defects which follow the 
 Winter season, during which few if any repairs are made. Your Committee cannot 
 endorse the continuous omission of repair work during the Winter. Asphalt pave- 
 ments, especially if old or of inferior quality disintegrate rapidly under the action 
 of continued moisture and cold, and in consequence a general condition of disrepair 
 
62 PRESENT CONDITION OF PAVEMENTS. 
 
 is almost certain to exist in the early Spring. At this time the demands for 
 repairs are considerably beyond the immediate capacity of some of the contractors, 
 having the care of a large extent of pavement, while others having much less 
 extent have a portion of their plant idle. 
 
 In consequence of this uneven distribution and the restriction of the repairs 
 upon certain streets to specified contractors, the work is protracted during a 
 considerable period, during which the public justly complain of the condition of 
 the streets. 
 
 The only cure for this condition is either the abolition of maintenance contracts 
 or their modification in such form as to permit the entire available force of all 
 the contractors to be employed wherever their services are needed. Your Com- 
 mittee is unable to express an opinion as to whether or not this is practicable. 
 
 F. B. DE BERARD, 
 JOHN C. EAMES, 
 ROBERT GRIER COOKE, 
 RICHARD W. MEADE. 
 January 24, 1912. 
 
REPORT OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE 
 ON THE CONTROL OF STREET OPENINGS AND REPAIRS 
 
 Your Committee has held a number of meetings, its members have had personal 
 interviews with some of the City officials and have been assisted by an engineer, 
 Mr. Thomas S. Griffin, and by the preliminary reports of the Sub-Committee on 
 Legislation. 
 
 Section 391 of the Charter gives each Borough President, within his Borough, 
 control over the making of openings in the streets and the repairing of pavements 
 excepting only such street surfaces as are under the jurisdiction of the Park, Dock 
 and Bridge Departments. His permit must be obtained before the surface of any 
 street under his control can be opened or disturbed by private citizens, corporations 
 or city departments. This power is subject to the ordinances and regulations passed 
 by the Board of Aldermen and the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, but we do 
 not find any ordinance or regulation that hampers the Borough Presidents in this 
 matter. 
 
 In all of the Boroughs, except Queens, a system of street inspection under the 
 Borough President, is established. In Queens a system is now being devised. Each of 
 these four Boroughs is divided into districts and Inspectors assigned to each District 
 are required to report encumbrances upon and defects in or injuries to the pave- 
 ments and to see that permits to make cuts in the pavements or to store building 
 material in the street are not violated. In Manhattan and Brooklyn this work is 
 naturally more subdivided than in the Bronx and Richmond, but a detailed statement 
 of the method pursued in each separate Borough is unnecessary. The chief defects 
 in controlling street openings and repairs are : 
 
 (1) The latitude allowed to or assumed by other city departments in making and 
 refilling openings in the streets. 
 
 (2) The requirements that the street railroads shall keep in permanent repair the 
 pavement between and for two feet outside of their tracks. 
 
 (3) The so-called maintenance contracts, i. e., agreements by contractors who laid 
 the pavement to maintain it in good repair for a period of years. 
 
 (4) The neglect to so refill both large and small openings that the permanent 
 pavement can be at once replaced. 
 
 (5) The apparent inability of the inspectors to recognize as a real defect any 
 hole, roughness or irregularity in the pavement unless it is actually dangerous to 
 vehicles, horses or pedestrians. 
 
 (6) Failure to compel citizens or corporations to repair defects, promptly. 
 
 (7) Employment as inspectors of men who are paid $4 a day and laid off when 
 not working. 
 
 FIRST : The Department of Water Supply, Gas & Electricity and the Fire Depart- 
 ment obtain many permits from the Borough Presidents to open the streets. On 
 account of the importance of their work their applications are rarely denied and the 
 requirement that they make application is in practice hardly more than a formality. 
 The contractors under these Departments agree not only to dig the trenches and lay 
 
64 CONTROL OF STREET OPENINGS AND REPAIRS. 
 
 the pipes, wires or conduits but also to refill the trenches, replace the pavement 
 temporarily and frequently to permanently repave. On streets under maintenance 
 contracts the guarantor does the permanent repaying at the expense of the contractor 
 making the excavation. The specification in some of these contracts that the pavement 
 shall be restored in a manner satisfactory to the Borough President does not 
 accomplish that result and the Borough Presidents exercise practically no control over 
 this work. 
 
 In order to get a good pavement over these trenches they must be properly back 
 filled, that is, a proper quality of dirt must be used and thoroughly rammed; other- 
 wise the ground will settle after the pavement has been restored. The contractors are 
 only interested in digging the trench, laying the pipes and conduits and back filling 
 as rapidly as possible, provided the back fill looks all right. They never back fill so 
 that the permanent pavement can be at once restored, but a temporary pavement of 
 loose stones, etc., that wagons and horses can go over is put on the top of the trench 
 and after some weeks when the traffic has had an opportunity to consolidate the 
 ground the permanent pavement is relaid. Frequently depressions develop in the 
 permanent pavement along the line of the trench, and in any event there is a long 
 period when there is a stretch of bad pavement and all this time the adjacent good 
 pavement is subject to unnecessary injury. The law should require that these 
 trenches be so back filled that the permanent pavement can be at once restored. 
 
 It has been suggested that the Borough Presidents now have sufficient authority 
 to require this back filling to be performed in a proper manner. In fact, however, 
 no such authority is exercised. 
 
 This matter can be corrected by an amendment to the Charter, providing that 
 no City Department outside of the Borough Presidents and no citizen or corporation 
 which obtains a permit to make an opening in the street shall make any contract 
 requiring a contractor to back fill or shall on his or its own account refill an opening 
 or cut in the street, but that all such work and all relaying of pavement except of 
 course the relaying of pavements in streets under maintenance contracts shall be 
 done by employes of the Borough President. 
 
 This would require a larger force than the Borough Presidents now have, but at the 
 present time the Borough President's employes refill and relay the pavements on many 
 small cuts, and if they were required to do this work on all openings, it would fix the 
 responsibility for bad pavements much more plainly than is now the case. They would 
 have sole charge and it would be for their interest to see that the entire work was 
 well done. 
 
 SECOND: By Sec. 178 of the Railroad Law, the street railways are required to keep 
 in permanent repair the space between their tracks and two feet on each side. Some 
 of the franchises and charters also contain provisions as to such paving. Where a 
 railroad fails to make repairs, the Borough President sends notice requiring the 
 repair to be made, and if this notice is not obeyed in thirty days, he is authorized to 
 go ahead and make the repairs at the railroad's expense. In many streets, therefore, 
 there is a wide space which the Borough President has only a limited authority to 
 repair. The railroads are not zealous to correct defects which they do not consider 
 dangerous to traffic. In any event, they have thirty days after notice, and if then 
 in default the Borough President has only a limited amount of money with which 
 to do the work. To instance one case we understand that a suit by the City is now 
 pending against one street railroad to recover over $9,000 for such work which was 
 done on Jamaica Avenue. The amount which the City will recover and when it will 
 get the money is decidedly problematical. Again the Receivers of the Manhattan Street 
 railroads did not consider that they had authority to make such repairs. 
 
CONTROL OF STREET OPENINGS AND REPAIRS. 65 
 
 These provisions of the law are entirely unsuited to the conditions in this city. 
 The whole surface of the street ought to be under the control of the Borough Presi- 
 dent, and he should be responsible for all paving and repairing. We suggest that the 
 City officials agree with the Companies that this paving be done by the City at the 
 expense of the railroads. Pending such agreement, we think that Sec. 178 should be 
 amended so that in this City the railroads must comply with the Borough President's 
 order within five days, instead of within thirty days, and that all repairs and repaving 
 by the railroads be actually clone under the inspection and supervision of the 
 Borough President. 
 
 THIRD: Many of the wood and asphalt pavements are laid under contracts by 
 which the contractor agrees to keep the pavement in repair for a number of years. 
 The more recent contracts fix a maintenance period of five years. Where a defect 
 appears in such a pavement a notice is sent to the contractor, but he does not make 
 the repair until other defects have developed in the same neighborhood so that 
 there is enough work in a small area to pay for sending a gang of men with the 
 necessary tools, supplies and roller. In future no pavements should be laid under 
 contracts which require maintenance for more than a year and adequate inspection 
 should be provided to compel compliance with the specifications when the pavement is 
 laid. It is possible for each Borough President to maintain a force of competent and 
 honest inspectors who will compel each contractor to obey the specifications. At least, 
 it should be attempted. 
 
