The Original Subways Were Approved By NYC's Legislature in One Week
Why did they move so much faster in 1895? // §5, chapter 4, laws of 1891
The New York City Council took 50 days to consider and approve the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which will add an estimated 82,000 housing units to NYC’s stock of ~3.6 million over the next 15 years. Before approving the measure, the council cut COY down by 20%, and required $5 billion in follow-on funding from the city and state for its own priorities beyond COY.1 After all that, the measure passed by 61%, 31-20.
In 1895 the Board of Alderman—the precursor to the modern City Council—approved the plan for the first subway in one week, by a 29-2 (91%) vote.2
What explains why our modern city legislature moved so slowly by comparison, incurring billions more in spending for a diminished proposal in the process? The law!
State law required expeditious local review of subways in the 1890s, and does not do the same for current land use
Under New York State’s Rapid Transit Act of 1891, which enabled the subway, the Board of Alderman had no more than four weeks to consider their approval of subway plans, and they had take the issue up within 7-10 days of receiving the plans.
Per section 5 of chapter 4 of the laws of 1891 (the “Rapid Transit Act of 1891,” emphasis added):
After any determination by said board of any such route or routes and of any general plan of construction of said railway or railways, the said board shall transmit to the common council of said city a copy of said plans and conclusions as adopted. It shall be the duty of such common council upon receiving such copy of plans and conclusions to appoint a day not less than one week nor more than ten days after the receipt thereof for the consideration of such plans and conclusions, and the said common council shall, on the day so fixed, proceed with the consideration thereof and may continue and adjourn such consideration, from time to time, until a final vote shall be taken thereon, as hereinafter provided. Within four weeks after the copy of such plans and conclusions adopted by the board of rapid transit railroad commissioners shall have first been received by said common council, a final vote shall be taken thereon, by ayes and nays, in the form of a vote upon a resolution to approve such plans and conclusions, and to consent to the construction of a railway or railways in accordance therewith.
Compare this with the review process that City of Yes went through in 2024, which gave the City Council 50 days. Per section 197-d(c) of the city charter (emphasis added):
Within fifty days of the filing with the council pursuant to subdivision a of this section of any decision of the city planning commission which pursuant to subdivision b of this section is subject to review by the council, the council shall hold a public hearing, after giving public notice not less than five days in advance of such hearing, and the council, within such fifty days, shall take final action on the decision.
So the easy answer to my initial question: the Board of Alderman was compelled by state law to move faster than the modern City Council, although the Council could still move quickly if they wanted.
Parkinson’s Law
However: note that, despite getting four weeks, the Board of Alderman only took one. And also note that, legally, they could not move any faster than one week (“…appoint a day not less than one week nor more than ten days after the receipt thereof…”). Not only did they only use 25% of their allotted review time, they took a final vote the very day they were allowed to do so.
The City Council, meanwhile, took every single day in their allotted 50-day review period to review City of Yes, and made it much smaller while extracting $5 billion more in taxpayer funds from the city and state.
Here we see, among other things, the hallmark of Parkinson’s Law: work expands to fill the amount of time permitted for its completion. It is very likely that, had section 197-d of the charter only given the council 40 days to complete its work, they’d have found a way to do it in 40 days.
Lesson for the modern day: it is worth prudently shortening review timelines
As I’ve previously written, many people and processes tried to kill the subways. There was already plenty of veto and delay built into the macro environment. If the subways had been forced to undergo anything resembling modern “community review” on top of that, including the mechanics of the modern City Council, they likely would have died.
In the case of both the subways and City of Yes, professional staff had already done immense amounts of public outreach, hearings, iterated design, and research.3 The erstwhile Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners and the Department of City Planning, respectively, did the hard, technical work of actually ironing out the plans. Shortening the review process that comes after that work doesn’t mean shirking responsible plan development or public input. On the contrary, it can ensure that good plans for the public benefit get done in the first place.
Shortening the City Council’s land use review window of 50 days is likely not on the political table today. And, really, I don’t have strong objections to that amount of time anyway. There are other places in our city land use review processes to save time, specifically the “community review” portions that the subways didn’t have to go through (and modern state environmental review, which the subways also didn’t have to go through, and are currently delaying the IBX, which has been stuck in review for more than three years). The current mayoral charter revision commission has noted this trend in reform thinking.
From their preliminary staff report, page 42:
The most common recommendation has been to consolidate the advisory portions of ULURP — that is, Community Board, Borough President, and, when applicable, Borough Board — into a single review period. This suggestion would preserve an advisory role for the Community Board and Borough President, but could save meaningful time. Today, the Community Board review period is generally 60 days and Borough President and Borough Board review add another 30 days. Consolidation could thus reduce the overall review period from 90 days to 60.
