Construction began on a Detroit subway in either 1928 or 1929 and they built two stations. When I was in college someone got busted for running tours.
But I've been frustrated for the past forty years trying to find more. Current employees working for the city know nothing about it. My Dad watched the construction as a junior high student. The newspaper story about the illegal tour was the only confirmation I've ever seen.
Does the Free Press archive not have anything on it? If not, maybe a library search request with the city library or Wayne State would help...
If not any of those, I'm curious what the historical societies or maybe some offbeat publication like the Motor City Muckraker might be able to dredge up.
I found articles about the debate on whether to build it or not. They started debating it in 1912 and the car companies vigorously fought it which isn't a surprise.
Tried the archive just now and couldn't find anything around the time of the actual construction but I will keep working on it.
If I can find a little bit bet I could get the Muckracker to do a story. Bet they have resources we both lack.
Rochester, NY also used to have an abandoned subway. The tunnel was much shorter and it was actually used. It used to be wide open and easy to explore. A few years ago they closed it up and filled in part of it.
Rochester's subway was more like light rail from what I understand (i.e., what they have in Buffalo now). A large portion of it was a re-purposed aqueduct from the Erie Canal, so it wasn't quite the most ambitious subway system. If it had stuck around longer past the 40s though I imagine it could have evolved into quite a formidable system.
In Pennsylvania there is a section of the old turnpike that was abandoned [1], including two tunnels, one of them over a mile long. I hiked it several years ago - it is open for public recreation and it is a great place to go biking (bring a headlight). Recommended if you are in the area.
;) Surely you are talking about the Donner party [1] cannibalism incident. Coincidentally, the film The Road, which also featured cannibalism, had a short scene filmed at one of the tunnels on the closed Pennsylvania Turnpike [2].
Note: contrary to what the linked page says, the tunnel is not immediately usable in its current state because it houses the city water main, that can be seen in the Youtube video byt "The Proper People" channel, linked elsewhere in this comments thread.
So it's actually legitimately feasible for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to find a home in an abandoned subway station. I had always wondered why on earth there would be abandoned subway stations. The free working electricity may still be a stretch though.
Mostly due to location no longer suitable, ie too close to another station, or issues with access. Or structurally unsafe and uneconomical to refurbish, maybe some was damaged too much from the Blitz.
And not all are passenger stations. Some were for maintenance, post etc.
There's a full second subway station at Berlins "Rathaus Steglitz" station. The original plan was that two subways were supposed to cross here, but that never happened and it remains the terminus of the U9. Somebody built a fully furnished room in another part of the Berlin subway network: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/berlin/zimmer-im-tunnel-geni...
Growing up in Cincinnati, people constantly talked about this tunnel like it was some kind of holy grail of urban exploration. That fantasy was reduced a little when I found out when I was older that you could buy a tour from the museum center. I've yet to go, but it's on my bucket list.
In the last 5-ish years they've discontinued that particular tour, citing insurance reasons. The tour was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I got to do it and bummed that others aren't getting to. I got a bit of a "megalophobia" feeling standing beside the immense water main that runs down the southbound tunnel.
Meh. What you're saying is sort of true although I wouldn't put my tinfoil hat on about LaGuardia. The 2nd Avenue subway was shut down because it wasn't actually a subway, it was an El. El's make a lot of noisy ruckus that people in the surrounding area weren't keen on and trains can't run as fast on their tracks. When the El was torn down it was assumed that a new subway tunnel would be built where it used to be in short order (it's kind of a bit difficult to bore holes under a street that's supporting an elevated structure so it was supposed to be done in phases). Unfortunately due to bureaucratic snafus, lack of funding, and general apathy, the 2nd Avenue Line has only recently sort of come to fruition (but not really).
Interesting! Was there a time when it was thought that every mid-sized city could have a subway? Today even Chicago (the third biggest U.S. city) doesn't have one. I can't imagine there being enough urban space in Cincinnati to sustain one.
It's really not that much of a stretch. Population-wise, Cincinnati is roughly comparable to Hamburg or Budapest, which have had thriving subways since 1912 and 1896 respectively. What's interesting here is America's general disinterest / incompetence in building them, New York excepted.
And you have to think back to the turn of the 20th century, when comparing populations. Cincinnati had a much larger percentage of the population at that time than it does now. It was the 10th largest city in the US in 1900, and the 16th largest in 1920.
It's hard to tell if the lack of the subway was a factor in the lower rate of growth or if the lower rate of growth meant the subway wasn't needed after all.
Chicago certainly has a subway. Sure, only a portion near downtown runs underground, while the rest is elevated (the L) but their system is the second-largest in the US.
Some of that may be a difference in focus. The L barely extends outside of the city proper, and a separate rail system almost exclusively serves the suburbs.
The division of responsibilities between the rapid transit and commuter rail systems in DC and the Bay Area is different in a way that might account for both the greater total system length and the lower ridership per mile compared to Chicago's system. Or Boston's T, for that matter.
Outside of Manhattan, much of NYC's system is aboveground, too. I'm not sure it normally makes much sense to put the trains underground in any but the most densely populated areas.
I think it likely if the streetcars had grown, they probably would have been converted into subways, etc. and more extensive public transit generally..
although postwar prosperity probably helped as well (whereas europe had to rebuild)
Chicago's Red Line is around 22 miles long but is underground for, I'm estimating, about 7 miles (roughly Armitage to Roosevelt). That's as long as the subway bring talked about here. So if this is a subway, then Chicago definitely has a subway.
The Blue Line is underground for probably about the same distance (goes under South of Addison and then hits the Loop, heads West, and reemerges West of Clinton).
My estimate might be a bit off, I'll just going off my mental map of the city.
Can't edit anymore but double checked and looks like the Blue line is about 7 miles of underground track (roughly) while the red line is probably closer to 5.
Growing up there I remember hearing that there was some problem with the tunnels being too narrow and the cars not fitting - but that was probably more local folklore than anything else.
Cincinnati is pretty hilly - not San Francisco or Seattle hilly - but enough that I would think developing any sort of system would be pretty expensive and difficult.
But I've been frustrated for the past forty years trying to find more. Current employees working for the city know nothing about it. My Dad watched the construction as a junior high student. The newspaper story about the illegal tour was the only confirmation I've ever seen.