 FOURTH : It is a very general practice to back fill both large and small trenches, 
 make some sort of a temporary covering on the dirt and wait for considerable periods 
 of time for the ground to settle before permanently repaving. With proper care 
 the dirt can be replaced in all trenches and sufficiently consolidated to make it safe 
 and expedient to relay the permanent pavement at once. This practice of waiting 
 before permanently repaving is a great source of inconvenience, dust and injury 
 to vehicles, and is also unnecessarily expensive because during the period that the 
 traffic is passing over the refilled but unpaved trench the edges of the adjacent good 
 pavements are being broken, the foundation suffers injury and the area of pave- 
 ment that must be relaid is constantly increasing. 
 
 FIFTH : We submitted to the Borough President's office in Manhattan a request 
 for a report on five separate defects which obviously called for immediate repair. 
 We received the following reply : 
 
 "December 20, 1911. 
 Memorandum for Assistant Commissioner: 
 
 Greemvich Avenue, between "jth and 8th Avenues. Mainly cuts made by the 
 Consolidated Gas Company in overhauling services which were in bad con- 
 dition. The relaying of a foundation pavement was started December 14, 1911, 
 as soon as the Gas Co. had gotten off the street, and these are being asphalted 
 to-day. 
 
 Broadivay and Barclay Street. There is nothing dangerous at this inter- 
 section. Broadway, from Barclay Street to Park Place has settled considerably 
 because of the excavation for the Woolworth Building. This will be remedied 
 by the contractors for the above building as soon as the front wall can be 
 built to the street level. This settlement extends to the sidewalk around the 
 Post Office I am informed that the Federal authorities have arranged a 
 contract for a new sidewalk on the east side of Broadway but will not begin 
 the work until the Woolworth Building is far enough advanced to prevent 
 further settlement. 
 
 Broadzi'ay and Grand Street. Nothing dangerous at this point. The track 
 on Broadway, south of Grand Street, has settled and the railroad company has 
 
66 CONTROL OF STREET OPENINGS AND REPAIRS'. 
 
 applied for a permit to raise this track, but as it is not dangerous, we are 
 trying to postpone the tearing up of this portion of Broadway until better 
 weather for good progress on this work. 
 
 Nassau and Bcckman Streets. Can find no fault here other than a slight 
 adjustment of the wood block pavement adjacent to the new asphalt on Nassau 
 Street. This was receiving attention and the concrete has been placed. The 
 wood block pavement will be laid very shortly. 
 
 Park Row and Municipal Building. The pavement conditions here have 
 been due to the work of the Bridge Department in the construction of the 
 new Municipal Building. That Department has had the pavement put in good 
 condition but will not replace the permanent pavement until further sub-surface 
 work has been done." 
 
 Thus in two out of the five instances the report starts with the statement that 
 there is "nothing dangerous" at the point. The defects at Beekman and Nassau 
 Streets were depressions in the wood block pavement on Beekman Street but they 
 extended practically the whole width of Nassau on the north side of Beekman 
 and were sufficient to severely jolt any carriage, truck or automobile passing along 
 Nassau. They were therefore defects in the line of a short street that had just 
 been repaved with asphalt at great inconvenience to the travelling public and store- 
 keepers. Repairs were made shortly after the report but similar though smaller 
 depressions now exist on the line of the south intersection of Beekman with Nassau, 
 which are daily growing larger and need immediate repair. 
 
 The condition of Broadway from Park Place to Barclay may not be technically 
 "dangerous" but it is disgraceful. We see no reason why this condition should 
 continue until the contractors for the Woolworth Building are ready to correct it. 
 This street should be kept in good condition even if repairs have to be made, at 
 the contractor's expense, several times during the progress of their building opera- 
 tions. Now the condition will probably continue until spring. 
 
 The actual condition of the pavements in Manhattan shows both that the In- 
 spectors do not consider as defects roughnesses, holes and imperfections, unless of 
 sufficient size to be actually dangerous to the traffic, and that they do not insist on 
 sufficient promptness on the part of persons and corporations whose duty it is to 
 repair defects. Their standards in both respects should be raised. 
 
 SIXTH : A considerable number of men are employed as inspectors of work on 
 the pavements at the rate of $4 a day and are laid off without pay when there is no 
 work for them, particularly in the winter. 
 
 Competent and efficient men cannot be obtained on this basis. The inspectors 
 should be men of sufficient education and experience to be employed by the year at a 
 reasonable salary and during the winter season when the work on the streets is 
 reduced to a minimum they could be profitably employed at indoor work in the 
 offices of the Bureaus of Highways. 
 
 SEVENTH : We have also considered the question of restricting by law the length 
 of street that can be opened at one time for the purpose of laying pipes, building 
 sewers and similar work. We are advised that an absolute restriction is not feasible 
 because of the unexpected and unmapped pipes, sewers or other subsurface structures 
 that are constantly discovered in doing such work and because short stretches 
 of rock or the lack of a special piece of pipe or other appliance sometimes 
 makes it necessary to keep a trench open after the rest of the work is finished. 
 We suggest that a maximum be fixed by law and if the contractor has to keep open 
 a longer trench he should pay a fixed fee for each day the excess is open. 
 
CONTROL OF STREET OPENINGS AND REPAIRS. 67 
 
 EIGHTH : In Brooklyn, the City owns an asphalt repair plant which is operated 
 under the authority of the Borough President. This has worked satisfactorily and 
 has been of much assistance in securing prompt repair of defects due to wear and to 
 small openings. In Manhattan, a similar repair plant has been authorized and will 
 undoubtedly be of substantial assistance. In the matter of small openings in the 
 pavements like plumbers' cuts, making water and gas connections with houses, etc., 
 charging a fee for the permit in addition to the amount required to replace the pave- 
 ment would be advisable. It would produce some revenue and would considerably 
 reduce the number of openings. Furthermore the permit should be for a fixed time 
 with provision for an extra charge if the time is extended. 
 
 AARON C. THAYER, 
 L. BARTON CASE. 
 January 17, 1912. 
 
REPORT OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE AND 
 
 REPORT ON THE VARIOUS TYPES OF PAVEMENT 
 
 IN GENERAL USE ; THEIR COST AND 
 
 SUITABILITY TO VARIOUS 
 
 CLASSES OF TRAFFIC 
 
 The pavements of New York consist of Granite, Sheet Asphalt, Asphalt Block, 
 Wood Block, Slag Block, Brick, and others which are obsolete or of little importance; 
 also roads of Bituminous Macadam and ordinary Macadam. 
 
 In the construction of any pavement there must be considered: ist the Subsoil; 
 2nd the Foundation, and 3rd the Wearing Surface. 
 
 ist. The Subsoil: It is self-evident that the soil underlying the pavement should 
 be uniform and well graded, affording an equally resistent support for what is to be 
 built upon it. All unsuitable material should be removed and the- space filled with 
 proper material. The bed after being trimmed and graded should be thoroughly 
 compacted by rolling or tamping. There is no doubt that in a great many cases 
 where pavements have given way, it is due to the lack of a properly prepared sub- 
 soil and too much attention cannot be given to this important feature. 
 
 2nd. The Foundation: With the exception of the different kinds of Macadarru 
 all modern pavements are now laid on a concrete base varying in thickness from 
 4" to 8" and generally 6". This concrete foundation or base is the real pavement 
 which has to support the wearing surface, the latter being simply a covering or 
 veneer to protect it from injury; and unless this base is properly made, the entire con- 
 struction is apt to fail. The Stone, Sand and Cement should all be of the best 
 quality and in such proportion as will insure a perfect result. A good concrete base 
 if not too much cut up and patched, should outlast a number cf renewals of the 
 wearing surface. 
 
 The cost of the concrete in this City runs from $4.50 to $6.00 per cubic yard, which 
 for a 6" base is equivalent to 75c to $1.00 per square yard. Too great emphasis can- 
 not be laid on the importance of the concrete base, and if a rigid enforcement of 
 the above recommendations should result in a higher cost, the additional investment 
 would be a good one for the City. 
 
 3rd. Wearing Surface : Granite : While this kind of pavement is the most ex- 
 pensive in original cost, it is, when properly made, the most economical, because it is 
 the most enduring. As made here pavements of this sort are excessively rough and 
 noisy and are objected to by many on that account, but these qualities are not 
 necessary and are mainly due to improper construction and the use of unsuitable 
 material. Our blocks are far too large and irregular in size so that they cannot 
 be laid with a smooth surface or a close joint; the granite is so soft that wheels soon 
 wear away the edges of the stones ; the pavement becomes corrugated and every wheel 
 that passes pounds and .aggravates the evil. With the use of harder material more 
 exactly cut and carefully laid the main objections to granite pavements will disappear 
 and they will surely become the most acceptable for all streets of much heavy 
 trucking. 
 
