said highway ought to be constructed or operated: and their determination, confirmed by the court, may be taken in lieu of the consent of the property

owners.

§ 3. Any such surface railroad shall be operated by some power other than steam locomotives, and shall not be used except for passenger traffic.

§ 4. This act shall take effect immediately.

Bill prepared by Counsel for the Commission, to be introduced in Legislature, providing for grading and paving Atlantic avenue from Flatbush avenue to City Line, was not introduced for reasons stated in final report of the Commission.

AN ACT to regulate and to improve Atlantic avenue in the city of Brooklyn and to provide the means of payment therefor.

The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assembly, do enact as follows:

SECTION I. The Board for the Atlantic Avenue Improvement appointed pursuant to the provisions of the act of the legislature of the State of New York, passed at the session of the year eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, entitled "An Act to regulate and improve Atlantic avenue between Flatbush avenue and Atkins avenue in the city of Brooklyn, and providing for the removal of the steam railroad of the Long Island Railroad Company from the surface, and for changing the grade of said railroad, and providing for all changes in avenues, streets and railroads that may be rendered necessary by reason of such changes, and providing means for the payment thereof," are hereby charged with the execution of the duties and vested with the powers conferred upon it by the provisions of this act.

§ 2. The said Board shall prepare a plan for the improvement of Atlantic avenue from Flatbush avenue to the City Line of the city of Brooklyn, by paving and repaving said avenue uniformly throughout with an improved pavement, which plan shall fix the widths of the roadway and such permanent improvements throughout said avenue from Flatbush avenue to said City Line, as in its judgment shall be for the benefit, beauty and utility of said avenue, and shall show the treatment for the various portions thereof as shall, in its opinion, best serve said purposes. When said plan shall have received the approval of the mayor to be endorsed in writing thereon, the said Board shall have power to cause said avenue to be improved in accordance therewith. All such work shall be done by contract or contracts, let to the lowest responsible bidder in accord with the provisions regulating other work now done by contract in said city, save and except the making, execution and superintendence of such contract or contracts, shall be in all respects within the exclusive cognizance and control of the said Board. And said Board shall have power to employ such engineers, surveyors, clerical and other assistants as may be necessary in the premises, and to fix and to regulate their respective compensations.

§ 3. During the work and improvement hereby committed to said Board, it shall have the exclusive government, management and control of said Atlantic avenue from Flatbush avenue to the said City Line, subject, however, to the laws of the state and to the powers of the common council in relation thereto, not inconsistent with this act, and no person or corporation shall have power to open the street for any temporary purposes, except with the consent and under the supervision of said Board.

§ 4. To meet the cost, in the first instance, of the work and improvement authorized by this act, the Mayor and the Comptroller of the city of Brooklyn shall from time to time, as may be required, issue bonds of said city, to an amount not exceeding $700,000, as other city bonds are issued, and the proceeds thereof shall be paid into the city treasury, to be used as required for the payment of such work, improvement and the expenses thereof, and for no other purpose. Such bonds shall be known as the Atlantic Avenue Improvement Bonds, Series Number Two, and shall be issued in such amounts, at such rates of interest and in such series and be made payable at such times as the Mayor and Comptroller may determine. None of said bonds shall be sold at less than par. The proceeds of said bonds shall be paid out of the city treasury from time to time as may be required, upon vouchers duly approved by the said Board or a majority thereof.

§ 5. When said work and improvements shall have been fully completed and paid for as above provided, the said Board shall thereupon so certify in writing to the Mayor and the Comptroller of said city, and thereupon the said Comptroller shall certify to the Board of Assessors of the city of Brooklyn onehalf of the total cost of said work and improvement, and thereupon one-quarter of the said total cost of said work and improvement as so certified, shall be borne and paid by the Atlantic Avenue Railroad Company of Brooklyn, or its lessee, the Long Island Railroad Company, or its successors or assigns, and shall be duly assessed by said Board upon the property of said company in, on or along the line of such improvement upon said avenue and one quarter of the said total cost of said improvement shall be borne and paid by the property lying within one-half block from each side of said avenue and shall be assessed thereon by said Board of Assessors according to benefit, in accord with the provisions and procedure of law now regulating the levying of assessments in said city, and in levying such assessments the said Board shall take into consideration, in each and every instance, whether the parcel, lot or piece of land to be assessed shall have at any time theretofore been assessed for any previous paving of said Atlantic avenue and shall have power to make such allowance therefor as it may deem proper in determining the amount of such assessment to be imposed thereon. Said assessments when duly confirmed shall be a lien upon the property assessed and shall be collected as are assessments for local improvements in said city. If at any time the functions and powers of any of the officers named in this act, other than the said Board, shall cease and determine by act of law previous to the fulfillment of the powers and duties cast upon the said Board by the provisions of this act, then the duties herein conferred upon the said Mayor shall devolve upon the Mayor within whose jurisdiction the territory within which such avenue exists shall be placed, and the other

duties cast upon such other officers shall devolve upon such officer or officers as shall by act of law have succeeded to the duties of such officer or officers respectively.

