I'd argue that what needs to be embraced is TOD zoning that brings ridership and usage up to levels where improving service becomes not just more cost-effective, but more politically possible.

yes, chicago's transit is an exercise in frustration. welding and repairs will have to be repeated again and again (patchwork). the newer transit systems are fortunate to be building from scratch.

derek, what is portland's station called which the deepest? i want to look it up.

They were originally going to have it run along the Katy Line, but the rich folk who live in Highland Park objected, thus cutting out the only reasonable way out the north end of downtown Dallas. The subway was a very expensive alternative. There's been rumors about room for a second station to the north of Cityplace, called Knox / Henderson, but that's never been substantiated. It would make a great place for a station since there's a high end retail in that area.

yeah cityplace is pretty cool. its an interesting experiment for dart rail. more to come in the future closer to downtown no doubt.

Knox/Henderson
It's more than a rumor, the box for the station is there. (Box is same as Cityplace) And is setup as an emergency exit. (Exit near Willis street at the NB 75) You can actually see the plywood/concrete blocks where they walled it off from the tracks if you look out the windows closely, pay attention to elevation it's actually the lowest point in the tunnel.

Edit to add, you can even easily find one of the vents at the NE corner of Willis and Central. (across from the La Quinta.)

*Long ago when the line first opened you could actually see the roughed in box before it was closed up.

i wish most of the cities in the us were like vancouver, small and with grade separate trains.

portland will be just as good as vancouver someday, well if a eathquake doesnt destroy the west coast

4 stations... it wouldve been the same size as Pittsburgh's anemic system.

It would take a miracle to get a subway in Indianapolis. Getting closer to getting some sort of rail transit but it is a difficult fight. Very conservative area. The arguments of course are that the city isn't dense enough (even though cities of similar density have done it), the money is better spent on roads, nobody will use it, make it pay for itself, no new taxes, blah blah blah.

i dont think so. had it opened when originally intended it would be much more than that today. you dont stand still or go back when something like a subway system gets started up, you only go forward. someday the streetcar light rail system cinci is now building may find a way to incorporate the tunnel. once its a success and shuts the critics down that is. even if not, of course its always going to be there, so i would never count it out.

st louis re-used a freight tunnel under downtown to run subwayed light rail, i wonder how many other cities could do the same. also, im pretty sure st louis had elevated passenger rail tracks downtown at one point. you can still see elevated interurban north of downtown thats being turned into an elevated bike trail.

Hudson Bergen Light Rail: Union City has one underground stop (Bergenline Ave). I believe it's ~150 feet below the Palisades.

PATH: Hoboken has one underground stop (Hoboken Terminal) and Jersey City has 3-4 underground stops (Newport, Exchange Pl, Grove St, and, debatably, Journal Square)

Newark City Subway (aka Newark Light Rail): Newark has 4 underground stops (Warren St, Washington St, Military Park, and Newark Penn Station)

The closest thing we have to a subway in Denver is the Airport subway system. lol

Thanks for that link it was informative. I haven't checked back on this thread in a while so sorry about the old bump.

A fake NYC subway station entrance appeared this week on Vine St. in Cincinnati, about four blocks from one of its never-used subway stations.

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...080&fit=bounds

https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...080&fit=bounds

Probably for a film shoot.

Camden has 2 underground PATCO stations, a line that like PATH, runs 24/7

I assume OP means metro areas.

"Subway" could probably be defined as either underground rapid transit, underground rail of any type, or rapid transit of any orientation.

Although, I am assuming that OP means the latter (so, for example, Miami would count).

Edit: I was mistaken about San Jose having an underground light rail stop at the intermodal Diridon station currently (it has a tunnel under the Amtrak and commuter railroads there but the station is at ground level), but if all goes according to plan, there will also eventually be an underground BART station at Diridon as well.

LA:

16 existing (heavy rail)
16 under construction (7 heavy rail, 9 light rail)

Let's hope this increases substantially.

gone, but not forgotten!


the private fort worth leonards/tandy center subway.

it had an underground station.

1963-2002 rip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_Center_Subway

https://pantherislandcc.com/v2/wp-co...nard-photo.jpg


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n19N5M2PBq...0/ftw-lr03.jpg



the nyc beach pneumatic subway.

1870-1873

https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Beach_Pneumatic_Transit

https://cdn.cms.prod.nypr.digital/im...ll-661x496.jpg

the CTA el system has 112 route miles (not including the purple line's express run to the loop because it's a rush-hour only service, only the full service section of the purple line through evanston/wilmette is included here).


here's a break down of the route miles by ROW type:

elevated (structured): 49.0 miles (44%)

expressway median: 27.6 miles (25%)

elevated (embankment): 17.8 miles (16%)

subway: 10.7 miles (10%)

at-grade: 5.6 miles (5%)

open trench: 1.3 miles (1%)


100% of the el system runs in dedicated ROW, and 95% of that is fully grade separated from street-crossings, but there are places at the extreme ends of 4 of the el lines where the el has at-grade street-crossings, most of them out in the burbs:

