APPENDIX II

Supporting Data and Statistical Materials Showing the Need for a Well Planned and Comprehensive Terminal System

In addition to taking the testimony of competent authorities on the freight problem in Manhattan, the Commission made an extended study of published and unpublished documents, papers, and statistical materials bearing on the subject. A brief summary of the results of this investigation is herewith appended as supporting material for the general statements made in the report.

I. Delays in the Lighterage of Freight Across the Hudson River It is stated in the report of the Examiner in the Jersey rate case that it is the practice to allow five days free time at Jersey City on shipments consigned to New York lighterage. "An additional period of two days, and in some instances three days is allowed after the car reaches Manhattan or Brooklyn, making a total free time of seven or eight days on all this traffic. After orders are received to forward a car from the classification yard in New Jersey to a specified point within the lighterage limits, it usually requires two days to effect delivery. An additional period of two days is required for unloading the car, and still another period of two days to return it to the yards in New Jersey. The floating equipment is often delayed, and we are told that lighters and barges frequently lie at piers for more than five days waiting for an opportunity to load or unload."

II. Occupation of the West Side Waterfront by Railroad Freight Yards and Terminals to the Detriment of Water-borne Traffic

The lighterage and carfloat system necessarily involves the Occupation of a large portion of the waterfront of Manhattan by terminals for freight consigned to the inland of Manhattan, and for freight consigned from the inland of Manhattan to western. points. It must be remembered that a great proportion of the inbound freight is not destined for the steamships along the shore but for delivery at points in the interior of Manhattan and

other parts of the free lighterage zone. In other words, an extensive waterfront is occupied by business that has no relation to the waterfront. As pointed out in report of the Examiner in the New Jersey Rate Case, if New Jersey were connected with Manhattan by a freight tunnel, the dead-ends of the Jersey terminals on the waterfront could be abolished and freight could be run from the classification yards on the Jersey Meadows into Manhattan. Likewise, the shore frontage of Manhattan, now occupied by bulkheads and piers to which the car-floats run, could be turned to other purposes, except in so far as it was found desirable to use it for freight destined to reshipment by steamships.

The occupation of so much of the Manhattan waterfront by the railways is open to grave objection on the ground that it increases the rental value of every foot. This competition for the waterfront makes high charges for Manhattan docks and piers. These charges are a burden on shipping and make it costly for steamship companies to do business at this port. With the increase in our foreign commerce, the competition will increase and rates will go up. In time this will produce results detrimental to the port and tend to drive away from New York some of the oceanborne traffic. Sound policy would seem to indicate, therefore, that only that portion of the waterfront should be used by railroads which has a direct relation to trans-shipments to and from river and ocean steamers. The freight business that is related to the interior of Manhattan, and the yards and terminals for the transaction of that business, should be away from the waterfront.

III. Cramped Quarters at the Waterfront Freight Terminals

The practice of locating the terminals of the New Jersey railroads on the western waterfront of Manhattan necessarily means that those terminals must be very restricted in the area of space occupied. In fact, many of the said terminals are piers and bulkheads. Freight brought over from the New Jersey shore is, of necessity, piled up at many points in huge stacks along the waterfront, often exposed to the weather. If it is not stacked up out of

nal piers. Truck drivers are therefore compelled to search for their deliveries either in mountains of freight along the waterfront, or in long windrows of boxes, bundles, bales and crates scattered along the entire length of the piers.

IV. Congestion of Trucks in Streets of Manhattan

In addition to the delays due to congestion at the freight terminals themselves, there are the further delays due to the fact that freight delivery in Manhattan is largely congested in a narrow strip along the Hudson River waterfront. When once the truckman has secured his load at the freight terminal, after a delay ranging from one hour to five or six hours, he is compelled to battle his way eastward, perhaps, as far as First Avenue, fighting for a place in the stream of trucks flowing eastward and continually halted by the stream of traffic flowing north and south. along the main arteries of the Island. This state of affairs has a twofold aspect it adds immensely to the costs of the merchant or manufacturer on the East Side who sends goods to and receives goods from the westerly waterfront terminals in Manhattan. It also and this is no less important contributes to the long and costly delays in the north and southbound traffic along the main.

avenues.