 In addition to oblong blocks of much smaller size than we now use, cubes 4", 3^4" 
 and even less, should be tried here as they have given excellent results elsewhere ; but 
 it must be remembered that pavements of this material can only give satisfaction if 
 
70 VARIOUS TYPES OF PAVEMENTS. 
 
 made of the very toughest and hardest kind of granite and that the use of granite as 
 soft as we have been using in the past will surely result in failure. 
 
 Sandstone : There is but little of this in the City and while it makes an acceptable 
 pavement when new. it does not wear well or compare favorably with granite. 
 
 Sheet Asphalt : There is a very large amount of this in New York, much of which 
 is fairly good, much indifferent, and much bad. The fact that bad asphalt exists, that 
 it has given way on streets, for which it was not suitable, or that it is worn out on 
 so many streets, should not prejudice us against its use if properly laid on streets 
 where there is little heavy trucking. There are many miles of Sheet Asphalt 
 pavements in Manhattan and Brooklyn, which have been down 5, 10 and 15 years, 
 and have given satisfaction. To maintain Sheet Asphalt in good condition it is 
 essential that repairs be made promptly ; this is now being done in Brooklyn where 
 there is a municipal repair plant, and probably will be done in Manhattan when the 
 new asphalt repair plant for that borough is in operation. 
 
 Asphalt Block : This makes a good pavement while new, but it deteriorates sooner 
 than Sheet Asphalt under the same conditions. It gives a somewhat better footing for 
 horses, which has caused it to be laid in many streets which have grades, and it 
 can be laid in districts which are too far removed from sheet asphalt mixing plants to 
 enable the asphalt mixture to be brought there to advantage. Considering that its 
 cost is greater than that of Sheet Asphalt there does not appear to be any justification 
 for its extended use. 
 
 Wood Block : A considerable quantity of Wood Block pavement has been laid 
 in New York during the last few years but the area paved with it is still comparatively 
 limited. In some streets it has not proven successful, which may be accounted for by 
 the inexperience of the contractors and in some cases possibly by conditions which 
 would have been destructive of any pavement. In moist weather, when it is covered 
 "by a film of mud, it is the most slippery of all pavements, giving no foothold what- 
 ever to horses ; it should never be used where there is much grade on the street. 
 On fairly level streets, however, when properly laid, it is a desirable pavement, noise- 
 less, and pleasant to ride over. 
 
 Slag Block : These blocks are imported and have been used on some streets in 
 the Borough of Brooklyn and Richmond. They make a good pavement while new, but 
 as none of this pavement has been laid very long, its wearing qualities have still to be 
 demonstrated. 
 
 Brick : There is comparatively little brick paving in New York. In some Western 
 cities, which are located near the factories of paving bricks, the cost of this kind 
 of paving is low, and much of it is laid on that account, but in New York its 
 cost is practically the same as other forms of pavement which are less noisy and 
 for that reason, if for no other, they are to be preferred. Brick may, in many cases, 
 however, be used to advantage in gutters and at intersections of streets, particularly in 
 connection with the different kinds of bituminous macadam. 
 
 Bituminous Macadam made by mixing process : This is largely in an experimental 
 stage as yet, numerous different bituminous and mineral ingredients are being tried 
 out. In the Bronx, in Queens and also in Richmond short stretches of different 
 kinds of Bituminous Macadam have been laid and these are being watched care- 
 fully by the engineers. For a road covering of comparatively low ost, it is of excellent 
 promise, and is likely to play an important part for streets in the Boroughs out- 
 side of Manhattan, principally in residential sections, or where traffic is not heavy. 
 The bituminous materials used are Asphalt, Asphaltic Oils, or their residues, Coal 
 Tar, Pitch, or a mixture of some of these. 
 
VARIOUS TYPES OF PAVEMENTS. 71 
 
 Bituminous Macadam made by penetration process : The materials used for this 
 are similar to those mentioned in the preceding paragraph, but instead of being 
 mixed with the mineral ingredients before being put on the street, they are applied 
 to the surface of the road sometimes hot, sometimes cold, depending upon their 
 consistency. This method reduces the initial cost, but it is doubtful whether it is as 
 economical in the end, as it involves a greater outlay for maintenance. The experience 
 that is being gained in making roads by this process will undoubtedly result in much 
 improvement and in the making of desirable driveways for parks and boulevards. 
 
 The cost of these several wearing surfaces varies considerably in the different 
 parts of the City, much depending upon the location of the streets, the distances that 
 materials have to be hauled and the conditions that may surround each particular 
 contract. The following figures, however, are sufficiently accurate to give a general 
 idea of the cost. 
 
 Improved Granite $2.20 to $3.00 per sq. yd. 
 
 Sandstone : 
 
 Sheet Asphalt 85 to 1.75 " " " 
 
 Asphalt Block 1.50 to 2.30 " " " 
 
 Wood Block 
 
 Slag Block 2.75 to 3.00 " " " 
 
 Brick : 
 
 Bit. Mac. Mix 75 to 1.25 " " " 
 
 Bit. Mac. Pen 60 to i.oo " " " 
 
 The different classes of traffic for which the pavements must be adapted are as 
 follows : 
 
 1. Heavy trucking, the transportation of merchandise and produce, building 
 materials, coal, etc. 
 
 2. Light trucking, delivering of merchandise, household requirements, etc., 
 from retail stores. 
 
 3. Passenger transportation in automobiles, cabs, etc. 
 4. Private and pleasure vehicles. 
 
 Under all of these heads we must consider horse drawn vehicles and automobiles. 
 While the number of the former is steadily diminishing, still for many years to come 
 the horse must be reckoned with in deciding on the pavement. For all heavy truck- 
 ing whether by horses or automobiles a granite pavement is undoubtedly the most 
 desirable and wherever there is considerable grade in a street granite should also be 
 used to give horses a proper foothold, and this holds true for any kind of traffic. 
 Where streets are fairly level a good wood block pavement will sustain heavy trucking 
 for a limited time, but will be found very trying for horses when wet. 
 
 Asphalt, Brick or Macadam pavements do not stand well under heavy trucking. 
 
 For light delivery wagons and passenger vehicles, any of the pavements men- 
 tioned are suitable, but in view of the greater noiselessness of Asphalt and Wood, they 
 are to be preferred to Granite, but with the use of smaller blocks and greater 
 exactness in making the surface true, and the supplementing of the horse by the auto- 
 mobile, the objection of noise will be much diminished and such pavements will doubt- 
 less find increasing favor. 
 
 The different kinds of Bituminous Macadam will naturally be used where the in- 
 vestment in the best class of pavements does not seem justified on account of limited 
 traffic. 
 
7-' VARIOUS TYPES OF PAVEMENTS. 
 
 RECOMMENDATIONS. 
 
 FIRST AS TO TYPES : 
 
 For Manhattan we recommend that stone block pavements be used for all 
 streets below Twenty-third Street, except cross streets in tenement districts; in 
 certain small areas which still retain their original residential character; in the 
 financial district and in other exceptional places where there is not much heavy 
 trucking; for all streets of heavy trucking above Twenty-third Street, among 
 which should be included Eighth Avenue and all the avenues West of it as far 
 north as 5Qth Street ; and Third Avenue and all avenues to the East of it to the 
 Harlem River. 
 
 For streets in residential and tenement districts we recommend sheet asphalt 
 or wood block pavements, the choice between them to be determined solely by 
 their proved ultimate economy. 
 
 For streets of heavy automobile traffic we recommend in addition to the 
 two last mentioned types, pavements of very small granite cubes of the kind 
 now being laid in Liverpool. 
 
 For the other boroughs we recommend granite block pavements for all streets 
 of heavy trucking and for streets in the more densely populated parts which are 
 not much used for heavy trucking the same kind of pavement as recommended 
 for similar streets in Manhattan. 
 
 For streets in the outlying section of those boroughs where the property 
 values are not such as to warrant first class asphalt or wood block pavements, 
 we recommend an approved bituminous macadam with brick for the gutters and 
 perhaps for the intersections of the streets as used at what was formerly called 
 Prohibition Park, S. I. All the above mentioned pavements with the exception 
 of the macadam, should have concrete foundations varying in thickness from 
 8 inches for the streets of the heaviest traffic to four inches for the streets of the 
 least traffic. When brick is used, it should always be on a concrete foundation. 
 We recommend that no more slag block pavements be laid in Richmond until 
 those now in place have been tested by several years longer wear. 
 
 We recommend that no more asphalt block pavements be laid in any of the 
 boroughs until it has been more clearly demonstrated than it has yet been, 
 that they are as economical as sheet asphalt. 
 
