America’s First Subway System
By the late 1800s Boston suffered from problems with congestion of its streets which were of herculean proportions. There were several factors which contributed to the gridlock. One was simple overpopulation. Another was the proliferation of horse and steam propelled streetcars, combined with private carriages, cabs, and other vehicles. The oldest portions of the city consisted (as it still does) of narrow winding streets and alleys, often following more or less their original routes as cowpaths to and from Boston Common.
Boston needed a mass transit railroad, but the construction of an elevated railroad in some parts of the city was virtually impossible without tearing down whole neighborhoods and rerouting surface streets. A subway like the one open and running in London was equally distasteful to Bostonians. The London system was propelled with steam locomotives which filled the subterranean sections with toxic smoke and clouds of steam, and the experience of riding underground was not a pleasant one for the city’s representatives who went to evaluate the system.
Frank Sprague’s electric motor, which proved itself driving trolleys in Richmond, Virginia in 1888, induced Boston trolley owners to equip their vehicles with electric power. Once these trolleys proved their feasibility in Boston, the way was open to place rails underground and ease the surface congestion plaguing the city. In 1891 a Rapid Transit Committee was formed and sanctioned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The usual political harping and maneuvering went on for the next few years but by 1895 construction of the first portion of the Boston Subway was underway (despite the claims by some that air underground was unhealthful and releasing it into the atmosphere would place the whole city at risk).
The builders were forced by legislative fiat to keep surface streets such as Tremont open during construction. Workers devised a plan in which sections of trench were dug in lengths of ten to twelve feet, covered with wood planks which were then bricked over. Once the brick “top” was in place the interior of the section was reinforced with steel beams and the interior walls were built over them. The Boston system was built to half of the depth of its London counterpart – 50 feet rather than 100 – in order to speed construction and to avoid undermining the foundations of existing structures. Human remains were encountered during construction and re-interred in Boston’s cemeteries.
The Boston Subway, with three initial stations, opened to the public on September 1, 1897, as work continued on other tracks and stations. The first three stations were Park Street, Boylston Street, and Tremont Street. Others soon joined them as the system expanded. By 1903 the effectiveness of the system on alleviating surface congestion was considered a failure, many believed that the system had actually increased foot traffic in some areas of the city. Today the first subway in the United States is part of a transport system which includes streetcars, buses, light rail, elevated rail, and automobiles as a way of moving around its still congested streets.