because if the limit should be exceeded, "no liability could possibly
be imposed upon the city," a view which might comfort the timid
taxpayers but could hardly be expected to give confidence to the
capitalists who might undertake the execution of the contract.

Various corporations, organized during the thirty odd years of
unsuccessful attempts by the city to secure underground rapid transit,
claimed that their franchises gave them vested rights in the streets
to the exclusion of the new enterprise, and they were prepared to
assert their rights in the courts. (The Underground Railroad Company
of the City of New York sought to enjoin the building of the road and
carried their contest to the Supreme Court of the United States which
did not finally decide the questions raised until March, 1904, when
the subway was practically complete.)

Rival transportation companies stood ready to obstruct the work and
encourage whomever might find objection to the building of the road.

New York has biennial elections. The road could not be completed in
two years, and the attitude of one administration might not be the
attitude of its successors.

The engineering difficulties were well-nigh appalling. Towering
buildings along the streets had to be considered, and the streets
themselves were already occupied with a complicated network of
subsurface structures, such as sewers, water and gas mains, electric
cable conduits, electric surface railway conduits, telegraph and
power conduits, and many vaults extending out under the streets,
occupied by the abutting property owners. On the surface were street
railway lines carrying a very heavy traffic night and day, and all the