 In addition to the pavements mentioned, we recommend that trial be made 
 of other types of pavement, which have proved valuable elsewhere, especially 
 "durax" and similar pavements of very small stone cubes, in places which may 
 seem advisable. 
 
 In planning all kinds of pavements, care should be taken to provide through 
 lines of uniform pavement for the different classes of traffic between strategic 
 points. It should be possible to find pavements suitable for heavy trucking 
 between the various places in the City where the heaviest shipping is done; 
 there should also be through lines for lighter vehicles over continuous pave- 
 ments of a uniform kind between points of the greatest importance. 
 
 We recommend that granite curbs, properly cut with beveled face, be used where 
 practicable, instead of bluestone and especially for the streets of Manhattan. For the 
 newer parts of the City we recommend substantial curbs of concrete of correct profile 
 and properly protected with iron in preference to bluestone. 
 
 For the more important parts of Manhattan we recommend sewer inlets or 
 gullies of the English type as being easy to clean and less objectionable in 
 many ways than those of the primitive kind we now have, and, in places where 
 it is not practical to use that sort of gully that the openings be placed in some 
 suitable way at either side of the corner and without the excessive depression 
 which is so objectionable in many of those we now have. 
 
VARIOUS TYPES OF PAVEMENTS. 73 
 
 We also advise that experiment be made to determine whether the surface 
 water from the gutters could not be run directly into the sewer if the openings 
 were properly protected by gratings, and so dispense with the catch basin which 
 are dirty, unhealthy, expensive to build and troublesome and costly to clean. 
 
 SECOND AS TO QUALITY : 
 
 \Ye recommend that ultimate economy rather than first cost be the governing con- 
 sideration in the making of pavements. We are firmly of the opinion that the 
 pavement best adapted to the traffic it is to sustain will prove the most economi- 
 cal one to lay irrespective of its first cost. Only the very best quality of 
 materials and workmanship should be used on any pavement no matter what 
 the type may be. We believe that the additional cost of a thoroughly good 
 pavement over a poor one or one which is only fairly good will be much more 
 than offset by its longer life and the better service it will afford. 
 
 We also recommend that all materials used in paving, as far as practicable, 
 be bought by the City directly from the manufacturers or from the quarries 
 where they are produced. If they are furnished by the contractor, experience 
 has shown that as a rule, he will supply just as poor a kind as will pass the 
 inspector. If the City made its own purchases, the materials could be inspected 
 before delivery. This plan would result in lower prices, because the credit of the 
 City is better than that of any contractor, and in a higher grade of material 
 because the inspection would be better and the contractor would not be benefited 
 by the use of poor materials. 
 
 ERNEST FLAGG, 
 C. F. WIEBUSCH, 
 J. K. OKR, 
 S. C. HARRIOT. 
 
75 
 
 REPORT OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE PRESENT 
 METHODS OF ADMINISTRATION AND THEIR DEFECTS 
 
 We herewith submit our report, viz : 
 
 We find that the defects of municipal administration enumerated below are the 
 chief causes of the bad condition of the streets. 
 
 (1) Failure to make proper repairs of defects resulting from traffic wear and tear. 
 
 (2) Failure to exercise fully the authority with respect to the repavement of 
 openings made by City Departments, corporations, plumbers and others, which is now 
 vested by law in the authorities charged with the duty of repaving such openings. 
 
 (3) Lack or inadequacy of Borough President's control of the relaying of pave- 
 ments, where openings are made by the different City Departments. 
 
 (4) Inadequate control of repairs, which it is the duty of the surface railroads 
 to make. 
 
 (5) Want of engineering centralization, incompetent and insufficient inspection and 
 faulty specifications. 
 
 (6) Damage caused by use of streets by builders and others. 
 
 (7) Lack of expert knowledge on the subject of street paving. 
 
 These several considerations, summarily considered in detail, are as follows : 
 
 I 
 HOLES AND DEFECTS CAUSED BY TRAFFIC 
 
 Except as to streets still under guaranty of maintenance, the Borough President, 
 through the Bureau of Highways, has absolute control in keeping the streets in repair, 
 and for failure to do so, can offer no reasonable excuse, save want of sufficient funds. 
 As to streets that are still under maintenance guaranty, some delay is unavoidable, but 
 the chief cause of delay is believed to be due to want of a proper system of inspection 
 and the inclination of the Borough officials to allow the contractors to make repairs 
 as and when it suits their convenience. It frequently happens that the contractor, 
 before making any repairs in a particular district, waits until a large number of defects 
 have accumulated, in order to avoid the trouble and expense of making repeated visits 
 to the locality. In the meantime the condition of the pavement grows daily worse. 
 The maintenance provision in these contracts is the source of unending trouble and 
 should be eliminated eventually, and the guaranty should never exceed five years. 
 If this be done, and the Borough authorities empowered to make repairs, there would 
 no longer be any necessity for their making contracts for repairs. The whole respon- 
 sibility would then be on the Borough President, where it properly belongs. 
 
 n 
 
 OPENINGS MADE BY SUB-SERVICE CORPORATIONS, PLUMBERS AND 
 
 OTHERS 
 
 Before issuing permits for these openings the Borough President has the right 
 to require a cash deposit sufficient to cover the cost of restoration. He has the 
 
76 PRESENT METHODS OF ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 power and authority to do the work and the money to do it with and can offer no 
 excuse for failure to perform his duty. In Manhattan and in some of the other 
 Boroughs a bond is accepted from the corporations, in lieu of cash. In Brooklyn, 
 which has its own asphalt plant, and where a cash deposit is invariably exacted, most 
 of this work is actually done by the Bureau of Highways. 
 
 Ill 
 
 OPENINGS MADE BY VARIOUS CITY DEPARTMENTS, MAINLY THE 
 WATER DEPARTMENT 
 
 These are restored under contracts made by the particular department which 
 removes the pavement, and the Borough Presidents cannot enforce the performance 
 of such contracts, but must, according to their interpretation of the law, wait until 
 the work is done before taking any action. If it be not properly done their authority 
 to have the work torn up and done over is unquestioned, but they have no money 
 to do it with, and are practically powerless. Each department has an engineer of its 
 own and relies on his inspection and report, irrespective of the opinion of the 
 engineers of the Bureau of Highways. These difficulties should not arise with respect 
 to any work done by the Bureau of Sewers or the Bureau of Buildings, since all 
 contracts for such work are made by the Borough President. These bureaus, like that 
 of highways, are under the Borough President and have no legal authority to make 
 contracts. The only occasion for any friction between these bureaus and the bureau 
 of highways would arise from the fact that each bureau has its own engineer, but 
 the Borough President, being supreme, could readily remove any cause of friction. 
 
 It appears that the Water Department claims the right to, and does actually make 
 openings without the consent or knowledge of the Borough President. This seems 
 to be a strained and unwarranted construction of Section 391 of the Charter, and 
 would justify all departments in ignoring the Borough President. It is evident that 
 so long as the present system of divided authority and responsibility continues, there 
 will be friction and want of co-operation between the departments and the Borough 
 President. The law should be so amended as to centralize jurisdiction in the Borough 
 Presidents. 
 
 IV 
 
 INADEQUATE CONTROL OF THE WORK DONE BY THE SURFACE 
 
 RAILROADS 
 
 Under the present Railroad Law (apart from any contractual rights the Company 
 may have), it is the duty of these railroads to keep in repair the pavements between 
 the rails and two feet outside thereof, and the Borough President cannot proceed, to do 
 such work until after thirty days' notice to the railroads. If the railroads do not 
 keep up these repairs, the Borough President is hampered by the requirement to give 
 so long a notice. 
 
 V 
 WANT OF ENGINEERING CENTRALIZATION 
 
 There is a conflict of authority under the present system. There should be a 
 central Board, composed of representatives from the engineering departments of the 
 several boroughs. Uniform specifications as to work, types of pavement and rules 
 of inspection, should be adopted by this Board. The head of this department should 
 be an engineer of large experience in street paving, who should be appointed by the 
 
PRESENT METHODS OF ADMINISTRATION. 77 
 
 Board of Estimate and Apportionment. The Borough President should be prohibited 
 from letting any contract except under the form of specification prepared by the Board ; 
 but he should be allowed to determine the kind of pavement to be laid under the above 
 
 limitations. 
 
 Any damage caused by the use of a street under permit from the Borough Presi- 
 dent, which must first be obtained, should be immediately repaired at the expense of 
 the permittee. The Borough President has the right to exact a cash deposit sufficient 
 to cover cost of removal of any obstruction and of the restoration of the pavement. 
 The amount of the deposit required in the Borough of Manhattan for each permit is 
 $200, and in the other boroughs a smaller sum. In practice, however, a bond is 
 accepted in Manhattan in lieu of cash, the bond for each permit being for $1,000. A 
 bond for $5,000 entitles the applicant to any reasonable number of permits. 
 
