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Show ' Holland Tunnel Herculean Task Vehicular Tube Under Hudson Hud-son Involved Difficult Engineering En-gineering Problems. Kew York. The "streets under the Hudson," connecting Manhattan with the Jersey shore, known as the Holland Hol-land tunnel, were recently opened to the public The building of these, the largest vehicular tunnels in the world, took seven years and cost the states of New York and New Jersey S4S.- ooaooo. The boring of the two lubes under the river was a herculean task and one which taxed the Ingenuity of the engineers engi-neers to the utmost. The new link between the states is counted on to play an important role . in efforts to cope with New York's constantly Increasing traffic problem. Here are two great metropolitan communities, New York on one side und Jersey City, Hoboken, Newa A. Bayonne, Kearney, Harrison and Elizabeth Eliz-abeth on the other, served by the same great harbor and economically akin to one another, and which were connected con-nected by only two subway tubes and the old-fashioned slow-moving ferries. As long as commercial traffic was bandied mostly by the railroads this was satisfactory enough, but with .the vast increase in truck and bus traffic In the past few years, especially since the World war, the need for a direct vehicular intercommunication has become be-come more and more apparent. Big Engineering Problem. The Holland tunnel fills the need eolves the problem and brings the New Jersey cities definitely and surely into the metropolitan area. Motor traffic now can proceed from Canal street. Manhattan, to Journal square. Jersey City, in six minutes. The tunnel has rightly been called one of the greatest engineering feats ever bronght to a conclusion. The engineers en-gineers who undertook to construct it were faced with problems the like of which never before had been so much es contemplated. Boring two tubes under the river was not so difficult a matter. That at least had been done before, and there was a clear road for Clifford M Holland, nrst chief engineer, who died on the job in 1024. and for whom the tunnel was named. But the other tunnels nad been for subway traffic, not for motor vehicles. Subway trains are swift, sure and surrounded sur-rounded with safety devices, and they give off no noxious gases. Automobiles, Automo-biles, on the other hand, are liable to break down, are driven by persons of varying abilities and changeable minds, and emit large quantities of deadly carbon monoxide gas from their exhaust pipes. Thi9 question was answered by a ierles of huge ventilating fans. There are 6-1 of the fans, housed In two buildings od the Manhattan side and two on the Jersey, hut mly f0 ere used In normal circumstances. The fan buildings are ten stories In height and the vitiated air sucked f'nm the tunnel Is expelled from the tenth floor. Blower fans- of "Joo horsepower draw In fresh air and pump It Into the tubes, where It is put Into circulation so gradually that one standing at :he entry vents Is r arcely able to feel the breeze sweep 1ng In. Dials register the exact con d.'tlon of the air In the tunnel at all times Part of the guard on the air Is maintained In a laboratory at the air buildings on either side. Samples of the dead air drawn from the two tubes are submitted to analysis and the results are forwarded to a signal room, where R recording machine founts' 'he parts o' carbon monoxide to each 1.001 parts of air. In roping with the special problem prob-lem of the Hollanl tunnel, engineers wore nid"d by studies of the Black-well Black-well anil !o herhl:e tunnels In I.i n d"ii. 'he three-tube harbor runnel In f;i:i;:(iw and the two tubes under (hp Rier Kibe at Hamburg. Police and f.re protection systems In force In tiie-e tubes were carefully scrutinized liitd a system which Its sponsors he lieve cecils any of the foreign plans l;:is been put Into I ffect In the Now Tori; tunnel. The lights In the tunnel cannot go out. the road'Aii.VH tire wide and clear, and. rnoM Important o nil. the vital problem of how to f t-t rid of the pol i,on exhaust gases has been solved. The tunnel Is compose!) of two tubes through the bed of the riuT. fine for wet-Tt und, the o'h'T for easthound e raffle The .ubes are ',). '.'.".') feet long Kip terina through the wide plaza which has In en cleared at Canal. Varh k and Brnnuto stieetn. Manhattan, the tno tori' I pa.vs Ms tolls at one of eight hand' booths nnd dive down (he In fline. S In approximately sis minutes, after a cool drive through a well-lighted, white-tiled passage, he emerges Into daylight on Fourteenth street. Jersey City. By ferry it would have taken him between fifteen and twenty minutes min-utes to accomplish exactly the same thing. For the individual motorist this Is a great boon, of course, but for die truck and bus companies, for the man ufacturers who want to deliver theii goods across the river in a hurry, ii is of even greater importance. , One half the roadway has been reserved for trucks and busses. Il is estimated lo.tHK.l.000 trucks, busses and private cars will pass through the tunnel during the coming year; 1.000 vehicles can negotiate each tube every hour. It cau be readily seen that the diversion di-version of this huge volume of era flic from the ferries will do much to relieve re-lieve congestion. The long lilies of waiting vehicles at the ferry slips will be eliminated in a large measure, and all trans-Hudson traffic will be expe dited. Real estate values in the New Jersey Jer-sey cities and- towns already have experienced ex-perienced a boom ts a result of the building of the tunnel. Business and store sites also have gone up in value, in anticipation of the business which will be brought to them by the 1.1. 