The Big Objection: “They Moved Faster in the Past Because No One Cared About Safety or Workers”
Before closing out this post, I want to briefly address this common objection when I discuss how quickly the subways went. I don’t think it holds water, and it buys into the false idea that speed and safety are inversely correlated.4 To put it plainly: it is the objection of someone who has not taken a look at the historical record or the reality of large engineering projects. It is an objection from the cheap seats.
First: when the first subways were constructed, from 1900 through 1904, the world was a far more dangerous place inherently. Our construction technology was worse, our communications technology was worse, and our geologic understanding of New York’s subsurface was new:
Contemporary building technology was so primitive that the [first subway] had to be constructed almost entirely by hand. Because there were few steam shovels or bulldozers available in 1900, the burden fell almost entirely on the seventy-seven hundred laborers who made up the workforce at its peak…Wielding picks, shovels, hammers, percussion drills, and other hand tools, these workmen literally gouged the subway out of the raw earth.5
In any comparison with safety records of the modern day, one must control for these differences; there was no way for subway building in the past to be as safe as it is today, simply because the tech wasn’t as good. Building a subway in 1900 would inevitably have more death and injury than 2025, even if both are providing the same level of prudence in their respective eras. The same was true for just existing in the world—a blister could kill you a hundred years ago, and is a non-event now.
Second: to say “no one cared about workers” when the subways were first built is incorrect on its face, even if workers didn’t enjoy the protections then that they do today. The original contract for the subway includes 8-hour work days, among many other things.6 These provisions were not evenly enforced, just like they are not today, but worker safety and working conditions were top of mind. The subways were delivered on time and on budget, even though workers were gaining more and more rights throughout that era.
Third: New York City builds subways very slowly today (if at all), and California cannot build a mile of high speed rail to save its life. But many other countries can do these things faster with perfectly fine safety records, and even other states in the US can build out infrastructure faster than others in the same way. Project delivery speed is not abusive of workers, and it is not dangerous. What is dangerous are bad standards and improper review, which are speed agnostic.
Primary sources:
Proceedings of the Board of Alderman of the City of New York, from October 6, 1891 to January 4, 1892 (for formal reception of the 1891 plans and a vote to consider them, see page 167; for the approval of the 1891 plans, see page 174).
Report in and for the city of New York to the Common council of the city of New York in pursuance of the provisions of section 5 of chapter 4 of the Laws of 1891, Oct. 20, 1891 (see page 116 for the full accounting of Alderman votes).
Proceedings of the Board of Alderman of the City of New York, from April 2, 1895 to June 5, 1895 (for formal reception of the 1894 plans and a vote to consider them, see page 283; for the approval of the post-1894 plans, see page 374).
Rapid Transit Act of 1891 with Amendments and Index (Laws 1891, Chapter 4). As amended by Laws 1892, Chapter 102; Laws 1892, Chapter 556; Laws 1894, Chapter 528; Laws 1894, Chapter 752; Laws 1895, Chapter 519. See page 5 for §5 that explains local authority approval of rapid transit board plans. By 1915 §5 extended the review period from four weeks to 60 days, and NYC’s relevant local body was the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, not the Board of Alderman.
For a fuller index of the proceedings of the Board of Alderman, see here.
Charter Revision Commission Preliminary Report (April 30, 2025).
“NYC Council moves on compromise ‘City of Yes’ plan. Here’s what’s in and what’s out,” City & State, November 21, 2024.
Proceedings of the Board of Alderman of the City of New York, from April 2, 1895 to June 5, 1895 (for formal reception of the post-1894 plans and a vote to consider them on May 14, see page 283; for the approval of the post-1894 plans on May 21, see page 374).
Although, no matter how much public outreach you do, someone will always say you didn’t do enough.
In the case of the subways, the Rapid Transit Commission even had a previous series of hearings, public input, and subway plans to build from.
And in the case of City of Yes—the City Planning Commission proactively led years of community engagement and input before even finishing the proposal. Before it even got to the City Council, the CPC had its own marathon hearing, the general content of which was only repeated when it got to the council.
As with public infrastructure, so with running from a bear: speed and safety go very well together.
“William Barclay Parsons and the Construction of the IRT” in 722 Miles, by Clifton Hood (1993).
Every time someone has brought this objection up in person, I mention the 8-hour shift mandate, along with other worker protections and rights built into the subway franchise contracts. Not once has an interlocutor known about these—their mental model was simply “sometime vaguely before 1950, no one had any rights.” They often think the 8-hour workday came about far later. But, regardless of that, they pivot to claim that the 8-hour labor standard must have been a completely false front. They are not interested in the truth of the matter, and are trying to make up historical details to back the nonsensical piece of ideology that speed must always come at the cost of humanity, dignity, and prudence.
However, good books on the subject of subway development get into the subway contracts, their labor standards, how they were negotiated, and how they played out as the subway was actually built. The reality was hard. See, for example, “William Barclay Parsons and the Construction of the IRT” in 722 Miles by Clifton Hood.