6 at the end of the brown line in albany park/lincoln square
10 at the end of the pink line in lawndale/suburban cicero
7 at the end of the yellow line in suburban skokie
2 at the end of the purple line up in suburban wilmette

24 total at-grade street crossing on the el system




the el system has 146 stations (each station is counted only once here, many are used by multiple lines, like the loop stations):

elevated/embankment stations: 88 (60%)

expressway median stations: 25 (17%)

subway stations: 22 (15%)

at grade stations: 11 (8%)




so depending on if you're talking route miles or # of stations, roughly 10 - 15% of the CTA el system is "subwayed", and the VAST majority of that (19 of the 22 subway stations) is comprised of the red and blue line subway runs underneath downtown.

Are there no existing light rail stations underground?

Within SF proper, BART has 7 subway stations, and Muni Metro currently has 9 subway stations (soon to be 12), for a total of 16 (soon to be 19).

There are 2 i believe on the gold line east

Mariachi and Soto station on the L (future E) line are both underground. Memorial Park station (also on the L, future A) line is a maybe.

So would that make it 16 existing heavy rail and 2 existing light rail stations underground, with 7 more heavy rail and 9 more light rail stations under construction?

Seattle has nine subway stations on the current Link line, including two that opened in October.

None of the underway Link extensions plan subway stations, but East Link will have two tunnels (Mt. Baker and Downtown Bellevue), and three stations just outside those.

Likewise, our commuter rail and Amtrak use a tunnel through Downtown, but their station is just south of it.

Future Link extensions (mostly funded) will have some additional tunnel stations but the alignments are being worked out. Downtown will get a third transit tunnel.

SF also has 2 subway stations (4th & Townsend and Salesforce Transit Center) in the pipeline for Caltrain and 1 for CAHSR (Salesforce Transit Center) as part of a Downtown Rail Extension project via a 1.3 mile tunnel from the existing 4th & King station.

The Long Beach and Santa Monica lines share an underground station at 7th and metro.

Cincinnati's subway, as-built, has three stations (Race St., Liberty St., Brighton Corner). Wall cutouts (but not platform boxes) were built for a fourth station at Mohawk Corner.

The existing cheaply built 2-mile canal subway was intended to extend southward under Walnut St. as a traditional cut-and-cover (requiring extensive underpinning and utility relocation) with a single, very busy station situated between 4th and 5th St. The line was planned to surface onto an el over Pearl St. (now I-71 Ft. Washington Way) with a single elevated station at Butler St., near the north approach to the L&N railroad bridge.

Cincinnati also has the Riverfront Transit Center, which is a very large underground transit facility built to accommodate future rail, but which has only handled buses since it opened in 2003.

I think people would be surprised to see just how big-time Cincinnati's plan was. It was built to the same specs as Boston's Red Line but several existing surface interurban lines were expected to convert to run their equipment directly onto the city-owned railway. So imagine the Mattapan High Speed line and the like converting to operate directly onto the Red Line, but several examples of that. If Cincinnati's system would have broken ground 2-3 years earlier it would have been completed (the WWI delay + resulting devaluation of gold caused the budget problems) and it would be one of the most unique systems in the United States.

I feel like Pittsburgh designed its subway system to avoid as many people as possible.

Either that, or there are a lot more people in the south side of the metro than I realize.

Pittsburgh's current system wasn't "designed".

Phoenix has no underground stations, But the airport line that runs from 44th/street and Washington to The Rental Car center has both elevated stations and some trenched rail sections :shrug:

Not technically mass transit but its open to the public and is connected directly to the main light rail line.

If counting municipalities with underground stations, we have these non-central municipalities I can find:

(MTA/PATH/Newark Subway, HBL)
Hoboken, NJ
Jersey City, NJ
Newark, NJ (ok, kind of a central municipality)

(MBTA)
Cambridge, MA
Somerville, MA

(PATCO)
Camden, PA

(WMATA, don't know this system well, coudl have missed some)
Forest Glen, MD
Silver Spring, MD
Capol Heights, MD
Bethesda, MD
Arlington, VA

(MARTA, don't know this system well, could have missed some)
Decatur, GA

(BART)
Oakland (ok, kind of a central municipality)
Berkeley
San Bruno ?
San Jose

(Metrolink)
University City?

Buffalo's light rail system has 8 underground stations that run under Main Street from Theater District to UB South Campus.

Also, there are plans to extend the Market Street subway all the way to SFSU/Park Merced, rather than having it end at West Portal as it currently does. So that would be a few more subway stations. Maybe 3 or 4?

Then there's the potential future extension of the central subway, which would add at least one more station, in North Beach, as well as the new BART transbay tube (when they finally build it in 500 years), which would probably include at least one more station in SF (or many more, if they include a new subway down Geary/19th avenue).

Austin has 5 possibly 6 underground stations planned after our $7billion project connect passed.
https://projectconnect.com/docs/libr...rsn=768e4c75_2