V. Congestion Due to Diagonal Hauls

The congestion at the freight terminals and in the streets leading from those terminals is further augmented by the diagonal hauls which merchants north or south of a given terminal on the Hudson River are compelled to make. They must cart their goods. not only east and west; but in a diagonal direction across the Island; for example, a merchant doing business on Fourteenth Street, and receiving goods by the Delaware & Lackawanna Railroad is compelled to haul the same either in a northeasterly direction from the pier at Leroy Street, or in a southeasterly direction from the pier at West Twenty-eighth Street. He is compelled to do this because the competitive ownership and operation of terminals prevent the delivery of his goods at the point nearest to his place of business.

VI. The Absence of Common Terminal System Means Costly

Duplication in Trucking

The terminals of the several railroads on the West Side of Manhattan below Seventy-second Street are scattered at irregular intervals down the waterfront beyond the Battery and up along the eastern shore, with intensive congestion between West Forty-fourth Street and Twenty-third Street, and between Gansevoort Street and the Battery. According to testimony before the Commission, the location of these terminals is largely due to historical accident - one railroad gets a pier lease at a given point, and the other roads desirous of having similar facilities immediately seek to extend their terminals in the same neighborhood. As a result, merchants and manufacturers are subjected to extraordinarily heavy costs of truckage; that is, a merchant dispatching goods over five railway lines is compelled to send trucks to five different terminals scattered at irregular points along the waterfront. The waste of such a system is obvious and calls for no comment. If the same system were introduced in the collection of mail, a merchant would have to post his letters for Galveston at Forty-second Street, his letters for St. Louis at Thirtyeighth Street, his letters for San Francisco at Gansevoort Street, and so forth.

VII. Delays in Trucking

Owing to the limited amount of space on the waterfront which is available for railroad terminals, each company is confined to relatively narrow and restricted quarters. This produces intense congestion of trucks receiving and delivering freight at the several terminals along the waterfront, as well as the stations of the New York Central. Carts and trucks stand for hours often for the greater part of a day at the freight terminals awaiting their turn to get to the doors or the piles of freight. This condition was actually observed by the members of your Commission. It is abundantly illustrated by the testimony contained in Docket 6334 before the Interstate Commerce Commission- the New York Team Owners' Association et al. versus the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad Company et al. A single exhibit, pub

March 31st, 1914, spent two hours and fifteen minutes securing 28 packages at Pier 27 of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company; . on April 1st, 1914, one hour and 50 minutes securing 18 packages; on April 2d, 1914, one hour and 55 minutes securing 16 packages; on April 3rd, 1914, two hours and 50 minutes securing 20 packages; on April 4th, 1914, one hour and 40 minutes securing 11 packages. This was the condition of affairs before the great war broke out in Europe.

Later studies show no improvement in the conditions above described. Mr. Ira A. Place, in a memorandum filed with the Commission, states with regard to the cost of cartage in New York City due to congestion and delays, "inquiry of various shippers develops some interesting facts on this subject. Of some fifteen important shippers, merchants, importers and exporters, jobbers and dealers, depending on existing facilities, all state that the present cost of cartage is large. One of these firms estimates that with proper track connection to warehouses it could save on cartage $45,000 per annum; another $20,000 per annum; another $6,000 per annum; and one $5,100 per annum.

"The freight charges by rail on a car of merchandise of the general character handled by these four firms would be approximately $50.00 from Buffalo to New York; so that the cost of cartage right here in Manhattan Island on such freight is approximately 60 to 80 per cent of the cost of moving it from Buffalo to New York, a distance of 440 miles. .

"On December 11th, 1917, an actual count of the number of trucks arriving at St. John's Park for freight, and also those arriving with freight, was made and a record kept of the interval of time between the arrival of the truck at the station, and the time it reached the platform. It was found that on this day there were 376 trucks with a total delay of 3,374 minutes. Applying a value of $1.00 an hour for one-horse and two-horse trucks, and $2.00 an hour for motor trucks, the estimated daily cost of this delay would be $59.73, which, on the basis of 300 days, equal $17,919.00 per annum of loss, all or nearly all of which might be saved if modern and adequate facilities were provided."