 VII 
 
 WANT OF EXPERT KNOWLEDGE UPON THE SUBJECT OF STREET 
 
 PAVING 
 
 The subject of paving and the different types of pavement have become, with 
 the advent of the automobile, a subject requiring a new and scientific treatment. 
 There seems to be no city department adequately provided with knowledge and 
 information as to statistics with regard to materials, costs and the applied science of 
 laying pavements, adapted to meet the present conditions of traffic. 
 
 In order to remedy the existing evils, we recommend : 
 
 (a) Such amendment of the present charter, so far as may be practicable, as 
 will enforce greater promptness and activity on the part of the Borough officials in 
 the performance of their duties. 
 
 (b) The limitation of the time of guaranty of the maintenance of all pavements 
 to a period not exceeding five years (except in special cases). 
 
 (c) The subject of pipe galleries under ground, in new streets and streets where 
 transportation subways are being constructed, should be seriously considered. 
 
 (d) The law should be so changed as to centralize in one person, or in one 
 person for each borough, say the Borough Presidents, exclusive cognizance and control 
 of all paving and repairs and relaying of pavements, and the Statute should ex- 
 plicitly provide that all contracts relating to such work should be made by the Borough 
 Presidents and expressly state that no other City Department shall make any such 
 contracts. 
 
 Departments, as well as others, should be bound by the requirement to obtain a 
 permit from the Borough President before opening a street. It may be well to also 
 include the Public Service Commission in the rule requiring permits. The Statute 
 should make it the duty of the Borough President to require a cash deposit in every 
 instance before issuing a permit, except in the case of City Departments. 
 
 It seems to us that Sec. 1136 of the proposed new charter (known as the Cullen- 
 Foley Charter) goes far toward meeting the requirements of such an amendment. 
 
 There is, however', one provision of Sec. 1136 which merits serious consideration. 
 We allude to the clause which requires the permittee to backfill the trenches and 
 temporarily relay the pavement. The Borough President of Manhattan thinks that. 
 
7 PRESENT METHODS OF ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 for the present at least, the permittee should be required to do this work, under the 
 direction and supervision of the Borough President, leaving to him the permanent 
 restoration. There is much to be said in favor of this view, but after mature con- 
 sideration of both sides of the question, we have reached the conclusion that better 
 results will be had, if the Borough President be given exclusive charge of the 
 backfilling. 
 
 Some of the Borough Presidents think that the streets now under the control of the 
 Dock and Bridge Departments, and all streets outside of the parks, and now under the 
 control of the Park Department, should be under their jurisdiction. Whether such 
 a change should be made, we are not now prepared to say. But we do think that 
 the 3So-foot area around the Parks now within the jurisdiction of the Park Depart- 
 ment should be under the jurisdiction of the Borough President. 
 
 (e) The creation of a Board, as outlined in V. supra: For the standardization of 
 types of pavement and forms of specification with regard to all pavements in the City. 
 
 (f) The railroad law (Sec. 178) should be amended, if practicable, so as to 
 confer upon the local authorities (who here would be the borough president) the 
 authority to make, in the first instance and when they deem it necessary, all the 
 repairs which the surface railroads are now required to make, and to charge the cost 
 of same to the railroad. If nothing more be done, the 30 days' notice which so 
 greatly hampers the Borough President should be reduced to three or five days at most. 
 
 (g) The use of the streets by builders and others should be either prohibited, or 
 a uniform fee, commensurate with the extent and duration of such use, charged, and 
 payment exacted before the permit is issued by the Borough President. His au- 
 thority to require the payment of such license fee to be fixed according to the nature, 
 extent and duration of such use should be conferred by statute, for although the 
 Board of Aldermen has under the present charter (Sec. 50) ample power to provide 
 by ordinance for such license fees, they have so far done nothing, and may continue 
 to be indifferent about the matter. A maximum period should be specified for which 
 a permit may be issued, and it may be that it would be advisable to fix a different 
 rate for extensions. 
 
 (h) The Borough Presidents should have authority to buy materials and to 
 make repairs and if there is any question about their having such power it should 
 be conferred. 
 
 WM. H. PAGE, 
 W. W. NILES, 
 Jos. L. DELAFIELD, 
 
 I concur in the above, except on the points wherein it conflicts with the Report of 
 the Sub-Committee on the Control of Street Openings and Repairs. 
 
 AARON C. THAYER. 
 January 17, 1912. 
 
79 
 
 REPORT OF COMMITTEE 
 ON INCONVENIENCE TO PUBLIC 
 
 Your Sub-Committee on inconvenience to the public begs leave to report as 
 follows: 
 
 This Committee met the Borough President with the Chairman of the Board 
 of Public Works, and received a polite and extended hearing. Mr. McAneney 
 stated the reasons why the work on many streets was so long delayed, as well as 
 reasons why repairs were not more promptly made. The condition on Madison 
 Avenue and its long delay is owing to the fact that a stratum of rock was struck 
 which was unlocked for, and a much more extended opening in the street was 
 made in order to keep workmen employed while the rock drillers were at work. 
 
 The Public Service Commission alone has jurisdiction over the Subway work 
 on Lexington Avenue, and is entirely responsible for the condition of that street. 
 The Borough President stated that the arbitrary reduction of the appropriation 
 for his Department will greatly interfere with the present work as well as with 
 new work, and the repairing of old pavements. With this reduced appropriation, 
 and an additional area of 15% or more to be cared for, the best results cannot be 
 expected. 
 
 Many of the asphalt streets were finished in 1897, 1898 and 1900, and have not 
 since been renewed while the life of the ordinary asphalt pavement, under the 
 average conditions of our city traffic is not over ten years. In 1903 more than 
 50 miles of streets were paved with asphalt upon the old stone foundations, often 
 uneven, and not properly bedded, with the natural result of speedy deterioration 
 and decay. 
 
 Many of our most important uptown thoroughfares are under the jurisdiction, 
 of the Park Department, and when neglected reflect most injuriously upon the 
 city. Seventy-second Street, for instance, is under control of this Department, 
 and the Commissioner of Highways was compelled to await permission of the 
 Park Department in order to put down a new sewer pipe, which was much needed 
 in this street. Owing to an accidental explosion, and other causes, the contractor 
 defaulted on this work, and the Highway Department was compelled to make a 
 connection between the old sewer and the finished portion of the new, in order 
 to fill the trench and place the surface of the street in condition for use. 
 
 This filling has been done with cinders, and the work on the sewer will not be 
 resumed, if at all, until next Summer, when most of the residents of that section 
 will be absent in the country. Again, permission of the Park Department must 
 be secured if the work is to be finished. 
 
 The Fire Department is responsible for the condition of Nassau Street for so 
 long a time, when the street was practically closed to traffic, pending the putting 
 down of high pressure water mains. With the beginning of Spring this Depart- 
 ment has planned to open many more downtown streets for the same purpose, 
 and so far as can be learned there is no power to prevent the opening of several 
 streets at the same time, or to compel the work to be done within any specified 
 period. 
 
 The condition of 42nd Street for so long a time was owing to Subway work 
 beyond the control of the Highway Department. The work on city streets is 
 
8o INCONVENIENCE TO THE PUBLIC. 
 
 further complicated by the fact that the following streets, in addition to 72nd, are 
 under control of the Park Department: 
 
 86th Street from Central Park to Riverside Drive. 
 96th Street from West End Avenue to tracks of N. Y. Central R. R. 
 noth Street from Fifth Avenue to Riverside Drive. 
 I22nd Street from Morningside Avenue to Riverside Drive. 
 Morningside Avenue from noth North to end of Morningside Park. 
 Riverside Drive 72nd to i2Qth. 
 West End Avenue north of /oth Street. 
 
 Again the circles at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue, also 59th Street and Eighth 
 Avenue are under the Park Department, while the streets north and south are 
 under the Highway Department. This also applies to circles at noth Street as 
 well as the west side of Fifth Avenue Plaza from s8th Street to 59th Street. A 
 still more complicated condition exists on Fifth Avenue. The Bambrick Paving 
 Co. is responsible for its care from 6oth Street to Both Street, until the main- 
 tenance contract expires August 30, 1913. The Barber Asphalt Co. is responsible 
 for conditions from Both Street to goth Street, until expiration of contract, June 
 30, 1912. 
 
