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The Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT, was an urban transit holding company, based in Brooklyn, New York City and incorporated in 1923.The BMT was the successor in bankruptcy to the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company. Both companies controlled subsidiaries which operated and supplied services for the great majority of the rapid transit and streetcar lines in Brooklyn, New York with extensions into Queens and Manhattan.
The BMT was a national leader in the transit industry, and was a proponent of advanced urban railways, participating in development of advanced streetcar designs, including the PCC car, whose design and advanced components influenced railcar design worldwide for decades. The company also sought to extend the art of rapid transit car design with such innovations as articulated (multi-jointed-body) cars, lightweight equipment, advanced control systems, and shared components with streetcar fleets. The BMT was also the original proponent of the all-four concept of integrated urban transit.
Unlike the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), the other private operator of New York Subways, the BMT remained solvent throughout The Great Depression and showed a profit, albeit small in its last year, until the very end of its transit operations.
The BMT was pressed by the City administration of Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia to sell its operations to the City, which wanted to have all subway and elevated lines municipally owned and operated. The City had two powerful incentives to coerce the sale:
- the BMT was forced by provisions of the Dual Contracts to charge no more than a five-cent fare, an amount set in 1913, before the inflationFor alternative meanings see inflation (disambiguation). In economics, inflation is a fall in the market value or purchasing power of money. This is equivalent to a rise in the general level of prices. Inflation is the opposite of deflation. Zero or very of World War IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of; and
- the City had the right of "recapture" of those lines that had been built or improved with City participation under those Dual Contracts. This meant that, if the City forced the issue, the BMT could have been left with a fragmented system and City competition in many of its market areas.
The BMT sold all of its transit operations to the City, completing the deal on June 1June 1 is the 152nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (153rd in leap years), with 213 days remaining. Events 193 Roman Emperor Marcus Didius is assassinated in his palace. 1485 Matthias of Hungary took Vienna in his conquest of Austria (from Frede, 1940Events January-February January 5 FM radio is demonstrated to the FCC for the first time. January 6 World War II: Mass execution of Poles, committed by Germans in the Poznan, Warthegau. January 12 World War II: Russia bombs cities in Finland. February 2 F.
External links
New York City Subway history