§ 6. The said Board shall act upon all questions by a majority vote of its members, and shall not be entitled to any further or additional compensation for the performance of the duties imposed upon it by the provisions of his act, save and except if the performance of such duties shall require its attention subsequent to the full and final performance of any duties required of said Board under the provisions of the act named in the first section of this act; then and then only each member of said Board shall receive $10 a day for every day that he shall be so employed, and the compensation of said commissioners and of such engineer, surveyors, clerical and other assistants, shall be charged upon the fund provided for the payment of such work and improvement by the fourth section of this act.

§ 7. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent with this act are hereby repealed. § 8. This act shall take effect immediately.

THE COMMISSION'S ADDRESS TO THE

To the Governor :

GOVERNOR.

BROOKLYN, May 10, 1897.

The undersigned respectfully ask your excellency to officially approve the bill, which, near the close of the last session of the Legislature, passed both houses, entitled:

"An Act to improve Atlantic avenue, between Flatbush ave"nue and Atkins avenue, in the City of Brooklyn, and providing "for the removal of the steam railroad of the Long Island Rail"road Company from the surface of the said avenue.”

In this connection we beg to state that we were the Commissioners appointed by the Mayor of the City of Brooklyn, under authority of Chapter 394 of the Laws of 1896, entitled:

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"An Act to authorize the appointment of a Commission to "examine into and report a plan for the relief and improvement "of Atlantic avenue in the City of Brooklyn," which act contained directory provisions that the said Commission should inquire into the condition of Atlantic avenue with reference to the railroad operated thereon; and that it should give public hearings and

invite suggestions from parties interested therein as to the best methods for the relief and improvement of the same; and that the Commission should formulate a plan for the relief of the said avenue and the improvement of the same, and should report to the Mayor such plan, together with such recommendation as to it might seem proper, and that thereupon the Mayor should cause a bill to be prepared to carry out the plans and recommendations of the Commission, and submit the same to the Legislature at the session of 1807.

The Commission was appointed early after the adjournment of the Legislature, and at once entered upon the contemplated inquiry. Public hearings were advertised in the Brooklyn daily papers, and were held at frequent intervals during a period of several months. Notices were sent out to the people along the avenue, and every facility was given by the Commission to the inhabitants of the city to be affected by any improvement of the avenue, to come before the Commission and freely to express their views.

The hearings before the Commission were largely attended, and the sentiment was well nigh universal that the avenue ought to be improved, and that the operation of a railroad on the surface thereof by steam power should be discontinued.

Some favored the removal of the railroad from the surface altogether; some favored a depressed cut, some an underground road, while others favored an elevated road in preference to the condition of things now existing.

The Commission likewise had many conferences with the officials of the railroad company having certain vested rights in the avenue, and invited and received suggestions and advice from engineers and others whose judgment in such matters would be of much value. After many months of patient labor, and after fully considering the engineering problems involved in the various schemes of improvement presented, and the financial questions which must be met, especially in so far as the city of Brooklyn was concerned, and having, as we thought, an unselfish regard for the best interests of all those who were to be most directly affected by any improvement, we recommended the scheme which is em bodied in the bill now before the Governor for his official action

As will be seen, the general plan proposed by the bill contemplates an underground road for a part of the distance, and an elevated road for another portion, the restoration of the surface of the avenue to the public use, and the removal of steam as a motive power, both as relates to the surface of the avenue and the operation of the railroad to be constructed under the provisions of the bill. We have never for a moment doubted that the carrying out of the improvement contemplated by the bill would be of incalculable benefit to the city of Brooklyn, and especially so to all that class of citizens living along the line of the projected improvement.

This will be the more apparent when it is observed that it was made evident to the Commission that in connection with the improvement of Atlantic avenue, though not a part of it, nor within our jurisdiction to consider, a tunnel will be constructed under the East River, extending from Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, the westerly terminus of the improvement contemplated by the bill, to the lower portion of New York City, thus giving a continuous and uninterrupted route from lower New York City over the whole length of Long Island.

Such opposition as has been developed to the scheme contemplated by the bill comes from a few property holders abutting on the avenue between Bedford and Howard avenues, a distance of about eight city blocks, where the railroad is to run upon an elevated structure of sufficient height as to allow the free use of the cross streets, and this opposition is not to the improvement of the avenue by the removal of steam from the surface, but rather to the placing thereon of an elevated structure, a prefer ence being expressed for a structure all underground.

This opposition, however, is not formidable, either in numbers or the amount of property held by them along the avenue. We have carefully analyzed the personnel of this opposition and of the holders of all the property abutting on the line of the improvement, and we have ascertained that only about fifteen out of one thousand holdings along the avenue, viz.: One and onehalf per cent. of the whole, oppose the plan proposed by the Commission and embodied by the bill, while the vast majority of the property holders directly to be affected, both in numbers and