 The present method of holding the contracting companies liable for five years 
 maintenance is thought to be the best for the interests of the City, because of the 
 fact that it is next to impossible to secure the services of a competent engineer, 
 or expert to supervise the work when in progress, and one qualified to pass judg- 
 ment upon it when finished. 
 
 From all this it is needless to say that the public suffers great inconvenience 
 because of the condition of our streets, and not only inconvenience, but absolute 
 loss to the business community in the delay and time consumed in the shipment 
 of goods. The greatest inconvenience is caused by neglected repairs. 
 
 In the business section of the City, with a well paved street, freight shipments 
 can be made in truck loads of from three to five tons without overtaxing a team 
 of horses, while a badly paved street prevents the carrying of more than two or 
 three tons, nearly doubling the cost of transportation, and vastly increasing the 
 expense in wear and tear of rolling stock, also the inconvenience to automobile 
 and carriage traffic, where the loss is almost beyond computation. It makes 
 riding for pleasure in our city streets quite out of the question, and the use of the 
 automobiles for shopping and other necessary purposes, a hardship, when it 
 should be a comfort. 
 
 Owners of automobiles and carriages, as well as owners of horses and wagons 
 for business use, are taxpayers and have a right to demand that the streets of this 
 city shall be paved in the best and most scientific manner, to the end that they 
 may be relieved, not only of discomfort and inconvenience, but that the city itself 
 may be saved from that reproach that it now so greatly merits and is receiving. 
 
 Much of this inconvenience might be overcome if there was some power to 
 insist that the tearing up of old pavement shall not be begun before the con- 
 tractors are ready to proceed to completion of the work (witness the condition 
 of Fifth Avenue for the past three or four months), and that when tearing up 
 the old, it shall be done for a limited section at a time only, completing that 
 before beginning another. Work might well be done also at night, particularly 
 where the section being treated is a very busy one. 
 
 Another source of great inconvenience that the public suffers from is the 
 neglect of repairs being promptly made; small holes or cuts are allowed to remain 
 without attention, until by neglect the size of the holes becomes such that the 
 
INCONVENIENCE TO THE PUBLIC. 81 
 
 discomfort of the public is immensely increased, and the cost of repairs increased 
 correspondingly (see corner Chambers Street and West Broadway, Park Place, 
 and scores of other places). 
 
 Much of all that is covered by this criticism would no doubt be done away 
 with, were there inaugurated a system that gave some indication of careful 
 thought and consideration of the public, and which had in view the utmost expe- 
 dition in the work to be done, its being done in the best possible manner, with 
 the final result of a less cost (without doubt) to the public treasury. 
 
 STEPHEN FARRELLY, 
 J. O. BLOSS, 
 WM. H. GIBSON, 
 CHARLES R. LAMB. 
 December 20. 1911. 
 
REPORT OF SUB-COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION 
 
 January 17, 1912. 
 We have made examination of subjects as follows: 
 
 (1) The present City Charter. 
 
 (2) Proposed Charter known as the Cullen-Foley Charter, which was introduced 
 at the last session of the Legislature. 
 
 (3) Hammond Charter (also introduced at the same). 
 
 (4) Various amendments to the Charter, proposed by the Committee on Street 
 Control, appointed by the Mayor in 1907. 
 
 (5) Antecedent Charters of the City. 
 
 (6) The Charters of the various Railroad Companies as the same relate to 
 paving obligations. 
 
 (/) The Railroad and the Highway Laws of the State, and the Ordinances of the 
 City. 
 
 We have held five meetings, at which the several members of the Committee have 
 all been present, with one exception, in which there was one absentee. 
 
 In addition to the above we have had personal conferences with the officials of 
 various departments of the City of New York, and have examined the various com- 
 munications received by the General Committee and on file at the office of its secretary. 
 We have also had personal conferences with eminent engineers, namely Mr. W. Barclay 
 Parsons. Col. J. W. Howard and Mr. A. W. Dow, who have attended at the sessions 
 of our Committee, as citizens, and have given us the benefit of their knowledge and 
 experience. 
 
 We are therefore ready to receive advices from the General Committee at its con- 
 venience concerning suggested legislation which it may wish to propose in the premises^ 
 
 WM. H. PAGE, 
 
 W. W. NlLES, 
 
 Jos. L. DELAFIELD, 
 AARON C. THAYER. 
 
REPORT OF THE SUB-COMMITTEE 
 ON SNOW REMOVAL AND GUTTER FLUSHING 
 
 The prompt removal of the snow has a very important bearing upon the usefulness 
 of our streets. The present method is both costly and slow. It is necessary to haul it 
 in carts, for long distances over roads which are often well nigh impossible ; and 
 notwithstanding the enormous sums spent to keep the streets free, it is impossible to 
 do the work either rapidly or well. The cost to the City which the system involves, 
 though very great, is but a bagatelle when compared with the loss suffered by the 
 community in the interruption of traffic ; therefore if any method can be devised to 
 get rid of the snow rapidly and economically after a fall, the benefit would be of incal- 
 culable value. 
 
 We believe that such a method can be found and that the means are at hand in the 
 sewers which, at a comparatively slight expense, can be equipped to do the work. All 
 our streets .are provided with sewers having manholes at intervals of from one hundred 
 to one hundred and twenty feet located in the center of the roadway. Here we have a 
 great network of chutes already constructed and all that is required to use them is to 
 provide the necessary mechanical force. This, too, is at hand in the water mains and 
 needs only to be made available by the proper connections. 
 
 If a sufficient flow of water can be had the sewers will carry off all the snow that 
 can be shoved down the manholes by an ordinary gang of street cleaners. This much 
 has already been demonstrated by the experiment which will be described further on. 
 
 During the last few years a great deal of snow has been dumped in the tidal sewers ; 
 there are twenty of them in use for this purpose now; by this means a large saving has 
 been effected, but there are serious objections to the plan. When snow is dumped 
 from a cart into a sewer there can be no certainty that sticks and rubbish are not mixed 
 with it, which may cause a stoppage, and the plan is strongly opposed by the engineers 
 in charge of sewers for that reason. Moreover this method does not obviate the use 
 of carts and the expense and delay which they occasion. 
 
 Our plan is entirely different. Given the proper water connections near the top of 
 the manhole, the snow can be removed in less time than it now takes to stack it. Snow- 
 plows can be used to draw the snow to the center of the streets, then it only remains for 
 the men to shove it down the manholes into the sewer. There is seldom any trouble in 
 getting enough men, and if this plan were in use it is altogether probable that the whole 
 City could be cleared of snow after a heavy fall in less time and at less cost than it 
 now requires to remove it from the principal streets. 
 
 With a view to testing the merits of the suggestion, the necessary permission was 
 obtained from Mr. McAneny to make a trial of the plan and we also obtained the 
 cordial co-operation and assistance of Mr. Edwards, Street Cleaning Commissioner, 
 and of Mr. Graham, the engineer in charge of sewers. Permission was given to use 
 the sewer on West End Avenue from 76th to 7Qth Streets and several lateral sewers. 
 
 The preliminary test was made on Monday, February 5th. The Street Cleaning 
 Department furnished a superintendent, foreman, twelve laborers with wheelbarrows, 
 three lengths of hose, the necessary shovels, scrapers and other implements. The hose 
 was attached to a hydrant and water admitted to one manhole while the snow was 
 thrown in the manhole below it. This plan was not altogether successful because the 
 bottom of the manhole was wider than the sewer and the snow accumulating on the 
 floor at either side of the sewer formed an arch of snow above the stream. 
 
86 SXOW REMOVAL AND GUTTER FLUSHING. 
 
 The snow was then thrown into the manhole into which the hose was running and 
 the nozzle held a short distance below the level of the pavement. As the snow was 
 shoved in, the water mixed with it and no stoppage occurred; the force of the water 
 prevented the formation of the arch. The twelve men pushed in the snow as fast as 
 they could and tried to clog the hole but were unable to do so. The stream was fur- 
 nished by a two and one-half inch hose and was not as large as we supposed would 
 be necessary. However, it worked well. 
 
 We next tried a small pipe sewer on 67th Street. The sewer inspector w r as opposed 
 to using this at first, because he said it was one of the poorest and smallest sewers in 
 the City and one that the Department was constantly having trouble with, but he finally 
 consented and a one and a quarter inch stream was turned down the manhole. When 
 the snow was thrown in slowly it was carried off with success, but when the men shoved 
 it in as fast as they could, the water was not able to keep the passage open and a 
 bridge or arch of snow formed over the pipe; in a few minutes, however, the water 
 broke down this arch and the way was again cleared. If instead of a two and a half 
 inch hose with an inch and a quarter nozzle, we could have used a four inch stream, it 
 is altogether probable that even this poor and small sewer would have worked satis- 
 factorily. 
 