000.000 cars. The matter of building some vehicu lar artery connecting New York and New Jersey is an old one. After the completion of the Brooklyn bridge. which proved one of the greatest far tors in the growth of Brooklyn from a quiet residential section to the genuine metropolis that It is today, the idea of connecting New York with the com muniiies to the west was brought, for ward. Of course at that time there was no thought of a tunnel, except, perhaps in the minds of "impractical" dream ers. The natural way to cross a river it was universally thought, was by boat or bridge. But when the engi neers began to consider the problems Inherent in such nn idea as n bridge, they found more than thev could cope with. So a tunnel was decided on. Tnls was more than twenty year3 ago. when the Hudson tubes were undpr construction and were proving a tunnel tun-nel under rhe Hudson could be built and operated. Knowledge of tunnel building and ventilation was not then sufficiently advanced for the proposed undertaking, undertak-ing, but In 101U the New York state bridge and tunnel cc mmlssion and the New Jersey Interstate bridge and tun nel commission were authorized to cooperate co-operate with a view to entering Into a contract for the construction of the proposed tunnel. They appointed Clifford M. Holland of Brooklyn to handle the engineering of the project. Mr. Holland devoted night and day to the project for five years and In 1024. worn out from his efforts, he died. His su-ressor. Milton Mil-ton H. Freeman, who had been engl neer of construction, lasted only Ave months on the Job nnd then he tor died. The task ot completing the tun nel fell on the shoulders of Ole Sing-stad. Sing-stad. who carried It through and still is chief engineer. Cost 543400X30. The total cost of construction was ?4S.4UO,000. This seems like a good deal of money, but it Is small enough when the fact is considered that the Holland tuunel directly connects the "i.OL'O.otNl people of New York city and the 1.2.o.ii"0 Inhabitants of seven large New Jersey towns. It Is thought the present- toll rates, which are substantially the same as those charged regularly by the Hud son ferries, will pay for all the opera tion of the tunnel and clear up the expense of construction In less than fifteen years. Each ot the two states is bearing one-half of the cost of the tunnel. The ventilation ol the tubes has been handled in a novel way. Instead of the usual forced draft, blowing fresh air longitudinally through the tunnel, causing a great draft and having hav-ing less etliciency at one end of the ' lube than at the other, an arrange- I ment has been wotked out whereby the air Is changed 41' times a minute j all through the tunnel. Fresh air, forced In by huge funs, passes through the space between the ' roadway and the bottom of (he tube Through a continuous slit It Is drawn up through the tunnel and passes through two long rows of ventilators In the celling Into a similar npai-e between be-tween the ceiling i:ud the top of the circular tube, from which It Is drawn by large suction fans. In tests held recently It was found that smoke from a Rtnoke bomb was entirely cleared from the tube In two minutes, and less than that time was required for the cleirlng of the ntmos phere. after an automobile covered w.'Lh gasoline had been burned In one of the tubes. Regulation of Traffic. Traflic will move in two lines, the nght-hand one for private vehicles of less than seven-passenger capacity und the left-hand for commercial ve ! hides. As anyone knows who das ! been forced to wail behind a heavily j loaded moving van or truck on one j of the Fast river bridges, this will I greatly expedite the movement of I tralllc. I In the tunnel a H d limit o( ')0 j miles mi hour has been not. It Is ex- peeled the special policemen who will j be posted every 4W feel alonK 1 1. ! roadway will be able to keep tralllc moving at a speed of nt least miles I an hour. One rif the regulations provides, that each car must maintain an Interval of: "." feet between II and the car ahead. ' thus Insuring safety from rear-ctul col j llslons In case any vehicle suddenly stalls In the tunnel. I For the safety of the tunnel-users. e.'.ch policeman Is provided with i, fre i extinguisher and lo.;e within e.ny reach, and there are special emergency emer-gency trucks, equipped for tire flailing, flail-ing, lowing and wrecking. Not only Is the Holland tunnel ! treat engineeriii" f,al. well done; It1 also Is a great and necessary link ' between tun cnsli rn slates which j heretofore have been !,.,,( npinl by ' the Hudson |
