How Franchise Terms Impeded Private Subway Construction in New York City: Comparison with Concession Agreements for Early Subterranean Transit in Great Britain
About this ebook
Regardless, given the political constraints, the DBOM public-private partnership model finalized in 1900 was extremely successful. The lines built under this model comprise half of today’s New York City Subway network. Fares were low, no government subsidies were required, and investors earned high returns (until the unprecedented inflation of World War I, which could have been resolved by allowing the franchisees to raise fares with inflation).
About the author
Kyle M. Kirschling is an urbanist who specializes in improving cities’ infrastructure. He is a licensed CPA and holds a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University.
As an advisor to the New York City Transit Authority, he sped up subway trains (reversing a 23-year trend) by conceiving a new operations strategy, saving two to four minutes per train trip and increasing on-time performance from 67% to 81% in 12 months, at zero cost (includes the “Save Safe Seconds” campaign and “SPEED Unit,” as reported in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and elsewhere).
He is the author of “Engineering the New York City Subway,” the first publication to explain why New York City has a subway, and he is the author of "An Economic Analysis of Rapid Transit in New York, 1870-2010," an evaluation of the impact of private, public, and hybrid institutions for transit ownership and operation.
He presently runs an internal management consulting group at the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority focused on solving infrastructure maintenance and safety issues for the subway division.