 The test was not as complete as we could have wished to make it, but it was 
 sufficient to demonstrate beyond a question that with enough water, the plan is per- 
 fectly feasible. At the next fall of snow we hope to make a more complete test, using 
 more water than the hose on hand at the last trial would permit of. 
 
 To operate the plan, the manholes should be equipped with a permanent water con- 
 nection of adequate size near the top and furnished with a proper valve. The water need 
 only be turned on while the snow is actually being thrown down the hole. These water 
 connections might easily be arranged so that they could be used by the Fire Department 
 and thus dispense with the fire hydrants, or if the hydrants are retained, the outlets 
 would serve to supplement them. Their location within the manhole would be particu- 
 larly advantageous as the natural heat of the sewer would always prevent freezing. 
 
 Occasional attempts are made by the Street Cleaning Department to clean small 
 areas of pavement by flushing the street with water squirted on through a hose. This 
 method is not practical for general application because it is too difficult and costly to 
 apply, and interferes too much with traffic. It is ineffective and not worth continuing. 
 
 In many cities of Europe and especially those of France, it is the custom to flush 
 out the gutters with running water, every morning; spiggots are placed at the highest 
 point in the gutter and when the water is turned on it flows to the nearest sewer inlet, 
 at the same time the gutter is swept and the water brushed up on to the pavement so 
 that a strip of from four to five feet is thoroughly cleansed. The labor is compara- 
 tively light and is often performed by old men and women ; one person who is used 
 to it can cover a long extent of gutter in an hour's time. On ground that is compara- 
 tively flat the gutter is generally graded from the center of the block to the corners, 
 and the water outlet is placed at the highest point, so that the flow can be deflected 
 first down one slope and then down the other. 
 
 This method of cleaning the streets has so much to recommend it that it seems to 
 us it ought to be tried here. It cleans the street more thoroughly than can be done in 
 any other way and it cleans that part of the street which always stands most in need 
 of cleansing. It is also beneficial for the pavements, especially if they are of wood. It 
 has been the experience of Paris that wood pavements which are constantly flushed 
 with water do not decay and last much longer than if not treated in this way. 
 
 ERNEST FLAGG, 
 THOMAS DIMOND, 
 ROBERT GRIER COOKE. 
 
 Feb. 13, 1912. 
 
AN ACT 
 
 To amend the Greater New York Charter in relation to permits for the 
 removal of pavements and the relaying of same. 
 
 The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and 
 Assembly, do enact as follozvs: 
 
 Section i. Section three hundred and ninety-one of the Greater New 
 York Charter as re-enacted by Chapter four hundred and sixty-six of the 
 laws of nineteen hundred and one, is hereby amended to read as follows : 
 
 39 1 - [^ removal of the pavement or disturbance of the surface of 
 any street for the purpose of constructing vaults or lateral ways, digging 
 cellars, laying foundations of buildings or other structures, making sewer 
 connections, or repairing sewers or pipes, of laying down gas and water 
 pipes, steam pipes and electric wires, or introducing the same into buildings, 
 or for any purpose whatever, shall be made until a permit is first had from 
 the president of the borough where the work is to be done ; and whenever 
 any portion of the pavement in any street or avenue in said city shall have 
 been removed for any of these purposes, and such pavement shall not be 
 relaid in a manner satisfactory to the president of said borough, the said 
 president may cause a notice, in writing, to be served upon the person or 
 corporation by whom the same was removed;] No opening or excava- 
 tion shall be made in a street, nor shall a pavement be removed or the surface 
 of a street disturbed until a permit shall have been obtained from the borough 
 president. Every application for such permit shall state the location and 
 dimensions of street surface to be disturbed and the work zvhich is to be done 
 by the permittee. The permittee shall begin zvork zvithin twenty-four hours 
 after the issuance of the permit and shall prosecute the work to completion 
 zwthout delay. When the work is completed, it shall be the duty of the 
 Borough President forthwith to restore the pavement. The refilling of the 
 opening or excavation and the relaying of the pavement shall be done by 
 the Borough President by his mvn employees or by contract, except in cases 
 where such repairs are covered by existing contracts in zvhich event the 
 Borough President shall see to it that the zvork is promptly done by the con- 
 tractor. Prior to the issuance of any such permit, the Borough President 
 shall require the deposit of such sum as he may deem necessary to cover the 
 permanent restoration of the pavement and backfill, and the paving inspec- 
 
 F.XPLANATION : Matter in italics is new ; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. 
 
PROPOSED AMENDATORY LAWS. 
 
 tion, and all other expenses incident thereto. Xo security sliall be accepted 
 by the Borough President, in lieu of the cash deposit herein required. 
 Schedules of the amounts so required to be deposited for different classes of 
 work shall be kept on public file in the office of the Borough President and 
 may be amended by him from time to time as he may deem necessary. If an 
 opening be made by a city department, no deposit shall be required but the 
 fund for replacing pavements shall be reimbursed for the cost of the restora- 
 tion by transfer by the Comptroller of funds of the department upon the 
 certificate of the Borough President. If upon completion of the work it 
 appear that tlie amount deposited as aforesaid was an overcharge, the per- 
 mittee shall be entitled to a proportionate refund ; but if the work of inspec- 
 tion and pavement restoration shall not have been covered b\ the deposit, a 
 statement of the deficit shall be submitted to the permittee and if payment of 
 such deficit be not made within ten days the Borough President shall transmit 
 the claim to the Corporation Counsel who shall proceed to collect it, and the 
 Borough President may refv.se to grant a further permit to a party in default 
 until such claim shall hare been satisfied. There sliall be for each borough 
 in the office of the Chamberlain a special continuing fund, to be known as 
 the fund for replacing pavements, to which the amounts deposited, trans- 
 ferred or collected as aforesaid in eacli borough shall be credited and from 
 which the expense to the city of any work done under such permits shall be 
 paid on the order of the Comptroller and certificate of the Borough Presi- 
 dent. In case such fund should at any time become depleted, the Comptroller 
 shall issue special revenue bonds to replenish it. If any portion of the pave- 
 ment in any street in a borough shall have been wrongfully removed by any 
 person or corporation it shall be the duty of the President of said borough r 
 and he is hereby authorized to cause such pavement to be immediately put in 
 proper order and repair in such manner as he may deem best, and to collect 
 from the person or corporation by whom sucli pavement was removed all 
 costs and expenses incurred for putting such pavement in proper order and 
 repair. 
 
 [or if such removal was] Jl'hencver the pavement shall be removed for 
 the purpose of making connection between any house or lot or any sewer or 
 pipes in the street, or for constructing vaults, or otherwise improving any 
 house or lot, [upon the owner or occupant of such house or lot, requiring 
 such person or corporation, or the owner or occupant of such house or lot, to 
 have such pavement properly relaid within five days after service of sucli 
 notice], // the costs of putting such pavement in proper order and repair, or 
 the deficit in case of a deposit and issuance of a permit, be not paid to the 
 President of the borough within five days after such work is completed, the 
 Borough President shall cause a notice in writing to be served upon the 
 owner or occupant of such house or lot, requiring such owner or occupant to 
 pay such costs or deficit within five days after service of such notice. Such 
 notice may he served upon the owner or occupant of a house or lot by leaving 
 the same with any person of adult age upon said premises or posting the same 
 
PROPOSED AMENDATORY LAWS. 89 
 
 thereupon. [In case such pavement, or portion thereof, shall not be relaid to 
 the satisfaction of said Borough President within the time specified in such 
 notice, it shall be lawful, and authority is hereby given to said Borough 
 President to have such pavement, or the portion thereof which shall have 
 been so unsatisfactorily laid, put in proper order and repair, in such manner 
 as he may deem best, on account of the person or corporation by whom such 
 pavement was removed, or of the owner of the premises for whose benefit 
 such removal was made. Upon the costs of such work being certified to the 
 Comptroller of the City of New York by the said Borough President.] // 
 the costs of such work or such deficit be not paid within the time specified in 
 such notice, the Borough President shall certify such costs or deficit to the 
 Comptroller of the City of New York, with a description of the lot or prem- 
 ises to improve which such removal of pavement was made, and said Comp- 
 troller shall pay the same, and the amount so paid or the excess so paid over 
 and above the deposit, if any, shall become a lien and charge upon the prem- 
 ises so described, and, on being certified by the Comptroller to the collector 
 of assessments and arrears, may be collected in the same manner that arrears 
 and water rates are collected under the direction of such collector of assess- 
 ments and arrears. [But nothing herein contained shall be deemed to pro- 
 hibit said Borough President from demanding, before issuing said permit, 
 and as a condition thereof, the deposit of such sum of money or other security 
 as in his judgment, may be necessary to pay the costs of properly relaying 
 the pavement so removed, together with the expense of the inspection 
 thereof.] 
 
 8 2. This act shall take effect October first, nineteen hundred and twelve. 
 
AN ACT 
 
 To amend the Greater New York Charter, in relation to the inspection 
 and repairing of pavements. 
 
 The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and 
 Assembly, do enact as follows: 
 
 Section i. The Greater New York Charter as re-enacted by Chapter 
 four hundred and sixty-six of the laws of nineteen hundred and one, is hereby 
 amended by adding thereto after Section three hundred and ninety-one 
 thereof a new section to be Section three hundred and ninety-one-a, to read 
 as follows : 
 
 District Inspectors, Appointments, Duties. 
 
 391-0. It shall be the duty of the president of each borough to appoint 
 so many district inspectors as shall be provided for by the Board of Estimate 
 and Apportionment and the Board of Aldermen, to divide his Borough from 
 time to time into suitable districts, to assign one such inspector to each dis- 
 trict and to keep in his office a public record of such division and assign- 
 ments. Each district inspector shall be a civil engineer. A copy of every 
 permit to remove pavement or disturb the surface of any street in his district 
 shall be furnished to the inspector of such district as soon as it is issued. 
 Each such inspector shall have direct charge under the President of his Bor- 
 ough, or under such official as the President of his Borough may designate, 
 of the making and superintendence of all repairs to the streets in his district 
 whether due to openings, accidents or wear, but shall not, unless so directed 
 by the President of his Borough, have charge of new construction zvork. 
 
 Each such inspector shall make a written report to the President of his 
 Borough on every day except Sundays and legal holidays embracing at least 
 the following matters: 
 
 1 i ) The streets or parts of streets examined by said inspector and under 
 his direction on that day, the work in progress thereon involving any removal 
 of the pavement or the disturbance of the surface of any street, and any con- 
 ditions found by him in the streets of his district that render them defective, 
 dangerous or inconvenient for traffic, or that are prejudicial to their free and 
 proper use. 
 
 (2) The work examined by him and under his direction on that day 
 which is in progress under permits for the opening of the streets, whether 
 
 EXPLANATION : Matter in italics is new ; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. 
 
92 PROPOSED AMENDATORY LAWS. 
 
 such ivork is being conducted in accordance with the terms of the permits, 
 all instances of failure to comply -until the terms of such permits, and all 
 work completed on that day for which a permit or permits have previously 
 been issued by the President of his Borough. 
 
 (3) The measures that are being taken to repair any openings, removals 
 of pavement or disturbance of the surface of any street then or previously 
 reported by him, the progress of such repairs and all cases where such repairs 
 have been completed on that day. 
 
 (4) All defects found in his district on that day in the surface or pave- 
 ments of any street due to accidents, wear or other causes, the extent and 
 character of such defects, the measures necessary to repair them promptly 
 and ivhat measures to this end he has taken. 
 
 (5) All instances discovered by him on that day of vvork being carried on 
 in the streets of his district without a proper permit therefor, and what meas- 
 ures he has taken or recommends in regard thereto. 
 
 In any Borough in which there is an engineer in charge of highways, or 
 an official performing similar duties each such inspector shall receive instruc- 
 tions from and make his reports to the President of his Borough through the 
 medium of such engineer or official. The President of each Borough shall 
 have poiuer, and it shall be his duty to require each such inspector to report 
 upon such further matters and to perform such other duties relating to the 
 streets of the Borough as said President shall deem advisable. Nothing 
 herein contained shall be so construed as to prevent a President of a Borough 
 from transferring at his discretion inspectors from one district to another, or 
 from temporarily employing all or any number of such inspectors in a par- 
 ticular street or streets within his Borough. 
 
 2. This act shall take effect October first, Nineteen hundred and twelve. 
 
93 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 To amend the Greater New York Charter by creating a paving board 
 and defining its powers and duties. 
 
 The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and 
 Assembly, do enact as follows: 
 
 Section i. The Greater New York Charter, as re-enacted by Chapter 
 Four hundred and sixty-six of the Laws of Nineteen hundred and one, is 
 hereby amended by adding to Chapter X thereof a new title and four new 
 sections to be Title Five and Sections Four hundred and forty-nine-a, Four 
 hundred and forty-nine-b, Four hundred and forty-nine-c, and Four hundred 
 and forty-nine-d, to read as follows : 
 
 TITLE V. 
 Paving Board. 
 
 449-0. There shall be in the City of Neiv York a Paving Board which 
 shall consist of the Chief Engineer of the Board of Estimate and Apportion- 
 ment, who shall be its President, and the Chief Engineer of Highways of each 
 of the several Boroughs. In the determinations of the Board the President 
 shall be entitled to two votes and the other members to one vote each. Every 
 act of the Board shall be by resolution adopted by a majority of the whole 
 number of votes authorised by this section to be cast by its members. The 
 office of the Board shall be in the Borough of Manhattan. 
 
 44Q-&. The Board shall 
 
 1. Prescribe standard forms of contract and specifications to be used by 
 the City for contracts relating to the construction and repair of streets and 
 
 pavements. 
 
 2. Fix the maximum price and standard of quality, and prescribe and 
 standardize the specifications for all paving materials and supplies to be pur- 
 chased by the City, whether by competitive bidding or upon open market 
 orders. 
 
 3. Examine, test and analyse all paving materials to be used in the con- 
 struction and repair of streets and pavements or which may be referred to it 
 by a Borough President or other City Department, Board, body or officer 
 
 EXPLANATION : Matter in italics is new; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. 
 
94 PROPOSED AMENDATORY LAWS. 
 
 having authority to lay and repair pavements, and said Board shall keep a 
 record of every such examination, test and analysis. 
 
 4. Determine the types of pavement to be laid in the several Boroughs. 
 
 449-f . It shall be the duty of the President of the Board to call a meet- 
 ing whenever in liis opinion the public interest may require, and whenever lie 
 is requested so to do by any member of the Board. A quorum shall consist of 
 members entitled to cast four votes. 
 
 449-rf. The specifications and types of pavement adopted by the Paving 
 Board, when approved by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, shall be 
 binding on the Borough Presidents and all other City departments, boards, 
 bodies and officers having authority to lay and repair pavements, and no con- 
 tract shall be made or let e.vcept in conformity therewith. 
 
 2. This act shall take effect October first, Nineteen hundred and twelve. 
 
95 
 
 "D 1 
 
 AN ACT 
 
 To amend the railroad law, in relation to keeping streets in repair. 
 
 The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and 
 Assembly, do enact as follou's: 
 
 Section i. Section One hundred and seventy-eight of Chapter Four 
 hundred and eighty-one of the Laws of Nineteen hundred and ten, entitled 
 "An Act in relation to railroads, constituting Chapter Forty-nine of the con- 
 solidated laws," is hereby amended to read as follows: 
 
 178. Repair of Streets; Rate of Speed; Removal of Ice and Snow. 
 Every street surface railroad corporation so long as it shall continue to use 
 any of its tracks in any street, avenue or public place in any city or village 
 shall have and keep in permanent repair that portion of such street, avenue 
 or public place between its tracks, the rails of its tracks, and two feet in 
 width outside of its tracks, under the supervision of the proper local author- 
 ities, and whenever required by them to do so, and in such a manner as they 
 may prescribe. In case of the neglect of any corporation to make pavements 
 or repairs after the expiration of [thirty] five days' notice to do so, the local 
 authorities may make the same at the expense of such corporation, and such 
 authorities may make such reasonable regulations and ordinances as to the 
 rate of speed, mode and use of tracks, and removal of ice and snow as the 
 interests or convenience of the public may require. A corporation whose 
 agents or servants wilfully or negligently violate such an ordinance or regula- 
 tion shall be liable to such city or village for a penalty not exceeding five 
 hundred dollars to be specified in such ordinance or regulation. 
 
 2. This act shall take effect October first, Nineteen hundred and twelve. 
 
 EXPLANATION : Matter in italics is new ; matter in brackets [ ] is old law to be omitted. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, 
 or on the date to which renewed. Renewals only: 
 
 Tel. No. 642-3405 
 
 Renewals may be made 4 days priod to date due. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 i JBJEPID 
 
 LD21A-60m-8,'70 
 (N8837slO)476 A-32 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
YorV ((] 
 
 comniit'tee 
 Report* 
 
 iiy ) Mayor 
 
 on pave men 
 
 TB2b 
 N5A4 
 1913 
 
 S259791 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY